ArenaNet Studio Update: July 2021

[HappyHubris.1096]

This is all great news for me.  I need more time to catch up on content, and the DX11 implementation could fix one of my biggest gripes with the game!

[Balsa.3951]

Ppl are so easy to be hyped

 

let's summarize

ISB Butchered - expansion delayed = mismanagement

New ppl in charge= what will that bring? LS 1 system by Collin was a failure- start of gw2 was a mess and HOT had delayed content for a year.

 

New Engine = long over done, should have happened years ago. The bigger question is will it even help to replace an old engine with another not so old but still old engine.

 

Alliance announced years ago reach now beta ? What was going on all those years as well, will alliance be fun ?

 

All I read is we mismanagement the game for years, now we sell u this as a victory, bon appétit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Balsa.3951

[anduriell.6280]

I'm really happy to see some veteran faces back to GW2, the blog post brought me some very positive vibes. 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Multi-core support. NEED IT. NOW.

I play GW2 and LoL. Now mostly LoL. Why?
Because GW2 brutally overheats my processor, which is not weak nor old (ryzen 4800h).
It's this game engine that's responsible.

Non issue in winter, fall or spring, but in summer when it's a kitten heat-zone outside i need my lappy to stay at reasonable temps, and so LoL wins:/

[Mik.3401]

19 hours ago, Redfeather.6401 said:

I hope someday gw2 will appreciate great things that guild wars 1 did and try to bring them back. GW2 gets stale so fast, but I went back to gw1 for that 2020 anniversary that add 1 new skill to each class. So many people came back to gw1 for that. All just to make new builds and play around with the possibilities.

I hope so too even though it is unlikely. The number skills and dual class system allowed so many builds to shine, there was that feeling at any time some build may become viable. In GW2 we are just locked to specialisations and a tiny number of utility skills. Maybe because the number of skills is so low the balancing is so hard - some classes just have a narrow choice of great options while others not so much. Just speculating - I am not an expert so not come for me guys.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Guild Wars, and its plethora of skills, was a nightmare to balance...according to the Devs.

I'd guess that's why we have less skills in Guild Wars 2. 

[Teletric.3821]

I'm optimistic about the expansion, but I can't help but think about how the way IBS ended is going to leave a sour taste in my mouth while going through it. Part of me hopes that they will return to IBS in the future and do it justice if they end up with extra time somehow.

Either way, I'm still looking forward to the expansion and seeing the content it will bring.

[Zagerus.8675]

This is wonderful news. Most every Arenanet employee I've seen communicate to the public has shown that they have an authentic passion for propelling this game to new heights and evolving it into its best form. I can't imagine the kind of work that goes on behind the scenes but I try to appreciate it every time I log in to the game. It's great to see two visionaries return home to help carry the story of GW2 forward. Lets go man! Wooo!

[Redfeather.6401]

7 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Guild Wars, and its plethora of skills, was a nightmare to balance...according to the Devs.

I'd guess that's why we have less skills in Guild Wars 2. 

I know for a fact one person who doesn't work here anymore was very biased when it came to balancing. He mained a monk and any time he added new skills and showcased them on wiki the community would slam him for the new monk skills being OP and the new mesmer skills being a joke. His ability to balance was more about protecting his main than players having fun. Which is why he took forever to balance smiter's boon and was pressured into doing it so it became notorious.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

What's that got to do with anything? 

 

Did Devs regularly update the Wiki?  They sure don't in Guild Wars 2.

 

You may be confused:  https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter's_Boon/Skill_history

This page contains information about a Guild Wars skill that has remained the same since its introduction. (This article duplicates the information in the main article.)

[lezbefriends.7516]

Most of the news is great, but the delay is NOT GOOD! Most games that delay their content to improve upon it still have fresh content coming out during the meantime. In GW2, we've been dealing with filler/recycled content while waiting for the expansion.. so delay in this case is NOT GOOD.

[Fueki.4753]

On 7/6/2021 at 4:05 AM, Mortifera.6138 said:

Most of the news is great, but the delay is NOT GOOD! Most games that delay their content to improve upon it still have fresh content coming out during the meantime. In GW2, we've been dealing with filler/recycled content while waiting for the expansion.. so delay in this case is NOT GOOD.

Actually the delay is good.

They need the time to refine the the expansion, instead of rushing it out early.

And their release should not clash with the FF14 Endwalker release window, as that would be another detriment to the expansion.

While it might have to contest with Elden Ring now, that's less competition than Endwalker.

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Kronos.3695]

While I don't share the hype for announced "change of routes" (we've seen a lot of them in the past), the DX 11 will be a huge change for the game.

 

Consider that changing an engine from DX9 to DX11 (native) is a lot a work, but it pays for the future updates and implementations, and it means that ArenaNet (NCSoft probably here wanted to invest more) is aiming to support the game for a really long time.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Kronos.3695

[hugo.4705]

4 hours ago, Siobhan.6027 said:

 

I'm not going to quote your entire post but everything you've said nails a lot of my thoughts. Its so unfortunate they decided to bring back the man who changed the direction of Guild Wars 2 for the worse.  

 

I can't believe there's going to be atleast half a year and maybe more wait until the next expansion.   Its not acceptable in this day in age when you have to compete with games like WoW and FF14. Why would I stick around and play your game? Why would I come back?  I'm surprised that NCSOFT is okay with this.

 

Or, NcSoft knows that gw2 gonna simply end after EoD. Many festivals can now be in maintenance mods, simply adding the same achievements each year, the same 50 ap annual feats each year. Plus we now have festivals scrolls.

The incoming years can be coded as routine. This festival starts each year the thuesday of this week of the year. That rush event starts those days. No more living seasons episodes just festivals and rushes / no down state or call of war of wvw pvp and nothing more.

 

It is hard to project to after eod, no stories are left, anet ruined primordius arc, they stopped jormag arc. Many evil faction got their end in ls4 or 3. The LS6 will be path of light with 100% aurene our saviour. Only aurene as main character.

 

Too many efforts have been put in personnal story 0-40 steps and core maps. Even the dragon stories. If EOD and after eod it is still Aurene as main character I have no more reason to play. I just got my 20k ap chest so I'm happy now. Just gonna check next year if sab has a new world too but if not I will play more phasmophobia which one is receiving big updates soon.

 

I regret that we don't have gw2 launch/2013 anet teams anymore. This game was always about bad management. Not knowing what to chose between SAB and doing ls2. Sab butchered. Releasing hot but fourth path of dragon stand and surely rata novus got scrapped. Ls3 with bitterfrost a so bad map. Ls4 with two unfinished gandara fortress lanes and gandara fortress not explorable. Jahai bluffs and its big unexplorable zone in the north. Joko butchered. Bad plot twist of aurene dying to resurect a second later. Killing kralkatorrik the worst way and inventing that dragons now have feelings. Ls5 Icebrood saga, not killing one loved and awesome character but three: smodur the imperator who was awesome, almorra who was a figure to me since i joined the vigil and putting to bin bangar who was so charismatic.

Really Eod better have been good and not ruining aetherblade, luxons or kurzicks nor the marjory character.

 

Can anyone here tell me that my race, profession, choices or gender matter? We are all the same commander, pawn of a bad story where choices don't matter. Kinda remind me demtarune. The players isn't free to join an evil organization. The player isn't free to hate aurene and don't speak to her. The player isn't free to be someone else that the almighty infuriating commander. The player isn't even able to chose which dragon it wants to worship. Sad, mine would have been primotdius. The player don't have a story, it is only different by its personnal story choice. Being engineer and not being able to find lore in the world by examinating devices and consoles. Ranger and ignoring trainers or speaking to animal. Being elementalist and not giving your intel in a story step when you see magic. Revenant and not feeling anything going wrong with mists or ley lines...

 

I never played gw1, sure cantha is a new place to me, but from the videos of youtube i saw, this place doesn't look amazing. I expect a lot from the stream at the end of the month to hype me or confirm me that i can leave tranquilly.

Edited July 6, 2021 by hugo.4705

[Psycoprophet.8107]

On 7/2/2021 at 4:20 PM, Konrad Curze.5130 said:

so, leaving the koolaid aside...

 

to noone's surprise they are running way behind schedule and have to delay the expac.

 

great, so that means  IBS was awfully mutilated for.....nothing

 

and we all are gonna have to endure months  after months of absolutly nothing new, farming the same maps for the million-th time

 

all while everybody else is having fun in FF14, ESO, WoW, Lost Ark, New World and many other direct competitors which managed to actually stick to their goals for the next months

 

good lord, this is gonna be real rough, how many people is GW2 going to lose to other games? and can it afford losing them? arent we already barebones?

Well u could do always join ffxiv and check back after EoD releases and see how well received it was before making the call to return, what me and a few buds are doing. It sucks its delayed but it's a better alternative than releasing a poor expac as this games future kinda hinges on its success. Hopefully this is the expac to turn things around for gw2.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

I mean I'm happy seeing people be OK with the delay, but who guarantees to you guys that the expac will be delivered with no issues? 

 

I bet we won't see any improvement from PoF and HoT. 

 

I'm not talking about aesthetics etc. Remember PoF map lag? Time to get that 3 times worse lmao! 

 

Joking aside, just because they postponed the release doesn't mean it won't be time crunched, considering the mass layoffs from last year and how I DOUBT that re-hiring 2 figures (1 at a questionable spot) will be enough to cover for the work of the previous expacs. 

[Lightfoot.5438]

On 7/5/2021 at 7:18 AM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Guild Wars, and its plethora of skills, was a nightmare to balance...according to the Devs.

I'd guess that's why we have less skills in Guild Wars 2. 

 

Yeah it was tough to balance and one solution would have been to simply have fewer skills rather than the system that produces nothing but the cookie cutter builds in GW2 now.  Having an energy/mana management system might also have been nice too.

 

The way I look at it is that GW2 was designed after the beginning of the Great Recession and labor costs were maybe factored in a little too much. The end result that too many corners were cut to make the game what it could have been. 

 

I bought the game when it was first released, played it for a few days then stopped for eight years until pandemic idleness prompted me to start playing again. 

 

My entire GW1 guild disappeared from GW2 because it was so disappointing to them, The game is just not what they wanted it to be.

 

I hope Colin et al can recover some of the spirit marketing acumen that marked the original Guild Wars game by making it a game that they would actually want to play themselves.

 

[Faridah.8431]

10 minutes ago, Lightfoot.5438 said:

 

Yeah it was tough to balance and one solution would have been to simply have fewer skills rather than the system that produces nothing but the cookie cutter builds in GW2 now.  Having an energy/mana management system might also have been nice too.

 

The way I look at it is that GW2 was designed after the beginning of the Great Recession and labor costs were maybe factored in a little too much. The end result that too many corners were cut to make the game what it could have been. 

 

I bought the game when it was first released, played it for a few days then stopped for eight years until pandemic idleness prompted me to start playing again. 

 

My entire GW1 guild disappeared from GW2 because it was so disappointing to them, The game is just not what they wanted it to be.

 

I hope Colin et al can recover some of the spirit marketing acumen that marked the original Guild Wars game by making it a game that they would actually want to play themselves.

 

Yeah I enjoy GW2 for what it is. That said, it never really fulfilled the role of a successor to GW1 for me and many of my former guild mates from GW1. This includes things like the skill systems, but even things like no monks which really alienated a lot of the people I know who were monk mains in GW1. 

 

I think there was definitely runaway skills in GW1 to the point balance was very untenable, it would have been nice to see a similar system, just not as many skills. GW1 obviously has meta builds as well, but to me they feel much less cookie cutter, and even to this day, new viable builds are figured out all the time. GW2 doesn't enjoy that kind of creativity in build crafting in my opinion. Its there, but not as much.

 

Still looking for a spiritual successor to GW1 though. Its good that its still live.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Faridah.8431

[Gorem.8104]

And I thought this news was enough to already make me explode with hype. 

 

Then we get the Armoury announcement and ITS FREAKING PERFECT. 

 

AHHHH GW2 IS AWESOME!! and is being led by an AWESOME TEAM. 

 

YEAH!!!!!!!!

[Astralporing.1957]

11 hours ago, hugo.4705 said:

 

Or, NcSoft knows that gw2 gonna simply end after EoD.

Yes. Surely that's why they are going to invest a ton of resources into engine changes. Because investing in something you know is ending (especially something without an imediate payoff potential) is definitely a good idea...

[Caeledh.5437]

8 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes. Surely that's why they are going to invest a ton of resources into engine changes. Because investing in something you know is ending (especially something without an imediate payoff potential) is definitely a good idea...

 

I agree.

 

The MMO gold rush is far behind us. Lots of huge budget attempts were made to emulate WOW's success and most failed miserably. Even with huge IPs like Lord of the Rings. The second MMO version of that was canned earlier this year.

 

Blizzard shelved the second MMO they had been developing and downgraded it into a shooter years ago.

 

The industry is saturated with games and at this point I wouldn't be surprised if most MMO'ers aren't very interested in new games. Especially with all the time, money and effort they've invested in their current ones.

 

GW2 is old and not perfect, but it's still being played and making money.

 

Pumping money into upgrading GW2 might be a far safer investment than developing any new MMO. 

Edited July 7, 2021 by Caeledh.5437

[Ashantara.8731]

On 7/2/2021 at 7:30 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

A message from the ArenaNet team.

 

Question about contacting players with spare legendary gear: Will the account-wide gear be taken into account or only the currently equipped armor sets, weapons and upgrades?

 

Because, for instance, I have several legendary runes in store at my bank for the third armor set I have been working on. Will I have to equip them for them to be taken into account by you?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I'd imagine it does not need to be equipped because:

 

When you log in to a character on July 13, account-bound legendary equipment in your character inventories, equipment panels, and account bank will be automatically converted to your Legendary Armory.

 

Guessing it will apply to the extras, as well. 

[Ashantara.8731]

On 7/6/2021 at 9:01 PM, Lightfoot.5438 said:

My entire GW1 guild disappeared from GW2 because it was so disappointing to them, The game is just not what they wanted it to be.

 

Same with my GW1 mates. I, too, stopped playing GW2 a few weeks after release because I couldn't stop comparing it with its predecessor for years.

 

On 7/6/2021 at 12:58 PM, hugo.4705 said:

I never played gw1, sure cantha is a new place to me, but from the videos of youtube i saw, this place doesn't look amazing.

 

Factions was the best content Guild Wars ever delivered. The story, the mood, the different locations, the challenges, and all the little add-ons that brought a breath of fresh air - simply breathtaking! ❤️ (And no, I'm not a "weeb" and the reason I love Factions has nothing to do with its Asian theme, although one has to admit that it was extremely well implemented and did wonders to set the right mood. But there were also Gothic and other elements that made Factions unique and a great overall experience.)

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[Aeolus.3615]

On 7/5/2021 at 3:18 PM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Guild Wars, and its plethora of skills, was a nightmare to balance...according to the Devs.

I'd guess that's why we have less skills in Guild Wars 2. 

 

Yet gw2 has far worse balance  and way more balance issues  than gw1 😄  its mindblow!!!

The skill design is actually what created most problems to gw2....

 

I always defended that convert everthing to boon and condi would be a pain in the 455, mantas are just shouts in cone etc that produce condi or boon, souts are aoe condi or boon, and so on.....

In gw1 shouts would use shouts icont when afecting alies, they was also area denials for shouts and skills that remove the efectiveness of shouts on the enemy some even would pusnish.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shout

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Stance

 

In gw1 we had stances and skill that could cancel enemy stances, if it was a evasion stance  assassin would copy that stance and still hit the enemy, there was so much more gameplay and interaction between skills and builds.

 

The current skill design gw2 has its more than proven thas a nail right in the foot due how they condensed everything in 2 things boon/condi it was way to much condensed.

 

Whats the diference between a utility with ammo and a mantra???? the name....

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2021 by Aeolus.3615