The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Where is the sale?

 

[TedNugent]

Oh fuck I'm sorry, There is no sale right now

I clicked on the wrong link for the Wiki page for a similar event last year, please disregard.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/New_Hero_Jump_Start

 

[TedNugent]

Okay, NOW the sale is up:

Heart of Thorns, End of Dragons and Path of Fire bundle for $20 (MSRP $50). Not terrible but I could live without End of Dragons TBH.
https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us/collections?tab=0

Path of Fire and Heart of Thorns $7.50 (MSRP $30). This is the best value in terms of content as it includes nearly all mounts and the best expansion packs and PvE zones to date, along with 2 sets of elite specs per class, and includes Icebrood Saga. You can probably be perfectly satisfied just buying this alone. If you're just dipping your toes in, might as well grab this one now. You can't really skip these xpacs, and the only ones I would say are genuinely good.
https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us/path-of-fire

Secrets of the Obscure for $20 (normally $25) - who cares
https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us/secrets-of-the-obscure?tab=0

End of Dragons $15 (normally $30). Primary selling point is a new slot with some PvE buffs. Includes one more elite spec per class.
https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us/end-of-dragons?tab=0

All of the above include at least one level 80 boost

Janthir Wilds (latest xpac) is not on sale price (it's at the $25 MSRP) and does not include an 80 boost. The primary selling point is new relics, land spears, and warclaw is actually a p. good pve mount with probably the best mount mastery in the game (+20% energy regen to all mounts, meaning more boosties, gliding, etc). Not necessary tho, and not all of the content for this one is out yet.

 

[Caim]

Where are you getting that the HoT/PoF combo also gives you IBS? That $7.50 is just those two. It's $20 for HoT/PoF/EoD, and $50 for everything up to EoD.

https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us/collections?tab=3

I also think it's funny that the Deluxe edition contains stuff that is not in the complete edition, since that's just the first three expansions with the EoD deluxe edition. That one might be on sale now as well, and contains stuff like a character slot (normally 10 bucks) and two mount skins.

 

[rubinstein]

i have crafted the spear earlier this week, and i can see that anet tried making it interesting, but like with most of gw2, it came out mid. Klobjarne is actually six different skins. while the primitive, haunted haft of the spear stays exactly the same for each skin, the blades differ, so its not like we are getting six entirely different cosmetics in a single package, no. the other visual gimmick of Klobjarne is a little ghostly arsenal of remaining spears that spawns behind players back, when Klobjarne is drawn. they react to player using weapon skills by infusing the physical Klobjarne with their presence during animations. and different spears are mapped to different skills, auto-attack included. this is a cool idea, but gw2 is not known for its visual clarity, so during melee fights these effects are barely noticeable. the floating arsenal also looks unimpressive, especially its idle state. the spears just float behind the player, clumped together. they hover there without any innertia, momentum, it doesnt look lively at all. when the character turns or jumps, the ghostly spears reposition themselves weightlessly, like they are glued to characters back. thats kind of a solution a cosplayer would utlize. i found it cheap, i would rather turn it off given an option. footfalls are ok though, theres also a decent killing blow animation, so its not all bad. just mid.
e: i gotta admit this is misleading what i said here. later this day i noticed that these animations are in fact lively, it is just not very apparent unless player decides to move really frantically, like taking very sharp turns or jumping from heights.

here are some effects on my engie, more on Klobjarne can be obviously found on its wiki page:

attacks

walk

i also raided a bit, i was excited for this aspect of the expansion. while i am rather satisfied with greer and ura encounters, yet again, they are just mid, i am not attempting decima. at least for now. decima reminds me of a simon says game, where a single, tiny failure may cause a game over... but here a couple of minutes later. i watched guides, and i felt so deflated each time i attempted to learn its mechanics, i just gave up at some point. finding competent pug to do this would be nightmare. someone wrote in comment section under one of the guides: "cool, 8 virtuoso fight " and that described the footage and commentary perfectly. and anet genuinely excpected newcomers to learn this boss from story, convs, and metas? absolute failure on their side. well, at least they were able to recycle some content, good for them.
i am slightly disappointed with raids visuals. mount balrior looks so raw. on one hand, its understandable, they applied its biome properly. on the other hand, it looks barely better than ascalon, so plain and booooooring.

well, a couple of raids more, and im done with gw2 for at least half a year. i will catch up with the last patch. janthir was surprisngly ok, even if only, you guessed it, mid.

 

[Caim]

So I've made my way through Jahai Bluffs over the weekend, the LW4 map and... this is pretty much a proto-Secrets of the Obscure. You have pockets of land from the Mists plonked down that have little to do with one another, rifts that spit out enemy invaders that you hunt down, the local forces against the invaders being holed up in a sanctuary that starts out as overrun but you clear out for your own use, and so on. Main difference is that you don't have to expand on the Wizard's Tower yourself and it starts out complete, and with some extra services the Sunspear hideout could've made for a decent hub area.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So I've made my way through Jahai Bluffs over the weekend, the LW4 map and... this is pretty much a proto-Secrets of the Obscure.

I think it worked in Jahai's case because it was a free patch map, and the thing people were more interested in looking forward to in S4 was the story. The asset reuse was not a big deal, and the bubbles in the desert looked visually unique. Problem with SotO is that the main story of GW2 had concluded, so SotO had to do more work to get people invested. It did not have the sheer aesthetic appeal or large content draw of HoT with its four malevolent multilayered maps. The floating islands in the prerelease materials did not look as cool as other floating island worlds like Granblue Fantasy or Xenoblade 2 or Bastion from WoW. It just looked like cheap plasticky asset reuse islands, which tied into the feeling that SotO was a cheap dlc being made as Anet's interest in GW2 was winding down.

 

[Caim]

So I've made my way through Jahai Bluffs over the weekend, the LW4 map and... this is pretty much a proto-Secrets of the Obscure.

I think it worked in Jahai's case because it was a free patch map, and the thing people were more interested in looking forward to in S4 was the story. The asset reuse was not a big deal, and the bubbles in the desert looked visually unique. Problem with SotO is that the main story of GW2 had concluded, so SotO had to do more work to get people invested. It did not have the sheer aesthetic appeal or large content draw of HoT with its four malevolent multilayered maps. The floating islands in the prerelease materials did not look as cool as other floating island worlds like Granblue Fantasy or Xenoblade 2 or Bastion from WoW. It just looked like cheap plasticky asset reuse islands, which tied into the feeling that SotO was a cheap dlc being made as Anet's interest in GW2 was winding down.

Another thing in Jahai is that the extra areas are just a bonus for the map's main theme. You visit these places once as part of the story, and there's a few things to do in these areas (like the legendary wyvern fight), but the rest of the map is just Kralk being up to his usual bullshit. Then again, Jahai is part of the Elona tileset, and these maps just kind of blur together for me with their desert stretches, mesas, oases and Kralk's crack rocks, with Balthazar's forces and Joko's infrastructure sprinkled in for the PoF maps and the first half of LW4.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So I've made my way through Jahai Bluffs over the weekend, the LW4 map and... this is pretty much a proto-Secrets of the Obscure.

I think it worked in Jahai's case because it was a free patch map, and the thing people were more interested in looking forward to in S4 was the story. The asset reuse was not a big deal, and the bubbles in the desert looked visually unique. Problem with SotO is that the main story of GW2 had concluded, so SotO had to do more work to get people invested. It did not have the sheer aesthetic appeal or large content draw of HoT with its four malevolent multilayered maps. The floating islands in the prerelease materials did not look as cool as other floating island worlds like Granblue Fantasy or Xenoblade 2 or Bastion from WoW. It just looked like cheap plasticky asset reuse islands, which tied into the feeling that SotO was a cheap dlc being made as Anet's interest in GW2 was winding down.

Another thing in Jahai is that the extra areas are just a bonus for the map's main theme. You visit these places once as part of the story, and there's a few things to do in these areas (like the legendary wyvern fight), but the rest of the map is just Kralk being up to his usual bullshit. Then again, Jahai is part of the Elona tileset, and these maps just kind of blur together for me with their desert stretches, mesas, oases and Kralk's crack rocks, with Balthazar's forces and Joko's infrastructure sprinkled in for the PoF maps and the first half of LW4.

It really does not help that Tyria is divided into small instances maps, and the engine has a short draw distance so you can't see any landmarks out of bounds in the far distance like a mountain or a city to give you a sense of location.

 

[Caim]

So I've made my way through Jahai Bluffs over the weekend, the LW4 map and... this is pretty much a proto-Secrets of the Obscure.

I think it worked in Jahai's case because it was a free patch map, and the thing people were more interested in looking forward to in S4 was the story. The asset reuse was not a big deal, and the bubbles in the desert looked visually unique. Problem with SotO is that the main story of GW2 had concluded, so SotO had to do more work to get people invested. It did not have the sheer aesthetic appeal or large content draw of HoT with its four malevolent multilayered maps. The floating islands in the prerelease materials did not look as cool as other floating island worlds like Granblue Fantasy or Xenoblade 2 or Bastion from WoW. It just looked like cheap plasticky asset reuse islands, which tied into the feeling that SotO was a cheap dlc being made as Anet's interest in GW2 was winding down.

Another thing in Jahai is that the extra areas are just a bonus for the map's main theme. You visit these places once as part of the story, and there's a few things to do in these areas (like the legendary wyvern fight), but the rest of the map is just Kralk being up to his usual bullshit. Then again, Jahai is part of the Elona tileset, and these maps just kind of blur together for me with their desert stretches, mesas, oases and Kralk's crack rocks, with Balthazar's forces and Joko's infrastructure sprinkled in for the PoF maps and the first half of LW4.

It really does not help that Tyria is divided into small instances maps, and the engine has a short draw distance so you can't see any landmarks out of bounds in the far distance like a mountain or a city to give you a sense of location.

I think it's partially to make the world look larger than it truly is. This is also why you can't see distant places as part of the skybox: from Southsun Cove you should be able to see Caledon to the west, Bloodtide and Sparkfly to the east, Claw Island and the Wizard's Tower to the north and Orr to the south. Or the massive cube in Sandswept Isles from Istand and Dragonfall, or Draconis Mons from Rata Sum, Dragonfall, Ember Bay and the western Orr maps. Even as recent as SotO you can't see Skywatch or the Tower from Amnytas or vice versa. The only one I can think this actually is the case is that you can see Janthir Syntri from Lowland Shore.

 

[Caim]

Hey, remember that big new update with more raid difficulty modes, new masteries, new gear, new relics and a new map that was due for release today?

Spoiler

It got delayed until March 11th.