Secrets of the Obscure - Discussion Thread

[Edge-]

Creating one so we can discuss stuff about the expansion leading into it and afterwards rather than use the general thread.

Release date: August 22, 2023

Promo Page
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/secrets-of-the-obscure/

Announcement
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a...f-the-obscure/



Combat Changes
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/c...f-the-obscure/

New Story, Skyscale Updates, Other Content
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a...f-the-obscure/

New Rewards, Open World Legendary Armor
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/n...f-the-obscure/

Which brings me to what I was originally coming to share:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/p...une-29-july-2/

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s announcement of Guild Wars 2: Secret of the Obscure™, we’re here with full details of this weekend’s Weaponmaster Training beta. The event runs from Thursday, June 29 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) until 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 2, and it is open to everyone (that means it’s not gated behind prepurchase).

This is freely accessible without needing to preorder the expansion or purchase anything.

Edit:

Narrative Blog Post (supposedly no spoilers)
https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/new...-dragon-cycle/

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Since Untamed can now wield dagger and staff, I equipped them to check out their new Unleashed Ambush skills. The staff's skill hasn't been implemented yet, but the dagger's is in. The dagger's unleashed ambush skill where you shadowstep teleport to your target is cool, but the range is only 600. Too short, it would be really easy to be too far and press and then not go there. Should be the same 900 distance as Unnatural Traversal. The fundamental problem with the clunky Unleashed Ambush mechanic would need to be addressed first, though. Combined with Unnatural Traversal (used after the dagger teleport in the gif below), you could become a ninja teleporting around.

[Big Thanks]

You can now create BETA characters on char selection screen to try the weapon changes (NOT the new weapons)

The only imaginative thing i came up with for Thief PvP is Scepter/Pistol without Specter specialization and instead Daredevil with "Bound".
Easier accessibility to stealth...but nothing extreme came out of it.

Kinda fun though.

[PACOX]

Scrapper with mace turns an already solid healer into a great one. OH sword for DH is dope. Torch for necro gives Harbinger another dps option. Dps herald can use greatsword instead of staff as a swap. I heard people having fun with sword, warhorn weaver.



Cool thing about the beta, you can access all the zones if previously couldn't. Something to take adv of if you never pl GW2 and want a little preview what comes after the core game.

[Edge-]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/r...f-the-obscure/

Relic blog post is out. Overall seems pretty good!

Concerning bit:

Legendary relics will be introduced to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure during one of the quarterly releases in 2024. These prestigious relics will offer the convenience of freely swapping between the various relic effects. Players who have already crafted legendary runes will be compensated with significant progress toward unlocking legendary relics.

Yeah, they 100% forgot about legendary runes when they announced the expansion. And then hinted that they would have some sort of solution for compensating folks in the blog post that was delayed and then continue to give vague wording.

I'm still into the expansion, but this whole expansion is increasingly feeling like we're being sold half the features of an expansion and handed an IOU for the other half "coming after launch" : /

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Would have been nice if we were automatically given the relics for the rune tier-sets we are already wearing.

[PACOX]

I have a full set a legendary runes. I honestly do not care that that there's no compensation at launch. Legendary runes aren't even cost effective. They save clicks, not money, otherwise they are just a massive dump of gold and resources. What do relics do? Save me clicks.



Call ms old school but I'm not in the camp that every time a system is iterated up, made obsolete, whatever, that there sound be compensation for the old, and it creates an issue where, like now, you have to deal with players expecting some kind of thing whenever new stuff is introduced. It's an attitude I don't care for in real life as well, "I struggled so therefore should everyone should too"



Its clear they didn't have answer, neither did most players. It was a topic that slipped the mind of mosts because the amount of people who have a set of legendary runes is extremely lows. There's 100s of us. In the vein of old depreciated legendaries, I have an extra legendary backpack that I can't do anything with. Why? None of my toons have 2 backs. I made it before the legendary armory. It would be cool if I could refund it, I guess, but it is what it is. The system that came after is 1000% than having an extra useless backpiece.


Announcing stuff that's part of the expansion but not coming until 2024 is a bad look indeed. But is it actually different than what subscription based games do? Not at all.

[Edge-]

Added to the OP, can't read quite yet but we've got a narrative update about the "post-dragon cycle" Tyria. Will read and share thoughts when I can.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/new...-dragon-cycle/

Edit: Not much to it. Non-dragon storyline since dragons are done for a while and Aurene needs to not be a magical problem solver. Old crew is gone for now as well, which makes me a bit sad since I really liked the dynamic between Rama and Gorrik (plus <3 Taimi forever) and was looking forward to more of those two, but at the same time I'm down to meet a new crew of characters and get to know them.

[PACOX]

https://www.techradar.com/gaming/gui...ns-and-dragons

Anet says the story will be a lot darker. Even alluding to Elden Ring. We will see.

[La]

I have a full set a legendary runes. I honestly do not care that that there's no compensation at launch. Legendary runes aren't even cost effective. They save clicks, not money, otherwise they are just a massive dump of gold and resources. What do relics do? Save me clicks.



Call ms old school but I'm not in the camp that every time a system is iterated up, made obsolete, whatever, that there sound be compensation for the old, and it creates an issue where, like now, you have to deal with players expecting some kind of thing whenever new stuff is introduced. It's an attitude I don't care for in real life as well, "I struggled so therefore should everyone should too"



Its clear they didn't have answer, neither did most players. It was a topic that slipped the mind of mosts because the amount of people who have a set of legendary runes is extremely lows. There's 100s of us. In the vein of old depreciated legendaries, I have an extra legendary backpack that I can't do anything with. Why? None of my toons have 2 backs. I made it before the legendary armory. It would be cool if I could refund it, I guess, but it is what it is. The system that came after is 1000% than having an extra useless backpiece.


Announcing stuff that's part of the expansion but not coming until 2024 is a bad look indeed. But is it actually different than what subscription based games do? Not at all.

Not only that but it's that type of attitude from players that will prevent developers from adding or doing specific things because of the future fact they'll whine about it. Its an MMO, with how progression works nothing you own is going to last forever, they're not designed that way. I can't believe this thing that took time and gold isn't going to last forever when it was me who chose to do it and expected it to be forever!!!!!!!!!!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

After IBS and EoD, I have no hope in the writing being good. Only hope is that there are some good, high fantasy spectacle setpieces.

[ryanmahaffe]

https://www.techradar.com/gaming/gui...ns-and-dragons

SOTO will have a darker more mysterious tone with more visual storytelling, taking influence from souls style games.
Sounds cool, would like a bit more subtlety in the narrative for sure.

[PACOX]

A teaser. More like B roll.

Reddit called it a trailer...Anet never called it and I don't think it's trying to be one. But a brief look at environment, one creature, and a I guess a rift?



https://twitter.com/GuildWars2/statu...m1QeRqDmQ&s=19


Its giving an island in the Fractals/Mists.

[Edge-]

A teaser. More like B roll.

Reddit called it a trailer...Anet never called it and I don't think it's trying to be one. But a brief look at environment, one creature, and a I guess a rift?



https://twitter.com/GuildWars2/statu...m1QeRqDmQ&s=19


Its giving an island in the Fractals/Mists.

Fucking finally some more proper video. I've been really frustrated how little we've seen with the game 3 weeks out. I get it, "Secrets" of the Obscure and all but like...damn.

This was at least good though - see the basics of going to a rift, killing shit, closing it, and moving on. I'm not all about huge marketing budgets and all but this shit has just felt meager for what should have been a short and tight campaign. Frustrating.

But overall, that seems kinda like what the described/I imagined, and I can dig it. Just fuckin sad that I couldn't get time off around launch because I was looking forward to going hard at the game for a bit.

Edit: Honestly I'm more annoyed with the trailer watching it again. I'm unsure what the actual purpose of this trailer is if not to try to manage expectations. Where's all that EoD money going?

[Ghost of Cow]

Edit: Honestly I'm more annoyed with the trailer watching it again. I'm unsure what the actual purpose of this trailer is if not to try to manage expectations. Where's all that EoD money going?

When your promotional materials are on par with some kids PvP video up on WarcraftVids from 2005.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/s...-the-skyscale/

You will be able to shoot fireballs on the Skyscale without being dismounted. Now I'm trying to figure out how the devs will threaten the players if they're just going to fly out of melee range of mobs. Either 1. bosses will have shields that are immune to fireballs, thus forcing players to land and fight them on foot, or 2. they're going to introduce a ton of Verdant Brink/Drizzlewood snipers that will shoot you out of the sky for loitering too long.

I wish that they transplanted the Griffon's flight model onto the Skyscale. The Griffon is so much more fun to use than boring WoW mount flying but the Skyscale looks so much cooler.

[Geckoo]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/s...-the-skyscale/

You will be able to shoot fireballs on the Skyscale without being dismounted. Now I'm trying to figure out how the devs will threaten the players if they're just going to fly out of melee range of mobs. Either 1. bosses will have shields that are immune to fireballs, thus forcing players to land and fight them on foot, or 2. they're going to introduce a ton of Verdant Brink/Drizzlewood snipers that will shoot you out of the sky for loitering too long.

I wish that they transplanted the Griffon's flight model onto the Skyscale. The Griffon is so much more fun to use than boring WoW mount flying but the Skyscale looks so much cooler.

I mean, you don't see people going around attacking enemies with their siege turtles instead of fighting dismounted. The fireballs are likely to be similar, so there is no issue to worry about, just like there are elements that make the siege turtle shine during certain events, we'll have elements that make the fireball shine, but it will probably be extremely inefficient as a combat option outside of those precise moments agains specific enemies (the kryptis aerial threats they talk about if i had to guess).

And i have to say, WoW has spoiled me. Using the skyscale after having experienced dragonriding is really painful. So yeah, combining the griffon and the skyscale would be a very smart move if they did it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I mean, you don't see people going around attacking enemies with their siege turtles instead of fighting dismounted.

Siege Turtles are rarely used because of how incredibly frustrating they are to use. The gunner has limited ammo and the pilot regenerates that ammo by moving at top speed. At top speed the turtle is unwieldy to turn. This then leads to the pilot sliding around all over the place for the sake of regenning ammo fast enough, and the gunner is having difficultly landing shots. So people just stopped hopping into siege turtles as gunners, and pilots realized that nobody wanted to hop in, and using the turtle by yourself amounts to spamming slam once every few seconds and being stunlocked for it and is not fun, so people stopped summoning their turtles. Turtles are only used for meta event chains that have huge numbers of respawning waves of enemies that are easy for the gunner to hit, ie the steps in front of the Arah dungeon, Dragon's End when you are pushing down the lanes towards the temples, or the latter half of Drizzlewood Coast. If the turtle was actually convenient to use then it would see more use.

From reading the page, there seems to be no downside to spamming fireballs while mounted. It will not be inconvenient like the turtle is. Thus some other way needs to be implemented to give players a reason to land and actually fight the mobs as intended.

[Geckoo]

From reading the page, there seems to be no downside to spamming fireballs while mounted. It will not be inconvenient like the turtle is. Thus some other way needs to be implemented to give players a reason to land and actually fight the mobs as intended.

The reson will be that it will do shit damage unless you attack specific enemies that exist only for that purpose. Seriously, i don't see this being any different from the siege turtle. You can already go around solo with your turtle killing enemies, but even with a gunner it's simply not efficient to do so. This will be similar.

Even if we talk about a champion enemy or a legendary bounty, who cares? you'll probably spend an absurd amount of time for a meaningless reward. Meanwhile i can kill those same mobs faster by playing my class and looking for more players.

[Edge-]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/s...-the-skyscale/

You will be able to shoot fireballs on the Skyscale without being dismounted. Now I'm trying to figure out how the devs will threaten the players if they're just going to fly out of melee range of mobs. Either 1. bosses will have shields that are immune to fireballs, thus forcing players to land and fight them on foot, or 2. they're going to introduce a ton of Verdant Brink/Drizzlewood snipers that will shoot you out of the sky for loitering too long.

I wish that they transplanted the Griffon's flight model onto the Skyscale. The Griffon is so much more fun to use than boring WoW mount flying but the Skyscale looks so much cooler.

Probably not much. There are a multitude of solutions for abusing this - leashing mobs if they're melee only and getting exclusively pelted by air, positional shielding etc. and if the damage scaling is anything like other mounts then it'll be pretty shit damage compared to what you can do yourself.

However I can see them building SotO content around the expectation that you'll need to periodically spit some hot fire at some mobs from time to time as part of intended play and all.

- - - Updated - - -



Finally uploaded the video to their YT, was annoyed it seemed social only.

Honestly, I'm cool with all this. Show some of the floating island disaster stuff, apparently we're going back to PoF zones (rad), Cantha is back on the menu (also rad), I maybe see one HoT zone (maybe rad), that Karka island from one of the living world stories a while back, mage tower which apparently = BIG HATS.

Seems like we've got some new bits of those existing territories to explore plus some reused stuff and I'm fine with that. As long as what we're doing is fun, whatever. It's not bad to have a reason to return to some expansions in a while, like I hardly go anywhere in PoF.