Personal Housing, A New Raid, A New Weapon, and More: Janthir Wilds launches August 20! [Merged]

[VirtuesOfSin.1305]

I don't know how everyone else might feel about this, but I - for one - would love it if they allow us to purchase different Home Maps for us to choose from instead of having to be stuck with the home given to us through story. I'd gladly pay $20 for a Norn themed Guild Home in the Shiverpeaks. I want to have an area like Eir's house where I can call my own. I'm somewhat doubtful that Anet would put anymore thought than the one default map into player housing, but if it was possible to change which house we have access too through the Black Lion Store, I'd love to see what sort of homes they could map out and give to us.

Considering SOTO didn't have any gimmicks that could be marketed off of like a personal home instance, I am curious how Anet will handle player housing. 

Edited June 19 by AlphaWolvesGamer.5790

[Artemis.8034]

I hope the housing is like Rift, best housing and decorating experience ever! There was a place like a giant instanced shopping mall where you could go and purchase all kinds of neat furniture decorations throw pillows swimming pools lamps everything!! And the best part was it was interactive you could have a party have people over and they could use your stuff.

Like they said in Rift, create what makes you happy!

[Quench.7091]

23 hours ago, Artemis.8034 said:

I hope the housing is like Rift, best housing and decorating experience ever! There was a place like a giant instanced shopping mall where you could go and purchase all kinds of neat furniture decorations throw pillows swimming pools lamps everything!! And the best part was it was interactive you could have a party have people over and they could use your stuff.

Like they said in Rift, create what makes you happy!

I can't say that everything was perfect in Rift, but they had some really cool ideas from what little of the game I've experienced.

From what I remember:

• You could find different housing instances in the form of items.
• The maps could be used for custom PvP arenas.
• Player home instances could be made public and have a public browser that is sorted by the number of players currently within the instance.
• You could browse the instances of friends and guild members, as long as they have the option for these groups to join enabled.
• Items are resizable and can be rotated in 3 dimensions.
• Items could be placed above the ground without needing to stack items on of each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL1W9e9gswk

Edited June 21 by Quench.7091

[Valdergare.5619]

If it's not too late...A bookshelf for our collected books.

Interacting with it would being up a clickable list of all our books...

/salute

Valdergare

[Curunen.8729]

I like the aesthetic of this expansion, the wild nature theme and region.

Glad mesmer spear looks good so far.

Housing however - my personal fantasy is the Mary Poppins handbag, to fit everything in a tiny space and enjoy less IRL (not including property rental). The game already affords me this fantasy with the player inventory, so housing is like actively against my core philosophy and that kind of thing causes more stress, even if it is virtual. But I realise this is a minority thing so housing should be great for most players.

For me though I will be paying £20 to unlock spear on mirage, hopefully worth it after the disappointment of rifle...

[frazazel.7501]

I hope that they make the warclaw feel good to use, and that I don't spend every moment wishing I was on my skyscale instead. I also hope that they provide some benefit for players who also unlock it via WvW. Possibly a skin or an additional minor mastery skill? Something to throw a bone to players who already unlocked it, and to encourage new WvW players to still engage with the existing warclaw unlock quest.

[Batalix.2873]

The team really stepped up their game for spear design this expansion, good job. While I think this game is still a year or two out from a point where I would want to play it again, this and SotO (albeit, a rough start) combined are moving in a more coherent direction than we have seen since PoF. The next thing you really need to be working on:

Revamp boons/condis. Both have been utterly trivialized in the fantasy/flavor/function they offer. On the side of boons, the homogenization of support roles makes boons feel at best totally inconsquential on DPS-support, and "all the things go" on pure support. And on the side of condis, you are continuously forcing weird, unflavorful mixes of condis onto weapons simply to make them condi, be it "all condis go" on jobs like Mallyx Rev and Scourge, or weird forced condis like Engi confusion mace or bleed spear. Additionally, both of these systems have been experiencing a lot of "dartboard" application, where a lot of abilities seem to have an arbitrarily chosen boon or condi tacked on just to give the players something. Both of these systems need an overhaul to bring back some differentiation in how support and condi DPS feel and function. My proposals:

a. For boons, heavily pull back and/or remove group-wide DPS buffs: alacrity, quickness, might, fury. At minimum in instanced content, but also maybe some more focused design for open world/WvW. Limit these  to player-only boons so DPS can be more self-sufficient and play with different ways to optimize their individual DPS. And then expand further into profession/espec/weapon-specific damage-buff boons like you have been implementing on certain SotO/JW weapons. I would do this first, and then reevaluate how to approach differentiating heal/defense boons after that issue has been dealt with (I think those pose less of a problem but could probably be cleaned up a bit as well).

b. For conditions, just create new types of condi damage and redistribute condi damage differently. You can only recombine torment/bleed/poison/fire/confusion so many times, and there is definitely more design space for new condi types in the game. An electric/zap condi would make certain Engi weapons feel more coherent. I think Rev, Ele, and Necro could benefit from some slight frostbite damage on chill. And Guardian and Druid could get a "holy/light" counterpoint to torment. The condi damage game is becoming really boring when half the time all anyone does is run their typical fire, torment, and/or confusion build and then slap on sigil of geomancy/earth. It needs more variety/choice, and new condis would go a long way.

c. Refine roles a bit. I appreciate the attempt to make more condi melee jobs with spears, this is a good addition. But the power level on condi ranged jobs (the easiest DPS to play) needs to be pulled back more. And in general, too many power/melee jobs have a crapton of boons tacked onto their skills; it is okay for them to lean further into selfish DPS and away from support.

d. Reconsolidate the boon/buff UI. There should probably be three rows: condis, boons, and other buffs/debuffs. The boon list just gets too long.

Edited June 24 by Batalix.2873

[Aelin.9317]

Happy with ele spear after being disappointed with the pistol. 

[Sarafyna.2136]

Please allow a wider range of housing options. Like a nice house from Selma District we can "build". or a house from Hoelbrak. The current photo of whats on the land is not that pleasing. Something to think about.

[Lukeers.2053]

I like all of what is announced but, Are we getting Strike Missions?
seems like 1 raid this year is not Enough. At least give us 1 or 2 Strikes and make the end boss a strike also. 
 

[Linken.6345]

6 hours ago, Lukeers.2053 said:

I like all of what is announced but, Are we getting Strike Missions?
seems like 1 raid this year is not Enough. At least give us 1 or 2 Strikes and make the end boss a strike also. 
 

No strike missions in this expansion but a raid is like 2-3 strikes depending on how many bosses there are.

[Lukeers.2053]

Yeah but Raids are weekly encounters, and it will come out during first quartely.

[Mysty Meadows.1425]

With the new homestead addition, or mini guild halls as many call them (Guild hall decoration system will mirror the homestead deco system, so all they did was make gh's smaller and call them homesteads) you will need a new crafting skill, and mats, so ala SOTO I am figuring all meta events etc will be the source of obtaining these mats? And going forward this will be the norm? If so, me personally, I'm done with expansionis. But one players choice is hardly noteworthy.

Has any mention of how many hours of gameplay is being added? Will the new mount be needed like Skyscale was for SOTO? IF so, then again no interest.

EOD, and SOTO were huge bugfests. Ach's not able to be completed, updates/fixes were slow to arrive. I think the best plan is wait for launch, read the reviews and go from there.

Edited June 27 by Mysty Meadows.1425

[Mic.1897]

I don't think you asked your questions in a way that will get you any answers lol

[NayNay.7680]

Here's to hoping ele pistol gets finished. I've been waiting a year for a simple muzzle flash and the devs can't seem to be bothered to do it. It probably seems minor to anyone who reads this but I can't in good conscience prepay for more content that might not be completed. I can wait on the spear.

[Mystflower.7319]

Anyone else counting down the days?

[Mystflower.7319]

Not sure if anyone else noticed this but on the Janthir Wilds release page there is an image of Isgarren floating in the center of the Guild's HQ in Lion's Arch at the spot where normally the NPC stands where you can buy / select the guild hall you wish to claim.. Is this a hint that we might be getting a new Kodan themed guild hall as well? Or is this just a random backdrop they used to portrait Isgarran?

I personally would love it if we get a guild hall in this theme as well, certainly if it's the area that was used in the 'There is something leaving the water' teaser video for spears.  One can only hope of course, then again if we don't get one that's totally fine for me as well because I'm already excited for the Homesteads. I just wanted to share my findings here and see if anyone else noticed it as well. I know Anet used to give us little hints in the past on things so it just made me wonder if this could be a hint as well. (I know the description of the screenshot says it's made for the Wizard's Vault but then again, why use the Guild HQ as a backdrop instead of the Wizard's Tower?) 

Also my apologies if someone else already mentioned this before.

Edit: Looking more closely at the image I now also noticed Queen Jennah and others being there so I might be totally wrong of why he's there.. xD I need new glasses but still I stand behind my idea that it would be lovely if we get a guild hall themed after it as well.

Edited August 13 by Mystflower.7319

[Aelin.9317]

On 6/22/2024 at 9:32 PM, Batalix.2873 said:

And on the side of condis, you are continuously forcing weird, unflavorful mixes of condis onto weapons simply to make them condi, be it "all condis go" on jobs like Mallyx Rev and Scourge, or weird forced condis like Engi confusion mace or bleed spear. Additionally, both of these systems have been experiencing a lot of "dartboard" application, where a lot of abilities seem to have an arbitrarily chosen boon or condi tacked on just to give the players something. Both of these systems need an overhaul to bring back some differentiation in how support and condi DPS feel and function. 

 

I think getting bonked on the head with a mace could leave you confused, similarly getting stabbed with a spear seems reasonable to cause a bleed. 

Why would they create a zapped condition when we have stun. 

 

[Batalix.2873]

On 8/17/2024 at 6:24 AM, Aelin.9317 said:

I think getting bonked on the head with a mace could leave you confused, similarly getting stabbed with a spear seems reasonable to cause a bleed. 

Why would they create a zapped condition when we have stun. 

 

Engi spear impliedly isn't causing bleeding through pokes though, but through zaps?

If blunt damage had previously inflicted confusion, I might agree with you. As it stands, nothing about Engi's mace feels any more or less "confusing" than any other mace or hammer skill in the game.

Both are stretches to justify the weapons as condition-based damage, as are many conditions these days.

I'm going to add that not only would the game have better fantasy feel with a few more damage conditions, but also a focusing of gear *away* from the general condition damage stat, and almost exclusively compartmentalized by condition damage type. So instead of every condition build being incentivized to tack on still more condition damage types, players would be encouraged to specialize in one or two condition types and their respective strengths/weaknesses. This would also necessitate a rebalancing of condi cleanses and maybe more clearly defining a second category of non-damaging condi cleanses, but it would help make all the condi classes feel less samey.