It has been just a few weeks now since Guild Wars 2 launched its third growth, Finish of Dragons. Now, in a lengthy post, ArenaNet has outlined what’s subsequent. It is a fairly huge record of upcoming stuff, from the return of the sport’s first Residing World season, to a brand new story set on a brand new map within the growth’s Cantha area, and, largest of all, the affirmation {that a} fourth growth will occur.
Along with rounding up the bulletins made in ArenaNet’s put up, I additionally bought the prospect to ship some inquiries to Guild Wars 2’s sport director, Josh Davis, about what’s being teased.
Season 1 returns
At the moment, there is a hole in Guild Wars 2’s story—gamers skip straight from the vanilla marketing campaign and onto Season 2 of the Residing World updates. An NPC in the primary metropolis of Lion’s Arch summarises the occasions of Season 1, however, because of the way it was launched—in time-limited updates, lots of which had been set on the open world map itself—the story itself not exists.
This yr, ArenaNet is bringing that story again, completely, and integrating it correctly into gamers’ story journals. “We’ll be combining the important thing story moments and experiences of Residing World Season 1 into 5 episodes that will likely be launched all through 2022,” writes ArenaNet of their announcement put up. “Our purpose is to supply a cohesive bridge between the non-public story and Residing World Season 2 and provides gamers the chance to earn most of the legacy achievements and rewards which have been unavailable all these years.”
The primary episode—known as Flame and Frost—comes out on April 19. Episode 2 will launch a month later, on Could 24. The season will finish with Battle for Lion’s Arch—and can introduce a brand new Strike Mission (and Problem Mode), presumably primarily based across the titular battle, which, in its authentic type, was an open-world occasion set within the ruins of the outdated model of the town.
As a aspect word, I requested concerning the ‘Scrying Pool’ of the Icebrood Saga, which incorporates a disparate handful of Season 1 cases. “The rebuilt Season 1 makes the scrying pool variations of missions superfluous,” notes sport director Josh Davis, “so we’ll be phasing these out because the related missions grow to be obtainable within the story journal. All associated achievements will nonetheless be completable via the story journal model.”
A brand new growth
I am skipping straight to the juicy stuff right here. In its last reveal, proper on the backside of the put up, ArenaNet confirms that there will likely be a fourth growth for Guild Wars 2. “It is a very early affirmation (the earliest we have ever carried out this, in actual fact), so do not count on information anytime quickly,” the weblog put up clarifies, happening to precise that expansions “take a really very long time to develop”. Principally: it will likely be years earlier than you hear any extra on this.
Moderately than a conventional announcement, then, this tease appears extra designed to reiterate ArenaNet’s dedication to Guild Wars 2. After 2017’s Path of Fireplace, the group spent years questioning if there would even be a 3rd growth—Finish of Dragons wasn’t introduced till March 2020. Already, I’ve seen the group speculate whether or not Finish of Dragons could be the sport’s last growth, particularly because it wraps up Guild Wars 2’s fundamental story so far. Given the context, it is sensible that the studio would affirm, right here and now, that there is nonetheless extra to return.
A brand new map
Earlier than the subsequent growth, there will likely be new story content material too. Within the put up, ArenaNet confirms a brand new map within the Cantha area—teasing the various instructions the story can go now the Elder Dragons have been handled.
Does this imply the launch of Season 6 of the Residing World, and, if that’s the case, when will it arrive given the already introduced return of Season 1? “Residing World Season 1 is the subsequent Residing World Season!” clarifies Davis. “As for what’s after Residing World Season 1, as we speak we confirmed {that a} new map and story set in Cantha are in improvement, and as soon as we’re additional into Residing World Season 1 we’ll be again to speak about the place we’re going subsequent in that mysterious continent.”
Steam launch
Guild Wars 2’s Steam launch was initially slated for November 2020, however was indefinitely delayed that very same month—ArenaNet citing their work on Finish of Dragons as the explanation. With the growth now launched, the studio is once more turning their consideration to Valve’s storefront.
“You solely get to launch on Steam as soon as, and we need to ensure that we do it proper,” ArenaNet writes within the put up. “Over the approaching months we’ll be wrapping up work on the Steam integration, cleansing up some points of the early sport expertise, and guaranteeing that the sport and the studio are operationally prepared for a brand new platform launch. We’re additionally engaged on getting DirectX11 able to exit beta and making it the default graphics setting for brand spanking new customers.”
ArenaNet says it needs the Steam launch to occur this yr, though I believe it will not be till after Season 1 is re-introduced—in case you’re launching for a brand new platform, having the complete story obtainable looks like a necessity. However there’s additionally extra concerning the ‘new participant expertise’ that may be improved given the sport’s age.
“Again in 2014, we took a ‘huge overhaul’ strategy to revising the brand new participant expertise with restricted success, and a few could argue that the modifications made again then did not do the sport any favors,” Davis says concerning the enhancements being deliberate. “This time round, we’re primarily making small, incremental modifications that add up huge enhancements over time. Every of those incremental modifications are being deployed as an experiment in an “A/B” take a look at format, that means we’ll take a look at the modifications within the Stay sport with a small variety of gamers, research the outcomes, after which determine to make the change everlasting, additional iterate on it, or take away it from the sport. We’ll be making these modifications each few weeks, with a number of experiments working concurrently. We’ll talk any everlasting additions to the sport as soon as they’ve made it via testing.”
Past that, Davis additionally mentions different tweaks to “shopper efficiency and a few smaller enhancements to the core sport expertise”—however notes that these will likely be detailed in a few months.
Steadiness updates
Primarily based on what I’ve seen of the group response, Finish of Dragons launch has been principally optimistic among the many sport’s gamers. Apart from some discourse across the issue of the growth’s last meta occasion, the primary gripe I’ve observed is about occupation steadiness—a frustration that always appears to stem from the group not understanding why ArenaNet is making the modifications it does.
Within the put up, ArenaNet proclaims a dedication to common occupation updates—asserting a brand new quarterly replace cycle, with smaller releases in between because the meta round every patch takes form.
I ask what kind of scope gamers can count on from these. “The quarterly professions replace will likely be targeted on revisiting one aspect for every occupation; a weapon, a set of utility abilities, or a collection of traits which can be key in defining sure builds or performance in PvE, WvW, or PvP,” says Davis. “The extent of the modifications will likely be decided on a case-by-case foundation. Some would possibly want minor quantity tweaks to be viable, and others would possibly want a purposeful overhaul.”
Extra extensively, although, I am taken with what ArenaNet’s finish purpose is for occupation steadiness—one thing that is been extensively mentioned across the current nerfs to the Elementalist’s Catalyst elite specialisation, which many gamers really feel hit too arduous.
“When balancing professions and their elite specializations to perform in every mode, the important thing consequence we tune for is for every occupation to have a technique to contribute with sturdy worth. Ideally, they’ve a number of builds that work,” says Davis. “Talking to PvE for instance, our core roles for endgame (instanced) occasion content material are DPS, Quickness, Alacrity, and Therapeutic. On this context, GW2’s versatile and sturdy buildcraft permit for lots of prospects to, in lots of combos, tick two of those packing containers on the identical time (or choose DPS twice and do extra injury!). Usually talking, a construct that may be a DPS/help hybrid does about 3/4s the injury of a pure DPS construct. Every occupation has hybrid and pure DPS builds obtainable amongst their specializations which can be all inside shut theoretical maximums of comparable builds throughout different professions for injury output.
“Within the final yr we have considerably expanded the array of professions and builds which have entry to key boon help roles and intend to proceed doing so with future updates. The tip purpose is {that a} participant can play no matter occupation they take pleasure in probably the most and take into account their ‘fundamental’ in any content material, and that they will have a specialization and construct obtainable on that occupation that may match a job wanted by their group. When one specialization (or construct) ticks too many packing containers in a manner the place it stifles what’s seen as broadly viable (or worse, creates an surroundings of peer stress to play a occupation you do not take pleasure in, simply because it is seen as extra optimum for the content material), now we have to get on the root of the issue inflicting that stress, and make modifications to maintain it from constricting the general metagame. Catalyst had an issue that wanted fast tuning to handle—it was each dealing chart-topping DPS and offering 100% quickness uptime for a celebration concurrently, and thus was vulnerable to displacing all different hybrid quickness DPS builds. Our final patch firmed up Catalyst’s help construct however left the DPS construct underperforming our personal wishes for the specialization, and so it is getting an array of optimistic modifications within the subsequent patch that may shore up its damage-dealing means, make it carry out constantly no matter goal hitbox measurement, and make the play sample for optimum ability utilization way more accessible and forgiving.”
The primary main occupation replace will go dwell on June 28, though an earlier replace concentrating on PvP and WvW steadiness will launch on March 29.
Roadmap
ArenaNet has additionally launched the complete roadmap for the subsequent three months, giving agency dates to a number of the updates talked about above, in addition to the launch of problem modes for every of the 4 Finish of Dragons Strike Missions.
- March 29: Tremendous Journey Competition, Finish of Dragons Polish Construct
- April 19: Residing World Season 1 Episode 1, Aetherblade Hideout Problem Mode
- Could 10: Xunlai Jade Junkyard Problem Mode
- Could 24: Residing World Season 1 Episode 2, Kaineng Overlook Problem Mode, New Legendary Weapon Variant
- June 7: Dragon Bash Competition, Harvest Temple Problem Mode
- June 28: Steadiness Replace, New Legendary Weapon Variant
Lastly, there will likely be new World vs World beta exams and bonus occasions because the studio returns to the World Restructuring system that may shift the mode away from servers and in direction of guild alliances. The Restructuring beta remains to be within the first section—testing back-end infrastructure for the brand new system. As soon as that is full, although, ArenaNet plans to introduce methods to make World vs World extra rewarding for particular person gamers.
As an everyday participant, I am pleased to see simply how a lot is deliberate for the approaching yr and past. Throughout the sport’s life, there’s been loads of instances when a scarcity of updates has made me surprise simply what the way forward for the sport is likely to be. However removed from feeling prefer it’s approaching the top of its life, this replace makes Finish of Dragons really feel like the beginning of the subsequent section of the sport’s life—one which looks like it will likely be supported nicely into the long run.
