Acheron.1580

I just mean from a precursor standpoint more than anything else. The achievements to get precursors was already a wash on material costs but I found them kind of fun, so even when I lost out by selling on the TP it didn't bother me. I wonder if these starter kits help towards the mats for these achievements, or if they are stages of the precursors themselves (like the T2 ones) for example.

I remember this being a big concern when they removed mystic coins from CM fractals and increased ways to get mystic clovers at the same time. And surprisingly the cost of MC went down. It's a valid concern and one that I have too but it would depend on if the buy for MC are one offs per season or unlimited.

I find seasons passes to straight up be the devil, and the worst development ever for gaming (there is something so immensely scummy about charging money for rewards you might not even get if you don't finish), so I'm a little biased in how I feel about this announcement, but honestly with the several mentions that this will not include real money or gems in any way and that rewards stick around (albeit at a higher cost..) I'm feeling a little less critical of it. That being said, we have yet to see what is locked out from not owning SotO (they did mention some rewards would be), so I'm not quite yet at "removing yet another feature to try to sell it back to us by requiring to buy the new expansion" but we'll see in a week. My guess is that the locked rewards will be expansion only crafting mats so I'm hesitant but hopeful that it will be ok. Overall pretty neutral on this announcement until I see it in action, most of the questions I had have already been addressed. Also curious about the impact the new legendary starter kits will have on the market (not sure how I feel about the rotating choice of 4 but maybe that will help keep it in check?)

Someone went through all my posts and confused emote me (I had like 10 notifications in less than a minute) and it made me really think about how I might be wrong and that I should be just be happy we get anything from Anet. Just kidding it made me think they were a muppet too.

I was the only person out of all my friends and like half my guild who pickup up pandaria because it went cheap super quickly after release, and it was by far my favorite WoW expansion (controversial opinion I know). The pandarian race was so expressive and opened up the desire for Blizzard to go back and update their other character models. The maps were lush and had lots to do, the dungeons and raids were particularly engaging and interesting with some wild mechanics and they were just fun, the story was amazing throughout, partially because it had become untethered from the stagnant story WoW had become (and ironically after Pandaria continued ruining each new expansion). When it comes to GW2, the elite specs for EoD were very half baked on announcement, and on release were still a little underdone. The core concepts were cool, Revenant is always my go to example because I was suprised and genuinely excited when vindicator got the kurzick and luxon heroes (even though I really wanted a ritualist Togo), but then they made it this weird forced dps/heal swappy garbage that nobody would really ask for, and then on release they clawed it back but it still feels like 2 half-finished elites (though the dps side is fun and effective). The story has been getting lazier and lazier though. And now we are getting these micro expansions which I suspect will be detached little side arcs without a lot of depth. It sort of feels like a winding down of GW2 to maybe go forward with a GW3, but I've invested too much into GW2 to want to play a new game, and frankly if that is the case then they should have treated GW2 way better because GW1 had a really strong finish, and made me interested in 2, and in this case it's doing the opposite.

It doesn't mention collection, just the mastery though. I think it implies owning the living season 4 more than doing the collection twice.

Just looking at the blogposts, it really seems like they won't require you to do both collections to unlock the masteries, just that you would need to do both masteries "we’re adding a parallel path for unlocking the skyscale and its masteries in Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure."

Those 2 bonuses are pretty weak, and on top of that you don't have to do the old collection to get it, just spend the mastery points (aka just owning PoF and getting some exp from casino blitz is enough), so really everyone that did it the "expensive way" does have a reasonable claim to being annoyed by it. That being said I have no qualms making things easier/cheaper for everyone, even if I already did it. Is it a bummer that I spend a lot of gold on it? Yea sure. Did I use it every day for like 2 years now? Also yes.

I fully admit to playing an unhealthy amount of GW2 for a long time (I'm talking 6-8 hour days). Since their balance patches, I've - Finished Persona 5 (all 4 endings) - Finished FF Theatrythem - Finished Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon - Finished 13 Sentinels - actually played other games with friends like dying light 2, deep rock galactic, table top simulator. It's heartbreaking to see GW2 going down the hole (and honestly it's been that way since end of IBS, I don't think I even bothered posting on the forums before EoD was announced and now I'd say I spend more time on here than actually playing the game), but I'll be damned if it hasn't helped me enjoy other things. Silver linings I guess. I'm still (stupidly) optimistic that maybe the release on the 22nd will have information or address concerns but it's pretty unlikely since the devs don't ever go back on their decisions, for better or worse. I'm unlikely to support Anet unless they turn things around, and by extension just in case this situation came from decisions made by higher up that goes for NCSoft as well.

Honestly if you don't care about any of the pre-order bonuses it's perfectly acceptable to wait until after release to see what people are saying about it, especially this close to release. Mount skins for a raptor are whatever when you'll have access to an easier skyscale, and that magical juggling emote is just plain awful, it isn't even juggling. Hat and title are the pre-order bonuses I think across all tiers, and a weapon skin you will be able to get after release anyways so if any of those are particularly important to you then I understand your consideration. If they aren't just wait till release and see.

I get what you are saying and I agree but unfortunately the cost of relics will be determined by the material costs, the difficulty in getting the patterns, and overall the general cost of the market which will more or less be controlled by the players, and the cost for the legendary will probably be on par with other legendary patterns that use just a boatload of crafting mats, even if the individual costs of the relics themselves on the TP end up being peanuts.

Well I'd say the crowning difference is that your situation is a hypothetical that will never happen because Anet will never implement a system that actively encourages fighting in the forums. No, I'm not going to attack the emoji guys, it's sad and petty, and despite the fact I argue about how to have fun in a video game, I am an adult and can simply go about my day without letting a little yellow emoji dictate my mood, day or opinions. If it affects you so adversely, then I stand by my decision to not come to the forums. Do you get upset for everyone getting the 'fused, or just when you get it? Most importantly, the people who are going to do it are the ones who A) think it is going to upset you, B) know it's going to upset you, C) genuinely just use the emote for its intended purposes because they don't subscribe to the forum drama. Letting it get to you is basically giving them power, so feel like a winner by just ignoring and knowing that not reacting to it is probably making them confused-emoji why it isn't working and leaving them sad-cry-emoji.

This sounds like a good idea but if we've learned anything from the last 2 balance patches, it won't amount to much since Anet does what they want without listening to feedback, so it would just be extra work for them and the community and end with the same result. It only works if they can take constructive criticism and react to it.

I'd also like to say that Anet is talking about how relics will continue to be produced based on story components and they will continue to add more, but unless they are somehow meta breaking they also will probably be a "neat" flavor and then ignored. If they really wanted to make it a deep system they shouldn't have tied it to dps at all, and by extension shouldn't have taken it from runes.

There's no way that seeing who emotes you won't be abused by someone, and nobody is buying the "for data purposes" excuse. All it would do it create more work for the forum mods who would be inundated with reports of personal message attacks and would spend all their time scolding toddlers who couldn't control themselves instead of moderating the forums. Even if they implemented something that allowed you to turn off emotes entirely (no seeing or using), the announcement would be flooded with sads and confused emojis, and people that typically try to "weaponize" them would be so petty as to just either not post, or turn the setting off so they could emoji you and then turn it back on. It's hard for the current system to offend, and is easy to be offended by it; in other words the only one that can get upset about it is you. If you can't handle it don't post, don't go to the forums, whatever it takes to make you feel less stressed about it, or you could just entirely ignore it and take it as a win. Besides, being on the forums long enough you start to wonder if confused actually just means confused (sometimes).

There's no way to not sound snarky but I'll try my best. You current contribution to the discussion has been: - Relics are something new - Runes are losing some functionality that will be moved to the relics that will have to be reacquired, and that we get 3 relics per account (it's actually per character above 60) -How runes work right now, and how they will work after the patch -That we are getting significant progress towards legendary runes, at some date, and that that should be sufficient, despite not even knowing what significant progress means. Everything here is already covered by the Anet blogpost. It doesn't reflect anything that was being discussed in this thread. It doesn't offer solutions, or a reasonable argument for why you think this new system is going to be so boss, other than you HOPE that it will increase build diversity. It won't, let me explain (here comes more of the doom and gloom, which I just call cynical reality). Runes So we are keeping in all of the runes, including the completely useless ones, but for the majority of power users you want Scholar if you are crit capped, maybe golemancer, or spellbreaker if you aren't. With the change since scholar is most likely to offer the most ferocity still, that probably won't even change, and everything that gives power/precision will at best have side grades or "useless" stats like vit, movement speed. In the end you are going to be shoehorned into the same dps runes, doubly so for condition damage which will be the specific condition duration or nightmare. For healer you have your options of monk, water, altruism, rebirth once again depending on which one ends up with the best 6 piece stat. And then there's the niche ones that currently get used already for wvw, raid tanking, etc. In WvW I wouldn't be surprised if we had little change, or a slight shift to people using more +all stat runes if their 6 piece was the only reason they were using their current runes. In this way you aren't going to have any more diversity in runes, it doesn't improve the rune system at all. Relics Let's assume Anet wants to keep things pretty tight in the dps department. So maybe there's 5-10 new dps runes, each with a different flavor of stacking damage (like thief's 5% cap when using cooldowns or spending resources, maybe theres one for minion/pet ability use, one for using class specific resources like shroud, burst, CA, etc). Wow, that's a lot of diversity to be able to choose a different way to get 5% damage. The reality is since every dps would just be getting a flat 5% increase, they are going to pick whatever rune allows them to accomplish it without paying attention to the relic in question, they will find the most guaranteed passive way to maintain it without having to even think about the fact that they even have a relic equipped. What about healing and support? Monk is a shoe-in right now, since it has no cooldown and it's requirements are a given. Any relic 6 piece that has a boon it offers on a cooldown when you do something specific is a waste, 100%. If you already provide the boon it won't be needed, and if you can't normally provide the boon you won't be able to maintain 100% uptime so why even have it? There may be fringe cases (like hand kiting) where there's a relic that helps a lot, but in general I suspect these relics aren't going to see as much play. Where I think relics do shine is their example of the wizard tower relic, where it's a fairly unique idea with a really interesting effect. At best though this is an open world relic, and I don't imagine too many people want to walk around with several relics in their bags and will probably stick to a standard dps increase rather than a conditional interesting relic. In that case, I feel like there is LESS diversity in choice because you have neat ideas for relics that now won't get utilized because meta dictates whatever gives the most dps for a dps class is the answer, whatever gives the best healing is best for the healers. These interesting relics are going to be niche, open world, or forgotten. That is why my argument is they just shouldn't change runes. That's is my argument for why moving rune 6 pieces to relics are just a bad idea both from to the value (monetary and diversity and choice) that gets stripped away from both runes and relics as a result. The system inherently adds no value to player choice, diversity or playstyle. I have yet to see an argument as to why the system will improve or be better than it is, and most people just come in here and tell people to stop being upset, or stop whining, or that it is going to be awesome, or that the compensation will be great without having anything to back it up.

Yes yes we all know how runes work. As far as we know these 6 pieces aren't even going to be the same when they become relics, as suggested by the change to thief, and zephyrite. The irony is that most of the 6 pieces for meta runes aren't even that great (Scholar you take for the ferocity and the 6 piece, condi ones you take for the duration), the only one that I think is pretty stand out is monk. But along that line of thinking, you wouldn't mix monk and scholar because they are completely different build sets, so what is most likely going to happen is just taking scholar + scholar, which we wouldn't even have to worry about if they hadn't taken it away in the first place. So yes, it is arbitrary, relics could have just been their own slot without involving runes at all. It's like they started the process of trying to update runes, couldn't figure it out (because there are 100+ and a LOT of them are garbage), and took the path of least resistance.

It already has the stat bonus, so it won't get any compensation. Scholar will most likely simply "lose", where anything that had no stat bonus will gain a new one. As far as we know condition and boon durations still count as "stats", as well as 25% movement speed, maaaaaybe +10% max health. There's a few runes that technically have 2 6-piece bonuses because they have stats + an effect and I'm pretty sure they are just going to lose the bonus effect without compensation. I don't think % damage will be a stat because it would wildly shift the meta to any rune that has it.

I'm genuinely so tired of people not reading all the thread and having to retype everything that you are getting the abridged version. Relics are a new slot, with new capabilities, but can you really consider it something new if it is recycling old benefits, that you now have to reacquire? Effectively all of these new relic bonuses could have also just been rune 6 pieces on some of the unused runes, but I think deep down even Anet knows that wouldn't make them be used because of "the meta". So now we get a new slot that is going to have as much bloat, until people settle into what the meta relics are. By separating the 6 piece, you've added no value to runes at all, so all of those unused runes are going to basically continue to be garbage bloat. How that also devalues runes I've mentioned more than once, and is in this thread as well if you care to read. I had ideas when they had announced it that they were going to clean up runes and make build diversity in runes more interesting but since they have mentioned they are leaving all of them in, with different 6 piece bonuses it feels like they just wanted to add a new slot, didn't have enough ideas to justify it and ripped it off of runes, completely forgetting about legendary runes in the process until it was brought up in the forums (that much I guarantee because they had no answer for it and it took them weeks to get around to "addressing it" with a big nothing sandwich). So on to your argument that Runes + Relic offers the same value as current runes (which again is just an argument that runes are less in value since you basically need to add something else to return it to it's current state), let's assume that scholar runes + scholar relic becomes the meta for power (unlikely because scholar's condition for bonus damage was kinda meh but still). Basically you are saying they put in a new mechanic, and separated out a part of runes to resell it back to you with no added benefit to the game or build designs whatsoever. Even if that isn't the case, down the line we are going to have meta relics and so in general the whole slot isn't necessary, because instead of trying to make it a playstyle enhancer it's just another dps "seasoning", except it's something you used to just have. So what happens if the BiS meta relic is a core relic? There will be complaints that they never should have separated it in the first place. What happens if the BiS meta relic is expansion only? People will complain that it's pay to win since you will be forced to buy the expansion to have access to it. Whether people deserve a "free" legendary relic is very up for debate, and I don't disagree that having to put in some work isn't the worst but "significant progress" is a buzz term that answers literally nothing about what that progress is, and we are waiting anywhere form 6 to 18 months before we even get a chance to get to it. So we have no idea what the compensation is, or when we will even be able to exercise it.

Well that's just going to add tears to the bitterness well for people who put in the work recently lol.

Ah yea looks like it. Not to be "that person" because I actually think there's nothing wrong with making tedious things easier for everyone but doesn't look like there's any real reason to do the old skyscale stuff. It's good that nothing important is locked behind that but I can understand people who had already unlocked it being a little bitter about how little you get from doing it (at least for people who recently got it, anyone who's been cruising Tyria for years got plenty of value out of it).

I'm pretty sure that the ability to mount in combat is only if you do both the new and old acquisition for skyscale, so everyone who wanted an easier time getting the skyscale would still have to do the old way of getting it just to be able to do that, and people who only bought SotO wouldn't even have access to it. If they balance / build their sky combat around the ability to re-mount when your skyscale gets dismissed from damage, then it's going to feel really bad for those who don't have it. Which I feel also defeats the purpose of making it easier to acquire. I'm biased and really hate vehicle combat (and I find people using their turtle mounts in open world fights to be irritating), so this honestly doesn't sound fun to me anyways, but there are pitfalls to it that I worry Anet didn't even consider, which is sadly a continuing trend this year.

On the blogpost they mentioned that some of the relics would only be unlocked by doing SotO story, so being able to get the legendary relic and unlock those story only relics without the expansion seems unlikely. Which is why you will probably need the expansion to make it, and probably only after you've done everything in it.

Not any more work than elementalists weapons. And they already have a similar concept with the trident so I would disagree. I thought the trident was actually the coolest concept as a weapon for them and agree that it would be a lot more interesting if they extended it to another weapon.