[EXPANSION] Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns Discussion

[Nyres]

Has the max level been updated or is it still 80?

For some reason they thought no level cap increase was a good idea. Which IMO is not gonna work well if they structure questing like they did in the launch game as the only thing that gave zones proper structure and a line of progression was leveling. Without I foresee it becoming a jumbled mess.

I doubt masteries will fill the gap either since they will probably only be from group content thus making solo play a pain. Not to mention if they don't want a power creep the combat masteries will probably be water down and barely give anything of substantial benefit. The only exception I see is the weapons masteries which might flat out make the default weapons the 'wrong' choice so that people will want to use the new ones.

[Khelendros]

For some reason they thought no level cap increase was a good idea. Which IMO is not gonna work well if they structure questing like they did in the launch game as the only thing that gave zones proper structure and a line of progression was leveling. Without I foresee it becoming a jumbled mess.

I doubt masteries will fill the gap either since they will probably only be from group content thus making solo play a pain. Not to mention if they don't want a power creep the combat masteries will probably be water down and barely give anything of substantial benefit. The only exception I see is the weapons masteries which might flat out make the default weapons the 'wrong' choice so that people will want to use the new ones.

I kind of agree though I never did get to level cap in the original game. I know its odd since I'm such a champion of GW2 but I think the first Rift expansion kinda pulled me away. But with the second rift expansion out already, I think I can comfortably take a break and actually hit cap in GW2 finally. It really is a great game.

As for the Master Yi crack. It wasn't just about the whole blind swordsman thing, the attack the revenant does towards the end of the trailer where he goes invis and just sword slashes through a bunch of enemies is pretty much exactly Master Yi's alpha strike. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K3hBzU1SHo

[zito]

chronomancer will be interesting. It was something we didn't get to see in GW1 so it's nice to see it return in some way.

[Khelendros]

Any speculation for other profession masteries? Will those be taken from GW1, if it had more professions than GW2 (Chronomancer for example, never played it much so I don't know)?

Namely Elementalist and Guardian for example, which already feel like more advanced professions, I mean Elementalist can already use every elemental pretty well and Guardian feels like a Paladin to me, which can easily specialize in different playstyles.

This is if the developers aim to give every profession a specialization, which turns them into a completely different class (Mesmer - Chronomancer, Ranger - Druid), or just give some of the professions more playstyle variation (Necromancer Greatsword).

Good question, you wonder what the spec for Engineer might be.

[zito]

Any speculation for other profession masteries? Will those be taken from GW1, if it had more professions than GW2 (Chronomancer for example, never played it much so I don't know)?

Namely Elementalist and Guardian for example, which already feel like more advanced professions, I mean Elementalist can already use every elemental pretty well and Guardian feels like a Paladin to me, which can easily specialize in different playstyles.

This is if the developers aim to give every profession a specialization, which turns them into a completely different class (Mesmer - Chronomancer, Ranger - Druid), or just give some of the professions more playstyle variation (Necromancer Greatsword).

So far for profession specializations, none of them have existed as an actual profession in GW1. Chronomancer was planned but was scrapped in favor of GW2 (a long with that whole expansion chronomancer was suppose to be in). Druids were melandru followers that traveled to maguuma to become one with nature.

Either way, they are like an entire new profession from what Anet describes. In order to use a staff you have to be a druid - which in turns unlocks new utilities and elites and heal skills while locking you out of the old ones.

I think this is Anet solution to adding new professions (they are like, half a profession really) and revenant fills in whatever gap was missing.

[Deleted]

Got uncompressed trailer version, so here are some shots that youtube messed up

Mesmer shield with details.

Mesmer shoulders

Druid shoulers


More at http://imgur.com/a/3mHuN

[Vintersol]

Looks interesting enough. Still wish Gw2 had gear progression though.

Why should be? Every game with gear progression sucks on so many levels, because you are forced to play or get fucked if you take a break. Continuous gear progression creates so much problems for players and developers, that most games resulting in a patchwork construct where most content is turned into boring abominations for catch up mechanics etc. Look at WoW. 5 mans aren't funny, they get got gutted to farmfest arenas without being interesting in some way. To bring feeling back, they implement crutches like challenge modes, to emulate "harder content" which doesn't match. 4 difficulty levels for raiding, gear reset with nearly every patch and so on...

No, gear progression sucks.

[zito]

Ascended gear takes forever to get, though you can do all content in masterwork gear (even fractals up to a point, i've gotten to 39 fractal in greens).

[Razael]

The specializations alone really gets me tingling on my insides. I definately have to fully clear season 2 sometime soon, as i expect im not gonna resist the urge to buy Heart of Thorns. I kinda just need to know what each Specialization is so i can choose a main, or level a new one if such a thing happens.

[Khelendros]

Why should be? Every game with gear progression sucks on so many levels, because you are forced to play or get fucked if you take a break. Continuous gear progression creates so much problems for players and developers, that most games resulting in a patchwork construct where most content is turned into boring abominations for catch up mechanics etc. Look at WoW. 5 mans aren't funny, they get got gutted to farmfest arenas without being interesting in some way. To bring feeling back, they implement crutches like challenge modes, to emulate "harder content" which doesn't match. 4 difficulty levels for raiding, gear reset with nearly every patch and so on...

No, gear progression sucks.

Gear progression doesn't suck, you just don't like it or how it has been implemented. There is a difference. A large amount of people are driven by a "Carrot" thats what gear progression is, that carrot dangling in front of you.

One wonders how much the expansion will be?

[nevermore]

Is better gear really the carrot on the stick though? If the current boss has X health and you do Y damage, and then the next tier the boss has X+20% health and you do Y+20% damage, what's the point?

Having played WoW for many years at a high level, I'd say the overwhelming majority of players are motivated by:
- prestige (skins, achievements, titles)
- and the casino-effect of RNG (oh my god will that elusive trinket drop this week?).

Power creep is really, really annoying. I personally think both prestige and the casino-effect can be implemented without the (un)necessary stat inflation.

Just look at LFR. Literally everyone hates LFR with a fiery passion, but they still do it because they're forced to. I'd say that's not a very good reason to play a specific content.

[Meledelion]

The problem is that you look at "what drives a (high-end) raider" and not, "what drives someone who plays wow" they are not substitutes.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

I like playing a heavy melee so the Revenant is where I'll be placing all my eggs in the expansion basket. Don't care much for jungle-setting though as they always have a way of being more annoying than most other environments.

It looks like one big zone though rather than a continent though, at least that's the impression I got. It'll probably retail for $40, tops.

[worprz]

Got uncompressed trailer version, so here are some shots that youtube messed up

Mesmer shield with details.

Mesmer shoulders

Druid shoulers


More at http://imgur.com/a/3mHuN

Oooh! Do you think there will be profession based gear? Looks like new druid shoulders and mesmer/chronomancer shoulders and shield. Also I don't think I've ever seen the engineer helmet in game. Then we also have the revenant armor set which thatshaman data mined and showed it on the human model. Hopefully it's not gemstore stuff.

Then again the armor will probably just be available to everyone like it is now.

Also by looking at your screenshot of Rytlock it actually doesn't look like he is using a spear like everyone is saying. It looks like he is using a staff for melee.

[Gray_Matter]

For some reason they thought no level cap increase was a good idea. Which IMO is not gonna work well if they structure questing like they did in the launch game as the only thing that gave zones proper structure and a line of progression was leveling. Without I foresee it becoming a jumbled mess.

I have just spent a month an a half playing WOW again to see if WoD was any good and I have to say that the biggest mistake they made was the level cap increase. In that one move they made most of the new WoD map content obsolete within a couple of weeks. There is a new "race" to max level and then, nothing to do. Sure you can run around the areas and AFK kill things but where is the fun in that? Really grateful that GW2 is not increasing the level cap. It makes absolutely no sense. World content should be put there to enjoy.

[Razael]

I have this bad feeling on the back of my mind, that this heavy jungle sitting is gonna destroy my toaster of a PC. I can run GW2 reasonably well on medium-high, but when lots of people conglomerate on world bosses it becomes a slideshow. With everyone moving to these new zones to do new content i fear i wont run it decently.

[CrossNgen]

I have this bad feeling on the back of my mind, that this heavy jungle sitting is gonna destroy my toaster of a PC. I can run GW2 reasonably well on medium-high, but when lots of people conglomerate on world bosses it becomes a slideshow. With everyone moving to these new zones to do new content i fear i wont run it decently.

And the improved textures and meshes on the new models

[Razael]

So what your saying is you want your character to kill multiple elder dragons, face huge threats but still be challanged by a couple of lowly bandits? That's why I cannot get behind this no level cap increase thing or the level scaling in GW2 your character has no sense of becoming a better fighter your only told you are because you got the option of picking X skill even though its useless to the meta.

There is no joy always being forced to be near on par with creatures you fought nearly 3 years ago IMO. With other MMOs you get a sense that your character is stronger, that they can do more, that they have improved upon their skills since they first stepped foot in their first raid.

Hows that any different than having defeated Kil'Jaeden, the Lich King and Deathwing, and then on the next xpac be challenged by Orcs wearing Iron like it never went out of fashion? The only thing that changes is you don't get more "levels".

Now don't get me wrong, one of the things i love with WoW is going back and solo running stuff like Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, BC Hc Dungeons etc and i also love the feel you get when you finish a zone and move on or get moar ilvls. But GW2 is a different breed of game.

The level downscalling keeps all the world more or less "challenging" which was what GW2 set out to do. It keeps , a level 5 Centaur from being too easy compared to a level 55 centaur. They are both centaurs, they use the same model and weapons, they seem as big as the other, so immersion wise, GW2 does it best.

[nevermore]

The problem is that you look at "what drives a (high-end) raider" and not, "what drives someone who plays wow" they are not substitutes.

So what motivates someone who 'just plays' WoW (or any other game with a gear treadmill)?
I've been trying to get back into that game for 2 expansions now but I un-subbed after a month or two because it's just god awful if you're not in a guild with good players.
- Super-average players don't even care about items, they go around questing, exploring, achievement hunting, levelling a hundred alts.
- Average players do daily quests and LFR (everyone hates LFR regardless of what your goals are) so they can increase their iLvl so that they might get into a PuG raid where they wipe on the second boss until everyone rage quits. It's absolutely miserable.
- Raiding guilds (normal, high-end and everything in between) want items for the reasons in my previous post. So they can show off and be ready for the next tier (or the next difficulty scale).

What I personally gather from it is that the constant item level increase is just bad for the overwhelming majority of the players. Of course they've been conditioned to think it's a good thing but it's really not.

The RNG-loot system is probably the biggest contributor to keeping subscriptions, imo. Most people have at least a little bit of OCD to varying degrees, and the "You only have one shot at this, once a week" system keeps them hooked (myself included).
If a game successfully implements such an OCD-hook they'll most likely be able to keep a stable player base.
GW2 started something similar with the Collections tab and the RNG-hunt for organs and such to complete a set, and I must say I think it has some potential.

[Meledelion]

I honestly don't know, I always was in pretty serious raiding guilds, but I remember that at that time the ratio of Raiders/Player was something like 1/7.

A lot of people seem to think that they need current gear to beat the current boss, so I can imagine that for them it seems like more gear = more content (which ofc is stupid as hell but hey). This means that they treasure gear as the key to seeing more content.

Many people just seem to level countless alts, I even knew of someone who did nothing but fish (I wish I was making this up).

So all in all I think that the majority of raiders (aka the "casual" raider) indeed are in it for the gear treadmill, while the people who play on a slightly higher level are in it for the prestige and what not.

Also note that I'm one of the biggest anti-geartreadmill advocates there is but it's important to compare your experience to that of the general audience and then the general population. A super GM in chess might find a game interesting due to it being off-book with deep calculation, while a normal club player may find the midgame tension most exciting and other chess players only care about the synopsis. (This is one thing that frustrates the crap out of me in any game, super high skilled people know a game inside out but devs only listen to the biggest audience so all they make now are "synopsis-games").