Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
god I hate raids
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Guild Wars 2 - Heart of Thorns |OT| Welcome to the Jungle...
- Thread starter Retro
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Raids are pretty much fancy dungeons nowadays. It has stricter equipment requirements but you can do all if them in just exos at most. You mainly just need to know the fights and what not to do. There are quite a number of training raids around, and if anyone here wanna join one I'm sure we can find a group on GAF to help.
Nemesis121
Member
The idiots at Arena.net caused problems when they said raids need Ascended Gear before the expansion launched..
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I don't really care. I understand why they made raids given as it has been fetishized and complained about since GW1. They decided to try and appease people who are very vocal about wanting this playstyle.
At any rate it doesn't come on my expense or keeps me from having fun, so I am not bothered by that they are there, other than the selfish reason that it is another gameplay form that takes focus away from adding to other parts of the game.
It's a bit of a shame that so much resources have gone into that (3 legendary armors). There isn't a lot of of gameplay, nor does value proposition increases simply due to this being difficult to do. I'd have spend those resources on making race specific armors instead.
The average player might be sympathetic to that it is really really difficult to make non-clipping armor, but it's like- There has to be a balance between putting out content in a timely manner versus the quality. By the time these 3 have hit, people are going to be very very bored.
The underlying problem is that GW2s Achilles heel has always been their inability to introduce armors. This has been a systemic problem throughout, and it seems to run very deep given that it takes them so long to even make a single armor set. Something is wrong with the way they rig these pieces, and at this point in GW2s lifecycle, I am beginning to doubt they will ever make it easier on themselves by overhauling the way they apply armor in the game.
The other thing is that GW2s armors post-launch, for the last 4 years, have not really been something to write home about. While there has been all sorts of weapons that appeals to various artstyles, from flashy to silly to serious, to realistic, to maximalist to minimalist, and so on, the same cannot be said for the armors.
I always had a concern leading up to the expansion that the amount of armors introduced would be disappointing, because post-launch had also been that.
They can churn out some solid looking weapons relatively quick, so the problem is the armors themselves. They can also seemingly make outfits relatively quick, but these also vary in quality.
GW2 has a quite rudimentary physic system for many of the armors and outfits. If you look at some of the robes, they are quite stiff- like the cloth isn't able to have the gravity and taft it should have.
I'd say that given how difficult it is for them to churn out armors, it really makes me pause thinking that it's a good idea that they introduce new races. They cannot do justice to the armors of Asura or Charr, and frankly, a Tengu/Kodan/Quaggan race would be another wrench into the toolbox.
At this point, I'd love to see a physics cloth overhaul, allowing them to introduce cloaks, hoods and capes, and realistic physics to the existing armors. I'd like for them to introduce some more subdue and simple armors - People have been asking for pants based light armors, non-trenchcoat medium armors and more realistic "knight" heavy armor. No spikes, big shoulderpads, floating glowy power ranger shit.
These requests have also been very consistent throughout the last 4 years.
At any rate it doesn't come on my expense or keeps me from having fun, so I am not bothered by that they are there, other than the selfish reason that it is another gameplay form that takes focus away from adding to other parts of the game.
It's a bit of a shame that so much resources have gone into that (3 legendary armors). There isn't a lot of of gameplay, nor does value proposition increases simply due to this being difficult to do. I'd have spend those resources on making race specific armors instead.
The average player might be sympathetic to that it is really really difficult to make non-clipping armor, but it's like- There has to be a balance between putting out content in a timely manner versus the quality. By the time these 3 have hit, people are going to be very very bored.
The underlying problem is that GW2s Achilles heel has always been their inability to introduce armors. This has been a systemic problem throughout, and it seems to run very deep given that it takes them so long to even make a single armor set. Something is wrong with the way they rig these pieces, and at this point in GW2s lifecycle, I am beginning to doubt they will ever make it easier on themselves by overhauling the way they apply armor in the game.
The other thing is that GW2s armors post-launch, for the last 4 years, have not really been something to write home about. While there has been all sorts of weapons that appeals to various artstyles, from flashy to silly to serious, to realistic, to maximalist to minimalist, and so on, the same cannot be said for the armors.
I always had a concern leading up to the expansion that the amount of armors introduced would be disappointing, because post-launch had also been that.
They can churn out some solid looking weapons relatively quick, so the problem is the armors themselves. They can also seemingly make outfits relatively quick, but these also vary in quality.
GW2 has a quite rudimentary physic system for many of the armors and outfits. If you look at some of the robes, they are quite stiff- like the cloth isn't able to have the gravity and taft it should have.
I'd say that given how difficult it is for them to churn out armors, it really makes me pause thinking that it's a good idea that they introduce new races. They cannot do justice to the armors of Asura or Charr, and frankly, a Tengu/Kodan/Quaggan race would be another wrench into the toolbox.
At this point, I'd love to see a physics cloth overhaul, allowing them to introduce cloaks, hoods and capes, and realistic physics to the existing armors. I'd like for them to introduce some more subdue and simple armors - People have been asking for pants based light armors, non-trenchcoat medium armors and more realistic "knight" heavy armor. No spikes, big shoulderpads, floating glowy power ranger shit.
These requests have also been very consistent throughout the last 4 years.
Yeah there still been very few armor sets from this expansion. I kind of wish they had something like the Carapace/Luminescent set for LS3. There is also those Triumphant Hero sets for WvW that still haven't come around (I presuming they are saved for a new WvW event or something).
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
which mats, the blood/etc. or the wood/etc.?
I really, really want the hourglass staff. I'm using it on pretty much every caster character and hero in GW1 so it's special to me.
But I don't want to change weapons on any of my characters. I like what they have already.
But I don't want to change weapons on any of my characters. I like what they have already.
Oh, thanks for the heads up, I got 700g for my dusty extra materials.
I agree a 1000% that the lack of new armors is a major letdown and that the patch-up jobs they keep piling-on (outfits, single armor pieces) don't help at all.
And to be honest as people seem to have their minds going more and more towards a new expansion I really fail to see what kind of excitement they find in that other than just 'new content' ... because if you go on every aspect of what came in Hot and how it turned-out in the end I see very little that can really be considered exciting should it be expanded in a new expansion.
Sure w'ell get a continuation of the story, and that has been on the good side of things since HoT, especially with LS3, but looking back the Hot story itself despite it's quality compared to what came before was way too short, felt incomplete, and missed the mark at culminating towards the final encouter.
Even then this is the kind of content that expires really quick.
We'll get new maps no doubt, but what kind ? HoT maps were fun for a few weeks when it wasn't all about the same extremely scripted events, but then not so much ..., the LS ones really miss something to be really interesting in the long run.
New elite specs will get people excited no doubt, but are we really counting on them to not power-creep it again, and do a decent balancing job at that point ?
I'm sure some people will get extremely excited if they drop a GW1 location for the expansion like Elona or Cantha, but that doesn't mean anything for a lot of people, and in the end there's a big chance that they simply can't do the nostalgia people have for it justice.
There will be a new gliding-type gimmick behind masteries no doubt, we'll have to see what it is, but this, and whatever other masteries they come-up with better be more impactful that what we have so far, cause gliding is the only one that remotely felt worth-it.
Raids also are on the good side of things even with the hate they get here, and of course they'll continue with that, but with what twist ? More legendary skins ? that we'll have to wait another one and a half years to get AFTER the expansion drops ?
Wooooo ! exciting ! /s
Pvp ? new conquest maps ? a new PvP mode, you know like Stronghold .... that might not even be in the game right now and nobody would notice ....
A new reward to work for during seasons, sure, exciting ? not so much ...
WwW a new Map ? .... yeah sure /s
Yet another series of minor changes that will change nothing ?
New legendaries ? We're still not sure we'll get all the second generation before the next expansion hits, which would just be mindblowing if you ask me ....
New Fractals ? A new Fractal rework ? would people really get excited about that after how they managed that with Hot ?
New adventures/activities/thingmabobs with leaderboards of course !
I could go on, but seriously whatever they have cooking better be flawless cause they have a LOT to make up for, I'm certainly not going to trust them on face value this time.
And to be honest as people seem to have their minds going more and more towards a new expansion I really fail to see what kind of excitement they find in that other than just 'new content' ... because if you go on every aspect of what came in Hot and how it turned-out in the end I see very little that can really be considered exciting should it be expanded in a new expansion.
Sure w'ell get a continuation of the story, and that has been on the good side of things since HoT, especially with LS3, but looking back the Hot story itself despite it's quality compared to what came before was way too short, felt incomplete, and missed the mark at culminating towards the final encouter.
Even then this is the kind of content that expires really quick.
We'll get new maps no doubt, but what kind ? HoT maps were fun for a few weeks when it wasn't all about the same extremely scripted events, but then not so much ..., the LS ones really miss something to be really interesting in the long run.
New elite specs will get people excited no doubt, but are we really counting on them to not power-creep it again, and do a decent balancing job at that point ?
I'm sure some people will get extremely excited if they drop a GW1 location for the expansion like Elona or Cantha, but that doesn't mean anything for a lot of people, and in the end there's a big chance that they simply can't do the nostalgia people have for it justice.
There will be a new gliding-type gimmick behind masteries no doubt, we'll have to see what it is, but this, and whatever other masteries they come-up with better be more impactful that what we have so far, cause gliding is the only one that remotely felt worth-it.
Raids also are on the good side of things even with the hate they get here, and of course they'll continue with that, but with what twist ? More legendary skins ? that we'll have to wait another one and a half years to get AFTER the expansion drops ?
Wooooo ! exciting ! /s
Pvp ? new conquest maps ? a new PvP mode, you know like Stronghold .... that might not even be in the game right now and nobody would notice ....
A new reward to work for during seasons, sure, exciting ? not so much ...
WwW a new Map ? .... yeah sure /s
Yet another series of minor changes that will change nothing ?
New legendaries ? We're still not sure we'll get all the second generation before the next expansion hits, which would just be mindblowing if you ask me ....
New Fractals ? A new Fractal rework ? would people really get excited about that after how they managed that with Hot ?
New adventures/activities/thingmabobs with leaderboards of course !
I could go on, but seriously whatever they have cooking better be flawless cause they have a LOT to make up for, I'm certainly not going to trust them on face value this time.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
what sucks is that it's another trenchcoat buttcape medium armor
holy shit does someone in anet have a fetish for trench coats?
holy shit does someone in anet have a fetish for trench coats?
UltimateIke
Member
New fractals are really what I look forward to most nowadays. Chaos was good, but Nightmare (with the Challenge Mote specifically) is fantastic.
I'd love to be able to look forward to new dungeons, but that's not happening, unfortunately.
The last raid wing was pretty weak, so I don't know what I still want or expect out of those.
I like all of the LS3 maps, so just keep making bigger and more fleshed out areas like those.
I'd love to be able to look forward to new dungeons, but that's not happening, unfortunately.
The last raid wing was pretty weak, so I don't know what I still want or expect out of those.
I like all of the LS3 maps, so just keep making bigger and more fleshed out areas like those.
LumpOfCole
Member
Oh yeah the economy is going to feel this.
Jest Chillin
Member
The idea of the armor changing is cool but the final look isn't great imo.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
yeah I think I'll sell my mats than make those
Vigilant Walrus
Member
You know what- I actually like the Heavy. It looks really nice on the Charr, and pretty good on Human/Sylvari. I think if I rocked it, I wouldn't use the shoulders, gloves and helmet.
But generally speaking, design wise, they are all just so over the top. I like subtle realistic looking armors. At the same time I do see lots of posts on places like youtube, reddit and dulfy, where the minimal weapon sets I like the most have comments like "this is so boring looking. no glow? this should be a lvl 1 drop).
So I have to imagine there is a market for people who think lots of spikes, flash and and busywork constitutes "cool".
Still, I think they look better in motion. I don't think they are terrible. You can see the work that went into it, It's just not my style at all.
Nemesis121
Member
Transformation look kool, but once again the problem that has bugged me about GW2, armor design isn't as good as it's predecessor. Vabbi Armor on my Sin walks over every Medium Armor design in GW2..
I think they all look completely ridiculous. Shiny, "edgy" and totally over the top. Some of them might look okay in a screenshot with perfect lighting but in general... no.
But I think most people in GW2 have terrible taste
I sometimes take screenshots of nice and ugly characters to show my brother and SO (and to see what made the nice one look so nice), and I think I take about ten ugly pics for every nice one.
Particle effects galore, mismatched weapons (often with an even more mismatched backpiece), flaming armor, huge shoulders... I could go on forever.
I sound like a mean fashion elitist (...and I am) but note that I would never mention this to the person playing or post the pics online or whatevs. I'm happy most people can find something they like in GW2 and I bet some people laugh at my characters as much as I laugh at theirs
But I think most people in GW2 have terrible taste
I sometimes take screenshots of nice and ugly characters to show my brother and SO (and to see what made the nice one look so nice), and I think I take about ten ugly pics for every nice one.Particle effects galore, mismatched weapons (often with an even more mismatched backpiece), flaming armor, huge shoulders... I could go on forever.
I sound like a mean fashion elitist (...and I am) but note that I would never mention this to the person playing or post the pics online or whatevs. I'm happy most people can find something they like in GW2 and I bet some people laugh at my characters as much as I laugh at theirs
Meh I worked on the luminescent armor, which is "legendary" enough looking for me!
Still need to beat Matthias to complete the first collection, so if I finally get that done, maybe then I will see if I want to continue, but I kind of doubt I will honestly. I feel a bit more inclined to just make another legendary weapon if I wanted to go through such a journey again.
Still need to beat Matthias to complete the first collection, so if I finally get that done, maybe then I will see if I want to continue, but I kind of doubt I will honestly. I feel a bit more inclined to just make another legendary weapon if I wanted to go through such a journey again.
human onion
Banned
Damn that's pretty much the whole expansion right there.
Nevermind lol shoulda check more pictures lol
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
So
is Engineer right
also where's the Warrior's elite EDIT wait, so it's the Ele that's missing?
holosmith
also where's the Warrior's elite EDIT wait, so it's the Ele that's missing?
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
that's norn guardian, they always use the same gang even as elites (i.e. male charr for engineer, and thus scrapper and
holosmith
appletoasty
Member
They worked so hard on all of this and some asshole leaked it all. I'm completely heartbroken.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
seems like mounts are skill oriented rather than just be travel-focused, like you got griffon mount skills, coyote mount skills, etc.
Regarding the thief Elite Spec:
Edit: Added spoiler tags, sorry about that.
I'm kinda sad they went for another two handed weapon for thieves. They really can't be arsed to make another 1 handed weapon for them. The whole mechanic of thieves getting a mixed skill depending on the weapons being used was really special back at launch, but looks like it's a bit too much to handle for Anet.
Edit: Added spoiler tags, sorry about that.
Super hyped holy shit! 😱
Vigilant Walrus
Member
wow. WOW is all I can say. Rarely have I seen leaks of this caliber. This was supposed to have been roll-outed over months of marketing hype and interest. Fan speculation was supposed to simmer as the months go on, and people go friday after friday on the lifestreams to receive new info about each spec. Think about the HoT build up, and how slowly we learned about each spec.
But it's impossible to look away.
Leaving aside, the ethical dilemma of this, how do I feel about it?
Conflicted.
1. Specs) What you can say about the specs is that they are a mix of obvious, fan requested and some that feel safe. Of this bunch I am really excited about Holosmith and Soulbeast. I am pretty impressed with what they went with here, but I cannot help but feel disappointed that yet again we do not get any new weapon types. But I understand why. If they added new weapon types like flails, nunchucks, crossbows and so on, they'd have to retroactively make tons and tons of skins for many areas of the game, plus the 4 years worth of post release content. We are never going to get new weapon types and we are never going to get new races, and I wish I had known this 4 years ago. I understand it, and am okay with it. I know they didn't made this decision lightly and that they accurately calculated that the payoff of doing it would remove considerable resources from other areas of the game.
[*]Deadeye - Thief Rifle - Yes I think people have been making "Sniper" fan specializations since before the game came out. This makes a lot sense, though I don't see how this will give Thiefs more support, given that they could really use a support spec. Perhaps they will have utility skills that will give some support buffs?
[*]Firebrand - Guardian Axe, Tomes and Mantras. - Not opposed to do it. I like the name. I don't see what it will offer in terms of new gameplay. What do you think? AoE cleaves like Warrior Axe? Off hand or main hand?
[*]Spellbreaker - Warrior Dagger. - I wanted Staff. In fact I wanted new weapon types. I wanted nunchucks, land spears, mauls, chained weapons, flails. Spellbreaker is like Thief Sniper, a spec people have been asking for for a long time. But I am not into daggers and I don't know if Daggers will look good on a heavy armor character. Personally I see Revernants as someone who is more of a Spellbreaker. I do think I like the sound of Spellbreaker more than Berserker.
What can he do? The way I imagine a Spellbreaker is someone who has low health but lot of mobility. Someone who can go in and finish of casters fast. Would be interesting if this spec was a high-stakes-high-reward type situation, where the Warrior foregoes his surviviability and safe playstyle for fast mobility and damage. But that's a dangerous game to play with balance.
Maybe he is more about disrupting spells, deflecting or protecting others from light armor abillities.
[*]Mirage - Mesmer Axe. - Not a fan of Axe. Mesmer already has a melee weapon in Sword that feels a bit axe-y (with the cleaves and rooted melee range attack). What could this offer? Throwable axe? Is it off hand or main hand? Already skills in the game referring to Mirage. Concept seems less interesting than Chronomancer which was legit awesome in concept.
[*]Soulbeast - Ranger Dagger - To me this looks like like a transformation spec. Look at the icons- Bunny, Drake, Moa and other animals. Do you think the ranger can transform into these creatures? A real transformation class is one of the last fantasy archetype characters I could imagine them adding. And since Druid didn't have any transformation, perhaps this is it. This is probably the spec I am most interested in learning more about. It could be really interesting.
[*] Holosmith - Engineer Sword - Very interesting. What the hell is this going to be? Is this the spec that will make me appreciate Engineer? What the fuck is a holosmith?
[*]Scourge - Necromancer Torch. This looks like more of the same. This looks like a spec already in the game. It feels very boring. The color hue and look seems like it's a total repeat of the existing fantasy. And I feel like Necromancer already can use Torch. It's of course Warhorn I am confusing it with. But this is a meh for me at this point. With that said, I love love love Reaper, so I don't think there was any way they were going to come out with something that really topped that. Reaper changed how I felt about Necromancerrs. I wasn't a fan, and after HoT it became one of my favorite classes.
[*]Renegade - Revenant Shortbow/longbow - Please be shortbow. If only because the purple-pink rainbow legendary pony weapon will go well with the Revs red colored skills. Feels like a safe bet. I can see Revernant enjoying a long range weapon. But as far as the legendary character goes, I'm like ???? Who? Kalia Schorlozrs?
[*] Elementalist - Why are you not here? Why are you last? 5th Element perhaps? For some reason I am thinking Hammer. Hammer is missing from all of these specs. Or Mace.
2. Areas) I see 5 major areas. That is one more map than HoT. We're getting a new Area later today, and we will get one more map in 2-3 months with Episode 6. If ArenaNet are smart, what they will do, is to incentivize these new areas we've gotten in Season 3.
Don't let these areas die. Use them in the expansion. I've not spent that much time in it, and I think they could give us good opportunities to go back to them. Psychologically it can help make it seem the expansion content is more fleshed out. Also because the new regions we've gotten in Episode 3 have a lot of more room for gameplay.
But looking at the new maps, it is difficult to figure out their size. What size are we talking here? Are we talking meta style boss maps like Dragons Stand, or are we talking regular metas like the other HoT maps and SW and Drytop? Or are we talking old school maps?
What immediately jumps to mind is that the layout for these maps looks almost like WvW maps. It looks like big open fields.
[*]Crystal Highlands - Southern Ascalon, looks like you got a repeat of Blazeridge and Fields and Ruin. You got the purple (the brand) monsters on the right, and you got the snowy peaks of the Shiverpeaks. There is almost no water, but imagine the water in the beach areas on the left bottom is going to be frozen mountain water. Almost all of this map looks accesible.
It doesn't look like (from what I can see) that it has many navigational obstruction.
This could be because of there being a emphasis on Mounts. To make mounts worthwhile, the make open plains so Mounts can spurr across great distances. I imagine that events will be spread out leaving people to go on their mounts to get to new places.
This open terrain makes it difficult to understand size. I've looked at the map for 10 minutes and I cannot see if it has the size of a small or large area. But to me it looks like it could have the size of Mount Malestom (which is directly to the left of it). Mount Maelstom has a lot of water though, but it also has a lot of underground content.
[*]Elon Riverlands - Probably, layout wise, the map that excites me the most. Look at it. There is no map in the game with a layout loke this. It looks like the bottom half of the map is covered in man made tiny islands. Looks like something you'd see in Dubai. Interestingly, on the very very bottom of the map there is a large wall. Tengu?
[*]Oasis - Looks like a WvW or PvP map to me. Doesn't look like a regular map. It also doesn't look very big. Looks like there is some verticality. It's hard to get a feel for it. Also the name "Oasis" seems generic.
[*]The Desolation - Looks like the largest map in the game. It's massive. You can put Oasis 3 or 4 times next to each other inside of it. The layout looks very very similar to the northern Navigational parts of Fireheart Rise. You know, all the lava and lava rock you have to navigate to eventially make your way to the boss, and with the portal taking you to that weird place with the puzzles.
Interesting layout. This map will be massive, and I imagne it will be the sequel to Dragons Stand. This is the meta expansion boss where 200 players have to go at it.
Frankly, I don't mind because I like Dragons Stand.
I have gotten A LOT of fun out of dragon stand, but we all know dragons Stand can be improved. We all know that, in the 2 hours between attempts, the map is dead and you're just waiting. We can hope that this map will have content for solo players and content for people who don't want to do meta. Solo players are people who dont want to partake in the meta but do other stuff.
[*]Domain of Vabbi - We got the new Guild Hall Windswept Haven, which seems nice, but is this going to be radically different from the two existing Halls? After all, Lost Precipice already seems like a Guild Hall there could be located in Elona.
It's desert middle-eastern influence was going to make it difficult to make a guild hall that seemed different no matter what. But surprisingly, only one guild hall? I always assumed that expansion 2 would have 2 guild halls as well?
The rest of the map has more branded on the right, and the main city itself looks like the architecture and layout from Nightfall. But this will probably be a city like the Golden City in Auric Basin. So not a city city like the main capital cities.
It seems bigger than HoT, just like Nightfall was considerable bigger than Factions, but we all know that Guild Wars 2 is at a disadvantage and always has been. Because the very concept of the game is based on Dynamic Events, the developers have to make A LOT of content. It's not like other games where you exhaust quest in a chronological order. Here, every player run around at random and go towards whatever is popping up. So you need an extra excess of content so players always have something going on.
Heart of Thorns actually had a lot of quest packed in. But you didn't get the impression of it, because a lot of it is stacked on top of each other, doesn't pop regularly, and other times the content comes from events failing or repeating the content and taking a different route, objective or sub quest.
You can increase the map size all you want, but I sure hope there will be armors, skins and cool things that really incentivize replaying the maps again and again. I remember losing interest in many of the HoT maps because I didn't enjoy the armors or weapon sets they had to offer. And I don't think they offered enough. And I don't think there was any choice. There wasn't any profession specific or class specific or story choice specific.
There wasn't any cultural armor or any profession armor. For that you had to rely on your elite specialization.
I think there is a possibility here for them to extend a lot on the fun skin carrots. And I hope they will draw in the other season 3 maps, and HoT, and the core world to not make people burned out on only playing the new expansion maps.
And the more they can sort of make a charr engineer work towards getting new skins only obtainable through unique methods, that is different from a sylvari ranger, the more replay do people get from their different characters, and the more meaning they have in the sense that your race and class matters and also that everyone is trying to unlock different things, and everyone needs different resources, materials and loot.
If Asura can unlock a cultural armor in Domain of Vabbi that requires certain materials found in certain places of the game, you have a lot of specific players going to specific places doing those things. And you can do that with all classes and all races and all specs, and basically create a lot of fun more personal carrots.
It doesn't feel epic to go up to a vendor in Tangled Depths and exchanging a few eggs for a ugly insect weapon.
To me, the elite specialization unlocks was really fun because it felt personal and more like a journey. And I wish I had tons of stuff like that- personal skins to unlock for my characters that would just keep me playing and playing. Not needlessly long grind, and not ugly skins. It's just saying- There is a lot of mileage to be had if you can direct the players effectively.
Story Missions also remains a problem of contention. HoT had a nice enough story but it was very short and ended abruptly, and it was not well directed in certain parts. For example the ending was poorly explained. I didn't understand we only defeated Modremoth inside his own dream, but he still existed in Dragons Stand? There is a opportunity here to make a longer compelling story.
Overall, these new areas show promise. I really enjoy traversing the desert in Black Desert and I enjoy that a lot, but the very nature of having a nature is having a warren wasteland with a whole lot of nothing. If you make a desert crowded with content every two feet, you sort of defeat the purpose of the desert. It's supposed to be dead, barren and isolated. By its very nature it lends itself well to mounts. And speaking of mounts...
3) Mounts) I have 3 main areas of contention that really decides how I feel about Mounts. I do not think GW2 needs Mounts. I hate mounts in a lot of games. I think they fucking suck a lot of the time. I hope they will address;
[*] Don't make Mounts summonable from your infinitely large pockets. Please, have Mounts be called with a whistle or something and let them come to the player from a distance. I cannot express how much it triggers me in angry when people summon mounts of thin air. It's such a pointless immersion killer. One of my favorite things about GW2 has always been that when you get mail, a small pigeon/bird pops in and gives you the mail. It's the small things, but after 4 years of playing I still fucking love it. Please don't skip on this.
[*] Please make it so there is not 30,000 mounts killing my framerate in a city so I cannt even visit the goddamn vendor because 30 fire dragons is blocking the space. I hate tons of stationary mounts blocking my visibility. Have them not work inside cities. No Mounts inside the city. No standing on your moa on top of the auction house, no blocking all the crafting npcs with your elephant. Please. PLEASE.
[*] Make them customizeable. If you really, really want to ad mounts the right way, they have to be an extension of the character itself. They have to grow, they have to evolve, they have to be customizeable. Joes brown horse has to be different from Franks horse. Treat Mounts like a Pokemon. A valueable companion, not just a speed buff with model underneath your character. Dye channels on multiple layers, types of manes/feathers/scales/hair/patterns, saddles, saddle bags, champron, barding ornaments, banners, patterns, stirrups and so on. Don't make mounts this copy pasted shallow "bleh".
[*] The animations needed for mounts has to be on point. I'd rather have one mount that is snappy, weighty, responsive and feels good, than 300 mediocre mounts that ice-skate across the map and have no weight or connection with the ground. acceleration, hard stops, jumps, sprints/gallop, charge, mounting/dismounting, up and down vertical terrain. The animation work is immense, and it's very difficult to do right, even for sngle player games.
[*] Make sure that Mounts don't kill the moment to moment gameplay. The fear of mounts is often based in that if I can 200% speed across Lake Doric, I am not going to stop, dismount and help players who are doing the events. You risk that people totally ignore the content and sprint across. this can be a cascading ripple effect that makes people stop doing moment to moment content all together. And this is a big problem.
One thing you could do is to make mounts spooked and throw the player off the mount if they get to close to enemies, and then not allowing the player to re-mount until enemies nearby have been defeated. But this solution seems like a pain in the ass, and would do more to make people hate the mounts than make people more connected with the core dynamic events.
It looks like the mounts will have attacks and abillities, and that could be interesting. But you have to make sure that people don't stay on their mounts. Then the way it should work is that you charge into enemies, and use a few mount attacks, and then you jump off and fight regularly. Will your mount then fight alongside you? So every player in the game will have a mount companion that fight at any given time? So when we have 200 players in Dragons Stand they will all have mounts, upping the player models to 400 (not including other pets, summons and minis)? Will mounts then fight alongside you still when you're dismounted?
So 10 players doing an event now will be 10 players + 10 raptor mounts tomorrow?
This is totally going to change the game.
You could also limit this to only the desert, but that seems like a cop out to me. It's like with gliding. If its going to be added it should be the entire world, but it should be done right. I think mounts is the chief concern for a lot of players. Disabled in WvW and sPvP aside, it can change the psychology of how the game is played.
Like raids, people from other games have come into GW2 asking for raids and mounts to be added, but it always come at a cultural rift because many people enjoy GW2 because it didn't have these trappings.
I cannot stress how I fucking hate mounts in WoW. They fucking suck. They look terrible. They turn the game into some lame ass digimon nonsense.
We don't know about WvW, sPvP. We don't know if there will be a new crafting profession, we don't know if loadouts is going to make it in this expansion, we don't know if the personal story will be longer. We don't know if new tech, server side or graphics wise will be added. We don't know if there will draw distance or framerate improvements, official controller support or UI upgrades the store. We don't know if new guild missions are in. We don't know about improvements to guild halls. We don't know if ascended crafting will have changes. We don't new if the expansion will come with new fractals. And we don't know how todays new area and Episode 6 will shape the world map.
We also don't know what this will mean for Heart of Thorns becoming a part of the base game. What could that mean for f2p players and some of the features exclusive to that. Once this expansion comes out, all of HoT becomes part of the base game.
We don't know what the ele spec is. We don't know what a lot of these utility skills are for these elite specs or how they will work.
So there is a lot left to unpack. There is a lot of things beside the obvious meat and bones of new skills and areas that will really say how this will end up.
Mounts worry me.. A lot. Next to increasing the level cap, it's the one thing I never thought they would do.
It's up to them to prove to us now that they can do Mounts justice. Black Desert gets them right. Shadow of the Colossus gets them right. I hear from others that the new Zelda gets them right?
But we all know how often they suck. They were a pain in Dragon Age Inquisition and Witcher 3. Boring, stale, animation breaking, bunny jumping up the side of mountains, tons of glitches and clipping and bugs. Just takes you out of the game with their shittiness.
[*]Deadeye - Thief Rifle - Yes I think people have been making "Sniper" fan specializations since before the game came out. This makes a lot sense, though I don't see how this will give Thiefs more support, given that they could really use a support spec. Perhaps they will have utility skills that will give some support buffs?
[*]Firebrand - Guardian Axe, Tomes and Mantras. - Not opposed to do it. I like the name. I don't see what it will offer in terms of new gameplay. What do you think? AoE cleaves like Warrior Axe? Off hand or main hand?
[*]Spellbreaker - Warrior Dagger. - I wanted Staff. In fact I wanted new weapon types. I wanted nunchucks, land spears, mauls, chained weapons, flails. Spellbreaker is like Thief Sniper, a spec people have been asking for for a long time. But I am not into daggers and I don't know if Daggers will look good on a heavy armor character. Personally I see Revernants as someone who is more of a Spellbreaker. I do think I like the sound of Spellbreaker more than Berserker.
What can he do? The way I imagine a Spellbreaker is someone who has low health but lot of mobility. Someone who can go in and finish of casters fast. Would be interesting if this spec was a high-stakes-high-reward type situation, where the Warrior foregoes his surviviability and safe playstyle for fast mobility and damage. But that's a dangerous game to play with balance.
Maybe he is more about disrupting spells, deflecting or protecting others from light armor abillities.
[*]Mirage - Mesmer Axe. - Not a fan of Axe. Mesmer already has a melee weapon in Sword that feels a bit axe-y (with the cleaves and rooted melee range attack). What could this offer? Throwable axe? Is it off hand or main hand? Already skills in the game referring to Mirage. Concept seems less interesting than Chronomancer which was legit awesome in concept.
[*]Soulbeast - Ranger Dagger - To me this looks like like a transformation spec. Look at the icons- Bunny, Drake, Moa and other animals. Do you think the ranger can transform into these creatures? A real transformation class is one of the last fantasy archetype characters I could imagine them adding. And since Druid didn't have any transformation, perhaps this is it. This is probably the spec I am most interested in learning more about. It could be really interesting.
[*] Holosmith - Engineer Sword - Very interesting. What the hell is this going to be? Is this the spec that will make me appreciate Engineer? What the fuck is a holosmith?
[*]Scourge - Necromancer Torch. This looks like more of the same. This looks like a spec already in the game. It feels very boring. The color hue and look seems like it's a total repeat of the existing fantasy. And I feel like Necromancer already can use Torch. It's of course Warhorn I am confusing it with. But this is a meh for me at this point. With that said, I love love love Reaper, so I don't think there was any way they were going to come out with something that really topped that. Reaper changed how I felt about Necromancerrs. I wasn't a fan, and after HoT it became one of my favorite classes.
[*]Renegade - Revenant Shortbow/longbow - Please be shortbow. If only because the purple-pink rainbow legendary pony weapon will go well with the Revs red colored skills. Feels like a safe bet. I can see Revernant enjoying a long range weapon. But as far as the legendary character goes, I'm like ???? Who? Kalia Schorlozrs?
[*] Elementalist - Why are you not here? Why are you last? 5th Element perhaps? For some reason I am thinking Hammer. Hammer is missing from all of these specs. Or Mace.
2. Areas) I see 5 major areas. That is one more map than HoT. We're getting a new Area later today, and we will get one more map in 2-3 months with Episode 6. If ArenaNet are smart, what they will do, is to incentivize these new areas we've gotten in Season 3.
Don't let these areas die. Use them in the expansion. I've not spent that much time in it, and I think they could give us good opportunities to go back to them. Psychologically it can help make it seem the expansion content is more fleshed out. Also because the new regions we've gotten in Episode 3 have a lot of more room for gameplay.
But looking at the new maps, it is difficult to figure out their size. What size are we talking here? Are we talking meta style boss maps like Dragons Stand, or are we talking regular metas like the other HoT maps and SW and Drytop? Or are we talking old school maps?
What immediately jumps to mind is that the layout for these maps looks almost like WvW maps. It looks like big open fields.
[*]Crystal Highlands - Southern Ascalon, looks like you got a repeat of Blazeridge and Fields and Ruin. You got the purple (the brand) monsters on the right, and you got the snowy peaks of the Shiverpeaks. There is almost no water, but imagine the water in the beach areas on the left bottom is going to be frozen mountain water. Almost all of this map looks accesible.
It doesn't look like (from what I can see) that it has many navigational obstruction.
This could be because of there being a emphasis on Mounts. To make mounts worthwhile, the make open plains so Mounts can spurr across great distances. I imagine that events will be spread out leaving people to go on their mounts to get to new places.
This open terrain makes it difficult to understand size. I've looked at the map for 10 minutes and I cannot see if it has the size of a small or large area. But to me it looks like it could have the size of Mount Malestom (which is directly to the left of it). Mount Maelstom has a lot of water though, but it also has a lot of underground content.
[*]Elon Riverlands - Probably, layout wise, the map that excites me the most. Look at it. There is no map in the game with a layout loke this. It looks like the bottom half of the map is covered in man made tiny islands. Looks like something you'd see in Dubai. Interestingly, on the very very bottom of the map there is a large wall. Tengu?
[*]Oasis - Looks like a WvW or PvP map to me. Doesn't look like a regular map. It also doesn't look very big. Looks like there is some verticality. It's hard to get a feel for it. Also the name "Oasis" seems generic.
[*]The Desolation - Looks like the largest map in the game. It's massive. You can put Oasis 3 or 4 times next to each other inside of it. The layout looks very very similar to the northern Navigational parts of Fireheart Rise. You know, all the lava and lava rock you have to navigate to eventially make your way to the boss, and with the portal taking you to that weird place with the puzzles.
Interesting layout. This map will be massive, and I imagne it will be the sequel to Dragons Stand. This is the meta expansion boss where 200 players have to go at it.
Frankly, I don't mind because I like Dragons Stand.
I have gotten A LOT of fun out of dragon stand, but we all know dragons Stand can be improved. We all know that, in the 2 hours between attempts, the map is dead and you're just waiting. We can hope that this map will have content for solo players and content for people who don't want to do meta. Solo players are people who dont want to partake in the meta but do other stuff.
[*]Domain of Vabbi - We got the new Guild Hall Windswept Haven, which seems nice, but is this going to be radically different from the two existing Halls? After all, Lost Precipice already seems like a Guild Hall there could be located in Elona.
It's desert middle-eastern influence was going to make it difficult to make a guild hall that seemed different no matter what. But surprisingly, only one guild hall? I always assumed that expansion 2 would have 2 guild halls as well?
The rest of the map has more branded on the right, and the main city itself looks like the architecture and layout from Nightfall. But this will probably be a city like the Golden City in Auric Basin. So not a city city like the main capital cities.
It seems bigger than HoT, just like Nightfall was considerable bigger than Factions, but we all know that Guild Wars 2 is at a disadvantage and always has been. Because the very concept of the game is based on Dynamic Events, the developers have to make A LOT of content. It's not like other games where you exhaust quest in a chronological order. Here, every player run around at random and go towards whatever is popping up. So you need an extra excess of content so players always have something going on.
Heart of Thorns actually had a lot of quest packed in. But you didn't get the impression of it, because a lot of it is stacked on top of each other, doesn't pop regularly, and other times the content comes from events failing or repeating the content and taking a different route, objective or sub quest.
You can increase the map size all you want, but I sure hope there will be armors, skins and cool things that really incentivize replaying the maps again and again. I remember losing interest in many of the HoT maps because I didn't enjoy the armors or weapon sets they had to offer. And I don't think they offered enough. And I don't think there was any choice. There wasn't any profession specific or class specific or story choice specific.
There wasn't any cultural armor or any profession armor. For that you had to rely on your elite specialization.
I think there is a possibility here for them to extend a lot on the fun skin carrots. And I hope they will draw in the other season 3 maps, and HoT, and the core world to not make people burned out on only playing the new expansion maps.
And the more they can sort of make a charr engineer work towards getting new skins only obtainable through unique methods, that is different from a sylvari ranger, the more replay do people get from their different characters, and the more meaning they have in the sense that your race and class matters and also that everyone is trying to unlock different things, and everyone needs different resources, materials and loot.
If Asura can unlock a cultural armor in Domain of Vabbi that requires certain materials found in certain places of the game, you have a lot of specific players going to specific places doing those things. And you can do that with all classes and all races and all specs, and basically create a lot of fun more personal carrots.
It doesn't feel epic to go up to a vendor in Tangled Depths and exchanging a few eggs for a ugly insect weapon.
To me, the elite specialization unlocks was really fun because it felt personal and more like a journey. And I wish I had tons of stuff like that- personal skins to unlock for my characters that would just keep me playing and playing. Not needlessly long grind, and not ugly skins. It's just saying- There is a lot of mileage to be had if you can direct the players effectively.
Story Missions also remains a problem of contention. HoT had a nice enough story but it was very short and ended abruptly, and it was not well directed in certain parts. For example the ending was poorly explained. I didn't understand we only defeated Modremoth inside his own dream, but he still existed in Dragons Stand? There is a opportunity here to make a longer compelling story.
Overall, these new areas show promise. I really enjoy traversing the desert in Black Desert and I enjoy that a lot, but the very nature of having a nature is having a warren wasteland with a whole lot of nothing. If you make a desert crowded with content every two feet, you sort of defeat the purpose of the desert. It's supposed to be dead, barren and isolated. By its very nature it lends itself well to mounts. And speaking of mounts...
3) Mounts) I have 3 main areas of contention that really decides how I feel about Mounts. I do not think GW2 needs Mounts. I hate mounts in a lot of games. I think they fucking suck a lot of the time. I hope they will address;
[*] Don't make Mounts summonable from your infinitely large pockets. Please, have Mounts be called with a whistle or something and let them come to the player from a distance. I cannot express how much it triggers me in angry when people summon mounts of thin air. It's such a pointless immersion killer. One of my favorite things about GW2 has always been that when you get mail, a small pigeon/bird pops in and gives you the mail. It's the small things, but after 4 years of playing I still fucking love it. Please don't skip on this.
[*] Please make it so there is not 30,000 mounts killing my framerate in a city so I cannt even visit the goddamn vendor because 30 fire dragons is blocking the space. I hate tons of stationary mounts blocking my visibility. Have them not work inside cities. No Mounts inside the city. No standing on your moa on top of the auction house, no blocking all the crafting npcs with your elephant. Please. PLEASE.
[*] Make them customizeable. If you really, really want to ad mounts the right way, they have to be an extension of the character itself. They have to grow, they have to evolve, they have to be customizeable. Joes brown horse has to be different from Franks horse. Treat Mounts like a Pokemon. A valueable companion, not just a speed buff with model underneath your character. Dye channels on multiple layers, types of manes/feathers/scales/hair/patterns, saddles, saddle bags, champron, barding ornaments, banners, patterns, stirrups and so on. Don't make mounts this copy pasted shallow "bleh".
[*] The animations needed for mounts has to be on point. I'd rather have one mount that is snappy, weighty, responsive and feels good, than 300 mediocre mounts that ice-skate across the map and have no weight or connection with the ground. acceleration, hard stops, jumps, sprints/gallop, charge, mounting/dismounting, up and down vertical terrain. The animation work is immense, and it's very difficult to do right, even for sngle player games.
[*] Make sure that Mounts don't kill the moment to moment gameplay. The fear of mounts is often based in that if I can 200% speed across Lake Doric, I am not going to stop, dismount and help players who are doing the events. You risk that people totally ignore the content and sprint across. this can be a cascading ripple effect that makes people stop doing moment to moment content all together. And this is a big problem.
One thing you could do is to make mounts spooked and throw the player off the mount if they get to close to enemies, and then not allowing the player to re-mount until enemies nearby have been defeated. But this solution seems like a pain in the ass, and would do more to make people hate the mounts than make people more connected with the core dynamic events.
It looks like the mounts will have attacks and abillities, and that could be interesting. But you have to make sure that people don't stay on their mounts. Then the way it should work is that you charge into enemies, and use a few mount attacks, and then you jump off and fight regularly. Will your mount then fight alongside you? So every player in the game will have a mount companion that fight at any given time? So when we have 200 players in Dragons Stand they will all have mounts, upping the player models to 400 (not including other pets, summons and minis)? Will mounts then fight alongside you still when you're dismounted?
So 10 players doing an event now will be 10 players + 10 raptor mounts tomorrow?
This is totally going to change the game.
You could also limit this to only the desert, but that seems like a cop out to me. It's like with gliding. If its going to be added it should be the entire world, but it should be done right. I think mounts is the chief concern for a lot of players. Disabled in WvW and sPvP aside, it can change the psychology of how the game is played.
Like raids, people from other games have come into GW2 asking for raids and mounts to be added, but it always come at a cultural rift because many people enjoy GW2 because it didn't have these trappings.
I cannot stress how I fucking hate mounts in WoW. They fucking suck. They look terrible. They turn the game into some lame ass digimon nonsense.
We don't know about WvW, sPvP. We don't know if there will be a new crafting profession, we don't know if loadouts is going to make it in this expansion, we don't know if the personal story will be longer. We don't know if new tech, server side or graphics wise will be added. We don't know if there will draw distance or framerate improvements, official controller support or UI upgrades the store. We don't know if new guild missions are in. We don't know about improvements to guild halls. We don't know if ascended crafting will have changes. We don't new if the expansion will come with new fractals. And we don't know how todays new area and Episode 6 will shape the world map.
We also don't know what this will mean for Heart of Thorns becoming a part of the base game. What could that mean for f2p players and some of the features exclusive to that. Once this expansion comes out, all of HoT becomes part of the base game.
We don't know what the ele spec is. We don't know what a lot of these utility skills are for these elite specs or how they will work.
So there is a lot left to unpack. There is a lot of things beside the obvious meat and bones of new skills and areas that will really say how this will end up.
Mounts worry me.. A lot. Next to increasing the level cap, it's the one thing I never thought they would do.
It's up to them to prove to us now that they can do Mounts justice. Black Desert gets them right. Shadow of the Colossus gets them right. I hear from others that the new Zelda gets them right?
But we all know how often they suck. They were a pain in Dragon Age Inquisition and Witcher 3. Boring, stale, animation breaking, bunny jumping up the side of mountains, tons of glitches and clipping and bugs. Just takes you out of the game with their shittiness.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
LumpOfCole
Member
There are leaks and there's the whole dam bursting open. This is a dam moment.
Anet's entire summer marketing/blogging/hype schedule just got thrown overboard.
Anet's entire summer marketing/blogging/hype schedule just got thrown overboard.
I'm just hoping the leaked stuff is true and up to date because people are silly and will blame ANet for not "keeping their promises" and other stupid things if they have changed stuff or plans to change it. Leakers don't seem to understand that info will come out when it's ready and there's a reason (good) companies keep their mouths shut until things are basically set in stone.
Ugh.
Ugh.
Not to mention people will shout "we know all this" when stuff from leaks is used in marketing. I've seen that happen before.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Torch? Eh...
I don't want to poo poo on patch notes too much because they are probably drafted pretty quickly, and the in-game story telling has been the best it's been.. but they read rather silly for the plot preview. Though I guess it's always going to be difficult to write 300 words on stuff people already know going into the episode.
- Status