The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Caim]

Downloading now, let's go.

 

[Drakortha]

I bet you can't even fuck the bear. What a missed opportunity.

 

[Caim]

Played the first half of act 1, unlocked the first steps of the homestead.

Thoughts, spoilered

- Very talky prologue, no action. Some unexpected faces.
- Opening mission wastes no time in wasting your time, having you beat a monster over and over even though you've already beaten it initially.
- Hey remember how in SotO the main quest often wasted your time by making you do mandatory bullshit to fill up bars to progress? Well, guess what the second mission does. Twice.
- Rifts in the new territory produce Titanspawn instead of Kryptis. Drop a lot of AoE attacks, so stay mobile. Bosses also do a lot of damaging AoE attacks.
- Bug where there's no Tier 1 rifts in the first map. This is an issue because you need to do a few of them in the second mission.
- That's right, the main story is fucking bugged. Workaround is to rely on kind souls using the keys to open tier 2 and tier 3 rifts. The new tier 2 is already more dangerous than the old tier 3.
- The new map is not particularly large, mainly because it was not intended to have flying as its primary mode of transportation.
- Even then, all the tall cliffs make flying not as straightforward as you'd think.
- The first zone has a vibe of if you got Grizzly Hills off of Temu.
- Holy shit they added an actual honest to God jumping puzzle, with an actual puzzle on top of the jumping.
- Renown Hearts are back, this time you can do something to level them up (haven't figured out yet how to do that) and get better stuff or something.
- Not that many new monsters so far. A few new ones, a few recycled ones (including from places you wouldn't suspect). Primary new attraction so far is the Titanspawn.
- Warclaw and Spear are unlocked early on, Homestead somewhat later on.
- Warclaw has a whole slew of abilities out of the gate, including several of the WvW ones.
- Kodan mastery is mostly map related stuff you've seen before, Warclaw mastery caps with a regen boost for all mounts, Homestead mastery just lets you build more stuff.
- Homesteading is a pseudo-crafting profession that you don't need to equip or train. More recipes are unlocked by leveling up or buying them from vendors (the heart vendors sell some stuff for a bit of silver).
- Homesteading uses base game wood, ore and fibers to turn them into the new homestead materials. The higher tier they are the fewer you'll need.
- You can only make X amount of homesteading materials per week.
- The Homestead is an instance, and the map is all sorts of fucked up.
- ArenaNet is very proud of their new door opening/closing animation, expect to see it a lot.
- Wizard's Vault lets you buy access to a quest that gives you an Ascended spear and gauntlets that light up if you combine the two. Note that you need a bunch of the new coins from this expansion to unlock them, so don't buy them and expect to easily get yourself an Ascended spear.
- No easy access to a trading post or bank so far, so you'll need to teleport.
- The mini-Wizards Tower seen in the trailers is a minor trading hub and has the portal back to behind the throne room in Divinity's Reach, which is a security concern at best.
- The Wizards have another reason of their own to go poking around in the Janthir region. I think I already know what the twist is going to be.

More tomorrow.

 

[Drakortha]

- Opening mission wastes no time in wasting your time, having you beat a monster over and over even though you've already beaten it initially.

This has been Aet's formula for every encounter for as long as I can remember. Everything has at least 3 phases where each time you have to stand there hitting the thing watching it's health drop slowly.. 98%... 97%... 96%.. and when it finally gets to 50% you have to do a special thing to reset it back to 100% again. And since most classes have about a 10 second combat rotation, you are just doing the same thing over and over and over again and it takes at least 15 minutes and by the end of it you're mentally exhausted.

 

[Caim]

Also the roadmap:

So four new maps in total, the final two each being comparible in size to Lake Doric.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Also the roadmap:

So four new maps in total, the final two each being comparible in size to Lake Doric.

Oh, there is going to be four maps this time?

 

[Drakortha]

I've heard they brought Rifts and Comms back from SoTo, the absolute worst parts from that expansion. These fuckers just aren't listening to feedback at all while they keep recycling the worst shit. 2 mini expansions in and it's clear that the lower price point isn't worth the time it takes to play the recycled content.

Fuck the roadmap. What's there to look forward to? "Story Continues, Story Continues, Story Continues, New Homestead Decorations". Who the fuck cares about any of this shit? The story sucks shit and nobody cares. And the Housing looks ugly and dumb and they were lazy with it because reportedly its full of time-gated busy work to pad it out. We should have had Homestead locations to choose from in Kryta, Shiverpeak Mountains, Maguuma, Ascalon, etc. But instead everyone has to settle with a tribe of gay furries that nobody cared about before now, and they still couldn't make a new playable race out of it. It's just one missed opportunity after the next with ArenaNet.

And where's the new sPvP mode in the Roadmap? It's completely missing. They've buried it already, I see.

 

[Caim]

Rifts are exactly the same as they were in SotO, except they spawn different enemies.

Oh, there is going to be four maps this time?

Yep. From the website:

There’s a significant change to our map content plans that we’d like to bring to your attention. We had originally announced that the expansion would feature three open-world maps—two at launch, with a third released in a quarterly update that would then be expanded on in a subsequent quarterly release, like Inner Nayos. Rather than shipping the third map in two parts, we will instead be releasing a standalone map in both the second and third quarterly releases, each similar in size to Lake Doric. This brings the total open-world map count for Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds up from three to four.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-janthir-wilds-launches-today/

 

[Caim]

Act one complete, the second map currently fully explored.

Thoughts, spoilered

- I didn't expect that to be the twist. Only one thing that could hint at this being the case, which was just a presence.
- Honestly I had to look up what the entire deal with this plot device was.
- Main quest actually gives you a choice on what to do, but the consequences remain to be seen.
- Final boss of act 1 was a pushover, especially once you get behind it.
- I like the second map more than the first one. Square and has some nice changes in scenery.
- The only "new" enemies were lifted from Living World 3.
- Several collection achievements for mastery points.
- A big event boss makes his return, complete with his 2-ish gold drop. Not sure if you can pick this up if you lack the proper expansion.
- Second map has a proper meta event. One of the bosses is fought in a story mission, but has actual mechanics this time around. Two bosses that have to be killed at the same time. Because people are new to the meta and many are still stuck on the bugged story we got our asses handed to us.
- Several new races as well, including rentals in case you don't have the right mounts.
- Make sure to have a stack of research notes to buy the new armor recipes, and even more if you want to actually make them.
- Don't stop moving to check the map when you're either on or close to the ground. Those titanspawn are nasty and can jump you with several debuffs.
- Already found the entrance to the next map once it gets added.

Will continue to explore.

 

[Vyvian]

Seems almost interesting honestly.
I skipped Soto completely and quit the game in Echovald Wilds and my Mesmer sits there still.

 

[Caim]

So I finished the main story. Or at least the first half of it. I have thoughts. Not all good.

Spoilers for the story in case you care

So after figuring out it's the Titans behind everything you go to the second map. You fight Greer the Blightbringer, a Titan who has turned the south-western corner of the map into a blighted death zone. His fight is not too difficult and you take him down. As you continue exploring you discover a second titan who turned the beach in the north-eastern part of the map. Here you clash with Decima the Stormsinger, a creature of crystal and lightning. Her fight is a bit more involved but she's not tough either. When one of your allies gets injured you have to fall back while Decima taunts you... and starts bickering with her brother Greer. Yep, the Titan you thought you killed is still very much alive and just using a body double. You retreat, heal up and figure out a plan. Note that these two Titans are the same creatures you fight as part of the second map's meta event, except in the meta the fight's much harder.

The area used to have a major White mantle presence alongside a Bloodstone. They had been sacrificing people here just like in Bloodstone Fen, but apparently it was a much smaller stone so the detonation when they blew it up left just a rather large crater. The Titans had been feeding off of the shards of the Bloodstone to recover, so you start creating minor explosions by supercharging the Bloodstones with your macguffin you got from SotO. Yes, you're causing explosions that are much smaller than the one that kicked off Living World 3. With this knowledge you go for round 2 against the Titans. You take turns slapping bits of their health bars off, but the moment you get both of them to 10% health you hear a call. Their mistress Ura calls upon the Titans and they just sort of walk off, even though you can just follow them and attack them (without doing damage) until they walk past a steam vent and you can't follow them.

Here we get the event that a good chunk of the expansion's been building up towards. As it turns out the missing wizard you've been looking for was in disguise as the bears' healer, and she accidentally outs herself by easily healing an otherwise grievously wounded ally. She is Waiting Sorrow, one of the very first of the wizards. She went AWOL because... honestly, it's not entirely clear. She really wanted to figure out where she came from and who her people were, and when Isgarren told her no she went AWOL. At least I think that's the case. Here we get two conflicting accounts between Waiting Sorrow and the wizards: she thinks that the player has been fed all kinds of lies about how she's some sort of extremely dangerous monster of a bear, but as the game presents her she's just a woman who had found a new place to live and balanced the responsibility she had to her new people, the threat of the Titans and her duty to the wizards, and while extremely powerful most of her negative emotions are born from worry and fear for her people. Likewise, Isgarren is painted as some kind of short-fused megalomaniac who at the first sign of backtalk will obliterate you with a wave of his hand, but this clashes with his earlier portrayals of an impossibly old creature who has taken on a weight beyond what any mortal has even thrust upon them. Isgarren was aloof and calculating to the point where it had estranged him from regular folk, but in the end did everything he did for Tyria and its people. Sure there's something a bit fishy about him (he only showed up to the final fight of the previous expansion at the point you genuinely had a chance at winning), but I never had the idea he was actually doing all of this for his own reasons.

So with the Titans on the run Waiting Sorrow agrees to go meet with Isgarren and accept her fate. When you walk her into the room with the man he is rather pissed at first (both at you and her), and sends you out of the room so that the two of them can talk. The bear's former student Dagda was moved to tears that her sempai finally came back, and conjures up a portal for you. Now, I expected for some kind of big reveal here. Isgarren didn't obliterate Waiting Sorrow on the spot, and the portal just sent you back to Janthir instead of dumping you into Mount Maelstrom for your deception. Waiting Sorrow herself hints that she has an inkling of what causes the Titan presence, but she doesn't elaborate on this.

Personally I believe it might be linked to the dragons. Greer and Decima have similar themes to Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik, and I would not be surprised if some of the upcoming Titans are styled after the others. On top of that, the spear the Elementalist uses conjures up circles that have the fist letter of each of the dragons' names appear prominently in their runes.

And that's it! You get the mission complete swords behind a shield, get some rewards including a dagger that looks like a bear's baw and a toy that lets you turn yourself into a bear, the same rewards you get from previous missions and there you go, mission complete!

Yes, that's really it. No grand finale, no whisperes from Ura, no hints at what might come next, it just... stops. I mean, there's still three patches worth of missions to do, but so had SotO and you had a proper ending there. You beat the villain that had caused you and others grief, and while the battle had not yet been won it was a victory to be sure. But no, the story just ends and that's that, see you in November!

I mean what the actual FUCK, ArenaNet.

 

[Drakortha]

Over a week since the new expansion released and it's nothing but crickets in this thread. Caim must be the only person playing it. Sad.

 

[Reever]

Releasing it right before the wow expansion certainly didn't do them any favors

 

[Drakortha]

Releasing it right before the wow expansion certainly didn't do them any favors

Well haven't you heard? GW2 is just a "side MMO" now. I've heard Teapot and a few other influences parrot this line recently. "GW2 is just a side MMO. It's the less ambitious MMO that you play on the side of your main MMO like WoW or Final Fantasy".

It just comes off as sounding like Anet have officially given up on GW2. I don't think that does them any favors, either.

 

[Sweeper]

Releasing it right before the wow expansion certainly didn't do them any favors

Well haven't you heard? GW2 is just a "side MMO" now. I've heard Teapot and a few other influences parrot this line recently. "GW2 is just a side MMO. It's the less ambitious MMO that you play on the side of your main MMO like WoW or Final Fantasy".

It just comes off as sounding like Anet have officially given up on GW2. I don't think that does them any favors, either.

Vertical progression > horizontal progression.
GW2, being a glorified dress up game, has always been a side MMO.

 

[Drakortha]

Vertical progression > horizontal progression.
GW2, being a glorified dress up game, has always been a side MMO.

It wasn't a side MMO for me. It's the only MMO I was willing to play and I'm not about to start playing WoW because Anet decided not to give a shit anymore.

 

[Sweeper]

It wasn't a side MMO for me. It's the only MMO I was willing to play and I'm not about to start playing WoW because Anet decided not to give a shit anymore.

It's time to move on bro. Just cause you can play it doesn't mean you should. And who the fuck said anything about WoW? MMORPGs are dead. Leave 'em in the trash where they belong.

 

[Caim]

Over a week since the new expansion released and it's nothing but crickets in this thread. Caim must be the only person playing it. Sad.

Fuck yeah, best GW2 player on the Codex!

But in all honesty, Janthir Wilds doesn't feel very complete so far. The two maps are nice, and there's been a few good changes to improve the game, but there's just not a lot to do. The major stuff to work towards is:

- The main story, which can be hashed out over a weekend
- Spear Mastery, which you get early on in the story
- Getting all the story achievements, most of which can be done first try
- Do all the achievements in the first two maps, which is mostly a mix of doing all events and completing adventures. Doing these appear to be a requirement for at least the legendary back piece to be released later on.
- Complete all the side stories, most of which are of the "collect lore books from specific locations in order" kind
- The cat bank heist mission
- A single new Ranger pet, which is in an accessible location from a Waypoint
- Find all Mastery Insights, which are just a matter of finding them, no fighting required
- Two new Rift Hunter weeklies if you want to grind Essences
- Do all six Renown Hearts fourteen times for a decent stack of materials, currency and cosmetic things
- Complete all three Mastery tracks. One improves your kitty (with a capstone that improves stamina regeneration for all mounts), one boosts your performace in the Janthir Wilds maps, and one related to...
- Build an optimal Homestead. Probably the biggest time and money sink
- Collect all weapons. Of the four sets available two have been added to the Rare drop table and can be bought for cheap on the TP to the tune of about a dozen gold to complete both sets. The third is the set you'd get from pre-purchasing and are in the 2-3 gold range a piece, with the fourth one being a reward from the Wizard's Vault. Of the setless pieces two are story rewards, one can be purchased for cheap, one is the rare meta reward and one is the reward from the Vault quest
- Collect all armor sets. Three and a half new ones. The half looks like the Fallen Knight set from Dark Souls 3 and is purchased from the Vault. As for the full sets one is positively druish in origin, one makes you look like a goddamn Greek pillar and the third is for when you want to go stained glass chique:

- Druish one is from PvP/WvW reward tracks, pillar one is craftable with recipes gotten from heart vendors, and the stained glass one requires a bunch of research notes and the new map coins
- New Relics: two from starting map achievement lists, two from doing all the story mission achievements and two by buying with map coins and research notes. Most notable one from the looks of it gives you Alacrity and Regen on a dodge roll
- New minis from a variety of sources, but like always these are your grinding capstones
- More fish to catch, but the achievment just gives you some materials you can sell for a few gold

And that's it! So far the expansion is very "completable", and there is no major grind like a Legendary to work towards just yet. So do the story, get the bling you're interested in, see if you can improve your mount and that's it until November, when the new Raid hits and you can get the new Legendary spear.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Icebrood Saga and End of Dragons were disappointments that dampened my enthusiasm for the game, and then the Secrets of the Obscure announcement was underwhelming and from what I had heard it wasn't very appealing. Janthir seemed a little more appealing with the Ranger spear animation, the North American forest wilderness, player home, and mounted combat, but WoW TWW was more attractive so I'm currently playing that instead. I intend to get around to GW2. Eventually.

 

[TedNugent]

Icebrood Saga and End of Dragons were disappointments that dampened my enthusiasm for the game, and then the Secrets of the Obscure announcement was underwhelming and from what I had heard it wasn't very appealing. Janthir seemed a little more appealing with the Ranger spear animation, the North American forest wilderness, player home, and mounted combat, but WoW TWW was more attractive so I'm currently playing that instead. I intend to get around to GW2. Eventually.

Path of Fire is still the GOAT. I haven't thought much of anything before or after. That expansion had everything, super nice to this day and great landscapes and environments. I still enjoy going back to those zones. They're super fun.

 

[Drakortha]

The new PvP Beta has been out for a few days now and the developers are asking for feedback on the official forums. It would be nice to be able to participate and give my feedback, especially when the feedback thread is filled with absolutely terrible takes right now. But I can't because I'm banned. Well done forum moderators.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The new PvP Beta has been out for a few days now and the developers are asking for feedback on the official forums. It would be nice to be able to participate and give my feedback, especially when the feedback thread is filled with absolutely terrible takes right now. But I can't because I'm banned. Well done forum moderators.

Yeah. You could've changed it all. Too bad you're such an asshole no one wants to hear from you.

 

[Drakortha]

Yeah. You could've changed it all. Too bad you're such an asshole no one wants to hear from you.

That's ironic because I was banned for saying I keep my chat in-game turned off because toxic players ruin the game and I wished GW2 was single player.

Everyone on this game behaves like an asshole, it's just you're not allowed to notice.

 

[Drakortha]

I just got an email from ArenaNet asking me to complete an online survey to give them feedback on PvP and the new Rush mode. I went through it, rated everything the lowest, and in the final comment wrote that I was banned numerous times on their official forums for giving feedback, and that I was subsequently banned from discussion during the Rush beta, so I didn't bother to play it and I'm not interested in their game anymore.

 

[Caim]

A blog on how the world bosses in Janthir Wilds work has some interesting implications:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/designing-world-bosses-in-guild-wars-2-janthir-wilds/

A key aspect of Decima’s design is her massive beam attacks that fire from the conduit built into her left arm. However, matching visual effects to rectangular attacks of arbitrary length is tricky. Decima is so large that her beam attacks couldn’t shoot directly from her arm, as they’d be too high up and off-center. To solve this, we used an invisible creature to act as an anchor for the beam attack, allowing the system to dynamically scale the beams to almost any length. This will become much more relevant in the upcoming raid!
[...]
We also wanted to make sure Greer and Decima felt different to overcome while sharing some similarities. Both have hardened armor and generate titanspawn when it’s broken, but while Decima is more of a dance of death, Greer is more of a stand-up brawl. We can’t wait for players to experience how Greer’s titan-splitting mechanic evolves in the new raid coming soon!

Combined with earlier statements there are suspicions that the meta event duo are actually going to be bossess in the new raid, geared to 10 man fights. While I don't really care about raiding, it does mean that raiders just get rehashed content instead of something new. Though this has been the case with strike missions being more difficult versions of story bosses, raids are more involved than the "here's the boss, go kick ass" raids. Sure, the move to yearly releases affects the time allowed to work on these things, it's still a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.