I guess I fail to see how the new change does anything about making more viable options. The system they have now is very much a parallel of previous MMOs; put lots of points into one tree to get the best skill and a few points in other trees to get mediocre skills. In the end, they all end up with a few cookie cutter builds.
Given the analogy about ice cream, and A.Net agreeing quality > quantity, why not instead reduce the number of traits and spend more time making them all great, instead of filling the lower tiers with less than great, filler traits? It was A.Net who said they found a lot of people going 30/10/10/10/10, which one would assume is because they feel the benefit of most traits is lacking. Why not make less traits, but them all good instead?
Because less traits doesn't solve the fundamental issue of the interaction between those traits.
Basically, if you can never have both A and B at the same time, you can make A and B way more powerful and interesting individually because you don't have to consider how they would interact together.
Also, people went 30/10/10/10/10 so they could grab the best traits from each line. So you've either got to make all the traits the same level, which means less powerful and more bland to keep them balanced.
Or, instead, you restrict access to the best traits so you can only grab a few at once. This lets you make them more powerful since you know the player will only have access to a certain, small number of them at a time.
You can also make them more interesting and focused since you have a better idea of what kind of build the player taking that trait will have.
Those AMA responses deserve five stars. Persistent grouping for structured PvP and templates are two things I will be looking forward to, but has anyone asked if it'll cost money to change/create templates, since you'll be swapping around traits?
Who says the tier 1/2 traits are "filler" traits? The devs said they are more general traits, not crap ones.
I'm expecting to see a fair number of builds come out that completely forgo the final 2 traits to build a trait setup where you combine 3 tier 1/2 abilities to achieve more. In the end you only pick 3 total per line, so unless over half of them are filler (which would be crazy high) then it shouldn't feel like like taking filler just to get that final trait.
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
Those AMA responses deserve five stars. Persistent grouping for structured PvP and templates are two things I will be looking forward to, but has anyone asked if it'll cost money to change/create templates, since you'll be swapping around traits?
You can finally queue as a group without having to remake?
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited June 2012
I just wanted to note that I was convinced by the response to the traits that this was a good move. But the reasons were different than what we discussed here. Primarily, it was 2 things and one adition to the second that sold me.
First he made a point about how the open nature of the lines before actually diminished the importance of going 30 points in. I did notice that when you decided to go 30 deep in a line, you were often fighting to choose that third trait because you were free to pick the best 2 previously. So often you forced yourself to pick the third trait you hated least and going 30 deep felt like a challenge rather than a benefit.
The other point was how he stated if these changes ruined a build you liked, he would attempt to make it viable. This was a reinforcement to a comment that was made in response to further arguing against it, where it was stated they did eveything they could to try and make the old system balacable, and just couldn't. That means they didnt just take the easy way out, and the comment about about making any lost builds viable is basically proving that. I belive him, simply because of what I saw from this ama from anet.
On a side note, I guess this means we should never stop having constructive arguments now. I apologize for trying to end it, we were actually contributing to the game in a way :O
Edit:god I fail at typing on a phone.
2xedit combo:did anyone catch the repeated "watch this space" responses to the asura/sylvari in bwe questions? What's up with that.
Kai_San on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Can anyone explain the pre-order versus pre-purchase thing a bit better? I'm really quite confused... it sounds like if you pre-order through a retailer you don't get the beta/head start key, but if you pay in full to NC you get them? And you can only get the CE through retailers?
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
It was pretty simple, until Amazon started giving away BWE access.
Basically, if you pre-purchased the game, you got access to the special Beta Weekend Events scheduled until launch, as well as a 3 day headstart and some other goodies.
If you pre-ordered the game, you DID NOT get access to the Beta Weekend Events, only a day guaranteed head-start.
Simple. But apparently people are now getting BWE access via pre-orders on Amazon.
Can anyone explain the pre-order versus pre-purchase thing a bit better? I'm really quite confused... it sounds like if you pre-order through a retailer you don't get the beta/head start key, but if you pay in full to NC you get them? And you can only get the CE through retailers?
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
You got it. Pre-purchase means you pay now, no refunds. But you get a 3 day head start and access to the beta weekend events. Pre-order is whatever the retailer wants (say $5 down), can be canceled, but only gives you 1 day head start. Not sure if pre-order gets you the bonus items, either.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Can anyone explain the pre-order versus pre-purchase thing a bit better? I'm really quite confused... it sounds like if you pre-order through a retailer you don't get the beta/head start key, but if you pay in full to NC you get them? And you can only get the CE through retailers?
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
You got it. Pre-purchase means you pay now, no refunds. But you get a 3 day head start and access to the beta weekend events. Pre-order is whatever the retailer wants (say $5 down), can be canceled, but only gives you 1 day head start. Not sure if pre-order gets you the bonus items, either.
So then if you want the CE there's currently no way to get the beta weekends and longer head start?
Can anyone explain the pre-order versus pre-purchase thing a bit better? I'm really quite confused... it sounds like if you pre-order through a retailer you don't get the beta/head start key, but if you pay in full to NC you get them? And you can only get the CE through retailers?
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
You got it. Pre-purchase means you pay now, no refunds. But you get a 3 day head start and access to the beta weekend events. Pre-order is whatever the retailer wants (say $5 down), can be canceled, but only gives you 1 day head start. Not sure if pre-order gets you the bonus items, either.
So then if you want the CE there's currently no way to get the beta weekends and longer head start?
Can anyone explain the pre-order versus pre-purchase thing a bit better? I'm really quite confused... it sounds like if you pre-order through a retailer you don't get the beta/head start key, but if you pay in full to NC you get them? And you can only get the CE through retailers?
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
Paying in full to one of these retailers gets you the beta key (EDIT: the beta weekend and 3 day headstart key, not the 1-day one from pre-ordering), as well, regardless of CE, DDE, or normal. I believe the CE is only available for purchase from Gamestop in the States, regardless.
You got it. Pre-purchase means you pay now, no refunds. But you get a 3 day head start and access to the beta weekend events. Pre-order is whatever the retailer wants (say $5 down), can be canceled, but only gives you 1 day head start. Not sure if pre-order gets you the bonus items, either.
Depends on the package. CE and DDE will get you the items regardless of pre-order/prepurchase.
Can anyone explain the pre-order versus pre-purchase thing a bit better? I'm really quite confused... it sounds like if you pre-order through a retailer you don't get the beta/head start key, but if you pay in full to NC you get them? And you can only get the CE through retailers?
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
You got it. Pre-purchase means you pay now, no refunds. But you get a 3 day head start and access to the beta weekend events. Pre-order is whatever the retailer wants (say $5 down), can be canceled, but only gives you 1 day head start. Not sure if pre-order gets you the bonus items, either.
So then if you want the CE there's currently no way to get the beta weekends and longer head start?
Like I said, this all just seems... odd.
You pre-purchase the CE like any other edition. You just give the retailer all... $150? whatever it costs up front.
My nephew wants in this BWE and I want to help him out
He has a $20 down preorder for GW2 at gamestop: is there any way to pay the rest of that and get a beta key, or should he change it to a different game he wants and buy the game online?
I don't know enough about buying from gamestop to be of any help
At worst you cancel the preorder and get your money back, then prepurchase it.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
BTW guys there is still this HUGE ASS LIST of things that were discussed to talk about. Get on it!
Here is a compiled list from reddit btw
General
It should be easier to group up with friends in overflow servers.
A number of performance optimizations have been made since BWE1, but it may still be laggy as they are not done optimizing yet.
They have made improvements to skill queueing since the last BWE and there are still more to come before release.
Skill rooting is being fixed. They have fixed a few of the skills but there are still some out there that need fixing. They also said that "skills should stop you if they feel like they should stop you, otherwise, they shouldn't."
You still can't rebind left or right click.
Pet AI has been worked on but may still be buggy.
First person view is something they want to add post release and camera swing will be disabled.
They will be taking a closer look at downed skills as some professions have it better than others.
In regards to the sliding effect people feel when walking, what you see now is mostly what you will get on release.
Dueling will be out some time after release. They are still figuring out how it will work.
They have improved the "sense of hitting". This phrase is used for all visceral combat improvements which includes audio, effects, animations, timing of skills, camera shakes, and a number of other things.
They have added an effect LOD system.
They have identified some noisy effects and made them less noisy.
New weapons like two-handed axes might be in expansions.
Two-handed weapons will get two sigil slots, they ran out of time to add this in BWE2 though.
They want to work on a template which allows you to easily swap weapon sets, traits, skills etc after launch
There will be new content in the maps that were already available in BWE1.
There is an item previewer in the works that did not make it for BWE2, but the game will ship with it.
You can now see what major traits are available in a tree without spending points.
They may look into your character causing bigger splashes when you jump into water from a high height.
Apparently Guardian is proving to be the hardest class to develop, balance etc
In the human storyline, there is now more room for you to fight in (no more insanely narrow corridors)
The carnival skill point guy in Beetletun should no longer die.
When moving from map to map you will now retain your party.
They are investigating some options to help out colorblind folks.
When you are out of coins, resurrecting at a waypoint is free.
Servers won't go down when they need to patch the game. You will just need to restart your client.
They are working on an API which allows you to get data out of the game (eg web services)
They would like to work on a MAC version after launch.
It won't be on Steam. Apparently Valve has some new business terms that Anet say will keep almost all new MMOs off Steam. Interesting.
Beta Specific
Definitely no Asura/Sylvari for BWE2. No new info on whether they will be available in other beta events.
There is still no level cap like last beta.
Skill points will be refunded when you log in on Friday.
There is currently only one dungeon in the BWE and it is level 30. It can be found in the Charr map Ashford.
You will not be carrying over unspent gems from BWE1 to BWE2 but you will be able to claim another 2000 free gems anyway.
World transfers will be free until 6pm PDT Saturday. After that point they will cost 1800 gems as they want to test the system. You will be able to select the server you want to play on when you log in for the first time again.
They are working on making patch notes for BWE2, but the list of changes is so large some stuff may get accidentally left out.
Beta characters will definitely not transfer into the game when it goes live.
Mike Zadorojny (Content Designer) was the man responsible for last beta's finale.
There is an exciting new finale for this event! With multiple staff working on it this time.
Apparently the Black Moas from the last finale got a higher kill:death ratio than the players. Despite the sheer number of players the Moas definitely rose to the challenge.
There will be at least one more beta after this one.
Professions
The Necromancer Death Shroud skill Dark Cloud now causes blind as well as chill. Minions have some AI bugs but they should attack what you attack and run where you run, they want them to feel uncontrolled but not broken.
Engineer re-work is still in progress. They want their kits to inherit some of the benefits that you get from collecting and customizing weapons. They're also getting more weapons and kits in the future. Engineer kits may also get their own sigils.
Mesmer illusions will now have class icons. Apparently they were not aware of this bug until the AMA!
Guardian scepters now have a longer range. You can now cast Bow of Truth while running (not in BWE2 though). Guardian hammer skill 3 is a line immobilize now.
Ranger - the third chain in the sword "1" skill that leaps to the enemy has been changed a bit (don't know how). They also plan on updating Throw Torch and Hunter's Call to be more interesting in the future.
Thief - They have done a big balancing pass on the thief. Death Blossom is also an evasive attack now. A bug involving Black Powder and not attacking has been fixed.
Numerous other weapon skills have changed considerably.
Guilds
Guilds will be able to increase their member cap. (how and the max number is unknown)
An account may be in many guilds and each character can represent different guilds.
sPvP
Automated tournaments are not cross-region.
The game mode in automatic tournaments will be 8 team single elimination.
Tournaments are meant to be the equivilent of GvG from GW1.
There will be more amulets in BWE2.
At some point in the future they will consider adding more game types.
Spectator mode will not be available at launch but they plan to add it at some time after release if the demand is big enough.
World vs World
The new WvW mini dungeon is part of the eternal battlegrounds map, not a separate instance. It will mostly be about PvP and evading traps. They may add PvE elements like bosses in the future.
You should now be able to unlock skills in WvW easier. Not unlocking them in BWE1 was a due to a bug where players were not getting the proper credit from player kills. This should make getting reward bags easier too.
There will be a Commander UI that shows you the members of your squad. Squad size is only limited to 50 but there are discussions about raising it.
There will be no player ranks in WvW.
You will never be able to see your enemies name in WvW, only their guild tag.
Combat markers show when a group of 6 or more people are fighting. You will never be able to see everyone on the map as the bandwidth requirements are too high.
They may have shorter battles for the first few weeks of launch to help balance servers faster.
If you get disconnected while in WvW your character won't be locked out of the game if the WvW map is full. I'm guessing it will return you to the mists.
What you'll be playing this weekend is pretty close to how they intend to ship WvW. They still have a bunch more polish to do, but don't expect any more areas or expansions any time soon.
They don't plan on adding movement to any of the stationary siege weapons.
There are no current plans on making the borderland maps different in the future.
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
Can anyone explain the pre-order versus pre-purchase thing a bit better? I'm really quite confused... it sounds like if you pre-order through a retailer you don't get the beta/head start key, but if you pay in full to NC you get them? And you can only get the CE through retailers?
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
You got it. Pre-purchase means you pay now, no refunds. But you get a 3 day head start and access to the beta weekend events. Pre-order is whatever the retailer wants (say $5 down), can be canceled, but only gives you 1 day head start. Not sure if pre-order gets you the bonus items, either.
So then if you want the CE there's currently no way to get the beta weekends and longer head start?
Like I said, this all just seems... odd.
Pre-purchase is not restricted to online purchases. You can pre-purchase from some retailers, too... they just hand you a code to let you log into the beta. That's how it works for the CE, too.
You can pre-purchase (i.e., pay in full) any version of the game and access the beta - the question is do you want to do that digitally or from a participating retailer.
You can pre-ORDER the game, but only through retailers, and you will not have access to the beta.
just to be clear guys, I did talk this over with corehealer, enig, geod last night. Were just doing a strict overflow, if there isnt room in the first guild you will be joined in with the second.
No SE/G&T split, no pvp/pve split.
The purge time is 11:59 p.m. pacific friday, if you know you are going to play on sat/sun but cant play on friday and dont want to be purged, pm @enig your account name, and your character names (makes it easier on him). If you know you will be on friday, you have nothing to worry about.
If you want to volunteer to switch from the primary guild to the second guild you may do this ingame, talk to any of the officers. (For example your Forum Friends are in guild 2 and you want to be in the same guildchat).
Also, please beg arenanet to either
1) Raise guild cap
2) Add in alliances like guild wars 1
any chance you get .
Teamspeak 3 averaged 30 concurrent users last BWE during peak hours. Also remember you can create your own channels on the fly, but make sure you edit the voice options after you make it so you arnt on a low quality setting.
PA members can invite Friends and Family onto the TS3 server at any time, as long as at least one of you is a member of the Penny Arcade community (you dont have to be a member of the guild).
Most importantly, have all the fun.
Reminder guys.
Have all the fun.
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Dr_KeenbeanDumb as a buttPlanet Express ShipRegistered Userregular
I'm so excited. I've been doing a shitload of pvp on my wow warrior and have been craving something more...meaningful.
Anyone else having problems with the installer? I click on the GW2 Launcher and then it says there was an error immediately after starting. I am not sure what to do with this.
Anyone else having problems with the installer? I click on the GW2 Launcher and then it says there was an error immediately after starting. I am not sure what to do with this.
If it says something like "compressedBytes <= outputBytes" in the error report, a lot of people are getting that at the moment. No current fix as far as I know. You could try Draygo's suggestion but that didn't work for me. I'm just going to wait until tomorrow to see if ANet resolves it.
I tried running everything as administrator. I tried uninstalling and re-installing. Unfortunately after I uninstalled, it won't even let me reinstall. I had no problems last BWE so why am I having problems now?
I tried running everything as administrator. I tried uninstalling and re-installing. Unfortunately after I uninstalled, it won't even let me reinstall. I had no problems last BWE so why am I having problems now?
It's a new problem, and I have it, too. I just deleted everything and I'm going to re-download everything using the new client thingy available here, and they'll have a fix sometime tomorrow. I hope.
I'm getting problems now too, the gw2 patcher is crashing.
Yeah...Not really too much to do unless you want to spam error logs to ArenaNet and wait for them to get up tomorrow morning.
Until then, ArenaNet has announced that they're giving 500 + 2000 gems to everyone. Since I'm already on my desired world, I'm going to spend all of mine to be pretty, oh so pretty.
what a happy day it is
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CyrondinI bring the sick beats on you, brotherChicago, ILRegistered Userregular
edited June 2012
I am going to hit you guys up this weekend. My current guild are hype for mist and said there be playing d3 on the side. so since I started wow with a forum group I worked out there great to have the numbers so I give you guys a try.I be under the banner se++. The Subgroups stuff remind me of the NWO.
- It should be easier to group up with friends in overflow servers.
-A number of performance optimizations have been made since BWE1, but it may still be laggy as they are not done optimizing yet.
-They have made improvements to skill queueing since the last BWE and there are still more to come before release.
-Skill rooting is being fixed. They have fixed a few of the skills but there are still some out there that need fixing. They also said that "skills should stop you if they feel like they should stop you, otherwise, they shouldn't."
-You still can't rebind left or right click.
-Pet AI has been worked on but may still be buggy.
-First person view is something they want to add post release and camera swing will be disabled.
-They will be taking a closer look at downed skills as some professions have it better than others.
-In regards to the sliding effect people feel when walking, what you see now is mostly what you will get on release.
-Dueling will be out some time after release. They are still figuring out how it will work.
-They have improved the "sense of hitting". This phrase is used for all visceral combat improvements which includes audio, effects, animations, timing of skills, camera shakes, and a number of other things.
-They have added an effect LOD system.
-They have identified some noisy effects and made them less noisy.
-New weapons like two-handed axes might be in expansions.
-Two-handed weapons will most likely be getting two sigil slots, they ran out of time to add this in BWE2 though.
-They want to work on a template which allows you to easily swap weapon sets, traits, skills etc after launch.
-There will be new content in the maps that were already available in BWE1.
-There is an item previewer in the works that did not make it for BWE2, but the game will ship with it.
-You can now see what major traits are available in a tree without spending points.
-They may look into your character causing bigger splashes when you jump into water from a high height.
-Apparently Guardian is proving to be the hardest class to develop, balance etc.
-In the human storyline, there is now more room for you to fight in (no more insanely narrow corridors)
-The carnival skill point guy in Beetletun should no longer die.
-When moving from map to map you will now retain your party.
-They are investigating some options to help out colorblind folks.
-When you are out of coins, resurrecting at a waypoint is free.
-Servers won't go down when they need to patch the game. You will just need to restart your client, much like in GW1.
-They are working on an API which allows you to get data out of the game (eg web services)
-They would like to work on a MAC version after launch.
-It won't be on Steam. Apparently Valve has some new business terms that Anet say will keep almost all new MMOs off Steam. Interesting.
Beta Specific
-Definitely no Asura/Sylvari for BWE2. No new info on whether they will be available in other beta events but they didn't rule them out.
-There is still no level cap like last beta.
-Skill points will be refunded when you log in on Friday.
-There is currently only one dungeon in the BWE and it is level 30. It can be found in the Charr map Ashford.
-You will not be carrying over unspent gems from BWE1 to BWE2 but you will be able to claim another 2000 free gems anyway.
-World transfers will be free until 6pm PDT Saturday. After that point they will cost 1800 gems as they want to test the system. If this is your first beta, you will be able to select the server you want to play on when you log in for the first time.
-They are working on making patch notes for BWE2, but the list of changes is so large some stuff may get accidentally left out.
-Beta characters will definitely not transfer into the game when it goes live.
-Mike Zadorojny (Content Designer) was the man responsible for last beta's finale.
-There is an exciting new finale for this event! With multiple staff working on it this time.
-Apparently the Black Moas from the last finale got a higher kill:death ratio than the players. Despite the sheer number of players the Moas definitely rose to the challenge.
-There will be at least one more beta after this one.
Professions
-The Necromancer Death Shroud skill Dark Cloud now causes blind as well as chill. Minions have some AI bugs but they should attack what you attack and run where you run, they want them to feel uncontrolled but not broken.
-Engineer re-work is still in progress. They want their kits to inherit some of the benefits that you get from collecting and customizing weapons. They're also getting more weapons and kits in the future. Engineer kits may also get their own sigils.
-Mesmer illusions will now have class icons. Apparently they were not aware of this bug until the AMA!
-Guardian scepters now have a longer range. You can now cast Bow of Truth while running (not in BWE2 though). Guardian hammer skill 3 is a line immobilize now.
-Ranger - the third chain in the sword "1" skill that leaps to the enemy has been changed a bit (don't know how). They also plan on updating Throw Torch and Hunter's Call to be more interesting in the future.
-Thief - They have done a big balancing pass on the thief. Death Blossom is also an evasive attack now. A bug involving Black Powder and not attacking has been fixed.
-Numerous other weapon skills have changed considerably.
Guilds
-Guilds will be able to increase their member cap. (how and the max number is unknown)
-An account may be in many guilds and each character can represent different guilds.
sPvP
-Automated tournaments are not cross-region.
-The game mode in automatic tournaments will be 8 team single elimination.
-Tournaments are meant to be the equivilent of GvG from GW1.
-There will be more amulets in BWE2.
-At some point in the future they may consider adding more game types.
-Spectator mode will not be available at launch but they plan to add it at some time after release if the demand is big enough.
World vs World
-The new WvW mini dungeon is part of the eternal battlegrounds map, not a separate instance. It will mostly be about PvP and evading traps. They may add PvE elements like bosses in the future.
-You should now be able to unlock skills in WvW easier. Not unlocking them in BWE1 was a due to a bug where players were not getting the proper credit from player kills. This should make getting reward bags easier too.
-There will be a Commander UI that shows you the members of your squad. Squad size is only limited to 50 but there are discussions about raising it.
-There will be no player ranks in WvW.
-You will never be able to see your enemies name in WvW, only their guild tag.
-Combat markers show when a group of 6 or more people are fighting. You will never be able to see everyone on the map as the bandwidth requirements are too high.
-They may have shorter battles for the first few weeks of launch to help balance servers faster.
-If you get disconnected while in WvW your character won't be locked out of the game if the WvW map is full. I'm guessing it will return you to the mists.
-What you'll be playing this weekend is pretty close to how they intend to ship WvW. They still have a bunch more polish to do, but don't expect any more areas or expansions any time soon.
-They don't plan on adding movement to any of the stationary siege weapons.
-There are no current plans on making the borderland maps different in the future.
Alright, I bit the bullet and pre-purchased the game. Unfortunately when I try to run the client, I immediately get an error and it won't download.
I've tried selecting the program in my firewall and allowing it. I've tried turning my firewall off. I've tried right clicking and running as administrator.
I am not as good with this stuff as I'd like to be and thought I would ask here if anyone had any possible solutions to this problem. I'd like to have the game installed before the Beta weekend starts.
Really looking forward to playing with everyone when the game launches.
Very long dev interview with a lot of changes described. Basically a bigger version of what Shurakai/Reddit wrote.
Q1: Will the guild cap. remain at 100 members for BWE2? If so, any plans to increase the capacity at launch?
A1: “The plan for guild cap is that guilds will be able to gain influence to up their cap. How this will work is not exactly determined yet, but the current limit of 100 is lower than the maximum a guild will be able to achieve. Just got a message from the guild guys that it isn't influence, but will be some other factor that determines guild size allowed. Also it is not in the next BWE. “ -Jon P
Posts
Because less traits doesn't solve the fundamental issue of the interaction between those traits.
Basically, if you can never have both A and B at the same time, you can make A and B way more powerful and interesting individually because you don't have to consider how they would interact together.
Also, people went 30/10/10/10/10 so they could grab the best traits from each line. So you've either got to make all the traits the same level, which means less powerful and more bland to keep them balanced.
Or, instead, you restrict access to the best traits so you can only grab a few at once. This lets you make them more powerful since you know the player will only have access to a certain, small number of them at a time.
You can also make them more interesting and focused since you have a better idea of what kind of build the player taking that trait will have.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
I'm expecting to see a fair number of builds come out that completely forgo the final 2 traits to build a trait setup where you combine 3 tier 1/2 abilities to achieve more. In the end you only pick 3 total per line, so unless over half of them are filler (which would be crazy high) then it shouldn't feel like like taking filler just to get that final trait.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
You can finally queue as a group without having to remake?
They're working on it, which is something I'm glad to see.
First he made a point about how the open nature of the lines before actually diminished the importance of going 30 points in. I did notice that when you decided to go 30 deep in a line, you were often fighting to choose that third trait because you were free to pick the best 2 previously. So often you forced yourself to pick the third trait you hated least and going 30 deep felt like a challenge rather than a benefit.
The other point was how he stated if these changes ruined a build you liked, he would attempt to make it viable. This was a reinforcement to a comment that was made in response to further arguing against it, where it was stated they did eveything they could to try and make the old system balacable, and just couldn't. That means they didnt just take the easy way out, and the comment about about making any lost builds viable is basically proving that. I belive him, simply because of what I saw from this ama from anet.
On a side note, I guess this means we should never stop having constructive arguments now. I apologize for trying to end it, we were actually contributing to the game in a way :O
Edit:god I fail at typing on a phone.
2xedit combo:did anyone catch the repeated "watch this space" responses to the asura/sylvari in bwe questions? What's up with that.
It feels like Arkham Asylum levels of pre-order stupidity. :P
Basically, if you pre-purchased the game, you got access to the special Beta Weekend Events scheduled until launch, as well as a 3 day headstart and some other goodies.
If you pre-ordered the game, you DID NOT get access to the Beta Weekend Events, only a day guaranteed head-start.
Simple. But apparently people are now getting BWE access via pre-orders on Amazon.
You got it. Pre-purchase means you pay now, no refunds. But you get a 3 day head start and access to the beta weekend events. Pre-order is whatever the retailer wants (say $5 down), can be canceled, but only gives you 1 day head start. Not sure if pre-order gets you the bonus items, either.
So then if you want the CE there's currently no way to get the beta weekends and longer head start?
Like I said, this all just seems... odd.
You could pre-buy the CE from some dealers.
Paying in full to one of these retailers gets you the beta key (EDIT: the beta weekend and 3 day headstart key, not the 1-day one from pre-ordering), as well, regardless of CE, DDE, or normal. I believe the CE is only available for purchase from Gamestop in the States, regardless.
Depends on the package. CE and DDE will get you the items regardless of pre-order/prepurchase.
You pre-purchase the CE like any other edition. You just give the retailer all... $150? whatever it costs up front.
He has a $20 down preorder for GW2 at gamestop: is there any way to pay the rest of that and get a beta key, or should he change it to a different game he wants and buy the game online?
I don't know enough about buying from gamestop to be of any help
At worst you cancel the preorder and get your money back, then prepurchase it.
Here is a compiled list from reddit btw
It should be easier to group up with friends in overflow servers.
A number of performance optimizations have been made since BWE1, but it may still be laggy as they are not done optimizing yet.
They have made improvements to skill queueing since the last BWE and there are still more to come before release.
Skill rooting is being fixed. They have fixed a few of the skills but there are still some out there that need fixing. They also said that "skills should stop you if they feel like they should stop you, otherwise, they shouldn't."
You still can't rebind left or right click.
Pet AI has been worked on but may still be buggy.
First person view is something they want to add post release and camera swing will be disabled.
They will be taking a closer look at downed skills as some professions have it better than others.
In regards to the sliding effect people feel when walking, what you see now is mostly what you will get on release.
Dueling will be out some time after release. They are still figuring out how it will work.
They have improved the "sense of hitting". This phrase is used for all visceral combat improvements which includes audio, effects, animations, timing of skills, camera shakes, and a number of other things.
They have added an effect LOD system.
They have identified some noisy effects and made them less noisy.
New weapons like two-handed axes might be in expansions.
Two-handed weapons will get two sigil slots, they ran out of time to add this in BWE2 though.
They want to work on a template which allows you to easily swap weapon sets, traits, skills etc after launch
There will be new content in the maps that were already available in BWE1.
There is an item previewer in the works that did not make it for BWE2, but the game will ship with it.
You can now see what major traits are available in a tree without spending points.
They may look into your character causing bigger splashes when you jump into water from a high height.
Apparently Guardian is proving to be the hardest class to develop, balance etc
In the human storyline, there is now more room for you to fight in (no more insanely narrow corridors)
The carnival skill point guy in Beetletun should no longer die.
When moving from map to map you will now retain your party.
They are investigating some options to help out colorblind folks.
When you are out of coins, resurrecting at a waypoint is free.
Servers won't go down when they need to patch the game. You will just need to restart your client.
They are working on an API which allows you to get data out of the game (eg web services)
They would like to work on a MAC version after launch.
It won't be on Steam. Apparently Valve has some new business terms that Anet say will keep almost all new MMOs off Steam. Interesting.
Beta Specific
Definitely no Asura/Sylvari for BWE2. No new info on whether they will be available in other beta events.
There is still no level cap like last beta.
Skill points will be refunded when you log in on Friday.
There is currently only one dungeon in the BWE and it is level 30. It can be found in the Charr map Ashford.
You will not be carrying over unspent gems from BWE1 to BWE2 but you will be able to claim another 2000 free gems anyway.
World transfers will be free until 6pm PDT Saturday. After that point they will cost 1800 gems as they want to test the system. You will be able to select the server you want to play on when you log in for the first time again.
They are working on making patch notes for BWE2, but the list of changes is so large some stuff may get accidentally left out.
Beta characters will definitely not transfer into the game when it goes live.
Mike Zadorojny (Content Designer) was the man responsible for last beta's finale.
There is an exciting new finale for this event! With multiple staff working on it this time.
Apparently the Black Moas from the last finale got a higher kill:death ratio than the players. Despite the sheer number of players the Moas definitely rose to the challenge.
There will be at least one more beta after this one.
Professions
The Necromancer Death Shroud skill Dark Cloud now causes blind as well as chill. Minions have some AI bugs but they should attack what you attack and run where you run, they want them to feel uncontrolled but not broken.
Engineer re-work is still in progress. They want their kits to inherit some of the benefits that you get from collecting and customizing weapons. They're also getting more weapons and kits in the future. Engineer kits may also get their own sigils.
Mesmer illusions will now have class icons. Apparently they were not aware of this bug until the AMA!
Guardian scepters now have a longer range. You can now cast Bow of Truth while running (not in BWE2 though). Guardian hammer skill 3 is a line immobilize now.
Ranger - the third chain in the sword "1" skill that leaps to the enemy has been changed a bit (don't know how). They also plan on updating Throw Torch and Hunter's Call to be more interesting in the future.
Thief - They have done a big balancing pass on the thief. Death Blossom is also an evasive attack now. A bug involving Black Powder and not attacking has been fixed.
Numerous other weapon skills have changed considerably.
Guilds
Guilds will be able to increase their member cap. (how and the max number is unknown)
An account may be in many guilds and each character can represent different guilds.
sPvP
Automated tournaments are not cross-region.
The game mode in automatic tournaments will be 8 team single elimination.
Tournaments are meant to be the equivilent of GvG from GW1.
There will be more amulets in BWE2.
At some point in the future they will consider adding more game types.
Spectator mode will not be available at launch but they plan to add it at some time after release if the demand is big enough.
World vs World
The new WvW mini dungeon is part of the eternal battlegrounds map, not a separate instance. It will mostly be about PvP and evading traps. They may add PvE elements like bosses in the future.
You should now be able to unlock skills in WvW easier. Not unlocking them in BWE1 was a due to a bug where players were not getting the proper credit from player kills. This should make getting reward bags easier too.
There will be a Commander UI that shows you the members of your squad. Squad size is only limited to 50 but there are discussions about raising it.
There will be no player ranks in WvW.
You will never be able to see your enemies name in WvW, only their guild tag.
Combat markers show when a group of 6 or more people are fighting. You will never be able to see everyone on the map as the bandwidth requirements are too high.
They may have shorter battles for the first few weeks of launch to help balance servers faster.
If you get disconnected while in WvW your character won't be locked out of the game if the WvW map is full. I'm guessing it will return you to the mists.
What you'll be playing this weekend is pretty close to how they intend to ship WvW. They still have a bunch more polish to do, but don't expect any more areas or expansions any time soon.
They don't plan on adding movement to any of the stationary siege weapons.
There are no current plans on making the borderland maps different in the future.
Pre-purchase is not restricted to online purchases. You can pre-purchase from some retailers, too... they just hand you a code to let you log into the beta. That's how it works for the CE, too.
You can pre-purchase (i.e., pay in full) any version of the game and access the beta - the question is do you want to do that digitally or from a participating retailer.
You can pre-ORDER the game, but only through retailers, and you will not have access to the beta.
This is how I did it originally, but that was on the day that pre-purchasing was available.
GUYS. IT IS NOT LETTING ME IN YET. WHAT IS WRONG? (with me)
I have tried every day from bwe1.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Reminder guys.
Have all the fun.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
If it says something like "compressedBytes <= outputBytes" in the error report, a lot of people are getting that at the moment. No current fix as far as I know. You could try Draygo's suggestion but that didn't work for me. I'm just going to wait until tomorrow to see if ANet resolves it.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
It's a new problem, and I have it, too. I just deleted everything and I'm going to re-download everything using the new client thingy available here, and they'll have a fix sometime tomorrow. I hope.
Yeah...Not really too much to do unless you want to spam error logs to ArenaNet and wait for them to get up tomorrow morning.
Until then, ArenaNet has announced that they're giving 500 + 2000 gems to everyone. Since I'm already on my desired world, I'm going to spend all of mine to be pretty, oh so pretty.
- It should be easier to group up with friends in overflow servers.
-A number of performance optimizations have been made since BWE1, but it may still be laggy as they are not done optimizing yet.
-They have made improvements to skill queueing since the last BWE and there are still more to come before release.
-Skill rooting is being fixed. They have fixed a few of the skills but there are still some out there that need fixing. They also said that "skills should stop you if they feel like they should stop you, otherwise, they shouldn't."
-You still can't rebind left or right click.
-Pet AI has been worked on but may still be buggy.
-First person view is something they want to add post release and camera swing will be disabled.
-They will be taking a closer look at downed skills as some professions have it better than others.
-In regards to the sliding effect people feel when walking, what you see now is mostly what you will get on release.
-Dueling will be out some time after release. They are still figuring out how it will work.
-They have improved the "sense of hitting". This phrase is used for all visceral combat improvements which includes audio, effects, animations, timing of skills, camera shakes, and a number of other things.
-They have added an effect LOD system.
-They have identified some noisy effects and made them less noisy.
-New weapons like two-handed axes might be in expansions.
-Two-handed weapons will most likely be getting two sigil slots, they ran out of time to add this in BWE2 though.
-They want to work on a template which allows you to easily swap weapon sets, traits, skills etc after launch.
-There will be new content in the maps that were already available in BWE1.
-There is an item previewer in the works that did not make it for BWE2, but the game will ship with it.
-You can now see what major traits are available in a tree without spending points.
-They may look into your character causing bigger splashes when you jump into water from a high height.
-Apparently Guardian is proving to be the hardest class to develop, balance etc.
-In the human storyline, there is now more room for you to fight in (no more insanely narrow corridors)
-The carnival skill point guy in Beetletun should no longer die.
-When moving from map to map you will now retain your party.
-They are investigating some options to help out colorblind folks.
-When you are out of coins, resurrecting at a waypoint is free.
-Servers won't go down when they need to patch the game. You will just need to restart your client, much like in GW1.
-They are working on an API which allows you to get data out of the game (eg web services)
-They would like to work on a MAC version after launch.
-It won't be on Steam. Apparently Valve has some new business terms that Anet say will keep almost all new MMOs off Steam. Interesting.
Beta Specific
-Definitely no Asura/Sylvari for BWE2. No new info on whether they will be available in other beta events but they didn't rule them out.
-There is still no level cap like last beta.
-Skill points will be refunded when you log in on Friday.
-There is currently only one dungeon in the BWE and it is level 30. It can be found in the Charr map Ashford.
-You will not be carrying over unspent gems from BWE1 to BWE2 but you will be able to claim another 2000 free gems anyway.
-World transfers will be free until 6pm PDT Saturday. After that point they will cost 1800 gems as they want to test the system. If this is your first beta, you will be able to select the server you want to play on when you log in for the first time.
-They are working on making patch notes for BWE2, but the list of changes is so large some stuff may get accidentally left out.
-Beta characters will definitely not transfer into the game when it goes live.
-Mike Zadorojny (Content Designer) was the man responsible for last beta's finale.
-There is an exciting new finale for this event! With multiple staff working on it this time.
-Apparently the Black Moas from the last finale got a higher kill:death ratio than the players. Despite the sheer number of players the Moas definitely rose to the challenge.
-There will be at least one more beta after this one.
Professions
-The Necromancer Death Shroud skill Dark Cloud now causes blind as well as chill. Minions have some AI bugs but they should attack what you attack and run where you run, they want them to feel uncontrolled but not broken.
-Engineer re-work is still in progress. They want their kits to inherit some of the benefits that you get from collecting and customizing weapons. They're also getting more weapons and kits in the future. Engineer kits may also get their own sigils.
-Mesmer illusions will now have class icons. Apparently they were not aware of this bug until the AMA!
-Guardian scepters now have a longer range. You can now cast Bow of Truth while running (not in BWE2 though). Guardian hammer skill 3 is a line immobilize now.
-Ranger - the third chain in the sword "1" skill that leaps to the enemy has been changed a bit (don't know how). They also plan on updating Throw Torch and Hunter's Call to be more interesting in the future.
-Thief - They have done a big balancing pass on the thief. Death Blossom is also an evasive attack now. A bug involving Black Powder and not attacking has been fixed.
-Numerous other weapon skills have changed considerably.
Guilds
-Guilds will be able to increase their member cap. (how and the max number is unknown)
-An account may be in many guilds and each character can represent different guilds.
sPvP
-Automated tournaments are not cross-region.
-The game mode in automatic tournaments will be 8 team single elimination.
-Tournaments are meant to be the equivilent of GvG from GW1.
-There will be more amulets in BWE2.
-At some point in the future they may consider adding more game types.
-Spectator mode will not be available at launch but they plan to add it at some time after release if the demand is big enough.
World vs World
-The new WvW mini dungeon is part of the eternal battlegrounds map, not a separate instance. It will mostly be about PvP and evading traps. They may add PvE elements like bosses in the future.
-You should now be able to unlock skills in WvW easier. Not unlocking them in BWE1 was a due to a bug where players were not getting the proper credit from player kills. This should make getting reward bags easier too.
-There will be a Commander UI that shows you the members of your squad. Squad size is only limited to 50 but there are discussions about raising it.
-There will be no player ranks in WvW.
-You will never be able to see your enemies name in WvW, only their guild tag.
-Combat markers show when a group of 6 or more people are fighting. You will never be able to see everyone on the map as the bandwidth requirements are too high.
-They may have shorter battles for the first few weeks of launch to help balance servers faster.
-If you get disconnected while in WvW your character won't be locked out of the game if the WvW map is full. I'm guessing it will return you to the mists.
-What you'll be playing this weekend is pretty close to how they intend to ship WvW. They still have a bunch more polish to do, but don't expect any more areas or expansions any time soon.
-They don't plan on adding movement to any of the stationary siege weapons.
-There are no current plans on making the borderland maps different in the future.
I've tried selecting the program in my firewall and allowing it. I've tried turning my firewall off. I've tried right clicking and running as administrator.
I am not as good with this stuff as I'd like to be and thought I would ask here if anyone had any possible solutions to this problem. I'd like to have the game installed before the Beta weekend starts.
Really looking forward to playing with everyone when the game launches.
is this the problem you guys are also having? Sounds like we're on the case.
Very long dev interview with a lot of changes described. Basically a bigger version of what Shurakai/Reddit wrote.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
ok cool
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