Kalibri.5861

Ah, amazing! Can't believe I didn't see that before. The note was a little baffling, and very frustrating that it doesn't include instructions on how to do this, but I found the guy ('Geit Sken [Team Switching]' as noted on the wiki, looks like he shows up in the arena area near the other team color coordinators). For other folks, if you didn't catch this - seems like you basically just pick a team and can then fight other teams in your hall all the time. Hooray! Thanks very much @Myror.7521!

Hey folks, I looked around but couldn't find anything really concrete - has there been any word on the status of the guild hall PvP update (the one which was supposed to expand PvP combat beyond the arena)? This blog post said that it should be live in late January - https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/wvw-update-guild-hall-arenas-and-world-restructuring-beta/ Is the feature available and I'm just not seeing it? Also, from what I've read, it seems like players are required to choose their skillset (PvE, WvW, or PvP) individually at Castor. This seems like a pretty glaring oversight and that it should be selectable for the entire guild hall, no? What am I missing here?

So ignore it. Honestly, I will never understand people who complain about having to do things that they don't have to do. Maybe it would have been convenient, but it wasn't there. It's there now. Do it or don't. Of course you're allowed to complain, but come on, man. Stuff changes all the time.

This truly is my main issue with Secrets of the Obscure. Right there with you, pal. Hopefully we'll see something, but yeah, no word so far as I'm aware.

Yes, it's the same skills from Bloodstone Fen. I've had them since Bloodstone Fen came out, so if they're not showing up for you, I'd imagine you still need to buy them there. EDIT - Oh, sorry, I just realised you're maybe asking if everyone has them by default in SotO. Good question, I'm not sure!

I didn't say it's purely good. Obviously there are different perspectives on everything. But this person said they haven't actually played in years, nothing beyond Heart of Thorns, and all they ever do is the login, so given that context, I think that, philosophically, decoupling yourself from that sort of behaviour is healthy. It seems otherwise drab and borderline sort of habit-based/addictive to me. You could do something else with that brain time. Obviously to each their own, but my opinion is that the old login reward system was not healthy. Not for players and not for the game. I don't think it actually accomplished the goal of rewarding people for playing, which is what it should do, and which is what the new system does better. Again, my feel, but - play the game. Logging in just to quit is not a game. Play the actual game. 🤷

This is a good thing. Don't be lashed to a game purely for a piddling log-in reward, just to quit moments later. That behaviour serves you not at all if you don't plan to use the content. Play the game because you actually want to log in and play. The rewards for dailies are unquestionably better now, so try to play a bit more if you can, and hopefully have fun.

Duplicate, sorry! Pls delete.

This.

Concur with most points, but I'm curious what you mean about the business model. The game (and series, under the same model) has been doing all right for... a few years now. Are you referring to the smaller and more frequent paid content they're going for? Do you think that won't hold up somehow? My take on that is a happy one. Starting from the original Guild Wars (the Elder) release up to now, I was the sort of person who would buy the ultimate-tier expac just to throw money at ArenaNet. Since I wasn't happy with End of Dragons, for the first time, I just got the base tier for SotO, but this may have been good enough to get me back on track with a higher tier. Even if it doesn't, from a purely selfish perspective, under this more rapid cadence, I would effectively get more high-quality content for a similar price point, while consistently supporting the company, and that consistence is extremely valuable to them from a finance/numbers perspective. That's just my perspective of course, but yeah, again... what's your concern?

Even if that were the case, would that actually mean that the relic system overall needs to be reverted, or just that some individual relics themselves need tweaking?

Yeah, and I think your view is very limited to stats over strategy. When you create a build, part of what you have to consider is synergy. Obviously you're not going to slot something that procs on an effect you can't activate, but I can definitely think of an engineer build that would pretty constantly be running around with five stacks from Aristocracy, no problem. A lot of the condition box relics seem like they could be very useful to me, and some of them are just a lot more (ahem) conditional than others. But that's okay - when you create a build, once again, you have to play to its synergies. I don't play condition builds much, but even I can see some potentially really awesome synergies there. I feel like people are looking for flat stat increases and aren't seeing anything past that, which is selling the whole system very short. The silly thing is that you already got that because now your relic effect is on top of the newly-extra stats from the sixth rune, which is (hooray) entirely up to you to choose. If the collective outrage is keeping you from finding fun in this system, then I think that's a huge shame, and that you should maybe take a breath and a break. But I honestly believe that it's a fantastic change. Yes, there will be bugs, and yes, there will be balance passes. Feel free to criticise, but the system is a net benefit for players and it will get better with time.

Once again, if everyone has the same set of widgets to use to assemble their build, what you get to do now is find your new favourite widget, and then, ideally, go play the game. Find the good one and move on. Someone else can find their favourite too. Even if ArenaNet has made some 'strictly infererior' sets (which I think is pretty subjective), as has already been said, there were plenty of rune sets that didn't get much play before. So what difference does it make? We're all playing with the same blocks right now, folks. Same playing field. That aside, there were some pretty major systems changes and additions here, obviously. Whenever you have major changes, you're bound to see bugs. If there are actual bugs with certain relics, then report them. Even suggest changes or new relics here, sure. But that doesn't mean they should revert the new system, and it doesn't mean it's fundamentally bad. Still so confusing to me to see such aggressively passionate anger for something that gives you more options and choice. 🙄

If no one has those bonuses then everyone is on the same playing field. What difference does it make? Honestly, the only thing I really sort of understand people being upset about losing is the summons. Golems and rock dogs and such. That mechanic had character, so I can understand people being fond of it. But the fact is that people love being given things and hate it when things are taken away, even if it doesn't really change much in the grand scheme. End of the day, this is not a big deal. It creates more build flexibility, makes it easier for them to balance, and let's be honest, it's another way for ArenaNet to keep folks playing the game. So many of the complaints about systems changes with this expansion have been from people who don't seem to want to actually play. It's genuinely baffling to me that people who want to do so little are so loud about it.

Hammer feels underwhelming to me on holo, sort of surprisingly. I was expecting to like it a lot more, but it's sidelined for rifle again. I probably just need to train with it more (I don't play scrapper so haven't spent time with it), but yeah, it really does not feel anywhere near as smooth, even compared to sword/shield. Alas. I do really like that they took the heat mechanic into consideration and baselined some buffs into sword for non-holo specs. That was thoughtful. I'm not sure what they did is precisely the best option, but I'm glad they did something to make it more viable. Kudos, balance crew.