guild wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack – Part 3

Guild Wars 2 goes “mega.”

Welcome back! This is the third and final part of our coverage of the Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack, which goes live on the 15th! We’ve covered balance updates, PvP, quality of life upgrades, the new wardrobe feature, and new traits, but this part of the patch figures to be bigger than them all! Responding to the game-wide issue of certain zones and cities being barren and unpopulated, ArenaNet has seen fit to completely overhaul the way servers operate, giving birth to the “Megaserver System.”

How will it work? Well, for starters, it won’t be going entirely into effect on the 15th. It will be a deliberate process, beginning with the Heart of the Mists PvP hub and the maps with the lowest populations, and should be complete by the end of the year. The Megaserver System seeks to provide players with well-populated zones around the clock, that way there’s always someone to play with and the less populated events in the game get done more often. Instead of each server having one main copy of a given map, the Megaserver System will combine all worlds together and only have the number of copies it needs to accommodate the player population in a given map. It will also allow for players who are in the same party or guild to play together more easily, with functions dedicated to ensuring that related players are placed in the same instance of a map or can easily join friends if they’re separated.

But wait! World bosses spawn at different times on each server! How will they be affected? Fear not, players. With the rollout of the Megaserver Systems comes a standardized schedule for the various world bosses, which you can find here. Bosses that previously did not have failure mechanics or timers will be getting them, to ensure that the game remains on schedule. Also, many of the bosses will be tweaked to preserve balance, and this includes abilities, overall difficulty, or even the event chains that lead up to their encounters. Such changes were not detailed in the reveal, but will be available in the release notes next week.

Waypoints, dungeons, and temples will be slightly affected by the new changes as well. For instance, you will no longer be able to tell if a waypoint is actually uncontested until you arrive on the map that it’s in. In the Orr maps, which have many contested waypoints, this figures to be a bit of a hassle. The same goes for the three dungeons that require event chain completion to open: Citadel of Flame, Crucible of Eternity, and The Ruined City of Arah. You will now have to waypoint to Fireheart Rise, Mount Maelstrom, or Cursed Shore, respectively, to find out the status of these dungeons. As for temples, the god statues that normally have cross-map mechanics will no longer function that way, and instead will only be active when the nearest temple becomes contested.

The final aspects of the Megaserver System covered were guilds and World vs. World. Guilds will remain separate for now; they will still be server-specific until the Megaserver System is completely implemented, but once that happens guild members will earn influence towards the same total regardless of their home world. Guilds will still have a hard cap of 500 members and if a guild has chapters on multiple servers, they cannot be combined. World vs. World will remain unchanged for the time being and logically speaking, it’s unlikely to be affected by the Megaserver System at all. ArenaNet is making many ambitious changes here, so it’s nice to see that they’re preserving the identity of Guild Wars 2‘s WvW game mode for the sake of those who have made their legend on the battlefield.

With all of these imminent changes coming to Guild Wars 2, the game will never be the same again! I’m admittedly skeptical about a few things that ArenaNet is trying with this patch, but I’m also greatly excited that a number of issues that have existed since launch are finally getting the proper attention they need. If you’ve never played Guild Wars 2, now would be a great time to jump in; it really is a fantastic MMO during its high points (and it’s on sale for $24.99 until Saturday). They may not get everything right, but I have a strong feeling that ArenaNet knocked this out of the park.

For more information regarding the Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack, click here. For more of our coverage on the Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack, click here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack – Part 2- The Review

by Tim Morris

You’re gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it.

Welcome to Part 2 of our coverage of the Guild Wars 2 feature patch! After last week’s reveals focused on game balance, traits, and gear upgrades, this new round of changes are mostly cosmetic. Not to the official site, of course, but revolving around dyes, the new wardrobe feature, new ways to earn gear, and general quality-of-life improvements. If you’re a guild leader, there are some improvements headed your way too!

We’re going to start things off this week with the new wardrobe feature, which was arguably the most demanded part of the feature patch. You can click here to watch a short video explaining some of the functions. Whenever you gain a weapon or piece of armor in-game, whether through drop, trading post, cash shop, or vendor – you permanently unlock the skin for that item as well. If you’d like to swap skins, you can do so from a new panel on your equipment screen. Doing so costs transmutation charges, which is a re-work of the current stone/crystal system already in place. Those items will be disappearing and players will receive one charge for every crystal in their inventory, and another charge for every three stones they possess. In a sense, it’s a similar system to the already-present Gear Locker in PvP, but it’ll now be game-wide. As a result, all of the PvP gear you’ve unlocked will also be a part of this system, so you may now apply those skins to your PvE/WvW gear as well. This feature will keep collectors busy for a long time to come!

Another heavily demanded change that ArenaNet is delivering is an overhaul of the dye system. Instead of being soulbound (per character), dyes will now be account bound, which means that all characters you’ve made can choose from the same pool of dyes that you’ve unlocked. In addition, if you have the same dye available on multiple characters, you’ll receive a free unidentified dye for each unique color you’ve consumed twice or more. To balance this, dyes will no longer be on the loot tables, and instead only available through the Mystic Forge, crafting (specifically the cooking profession), laurel merchants, and other special rewards. As a further bit of balance, the legendary staff known as The Bifrost, which currently requires 250 unidentified dyes as an ingredient, will now only need 100 unidentified dyes to craft the Gift of Color used to make it. Other changes to the system include making previewing colors easier and more streamlined confirmation of changes.

The next reveal involved the quality-of-life changes for guilds, and even though I’m currently a one-man guild I appreciate ArenaNet’s efforts here. Not being able to see the last time a guild member logged in was inexcusable, and that will be rectified when the feature patch hits on April 15th. The LFG (looking for group) system will also be getting some new bells and whistles, allowing players to group up for not only open world content, dungeons, and Fractals of the Mists, but after the feature patch hits, World vs. World will also become available. There will even be separate channels in the tool for each map, including all three borderlands, Eternal Battlegrounds, and Edge of the Mists! The LFG tool will also include specifications for language, as many of the European servers are multi-lingual. Throw in some backend support for guild members themselves, and Guild Wars 2‘s social abilities figure to be better than ever.

In what is sure to be welcome news for the battle-hardened folk who frequent WvW, world experience will now be account bound instead of soulbound. Points can still be spent differently on your various characters, so you won’t get stuck with the same bonuses across your entire account. This will allow players to change styles of play simply by switching characters, as you can be a supply master on one and a catapult master on another, for example. This reveal also came with news that any legendary or ascended gear possessed by one character will become account bound as well. So if you like, you can craft an ascended dagger and simply move it between characters using the bank as you see fit! You’re still restricted by the weapons and armor that potential recipients can equip, so don’t think you can make a spiffy piece of plate armor for your mesmer, for instance.

Speaking of armor, repairing your damaged or broken armor will now be free of charge! ArenaNet felt that the damage from dying is punishment enough and is removing repair fees from the game. The NPCs will still exist and I assume you can still sell items to them if you choose. While we’re on the subject of free things, players who like to experiment with builds will be glad to know that the new instant trait refund system I talked about last week will also be free! Simply click and tinker away, mad scientists!

The final reveal from this week is one that I’m sure will get many people interested in PvP. Reward Tracks are being introduced, and they’re a secondary achievement system of sorts, except that instead of rewarding points towards milestone chests, they reward items, armor, and weapons! Every major region of Tyria will be featured in these Reward Tracks, so players who like to stick to PvP can get drops that would normally come through PvE play by accomplishing given objectives. Dungeon-specific armor and weapons will also be made available through this feature on a rotating basis, or players can complete the story modes of the eight dungeons to allow them to complete the tracks at their leisure. In addition, future Living World and holiday events will be added as they are released. While I’d love for this system to be added on the PvE side too, PvPers have been getting the short end of the stick in this regard ever since release. They deserve the bone they’ve been thrown. To go along with this update, PvE/WvW gear will now carry over to the PvP side, as it previously did not.

In next week’s reveals, ArenaNet will be talking about “facilitating friendly play” in Guild Wars 2, as it currently says on the official site. Check back here for the latest news about the upcoming feature pack!

For Part 1 of our coverage, click here. For more information regarding the April 15th feature pack, click here.

Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack – Part 1

by Tim Morris

Time to change the game.

With the first season of Guild Wars 2‘s Living Story wrapping up, developer ArenaNet has begun wheeling out its “feature patch”, which will drop on April 15th. They are releasing information about the patch in bite-sized portions over three weeks. Thus far, three pieces of the patch have been revealed and I will be covering those in this article, which will be the first of three outlining the new content.

Traits are what define builds in Guild Wars 2. Fresh Air for elementalists, Altruistic Healing for guardians, Prismatic Understanding for mesmers, etc. You don’t invest fully into a trait line for the stat boosts, since you can easily make up those points in your armor and trinkets; you invest for the traits themselves. ArenaNet has decided to simplify this system, as well as offer alternatives to obtain traits that will surely please players who enjoy exploration and a bit more challenge. Instead of having 70 points to distribute when your character hits level 80, you’ll have 14. To balance this, each point will equate to +50 of the associated stat boost, instead of the previous +10. As an example of what this means for spreading points, I’ll use my elementalist build. Right now I run 30/30/x/10/x, and once the patch releases it will be 6/6/x/2/x. In addition to this, the progression is also changing. In the current system, players can earn their first major trait at level 20. After the patch, new players (existing ones will be grandfathered in all aspects of the trait updates) cannot earn that same slot until level 36.

Perhaps the biggest piece of the change to traits comes in the form of trait guides. As homage to the first Guild Wars, players can choose to go adventuring and earn their traits by completing in-game tasks, or they can buy them from the profession trainer NPCs. All characters, new and old, will have to use one of these methods to unlock their new Grandmaster-tier traits (five for each class, one for each trait line). The final piece of the trait revamp is related to quality of life aspects, such as the ability to instantly refund all trait points (now free of charge) as well as the ability to move points around by clicking a newly-added minus button. These changes are being touted as a way to make experimentation easier and more streamlined, but it definitely throws a wrench into the thinking of people who use a specific gearset. Celestial armor carries equal boosts to all attributes instead of one major and two minor upgrades like all the other armor sets. With trait points being reduced from 70 to 14, there is no longer a way to evenly split them across all 5 lines, and so it throws that balance off.

Balancing the game has often been a trial for ArenaNet, as the community is often divided (and quite frankly, uninformed or biased) regarding what classes need help and which ones should get hit with the nerf gun. Through tinkering with runes and sigils while also addressing class balance with the new traits and other small adjustments, they hope to achieve a better meta across all game modes. The first major change here is that two-handed weapons will now have two sigil slots, something that was sorely needed. You won’t be able to equip two identical sigils, two different “stack on-kill” sigils, or utilize the old trick of getting 25 stacks of a boost and then unequipping said weapon, but overall the change is for the better. ArenaNet is also removing some of the hidden rules regarding sigils, and now each of those that have triggering effects will have their own cooldowns.

Runes are also receiving a long look in this feature patch. ArenaNet wants players to invest in complete rune sets as opposed to mixing and matching, and so they are making it more worthwhile to equip five or six of the same rune as opposed to two or three. For example, the Superior Rune of the Eagle has the following bonuses, in increasing number of runes equipped: +25 precision, +3% critical damage, +50 precision, +5% critical damage, +90 precision, and finally +5% damage to targets with less than 50% health. Here’s the new spread:

For those wondering, ferocity is the new stat that affects critical damage (more on that later). The extra 10 precision and 1% damage to weakened foes may seem like a small boost, but as someone who runs offensive gear on all of my characters, every little bit helps. Also receiving buffs are runes that have a sixth bonus where something triggers at a given rate when a condition is met. For instance, the Superior Rune of the Nightmare currently has a 5% chance to inflict fear on an enemy who hits you. For this and all other runes with this type of bonus, the rate at which the effect happens is being increased to a whopping 50%. I could see this becoming an issue in PvP, but looking at it from a PvE standpoint I think it’s a welcome change.

The final major reveal so far is the change being made to critical damage and it is the one that I have a problem with. Critical hits carry a base 50% damage increase, and then whatever the character’s critical damage bonus is gets added onto that figure. On my main toon, who wears the best gear in the game, I have a 109% critical damage bonus. Due to the existence of active defenses in-game as well as how apt bosses are to deliver attacks that down players with a single blow regardless of , going with a fully offensive setup has always been the most optimal for PvE gameplay. Oftentimes this has led to arguments both in-game and on the forums between players who run optimal setups and players who continuously say “I play how I want” as their excuse for using everything else. These players, whether they know it or not, only make it harder for the offensively-geared to survive because enemies don’t die as quickly when they’re around.

There are a number of ways to fix the problem of Guild Wars 2 being too reliant on DPS (damage per second) as opposed to a balance of damage, support, and control, as was originally intended. Making enemy AI smarter, as in having them behave more like a human player, would’ve been the best way. Having mobs attack more times for fewer damage per strike would certainly help to reward defensive and healing setups while also allowing the big damage dealers to feel like they can eat an attack or two and save their dodges for bigger threats. Another idea I’ve seen tossed around called for making both the amount of endurance used per dodge and its associated recharge rate different across the eight classes, which would be a decent stopgap change. I’ve also read proposals that would simply buff healing and toughness to make them more worthwhile.

What did ArenaNet decide to do? Nerf the best players in the game. The switch from the easily understood critical damage % stat to the new ferocity has been said to be about a 10% drop in overall damage for the most offensive specs, but theorycrafting on the official forums and on Reddit has determined that the figure will probably be higher, with some saying it could reach 30%. Given the fact that certain classes can produce completely silly amounts of damage given the right circumstances, I could see how addressing this would make the list of potential adjustments. However, it’s by far the laziest option that ArenaNet had and it’s ill-advised when there are more pressing issues with the current metagame.

According to the reveal schedule for the feature patch, it seems as though next week’s information will be of the “quality of life” variety. Check back with us in a week’s time and stay in the loop!

If you’d like more information about the individual features discussed here, click on this link.

Guild Wars 2 – It’s Wintersday!

by Tim Morris

Guild Wars 2 is bringing you a White Christmas!

Avid MMO gamers will be pleased to know that Guild Wars 2‘s Wintersday events have returned to Tyria! Players can venture to the now snow-covered Lion’s Arch and participate in all kinds of fun activities! Snowball fights, escorting caravans with gifts, battling malfunctioning toys, a bell choir mini-game that is reminiscent of Guitar Hero, and Toypocalypse, where you must protect gifts from angry toys, are all part of this content update. Alongside this content is a boatload of new achievements, along with titles, gift boxes, loot bags, and a whole lot more to satisfy your Christmas spirit. In my estimation, this is the best update to the Guild Wars 2 Living Story since Halloween’s Mad King Returns event.

As someone who missed out on Wintersday last year due to being burnt out from the game (followed by losing my account password), this content is all new to me. While running around Tyria, I’ve instantly felt deprived for missing out on all the fun from a year ago. Unwrapping huge gift boxes in the open world, only to have them explode and release hostile armies of angry toys was certainly a fun surprise, though in the higher level zones this becomes more of a hassle to deal with than it’s really worth; one can simply bypass the boxes, however, so the choice is up to the player. The player vs. player Snowball Mayhem activity features two teams duking it out in a winter wonderland. Players are awarded points for defeating opponents as well as carrying a gift back to their base. Another piece of content that I found entertaining was the new dungeon, where you help Toymaker Tixx keep his workshop under control and operating smoothly. There is much to do this Wintersday, and so ArenaNet has stated that these events will persist for a month, until January 10th. After all the flops that the Living Story has produced since Halloween (namely the entire Tower of Nightmares arc), this is one update that I’m going to miss once it’s gone.

One more update to the game is the release of ascended armor. With ascended weapons and trinkets already in the game, armor will allow players to complete their gear sets and maximize their effectiveness. Naturally, it’s a huge grind to gain all the materials needed to make the armor, and taking a shortcut by buying completed components on the trading post is going to leave a huge hole in your virtual wallet. Unfortunately, not all characters are on an even playing field when it comes to crafting these goodies. While heavy and medium classes have had opportunities to craft items that can also be used on armor in the weaponsmith and huntsman professions, light classes have had no previous method of acquiring the cloth needed to make their armor. My two level-capped characters are both light classes, so it’s an inconvenience for me. However, removing all biases this is something that should have been addressed prior to the release of the update. I’m still going to make at least one set of ascended, it’s just going to take me longer than some of my friends who play warriors and thieves.

As always, this Guild Wars 2 content update is free to download and will do so automatically once you start up the game. Happy hunting!

For more information about Wintersday, click here

Guild Wars 2: Is It Really “Play The Way You Want?”

by Tim Morris

Guild Wars 2, developed by MMO savant ArenaNet, released back in August of 2012 and offered enough alternatives to the traditions of the genre that it almost broke the mold. Gone was the “holy trinity” of in-game parties. For those who don’t know, this entailed making sure that your party had at least one tank (someone to draw and maintain the enemy’s attention), one healer (self explanatory), and the rest DPS (damage per second, or damage dealers) characters. Guild Wars 2 set out to allow every class in the game the ability to perform roles in their own three-way setup: damage, support, and control. Allow me to explain the way ArenaNet intended this system to work:

Damage is effectively the same as it is in other MMOs. People with a damage setup will oftentimes have gear that improves their power, precision (increases critical hit chance), and critical damage bonus. Sometimes they will also have gear that improves their damage on conditions (i.e. burns, bleeds, torment, and confusion applied to enemies), but this is not necessary.
Support is meant to heal, remove conditions from allies, and apply boons (buffs) to them as well. Generally a support character will have stat bonuses to vitality, healing power, boon duration, and toughness, as they are largely defensive characters. Their job is to keep the DPS upright and chip in damage of their own when they have nothing better to do.
Control characters are the condition appliers. They will often use skills that effect a wide area in order to both damage and inflict statuses on enemies, namely stun, daze, immobilize, or any other skill that would normally interrupt attacks. These characters will usually have condition damage/duration builds, with bonuses to other stats as needed.

Now, I’m sure ArenaNet meant well when they came up with this system, as based on any given party there are certain merits to each setup. However, the game has wound up being fairly unbalanced and has led many to discover that damage builds are the only viable setup when doing high-level or endgame content, such as dungeons.

Speaking from my own experience, my main character is an elementalist. Elementalists are the resident “jack-of-all-trades” class, because they can do a little bit of everything reasonably well. Changing weapons grants varied skill sets, ranging from high single-target damage to full melee to massive area damage and control. However, they have the lowest health pool of all eight classes, are light armored (meaning they get squished quickly), and have a steep learning curve. Over the course of my time playing the game, I’ve tried different builds. First I went with a full offensive build, known within the community as a “glass cannon” setup. I put everything into maximizing my damage. However, as I still wasn’t very good at avoidance and such, I died a lot… to the point that I changed it up. I kept all my gear the way it was, which was for the most part offensive, but instead put my traits into defense. I had more health, better toughness, and could stay alive longer. However, my damage effectively cratered, as I was down 300 points in power and precision, and I even noticed that my group heals were still inadequate. That’s when I realized that the best builds are the offensive ones.

This is not to say that you can’t succeed playing some other way. Open world content and player vs. player are still there for those who prefer more balance or full support, but against the toughest of monsters, one needs only to remember the following: a dead enemy does no damage. The quickest method for ending the threat of getting killed by a boss is to kill it first. While you can mitigate the damage and keep removing conditions all you want with support builds, it’s only going to take you that much longer to eliminate the target, and more time defending means a greater chance of a mistake or having to wait for your heals to cool down. Is the hardest content still doable with a non-glass cannon setup? Sure, given enough skill and tenacity.

ArenaNet pounded the “play the way you want” mantra into everyone’s heads leading up to the release of Guild Wars 2. Over a year after its release, the verdict I give is that their statement is partially true. If you’re simply trying to complete the content at hand with no regard to time spent or loot gained over time, then yes, you can certainly play the way you want. However, if you’re a hardcore gamer who wants to maximize the potential of your character, well, you’re going to have to play the way the game rewards most and deal with it.

Check out the main site for more info.

guild wars 2

Guild Wars 2 goes “mega.”

You’re gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it.

Time to change the game.

Guild Wars 2 is bringing you a White Christmas!

Footer