Relics Bring New Equipment to Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure

[Ashen.2907]

8 hours ago, Geralt.7519 said:

It's not a lot of money at all, the standard version is less than 2 months of WoW, but the principle of taking away a QoL players paid for to resell it to them by forcing them to buy the new xpac, is extremely off-putting, and it sets a dangerous precedent.

Buying the new xpac is not a problem per se, I usually buy ultimates because when I enjoy a game I like to support the devs, but I want the reason for buying new xpacs to be wanting to play the new content, not being forced to get back a QoL you already have, it's a matter of principle, as it is to me supporting the devs.

I can only speak for myself ofc but when those principles don't align, I lose my reasons for supporting a game.

For what its worth your reasons match mine almost exactly. In the past I have spent far more than I ever would in a subscription game because I wanted to support the game. But supporting a system that I find to be unprincipled would be unprincipled on my part as well.

[Thorne.9857]

20 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

• 
  
• Why only "progress towards," rather than rewarding the relic itself? 
  • The relic will need to be unlocked separately because relics will have new abilities beyond those covered by runes previously, and the legendary relic will be capable of expanding with new relic releases.

This is...problematic.

The answer I'd hope for is "because we want to reward players who worked on Runes and lost some value in the process, whether they finished only one or all seven"

When I crafted my Legendary Runes, I was supposed to gain all the current and future (when they came out) Runes for use. That's part of why my Legendary offered. Why is it that now, because the team decided to split these into two equipment types, that I am being sold back my previously-earned functionality under the guise that they need to be unlocked separately because of "new abilities beyond those covered by runes previously"?

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

6 minutes ago, Thorne.9857 said:

This is...problematic.

The answer I'd hope for is "because we want to reward players who worked on Runes and lost some value in the process, whether they finished only one or all seven"

When I crafted my Legendary Runes, I was supposed to gain all the current and future (when they came out) Runes for use. That's part of why my Legendary offered. Why is it that now, because the team decided to split these into two equipment types, that I am being sold back my previously-earned functionality under the guise that they need to be unlocked separately because of "new abilities beyond those covered by runes previously"?

Don't worry, once you craft the Legendary Relic, you definitely 100% will never have to pinky promise swear ever ever ever have to craft a new Legendary Relic/Rune again*



 

 

 

*Please see terms and conditions, will probably have to craft another one again in the future.

[Thorne.9857]

12 minutes ago, MuscleBobBuffPants.1406 said:

Don't worry, once you craft the Legendary Relic, you definitely 100% will never have to pinky promise swear ever ever ever have to craft a new Legendary Relic/Rune again*

*Please see terms and conditions, will probably have to craft another one again in the future.

Hah! While I get where you're coming from, I also don't imagine Anet can really go hog wild making new gear and forcing us to grind for it. What other candidates would there even be?

A second relic slot maybe? That's slightly vertical, but doesn't touch previous legendaries and gives new functionality.

Splitting Enrichments from the Amulet to replace that with an Infusion slot, then making a new "Mystical Totem" to hold Enrichments? That's the closest to this situation gear-wise, and most people would probably not care at all.

It's not like they're going to realistically be able to split the Chest armor into "Chest" and "Abdominal" armor with half the stats each, because this would require them to rework hundreds and thousands of skins and to add that new piece to all existing armor sets. 

A much bigger concern, for me, would be that this can allow them to pull some WOW crap and take away flying mounts for new maps until people have "sufficiently explored the new hand-crafted map" or something like that, forcing us to earn "MAP: Take Flight!" Masteries just to use our hard-earned mounts in some new region.

It is problematic because that fine print seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting and shouldn't even be referenced, due to the verbal promises made in very public formats. If they use the implication of Rubi's post to its fullest, which is that they can change functionality freely and charge us to get it back, the game probably won't really survive past the 2025 expac. Veterans won't want to keep putting time or energy or money into the game, it will become too complex for newbies to figure out the 92 pieces of gear - some of which is locked behind expansions they probably don't own or understand. Anyone who does keep playing probably won't keep buying items in the gemstore, because progression becomes a crapshoot. 

The little gremlin in my mind is asking a worse question: How long until we see a subscription model implemented in the name of profits and engagement? We have promises on their website that "Guild Wars 2 will never require a monthly subscription or any other fees to play!" but this whole debacle is showing that their promises are fluid and subject to change.

Edit: If their real motive for Relics was "improve a broken system" and "increase engagement" with forcing us to grind being an unfortunate side effect, these concerns aren't even important. It's just the language being used that creates some worry.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Thorne.9857

[AreohGee.7592]

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

vertical progression

What is ^^^? Thanks 

[Geralt.7519]

39 minutes ago, Thorne.9857 said:

A second relic slot maybe?

Super Sigils! ... don't tell them we have legendaries of those too tho.

 

39 minutes ago, Thorne.9857 said:

It's not like they're going to realistically be able to split the Chest armor into "Chest" and "Abdominal"

No, but they could split the belt from pants or introduce bracers, or even both, since we're doing WoW shenigans, let's do it properly 🙃

[Astralporing.1957]

58 minutes ago, Thorne.9857 said:

It's not like they're going to realistically be able to split the Chest armor into "Chest" and "Abdominal" armor with half the stats each, because this would require them to rework hundreds and thousands of skins and to add that new piece to all existing armor sets. 

Oh, come on, that's easy. Split stats off from armor (leave only the armor value and skin on it), add an "empowerment core" item that will be attached to armor, and transfer stats to that item. Do the same for weapons and backpack.

Amulets, accessories and rings would be a bit more tricky, but i'm sure something can be figured for them as well (maybe split only secondary stats off, and leave primary stat on the original item).

See how easy is that?

[Hotride.2187]

8 hours ago, DarkShadow.7104 said:

Anet is likely to be now focusing on next SotO chapters releases (developing some, testing another, polishing and bugfixing all of them). Again, most likely, they thought about releasing Legendary Relics in a year or so while most of the dev team works on content and a small team works slowly on Leg Relic.

Good to know one of the major long-term goals in this game (getting full legendary and not having to farm gear ever ever ever again) is a footnote for the studio. For me its actually the only remaining reason to play the game (I'm at 2 more underwater weapons, double two-handers and quad one-hands, rest I got covered).

Edited July 22, 2023 by Hotride.2187

[Mangoyami.2418]

Since we're being a little silly now, where is the legendary jade bot core? Having to buy a new T10 core on every character i make just for some extra vit?

[QueenKeriti.5176]

1 hour ago, AreohGee.7592 said:

What is ^^^? Thanks 

Like how most MMOs work where you have to get better and better and better gear over time, often making your original gear obsolete/useless. Like WoW adding stronger and stronger gear each expansion, and you HAVE to get that gear if you want to clear the new content, and then grind for new gear again when the next expansion comes out, etc. The gear treadmill system.

GW2's system, outside of the debacle with ascended gear several years ago, has been the gear you bought/made back in 2012 is still the same/viable gear in 2023. There has been no gear stronger than ascended gear since the release of ascended gear (I think the stats are ~5% higher than exotic gear, but I'm not positive), and everything except fractals can be done without ascended gear. Even legendary gear in GW2 has ascended gear stats; it's a prestige/QoL item instead of the "best" item. GW2's is referred to as horizontal progression.

Edit: GW2's special thing is adding more stat combinations for gear (like Minstrel, Viper, Dragon, Ritualist, etc) rather than higher-stat gear.

Edited July 22, 2023 by QueenKeriti.5176
edit for example

[idpersona.3810]

1 hour ago, Mangoyami.2418 said:

Since we're being a little silly now, where is the legendary jade bot core? Having to buy a new T10 core on every character i make just for some extra vit?

I don't think that's silly at all. I'd gladly trade in 10 T10 cores or whatever to not have to deal with jade cores again. Considering it was a mastery, it's really annoying to have to also put gold for it into each character just to access those masteries.

[Jukhy.2431]

I think the main reason they are going this route is variety. We will be able to choose whatever relic bonus we want. And if the 6th rune gets added stats then 6 runes + relic will perhaps give more benefit than 6 runes with the old system. 
I'm happy with this since there are runes where the 6th bonus is pretty much useless to me, and on the other hand some sets I've chosen only for the 6th bonus while the stats are far from ideal to the build. 

I'd say the same more diversity approach applies to the Weaponmaster training too.

[Jukhy.2431]

1 hour ago, Mangoyami.2418 said:

Since we're being a little silly now, where is the legendary jade bot core? Having to buy a new T10 core on every character i make just for some extra vit?

All my toons got t1 core equipped by default. Whatever toon I'm playing I will swap the only t10 core I have from shared inv slot (no workbench needed). So basically the same thing I do with my glyphed unbreakable gathering tool set.

Edit: just to clarify, I have nothing against leggy cores if they were to be added.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Jukhy.2431

[DarkShadow.7104]

1 hour ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Good to know one of the major long-term goals in this game (getting full legendary and not having to farm gear ever ever ever again) is a footnote for the studio. For me its actually the only remaining reason to play the game (I'm at 2 more underwater weapons, double two-handers and quad one-hands, rest I got covered).

The major long-term goal in this game is not getting full legendary gear. That's YOUR MLTG. Other players haver other MLTG. ArenaNet has their MLTG. As of 2019 there were aparently around 400 people working on ANet. Let's say there are 400 right now as of 2023. How's your selling marketing to pay all your workers?

"Hey potential players around the world, may I interest you in one Legendary Relic for the next 15 months? It's a GREAT PIECE OF GEAR. BUY GW2 NOW!"

No, they are working on content to keep selling expansions. So yes, Legendary Relic is a footnote for the studio. More likely a burden since they released Legendary Gear for first time and kept doing it with every piece of gear, so now all new pieces of gear must have a legendary type. When? That's not the matter. Can they make it in time for the release? Great. If they can't, they'll deliver as soon as other priorities will be done. We as players can complain and increase the priority of Legendary Relic from 192 to 156, but not to priority 3 and having it next week.

[psizone.8437]

9 minutes ago, DarkShadow.7104 said:

As of 2019 there were aparently around 400 people working on ANet. Let's say there are 400 right now as of 2023. How's your selling marketing to pay all your workers?

I think you forgot their 2019 layoffs, they lost nearly 150 staff and I'm not sure we've seen the updated staffing numbers - officially anyway.

Edited July 22, 2023 by psizone.8437

[reddie.5861]

On 7/20/2023 at 5:47 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Learn all about the expansion's newest equipment slot.

EDIT: Below are some answers to frequently asked questions. We may add more as we keep an eye on this thread and see questions we are able to answer at this time.

 

• What happens to rune slot 6?
  • Slot 6 will be another stat bonus. Some runes already have a stat bonus here, and those that don’t will have one added. 
     
• Can I equip 5 runes and +1 of another set?
  • You can, as you can now, but this will be giving up the 6-slot bonus of one rune set for the 1 slot bonus of another.
     
• Will relics that launch cover all the special effect from each 6-rune set?
  • Not all existing 6-slot rune bonuses will be available as relics at launch. We will continue adding additional core relics over time as part of our ongoing commitment to improving our core game features.
     
• Can you explain the note about “choice of three core relics”?
  • When we say "your choice of three relics,” we mean that you’ll get to choose a total of three relics (exact number subject to change, but that’s our current plan) from among the available core relics.
     
• There are runes that have the same exact stat combinations up to 5 runes and then the 6th rune is different. For example, the runes of the pack, fireworks and surging. Now the rune of the pack actually gives stats (+125 precision) for the 6th rune. But the other two only have the special ability and give no stat bonus. Or does the 25% increase in movement speed count as a stat increase?
  • In cases like this, we’ll be making sure that runes with duplicate 1-5 bonuses have unique 6 slot stats. In this example, 25% movement speed will count as a stat increase and will be seen on a handful of rune 6 pieces.
     
• Will you be retiring any runes (due to duplicates or otherwise)?
  • No. All of the existing rune sets will have unique stat combinations and none of them will be removed.
     
• What will happen for rune sets with a special ability on rune 2 and 4? 
  • Unique 2 and 4 slot bonuses will become raw stats. (Boon and condition duration increases are not considered unique and will not be removed from runes.)
     

• Do we need 7 or will 6 that everyone crafted be enough towards the progress? 
  • We recognize most players will have only crafted up to 6 runes, but for players that have crafted seven, the extra effort will be recognized. That said, there is no requirement to make 7 legendary runes.
     
• Why only "progress towards," rather than rewarding the relic itself? 
  • The relic will need to be unlocked separately because relics will have new abilities beyond those covered by runes previously, and the legendary relic will be capable of expanding with new relic releases.
     
•  Is the relic choice box granted to each character over level 60, or do you get one per account?  
  • The relic choice box is granted per character.

gw2 starting to get boring, i mean no offense for regular PvE players its fun and stuff "content" woohoo..

But for us WvW players having to do kitten story again having to farm some kitten relic again having to farm if wanted a crappy legendary again..
comon Gw2 used to be logout for a year return do some stat swapping on ascended gear and off you go again nothing to much of a hassle.
now we get update after update adding more shite in the game.

Can we have amulet system in WvW like PvP?
can we have auto unlock reward tracks if we bought any given expansion? (no need to do story with long kitten video's that cant be skipped etc)
can we have just about everything unlocked without the need of PvE? (amulet system would insta solve this problem but w/e, never understood why WvW doesnt have amulet system like PvP)


for the people who wonder why i dont go play PvP if pretty much anything i asked is already in PvP, because i kinda like the "team death match" mode from WvW im not interested in capping nodes or whatever im interested in the open world random PvPs i dont wanna have goals to win by capping something i dont wanna queue i just wanna PvP. hence why WvW suits better.

[psizone.8437]

1 minute ago, reddie.5861 said:

Can we have amulet system in WvW like PvP?

Please no! I like the amulet system in sPvP but I love the build freedom in WvW.

Just make sure the relics can be bought in the heroics notary vendor in WvW and it won't be much of an issue.

[reddie.5861]

Just now, psizone.8437 said:

Please no! I like the amulet system in sPvP but I love the build freedom in WvW.

Just make sure the relics can be bought in the heroics notary vendor in WvW and it won't be much of an issue.

or that im just tired of having to go into PvE world every update to do some dumb achievements or story, which is 90% of the time just irritating me cus of long lasting dumb chats between npc's or video's or w/e i just want a skip button 😄

[psizone.8437]

Just now, reddie.5861 said:

i just want a skip button 😄

No arguments there, the last story thing they added was a loooot of un-skippable dialogue.

[DarkShadow.7104]

  

41 minutes ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

I think the main reason they are going this route is variety. We will be able to choose whatever relic bonus we want. And if the 6th rune gets added stats then 6 runes + relic will perhaps give more benefit than 6 runes with the old system. 
I'm happy with this since there are runes where the 6th bonus is pretty much useless to me, and on the other hand some sets I've chosen only for the 6th bonus while the stats are far from ideal to the build. 

I'd say the same more diversity approach applies to the Weaponmaster training too.

Do I like the relic idea? Yes.

Do I preffer adding rather than changing? Yes. So far we saw relics that are Elite skills related.

Could we have the same exact runes without changes (bonus on 6th) AND another extra bonus in form of relic for Elites? Yes.

Would be a nightmare to balance the game? Oh yes. But, didn't the new expansion break already the game allowing you mixing specs so there's no way there will be a "balance" and more likely a "this is strong af let's giganerf it so no one uses it anymore?". 

No, but, what if there are relics not related to Elite skill? Welp, maybe it's not a drama to have 2 different bonuses. You can always do a UNIQUE system to avoid stacking strong bonuses. AND LOOK, the drama is over. No one would ask for a free Legendary Relic.

19 minutes ago, psizone.8437 said:

I think you forgot their 2019 layoffs, they lost nearly 150 staff and I'm not sure we've seen the updated staffing numbers - officially anyway.

Didn't know that, I'd like to apologize. The legendary relic priority is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay farther away than what I imagined.

Edited July 22, 2023 by DarkShadow.7104
Typo

[Nimrod.9240]

The Relic's will be normal equipment like armor or rings, right?

Uh, with 40 +12 relics at start, that is a lot of inventory space on top of the space we already need to use for runes. -> Can we get an extra relic storage please?

[Graymatter.4723]

8 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Again, you are talking about someone that introduced Ascended to this game (and was going to continue with gear progression systems), then left the company for years and returned relatively recently. Which is when first signs of vertical progression style elements started to appear again.

And if you really think they haven't noticed how this system makes you grind for stuff they've taken away from you first (or that they did not consider it a good point of this system), think again. They knew. They just didn't expect us to notice.

A/Net have been good. Ascended gear is still the top tier of gear and has been since it was introduced in 2012 not long after the game was released. That was over 10 years back. Legendary gear was added at the same same tier as ascended and has been improved through the years like the legendary armory. They have given extra features to us for free during the years including selectable skins from the gem store. People who lost progress when they had to roll back the server were rewarded.

I don't like the lack of a legendary relic as much as the next person. I have 7 legendary runes. I am annoyed that I have to do a bunch of grind to get back some of the flexibility that I have lost. The legendary relic should have been available at launch but I don't think that they are in a position to give us that and delaying relics isn't an option. As I said, A/Net have been good about handling these situations in the past and have, for the most part, listened to customers, even when I sometimes wish they wouldn't.

You can look back at my post history in this thread. I have been very critical of the decision. I just don't think that they are doing anything nefarious which is what your last two sentences suggest. They have tried to help the situation and are still adapting. The first blog stated "To celebrate the new system, we’ll distribute a relic selection box to all players at launch.". This changed to "When the expansion launches, each character of level 60 or above will receive a relic chest to get you started in the new system with a choice of three core relics (exact number subject to change).". They are aware of the problem and are trying to work around it. It's not something that they would do on purpose.

[Sobx.1758]

20 minutes ago, Nimrod.9240 said:

Uh, with 40 +12 relics at start, that is a lot of inventory space on top of the space we already need to use for runes.

Yup. Even with legendary relic coming in anywhere between 3-9 months after soto release, everyone still already would need to interact with the whole system anyways by getting the relics they want and designating space in their inventories (even if we don't count all of them) to keep juggling them. And THEN we can move to legendary ones 😐

Edited July 22, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Hotride.2187]

54 minutes ago, DarkShadow.7104 said:

The major long-term goal in this game is not getting full legendary gear. That's YOUR MLTG. Other players haver other MLTG. ArenaNet has their MLTG.

Do read one of in my comment. And judging from the pages upon pages of comments, its not just me with that goal. The studio is of course free to prioritize however they want, and release as much undercooked content as they want. Just like I'm free to spend my time and money on something else. A shame to wreck a system to release something unfinished but I guess its only a problem if I play the game. Which I wont, until this crap gets sorted out.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

14 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

A shame to wreck a system to release something unfinished

This is kind of how my feelings have gone with this expansion after my initial hype died. We're exactly one month away from release, and there is very little info on what is going to be at release or when other things are going to be released. I know this isn't particularly unique to Anet, but, with the changes to how they plan to deliver content, giving precious little information on what will be in that content is further disheartening. Even outside of my discontent with the relics/runes thing, I don't even know what I'd be paying for if I bought the expansion right now.

I saw a weird quote today, no idea where it's from, could be from somewhere absolutely silly, but: "Lack of communication leaves too much room for the imagination." That's how I'm feeling about everything. "JuSt Be PaTiEnT aNd WaiT fOr InFo" is not a good thing when the product is already on sale and my trust is damaged.

Side note: None of my characters have beyond T1 jade bot core. I thought it was silly to have to spend 30+ gold per character for more vitality, and none of my builds scale off of vitality either. It is a bizarre system to add in the first place.