GW2 Janthir Wilds - Discussion Thread

[Edge-]

https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us/janthir-wilds?tab=0

https://massivelyop.com/2024/06/04/g...ing-august-20/

INTO THE WILDS
Head north to the wilderness of Janthir in the latest Guild Wars 2® expansion! Recent momentous events have left the denizens of Tyria determined to recover and build a new future together. Knowing that cooperation with neighbors will be crucial to their long-term success, your allies dispatch you to befriend the lowland kodan of Janthir—a dangerous land that was once home to the strange mursaat and their White Mantle sycophants in the time of the original Guild Wars 2®.

The story you uncover on the Isle of Janthir will play out across four major releases, starting with the initial launch of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds™ on August 20, 2024, and continuing to introduce content in quarterly releases through the first half of 2025. Each quarter of content also includes feature updates, new challenging group content, combat system updates, and more.

HOME SWEET HOMESTEAD
Your journeys will lead you to your own homestead, an account-wide personal housing instance for you to develop as you complete its associated Mastery. Homesteads present you with an area of land and a permanent structure to cultivate, decorate, and share with your friends; you can also access nodes and unlocks you've acquired for your personal story home instance in your homestead. Before we launch on August 20, we'll be back to share loads more information and a look at Homesteads decorating.

SPEARS: NEW WEAPON FOR ALL PROFESSIONS
Learn the secrets of the spear from the lowland kodan! Spears, which were previously only used in underwater combat, will now have all-new skills for each profession on land. Some professions wield spears as formidable melee weapons, while others hurl them at range with devastating accuracy. Spears can be used interchangeably in the aquatic and terrestrial weapon slots, but you will need to equip multiple spears to use them in both locations. One of the post-launch releases will also introduce a new legendary spear to acquire. Any unlocked spear skins in your wardrobe will work for spears equipped on land.

RAIDS AND ENCOUNTERS
Additional challenging encounters will become available alongside new story chapters in the three major releases that follow Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds In the first of these releases, around November 2024, you'll get to challenge a new raid comprising three encounters. The story of these encounters will be accessible in two ways: through a classic 10-player raid instance (our eighth raid), or with large groups in open-world events. The Convergences system will also be extended to the region of Janthir, including Janthir-specific enemies. The following major release, coming in the first quarter of 2025, will introduce a challenge mode and legendary challenge mode for the raid. And in our final major release for Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, we'll add a new fractal and its accompanying challenge mode.

WILD WARCLAWS
Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds features the warclaw mount with new mechanics. Previously only available through World vs. World, the warclaw will be introduced to players in the story of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, including new skills for PvE play. At the same time, we'll be revisiting the warclaw's WvW skills to provide a refreshed experience that builds on what we've learned about mounts since first implementing the warclaw.

REWARDS
The launch of Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds and each of its major releases will include a Wizard's Vault seasonal refresh that introduces new objectives and rewards. At launch, players will be able to work toward two new armor and weapon sets as well as several other cosmetic rewards. More cosmetics will be available in the following major releases, including a legendary spear and legendary backpack.

New expansion announced, launching August 20.

Edit: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a...janthir-wilds/

Blog post is officially live now with a bit more info. New PvP mode coming, apparently.

[Puupi]

Doesn't sound bad at all!

I wonder if WoW is now truly the only MMO without player housing.

[PACOX]

Alright sounds better than SOTO.

I like how a lot of the info isn't on Anets expansion page, love Anet. Stay weird.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Neat new ability for Ranger. Is that exclusively a Ranger spear weaponskill? Or can I use that as a hammer wielding Untamed?

EDIT: Upon reading the news post, it seems it looks like Warclaws are getting a new Janthir skin, which the Ranger is using in his leap in the video. Does that leap reflect whatever your current Warclaw skin is? Or it going to always be the fluffy Janthir warclaw skin? Would be nice if I could change it to something more intimidating.

I am not super excited for the setting, which seems to be mundane rather than fantastical, but platforming across rugged waterfalls might be fun. Shame that this map will be coming out after everyone has easy access to mounts that trivalize navigating the environment.

Warclaws being revamped for PvE mounted combat? Maybe Anet will get around to making a large Warclaw skin appropriate for a big Charr character? Whenever I ride a Warclaw (or any mount besides the Dreadnaught Raptor skin or the Turtle), I feel like I am on a small pony.

New PvP mode sounds interesting. Would also be nice to get a new WvW map too.

[Poppincaps]

I'm still not sure how I feel about this move towards smaller more frequent expansions. As an MMO nomad, I like to have enough content to sink my teeth into for a month before I move on to another game and I felt like the launch content of SOTO wasn't enough to entertain me for more than a few days. Maybe I'll just come back to Guild Wars 2 when they release the 3rd or 4th mini expac. That being said, Spear looks great. Excited to see the moves they add for each class.

[Edge-]

I'm still not sure how I feel about this move towards smaller more frequent expansions. As an MMO nomad, I like to have enough content to sink my teeth into for a month before I move on to another game and I felt like the launch content of SOTO wasn't enough to entertain me for more than a few days. Maybe I'll just come back to Guild Wars 2 when they release the 3rd or 4th mini expac. That being said, Spear looks great. Excited to see the moves they add for each class.

Achievements are where a lot of the meat and potatoes are in these. SotO launch kept me busy for a good couple of months doing the zone meta achievements and a bunch of the collections. Definitely not for everyone, but really that's where a good chunk of the content overall rests.

[Edge-]

I wonder what new player would feel about it. There is this amazing materials, land spears!, flying dragons and griffons, sooo many powerfull class options.

Expansions are designed primarily for existing players, not new players who are just starting the game. They have a ton of content to play, and if they don't mind skipping ahead in the story (which doesn't necessarily spoil too much story from other expansions) they can jump straight to the current expansion after hitting 80.

But then you realize everything is expansion specific and you need to basically canibalize your story progression for the sake of convinience. Want that dragon? Well, better skip that second expansion! Want spear? Well, better skip every expansion and go to super special tribe of bears to learn how to use spear! Want to be that amazing guardian who summon book with blue flames?! Well, you better be ready to exciting grind with your inferior class specs.

It almost feel like Destiny 2, just not as bad.

This is basically complaining, "Expansions exist." Well yes, of course they do. That's a big way many MMO's fund ongoing development of content on top of cash shops etc.

What's the solution you have in mind? Free updates for everyone with all systems and features unlocked at level 1 to overwhelm new players?

[Ereb]

Alright sounds better than SOTO.

I like how a lot of the info isn't on Anets expansion page, love Anet. Stay weird.

What is SOTO?

Also this is a game I've always kinda wanted to get into, but never made it past level 5 for whatever reasons. Is now a good time to get into it (or attempt to)? Debating between trying to spend time in this or ESO while I wait on TWW

[PACOX]

Its fun to flame Anet but GW2 is arguably one of the most player forward MMOs are far as what you're asked to pay for and what you get in return in the genre. And as silly as Anet is, they have to be one of most geniune and in tune with their community, also in the genre. I played ~1hr the day of this point doing dailies for the seasonal event, ran into 3 Anet employees with their tags on and the say that the game director was runnning around in WvW. I'm not mad at Anets monteizaton, even if theres exceptions I really dont like, yet...YET. They really hit stuff that players want to rake in money - spears are something people actually wanted since launch, raids will bring back old players who left, lots of good things for the purely open world crowd, housing will appeal to collectors (Gw2 seems to has a sizable overlap with FF14, sure they will love it), warclaw might as well be a new mount for PVE players, new PVP (gw2s pvp is respected but underserved in the genre), the story itself is also somewhat nostalgic. Janthir Wilds should be a hit. People would pre-order the coming swimsuits if Anet allowed you to preorder gem store items. SOTO actually made Anet a decent amount off money according to NCSofts quarterly reports. Game is doing alright.

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What is SOTO?

Also this is a game I've always kinda wanted to get into, but never made it past level 5 for whatever reasons. Is now a good time to get into it (or attempt to)? Debating between trying to spend time in this or ESO while I wait on TWW

SOTO is the the most recent expansion as of now, Secrets of the Obsure. SOTO is also Anets first delve into a shifted business model of yearly mini-expansions compared to their old model. I can detail it if you want me to.


Theres never a "wrong" time to get into GW2 because none of the content ever gets old. I run an old ass guild, we often have people who come back ofter take 4-5 year breaks from the game and they an easily do endgame content with us while still played already released content as if it was brand new. Game is fairly balanced. Their should be sale at the end of June if you might want to dive into some of the expansions. I personally think GW2 is easier to get into versus ESO unless you're just a huge Scrolls fan and want to consume the lore. All that said, one of GW2s biggest draws is that its sort of an alternative to other MMO, that was the case for GW1 as well. So some people really into WoW for instance might lot like the way GW2 does things, ie they might not understand/like how GW2 equipment works with limited tiers but an extreme emphasis on stats. On the other hand people will play WoW and realize it does things they've always wanted or is a break from the grind of WoW or FF14. I will say at lvl 5 you've barely scratched the surface of GW2 gameplay systems unless you really just don't like its action combat/dodge system. Two players playing the same classes can feel totatlly different depending on weapon and stat choices in this game.

I'll simplify my comment. This time might be the best to play. Its a time where old heads in the game are more accessible, playing but not focused on their own goals. Try joining when fresh content drops and less people are willing to help you out because they are focused on their own grinds. But utlimately GW2 is always accessible and the community loves to help/answer questions because they want people to enjoy the game the same way they do. I know a few people who are prominent on the wiki and build sites, they are truly passionate without worrying about compensation (the community and Anet does take care of those people though).

[Ereb]

SOTO is the the most recent expansion as of now, Secrets of the Obsure. SOTO is also Anets first delve into a shifted business model of yearly mini-expansions compared to their old model. I can detail it if you want me to.


Theres never a "wrong" time to get into GW2 because none of the content ever gets old. I run an old ass guild, we often have people who come back ofter take 4-5 year breaks from the game and they an easily do endgame content with us while still played already released content as if it was brand new. Game is fairly balanced. Their should be sale at the end of June if you might want to dive into some of the expansions. I personally think GW2 is easier to get into versus ESO unless you're just a huge Scrolls fan and want to consume the lore. All that said, one of GW2s biggest draws is that its sort of an alternative to other MMO, that was the case for GW1 as well. So some people really into WoW for instance might lot like the way GW2 does things, ie they might not understand/like how GW2 equipment works with limited tiers but an extreme emphasis on stats. On the other hand people will play WoW and realize it does things they've always wanted or is a break from the grind of WoW or FF14. I will say at lvl 5 you've barely scratched the surface of GW2 gameplay systems unless you really just don't like its action combat/dodge system. Two players playing the same classes can feel totatlly different depending on weapon and stat choices in this game.

I'll simplify my comment. This time might be the best to play. Its a time where old heads in the game are more accessible, playing but not focused on their own goals. Try joining when fresh content drops and less people are willing to help you out because they are focused on their own grinds. But utlimately GW2 is always accessible and the community loves to help/answer questions because they want people to enjoy the game the same way they do. I know a few people who are prominent on the wiki and build sites, they are truly passionate without worrying about compensation (the community and Anet does take care of those people though).

tyvm for this post you convinced me to give it a solid go. What level would you say I would have, by then, at least received a solid taste of what the game's all about and can expect to have a decent understanding of the game?

[Scyth]

Open world raid system excites me a lot! Didn't really think we'd get Spears as new weapons but hope they make them fun.

I am a fan of the setting though and the maps look cool. Although tbh anything is better than the demon world

[PACOX]

tyvm for this post you convinced me to give it a solid go. What level would you say I would have, by then, at least received a solid taste of what the game's all about and can expect to have a decent understanding of the game?

I don't know when you you tried the game but Anet has tried to really accelerate the leveling process. Old content doesn't become obsolete so they don't change it, but it doesn't represent lessons learned. Anet wants you to level to 80 ASAP (long short, boosting your first character is bad though). I think at level 40 you've been truly exposed GW2s trait and skill system to know if it's just not something for you or something you might want to see how deep it gets. By that point you've been able to unlock all core weapon skills and have begun to explore the specialization trees (just talents in WoW and traits in ESO) and some of customization surrounding utility skills. Mind you, gear is pretty useless 80 so don't put emphasis on that. The most important thing prelvl 80 gear wise is just trying to keep gear level close to yours.

[tideki]

tyvm for this post you convinced me to give it a solid go. What level would you say I would have, by then, at least received a solid taste of what the game's all about and can expect to have a decent understanding of the game?

Hello!

I started playing gW2 as a side game since 2022.
I don’t own all the expansion (yet). Here’s my personal advice and opinion on what you should do.

Play the base game till around level 10 to 20. Or until you think it’s getting a bit repetitive . Buy the first 2 expansions, boost your character to 80 with the boost you get. Search for a build on google for your class (you can copy paste the template).

Play heart of thorns story till you unlock gliding.
Then start and finish the path of fire story, while unlocking and training all the useful masteries for each mount. Also look up the requirements to unlock the roller beetle mount (requires purchase of one of the living worlds, mini expansion of sort)

when you have unlocked every mount and thier masteries. Buy SOTO expansion and complete the story and collection to unlock the skyscale mount, train its masteries.

Now that you have all the mounts, you can enjoy the game better with superior movement lol.

From here you can maybe go back to tyria to finish all the content (map completions) you skipped with the boost (the map scales to your level). You will need to do this if you want to craft legendaries. And some legendaries are really pretty! Or you can do whatever you like after you get your mounts. You will come across all sorts of activities during your journey

As I said, this is my personal opinion

[Geckoo]

I don't like the expansion model they are following at all, but this one looks better than the last one simply because it has housing and i personally love to waste time on that stuff. Secrets of the obscure made me leave the game, i don't think this one will bring me back as an active player, but i will check it out.

[Ereb]

Hello!

I started playing gW2 as a side game since 2022.
I don’t own all the expansion (yet). Here’s my personal advice and opinion on what you should do.

Play the base game till around level 10 to 20. Or until you think it’s getting a bit repetitive . Buy the first 2 expansions, boost your character to 80 with the boost you get. Search for a build on google for your class (you can copy paste the template).

Play heart of thorns story till you unlock gliding.
Then start and finish the path of fire story, while unlocking and training all the useful masteries for each mount. Also look up the requirements to unlock the roller beetle mount (requires purchase of one of the living worlds, mini expansion of sort)

when you have unlocked every mount and thier masteries. Buy SOTO expansion and complete the story and collection to unlock the skyscale mount, train its masteries.

Now that you have all the mounts, you can enjoy the game better with superior movement lol.

From here you can maybe go back to tyria to finish all the content (map completions) you skipped with the boost (the map scales to your level). You will need to do this if you want to craft legendaries. And some legendaries are really pretty! Or you can do whatever you like after you get your mounts. You will come across all sorts of activities during your journey

As I said, this is my personal opinion

Thanks for all this info! I think I will follow this thanks for the direction

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Ok holy shit I'm 100% into this game now. As soon as I logged in saw this max level....idk what class maybe a guardian? But holy shit he looked amazing almost like one of those angels from Diablo, but even COOLER. Could barely see him through all the aura and energy surrounding his armor he looked AMAZING!!! Much better than anything I've ever seen in wow transmog-wise...I also forgot how beautiful this game was and the world, in my head I had remembered the graphics being old and bad, but idk if they upgraded things at some point in the past few years or what, but it looks a LOT better than I had remembered in my head.

I already had expansions 1 and 2 bought apparently so I'm gonna go Revanant, but I guess my question is: Is there any reason I should just go ahead and buy expansions 3 and 4, or should I wait until some set point? I'm def gonna play this game as a side-game to wow (sry ESO gold road looks meh anyway).

[Edge-]

Im not talking about content, but about features. Which are for classes. Imagine, in wow, than you can play fury warrior only after getting to lvl 10 renown in current wow dragonflight expansion. Because this is what it is, regarding new specs. Sure, you dont need to go all the way to renowns 25 or 30, just a lvl 10. And it is fairly easy if you know what your doing. Still, you simply CANNOT play fury before that. Have fun!

This is how the game has always been structured. It's not new in the slightest, and you remain able to skip directly to the current expansion as a new player if you want. Per today's blogpost, unsurprisingly, spear is the first mastery you unlock in the expansion - https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/new...janthir-wilds/

But hey, you can play Arms and Prot, so dont complain... Except in that example Arms is worse than Fury in every way possible. Which is the case with elite vs non elite build.

This is unknowable fiction right now for spears. For other elite specs all core build remain viable and effective in just about everything except CM content. If you're doing CM content you're not some new player to the game, probably.

GW2 put emphasize on story, they got that avengers team which goes from exp to exp doing shit and giggles. So yes, going through expansions, living world, etc seems logical for new and returning players.

We've had at least 4 different groups we've rolled with over the years with some overlap between them, but largely 4 different groups of characters. I have no clue what the fuck you're talking about here.

Give spears for free. Just like that. You create your lvl 1 warrior and bam, you have option to equip spears.

They're unlocked for narrative reasons: You're being trained to use them by the folks in Jantha. Unlocking them at level 1, especially given how few spears exist at low level, would make it a core feature and not an expansion feature. This is how all weapon additions have worked in GW2 since HoT.

You still need to go to max lvl and dabble in all the unlocks, leveling etc. Actuall content like new activities, zones, masteries, there is even housing! Or something.
Unless the spear is meat of the expansion, then sure, leave it for lvl 80. But then, uhhhh... your expansion may be not worth even 5$.

Honestly, do you even play GW2? Do you like games? Every time I see you post it sounds like you hate literally every game you post about and I'm unsure why you play games if you seem to so thoroughly dislike them all.

[Chickat]

How big is a GW2 expansion zone/area compared to say a WoW launch zone or continent?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

How big is a GW2 expansion zone/area compared to say a WoW launch zone or continent?

GW2's maps are isolated, separate instances, like in FF14. You cannot mount up and seamlessly run or fly across the world like in the Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor in WoW. However, unlike WoW, you do not actually physically travel from map to map. Instead, like FF14, you end up teleporting to whatever the nearest teleport point is, then mount up and travel a short distance to the mobs you want to beat up, and then when you're done you just teleport right from where you are again. So the world does not feel physicalized like Azeroth.

Vanilla GW2 maps are about the same size as Elwynn Forest strictly in terms of how long it takes you to walk from one end of the zone to the other. A Vanilla GW2 map has more packed into it then Elwynn Forest. So in WoW while walking from Northshire Abbey to Stormwind, you would only pass one village, but in GW2 in Queensdale you would walk by maybe three villages on the way to the city. That being said, vanilla GW2 maps often feel a little "miniature", with the exception of the Ascalon and Shiverpeaks maps.

Heart of Thorns maps about the same horizontal width/length as Vanilla GW2 maps, but the difference is that they have much more playable space vertically. For example, in the first HoT map, Verdant Brink, you have a top layer which is an airship fleet that crashed into the canopy of a jungle. Then below that, you have the "floor" which is on top of a lot of canyon mountains. And then below that, you have a "floor" which is below the tops of canyon mountains. In the second map, Auric Basin, you start out at the top of a rain forest, and then descend to a "floor" at the middle level, and then descend to a golden city at the bottom level, and the golden city has more levels below that. And so on. So the actual playable space is much larger than the Vanilla maps. And the third map, Tangled Depths, has a top floor on the surface, and then you descend into multiple different levels of caverns. Etc. I wish other games took as much advantage of vertical space and multiple layers as HoT did.

PoF maps onward sadly abandons the multi-layered approach of HoT, but the maps are straight up at least 4x bigger than the vanilla maps, being at least twice as long length wise and twice as wide. They don't feel like you are traveling across a miniature world anymore.

Vanilla maps are overall very mundane and boring (snowy mountains, green plains, etc), but the expansion maps are usually more fantastical (aside from PoF's five maps all being set in a boring flat desert). An airship fleet crashed into the canopy of a jungle, a golden city deep inside a very tall rainforest, the still glowing epicenter of a magical nuke detonation, a sunken kingdom that has risen from the depths, a desert scarred by purple crystal magic and time distortion bubbles, a map set on the back of a humongous downed dragon, walking across a sea that was turned solid into jade stone which has been infused with magic, etc.

[Chickat]

GW2's maps are isolated, separate instances, like in FF14. You cannot mount up and seamlessly run or fly across the world like in the Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor in WoW. However, unlike WoW, you do not actually physically travel from map to map. Instead, like FF14, you end up teleporting to whatever the nearest teleport point is, then mount up and travel a short distance to the mobs you want to beat up, and then when you're done you just teleport right from where you are again. So the world does not feel physicalized like Azeroth.

Vanilla GW2 maps are about the same size as Elwynn Forest strictly in terms of how long it takes you to walk from one end of the zone to the other. A Vanilla GW2 map has more packed into it then Elwynn Forest. So in WoW while walking from Northshire Abbey to Stormwind, you would only pass one village, but in GW2 in Queensdale you would walk by maybe three villages on the way to the city. That being said, vanilla GW2 maps often feel a little "miniature", with the exception of the Ascalon and Shiverpeaks maps.

Heart of Thorns maps about the same horizontal width/length as Vanilla GW2 maps, but the difference is that they have much more playable space vertically. For example, in the first HoT map, Verdant Brink, you have a top layer which is an airship fleet that crashed into the canopy of a jungle. Then below that, you have the "floor" which is on top of a lot of canyon mountains. And then below that, you have a "floor" which is below the tops of canyon mountains. In the second map, Auric Basin, you start out at the top of a rain forest, and then descend to a "floor" at the middle level, and then descend to a golden city at the bottom level, and the golden city has more levels below that. And so on. So the actual playable space is much larger than the Vanilla maps. And the third map, Tangled Depths, has a top floor on the surface, and then you descend into multiple different levels of caverns. Etc. I wish other games took as much advantage of vertical space and multiple layers as HoT did.

PoF maps onward sadly abandons the multi-layered approach of HoT, but the maps are straight up at least 4x bigger than the vanilla maps, being at least twice as long length wise and twice as wide. They don't feel like you are traveling across a miniature world anymore.

Vanilla maps are overall very mundane and boring (snowy mountains, green plains, etc), but the expansion maps are usually more fantastical (aside from PoF's five maps all being set in a boring flat desert).

So a modern GW2 map is like the size of a larger modern wow zone roughly.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So a modern GW2 map is like the size of a larger modern wow zone roughly.

GW2's expansion maps are nowhere near the same size as the Azure Span or the Ohn'arhn plains. About half that size at most. But there is more stuff to do packed into that area. In WoW, most of the Azure Span and the Plains is devoid of actual stuff to do. You're flying over fields with random herds of animals walking around. No events or quests to do. In GW2 you walk 20 feet and you're now in an event or on some achievement puzzle.