Guild Wars 2

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Skinner

Trakanon Raider
857
1,227
Auric Basin/Tarir Meta Event is really fun and the map is beautiful.

As expected it's not close to 50 dollars worth of content, but I'm having fun with the new maps.
 

Faltigoth

Bronze Knight of the Realm
1,380
212
People are all kind of spread out through the new maps, and spread out with Halloween, so it can be a pain in the ass to get rolling with the events, or doing the hero points which are now all champions with a 5 minute limit. Add to that nobody really knows how to do everything yet so it is kind of funny.

I am sure one of these new zones is going to become the new Silverwastes in a few weeks and everyone is going to hammer that; I'm guessing it is the last one, Dragon's Stand or whatnot, saw a bunch of those in the LFG tool today. Pretty much nothing for everywhere else.
 

Heian

Molten Core Raider
753
587
Didn't had much time but it's decent so far. I'm not in the majority of players that are whining about unlocking elite spec since my elite spec is probably the worst.(berserker)
 

Caeden

Golden Baronet of the Realm
7,581
12,534
I'm still doing the S2 living story. The gw2 lifers that got me back into it have been evangelizing that there's tons of super hard content waiting when I finish the story.

Still feels like this needs the trinity. I rolled a revenant, but haven't really touched him. My main is a guardian, but apparently my guild says they suck and doesn't want to use them in raids or dungeons.

I wanted to play as "tanky" as possible. Now guardians use bows. Anet just can't seem to get classes "right" to my liking.

Oh bonus points for nearly getting gkicked when someone was saying gw2 is the best controlling mmo from a technical standpoint and I said I begged to differ because WoW is still buttery smooth. I just will never get why people can't accept that blizzard has first rate engineers.
 

bytes

Molten Core Raider
957
638
Fuck me that ending is so lame. All that buildup from the trailer was a bunch of bullshit, the final fight is basically
Anets version of Diablo
and the last scene was just very unsatisfying. The fight is more than pressing 1 for 20 minutes so that is good but their explanation of how we kill this omnipotent being is a joke.
 

Valderen

Space Pirate
<Bronze Donator>
4,547
2,773
Whenever I get back to this game, I remember how fun the levelling experience can be.

I only had a boost a new character to 20 and 14 tomes to bring it to 34. I managed to level to 80 this weekend, the old fashioned way from 34+.

I never enjoyed Dry Top, Silverwaste, and the first zone feels like those. You just seem to be thrown in those zones with tons of stuff happening, but little direction as to what you need to do.

The old game had more structure to it, and I liked it better. Eventually the new ones get better once you figure out what to do, but there's a learning process that makes it a bit annoying.

Maybe I'm just old.
smile.png


That said, I'm enjoying the Revenant a lot. Probably my favourite class, which isn't hard to do since I never really found a class that I really loved before.

I am usually a plate, melee, tank type. And I hated the warrior, and guardian was just so so. Engineer ended being my favourite but that's a far cry from what I usually play.
smile.png


I have a lot to look forward to, getting hero points to max Herald specialization, the mastery stuff. Looks like it might keep me busy for a while.
smile.png
 

Barab

Silver Knight of the Realm
446
35
There is a lot of crying going on regarding the xpac. I know people like to complain but jesus I cant even go to the official forum for feedback etc. Personally I am really enjoying the expansion.
 

bixxby

Molten Core Raider
2,750
47
Picked up the expansion to play the new class. They seem fun in the sun, what's the fastest way to level now? Want to check out the new shit
 

Xenrauk

Trakanon Raider
1,246
914
/rant on
It's a fucking grind everywhere you turn.

Guildhalls took away old guild unlocks and put them behind a mats grind to unlock again, need to grind shit like flax seeds and silverwaste shovels, which in turn has led to a mass amount of noobs going into silverwastes and events failing often again. I mean shit anet saw the prices of flax seeds and posted about the secret garden to help get more, and get the prices down cause it cost fucking 20 seeds to make 1 linseed oil which is needed in a lot of upgrades as well.

Masteries require you to first grind 1million exp each rank, plus find the mastery orbs on maps to unlock the mastery. Oh you can't gain exp for masteries in the halloween labyrinth, but spvp apparently just had it added, and wvw is fucked as usual.

Legendary precursor crafting cost more than the old precursors.

Hunting heroic points to unlock traits and skills is annoying as hell, especially on multiple characters.

Auric basin city event is like queen's pavillion, requires some coordination and people to stop fucking taking the armors to just pewpew shit, same thing that happens on turrets for tequatl. Otherwise it's the type of event I like doing.

Eotm got nerfed in all it's rewards karma, badges, chests, exp.

The new wvw map is empty.

/rant off

The expansion is a pve explorer paradise, wvw'ers will get sick and start throwing kittens, spvp'ers don't need to leave spvp, everything gets handed to them now cause ESL.

Reaper shroud is hella fun at least. Starting Revenant soon, he'll probably be stuck in eotm when I auto level it, cause fuck hunting heroic points, again.
 

Faltigoth

Bronze Knight of the Realm
1,380
212
I feel like they catered large parts of this thing to large, coordinated guilds (or even small coordinated guilds) without realizing that the vast majority of the playerbase just solos with other people around and they spontaneously team up to do stuff that doesn't require voice comms and a master's degree in Early FoH Tactics. Even the hero points, some of those are madness, which is crap after the horseshit you have to go through to get to most of them.

And gating the elite spec behind so much bullshit, I am not sure why they went that way. I mean, I went through as scrapper with a gimp half-spec because, well, engineer hammer is the shit. All of the dazing and such is very nice for those new mobs that you can't do shit to until you bring down their defiance bar with CC. It was frustrating however, and I couldn't imagine doing it as another class that didn't have the engineer bag of tricks with the kits and whatnot.

There is a point where large, multilevel maps are fun, for like 10 minutes. Then you are trying to just get to time-limited events, there is no straight path to any of them, the mobs on the way will smash you if you just try to run past, the handful of waypoints are contested, and it becomes, uh, yeah, this isn't worth it. I am sure it will become old hat with all the travel masteries unlocked, but I can see some - the third one for instance, tangled depths - remaining a pain in the ass for a long, long time.
 

Troll_sl

shitlord
1,703
7
Picked up the expansion to play the new class. They seem fun in the sun, what's the fastest way to level now? Want to check out the new shit
Crafting is probably fastest, if you want absolutely no dicking around and have ~15g to spare. Level up cooking and jewelcraft. Those are the cheapest and you can get to 80 just through that.
 

Itzena_sl

shitlord
4,609
6
/rant on
It's a fucking grind everywhere you turn.

Guildhalls took away old guild unlocks and put them behind a mats grind to unlock again, need to grind shit like flax seeds and silverwaste shovels, which in turn has led to a mass amount of noobs going into silverwastes and events failing often again. I mean shit anet saw the prices of flax seeds and posted about the secret garden to help get more, and get the prices down cause it cost fucking 20 seeds to make 1 linseed oil which is needed in a lot of upgrades as well.

Masteries require you to first grind 1million exp each rank, plus find the mastery orbs on maps to unlock the mastery. Oh you can't gain exp for masteries in the halloween labyrinth, but spvp apparently just had it added, and wvw is fucked as usual.

Legendary precursor crafting cost more than the old precursors.

Hunting heroic points to unlock traits and skills is annoying as hell, especially on multiple characters.

Auric basin city event is like queen's pavillion, requires some coordination and people to stop fucking taking the armors to just pewpew shit, same thing that happens on turrets for tequatl. Otherwise it's the type of event I like doing.

Eotm got nerfed in all it's rewards karma, badges, chests, exp.

The new wvw map is empty.

/rant off

The expansion is a pve explorer paradise, wvw'ers will get sick and start throwing kittens, spvp'ers don't need to leave spvp, everything gets handed to them now cause ESL.

Reaper shroud is hella fun at least. Starting Revenant soon, he'll probably be stuck in eotm when I auto level it, cause fuck hunting heroic points, again.
WvW is actually the fastest and easiest way to get your elite spec. right now but this is otherwise more or less right. I'd imagine that most of the anet devs have been in meetings all day trying to figure out just how they managed to fuck up the levelling so badly that it makes EQ's AA system look good, and there'll be some sort of preliminary "We're reviewing the mastery and elite spec situation" communication within the next couple of days.
 

Valderen

Space Pirate
<Bronze Donator>
4,547
2,773
Tonight was frustrating, I was in the first zone...and I literally played like 30-45 minutes without seeing a single other player. No events are soloable, some mobs just tear me apart in like 1 or 2 attacks.

I played like 2.5 hours and feel I made no progress at all. Not sure where people are, but they are not playing in the expansion.
 

Skinner

Trakanon Raider
857
1,227
I don't know what's going on with the first map, but I suspect a lot of the empty issues are due to the Guild Hall instance fucking with the megasevers (I always see 15-20+ people standing around there) and the fact that it's really big and two layers, one of which you can only really get to at night.

Auric Basin (the second map) in comparison is like 1/4th the size, easier to navigate, and usually fills up for the Tarir meta. I'd skip VB if it feels like you're not getting anything done.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
15,335
11,637
There is a point where large, multilevel maps are fun, for like 10 minutes. Then you are trying to just get to time-limited events, there is no straight path to any of them, the mobs on the way will smash you if you just try to run past, the handful of waypoints are contested, and it becomes, uh, yeah, this isn't worth it. I am sure it will become old hat with all the travel masteries unlocked, but I can see some - the third one for instance, tangled depths - remaining a pain in the ass for a long, long time.
This is something that really caught my notice right away in beta, and their unveiling. A giant step backwards to Orr, in map design both in pve and WvW. I don't know what the hell they were thinking. And no small part of me going, lolnope on this expac.
 

Treesong

Bronze Knight of the Realm
362
29
There is a point where large, multilevel maps are fun, for like 10 minutes. Then you are trying to just get to time-limited events, there is no straight path to any of them, the mobs on the way will smash you if you just try to run past, the handful of waypoints are contested, and it becomes, uh, yeah, this isn't worth it. I am sure it will become old hat with all the travel masteries unlocked, but I can see some - the third one for instance, tangled depths - remaining a pain in the ass for a long, long time.
I think for PvE maps, they should do away with the feature that you can not zone to a contested waypoint. I mean, they should still show that there is danger there but they should simply let you decide to zone there if you want.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
I think for PvE maps, they should do away with the feature that you can not zone to a contested waypoint. I mean, they should still show that there is danger there but they should simply let you decide to zone there if you want.
I believe that is mostly to stop people from just chain ressing and zerging events.
 

Itzena_sl

shitlord
4,609
6
welp that was quick:Heads Up! Iteration Incoming | GuildWars2.com
Hey, folks,

It's been about five days since the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of ThornsT, and it's been a really exciting time for all of us at ArenaNet and for the game. We've had an incredibly smooth launch with very few major game issues, despite the huge surge of players back into Guild Wars 2 to play all of the new content and features of the expansion! This will go down as the smoothest launch we've had in the history of the Guild Wars? franchise.

Because we've been able to get through this smooth launch so quickly, we're able to rapidly move to our favorite part of the live experience at ArenaNet: the chance to iterate on feedback and make the things we've shipped even better. This is a huge part of how we work as a company. We might not always get every detail right the first time-I'm not sure you can when you try to innovate-but we do always try to do what's best for the game and our players through iteration. To that end, we'll be making some changes in an update today that will address some of the things that have come up as players have dug into Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.

We've had a lot of really positive reactions to our new take on endgame progression with our Mastery system. However, we've received some feedback on our elite specialization system, the rate at which elite specializations are unlocked, and how that ties in with the Mastery system.

When we ran our beta events for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we allowed everyone to instantly access fully unlocked elite specializations with all their skills and abilities so we could get balance and gameplay feedback on them. We'd also always said you'd need to unlock your elite specialization, but we were never explicit on the details of how characters do this and the hero-point costs associated. We always viewed the elite specialization as one of the major rewards in expansion-but between the betas and lack of unlock info, we didn't do a great job properly aligning expectations on how your elite specialization is earned. This left some players in a position where they expected to have their elite specialization very early on (or immediately!) in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Our goal was always to have elite specializations as a part of character progression, but it's clear that a segment of our players was so excited about the elite specialization system and abilities that they really wanted to experience most of the expansion with them unlocked.

We're going to update the elite specialization unlock to find a better middle ground by reducing the cost of unlocking every possible ability for an elite specialization from 400 hero points to 250 hero points total. This means you will be able to access them much earlier in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns PvE or World vs. World and fully unlock them much earlier as well. This also means you'll be able to experience more of the expansion story as your elite specialization earlier on while still maintaining some of our core goal. This should also help players with lots of alts try out more of the elite specializations. If you've already put more than 250 points into your elite specialization, surplus hero points will be refunded to your character for future use.

We've seen feedback that people love our new Adventure minigames in which you can compete for rewards, experience, and leaderboard standing with your friends. People like them so much, they want to play them more! We're going to take another pass on adventure availability so you can play them more easily. Most of them are only closed when events that could happen on top of them in an event chain would break the adventure-and we can't do anything easily about those. But we've identified a few adventures that could be more accessible and aren't as susceptible to influence from nearby events. The Bugs in the Branches, Shooting Gallery, Flying Circus, and Beetle Feast adventures will now all be made open for play more often. While major mapwide events are going on (survive through the night, the battle for Tarir, and the Trexus boss battle), adventures will remain unavailable as the map is under assault and needs your help!

Finally, we've discovered a setting that was creating some lower populations in maps in the Heart of Maguuma than we'd ideally been looking for with our megaserver system. We're really happy with the difficulty of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns-our players have asked for more meaningful challenge from Guild Wars 2, and we believe Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is bringing that-but having lots of players to play with makes that much more fun, so we'll make sure you're always in maps with numerous friends (and soon-to-be friends) to play with.

Iterative development and player feedback are extremely important to us at ArenaNet, and of course we're going to continue to make Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns even better by listening to all of you. We're looking forward to sharing even more of that experience with everyone soon with the upcoming activation of our raids, enhanced squad UI, new legendary weapons, and PvP leagues!