Game Update Notes: November 8, 2022

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

11/08/2022—November 8 Release Notes

Living World Season 1—Battle for Lion's Arch

In the wake of the climactic events of the Personal Story, dark machinations converge toward their final goal as heroes rise to the occasion. Scarlet Briar's clockwork minions are menacing Lornar's Pass, and the time has come to uncover the truth behind her schemes and, hopefully, put an end to them for good. Gather the new friends and allies you've made across Season 1, and make your stand for the future of Tyria!

After years of being unavailable, the Battle for Lion's Arch episode of the Living World storyline has been restored and restructured as a linear Story Journal episode. This episode is permanently available to all players without any unlock needed. This is the finale of the commander's battle against the nefarious Scarlet Briar—complete Season 1 and experience the link from the Personal Story to Season 2!

• The original Battle for Lion's Arch achievements, along with a set of new achievements, are now in a Battle for Lion's Arch category in the Achievements tab of the Hero panel.
  • Completing the new achievements will progress a new Battle for Lion's Arch Mastery meta-achievement to earn new rewards.
  • Achievements from the lead-up to the battle can be found in the restored Escape from Lion's Arch category.
  • Existing achievements retain their completion status if you earned them during the original release of Season 1.
  • Many existing achievements have been updated with additional goals or revised goals to ensure that they can still be completed.
• A new Strike Mission is now available. Enter the Lion's Court from Lion's Arch or Arborstone and face down the trio of Scarlet's Assault Knights, but be wary of their tag-team abilities and devastating combination barrages!
  • The challenge mode version of this Strike Mission will be released on November 29.
• The Battle for Lion's Arch map can now be permanently accessed from the Gendarran Fields gate of Lion's Arch. Clear the streets of Lion's Arch of invaders, defeat enemy generals, and take down the enhanced Assault Knights to claim your rewards!
  • The Battle for Lion's Arch and the Tower of Nightmares can now also be accessed from the Eye of the North, and both have been added to the two-hour rotation of promoted events alongside Twisted Marionette and Dragonstorm.
• Additional achievements have been added to previous Season 1 episodes to slightly ease completion of their respective meta-achievements.

World Polish

• Sitting in chairs from the novelty wardrobe will now add time to your Arborstone Rested bonus.
  • If you upgrade your Arborstone Revitalization Mastery and sit in a chair, your enhancement will increase up to your new Mastery level. Note: The bonus for tier 1 will not upgrade this way.
  • If you do not have a Rested enhancement, sitting in a chair for five minutes will grant a new Rested enhancement at the tier-1 level (5%) with a 1-hour duration. Players without the Arborstone Revitalization Mastery can still receive this bonus.

Extra Life—Someone in Need Collection

The Someone in Need collection was recently introduced as part of Extra Life 2022. Now that the Game Day charity livestream event has concluded, we've updated it to be a permanent part of the game going forward. These changes make the content more easily completable for individual players and clarify the steps needed to complete the collection while retaining some of the difficulty present in the original design.

• Added the hints from the Extra Life Game Day stream into the collection as hints for relevant steps.
• Added icons to the orb-collecting step to help players better track their progress.
• Fixed an issue in which one of the steps was showing up earlier than intended.
• Fixed an issue in which some markers would not clear when they were intended to.
• Simplified the "Spot the Fake" step.

General

• Commanders and lieutenants will now be sorted first in their subsquads, even when on a different map instance.
• Outfits can now be purchased directly from the Hero panel.
• Added profession mechanic skills (such as necromancer shroud) to the Weapon Skills section of the Build tab in the Hero panel.
• Fixed an issue in which using some mount skins could cause the player to get visually stuck in place.
• Fixed a rare issue that could cause some players to not be able to progress the siege turtle acquisition collection Stomping Around.
• Fixed a rare issue in which players would fail to receive items from achievement rewards under specific circumstances, such as the chest from the Lighting Dragon's End achievement.
• Fixed an issue in which clicking on a chat link to a point of interest or waypoint would not put the map on the correct floor to view the location (such as when in the Mistlock Sanctuary).
• The Facet of Ice and Persuasion collection hint text now correctly lists the Den of Whispers for the location for purifying the Icebrood aether.
• Fixed a bug that caused Aurene's aether purifier to appear before completing the Den of Whispers jumping puzzle.
• The text for the Icebrood aether effect has been updated for clarity.
• The Icebrood aether effect will no longer be removed when gliding.

Raids

• Legendary Insights are now displayed as a map currency while in raid maps.

Items

• The Aetherblade Signet Ring rewarded from the Sky Pirates Mastery achievement is now a ring as intended, rather than an accessory. Accessory versions of this item that have already been acquired can still be used, and either version can be purchased from Sarettokk in Lion's Arch.

World vs. World

World Restructuring—WvW Guild Selection Updates

Players may now choose their WvW guild for matchmaking purposes from either the WvW panel or the guild panel. Eventually, the guild panel will become the only way to manage your WvW guild selection. These panels will remain accessible outside of World Restructuring beta events, allowing players to update their WvW guild selection at any time prior to a matchmaking event.

The guild panel has been updated with new WvW guild selection functionality and iconography:

• If you are currently on the same team with your WvW guild, it will show an "active" icon.
• A "pending" icon will be displayed next to your WvW guild if you are not currently on the same team as your WvW guild. You will be placed on the same team as your WvW guild in the next matchmaking event.

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Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with the Mystic Forge recipe involving the Aetherized Arsenite Greatsword.
• Fixed an issue that caused some text in the Battle For Lion's Arch to appear as numbers.

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Bug Fixes:

• Fixed incorrect attributes on the Zealot’s Aetherized Indigo Staff.
• Fixed an issue that caused the encounter barrier in the Old Lion's Court Strike Mission to deactivate sooner than intended after a squad wipe.
• Fixed an issue in which some waypoints in a squad instance of the Battle for Lion's Arch would incorrectly link players to the open-world version of the map.
• Fixed an issue that prevented escort events with a “destroy” objective, such as killing dolyaks in WvW, from being completed successfully.

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Bug Fixes:

• Rebalanced the champion fights in the Twisted Marionette story mission.
• Updated Kasmeer's and Marjory's skill selections in the Twisted Marionette story mission to prevent potentially blocking progression.

[Double Tap.3940]

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that could prevent progress of story steps that required players to read related mail in Season 1 episodes 3, 4, and 5.