Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Geckoo]

I have to wonder why haven't they made those Jade bots the main feature to talk about since the very start instead of fishing or skiffs. Is not like any of the features is a game changer as gliding or mounts were, but at least they seem to have more impact than any of the main features that they've been promoting for months. With Anet you never know if it was a matter of not having them ready to show or just how bad they've always been at selling their own game.

I also wonder how they plan to bridge current content and expansion. HoT had LS2 as a build-up, PoF had LS3... the events from those expansions start on those living seasons. There are some great fan theories that link LS5 with the Aetherblades and Cantha and maybe they are right, but to me the issue is that at this rate we'll just get a letter from Taimi on the 28th and off we go to Cantha with no build-up to that moment and no visible threat having an impact on the world. Basically, no work from their part to hype the expansion in-game... at least so far.

[Scyth]

New Kaineng looks sick. Really looking forward to checking it out in-game.

[PACOX]

Final mastery tree




Press preview:

https://www.gamespace.com/all-articl...why-were-excit

[Edge-]

RIP copper salvage-o-matic, jade tech is gonna do that shit now. That's rad though, hopefully it's about as convenient for folks so they don't have to carry around stacks of salvage tools.

Though self-rezzing and those hoverboard things to get around the city? Fuck yeah.

[PACOX]

Differently something different and interesting. We will see. Seems like Jewelers (finally getting Jeweler lvl 500?) with craft resources that the bots need. From there you can customize the bots functions. There's probably some stuff that's baseline, other functions that consumer the item(s) Jewelers make to balance out the bot ie you probably won't be able to use to make a personal waypoint all the time due to resources/costs. Maybe it will work like the copper salvage kit but you always have to power it up with some battery vs the copper kit that doesn't, I can't see them just making their own gem store stuff obsolete.


Maybe they should have announced the bot first, but it was probably the feature that wasn't ready when the expac was supposed to come out.

Also I don't know if anyone noticed, the game looks at lot better in the bot trailer than it did in earlier reveals like the skiff one. Even the skiff itself looks better...the entire thing used to sit on top of the water and had 0 friction.

[Geckoo]

My guess is that the bot will be limited by resources so that the store tools stay on top in terms of convenience. Not only do i doubt that they'll invalidate their own store items, i'll be surprised if they don't monetize the hell out of those bots with skins.

Maybe they should have announced the bot first, but it was probably the feature that wasn't ready when the expac was supposed to come out.

That's why i hope honestly, that it was just a matter of not having them ready, but as i said... they are so bad at marketing that you never know.

The problem is that the first impression counts a lot and that was made with siege turtles, skiffs and fishing as the main features and none of them are the kind of thing that sells expansions. Announcing jade bots 3 weeks away from launch is great for those of us that where going to play anyway, but maybe it's too late to reach those that had a bad first impression.

[Ghost of Cow]

Damn, that was actually a great video and I'm surprised it came out of ANet at all to be honest!

I would agree that the mistake was not leading with that earlier, though. Fishing and boats sound boring as shit, but this could actually be interesting - depending on the implementation, of course. But beside the details, the video was just really well done.

(Maybe I was just a sucker for the bit with the kitten, though.)

[PACOX]

Two huge info dumps today

Jade bots run on cores. All players will have access to the cores but EOD players have more functionality. One core is a stat increase but limited to VIT at launch. Core have 3 tiers and EOD maps will have a place to change them out, older maps might (probably) receive stations later. The salvage feature isnt designed to negate current kits but to add QoL in the way of autosalvaging - > converting (karma was brought up) very low value drops.

Other news. Strike currency is being consolidated. No longer rotates between 3 different currencies weekly, discrete currency for Icebrood strikes and EOD strikes. Blue for the former, green for the latter.

Strikes taking a lot from FF14. You first encounter a strike via the story. After the story you gain access to the 'normal' fight. Harder difficultly comes later. Encounters will have defined phases that can't simply be skipped.

Shared boons will be capped at 5 players. This changed was seen as coming. Means more class diversity in squads since two players cannot cover all the boons in a group.

They also emphasized a change to drops across strikes, fractals, and raids The actual numbers are what they are but the goal is to make it so players can work towards legendaries regardless of game mode. The modes aren't equal, which is ultimately fine, but aren't punished for not being into one form of content over the other.

[Geckoo]

The salvage feature isnt designed to negate current kits but to add QoL in the way of autosalvaging - > converting (karma was brought up) very low value drops.

If i understood correctly, it's basically autosalvage for the low quality scrap items (white quality) that only exist to be salvaged.

Shared boons will be capped at 5 players. This changed was seen as coming. Means more class diversity in squads since two players cannot cover all the boons in a group.

This is great. Specially for strikes since raids are usually more open to have some degree of variety depending on the boss.

The greatest symptom of this problem is that anyone doing that kind of content instantly recognizes what elite specialization you are talking about if you say 'alac'. Having each group require a source for their boons and expanding the number of specs that can provide some of those boons is a great move and they also talk about a future change that will come on summer that will affect the two unique 10 man boons that are not actually boons: spirits and banners.

Really looking forward to how the meta changes in the next months and what new ways to play each class come out of it.

[PACOX]

The final final trailer is kind of dope

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[Edge-]

Yo what the fuck there's a city with magic billboards and shit? I haven't dived into all the EoD stuff yet so I know I've missed a bunch, but this is looking like one of their better trailers for the expansion even if part of it is dedicated to preview quotes.

And yo, little jade bot can play with kitty? Man, I've been holding out to buy after seeing what folks think of it out in the wild but like...I might have to get it now.

[PACOX]

Yo what the fuck there's a city with magic billboards and shit? I haven't dived into all the EoD stuff yet so I know I've missed a bunch, but this is looking like one of their better trailers for the expansion even if part of it is dedicated to preview quotes.

And yo, little jade bot can play with kitty? Man, I've been holding out to buy after seeing what folks think of it out in the wild but like...I might have to get it now.

Heres a track they released earlier. Tells you what kind of vibes they are trying to put out.



They seem to have an marketing campaign sort of kicking off this weekend and going through launch week. Sponsored streams, a CGI ad/teaser, real life marketing. Their last quarterly was relatively good before expac sales. Looking decent for Anet.

[Geckoo]

Heres a track they released earlier. Tells you what kind of vibes they are trying to put out.



They seem to have an marketing campaign sort of kicking off this weekend and going through launch week. Sponsored streams, a CGI ad/teaser, real life marketing. Their last quarterly was relatively good before expac sales. Looking decent for Anet.

That Jadepunk 1335 vibe... being a remix i don't expect that song to be heard in-game, but is great nonetheless.

And is really good to see them doing something to promote the game. EoD looks like a great starting point for new players, hope to see people joining in.

[Edge-]

They seem to have an marketing campaign sort of kicking off this weekend and going through launch week. Sponsored streams, a CGI ad/teaser, real life marketing. Their last quarterly was relatively good before expac sales. Looking decent for Anet.

Damn, I can dig the tune/tone. I need to start my research now.

And yeah, been seeing some actual advertisements and some fairly decent banner/video ad spots. Seems like their marketing team is finally stepping up for the first time in like, ever. Looking like some good shit so far.

[PACOX]

They dropped another remix.

[MoanaLisa]

Heres a track they released earlier. Tells you what kind of vibes they are trying to put out.

Music is very "Big Trouble in Little China"(esque).

[Edge-]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...to-magic-find/

When Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons launches next week there will be a change to magic find in the update notes, and we wanted to give you some context for why we made the change and explain the overall impact.

Currently—with the exception of AP bonuses and time or location specific bonuses—the maximal magic find percentage you can obtain is 735%. With the launch of End of Dragons, the cap for maximum magic find will be set at 750%.

The primary reason for the adjustment is that when magic find goes over 900%, it causes errors in the rewards system. Our loot tables were not built to let it go that high and as the game ages, making changes to accommodate that becomes less and less feasible.

This change allows us to be able to grant magic find more generously from new sources and even introduce some more containers which can be affected by magic find, which we’d previously avoided due to the concerns just outlined.

This seems...good? I don't mess around with MF much, but it seems like a good technical fix with some positive knock-on effects.

[Ghost of Cow]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...to-magic-find/

This seems...good? I don't mess around with MF much, but it seems like a good technical fix with some positive knock-on effects.

I find that explanation kinda hard to believe, considering that testing at various ranges of MF never showed some kind of weird "Loot is now broken" point at over 900%.

Not to mention that the whole thing about junk drops disappearing ar 900-1000% MF was already predicted just using the information given by ANet and player testing, due to how it was supposed to affect the loot table (in the same way that Defense "pushed" crits off the table for tanks in TBC).

Sounds more like they just wanted to nerf profits from stacking huge MF and opening MF-affected bags all at once in Silverwastes or something.

[PACOX]

I find that explanation kinda hard to believe, considering that testing at various ranges of MF never showed some kind of weird "Loot is now broken" point at over 900%.

Not to mention that the whole thing about junk drops disappearing ar 900-1000% MF was already predicted just using the information given by ANet and player testing, due to how it was supposed to affect the loot table (in the same way that Defense "pushed" crits off the table for tanks in TBC).

Sounds more like they just wanted to nerf profits from stacking huge MF and opening MF-affected bags all at once in Silverwastes or something.

I think the envenlopes from the recent festival in fact break. The bug could have been from something earlier but was never fully detected/confirmed until you had a bunch of people stacking MF opening a large amount MF affected bags at once.

A hard cap instead of a soft cap is easier to design for so it should work out in the long run.

[Svifnymr]

Unless I misunderstand though, they're not "fixing" the 900 cap, just getting closer to it with new stuff? They're raising the 735 to 750, but that doesn't actually change the 900, right?