The primary patch (and second part) of Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity launches immediately, and whereas it doesn’t convey with it any story development, it’s no much less a patch that has one thing for nearly everybody. We previewed the content material final week, so when you patch up, let’s dive in to what you possibly can anticipate!
Style templates
The function I’m most excited for is the brand new trend template system. In case you’ve ever used gear templates, you in all probability have a tough thought of how placing an outfit collectively works. There are tabs throughout the highest you could change between, every with their very own set of armor skins and dyes. Sure, skins and dyes are lastly all on one display screen now! Once you make modifications to a trend template, you will have to spend transmutation fees, as you do now when altering the pores and skin of a person gear piece, however as soon as that template is saved, you possibly can press apply at any time and the looks of your entire at the moment outfitted gear will likely be up to date freed from cost. This must be particularly good you probably have a selected look you want for a personality who’s nonetheless leveling; you don’t should burn transmutes each few hours as you get new gear items to maintain your trend sport on level.
Everybody will begin off with two trend templates – they work the identical on F2P accounts as paid ones – and develop into obtainable to characters at stage 6 similar to the outdated transmutation system did. Extra trend template slots will likely be obtainable within the money store for 600 gems, and in contrast to gear and construct templates, the slots are account-wide, so your entire alts can profit from them.
Upon first login of every character after the replace, you’ll be given a immediate to switch your entire present skins onto the primary gear template totally free, so don’t fear about having wasted transmutations for those who simply made an incredible ‘match. My understanding is that you’ll have to spend transmutation fees to place every other gear templates’ skins into your different trend templates, however all gamers can even be mailed 20 transmutation fees because the replace goes reside, so hopefully this replace gained’t depart you transmutation-less.
Strike missions and raids
I do know Style Wars isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, so let’s speak about this replace’s large modifications to strike missions and raids. Firstly, strike missions have been renamed to “raid encounters.” Altering the terminology for something in an MMO is at all times a little bit of a ache level, however the line between raids and strikes was blurry; there was an excellent quantity of overlap between the better raids and the more durable strikes for a number of years now. I believe placing “raid” within the title additionally makes it extra descriptive than “strike mission.” “Strike” doesn’t actually evoke something particular within the thoughts of a non-GW2-player, however “raid” units some clear expectations.
Raid encounters can now additionally all be accessed within the Lion’s Arch Aerodrome. No extra attempting to herd your group into the identical occasion of The Eye of the North for one every day, then Arborstone for the following. Higher but, solely the commander needs to be within the aerodrome; all different squad members will get a popup inviting them to hitch wherever they’re. The identical goes for raids as nicely: The squad commander can decide a selected boss to begin, and everybody within the squad will be capable of bounce straight there, even when it’s not the primary boss within the wing. I like that the brand new system merges the perfect of each strikes and raids.
Merging strikes and raids additionally means merging their currencies. Prophet shards will likely be mechanically transformed to magnetite shards, and the distributors will likely be unified. Since there are actually much more raid issues to do, the weekly magnetite cap will likely be elevated from 300 to 800.
Fast play
One other thrilling function of this patch is fast play raid encounters. I believe many Guild Wars 2 gamers are already acquainted with the short play fractal system, which matches individuals up for a good simpler model of T1 fractals, with most of the ache factors for disorganized teams disabled.
The short play for raid encounters is analogous. There’s a playlist of earlier strike missions that the sport will toss you into.
Strikes, like raids, have at all times been constructed round having particular therapeutic and boon roles current, so when the function was introduced, I used to be curious how that may work in a sport that doesn’t have a solution to flag your construct as healer or assist. The reply is that quickplay will present all squad members with a buff that offers injury resistance and lifesteal, making a full-time healer pointless. Gamers also can res full-dead gamers throughout fight in quickplay. Aside from these buffs, the mechanics of the fights are unchanged, however the buffs ought to make many of the fights doable with disorganized, inexperienced teams.
When this function was introduced, I anticipated to see the better strikes on the checklist of choices, however I used to be shocked to see a number of the harder ones like Boneskinner and Outdated Lion’s Court docket, with the laughably straightforward Shiverpeaks Move fully absent. I requested the devs what their standards for choosing these strikes have been. They stated that they didn’t wish to decide both excessive, both too straightforward or too exhausting, with a purpose to give gamers who could also be new to 10-person content material an excellent really feel for what it’s like. I would argue that Outdated Lion’s Court docket is on the more durable excessive, punishing gamers who don’t know the struggle, however I believe the speculation is a stable one.
The devs additionally famous that there are not any common raid wing bosses within the rotation for fast play “but.” They neither confirmed nor denied that it will at all times be the case; as an alternative, they famous that they are going to be maintaining a tally of suggestions and updating the quickplay playlist accordingly.
Guardian’s Glade
In the course of the preview, we have been handled to a video preview of the brand new raid encounter, Guardian’s Glade, that includes Kela, Seneschal of Waves, who chances are you’ll bear in mind as the enormous enemy crab you struggle in the course of the Visions of Eternity story. The struggle’s designers described it as “coordination-heavy” fairly than combat-focused. One participant grabs an artifact, which begins the struggle. The boss will likely be fixated on the participant with the artifact and can slowly comply with them across the enviornment. They’ll use the particular motion key to toss the artifact to a different a part of the sector, the place it may be picked up by one other participant. The squad can use this to kite Kela round and into obstacles that open up injury home windows, all whereas avoiding swimming pools of quicksand and numerous provides. It sounds just like the type of factor that may be enjoyable with a well-organized group on voice coms, and an absolute trainwreck with a foul PUG. Fortuitously, it gained’t be a part of the short play roster any time quickly.
Lunar New 12 months
Lastly, it’s the 12 months of the Horse, so gamers can sit up for the return of the Lunar New 12 months competition immediately, which features a “boot armor pores and skin that grants characters the looks of getting hooves” due to course it does.
Though we knew it was coming, it’s just a little disappointing that this quarter’s launch didn’t embody any story, however given the magnitude of the quality-of-life modifications it consists of, I’m not going to complain. And there are many different issues to maintain gamers busy on this patch, like an improved seasonal refresh of the wizard’s vault, and naturally the brand new beach-themed legendary ring. I’m excited to strive the brand new strike mission raid encounter with everybody quickly, and I’m equally excited to see the place VoE’s story takes us this spring!
Flameseeker Chronicles is one in every of Massively OP’s longest-running columns, protecting the Guild Wars franchise since earlier than there was a Guild Wars 2. Now penned by Tina Lauro and Colin Henry, it arrives on Tuesdays to report every part from GW2 guides and information to opinion items and dev diary breakdowns. If there’s a GW2 subject you’d like to see explored, drop ’em a remark!Source link
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