Raknar.4735

Will wait for all the skins. If none interest me, I'll just go for the sword with the basic aurene theme.

So they didn't state it originally, so you're only assuming and was a lie. Thanks for clearing that up. Guess there just wasn't a source. Sure. Just like the fight against Dhuum is a "remixed version" of the fight against a ice worm in Snowden Drifts. Dhuum merely has new mechanics they "need to learn and master" 🙄 W/e, seems pointless to have an actual discussion with you, as it seems you're just arguing to bait responses, just as you did with @robertthebard.8150. Not going to lose myself in a discussion against your assumptions. After all, we'll only have to wait 2 more months to see what the EoD Strike Missions will be like.

They've never mentioned anything about SMs specifically giving the players a firm grasp of the fundamentals and to get players familiar with basic tactics like fixates, stack and spread, kiting, and more during any of the IBS SM releases. Feel free to correct me with a source. In fact, it seems to be what EoD is about: Teaching new players how to play the game. They've even set up a new training space on Shing Jea. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the new SMs will be more about training the players, instead of just throwing players into SMs like boneskinner and whisper. If by "upgraded version" you mean completely new mechanics, with the only resemblance being the look and basic attacks, then yes. The same has been done for Whisper and Fraenir, where the story version in no way resembles the Strike fight. I doubt this is what they meant in their blog, as every single SM is also a story boss, from what we've been told.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-end-of-dragons-strike-missions/ "Accessible Endgame Normal difficulty Strike Missions are intended to be an entry point into the world of 10-player content in Guild Wars 2. These instances are designed to be something you can tackle alongside both close friends and new allies, pitting you and nine others against jazzed-up, remixed versions of epic, exciting bosses from the Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons story. This gives every player the opportunity to experience these encounters as key story moments, while enabling each Strike Mission to hold greater importance in the overall narrative. These encounters will introduce you to the mechanics you’ll need to learn and master in order to continue your journey, in an environment that doesn’t demand perfection but still pushes you to learn and grow your combat capabilities. By the time you’ve completed each Strike Mission, you’ll be familiar with encounter terms like fixates, stack and spread, kiting, and more. Our goal is that once you’ve got a firm grasp of the fundamentals, you should feel confident tackling the next steps on the difficulty ladder, including a much-requested addition to Strike Missions…" From their second paragraph, it seems that the intention with the new EoD strike missions is to let players get a firm grasp of the fundamentals and to get players familiar with basic tactics like fixates, stack and spread, kiting, and more. So it seems they will be more accessible than something like boneskinner & Whisper where players are just thrown in without knowing anything about instanced group play. Also, it seems that we'll fight the same bosses players will already have seen in the story. So their general mechanics will probably stay the same, with a few mechanical changes here and there. Players will already know parts of the bosses designs, as they'd have successfully beat them in the story.

Oh I agree with the battleground idea. Anet should definately add more, less competitive maps and gamemodes to the game. SPvP & Arena style PvP isn't for everyone. Still, a game that focuses on PvP like LoL and CSGO etc. mostly focus on their main gamemode, as they're more competitve games and therefore focus more on balance. They don't add new gamemodes (aside from event gamemodes only playable during a respective event for a short duration). So you either focus on more modes or on competitivity. WoW does the former, PvP games do the latter. That's also the reason there's no actual mechanic balancing for ARAM, a gamemode in LoL, aside from global % damage increases and reductions. DRM's aren't designed for solo play. They just scale to a solo player. They're designed as 1-5 player instanced content. So they should be inluded with fractals/dungeons/raids/strikes, as they are also instanced group content. Of course, you can subjectively discredit them, but that's just your opinion. Also, an open world map has also not been released in well over a year. In fact, from the content types you list, the full fractal release has been more recent than the 1/2 open world map release. Then comes the whole DRM stuff & Dragonstorm + Marionette comeback and i'd say instanced content has been plenty supported relative to OW content for the last year. I'm sure Anet does focus on the content that their stats favour. If they put more effort into types of content that don't get played and therefore don't return profit so that the game can no longer be developed, I think it would be bad for the game. For EoD that content seems to be open world and more accessible strike missions for now.

Every balance patch matters for WvW & PvP, so never? Just like in regular PvP games like CSGO, LoL etc. balance is the thing that matters most. New gamemodes rarely matter, LoL had dominion which failed, GW2 had stronghold etc. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release Chronologically, since you've been asking about last "type of content" release, it would be: Last Dungeon (instanced): dungeons are discontinued, Aetherpath, October 1, 2013 Last Raid (instanced): Ahdashim, June 11, 2019 Last Strike Mission (instanced): Cold War, May 26, 2020 Last Open World map (open world): Northern part of Drizzlewood (1/2 map), July 28, 2020 Last Fractal (instanced): Sunqua Peak, September 15, 2020 Last DRM (instanced): March 9, 2021 Last Wold Boss (instanced): Dragonstorm, April 27, 2021 Last Story (instanced): Dragonstorm + Champion's End, April 27, 2021 Last Festival (open world + instanced): Wintersday: December 14, 2021 I'd say there's more instanced variety than open world variety in the last releases. It has been over more than a year for the last non-festival open world release, while instanced content has released this very year. But in the end Anet has to decide what content they release to keep the game running. They have the stats what content is being run by the community & what content brings in the money.

The video is still missing the "kicking the ground" idle animation, which has also been removed. Edit: Nevermind, it is in there. It just looks weird due to the inclined surface

I vastly prefer the massively multiplayer open world content to the smallscale, non-massive instanced content that turns games into lobby grinders without a fleshed out world.

The raptor is really cute.

Emissary Commander

I don't think the Ulimate Edition will be a river, a rainforest, a company or a member in a tribe of woman warriors.

15 min grace period after using it sounds good.

Main enemy could be the leader of the Jade Brotherhood Chul-Moo and the one of the Speakers, Tetra, so two villains simultanously. On the brotherhood side: We don't really know what the dragon jade is capable of for now and what machinery was ultimately built with it. A big mech/tank rivaling the Breachmaker could be possible. Maybe the stored up magic in the Jade can be used to create huge bombs. While Aurene is an ED, she seems to be quite weak compared to the EDs we have faced so far. We were able to beat EDs and their minions with our armies, so why shouldn't an army enhanced by dragon jade be able to beat our ED? I'd also say the threat doesn't have to be as big as with Kralkatorrik back then, when reality itself was at risk. Not every threat has to have a world-ending scenario.

The concept art did show a set looking like a full set, so I'm not really sure. Helmet, shoulders and gauntlets all share the horn ornaments, while either chest or pants use the same bandage and red symbol as the helmet. My guess would have been shoes then (and would have made sense with the jumps), but they aren't at all accentualized, just like the pants, and feel more like background noise in the art. So my final guess will be the gauntlets, as they have distinct looking blades that aren't found on the other pieces. So there'll probably an exotic version of the set, with an enhanced ascended version of the gauntlets that have the extra blades, that are available through the vindicator-collection.

Yeah, thought so, too, that the suggestions are interesting. Using the DRM/Forging Steel tech of scaling would work pretty well imo. (Something they'll hopefully also consider for EoD Strikes!) But with the move to this subforum and the very echo-chambery nature of it, I don't really see the suggestions flourishing. Oh well, it was a nice attempt by OP. I'll just take my leave, don't want to get shouted down by the same people over and over 😅.

Exactly, only viewing it by rewards, like @lokh.2695 did is one dimensional. There's more to it, like e.g. fun I've mentioned. Fun isn't nebulous at all, it's just subjective. What's fun for someone isn't for someone else. So the motives for people to play content differ. That's why I couldn't objectively answer @lokh.2695 question, without adding the variable how much "fun" the content is to me, as I'm not playing for rewards but for fun. That's a pretty one dimensional view on content. If you're only going by length/difficulty + rewards without any other metrics about the content, you can't measure anything. If players are just there for the rewards, but not because the content is fun to them, it's obvious they'll choose the path of least resistance, like I've already stated. A game with very rewarding content will not be played if the game isn't worth it in the first place to the player. Population can't drift if there's no population in the first place.

I‘m not the one shutting down suggestions here. I‘ve even said that Anet should take suggestions if they deem them to be worthy. However, this isn‘t a suggestion: This is outright demanding Arenanet what to do. Which in this case is to not touch rewards. You can suggest them to not touch the rewards, but Anet will decide, not you nor me. What you‘ve done is essentially shutting everyone else down that gives suggestions about the reward structure. If we were to go by you, this very thread wouldn‘t exist, as seen by your very first response to shut down OP‘s suggestion. Depends. Is the activity that takes me 15 min actually fun and engaging to the point you aren‘t only playing the content for the reward? Is the 5 min activity more fun, or just as fun, or less fun? Or are both activities the same bore, where anyone would think „Getting this done as quickly as possible is the best way of action“? Depending on if I actually enjoy the content, the reward wouldn‘t actually be the reason as to why I play that content. That‘s also why I don‘t spend every living second farming Drizzlewood, even though that is easy and rewarding. I simply don‘t enjoy to mindlessly farm. Just ask WvW players if they play it for the reward or for fun.

Of course there will be people like that, just like there‘s people in full legendary gear that don‘t lift a finger in places like dragonstorm just for the reward. Nonetheless Anet seems to have stopped releasing raids, and stated that raids have a low amount of people interacting with that type of content, which makes it hard to create more. So maybe the people that want to have more accessible versions that could amount to a higher playercount are on to something? Not that it matters, as Anet has changed gears to Strike Missions for now and raids are on the backburner. And atleast with what Anet have stated, they seem to follow the path of more accessibility with EoD strikes.

What is or isn‘t done with the rewards is neither yours nor mine decision to make. It is solely Anet‘s decision. If they someday decide to revisit raids and change them in a way due to some proposed suggestions, it is because Anet deemed the suggestions worthwhile. Atleast the path they‘re treading with EoD strike missions seems clear, one single currency, no matter how easy the strike is/ if you do CMs: Any End of Dragons Strike Missions you complete will reward currency to be spent on Strike Mission-specific rewards, including any unique drops from the Strike Missions. You won’t be beholden to the fickle fate of random number generation to get what you want https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-end-of-dragons-strike-missions/

Some people, especially on this forum and reddit, would rather see their favourite gamemode die than to make it more accessible to the average player. What you‘re advocating for is the way EoD strike missions are apparently set up, as Anet finally got the memo about needing different difficulties for raiding content. They mentioned in an interview that they could go back to create story difficulty raid versions of the old raids, but that would take away development resources for new content. So they‘re focusing on their renamed raids in terms of 10 man instanced content for now.

You're sending mixed signals here: So you want new content, but don't want it at the same time. Okay? But this seems to be exactly what the post is about. You're bothered that EoD isn't more instanced content like fractals, raids etc. but instead more OW and story content. Relevant quotes: The problem here is as amazing as you might find that content in your subjective opinion, it seems to be that Anet has metrics that tell them which content is being played. EoD seems to try to introduce more content of the same that is being actively played by the larger playerbase.

That's why I'm talking about new players that didn't get the LS for free. E.g any player that joins on EoD release. You get gems anyway while getting achievements done, just like you get gold anyway for doing achievements and farming. So not really that much of a different scenario, as they technically are forced gold sinks. You have to get the LS to get the amulet, as they are the prerequisite for it.

I just wanted to quickly note that while it didn't have a gold sink for current/ongoing players, technically, any new players will still need to get all of the LS episodes to get the "return-to"-amulet. So the gold sink is pretty much the price of the LS-episodes.

Aside from GvG + Alliance Battles, a hub like in GW2 (just with no placeable decorations) and "controlling" some cities in factions, guilds barely mattered in GW1. As for New World, I don't think you currently want to compare their systems to the mostly working ones in GW2. Also, you don't have to go looking far for "every other game out there" to look for worse Guild systems. Just look at WoW. FFXIV's FCs don't offer a lot aside from some buffs afaik.

Them actually creating Guild Halls and decorations makes me think that their metrics do say that players interact with Guild and decoration content more than with raids.