The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[rubinstein]

you put more effort into this post than anet put into icebrood saga
not sure if gw2 deserves it

 

[Caim]

I haven't played the new mini-expansion yet since I was a little dispirited by how lackluster EoD was compared to prior expansions but I still intend to eventually get around to it.

It feels very detached from the rest of the game. The main location is in the ass-end of nowhere where you can't just walk if you wanted to (at least you get a portal there once you reach a certain point in the story). It's kind of refreshing that instead of having people line up to suck your dick, balls and asshole because you're the mighty Commander they go "hey you're that Commander dude, that's kinda cool but you ain't shit here". There's a few familiar faces but that's about it for the main cast, so if you don't really enjoy them that's a good thing. The map however is, well, pathetic:

That big white circle in the middle is the main city in this expansion. Except it's not the entire circle: it's just the northern half that you can walk around in. The rest is relegated to a single story mission. The small blot in the bottom right corner is your starting town for the expansion where there's some basic goods and services, but there's no bank, trader or portal back to the rest of the game until you've unlocked the main city. The town is directly attached to the first zone as well. The rest of the map is three zones that I described here, and they're extremely lackluster. They do have their own meta events, and the one in the uppermost zone of SOTO is especially impressive.

There are no renown hearts this time around: there's just going around on your own and doing the events as usual. Because of the world's size and openness you get a Skyscale you only get to use in this particular map, and you can unlock it for use all over the world through completing three achievements that involve buying stuff with provisioner's tokens, grind (fortunately common) collection drops from a variety of monsters, buy some other knickknacks and expose the egg to a variety of random bullshit ranging from jumping into the lava in the Black Citadel to getting frozen by the Claw of Jormag, take damage from quicksand and engaging in a Legend of Zelda easter egg in Ebonhawke. This is a much faster, easier and cheaper way to do this than the previous method.

The main attraction in the expansion is rift hunting: you get a fancy jewel that lets you find rifts in reality that are being invaded by the Kryptis, which are basically demons. Beating them and closing the rift (which is a group effort) nets you a reward and you can move on to the next rift. They always appear in the two zones on the map above and in three more previous zones on a weekly rotation (which get you more rewards and build towards a title). One of the rewards is three tiers of new crafting materials, which you will need in the thousands to get the good rewards of the expansion.

There's also been a change to how daily login rewards work: they've been replaced by the Wizard's Vault. This is a series of daily, weekly and seasonal rewards that give you points that let you buy a variety of stuff ranging from rare crafting materials and currencies (think Obsidian Shards, Vision Crystals, Mystic Clovers and Laurels) to straight up boxes of Ascended gear and weapons. Almost everything is limited in how many you can buy per season (you can get only one Ascended weapon and three armor pieces per season), so if you're a hardcore player you can get most stuff pretty quickly. You can also choose what kind of assignments you want for the dailies and weeklys: PvE, PvP and WvW. The dailies can be as easy as craft something in the mystic forge, defeat 10 enemies in (region), harvest 15 resources, catch 5 fish, defeat enemies while under the effect of food/enchantment, complete a mini dungeon or jumping puzzle, and so on. Weeklies are a bit more involved and can be completing boss world events, salvage 50 items, beating 100 enemies of a type, beating 10 champion enemies and so on. If you complete 4 dailies or 6 weeklies you get a bonus reward, which is quite significant for the weeklies.

Honestly, SotO is not very impressive but there's a few interesting thing out there. At the end of the month there will be the second update for the patch including everyone getting new weapons, and I'm eager to see where we go from there.

 

[Drakortha]

The story is so touching, it gets me in the feels every time. I'm usually in tears by the end of most story chapters.

 

[Caim]

Reveal trailer for the next patch. Nothing we didn't know already.



The main quest of SOTO has been kinda ass so far. There's been at most three interesting quests, and the rest is just basic combat. There's also way too much of "Oh yeah you gotta go and find some world events on your own to progress the story or do some Kryptis rifts not because they advance the plot but because we say so". The worst of these was the second of three missions from the first update: the first was a pretty decent mission teaching you a mechanic used in a new group instance and lets you fight a new enemy, but the second has you do several events before putting you up against either yet another Kryptis rift or do the map's meta event. I did the latter and went up against a Legendary-tier boss with several dozen players. Said boss had several different mechanics inclduing one where pillars drop from the ceiling you have to hide behind to avoid being one-shot. While the boss wasn't half bad the next mission introduced me to a boss, who is the boss of a chapter end mind you, just ran at me with a hammer while throwing patches of damage on the floor. I want to see what comes next, but to be fair I'm not expecting something very different.

 

[Drakortha]

You can get the Legendary Relic for free, they said. All you have to do is craft a Legendary Rune, they said.

600 gold + hundreds of materials later... and ArenaNet robbed my account again.

 

[Caim]

You can get the Legendary Relic for free, they said. All you have to do is craft a Legendary Rune, they said.

600 gold + hundreds of materials later... and ArenaNet robbed my account again.

Don't ask for Canadian healthcare just yet!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/legendary-relics-are-coming-soon/

Compensation for Legendary Rune Owners​

When we first announced relics, we mentioned that when we were ready to add the legendary relic to the game we’d compensate players who have already crafted legendary runes. This is because non-attribute bonus effects were removed from runes when relics were introduced. At the time, we were still evaluating what the appropriate compensation would be in terms of legendary relic progress.

Now we’re happy to announce that when legendary relics become available, any player who has already crafted at least one legendary rune will be granted a legendary relic for free. In other words, you’ll get 100% of legendary relic progress as a bonus for having already crafted a rune. We had previously communicated that crafting all seven runes would yield additional progress, but as we evaluated options for compensation, it became clear that the best choice was to fully compensate anyone who had made any legendary runes prior to the legendary relic becoming available with a completed legendary relic. When the release that contains legendary relics goes live, the eligibility period will end, and the only way to obtain a legendary relic will be through the normal crafting journey.

We’ll announce the timing of the next update soon, as it’s coming up pretty quickly.

You will get your Legendary Relic, but you have to wait for the next update patch. Which is going to be on Tuesday.

 

[Caim]

So in the final weekend I've managed to unlock the Skyscale for world usage as well as the full set of Oneiros-Spun Armor alongside its matching cape. The Skyscale wasn't so bad, and the cape was mostly a matter of doing events in combination with a few obscure things (find hidden diving goggles, emote in a specific place, find the rocks hiding treasure and so on). The armor was a wholly different beast: 1500 map currency turned into items, another half dozen items made from almost 10 full stacks of untradable materials you get from events and Convergences in addition to a whole bunch of Ectoplasm and a few Mystic Clovers, six Gifts of X which is a MAJOR gold sink and of course 3k research notes, but I've found an easy way to mass obtain those by making several stacks of Potent Potions of (whatever's cheapest), then turning them into notes at an 1:1 rate. But at least I'm done now.

I have half the precursor armors I need for the legendary armor (the first you get from just doing the story missions), but for the next set you need... another set of armor made like the Oneiros set but you need TWICE the things made from map currencies. Yeah, FUCK that.

 

[Caim]

Update hit.

Wanna know how to unlock the new weapons?

You do the first quest of the new patch, which unlocks it account wide. It also carries zero weight: one moment you're collecting stuff, then the dude tells you "oh that was fast, we're going to study this by the way have fun with your new toys".

And those motherfuckers added TWO bars you gotta fill up by doing group events in THIS SINGLE FUCKING QUEST.

FUCK.

New part of the map is a lot more vertical than the first part. The meta event has a lot less of the bullshit where they throw all the players at a single barrier: you're always either actually doing something or fight your way through a mob of enemies to get to somewhere to do. The boss just throws a lotta bullshit onto the ground that damges you, and at every 25% health lost you have to fight some champion-level enemies you've fought before or spit in the Eye of Sauron with your mount. You have to do one of each six world bosses to get an unlock to start with your legendary armor, but they're pretty basic Legendary-level enemies so just join the randos you see doing the events.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Darn. Would have been cool if there was even a tidbit of lore about learning these new weapons for your class like the elite spec trainers in Cantha.

 

[Caim]

Darn. Would have been cool if there was even a tidbit of lore about learning these new weapons for your class like the elite spec trainers in Cantha.

You also get a new achievements for getting up to 1000 kills with your new weapon.

Except these achievements don't seem to work properly.

 

[Drakortha]

So what happens if you're a new player and you go to equip a Staff on your warrior and you're hit with this big red text "SORRY, YOU CAN'T EQUIP THIS. YOU NEED LE ACHIEVEMENT". Except you didn't need a stupid achievement to equip all of the rest of Warriors weapons? Where's the consistency in this at all?

If they're going to give more weapons to all the classes, then that's a great thing. But why do they need to be locked behind an achievement? It's like Anet are completely allergic to fun. It's always 1 step forwards but 2 steps back with their retarded shit.

I'd hate to be a new player on this game. Imagine the willpower you would need to have to be able to push forward through all the inconvenient bullshit Anet have placed at every turn, when you could just go back to WoW and pay a sub fee and be rid of it all?

 

[Caim]

So what happens if you're a new player and you go to equip a Staff on your warrior and you're hit with this big red text "SORRY, YOU CAN'T EQUIP THIS. YOU NEED LE ACHIEVEMENT". Except you didn't need a stupid achievement to equip all of the rest of Warriors weapons? Where's the consistency in this at all?

Why does everything they add these days have to tie into these bullshit systems which have long overstayed their welcome? If they're going to give more weapons to all the classes, then that's a great thing. But why fuck does everything need strings attached? It's like Anet are completely allergic to fun. It's always 1 step forwards but 2 steps back with their retarded shit.

I'd hate to be a new player on this game. Imagine the willpower you would need to have to be able to push forward through all the inconvenient bullshit Anet have placed at every turn, when you could just go back to WoW and pay a sub fee and be rid of it all?

It just says you can't equip it, like how a Warrior can't equip a Scepter at all. You want access to the torch, pistol and daggers? You can reach max level, pick your relevant elite specialization and take it from there. But what's that, you want to play a twin dagger Barbarian? Better talk to that one dude hidden away in the beginning of Secrets of the Obscure to unlock that!

But it gets worse. The Warrior Staff you mention has a nice toolkit: a hit/hit/hit+heal combo, a mid-ranged targeted leap, a long-range charge against a specific target, a mid-ranged pull, a block that can turn into a heal, and your burst both heals and inflicts conditions. While it's best in group combat, it also gives plenty of healing for when you're fighting alone. But I don't play a Warrior. I play a Weaver. The options given to my Pistol 3 button is similar in size to the entire two weapon five button toolkit that other classes get. With my Pistol 3 I get:

- An aimable dash followed by a shot that inflicts conditions and can remove movement conditions from you, and lets you dash again
- An AoE that slows enemies, speeds up allies, and can explode on expiration
- A shot that bleeds and immobilizes on top of granting barrier
- A shot that explodes, inflicts fire damage and can grant an aura that damages enemies and gives might
- A backwards evade that can give a defensive aura and superspeed
- A shot that can give up to four different effects on your enemy
- A shot that inflcits conditions on both the target and ones behind it, on top of an additional explosion
- A bleed shot that can give you health and a barrier
- A shot that deals burning, chill, can hit for vulnerability and can grant an aura
- A shot that deals several damaging conditions and can hit for a more severe condition and explode on impact

Sure the above is given just to Weavers: other Elementalists only get the first four. But all of them also get Pistol 2:

- A daze/vulnerability effect that can reduce cooldown on your next Pistol skill
- A bleed effect that can give healing
- Another bleed effect that also cripples, hits several targets and can deal even more bleeding
- A bouncing shots that inflicts burn, bounces between targets (and gives might when it does) and can give extra condition damage

Also note that both Pistol 2 and 3 generate resource (Bullets) that the other button can use, so it very well matters the order you press your buttons in. Fire 2 into Fire 3 gives you a fire aura, while Fire 3 into Fire 2 increases your condition damage for 10 seconds. If you're a Weaver and attune to the same element twice you get your normal Pistol 3 buttons, but the dual attacks you get from two different elements won't give you a Bullet and just consumes them. So then you're going Pistol 2 -> Switch -> Pistol 2 -> Pistol 3, which gives you a different effect from going Pistol 2 -> Switch -> Pistol 3. Sure, going 2-2-3 is more effective than 2-3, but going 2-3 lets you go into another 2-2-3 if you don't need the effect of the second 2. Do note that Bullets don't have a timer on them, so you can save them up until you have all four. At that point your Pistol 1 for all elements become a single-target Grand Finale (the Hammer 3 showstopper) for quite some damage and a lot of conditions. And until you deliberately push it you won't have access to your basic attacks. And you get all that before even considering your offhand: do you want the close-range AoEs of the dagger, the defensive options of the focus, or the big boons and damage effects of the warhorn? It also doesn't help that the bullets floating around your character are very close so don't expect to see anything once things get busy, unless you like looking for tiny icons on your status bar.

Don't get me wrong: I'm going to play this shit like the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata, but I just had all of this dropped on me yesterday. Because of its vast array of options Elementalist is something you very much want practice with over the course of leveling. Just switching between Pistol 2 and 3 while dancing between the elements is a good start for a new Elementalist, but even as someone with a bit of experience under his belt as a Weaver makes seeing all this feel a bit like this dude:

And yet I'm already looking forward to the release of the off-hand pistol to make this even more fun.

 

[Caim]

So I've completed the new part fo the story. The second mission is a pretty banal enemy gauntlet up a mountain, where you finally meet a dude with a look different from all the Kryptis you've fought so far. Then the patch's main antagonist shows up who also has a new model, alongside her bodyguards... who look just like the first dude. You fight a big horde of enemies, quite a few of whom spawn OUTSIDE of the mission area. Well done, Anet.

The third mission is following your friend around a section of the map. Early on you need to track down some hidden enemies, which comes down to "stand in the right place you have no way of knowing IS the right place so that you get jumped". You proceed across the map until you get to the final fight: some of the new goons followed by the final boss. She's pretty much a Catalyst, swinging her hammer around and dealing condition damage. She also has a big AOE attack that you get an achievement for if you don't get hit by it, which is easy because it's always preceeded by a shield and it charges sloooowly, giving you ample time to run out.

After winning the fight you need to go around the world map to light some torches and keep enemies away that reset your progress if they hit a torch, and you get your final cutscene. This is supposed to be a big, intimidating moment where you're renedered helpless... except I accidentally pressed my switch weapon button and I broke free from the paralyzing effect, allowing me to run laps around the scary thing (but I couldn't attack it though).

So yeah, the missions were kinda ass again.

And I think I figured out why the weapon achievement seems bugged for the Elementalist Pistol: you need to kill enemies to count. Except you need to kill them directly with the weapon, so Conditions don't count. And Ele Pistol is very much a Condition damage weapon.

 

[rubinstein]

So yeah, the missions were kinda ass again.

woah, color me surprised

i tried to play this patch, but after the very first story instance, which is your typical gw2 experience of checking on npcs feelings, i just got so mentally exhausted i got back to playing other games.
i am saying farewell to gw2 (entire franchise, possibly) with soto, which i may or may not finish in one go in the last patch. lifes too short to waste it on such garbage experience, im certainly not in the mood now.

 

[Drakortha]

I logged in a few times for the new weapons and some PvP dailies because I was edging on 20k AP and I wanted the associated gems. Got em , but I'm not motivated to go do the PvE content or story content at all. From what I played of the Ranger Maces and Warrior Staff, they were solid and synergized really well with other weapons. At least for now before Anet decide to nerf the fun outta em.

 

[Vyvian]

So yeah, the missions were kinda ass again.

woah, color me surprised

i tried to play this patch, but after the very first story instance, which is your typical gw2 experience of checking on npcs feelings, i just got so mentally exhausted i got back to playing other games.
i am saying farewell to gw2 (entire franchise, possibly) with soto, which i may or may not finish in one go in the last patch. lifes too short to waste it on such garbage experience, im certainly not in the mood now.

That's where I have been myself. I just have zero desire to play anymore. The story is uninteresting trash, the dialogue is god awful and the gameplay is stagnant. It's just the same thing over and over with nothing to really draw me in anymore.
It has a fantastic honeymoon period but once you get out of that haze you see what a mess it all is.

 

[NotSweeper]

>So I'm playing this MMORPG
>I've played it for years, mayhaps even a decade
>But I really dislike the direction the game took several years back
>No, I will not stop playing it
>I will continue to play it and bitch about it on Godforsaken forums which is equal to screaming into the void
Is it just sunk cost fallacy? MMORPGs are dead lmao, just move on.

 

[Drakortha]

Is it just sunk cost fallacy?

Yes.

MMORPGs are dead lmao, just move on.

Gaming is dead.

 

[NotSweeper]

Gaming is dead.

Fair enough.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

>So I'm playing this MMORPG
>I've played it for years, mayhaps even a decade
>But I really dislike the direction the game took several years back
>No, I will not stop playing it
>I will continue to play it and bitch about it on Godforsaken forums which is equal to screaming into the void
Is it just sunk cost fallacy? MMORPGs are dead lmao, just move on.

To me, GW2 is one of the last options I have left when it comes to new high production value high fantasy RPGs. What else is there? The only other one coming out of the West is WoW. Most JRPG devs died during the 2000s or transitioned to making mobile games. We get a game like Xenoblade or Monochrome Mobius once every 4 to 5 years, and then there is the almost annual Trails series, and that's it. I'm not interested in playing photorealistic stuff like Dragon's Dogma or indie games or top down CRPGs.

 

[NotSweeper]

>So I'm playing this MMORPG
>I've played it for years, mayhaps even a decade
>But I really dislike the direction the game took several years back
>No, I will not stop playing it
>I will continue to play it and bitch about it on Godforsaken forums which is equal to screaming into the void
Is it just sunk cost fallacy? MMORPGs are dead lmao, just move on.

To me, GW2 is one of the last options I have left when it comes to new high production value high fantasy RPGs. What else is there? The only other one coming out of the West is WoW. Most JRPG devs died during the 2000s or transitioned to making mobile games. We get a game like Xenoblade or Monochrome Mobius once every 4 to 5 years, and then there is the almost annual Trails series, and that's it. I'm not interested in playing photorealistic stuff like Dragon's Dogma or indie games or top down CRPGs.

I guess mostly it's my inability to understand how people get sucked into MMORPGs in the first place.
I've tried a lot of 'em, I've played very few for more than a month - including GW2. The notable exception being OSRS.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

>So I'm playing this MMORPG
>I've played it for years, mayhaps even a decade
>But I really dislike the direction the game took several years back
>No, I will not stop playing it
>I will continue to play it and bitch about it on Godforsaken forums which is equal to screaming into the void
Is it just sunk cost fallacy? MMORPGs are dead lmao, just move on.

To me, GW2 is one of the last options I have left when it comes to new high production value high fantasy RPGs. What else is there? The only other one coming out of the West is WoW. Most JRPG devs died during the 2000s or transitioned to making mobile games. We get a game like Xenoblade or Monochrome Mobius once every 4 to 5 years, and then there is the almost annual Trails series, and that's it. I'm not interested in playing photorealistic stuff like Dragon's Dogma or indie games or top down CRPGs.

I guess mostly it's my inability to understand how people get sucked into MMORPGs in the first place.
I've tried a lot of 'em, I've played very few for more than a month - including GW2. The notable exception being OSRS.

My dad got me into MMOs. He was playing Space Cowboy Online, a F2P faction war MMO where you played as fighter pilots. I played that (and the rerelease, Flysis/Air Rivals/ACE Online) with him for a couple years. Then they added literal P2W slot machines that gave you the best armors for gambling with real money (in a faction war PvP game) and the playerbase died and I walked away. Then, as I walking through Walmart's PC gaming section, I noticed those really fancy Blizzard boxes for WoW. I opened the panels and saw the gorgeous 2D art by Glenn Rane and Wei Wang inside, the cool character designs. Bought it and went home and played it and fell in love with the colorful visuals and the imaginative environments and cool classes and good music. I was initially a loner and didn't really socialize, instead there for the lore and aesthetics. It wasn't until later that I started getting into the community. That's when I joined my first internet forum, MMO Champion (I lurked there before finally making an account to throw my hat into a discussion), which was mainly a WoW fansite but naturally the people there also developed in an interest in similar MMOs.

I remember that there was a lot of excitement for the upcoming Guild Wars 2 due to the infamous manifesto, and Anet had prestige back then. GW2 got bad word of mouth during its launch and I was too engrossed in MoP at the time. It wasn't until the infamous 6.1 selfie patch that my interest in WoW began to wane and the cool announcement trailer for Heart of Thorns that I took notice of GW2. The announce trailer with the unique plant enemies and the cool elite specializations captured my attention, so I bought in that January nine months before HoT's release and played the hell out of GW2.

 

[NotSweeper]

Yeah see, MMOs just never clicked with me like that.
I got sucked into vidya by watching my uncle play Age of Empires and Heroes 3.

 

[Drakortha]

I got into GW2 at it's launch. It straight up replaced Elder Scrolls for me as a fantasy RPG because Skyrim was such a letdown that couldn't hold me for longer than a few months after it's launch once it's honeymoon phase was over. Yeah, they're totally different types of games if you compare them both side by side, but GW2 scratched the same itch for me anyway. I never liked MMO's but GW2 didn't really feel like one to me. The exploration was pretty nice and the maps were very artistically put together and it had a phenomenal soundtrack that helped in tying it all together. It's only over the last few years It's starting to show it's true colors with all the grinding shit and token storytelling.

 

[Caim]

Once Secrets of the Obscure is done I would not be surprised if nothing that happened in it will have a major impact on things to come. So far everything in the story up to this expansion has had to do with the Elder Dragons, buildup to them or their aftermath. But with how constrained to the Horn of Maguuma things have been so far I would not be surprised if things end with the characters going "Thank you for your help Wayfinder, now fuck off and we'll see you when the writers run out of ideas." I'm curious to see what they're planning for the next expansion and if they're going to pull the same stunt.