Kalibri.5861

Ah, amazing! Can't believe I didn't see that before. The note was a little baffling, and very frustrating that it doesn't include instructions on how to do this, but I found the guy ('Geit Sken [Team Switching]' as noted on the wiki, looks like he shows up in the arena area near the other team color coordinators). For other folks, if you didn't catch this - seems like you basically just pick a team and can then fight other teams in your hall all the time. Hooray! Thanks very much @Myror.7521!

Hey folks, I looked around but couldn't find anything really concrete - has there been any word on the status of the guild hall PvP update (the one which was supposed to expand PvP combat beyond the arena)? This blog post said that it should be live in late January - https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/wvw-update-guild-hall-arenas-and-world-restructuring-beta/ Is the feature available and I'm just not seeing it? Also, from what I've read, it seems like players are required to choose their skillset (PvE, WvW, or PvP) individually at Castor. This seems like a pretty glaring oversight and that it should be selectable for the entire guild hall, no? What am I missing here?

So ignore it. Honestly, I will never understand people who complain about having to do things that they don't have to do. Maybe it would have been convenient, but it wasn't there. It's there now. Do it or don't. Of course you're allowed to complain, but come on, man. Stuff changes all the time.

This truly is my main issue with Secrets of the Obscure. Right there with you, pal. Hopefully we'll see something, but yeah, no word so far as I'm aware.

Yes, it's the same skills from Bloodstone Fen. I've had them since Bloodstone Fen came out, so if they're not showing up for you, I'd imagine you still need to buy them there. EDIT - Oh, sorry, I just realised you're maybe asking if everyone has them by default in SotO. Good question, I'm not sure!

I didn't say it's purely good. Obviously there are different perspectives on everything. But this person said they haven't actually played in years, nothing beyond Heart of Thorns, and all they ever do is the login, so given that context, I think that, philosophically, decoupling yourself from that sort of behaviour is healthy. It seems otherwise drab and borderline sort of habit-based/addictive to me. You could do something else with that brain time. Obviously to each their own, but my opinion is that the old login reward system was not healthy. Not for players and not for the game. I don't think it actually accomplished the goal of rewarding people for playing, which is what it should do, and which is what the new system does better. Again, my feel, but - play the game. Logging in just to quit is not a game. Play the actual game. 🤷

This is a good thing. Don't be lashed to a game purely for a piddling log-in reward, just to quit moments later. That behaviour serves you not at all if you don't plan to use the content. Play the game because you actually want to log in and play. The rewards for dailies are unquestionably better now, so try to play a bit more if you can, and hopefully have fun.

Duplicate, sorry! Pls delete.

This.

Concur with most points, but I'm curious what you mean about the business model. The game (and series, under the same model) has been doing all right for... a few years now. Are you referring to the smaller and more frequent paid content they're going for? Do you think that won't hold up somehow? My take on that is a happy one. Starting from the original Guild Wars (the Elder) release up to now, I was the sort of person who would buy the ultimate-tier expac just to throw money at ArenaNet. Since I wasn't happy with End of Dragons, for the first time, I just got the base tier for SotO, but this may have been good enough to get me back on track with a higher tier. Even if it doesn't, from a purely selfish perspective, under this more rapid cadence, I would effectively get more high-quality content for a similar price point, while consistently supporting the company, and that consistence is extremely valuable to them from a finance/numbers perspective. That's just my perspective of course, but yeah, again... what's your concern?

Even if that were the case, would that actually mean that the relic system overall needs to be reverted, or just that some individual relics themselves need tweaking?

Yeah, and I think your view is very limited to stats over strategy. When you create a build, part of what you have to consider is synergy. Obviously you're not going to slot something that procs on an effect you can't activate, but I can definitely think of an engineer build that would pretty constantly be running around with five stacks from Aristocracy, no problem. A lot of the condition box relics seem like they could be very useful to me, and some of them are just a lot more (ahem) conditional than others. But that's okay - when you create a build, once again, you have to play to its synergies. I don't play condition builds much, but even I can see some potentially really awesome synergies there. I feel like people are looking for flat stat increases and aren't seeing anything past that, which is selling the whole system very short. The silly thing is that you already got that because now your relic effect is on top of the newly-extra stats from the sixth rune, which is (hooray) entirely up to you to choose. If the collective outrage is keeping you from finding fun in this system, then I think that's a huge shame, and that you should maybe take a breath and a break. But I honestly believe that it's a fantastic change. Yes, there will be bugs, and yes, there will be balance passes. Feel free to criticise, but the system is a net benefit for players and it will get better with time.

Once again, if everyone has the same set of widgets to use to assemble their build, what you get to do now is find your new favourite widget, and then, ideally, go play the game. Find the good one and move on. Someone else can find their favourite too. Even if ArenaNet has made some 'strictly infererior' sets (which I think is pretty subjective), as has already been said, there were plenty of rune sets that didn't get much play before. So what difference does it make? We're all playing with the same blocks right now, folks. Same playing field. That aside, there were some pretty major systems changes and additions here, obviously. Whenever you have major changes, you're bound to see bugs. If there are actual bugs with certain relics, then report them. Even suggest changes or new relics here, sure. But that doesn't mean they should revert the new system, and it doesn't mean it's fundamentally bad. Still so confusing to me to see such aggressively passionate anger for something that gives you more options and choice. 🙄

If no one has those bonuses then everyone is on the same playing field. What difference does it make? Honestly, the only thing I really sort of understand people being upset about losing is the summons. Golems and rock dogs and such. That mechanic had character, so I can understand people being fond of it. But the fact is that people love being given things and hate it when things are taken away, even if it doesn't really change much in the grand scheme. End of the day, this is not a big deal. It creates more build flexibility, makes it easier for them to balance, and let's be honest, it's another way for ArenaNet to keep folks playing the game. So many of the complaints about systems changes with this expansion have been from people who don't seem to want to actually play. It's genuinely baffling to me that people who want to do so little are so loud about it.

Hammer feels underwhelming to me on holo, sort of surprisingly. I was expecting to like it a lot more, but it's sidelined for rifle again. I probably just need to train with it more (I don't play scrapper so haven't spent time with it), but yeah, it really does not feel anywhere near as smooth, even compared to sword/shield. Alas. I do really like that they took the heat mechanic into consideration and baselined some buffs into sword for non-holo specs. That was thoughtful. I'm not sure what they did is precisely the best option, but I'm glad they did something to make it more viable. Kudos, balance crew.

If you look at the Wizard's Vault, the ability to just grab a bunch of gold using dailies and weeklies seems pretty crazy, so maybe ArenaNet were hesitant to overload the economy with big event rewards on top of that. Maybe these awesome metas will fall by the wayside in short order. Will likely happen anyway with the release of the next map. Time will tell.

Yeah, agreed, it's a little wonky. Not sure if it's intended, though. To me, I think the content tracking system is perpetually overloaded, even if you do shut off as much as you can in the game options, so I imagine they may be struggling with how to manage all of the data they're trying to shove in there. Hopefully they'll find a way to make it work.

You mean you miss the summons, I guess?

Things change, fellows. You're entitled to feel sad about it I suppose, but they're not going to revert this. Personally, I've never been so attached to one rune set bonus that it made my whole build and I couldn't play without it, so I am extremely confused by all of the complaints. Relics will continue to be balanced like everything else. Some will get buffs, some will get nerfs, and your builds will evolve with the new mechanic. Learn new things and play more game. Maybe you'll find something cool. Hope you have fun out there.

I've noticed that when I watchlist something from the Wizard's Vault, that tracker replaces my regular achievement watchlist. But, when I removed the Wizard's Vault task from the watchlist, my achievement tracker came back. Is that the situation you're in? If so, try removing the watch from your Wizard's Vault items.

I'm not really concerned with much of anything in the OP - none of that stuff is particularly impactful to my fun when I play, and also, I think it's very important to note that this expac is being delivered over time, so expecting it to be complete right now or comparing it to a larger release isn't entirely fair. But in a sidelong way, I do agree. The post-meta rewards are pretty awful. The actual meta events themselves have been a blast to play (especially Amnytas - what a cool boss and a well-designed event chain, bravo!), but the stuff you get after the effort feels like such worthless crap, not to mention being unceremoniously booted out of the map nearly immediately. For starters, no XP, and weirdly, lots of karma....? I'm tired of seeing unidentified gear pile up in my bag. Stacks of green and blue garbage are not compelling rewards. I'm sure there's a more interesting way to reward people. If the intent is to ramp people up for building legendaries, then I think you should work on that hype, because right now it feels sorely lacking.

Absolutely agreed, except that I don't really feel like the PvP weeklies are especially challenging. They were the first ones I got done, and in just a few matches. Anyhow, yeah, overall I love the new system. The rewards are great, and I love the flexibility. I always thought the old login/daily system was super bland. Really don't understand all the uproar about it, but then again, that seems to be fairly common practice for this game's forums, sadly.

But... why? You didn't have to do that. They didn't make you do that. You were just given an option and the possibility of an additional reward for it. Completionism is not your friend. I would recommend sparing yourself the heartache by considering what's important to you before doing stuff like this when you're supposed to be having fun. Personally, I've had a skyscale for a long time. I did the SotO masteries, and I'm ignoring the collections (for now, we'll see). As someone already said, the 300 acclaim isn't worth the time and gold you're putting into this, unless you're doing it for a "gotta catch 'em all" sort of reason. And if that's the case, I don't think it's ArenaNet's fault.

Let's start on a high note. As someone who's been around since beta, I am absolutely delighted to see changes to the daily system which grants players a lot of choice in how they play and are rewarded. Relics are cool and create welcome additional build flexibility (though they need a few tweaks, plus being soulbound is extremely frustrating and feels super dated). The maps are tons of fun to play around in (especially since I already had a fully upgraded skyscale and griffon). And the writing, characters, and voice acting has been absolutely top-notch. In terms of creating an interesting world, my personal feeling is that ArenaNet's done a really, really good job with this one. My deep and genuine thanks to Bobby, Indigo, and the rest of the writing and narrative crew for building a story experience that is meaningful and fun. That said... I have concerns. First and foremost, and this has ever been an issue with GW2, but specifically with SotO, the performance is shockingly bad. I get sub-twenty FPS just standing at the Mystic Forge in Wizard's Tower with reasonable settings. I feel like the dev crew is attempting to push graphical fidelity without accepting that the tech they have underlying it isn't super capable of delivering on the experience. My PC can play gorgeous AAA games at good settings - it should be able to handle this. Please, please, please make fixing the game's abominable performance a top priority. It's embarrassing at this point. Past that, the asset re-use, which I'm not really here to complain about (though let's be honest, it's pretty extreme), is a factor here if for no other reason than that it's a reminder of how crappy the older environment geometry and textures look. Honestly, part of the way the new maps look is rad! I love the vista aspect - gazing out on this shattered, suspended landscape, but when you get up close to things (and being on a skyscale, you spend a lot of time quite close to things), it's disappointingly apparent that the textures and geometry are super low-res and low-poly. I'm well aware of the fact that I'm simultaneously complaining about performance and quality, but folks - you go for quality after you have performance, and you need both. I would desperately love to see a visual overhaul of this game (even just higher texture resolution would be a good start), but please fix the performance so we can get there. If we're just being strung along until you have a new engine for GW3, that would feel pretty bad. Guild Wars 2 is a great game and it deserves better. Minor jabs, your UI still looks like a poop, and the abuse of white marble is egregious. Feels bland and kinda World of Warcrafty in places. Next time, less grand, more interesting. Good job. I love you. Please fix my FPS. ❤️‍

100% this. I love this game and, when it's working as intended, I still enjoy the actual PvP gameplay a lot (even if I like stronghold more, support stronghold, new stronghold maps, ranked stronghold now, et cetera), but the bot/idler situation is really insane right now. ArenaNet, you NEED to be more more intelligent and aggressive about dealing with this issue. If I see that you're not supporting your game, I'm definitely not going to continue supporting you (by buying your collector's edition expansion packs and such, as I usually do). Your efforts are appreciated where you put them (even if you don't put nearly enough into your competitive modes - there's a reason people don't play them the way they used to), and I know you're all very smart, so please figure this out.