[Suggestion] What does Path of Fire fail to deliver?

This video is something quite a few people have seen at this point, however I apparently live under a rock and was just shown this yesterday in a response to my thread regarding an optional subscription for Guild Wars 2. After much back-and-forth discussion with some fantastic members of the community we did ultimately determine that an optional subscription would not benefit the game nor the community, seeing as funding isn't the issue in regards to a lot of the issues that were brought up, but rather the priorities of ArenaNet. That isn't to say that priorities of ArenaNet are wrong, but rather that they are different from some members of the community's.

That being said, when I watched this video I realized that a lot of the issues being discussed in the thread and which sparked the discussions to begin with are in this video, even if they're only touched upon briefly. I highly encourage everyone to watch this as Wooden Potatoes did a fantastic job with it, and I hope that ArenaNet heeds his advice and criticism and we see some of these issues resolved in the future. I will do my best to summarize the topics discussed in the video below it, in case you'd rather see it in text form, or you'd like something you can easily quote and discuss. Enjoy!

So, what does Path of Fire fail to deliver?1. Build Templates - This has been a much requested feature and is thankfully coming, we just don't know when.2. Adventures through core Tyria - These were mentioned at launch, and although HoT and PoF has them, there are still none for core Tyria.3. Belcher's Bluff/ Card Games/ Minigames - Adding fun ways for the community to socially interact with one another would greatly benefit everyone, and would be something we could do with our friends, and to make new friends.4. New Race - A new playable race would allow new players and veterans to play alongside one another and interact with one another in more ways and increase the appeal of PoF, which may be daunting to new players coming to the franchise.5. Dynamic Weather - This would increase the overall atmosphere of the game and make the environment feel less static.6. Lore Books - Lore has been presented in the past within GW2 but in the form of the game's typical UI. Virtual books with pages to flip through and examine would be a welcome improvement, along with a library in the home instance to store these pieces of lore.7. New Discipline/ Improvements to Old - HoT came with scribing, however that was only for guild related content. A new discipline that wasn't guild related would be appreciated, along with improvements to old disciplines such as cooking and jeweler being increased to 500.8. Fishing - This is something the community has requested for some time and is seen in every other MMO.9. Mount Emotes - Although not everyone is into emotes, these are just some of the fundamental things that should go into having mounts.10. More Emotes - Neither HoT nor PoF added any new emotes to the game, and this is something some of the community has been looking forward to.11. Naming Mounts - Even if the issue is cluttering the screen with more nameplates, mounts should at least be able to be named via the mount selection screen.12. More Dye Channels for Mounts - Mounts only have one dye channel, which extremely limits the amount we can customize the appearance of them.13. Mount Interaction - There is no way for us to interact with our mounts outside of riding it; we spawn it under us, and it despawns when we jump off. This leaves them feeling more like tools than a companion.14. Marketing - ArenaNet has not done the best job with marketing the game to new players or potential players outside the genre. There is very little advertisement regarding the expansions and Guild Wars 2 in general, which is negatively affecting the amount of potential new players we bring into the community.15. Deluxe/ Ultimate Editions - To further elaborate on marketing, the deluxe and ultimate editions of the game offer very little in terms of benefits to the players, and aren't very appealing. These should have different packs, namely ones that include previous story content such as Living World Season 2 and 3 at a vastly reduced cost. In addition, there are no physical collectors edition box sets, which although not a lot of players would purchase, there is still a market of veteran players that would like to have something along those lines.16. CGI Trailers - Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall all came with these awesome scripted CGI trailers that looked fantastic and built a lot of hype for the game and the expansions, and haven't been done with GW2.17. Map Content - The demo content was able to be completed in about an hour, and if the rest of the PoF maps follow suit then the entire content of Path of Fire will be able to be played through very quickly, perhaps even quicker than Heart of Thorns, despite having larger playable areas.18. Instant Raptor - When players first arrive at the new Path of Fire maps they are given a Raptor mount with no time to cultivate any sort of relationship with it, and because it is given right away players never grow to appreciate having a mount after having to traverse the desert on foot.19. No HoT Masteries - Almost all of the HoT masteries have no application in PoF, leaving players to feel as if all that progress was wasted. Even if it transferred to something else in the desert (ie. adrenal cacti), something would have been better than nothing. Obviously no content in PoF can require HoT masteries, but there should be some crossover to benefit players who put in the work in both expansions.20. Unbound Magic - New maps don't have anything similar to Unbound Magic in terms of running over something to pick it up, or map currencies.21. Underwater Content - Although a lot of players don't like underwater content, having just a little in PoF would have been welcoming.22. New Weapons - Although HoT didn't include new weapons, it did include a new class and the game was still relatively new, but 2 years later we still have yet to see any new weapons be added. At the very least, underwater weapons could have made a transfer to above ground, such as spears and tridents. That isn't to say that scythes and greataxes wouldn't be welcome, but that elite specializations such as Dragon Hunter and Spellbreaker (which is based off of Paragons from GW1 who wielded spears) not being able to wield spears is a missed opportunity.23. Boons on PvE enemies - A lot of the new elite specs and even the old and core specializations have boon steal/ boon rip/ boon corrupt, and these things are only effective in PvP leaving them utterly useless in PvE, as no mobs have boons. This leaves a huge portion of building untouched when it comes to PvE content.24. Enemies Applying Conditions - Seeing as the amount of condition transfers/ negation that come with the new elite specs, and again even the old and core specs, we see very little conditions being applied by enemies, which again, leaves a portion of builds untouched.25. Break Bars - Very little was done in PoF regarding break bars.26. New Enemies - There was no equivalent to pocket raptors in this new expansion, which could have been done with something like scarab beetles.27. Fractal Fundamentals - Fractals are in a good spot right now, but a few tweaks would be nice to see. For instance, the current difficulty of T4s should be what the difficult of T3s is like, so it's less boring to climb. Most veteran players just do T4s, and should have the option for more difficult content for better rewards.28. Dungeons - Dungeons were abandoned back in 2013, and even if they aren't going to be constantly updated the existing ones should at least be looked at and brought up to 2017 standards.29. UI Improvements - This is a pretty broad topic, but if we look at the amount of customization that was provided with GW1's UI, GW2 has none of that.30. New Attributes - HoT gave us expertise and concentration, and PoF adds no new attributes which is a shame considering the amount that could be done with attributes such as condition damage/ duration reduction, and there are none related to barrier.31. Voice Acting - A lot of the characters in PoF use the same voice actors from the core game and HoT, including story characters that should be unique.32. New Armors/ Weapons - There isn't a lot of variety with the amount of new armor and weapon skins that are being released with PoF.33. Guild Updates - There has been very little in terms of guild updates in the past 4 years, and seeing as the game is so player friendly there isn't a lot of reasons for players to interact with one another, and guilds are supposed to be there to pick up the slack. Unfortunately there haven't been any improvements to the guild system nor any additional guild mission updates, despite the devs stating that they wanted to add HoT guild missions, and this didn't happen for PoF either.

Well, that is everything from the video, and although it's quite long I did my best to do Wooden Potatoes video justice. Is there is anything that didn't make it to this list that you would have liked to see with Path of Fire?

Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear what everyone has to say!

Edit: Now that I am a full fledged member and am able to edit posts, I will be adding things that the community would have liked to see with Path of Fire or would like to see in future patches/updates, so we have a convenient list for everyone else to see!

What would the community have liked to see with Path of Fire?1. Core Profession Balancing - A lot of the core professions have traits, skills, and weapons that are outdated, no longer viable, or just plain useless. These need to be revisted and brought on par with Elite Specializations, as Elite Specs are supposed to be a different way of playing a profession, not a better way.2. Weapon Dyeing - This is something that has been requested for quite some time, and would allow us to further customize our character's appearance.3. Player Housing - Although we have the home instance, there's no way to customize it. Player housing could be implemented in the form of individual, account wide 'miniature guild halls,' and could include upgrades that added crafting stations, farm land (for growing produce, purchasable via a seed vendor), bookshelves to store lore pieces, etc. Things such as mining nodes which were previously placed in the existing home instance could be migrated to player housing.4. sPvP/WvW Updates - Although it was mentioned briefly in the video that we would likely see this down the road, it has been quite some time for any updates to these modes beyond superficial additions (except AT, which although buggy, were a solid implementation). New ranked game modes for sPvP such as 1v1 dueling, 5v5 deathmatch, capture the flag, king of the hill, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Edge of the Mists has been forgotten about, which is a shame as a lot of players did enjoy that mode, especially for leveling alts, and WvW hasn't received any map or mechanic changes beyond minor adjustments since around launch.5. Bug Fixes - There are still a lot of bugs regarding combat abilities, meta events, and other features that have managed to make it to the Wiki that haven't been addressed, a good portion of which that have been already acknowledged by ArenaNet.

6. You tell me!

I fixed the edit and added the summary! I also figured out what combination of keys I pressed before which made me accidentally post before I was finished: I tabbed to the 'Post Comment' box when alt+tabbing between windows, and when I hit enter to start a new line, it posted! Just a heads up for anyone else that is constantly going between windows!

That's one hell of an edit! I'm gonna read (even tho I watched the whole video) and get back to you :)

I think to be fair, we don't know if some of those things will 'fail to be delivered', as we've only seen a fraction of the entire expansion.

Also, as even Wooden Potatoes stated in a later video, 'Fail to deliver' might not have been the best choice of terms.

Regardless, who know what might come in the future? The Devs might be working on it, whatever it is, as we speak (type). =)

About the core spec polishing, I think they will eventually fix that in the long term (they kinda did in the recent balance patch for exemple).

In general I don't find the balance between core and elite specs that bad, even tho some weapons realy need some love (guardian's staff for exemple). Balance in general is weird, ever they nerf too hard or leave OP builds for ages.

I would also love some proper book kind of interface a la SKYRIM instead of these ugly dialogues boxes.

The game realy lacks emotes in general. Is it that hard to achieve for them to ignore that? It's a minor request and shouldn't be worked over other features that are more urgent but I don't feel emotes are that much of work. I don't know I'm not a dev after all.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I think to be fair, we don't know if some of those things will 'fail to be delivered', as we've only seen a fraction of the entire expansion.

Also, as even Wooden Potatoes stated in a later video, 'Fail to deliver' might not have been the best choice of terms.

Regardless, who know what might come in the future? The Devs might be working on it, whatever it is, as we speak (type). =)

Oh absolutely, I was just using the title of the video as the title of the post, considering it's what I'm using to spark the discussion. I think it's more or less a wishlist of PoF, but I think bringing these things to the attention of the developers in a positive and constructive manner is the best way for them to potentially get addressed.

I'm looking forward to reading what everyone else might have liked to see with this release!

Well, there's an existing thread about what players would like to see in the future (expansion-wise [or not]), so there's that to look at, if you are interested.

Thanks for the summary, it makes it way easier to address each point:

1. Yes please
2. yes please, i want to finally use the shooting range in divinity's reach
3. not super high up on my list but a good idea nonetheless
4. YES PLEASE THIS OMG
5. This would be awesome if we got more of it in several places
6. YES PLEASE OH DEAR LORD, this would make it way better and allow for more lore to be placed in the game
7. not a crafter but i can see the importance of this
8. never been huge on fishing, i don't see what all the rage is but having fishing wouldn't negatively impact me so why not
9. i do wish mounts had emotes, i'd love to be able to just play the same emote several times and see all the neat things from different angles, and coding mount specific emotes (like the sitting down or being shaken off for the raptor) could be simplified by just doing /mount1 /mount2 so that the command is just universal and not overly complicated like /springerfaceclean or /raptorshakeoff
10. low priority but it would be nice
11. enh, not suuuuuuper into this idea, but like fishing it's existence isn't detrimental, and i'm sure just like fishing there'd be people who'd support it 100% so why not
12. I actually don't know why this isn't a thing already (unless this is what mount vendors provide)
13. this i feel is unnecessary as you have written it down, but the video does mention something like the aurene achievement thing, which would be quite nice to do (and maybe feeding pets as well outside of hearts too)
14. this should be a high priority but i read somewhere on the forums that the cost efficiency of marketing is pretty low (which is why word of mouth is way more cost effective, word of mouth also has WAY higher rates of receiving player attention than advertisements do)
15. yes, please, why isn't this a thing? why isn't there a package deal for previous living world seasons?
16. if they do something similar in style to the HoT release trailer, i'd be satisfied (maybe something that's perhaps more lore relevant, though seeing rytlock magic beam a wyvern out of the sky was too epic not to be satisfied with)
17. i'm sure this is just a demo issue and not a map issue, but if it is an actual map issue, then i'd want to see this improved
18. I actually like this (also you may want to reword the issue, in that there's no time to cultivate a relationship with the raptor). I don't mind it because ultimately i want those mounts, and having the previous suggestion of a space to interact with mounts in the home instance would really help build that relationship instead
19. this actually made me stop attempting to grind for master points once i finished gliding and ancient magics, because i knew they'd be useless from PoF forwards. knowing that, really, apart from gliding and signet of agony, there wouldn't be any use for these things makes it hard to justify the effort put into unlocking everything.
20. this i agree with, unbound magic IS fun to collect.
21. i feel there IS enough underwater content, which is more than none but less than 'some'. until underwater combat is improved, i'm just gonna hover over it with my skimmer.
22. land spear, please, one handed AND two handed versions, i want my one handed spear to wield with a shield, i just love that visual so much.
23. WHY ISN'T THIS A THING. it feels so lacking knowing that my favourite elite specs (scourge and spellbreaker) are less effective because pve enemies don't have boons at all, and it especially sucks with a mesmer main who HAS capablities of dealing with boons but no boons to deal with.
24. i've come across plenty of conditions being applied to me, i'm happy where this is right now, but slightly more would allow for more build diversity so sure.
25. i find breakbars a hassle in general, but they make sense in certain aspects. having things beyond 'takes more damage' and 'stunned' when a breakbar is broken would be quite wonderful (i count a skill being interrupted as under 'stunned', because that's half of what people use cc's for)
26. i'm SO GLAD POCKET RAPTORS ARE NO LONGER A THING. i really hope it stays that way, because especially on lower end computers, you get caught by surprise, have to plan your way around it and otherwise be aoe meta to deal with them effectively. they were the worst thing about HoT and should absolutely be removed from the game immediately. really hate pocket raptors, god they should not exist.
27. meh? not super into fractals so can't give any insight to this
28. again, not super into dungeons so can't give insight, but bringing things up to par should be the case.
29. i guess
30. i think there's enough attributes (though it is weird not to have one dedicated to barrier)
31. i think this was already addressed, just that we need to play through the whole expansion to find those characters (according to that story guildchat)
32. i don't think we've seen the full sets yet to really make a comment here, i'll reserve judgement for after path of fire releases
33. yeah i guess. not really into guild stuff but improvements would be nice.

EDIT: guess i missed the bit about core spec vs elite spec balance. I want that, i want there to be a choice between choosing elite specs and playing the core class, instead of "which elite spec do i prefer because core is weaker". core should be just as powerful as elite specs, just elite specs do things differently.

@castlemanic.3198 said:core should be just as powerful as elite specs, just elite specs do things differently.

Makes sense from a Herald player :D

@castlemanic.3198 said:--Snip--

Just shortened your summary so there wouldn't be as much text on the page, but awesome feedback! I fixed the instant raptor wording and added barrier to the additional attributes as it was something WP mentioned.

I'm also a huge fan of the shield and spear look, and have donned that playstyle in other MMO's in the past. It's an extremely effective, historically accurate, fighting style that definitely should have made its way into the franchise by now. Maybe we'll see something like that in future updates, who knows.

It will be interesting to see how ArenaNet goes about addressing some of these concerns, not that they have to, but traditionally they have listened to the advice of content creators in regards to such matters, so as WP stated, maybe we'll see a Path of Fire 2.0 patch released down the road.

@Demeth.5816 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:core should be just as powerful as elite specs, just elite specs do things differently.

My bias is purely because i love everything related to dragons, and having a class where i can use dragon magic? golden.

@castlemanic.3198 said:

@Demeth.5816 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:core should be just as powerful as elite specs, just elite specs do things differently.

I didn't say it was biased. I pointed out the fact that revenant is one of the only core class viable at the moment and yet Herald feels more complementary than a difference in game play.

@Demeth.5816 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:

@Demeth.5816 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:core should be just as powerful as elite specs, just elite specs do things differently.

oooooooooooooohhhhhh, i just love dragons to be honest =p, but yes that is a thing too, having other classes feel that way (glares at mesmer) would be amazing.

First the idea of fishing is sheer stupidity. Like in other games that have it people would be fishing 24/7 probably (forget LFG then). All these suggestions be it fishing, marriage, namings etc etc. FFS Guild Wars is fine as is. People cried and complained "oh golly we want mounts etc". Well we got em. You want fishing and all that other silly stuff PLEASE go play one of those other games that uses those systems and leave GW's alone to serious gamers. No more SILLY cosmetic junk that isn't added already. And btw what's with so many long winded people in all forums?

@Tasida.4085 said:First the idea of fishing is sheer stupidity. Like in other games that have it people would be fishing 24/7 probably (forget LFG then). All these suggestions be it fishing, marriage, namings etc etc. kitten Guild Wars is fine as is. People cried and complained "oh golly we want mounts etc". Well we got em. You want fishing and all that other silly stuff PLEASE go play one of those other games that uses those systems and leave GW's alone to serious gamers. No more SILLY cosmetic junk that isn't added already. And btw what's with so many long winded people in all forums?

I highly doubt that fishing would affect the popularity of LFG, and if you wouldn't like such a feature, you wouldn't have to participate. Traditionally Guild Wars is a fairly casual MMO in regards to both PvP and PvE, especially given the rate of competitive content, so I don't understand why you're so up-in-arms regarding additional features and leaving Guild Wars to "serious gamers."

As for "long winded people," you realize the forums are a place for discussion, and given the inherent complexity of an MMO, it's quite natural for posts to get lengthy at times, especially when discussing content and features.

26. New Enemies - There was no equivalent to pocket raptors in this new expansion, which could have been done with something like scarab beetles.

No. Just no.

The only one I really care about on that list is Build Template... don't really care about anything else lmao. As long as I get new raids, I'm good.

It fails to deliver my free Legendary. ;)

i was hoping for being able to dye my weapons and shields.... and maybe have a charr tank as a mount?... sigh

@Tenoh.2305 said:i was hoping for being able to dye my weapons and shields.... and maybe have a charr tank as a mount?... sigh

Now that I can finally edit posts I'll start a list in the OP of community suggestions, and I'll definitely add those when I get to my computer! :smile:

Game keeps delivering new and exciting things, and people just want everything at the same time. Chill, i like this new course they are taking with this new expansion, and we barely scratched the surface of what it has to offer us.

@Tasida.4085 said:You want fishing and all that other silly stuff PLEASE go play one of those other games that uses those systems and leave GW's alone to serious gamers.

Yeah, good thing GW2 is srs bsns.

@Ashgard.5132 said:Game keeps delivering new and exciting things, and people just want everything at the same time. Chill, i like this new course they are taking with this new expansion, and we barely scratched the surface of what it has to offer us.

A lot of the things on the list are things the community has been requesting for quite some time. It's important to keep these suggestions 'relevant' and show our support for them as to increase the chance of having them implemented. ArenaNet has done a fantastic job thus far with Guild Wars 2, but that doesn't mean we can't be critical of the game and its issues/ lack of features, assuming we are doing so in a constructive manner.

Updated the OP with community suggestions, feel free to keep them coming and I will add them to the list. :smile:

Sweet Jeebus. Half of that stuff is utter speculation, yet the video creator chose a definitive description in the title. How can anyone possibly take such a flagrant attempt at self promotion seriously? I get that everyone and their Mum wants e-fame, but for goodness sake, the expansion hasn't hit yet and there are already gigantic posts like this one. Give the poor developers a sodding chance before you get out the tiki torches.