Hey WB, The story is fine? But what makes me want to even play is new ways to play. It's one of the reason why I love guild wars 1 over guild wars 2. 900+ skills and many different build styles is what made me want to play the content. Balance patches.. are.. eh.. It's fine? But More skills is required for me, I mean at this point I cant even play the game anymore tell a new expansion releases. I mean, the game has no gear progression.. which is both good and bad... But I need something to work for build wise.. because if I didn't even have that then what's the point in even playing? The story sure won't let me do that.. if I was in it for the story I'd play final fantasy.. (which btw I don't play either because I hate forced story). I like customization, it's why I play mmorpg's.
WP, the more I actually think about it... The more I realize how bad the game is designed for new skills and abilities based on what you said.. I think we just need a guild wars 3 at this point. Also, the weapon thing is major with elite specs, HOWEVER.. I believe they shouldn't be locked with specific elite specs. I want a daredevil theif that uses a rifle for instance.. Weapons shouldn't be locked, hell I don't like how skills are locked in elite specs.
I like your idea of elite specs. Though the elite talents need to change to fit the skills.. For instance a bard needs either new skills or talents that change existing skills to fit the subclass.
Both the ascension idea and the cultural spec idea seem really cool and practical to me. Especially the latter would open up a whole new door for buildcraft, and if they designed multiple lines per expac, you would always have that element of choice that you didn't really have before, because you might want to try the different cultural specs out with all the different elite specs you already have. Ascension on the other hand would finally give more flavor to those base specs, having an improved alchemy or turret spec on my engineer would be a dream come true.
Coming from ESO, I was astounded by the amount of content in DLCs in Gw2 expansions. ESO suffers from having to release a new DLC each year, and they've been getting worse and worse. Crappy additions which don't really add anything, boring storylines which always feel so rushed and so on. I fear that if Gw2 continues with this where they release specs every blue moon inbetween crap rushed dlcs, then I don't know if I wanna keep playing. Quitting ESO was painful as it is, but having to quit Gw2 because the content quality isn't there doesn't seem impossible now.
Something I never see anyone talk about is the idea of a large scale underwater combat rework, and the subsequent splitting of on-land and underwater builds. They could make existing elite specs on-land only and have your build dynamically change when you go underwater, allowing them the space to have a full pantheon of underwater-only elite specs that works well with their revamped underwater combat system, which I always thought would need an expansion size budget.
The ascension is actually really good ”budget” idea, i mean this is mechanic id like to see in addition even if there was new elite specs, as long as its actually well made and they dare to go bold enough into it. There are so many cool core trait lines that could be sank deeper into
The culture system is actually a really clever way of getting use out of those skills, while providing something to use up extra HPs. I think it would be great.
I won't be paying for any expansion without elite specs. It is the meat of horizontal progression. It is also the largest update any competitive mode gets. So having spent a lot of time in WvW, elite specs are highly important. Part of the reason I'm not playing now is that the last batch of elite specs are largely non-viable in that game mode and ANet doesn't seem in any rush to fix that. If you remove elite specs then you are just paying for living world. That is the main difference.
I think what may be the case for a number of players (including myself), is that the lack of elite specs could potentially change the frequency and way in which they play. Without the gameplay novelty of new specs, I could see this becoming a game that after the initial launch rush, I play every now and then when I feel like it, whereas if there's gameplay novelty, I would play once a week or more. My trust in the quality of the content is the same with or without elite specs, but what they really offer me is a chance to refresh and renew the moment to moment gameplay for a game that I've been playing for 10+ years
My first thought: Rather than adding new weapons or trait lines, ANet could add new unlockable weapon skills. The UI is already built in a way where you can click on the carrot above a utility to change it. These choices also function already with legend swapping on Revenant, remembering your positioning of them. During the expansion, players could run into a class trainer in the new region and they could teach you a couple new abilities for one of your weapons. Now your ranger, out of combat, will have a carrot over their 2 skill and you can choose the original ability or the new 2 skill. These new abilities could be focused on different play styles, replacing a power based ability for a condi one, or changing one to a supportive heal skill. These skills could enable new playstyles, allow for muuuuch more build craft, or also allow players to tailor their experience on their favorite weapon to fit them better. This would also add value to getting your alts into the new regions, so they can find all the new class trainers across the three new maps. My second thought: Pre-EoD I remember one of your videos mentioning that it sucks when you don't use the new skills with a new spec, but it also erases identity when you only use all of the new utilities. Your solution then was to suggest that new elites specs get less abilities. Make the two or three utilities that come with the elites feel really good. I think that the existing number of utilities should be greatly reduced. Rev excluded for design reasons. With less utilities, each can get more balanced attention and open up space to add individual class abilities through mini-quests like you mentioned with the antitoxin spray.
I agree they'd definitely have to fill different roles, otherwise it would just come down to what is a DPS increase. I disagree they'd be a nightmare to balance as each one would be tied to a specific slot. You could only ever slot the new ability into weapon slot 3 if it's made for weapon slot 3. That would give them a baseline ability to compare to and have consistency across the other abilities of that weapon they would be expected to be used with. You are correct that they could become exponentially more difficult to balance the more are added. That could be quelled if they had the foresight to limit the unlockable skills to specific slots. For example: if only weapon skills 2 & 4 for ranger longbow ever get unlockables. Then there would be a baseline that there will always still be the same skills in 1, 3, and 5. I think it would be a very bad thing if every ability on a weapon had different options. That would very quickly lose the identity of the weapon.
@@Ficohaker you're right, you wouldn't always know what exactly you're going up against initially. However, I don't see it much differently than having different utility skills. Given time after the release, pvp players, would learn what new abilities those weapons have access too. I argue it's not much different than a trait or weapon rework during a balance patch, and far less to learn than an entire new specialization for every class. There is a really good argument for improved competitive readability though I think the priority should be less overall noise, and ensuring unique animations for each ability.
I think they 3rd trait line idea is brilliant. I always thought that allowing people to kind focus in on one thing. That could add a lot more diversity. Also, I'm desperate for a shield shield guardian 🤣
I really love the cultural idea! I can't see more than one more round of Elite Specs being viable before it's /too many/ options and turn off possible new players; 2-3 minor lines of cultural training to pick from is less intimidating than 36+ classes (counting core). Lore-wise, I would really enjoy being able to have part of exploring a new area include working on an achievement to unlock training in a certain culture's line. Plus, I can see it fitting in nicely with expanding on existing areas with 1-2 maps rather than dropping a whole continent at a time. EG a new map in that corner between Bloodstone Fen & The Silverwastes also comes with Maguuma Centaur culture line unlocked by doing events with the tribe + a new map where the Battle Isles were(?) comes with a Zaishen line unlocked by finding the missing pages to a Waterlogged Zaishen Order Handbook would let players have a bit more to chew on than just the maps alone.
I am loving honestly, to see our OLD WP is back with his GW2 LOREs & Theories. I still remember it was your video that first brought me to GW2 world. So, it feels so nostalgic to see your these LORE & Concept videos. Love you man :)
I absolutely LOVE your "Ascensions" idea and it would be my most preferred out of all of these - it's good business because it's economical, AND it makes dead specs viable again. Second place would go to 3-elite-specs-per-expansion, meaning the full 9 within 3-4 years. The racial/cultural specs ARE great but as you correctly point out they could kind of replace Masteries instead of Elite specs.
Would love cultural specs! In order to make it more immersive, you’d have to train this spec on its specific race before it’s available to your whole account. Combining hero points and masteries for this is just genius
I kinda get the "No elite specs, I'm out" from a class playstyle perspective. Elite specs warp playstyles just by being equipped thanks to their minor traits, and it provides a whole new perspective of 'how do I perform this character'. The core specs, aside from a few exceptions, don't really live up to this. I think if core spec lines warped your playstyle MORE just by being equipped (i.e. from the minor traits only), it would open up much more interesting buildcraft and also provide an out for the devs to add more core spec lines and not whole blown elites (wouldn't necessarily need to package in a new heal, elite, utilities, weapon, etc.). I mean, really, when you compare the Fire traitline to Weaver, it's a no-brainer which one you build around. Not Conjurer, that's for sure.
I'm gonna say the same thing I said in a previous video: elite specs are the main selling point for pvp/wvw players in terms of new content. These modes are gonna fizzle out if they don't add anything that shakes up and diversify build options. The ascension idea _could_ work. But it's still less content.
I love the idea of ascensions. I kind of always felt the core trait lines never went far enough on delivering their theme, especially compared to elite specs. I will admit that using the example of pyromancer was an easy way to get me on board since I always wanted to be able to play the elementalist by picking a favorite attunement and using the others more for utility.
With the last idea in the video, it could also translate fairly well into WvW as it already has a trait like system with the WvW abilities. Making that into a trait line and streamlining it a bit could also make for some fun dynamics in WvW. For example some people might take the trait that lets them do more dmg and take less dmg while on siege equipment and someone else might take the trait to carry an extra supply. Something similar could be done for sPvP.
I think its VERY possible to have something like the old Luxon/Kurz skills for each profession in Guild Wars 2. Summon spirits was so fun on my Ritualist :D All the spirits shadow stepping to you and healing. Or to be honest a lot of the fun Eye Of the North skills.
I think the conversation around elite specs is really... dancing around the real issue that in MMOs, you want to play "your" character. Whether that be a character represented in the game lore or an outside concept that otherwise languishes on some lonely DeviantArt account. Elite specs were a means of bridging that gap. Without them? Well, I'm eager to hear what ArenaNet intends to do. I'm someone who is STILL a bit salty that from release day, mesmer didn't have mainhand pistol as an option when Lyss and Ilya really suggests they should. If they're scrapping elite specs they need to find another means of addressing this need. I personally like your idea of doing only a couple at a time and giving them the love they deserve instead of rushing a bunch out at once.
I could see them alternating between a set of Especs and bigger features ie housing And for the racial skills, they could have masteries/collections to unlock the other racial skills. Gain the favour of Spirits of the Wild, master Asuran tech, getting a bunch of Sylvari seeds and learning the magic to grow them, find a powerful artifact of the human gods to channel, train with a Charr warband and earn their trust and equipment.
I think the ascension proposal would be the most cost-effective yet exciting method they could use. I liked the last proposal but I feel like that could be potentially difficult to balance in comparison.
GW2 is for me THE MMO that I associate with builds and classes. If they are gone, it's a major blow for me. The best solution is to just introduce 2-3 elite spec per expansion or second one(3 I think would be ideal, 1 of each armor type) with that case we have both people getting mini expac for story/exploration and people like me for new classes. Either that or they start rolling some general skill trees that now every class can use. Or maybe brand new class per second expansion that will never have elite spec? Like Shaman or something like that(silly idea). If not then I don't look forward to GW2 as much I do, and I feel most of the community too. Maybe not with the first or second expansion, but it will eventually happen. edit: forget to mention getting new weapons, or just more weapons for existing class/elite specs is would be great too :P
Lots of different ideas in this video to give feedback about. For the poll, the wording is pretty harsh. They really need to add a feature that adds new horizontal options for combat. If they don't and the expansion is only pve content, I would still buy it and play it because I'm pretty dedicated to the game at this point, but I think it would seriously damage my long term interest. I can't imagine five years from now having the same exact class and build options available. My favorite of all the options for right now is new core class weapons. Adding a new weapon to a class almost has more impact than adding a new elite specialization, because there's three different specs that weapon can impact. There are glaring holes in the available weapon sets for some classes. No healing options is a big one, but also some classes just don't have weapons that work well in WvW large scale combat, where you want some level of ranged, non-projectile, aoe skills. This is the only thing really holding back Ranger in wvw, for instance. I really would want whole new weapons. The unidentified gear loot tables should make the old concerns not an issue. New weapon types would create new rewards to go for (nobody has a legendary scythe yet). They could also convert the crossover skins to the new weapons; the Destroyer Scythe skin can be changed to an actual scythe skin. Longer term I think elite specializations have the most design space. Two or three per expansion on a yearly cadence is definitely enough to satisfy people. They don't have to go as hard on making things entirely new as they have been for me to be happy. One of my favorite ideas is an alternate Druid spec that is offensive focused. Make the old Druid into "Celestial Druid" and add a new "Wildfire Druid". It can still wield a staff, but it isn't full of healing skills. It charges up a wildfire avatar that does damage. There's so much more to the "druid" fantasy that is just missing from the narrow spec that currently exists. I would also rather then spend time in making all of the existing specs more compelling than shotgunning out new ones. Plenty of old specs are still missing on their core fantasy, like Renegade where the core mechanic of Kalla's Fervor is just a free stat boost that you don't have to play into at all.
I guess you could have the name of the ascension added to your current class/espec. So if you have spellbreaker and sunspear equipped you become "Sunspear Spellbreaker" or something to that effect. We're gonna have to learn a lot of new acronyms tho XD
that cultural spec is a really cool idea, especially if it was flavored around the part of the world. I think each expansion would only really need to add a free of these, or perhaps multiple for various races, and they could play a little catch up early on by going back and adding cultural specs to the old expansions. can even make them racial like an exalted and nuhoch line, an elonian line, they could add them even to core tyria, like Skritt and hylek, could add cool quest lines to unlock them, adding more content to bring players to the entire world is always cool.
I actually voted for option 3 in the poll but I also think that the absolute number of elite specs we have is enough. I'm thinking something they could realistically do is look at the least played specs and improve/ rework them just whenever. FFXIV does class reworks all the time, for better or for worse, but it does work. Doing this would mean that the development budget that usually goes into elite epcs could be reallocated and irregular reworks could become a thing until we eventually - in a perfect world - would have 3 great elite specs for every class.
GW2 has a lot of room for this too because of the ways they do weapons. They could do a solid pass at things like Dagger Necro, Rifle Warrior, Staff ele, etc.
I agree, say what you want about Machinist but when they did the Machinist rework in ShB it almost felt like an additional new job, it was really exciting.
I feel like Anet lost control of trait lines many years ago. Many of the times they'd make balance changes, it ended up being without any foresight - the interaction between the new patch changes and existing trait lines frequently introduced game breaking mechanics that drove people away. The specs released in EoD were so unpolished and unfinished feeling, with the exception of a couple incredibly OP releases. I think trait lines have become a monster that Anet can no longer control and keep leashed, they can't seem to be bothered to think about cause and effect even after 10 years of working with these traits and specializations. Having said that, a change this large should've been implemented a long time ago and not after many of us spent several years growing attached to our main specs. A lot of our characters will lose their "identity". But giving players "bad" traits and "bad skills" is a silly concept in games, in my own opinion, and that is where we've been at for a long time. When there is always a "right" and a "wrong" build, why does the "wrong" build persist in the game? Why should a player, new to the game or the class, be given "bad builds" and "useless specs"? In our community, it's one of the seven deadly sins to have an incorrect traitline... it's counterintuitive to put "bad ones" and "useless traits" and "unplayable traits" in the game itself. Loading into PvP/WvW could bring up new things for a class automatically, so new players to the game mode do not feel so lost and overwhelmed. What we currently have is just "This one is for PvE" "This is for PvP" "This third one is useless in all situations" for almost every set within the trait lines. At least removing the "This one is useless and always has been" would be a step in the right direction, rather than removing a class identity entirely...
Oh Dear… listening to this episode today I realized how much I was missing your regular podcasts about the Tyria Universe and where it could be developing heading into the future - thank you WP for your amazing job and being a core part of this MMO community 🙏
Yeah, I really like the 'Ascension' idea for balancing and build diversity - or the 'cultural specs' as an expansion of masteries for certain regions/ new content
new expansions roughly every 18months makes elite specs untenable. to assume otherwise is wishful thinking. however, they should not abandon the concept altogether and promise new elite specs once approx. every 3-4 expansions. either that or offer us new specific skills reserved for one map, e.g. while gliding as they did back then with _Bloodstone Fen_ .
I adore the ascension idea. I love the thought of really focusing in on the existing trait lines since they make up the core identities of each class already. What immediately popped into my head (as a necromancer main) was ascended death magic trait-line that makes you an elite minion-mancer like the forgemasters from the castlevania animated series. Yes please.
The cultural trait line feels very GW1 EOTN, with the skills and bonuses linked to different groups... that's not really a bad thing per se, but I don't think it would impact the game very much... the new toys would just result in the meta getting a bump in power. There's no visual or feeling of anything different, it's just a new trait line that impacts your stats. I would expect the meta to become similar to GW1 after EOTN, where the meta builds just turned into a bunch of group skills.
Quite suprisingly, I have a very wierd issue with lack of elite specs. I main Engineer since release, and I decided to play Engineer due to the fantasy of playing character having multitude of dieselpunk weapons and gadgets. My prime time after the release was maining condition build when conditions were very underpowered just to use the flamethrower with all coresponding traits. Core engineer is giving me the exact vibe I want from the spec. But all specs that came after? Scrapper was very much in line with vibe of the core engie, but was really WvW and PvP oriented. 2 more elite specs were tapping into very spicific types of technology that really wasn't coherent with core engie dieselpunk vibe. I do realise that recently some PvE scrapper builds like heal and quickness became really popular, but that was when I was playing way less, and were really about being glorifed buff-heal bot and not much else. I'm still waiting though, I'm still waiting for some form of Ironclad automated-armour-engie, elemental-gunslinger or artillery-master. Something connected to oil, black powder, dieselpunk and charr technology. That's why I want them to add more elite specs, becouse maybe I finally will get engineer spec that really expands on the vibe of the original. I don't really like asura-tech and jade-tech themed engineers - they're cool but just not my type.
I like the idea of both Ascension and Cultural specs. It would be cool to specialize in the Kurzick culture or Luxon culture to bring back the GW1 vibe of being part of the Kurzicks of Luxons. It would probably be easier to add a new weapon through the ascension than through the cultural spec because the cultural spec would be used by everyone so a new weapon would have to be created while the ascension could still add a pre-existing weapon that the class doesn't have access to yet.
I really like the idea of the cultural specs. As someone who doesn't really get invested in the GW2 lore, having specs based on different cultures with appropriate thematic traits would give me a bit more insight into those cultures lore
There's quite a few options available to Anet when it comes to gameplay. First one of course is weapons. There's of course adding new weapons, like chains/whips or fist weapons. And then there's adding weapons that simply aren't available on a given class, i.e. dagger to Revenant. And finally moving weapons into different slots; shield main hand warrior? Spears for land use? Another option for them is that they could add multiclassing, which with the trait system they could implement fairly fluidly. They could make it so you can multiclass into another class using your bottom (elite spec) line, if they want to be on the conservative side. OR They could allow for you to plug specs from another class into each of your lines. So you could be a warrior as your base class, but with guardian/ranger/necro specs in each of your lines. And of course, when you swap a line, maybe you can opt into a heal/utility/elite type. So maybe you like the shouts from the guardian, you could grab those, and maybe spectral skills from Necro. The last option I have in mind, is just to put in skills/traits that you can pick up in the world. Maybe by defeating a specific raid boss, or a open world meta event, you can unlock a special heal, utility, elite, or trait, to use to customize your character. They would be class agnostic, and allow for quite alot of freedom both for the player and the devs to experiment with.
I think an interesting idea could be to "unlock" traitlines of the elite specs. For example with necro, you'll be able to take scourge on the top line, soulreaping in the middle, and harbinger on the bottom rung. Whichever traitline you place on the bottom rung is what decides on your class mechanic. IE; if you swap the lines of harbinger and soulreaping you'll have a classic shroud, with harbinger now in the middle line. This decoupling will have an explosive effect on build-variety and build-crafting, and at least for the first expansion provide even more class content than a new elite spec, and also be a lot less work (balance excluded, but balance is a nightmare after every expac anyway). In addition, you'll now be able to run pistol/torch as your weapons, as you have both harbinger and scourge active (though what I'd really like to see is weapons unlocked class-wide regardless of whether a traitline is active - core engineer?!). While initial balance will be a fair bit of work, it's a frontloaded endeavour. Further to this as you said, expanions could start to introduce new weapons to classes as a whole, such as the fabled spear, instead of elite specs. 1 new weapon per class is a lot less work than a new elite spec, and unironically might generate even more hype, and you could be able to use them with any specialisation and traitline combo as mentioned above.
I think they could go with a similar system that they already introduced in GW1 in Eye of the North expansion which is kind of similar, to what you've proposed as idea #5. There are so many factions in the game (and so many new can be added), it'd be easy to just add new utility/elite skills or traits usable by all classes tied to various factions. They could even mirror the EotN system in a way that gaining higher reputation levels with a certain group would increase that skill's power. This could also introduce a new feature (also inspired by GW1) where part of the end game would be to max reputation with various factions. Those could give you not just better skills/traits but also mounts, armor, weapon, jade bot skins, titles, achievements, novelties etc.
If the reason they drop elite specs is because the development investment required to implement new ones is too high, most of these changes still necessitate a huge amount of systems overhaul to avoid introducing significant power creep and thus somewhat defeat the purpose of sunsetting elite specs to begin with. Adding only parts of an elite spec seems like it would be less work, but from a balance management perspective, putting any additive systems into the game is far more demanding than the elite spec formula, which is an alternative system. I personally don't trust Arenanet to do this atm. It would take someone with serious vision who really wanted to rock the boat to tackle a challenge like that and succeed, and I"m not sure gw2 is an environment that would tolerate drastic systemic change right now. This community still is not over the fact that we can get extra cc from an Icebrood Saga mastery with waystations, for instance. As far as the solutions you brought up that weren't additive are concerned, making alternative gameplay niches by modifying parts of core or introducing new skills has already been a tactic employed hesitantly by Arenanet, but it's been met with at best mixed reviews, the mix being mostly negative. The banner change, which at this point was probably just as much work as developing an entirely new set of utility skills for an elite spec, has not only been received poorly, but the implementation is almost impossible to balance. Either banners are the best thing since sliced bread and therefore invalidate every other facet of warrior and overtake the identity of the profession at every level, or they're still untouchable. Any new alternative skill option added to the game at any level (be it game-wide, race-wide, or profesison-wide) would face this same polarization of strength and purpose unless it was crafted absolutely perfectly. Either it's good or you ignore it. And to add enough stuff to warrant it being a sellable feature while not letting it be a bunch of balance bloat or worthless garbage seems just as challenging to me as adding another elite spec, just without the fun of a new thematic and visuals. I think we're either getting no elite specs, less elite specs, or elite specs less often. I don't see them venturing down the road less traveled anytime soon. They seem lazer focused on standardizing their release and design practices and only continuing on with the most tried and true features they know how to make and know will at least be received neutrally, if not positively. I would be very surprised to hear of a new feature to replace elite specs and I'd be even more skeptical of whether it was good enough to do away with elite specs.
Hey WP - Dual professions; hear me out. Primary would be tied to the profession you chose when creating your character, so lots of incentive to create new characters. A few implementations come to mind: 1) It could just be the same as your fifth idea but the variable being a secondary profession instead of race. Lots of room for variation. 2) It could be that choosing a second profession gives you access to one of that profession's core trait lines, or a less powerful and/or functionally -modified version. * example: A Necromancer/Ranger with minions enhanced by the Beast Mastery line. 3) Similar to #2, choosing a second profession gives you access one of that profession's weapons. You'd get access to a new weapon type just like the previous expansions. * example: Ranger gets access to Scepter (either hand) by choosing Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer, or Guardian, and the weapon's skills are themed on that secondary profession . 4) Similar to #3, choosing a second profession gives you access to enhanced versions of your current weapon skills, and would be in the theme of that second profession. * example: We could make a Ranger/Guardian with burning or healing arrows. 5) Some combination of the above. Additionally, I suspect that adding Elite Skills and/or new weapon types (e.g., Whip, Flail, (land) Spear, Claw(s), etc.) would be well received by a large majority of players.
The last idea is by far the best and fits so well into the existing UI. I was personally thinking about how they're running out of ideas for elite specs too and how the system is not sustainable long term. Especially with more frequent expansion releases. So I was thinking about a possible next expansion around human gods that takes you to the mists and instead of adding 9 new full specs, we simply add an entirely new rpg/character customization system that is much slimmer but affects every class and adds combat and gameplay variety. For example a new skill bar with "mist skills" that you unlock through mastery or playing through the story and quests and would allow you to choose between a selection of mist skills to slot on your bar. And what the skills do would depend on what class you are. So for example an elementalist would get a certain number of new skill slots that change with what attunement you are in. For example 3 mist skill slots, a low cd, mid cd and high cd skill where its sort of a hybrid elemental and mist magic skill that does something cool. Then they could skip new weapons, utility skills, elites, traitlines all together and just implement a new system for an extra layer of customization, that is the same for every class but the actual skills are thematic to the class you are playing. Another idea I had is comparable to how WoW does talents now. There's a Mage talent tree and a Frost talent tree. Essentially double the customization. Maybe on top of trait lines there's another much more slimmed down talent system (where you select one talent out of 3 choice with 3 tiers of talents) where a certain talent you select completely changes a certain aspect of your class/elite spec. For example a talent for ele could be: If you don't have an elite spec equipped you are able to supercharge your element which prevents you from switching attunements for a certain time period but you gain damage/boons/utility on existing skills, like they're enhanced versions of those skills. Or maybe a talent changes a trait that normallly gives alacrity to give quickness instead. All of my ideas could easily be changed and made to fit your cultural spec idea and be made very thematic to that specific cultural race/group. I especially like having to work through the expansion to unlock a Sunspear line or something giving you special Sunspear stuff and then have that change the way you play your class.
I am a HUGE fan of the ascension concept. Of course it's going to a very direct form of powercreep, but then again so are a lot of elite specs anyways. They won't have to mechanically reinvent the wheel, yet there would be some crunch and all the thematic goodness of elite specs - and there's quite a lot of mileage left within each class to keep doing this (one traitline at a time) for years to come. The cultural spec idea comes in a very close second. To me the greatest advantage is the lowered volume of work compared to how widely accessible they'd be, and there's a built in excuse not to make them overly impactful. On the other hand, as you mentioned, they'd necessarily take a backseat to the professions themselves, so their novelty might wear off too fast compared to how much effort it would take to push them out. As for my own ideas, all I have is a revitalization of racial skills and the release of an associated traitline. Ideally each set of racial skills would cover the same bases (there'd be a tanky skill, a ranged damage skill, a stunbreak, etc), but they'd merely have racially distinct flavors. For instanced the ranged aoe damage skill for a norn would be a transformation that comes with a forward facing cone shout, while the asura version would be a golem (or power suit) that does the same thing just with a spray of gunfire from the golem, etc.
I'm not too far in. But I'd like to see more flexibility with the classes. Maybe each expansion or so the modify an aspect of classes. Such how how their spells work or maybe even allowing for the ability to exchange weapon attacks for different ones. You still will only have 5 but there will be a selection. Rifles for example. maybe one ability is a smoke ability. no damage but causes blindness.
You could go to Rata Sum to learn about golem tech, acquire the golem elite through a questline involving the inquest, and then use the golem elite, but transform in to an asura while in the golem. Same idea for charrzooka. Travel to the Citadel and learn about Charr military/culture/etc while battling flame legion, and transform into a charr avatar while wielding the charrzooka.
I was scratching my head when I saw the stream, trying to draw a line between GW2 fishing and the legendary Final Fantasy summon. This makes much more sense! I may actually go back and check out that vod now 🤣
If Anet plans to increase the cadence, they need to streamline this stuff as much as possible. To take a clear simple concept which can work well in the long run. Making up new "flavors" for each profession in any capacity could be pretty cumbersome, so they need something more generalized like that cultural idea. I wouldn't mind a spec where your character can loan skills of other powerful beings like mursaats, the forgotten, gods' avatars and so on. A more defined revenant mechanic which implies your character actually changed themselves, and not just their spirit legend bookmark. It would be more simplified than traditional elite specs, but I think if there's a few interesting core mechanics, they don't need to load too many things in traits and skills (they can lessen the number of traits/skills too), and pure numbers always can be tweaked. *And* they can tie it to the story too, it would feel so good to play through the questline about Seers and end up with some sort of artifact/condition which can let you use their powers. I think there's something special about story expanding your combat capabilities, having that moment of "So I helped that dude, got into a neat adventure and ended up progressing my character". And it feels more personal than rev's legends, those always felt so detached from my character despite devs trying to follow expansion's theme. Getting elite spec was something done off-screen and out of the story, and it wasn't a very exciting journey tbh. I'd like to see them combining the two in some noticeable way (with an option for wvw folks bypassing it in some way through wvw means like they do now).
omg I loooove the cultural spec system ! it would give so much to so many different types of players, while giving value to already existing skills that don't matter ingame as of now. hope anet is listening! I'm glad you talked about this despite feeling that people didn't appreciate your ideas after your first made a video about it. thanks man
I like the idea of only releasing 2-3 Elite Spec's which each expansion. This would be enough to keep me interested in the Class and Build-Craft system. I stopped playing ESO because the classes and builds started to get boring. The ESO devs haven't made any major additions to the class system in years. Now that ESO is going to get a new Class, I'll most likely start playing again when it's out. I felt the same kind of boredom during the icebrood-saga. The Balance-Patches weren't enough to keep things interesting for me personally. I still played the story but other than that I stopped playing GW2 until EOD was announced and the Elite-Spec-Betas arrived. However, GW2 without Elite-Spes isn't a total deal breaker for me, as long as there is something new added to the craft Builds with. Adding skills or weapons could be fun but I don't think one random skill is enough to be a major expansion feature. I like the idea of ascensions a lot. Something like this would satisfy me completely. Working with what's already there is such a cool idea. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, the wheel is fine. Adding new Elite-Specs that feel unique and fill a niche is basically impossible after 3 waves of Elite Specs. There's maybe one more wave somewhere to be found but that's it. Ascensions could fill the void the absence of Elite Specs would leave behind. Racial Skills could also fill that void but there is one major issue. The racial skills we currently have are weak and most the community ignores them. They need a major reputation overhaul before the next expansion is announced in order to be successful and I'm not sure if the Devs can pull this off. Personally, I'm into the of Cultural-Specialisations. They could also be used to expand the lore. It's a really cool idea. I feel like there are are many good options to replace Elite-Specs and I hope the Devs have already thought of something. The real problem are Masteries (in my opinion). There is not much left to add. Housing is of course an option but other than that there's not much left.
Something I’m surprised you didn’t bring up (although I guess this could be lumped together with the ‘free form’ approach) is additional/alternative skills for existing weapons. I really think some weapons struggle with having a clear identity. Thief dagger is power but also Condi? Ele water is sometimes healing and sometimes DPS? I think allowing us to pick and choose from a couple different options per slot would really put a lot more power in the players hands when buildcrafting. I feel like it would also help with skills being seen as either “PvP” or PvE. This would definitely keep me interested.
More weapon options would be cool. Ive imagined some cool weapon skills based around off hand shield for thief. Pistol shield thief could get a dual wield skill called cover fire where it's a half second block that turns into repeater for 5s and if you block an incoming attack you get quickness for 6s. Shield 4 could port you to the target and daze them for half a second with a shield bash.
The Ascension thing is kinda neat. I'd love to see that. It feels doable without devs having to come up with new utilities or styles of gameplay. Just beef up and double down on existing concepts. One thing i'd personally like to see is them decoupling weapons from the elite specs. I'd like to use Greatsword without being Vindicator for example. You can still have the need to train the trait to unlock it but you wouldnt need to have the spec equipped to use them.
in secret, i hope they'll work on multiclassing. bringing universal traitlines for all specializations that give your toon some characteristics of a certain class x. for example, multiclass set "warrior" would bring the same traits and maybe another weapon to all specializations to take on a warrior-like approach to their profession. less developing time, less balance issues (if you block out trait synergies with existing trait lines) and they could publish them in different x-pacs one by one.
I like both Ascension and Cultural specs. If the cultural specs came with some special miniquests that would trigger when you spend points in the spec for the first time that would show how your character got to learn these new abilities, it would be enough imo to break that barrier of "this race cannot do this". And with the ascensions, man, i imagined an idea of the supercharged minion master and i loooooove it so much.
"Ascensions" is great. Always wanted to see the possibility of having a "core elite spec" and maybe that's the way to do it, giving players the option of any of the five core specs to "specialise" or have a stronger focus on. But wow.. that last idea of cultural trait lines.. that is PERFECT for mini-expacs. Might even have two per expac, one offensive and one supportive.
I think a good substitute for entire specs would be adding brand new weapons or even existing weapons to core classes that never previously had them. Think of it this way, that’s something that builds upon every spec at the same time and would be less dev time and they could probably push out a new weapon every expansion. Even if they were still interested and the demand in elite specs were high, they could still rotate . For example, the next canthan patch could give a brand new weapon like a spear or everyone, the wizards tower expansion might give a staff/sceptre/focus to those that don’t currently have one of them. Then the utopia expansion might give a brand new elite spec.
Proposal 3: new weapon sounds great. It is actually for me the most exciting part of the new elite specs and it would be preserving that without developing an insane Black Desert-esque amount of classes that have to all be balanced. Also, I feel at some point we just start running out of new class paradigms that are truly distinct. New weapons give the new flavors without all that and it’s cool because you basically can get a new class specific skill for that weapon. And the idea of the first mini expansions expanding the weapon choices of existing weapons to offhand or different classes with unique skills is a great start - which can then move into introducing totally new weapons later. And in fact, I would unlock the weapons from their elite specs in that maybe you need the elite spec unlock it… but once you do, you can use the weapon no matter your spec. Another thing that would be cool, but not mentioned in your video would be introducing Racial elites that are actually viably powerful. This would have to be balanced, but you could make them very similar skills to each other, but just with different flavors. So, for example, a Norn turns into a bear with proper buffs and duration, and Asura gets to ride a golem like Taimi, Charr gets a steampunk war armor suit, humans take on the avatar of the gods, etc. All maybe having very similar mechanics and buffs but just different icons names and animations
Haha the "norn shouldn't be able to use Asura skills" thing reminds me of during Tekken 7 initial release everyone complained about Lei Wulong not being in the game, and that it "didn't feel like Tekken without him on the character select screen" and lo and behold when he is added as DLC the character usage statistics come out and NOBODY is playing him. I think the idea of repurposing old racial skills and making them universal and potentially meta-build-worthy is a fantastic idea and any way to get pre-existing content to again be useful without it feeling forced sounds awesome! Fantastic idea WP, and really good stuff that that Bahamut person and their UI thing, really interesting to see.
They could use something like a weapon training mastery to adopt a new weapon in the expansions when they do add them and then have some customized profession events or quests that are part of getting each skill for the weapon. Maybe getting another utility skill at the same time
So here's an idea that's a bit of a curve ball: profession change. i know it might sound silly or whatever but it's like a total makeover kit, or an identity repair thingy. The first one could be free and then it'd cost like 100 gold if you wanna do it again. Or maybe, and hear me out here, maybe Anet could make it possible to change races... maybe they could add some summarized instance to get you acquainted with the new race you're changing into so you wouldn't just transform from a Norn into an Asura after an awkward loading screen. It's kind of a filler content that wouldn't hurt players I suppose...
Love the ascended spec idea, supercharging a core trait line sounds awesome. Definitely my favorite with doing 2-3 elite specs per expansion as my second choice
The important thing to keep in mind about the elite specialisation poll is that the voter base is full of players that engage with gw2 content. The casual userbase that goes in and out will majorly be of the midest of wanting elite specs, otherwise they may not find a reason to return.
Tbh i think they could make weapon and race specializations and fill up all remaining skills. So for example you could take a base class spec into the e-spec slot and add a weapon type that they already have access too whoch changes completely in behaviour. Race specializations could also be a thing which emphazises on your heritage. And lastly they could fill all skills that are missing.
Imagine a world where the Icebrood saga was giving us additional parts of the Race trait lines. Champions could have been reworked to have mini quest line surrounding each of the races that was involved (.....though actually they were barely involved). We did have them weird faction rally events between the releases. The examples of races you had in the video such as Exalted could have came about in Season 2 but then later expanded upon with the saga. We did have a mastery line where the allies gained new skills / upgraded as you went. I could have seen the systems all tie into eachother and also people value the saga more had they had done this.
Honestly, I'm one of the weirdos mostly playing just one character, a guardian Sylvari, and of the elite specs I'm still stuck with Dragonhunter. I tried the new ones a bit but I got too attached to the Longbow ranged option over the years to give it up, even though I was initially excited about finally getting dual-wield swords. :D So no, I wouldn't really mind not getting any new elite spec, or waiting a long time for one. It's different with other classes, I actually liked some of the newer specs better, but I don't really play the other characters that often (after leveling them to see the different origin/order stories).
I've just returned to GW2 and have no idea what an elite spec is. All I know is my bags are full of things that I don't know if I need to keep or chuck.
I like the idea that these new expansions focus on the core classes. say for the next expansion they add 2 new traps maybe 1 new survival skill and a new spirit skill and a new elite skill. these can all be used on any elite specialization making more build diversity perhaps.
Yeah, I've been wishing for the Racial/Cultural specializations for years, though I always imagined them to be Masteries instead of new specializations. Making them Masteries instead of specializations would mean they could be even lighter on mechanics, even down to just allowing you to use the racial skills and nothing else. But even just that would allow Anet to make the skills useful. I've also wondered if they might consider adding very basic specializations that just unlock a new weapon and a new skill type with no changes to current class mechanics, but have those specializations be accessible by more than one profession. For example, they could release the "Greatsword and Shouts" specialization that's accessible by any class and can be used to either unlock access to those things or to further specialize into one or both of them as a class that already gets one or both. A guardian could go hard into greatsword and shout synergy or an engineer could use it to unlock a whole new weapon and set of skills. I can see Elementalist and Engineer causing trouble with that idea though due to the extra work required.
I think a good idea might be to just make sure that every classes gets a new weapon on the first mini-expac (even if some classes just get the same one, like warrior and ele getting main hand pistols, rev, necro and mesmer share the spear, etc.), then do the same or something else of a similar dev-effort or resource cost (or whatever the right terminology is for such things) for the next 2-3 mini-expac while slowly building a set of 9 Elite spec that gets released all at once at the 4th or 5th mini-exac or in 2 batches for the 4th and 5th mini-expacs. Proposal 3 is a great idea as well if they can at least do super-charged fire with SOME trait change that gets altered into new stuff that change the playstyle a bit but less than Elite Specs. That works for me. I'd be fine losing the skills and weapon for something like this (And im the one who was the "Alien" in the last video where you looked at comments lol). Thanks for all the recent content, it brought me back to gw2 even before the very recent anouncement and its just been feeding my hype since then.
the problem with balance patches is that it always means replacing something. yeah it can be exiting to get a new build but that will most certainly mean losing something in return if it is something like what you mentioned in regards or retooling a complete trait line or set of utility skills.
Whatever brings more build diversity and build craft. Thats the main way of keeping people playing. Both the asension and the 4th line of interchangable Specs are good ideas. They could also add new "cultural elite Spec" as You mention which also include interchangeable weapon skills for existing weapons. Example there are 5 new skills for greatsword which every Specs can use and You choose how to slot them and what to replace individually. Increasing build creativity. This way they could do 1 elite Spec per expansion very cost efective and everyone gets new toys to play with.
I'm still very partial to the idea of cross-specializing, which takes Core Specs from one class and gives it to another, e.g. Warrior's Arms on a Necro, or something. I doubt it'll be any good in practice, but it'd be a nice callback to secondary professions from GW1 without the mad complexity of it -- the modularity of the Specializations system prevents the system being abused or getting out of hand.
20:00 Problem with Ascensions is that plenty of Elite Specs already feel like Core Specs++. Soul Reaping jumps to attention. They'd have to be very careful about stepping on toes, not least because by your description it'd be much easier to obtain an Ascension than an Elite Spec. And as an aside, another (albeit, admittedly, much stupider) idea in the Ascension vein of hyper-specializing into one line is to allow us to slot the same trait line thrice, so if some one wanted to be a Fire-Fire-Fire ele and possess every single Fire trait, then one should be allowed to do so. Ultimate Pyromancer. Also, I haven't thought about Fire Magic in a long while. I've been much more on a Magic Fire kick. Very refreshing to go back to these older ideas.
Not only it is hard to balance, but they already got as close as they could of dual specing with e-specs like mirage or mechanist. The main problem is that gw2 classes are far more mechanically demanding than gw1's. You have to manage the fact that 2 of those mecanics overlap. I hardly see a dual class system outside of the "other class inspired e-spec", and we already have some of it in the live game.
I would like to see a rework to elite specs altogether to drop the unique weapon access. Instead, add a fourth trait bar which allows for the use OF one non-core weapon type. That way, the new weapons still feel unique and exclusive, and Anet can continue to add new weaponS to classes without having to worry about running out of trait, class mechanic, and utility skill ideas.
I think the best and most marketable thing they can do is what ESO and WoW is doing - adding a 10th class. A new class is something marketable, something people generally like in expansions, and also something alot of people would get new playtime on no matter what class their main is, AND gets them sales for new character slots. They could do new class + 1 elite spec for that class on launch, then every half year or whatever add another elite spec for that new class.
I feel it's really important to have new weapons for classes - it's genuinely the only thing that keeps me coming back to the game. Like others, I've been waiting for weapons to come out for classes since 2012. Namely, Longbow Ele (I prefer ranged). Other than that, the Ascension idea I really like, but I'd prefer if it "upgraded" the set of fire skills for example too. They could adjust the icon colour, add a gold border like the trait line, give them more damage, longer ranges, larger explosions (more oomph etc). And to keep it fresh, add some visual effects to the skill bar like smoldering or glowing red hot.
I think that in one expac they will do new core weapon for all classes that works well on many elite specs so it would shake up many builds. Then for another expac they will add elite specs, so they aren't getting rid of them but not adding them in each time. Maybe the expac after we get elite specs they will add a new trait line to core. The thing on my mind is that for many vets or people used to the game mechanics, builds just revolve around DPS, alac and quickness, maybe you can add heal for endgame instances. Then these builds just have little adjustments to fill the open world slot by adding a bit more sustain. I hate to say it but as much as I love new elite specs, there isn't much they can add that makes the classes more exciting for me after each class can fill each role. We aren't in the old chrono days of one single spec having access to alac. What I look for in an elite spec is for a real game changing mechanic which is why I love mirage and vindicator for their dodge roll shakeup and it actually feels unique because of this. Otherwise the next elite specs will just give a few new animations and a new set of buttons to press to get the same outcome as before (i.e. DPS most of the time). And then if there's one under or over performing we will wait a few months for a balance patch. So yes I'm not totally against elite specs, but I would rather more mechanics are added, the same way break bars were added. This could include new boons and new conditions, maybe more skills that are specific to a profession like the warrior banners and ranger spirits (before nerfed) which makes different classes actually add value and feel unique.
I really like the Ascension idea! I think it could cut enough resources for ANet to focus on the other aspects of the game and it could satisfy well enough the community (once an inital outrage ended, 'cause it will always happen). With that said, what I feel could be safe and funny is to rotate each year: one year they would release 9 Ascension lines with an Elite Skill and new Profession mechanic, and on the next year they would only release (with the next expansion) 9 new weapons (not tied to any Spec/Ascension). That way they could really build new cool Ascension lines with fun new traits and not burn themselves out every year. And we would still have something new and cool on the years without a new Ascension.
In theory I want to say that the current Elite Specs are enough for me and in terms of just number they are. However, most Elite Specs have not really satisifed me in part because it feels like nothing really exemplifies the core fantasy that I feel is presented. Elementalist is my main class but I honestly rarely feel like the long range mage I feel like the character creation and some of the descriptions are trying to sell. I want a spec for Ranger that focuses on bow and pet usage but I dont feel like i have that. The core trait lines should cover that but Elite Specs give access to whole new weapons and mechanics so its really hard to be satisified with just core traits. Long term I dont think I personally need new specs or classes forever but I want them to "finish" the current specs by make sure the "core" fantasy is served and is as exciting as the Elite specs.
I'm still watching so I'll see if you say this, but barring the "2-3 specs at a same time instead of 9 but its the same system", I think my first choice would be sort of what they did in the past, when they added heal skills. What I mean is basically, its freeform each expansion can be whatever. Maybe one expansion every class gets a new weapon but nothing else. Maybe the next they get new mechanics the way elite specs have always done, reimagining the core ideas of a class. Maybe the next it's just utility skills. Or even JUST one slot, like elite, but every class gets 2. Or they get 1 with the expansion and a second during the patches between expansions. With all of these, they can be spread out over the entire range of the expansion's cycle. An expansion with 5 new weapons and the 2 next patches add 2 rounding it out to one for each class
Ascending the base lines is such an easy way to create elite specializations. I’ve been assuming the mini stories will have new characters and those characters will have some new skills for whatever elite spec they’re trying to build on. Similar to how the expansions always have characters of the new elite specs, what if we meet a Tempest that has a new elite skill and new utility line? Seems pretty “elite-spec-esque” to me. But while you’re saving on UI etc you’re still adding more to balance. Unless we just start embracing chaos and over powered things because everyone plays almost everything nowadays anyway.
elite specs or full stop, for atleast 1-2 more expacs, then after that i think they could say there's no more they could do, but then if no more elite specs after that then they need to fill the void with WvW maps/Spvp maps, etc...
It seems to me the 'Ascension' system could be accomplished thru the Mastery system. Where, instead of buffs/debuffs, etc., the trained mastery would unlock a Cultural skill or passive. It would eliminate the need for more hero points, but require playing content to gain Mastery. There could even be a mastery line with levels - ie. lvl 1 Mastery could be skill 1, lvl 2 mastery skill 2, etc. I do quite like the Ascension idea, especially tied to cultural or faction (ie. Sunspears, Kurzick)
I think the last idea would be really cool. But instead of grinding hero points I would love for there to be a quest that unlocks it for you similar to mounts. That way they can also work in some lore for these trait lines.
The problem with new weapons is that you either need to rework old traitlines to work with the new weapons or you have to make a completely new traitline (and that's an elite spec).
I think the only way Id be okay with no new elite specs, is if they instead give each class a new weapon that can be used on all specs. That would be a a lot less work than doing a full specialization for each class, and open up far more possibilities with the current specs and even core classes. Even with 3 specs per class, I still feel like there's classes that should have a weapon they havent gotten yet. Like a rifle for ranger, or any ranged weapon for elementalist. Also after reading the title, I was totally expecting this to be a video of you playing through the expansions on a core class lol.
I think what's gonna happen is: Anet is probably gonna keep making Elite Specs, however they simply won't come out with every expansions, instead, Anet's probably gonna dedicate a whole expansion to them once every 2 or 3 years, with 2 maps related to their origins along with every classes getting their new specs Think of it like how ESO has been doing it, they are doing yearly expac with one new flagship feature tied to them, however the playerbase have been craving for a new class for a while now, and in response to that, the newly announced Necrom expansion will be adding a brand new class to the game, which directly correlate with the theme.
Hey WP, not sure you'll see that now that this video is a week old, but my idea on the replacement of elite specs for a while now has been similar to what you've said in this video in that a lot of what people look forward to is not necessarily the spec as an entire package, but the prospect of getting a new weapon to use and a new set of skills with it. Considering that doing entire trait lines, utilities AND weapon skills is beyond the scope of what they're capable of at this pace, and people have been thirsty for completely new weapons for a long time now, I would propose instead of elite specs that they add TWO new weapons to the game (1 ranged 1 melee, some variance between the 2, however they want to do it) and each class gets ONE of them. This way, they only need to design weapon skills for each class and could even bake these into existing traits (i.e. if they add Greataxe they could include it in trait lines that provide bonuses to Greatsword etc.), everyone gets something new and shiny to play with and it could also be used across every existing elite spec. Not sure what the logistics of creating multiple sets of brand new weapon skins would look like/how feasible that actually is for the art team, but I feel like it could be a reasonable alternative if that's not an issue
![Why Should YOU Play Guild Wars 2? [Updated 2022]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KsESpzsji5U/mqdefault.jpg)
Tomorrow I have a video on fun lore/story ideas appropriate for "mini" expacs. Enjoy!
killing it with the videos lately!
Hey WB, The story is fine? But what makes me want to even play is new ways to play. It's one of the reason why I love guild wars 1 over guild wars 2. 900+ skills and many different build styles is what made me want to play the content.
Balance patches.. are.. eh.. It's fine? But More skills is required for me, I mean at this point I cant even play the game anymore tell a new expansion releases.
I mean, the game has no gear progression.. which is both good and bad... But I need something to work for build wise.. because if I didn't even have that then what's the point in even playing? The story sure won't let me do that.. if I was in it for the story I'd play final fantasy.. (which btw I don't play either because I hate forced story). I like customization, it's why I play mmorpg's.
WP, the more I actually think about it... The more I realize how bad the game is designed for new skills and abilities based on what you said.. I think we just need a guild wars 3 at this point. Also, the weapon thing is major with elite specs, HOWEVER.. I believe they shouldn't be locked with specific elite specs. I want a daredevil theif that uses a rifle for instance..
Weapons shouldn't be locked, hell I don't like how skills are locked in elite specs.
Been loving that you are back. So exciting
I like your idea of elite specs. Though the elite talents need to change to fit the skills.. For instance a bard needs either new skills or talents that change existing skills to fit the subclass.
Both the ascension idea and the cultural spec idea seem really cool and practical to me. Especially the latter would open up a whole new door for buildcraft, and if they designed multiple lines per expac, you would always have that element of choice that you didn't really have before, because you might want to try the different cultural specs out with all the different elite specs you already have. Ascension on the other hand would finally give more flavor to those base specs, having an improved alchemy or turret spec on my engineer would be a dream come true.
Coming from ESO, I was astounded by the amount of content in DLCs in Gw2 expansions. ESO suffers from having to release a new DLC each year, and they've been getting worse and worse. Crappy additions which don't really add anything, boring storylines which always feel so rushed and so on. I fear that if Gw2 continues with this where they release specs every blue moon inbetween crap rushed dlcs, then I don't know if I wanna keep playing. Quitting ESO was painful as it is, but having to quit Gw2 because the content quality isn't there doesn't seem impossible now.
Something I never see anyone talk about is the idea of a large scale underwater combat rework, and the subsequent splitting of on-land and underwater builds. They could make existing elite specs on-land only and have your build dynamically change when you go underwater, allowing them the space to have a full pantheon of underwater-only elite specs that works well with their revamped underwater combat system, which I always thought would need an expansion size budget.
The ascension is actually really good ”budget” idea, i mean this is mechanic id like to see in addition even if there was new elite specs, as long as its actually well made and they dare to go bold enough into it. There are so many cool core trait lines that could be sank deeper into
The culture system is actually a really clever way of getting use out of those skills, while providing something to use up extra HPs. I think it would be great.
I won't be paying for any expansion without elite specs. It is the meat of horizontal progression. It is also the largest update any competitive mode gets. So having spent a lot of time in WvW, elite specs are highly important. Part of the reason I'm not playing now is that the last batch of elite specs are largely non-viable in that game mode and ANet doesn't seem in any rush to fix that.
If you remove elite specs then you are just paying for living world. That is the main difference.
I think what may be the case for a number of players (including myself), is that the lack of elite specs could potentially change the frequency and way in which they play. Without the gameplay novelty of new specs, I could see this becoming a game that after the initial launch rush, I play every now and then when I feel like it, whereas if there's gameplay novelty, I would play once a week or more.
My trust in the quality of the content is the same with or without elite specs, but what they really offer me is a chance to refresh and renew the moment to moment gameplay for a game that I've been playing for 10+ years
My first thought:
Rather than adding new weapons or trait lines, ANet could add new unlockable weapon skills. The UI is already built in a way where you can click on the carrot above a utility to change it. These choices also function already with legend swapping on Revenant, remembering your positioning of them.
During the expansion, players could run into a class trainer in the new region and they could teach you a couple new abilities for one of your weapons. Now your ranger, out of combat, will have a carrot over their 2 skill and you can choose the original ability or the new 2 skill. These new abilities could be focused on different play styles, replacing a power based ability for a condi one, or changing one to a supportive heal skill.
These skills could enable new playstyles, allow for muuuuch more build craft, or also allow players to tailor their experience on their favorite weapon to fit them better.
This would also add value to getting your alts into the new regions, so they can find all the new class trainers across the three new maps.
My second thought:
Pre-EoD I remember one of your videos mentioning that it sucks when you don't use the new skills with a new spec, but it also erases identity when you only use all of the new utilities. Your solution then was to suggest that new elites specs get less abilities. Make the two or three utilities that come with the elites feel really good.
I think that the existing number of utilities should be greatly reduced. Rev excluded for design reasons. With less utilities, each can get more balanced attention and open up space to add individual class abilities through mini-quests like you mentioned with the antitoxin spray.
Unlockable weapon skills would be a balance nightmare
I agree they'd definitely have to fill different roles, otherwise it would just come down to what is a DPS increase.
I disagree they'd be a nightmare to balance as each one would be tied to a specific slot. You could only ever slot the new ability into weapon slot 3 if it's made for weapon slot 3.
That would give them a baseline ability to compare to and have consistency across the other abilities of that weapon they would be expected to be used with.
You are correct that they could become exponentially more difficult to balance the more are added. That could be quelled if they had the foresight to limit the unlockable skills to specific slots.
For example: if only weapon skills 2 & 4 for ranger longbow ever get unlockables. Then there would be a baseline that there will always still be the same skills in 1, 3, and 5.
I think it would be a very bad thing if every ability on a weapon had different options. That would very quickly lose the identity of the weapon.
@@RiotRazer with different weapon skills you would kill any competitive readability and hence murder PvP and wvw
@@Ficohaker you're right, you wouldn't always know what exactly you're going up against initially. However, I don't see it much differently than having different utility skills.
Given time after the release, pvp players, would learn what new abilities those weapons have access too. I argue it's not much different than a trait or weapon rework during a balance patch, and far less to learn than an entire new specialization for every class.
There is a really good argument for improved competitive readability though I think the priority should be less overall noise, and ensuring unique animations for each ability.
I think they 3rd trait line idea is brilliant. I always thought that allowing people to kind focus in on one thing. That could add a lot more diversity. Also, I'm desperate for a shield shield guardian 🤣
WTh how can there be a shield shield guardian XD
@@coldwind8327 just as easily as we have a ranged hammer with rev 🤷🏾♂️
@@fadedcrayon4764 I see your point... and a katana-gun with explosive bullets
@@coldwind8327 the possibilities are endless 😁
I really love the cultural idea! I can't see more than one more round of Elite Specs being viable before it's /too many/ options and turn off possible new players; 2-3 minor lines of cultural training to pick from is less intimidating than 36+ classes (counting core).
Lore-wise, I would really enjoy being able to have part of exploring a new area include working on an achievement to unlock training in a certain culture's line. Plus, I can see it fitting in nicely with expanding on existing areas with 1-2 maps rather than dropping a whole continent at a time. EG a new map in that corner between Bloodstone Fen & The Silverwastes also comes with Maguuma Centaur culture line unlocked by doing events with the tribe + a new map where the Battle Isles were(?) comes with a Zaishen line unlocked by finding the missing pages to a Waterlogged Zaishen Order Handbook would let players have a bit more to chew on than just the maps alone.
I am loving honestly, to see our OLD WP is back with his GW2 LOREs & Theories. I still remember it was your video that first brought me to GW2 world. So, it feels so nostalgic to see your these LORE & Concept videos. Love you man :)
I absolutely LOVE your "Ascensions" idea and it would be my most preferred out of all of these - it's good business because it's economical, AND it makes dead specs viable again.
Second place would go to 3-elite-specs-per-expansion, meaning the full 9 within 3-4 years.
The racial/cultural specs ARE great but as you correctly point out they could kind of replace Masteries instead of Elite specs.
So good to have WP pumping out GW2 content again. I've missed it.
Would love cultural specs! In order to make it more immersive, you’d have to train this spec on its specific race before it’s available to your whole account. Combining hero points and masteries for this is just genius
I kinda get the "No elite specs, I'm out" from a class playstyle perspective. Elite specs warp playstyles just by being equipped thanks to their minor traits, and it provides a whole new perspective of 'how do I perform this character'. The core specs, aside from a few exceptions, don't really live up to this.
I think if core spec lines warped your playstyle MORE just by being equipped (i.e. from the minor traits only), it would open up much more interesting buildcraft and also provide an out for the devs to add more core spec lines and not whole blown elites (wouldn't necessarily need to package in a new heal, elite, utilities, weapon, etc.).
I mean, really, when you compare the Fire traitline to Weaver, it's a no-brainer which one you build around. Not Conjurer, that's for sure.
I'm gonna say the same thing I said in a previous video: elite specs are the main selling point for pvp/wvw players in terms of new content.
These modes are gonna fizzle out if they don't add anything that shakes up and diversify build options.
The ascension idea _could_ work. But it's still less content.
I love the idea of ascensions. I kind of always felt the core trait lines never went far enough on delivering their theme, especially compared to elite specs. I will admit that using the example of pyromancer was an easy way to get me on board since I always wanted to be able to play the elementalist by picking a favorite attunement and using the others more for utility.
With the last idea in the video, it could also translate fairly well into WvW as it already has a trait like system with the WvW abilities. Making that into a trait line and streamlining it a bit could also make for some fun dynamics in WvW. For example some people might take the trait that lets them do more dmg and take less dmg while on siege equipment and someone else might take the trait to carry an extra supply. Something similar could be done for sPvP.
I think its VERY possible to have something like the old Luxon/Kurz skills for each profession in Guild Wars 2. Summon spirits was so fun on my Ritualist :D All the spirits shadow stepping to you and healing. Or to be honest a lot of the fun Eye Of the North skills.
More balance for core specs is something i want to see.
I think the conversation around elite specs is really... dancing around the real issue that in MMOs, you want to play "your" character. Whether that be a character represented in the game lore or an outside concept that otherwise languishes on some lonely DeviantArt account. Elite specs were a means of bridging that gap. Without them? Well, I'm eager to hear what ArenaNet intends to do. I'm someone who is STILL a bit salty that from release day, mesmer didn't have mainhand pistol as an option when Lyss and Ilya really suggests they should. If they're scrapping elite specs they need to find another means of addressing this need.
I personally like your idea of doing only a couple at a time and giving them the love they deserve instead of rushing a bunch out at once.
So happy you are back with almost daily vids about Gw2 future and ideas for it!
I could see them alternating between a set of Especs and bigger features ie housing
And for the racial skills, they could have masteries/collections to unlock the other racial skills. Gain the favour of Spirits of the Wild, master Asuran tech, getting a bunch of Sylvari seeds and learning the magic to grow them, find a powerful artifact of the human gods to channel, train with a Charr warband and earn their trust and equipment.
I think the ascension proposal would be the most cost-effective yet exciting method they could use. I liked the last proposal but I feel like that could be potentially difficult to balance in comparison.
GW2 is for me THE MMO that I associate with builds and classes. If they are gone, it's a major blow for me. The best solution is to just introduce 2-3 elite spec per expansion or second one(3 I think would be ideal, 1 of each armor type) with that case we have both people getting mini expac for story/exploration and people like me for new classes.
Either that or they start rolling some general skill trees that now every class can use. Or maybe brand new class per second expansion that will never have elite spec? Like Shaman or something like that(silly idea). If not then I don't look forward to GW2 as much I do, and I feel most of the community too. Maybe not with the first or second expansion, but it will eventually happen.
edit: forget to mention getting new weapons, or just more weapons for existing class/elite specs is would be great too :P
Lots of different ideas in this video to give feedback about.
For the poll, the wording is pretty harsh. They really need to add a feature that adds new horizontal options for combat. If they don't and the expansion is only pve content, I would still buy it and play it because I'm pretty dedicated to the game at this point, but I think it would seriously damage my long term interest. I can't imagine five years from now having the same exact class and build options available.
My favorite of all the options for right now is new core class weapons. Adding a new weapon to a class almost has more impact than adding a new elite specialization, because there's three different specs that weapon can impact. There are glaring holes in the available weapon sets for some classes. No healing options is a big one, but also some classes just don't have weapons that work well in WvW large scale combat, where you want some level of ranged, non-projectile, aoe skills. This is the only thing really holding back Ranger in wvw, for instance.
I really would want whole new weapons. The unidentified gear loot tables should make the old concerns not an issue. New weapon types would create new rewards to go for (nobody has a legendary scythe yet). They could also convert the crossover skins to the new weapons; the Destroyer Scythe skin can be changed to an actual scythe skin.
Longer term I think elite specializations have the most design space. Two or three per expansion on a yearly cadence is definitely enough to satisfy people. They don't have to go as hard on making things entirely new as they have been for me to be happy. One of my favorite ideas is an alternate Druid spec that is offensive focused. Make the old Druid into "Celestial Druid" and add a new "Wildfire Druid". It can still wield a staff, but it isn't full of healing skills. It charges up a wildfire avatar that does damage. There's so much more to the "druid" fantasy that is just missing from the narrow spec that currently exists.
I would also rather then spend time in making all of the existing specs more compelling than shotgunning out new ones. Plenty of old specs are still missing on their core fantasy, like Renegade where the core mechanic of Kalla's Fervor is just a free stat boost that you don't have to play into at all.
I guess you could have the name of the ascension added to your current class/espec. So if you have spellbreaker and sunspear equipped you become "Sunspear Spellbreaker" or something to that effect. We're gonna have to learn a lot of new acronyms tho XD
that cultural spec is a really cool idea, especially if it was flavored around the part of the world. I think each expansion would only really need to add a free of these, or perhaps multiple for various races, and they could play a little catch up early on by going back and adding cultural specs to the old expansions.
can even make them racial like an exalted and nuhoch line, an elonian line, they could add them even to core tyria, like Skritt and hylek, could add cool quest lines to unlock them, adding more content to bring players to the entire world is always cool.
I actually voted for option 3 in the poll but I also think that the absolute number of elite specs we have is enough. I'm thinking something they could realistically do is look at the least played specs and improve/ rework them just whenever. FFXIV does class reworks all the time, for better or for worse, but it does work. Doing this would mean that the development budget that usually goes into elite epcs could be reallocated and irregular reworks could become a thing until we eventually - in a perfect world - would have 3 great elite specs for every class.
GW2 has a lot of room for this too because of the ways they do weapons. They could do a solid pass at things like Dagger Necro, Rifle Warrior, Staff ele, etc.
I agree, say what you want about Machinist but when they did the Machinist rework in ShB it almost felt like an additional new job, it was really exciting.
I feel like Anet lost control of trait lines many years ago. Many of the times they'd make balance changes, it ended up being without any foresight - the interaction between the new patch changes and existing trait lines frequently introduced game breaking mechanics that drove people away. The specs released in EoD were so unpolished and unfinished feeling, with the exception of a couple incredibly OP releases. I think trait lines have become a monster that Anet can no longer control and keep leashed, they can't seem to be bothered to think about cause and effect even after 10 years of working with these traits and specializations. Having said that, a change this large should've been implemented a long time ago and not after many of us spent several years growing attached to our main specs. A lot of our characters will lose their "identity". But giving players "bad" traits and "bad skills" is a silly concept in games, in my own opinion, and that is where we've been at for a long time. When there is always a "right" and a "wrong" build, why does the "wrong" build persist in the game? Why should a player, new to the game or the class, be given "bad builds" and "useless specs"? In our community, it's one of the seven deadly sins to have an incorrect traitline... it's counterintuitive to put "bad ones" and "useless traits" and "unplayable traits" in the game itself. Loading into PvP/WvW could bring up new things for a class automatically, so new players to the game mode do not feel so lost and overwhelmed. What we currently have is just "This one is for PvE" "This is for PvP" "This third one is useless in all situations" for almost every set within the trait lines. At least removing the "This one is useless and always has been" would be a step in the right direction, rather than removing a class identity entirely...
Oh Dear… listening to this episode today I realized how much I was missing your regular podcasts about the Tyria Universe and where it could be developing heading into the future - thank you WP for your amazing job and being a core part of this MMO community 🙏
Yeah, I really like the 'Ascension' idea for balancing and build diversity - or the 'cultural specs' as an expansion of masteries for certain regions/ new content
new expansions roughly every 18months makes elite specs untenable. to assume otherwise is wishful thinking.
however, they should not abandon the concept altogether and promise new elite specs once approx. every 3-4 expansions. either that or offer us new specific skills reserved for one map, e.g. while gliding as they did back then with _Bloodstone Fen_ .
I adore the ascension idea. I love the thought of really focusing in on the existing trait lines since they make up the core identities of each class already. What immediately popped into my head (as a necromancer main) was ascended death magic trait-line that makes you an elite minion-mancer like the forgemasters from the castlevania animated series. Yes please.
The cultural trait line feels very GW1 EOTN, with the skills and bonuses linked to different groups... that's not really a bad thing per se, but I don't think it would impact the game very much... the new toys would just result in the meta getting a bump in power. There's no visual or feeling of anything different, it's just a new trait line that impacts your stats. I would expect the meta to become similar to GW1 after EOTN, where the meta builds just turned into a bunch of group skills.
Quite suprisingly, I have a very wierd issue with lack of elite specs.
I main Engineer since release, and I decided to play Engineer due to the fantasy of playing character having multitude of dieselpunk weapons and gadgets. My prime time after the release was maining condition build when conditions were very underpowered just to use the flamethrower with all coresponding traits.
Core engineer is giving me the exact vibe I want from the spec.
But all specs that came after? Scrapper was very much in line with vibe of the core engie, but was really WvW and PvP oriented. 2 more elite specs were tapping into very spicific types of technology that really wasn't coherent with core engie dieselpunk vibe. I do realise that recently some PvE scrapper builds like heal and quickness became really popular, but that was when I was playing way less, and were really about being glorifed buff-heal bot and not much else.
I'm still waiting though, I'm still waiting for some form of Ironclad automated-armour-engie, elemental-gunslinger or artillery-master. Something connected to oil, black powder, dieselpunk and charr technology.
That's why I want them to add more elite specs, becouse maybe I finally will get engineer spec that really expands on the vibe of the original. I don't really like asura-tech and jade-tech themed engineers - they're cool but just not my type.
I like the idea of both Ascension and Cultural specs. It would be cool to specialize in the Kurzick culture or Luxon culture to bring back the GW1 vibe of being part of the Kurzicks of Luxons. It would probably be easier to add a new weapon through the ascension than through the cultural spec because the cultural spec would be used by everyone so a new weapon would have to be created while the ascension could still add a pre-existing weapon that the class doesn't have access to yet.
How about new elite specs every 2 expansion (heck...every 3 expansion) and not every expansion so they get more time too flesh out the elite specs?
I really like the idea of the cultural specs. As someone who doesn't really get invested in the GW2 lore, having specs based on different cultures with appropriate thematic traits would give me a bit more insight into those cultures lore
There's quite a few options available to Anet when it comes to gameplay.
First one of course is weapons. There's of course adding new weapons, like chains/whips or fist weapons. And then there's adding weapons that simply aren't available on a given class, i.e. dagger to Revenant. And finally moving weapons into different slots; shield main hand warrior? Spears for land use?
Another option for them is that they could add multiclassing, which with the trait system they could implement fairly fluidly. They could make it so you can multiclass into another class using your bottom (elite spec) line, if they want to be on the conservative side. OR They could allow for you to plug specs from another class into each of your lines. So you could be a warrior as your base class, but with guardian/ranger/necro specs in each of your lines. And of course, when you swap a line, maybe you can opt into a heal/utility/elite type. So maybe you like the shouts from the guardian, you could grab those, and maybe spectral skills from Necro.
The last option I have in mind, is just to put in skills/traits that you can pick up in the world. Maybe by defeating a specific raid boss, or a open world meta event, you can unlock a special heal, utility, elite, or trait, to use to customize your character. They would be class agnostic, and allow for quite alot of freedom both for the player and the devs to experiment with.
I think an interesting idea could be to "unlock" traitlines of the elite specs. For example with necro, you'll be able to take scourge on the top line, soulreaping in the middle, and harbinger on the bottom rung. Whichever traitline you place on the bottom rung is what decides on your class mechanic. IE; if you swap the lines of harbinger and soulreaping you'll have a classic shroud, with harbinger now in the middle line. This decoupling will have an explosive effect on build-variety and build-crafting, and at least for the first expansion provide even more class content than a new elite spec, and also be a lot less work (balance excluded, but balance is a nightmare after every expac anyway). In addition, you'll now be able to run pistol/torch as your weapons, as you have both harbinger and scourge active (though what I'd really like to see is weapons unlocked class-wide regardless of whether a traitline is active - core engineer?!). While initial balance will be a fair bit of work, it's a frontloaded endeavour.
Further to this as you said, expanions could start to introduce new weapons to classes as a whole, such as the fabled spear, instead of elite specs. 1 new weapon per class is a lot less work than a new elite spec, and unironically might generate even more hype, and you could be able to use them with any specialisation and traitline combo as mentioned above.
I think they could go with a similar system that they already introduced in GW1 in Eye of the North expansion which is kind of similar, to what you've proposed as idea #5. There are so many factions in the game (and so many new can be added), it'd be easy to just add new utility/elite skills or traits usable by all classes tied to various factions. They could even mirror the EotN system in a way that gaining higher reputation levels with a certain group would increase that skill's power. This could also introduce a new feature (also inspired by GW1) where part of the end game would be to max reputation with various factions. Those could give you not just better skills/traits but also mounts, armor, weapon, jade bot skins, titles, achievements, novelties etc.
If the reason they drop elite specs is because the development investment required to implement new ones is too high, most of these changes still necessitate a huge amount of systems overhaul to avoid introducing significant power creep and thus somewhat defeat the purpose of sunsetting elite specs to begin with. Adding only parts of an elite spec seems like it would be less work, but from a balance management perspective, putting any additive systems into the game is far more demanding than the elite spec formula, which is an alternative system.
I personally don't trust Arenanet to do this atm. It would take someone with serious vision who really wanted to rock the boat to tackle a challenge like that and succeed, and I"m not sure gw2 is an environment that would tolerate drastic systemic change right now. This community still is not over the fact that we can get extra cc from an Icebrood Saga mastery with waystations, for instance.
As far as the solutions you brought up that weren't additive are concerned, making alternative gameplay niches by modifying parts of core or introducing new skills has already been a tactic employed hesitantly by Arenanet, but it's been met with at best mixed reviews, the mix being mostly negative. The banner change, which at this point was probably just as much work as developing an entirely new set of utility skills for an elite spec, has not only been received poorly, but the implementation is almost impossible to balance. Either banners are the best thing since sliced bread and therefore invalidate every other facet of warrior and overtake the identity of the profession at every level, or they're still untouchable. Any new alternative skill option added to the game at any level (be it game-wide, race-wide, or profesison-wide) would face this same polarization of strength and purpose unless it was crafted absolutely perfectly.
Either it's good or you ignore it. And to add enough stuff to warrant it being a sellable feature while not letting it be a bunch of balance bloat or worthless garbage seems just as challenging to me as adding another elite spec, just without the fun of a new thematic and visuals.
I think we're either getting no elite specs, less elite specs, or elite specs less often. I don't see them venturing down the road less traveled anytime soon. They seem lazer focused on standardizing their release and design practices and only continuing on with the most tried and true features they know how to make and know will at least be received neutrally, if not positively. I would be very surprised to hear of a new feature to replace elite specs and I'd be even more skeptical of whether it was good enough to do away with elite specs.
Elite specs were also designed this way to limit potentially problematic interactions between skills.
Hey WP - Dual professions; hear me out. Primary would be tied to the profession you chose when creating your character, so lots of incentive to create new characters. A few implementations come to mind:
1) It could just be the same as your fifth idea but the variable being a secondary profession instead of race. Lots of room for variation.
2) It could be that choosing a second profession gives you access to one of that profession's core trait lines, or a less powerful and/or functionally -modified version.
* example: A Necromancer/Ranger with minions enhanced by the Beast Mastery line.
3) Similar to #2, choosing a second profession gives you access one of that profession's weapons. You'd get access to a new weapon type just like the previous expansions.
* example: Ranger gets access to Scepter (either hand) by choosing Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer, or Guardian, and the weapon's skills are themed on that secondary profession .
4) Similar to #3, choosing a second profession gives you access to enhanced versions of your current weapon skills, and would be in the theme of that second profession.
* example: We could make a Ranger/Guardian with burning or healing arrows.
5) Some combination of the above.
Additionally, I suspect that adding Elite Skills and/or new weapon types (e.g., Whip, Flail, (land) Spear, Claw(s), etc.) would be well received by a large majority of players.
The last idea is by far the best and fits so well into the existing UI.
I was personally thinking about how they're running out of ideas for elite specs too and how the system is not sustainable long term. Especially with more frequent expansion releases. So I was thinking about a possible next expansion around human gods that takes you to the mists and instead of adding 9 new full specs, we simply add an entirely new rpg/character customization system that is much slimmer but affects every class and adds combat and gameplay variety. For example a new skill bar with "mist skills" that you unlock through mastery or playing through the story and quests and would allow you to choose between a selection of mist skills to slot on your bar. And what the skills do would depend on what class you are. So for example an elementalist would get a certain number of new skill slots that change with what attunement you are in. For example 3 mist skill slots, a low cd, mid cd and high cd skill where its sort of a hybrid elemental and mist magic skill that does something cool.
Then they could skip new weapons, utility skills, elites, traitlines all together and just implement a new system for an extra layer of customization, that is the same for every class but the actual skills are thematic to the class you are playing.
Another idea I had is comparable to how WoW does talents now. There's a Mage talent tree and a Frost talent tree. Essentially double the customization. Maybe on top of trait lines there's another much more slimmed down talent system (where you select one talent out of 3 choice with 3 tiers of talents) where a certain talent you select completely changes a certain aspect of your class/elite spec. For example a talent for ele could be: If you don't have an elite spec equipped you are able to supercharge your element which prevents you from switching attunements for a certain time period but you gain damage/boons/utility on existing skills, like they're enhanced versions of those skills. Or maybe a talent changes a trait that normallly gives alacrity to give quickness instead.
All of my ideas could easily be changed and made to fit your cultural spec idea and be made very thematic to that specific cultural race/group. I especially like having to work through the expansion to unlock a Sunspear line or something giving you special Sunspear stuff and then have that change the way you play your class.
i like a mix between ideas 3 and 4 where you can get an advanced elite specialisation and race based
I am a HUGE fan of the ascension concept. Of course it's going to a very direct form of powercreep, but then again so are a lot of elite specs anyways. They won't have to mechanically reinvent the wheel, yet there would be some crunch and all the thematic goodness of elite specs - and there's quite a lot of mileage left within each class to keep doing this (one traitline at a time) for years to come.
The cultural spec idea comes in a very close second. To me the greatest advantage is the lowered volume of work compared to how widely accessible they'd be, and there's a built in excuse not to make them overly impactful. On the other hand, as you mentioned, they'd necessarily take a backseat to the professions themselves, so their novelty might wear off too fast compared to how much effort it would take to push them out.
As for my own ideas, all I have is a revitalization of racial skills and the release of an associated traitline. Ideally each set of racial skills would cover the same bases (there'd be a tanky skill, a ranged damage skill, a stunbreak, etc), but they'd merely have racially distinct flavors. For instanced the ranged aoe damage skill for a norn would be a transformation that comes with a forward facing cone shout, while the asura version would be a golem (or power suit) that does the same thing just with a spray of gunfire from the golem, etc.
I'm not too far in. But I'd like to see more flexibility with the classes. Maybe each expansion or so the modify an aspect of classes. Such how how their spells work or maybe even allowing for the ability to exchange weapon attacks for different ones. You still will only have 5 but there will be a selection. Rifles for example. maybe one ability is a smoke ability. no damage but causes blindness.
You could go to Rata Sum to learn about golem tech, acquire the golem elite through a questline involving the inquest, and then use the golem elite, but transform in to an asura while in the golem. Same idea for charrzooka. Travel to the Citadel and learn about Charr military/culture/etc while battling flame legion, and transform into a charr avatar while wielding the charrzooka.
I was scratching my head when I saw the stream, trying to draw a line between GW2 fishing and the legendary Final Fantasy summon. This makes much more sense! I may actually go back and check out that vod now 🤣
If Anet plans to increase the cadence, they need to streamline this stuff as much as possible. To take a clear simple concept which can work well in the long run. Making up new "flavors" for each profession in any capacity could be pretty cumbersome, so they need something more generalized like that cultural idea. I wouldn't mind a spec where your character can loan skills of other powerful beings like mursaats, the forgotten, gods' avatars and so on. A more defined revenant mechanic which implies your character actually changed themselves, and not just their spirit legend bookmark. It would be more simplified than traditional elite specs, but I think if there's a few interesting core mechanics, they don't need to load too many things in traits and skills (they can lessen the number of traits/skills too), and pure numbers always can be tweaked. *And* they can tie it to the story too, it would feel so good to play through the questline about Seers and end up with some sort of artifact/condition which can let you use their powers. I think there's something special about story expanding your combat capabilities, having that moment of "So I helped that dude, got into a neat adventure and ended up progressing my character". And it feels more personal than rev's legends, those always felt so detached from my character despite devs trying to follow expansion's theme. Getting elite spec was something done off-screen and out of the story, and it wasn't a very exciting journey tbh. I'd like to see them combining the two in some noticeable way (with an option for wvw folks bypassing it in some way through wvw means like they do now).
omg I loooove the cultural spec system ! it would give so much to so many different types of players, while giving value to already existing skills that don't matter ingame as of now. hope anet is listening! I'm glad you talked about this despite feeling that people didn't appreciate your ideas after your first made a video about it. thanks man
I like the idea of only releasing 2-3 Elite Spec's which each expansion. This would be enough to keep me interested in the Class and Build-Craft system. I stopped playing ESO because the classes and builds started to get boring. The ESO devs haven't made any major additions to the class system in years. Now that ESO is going to get a new Class, I'll most likely start playing again when it's out. I felt the same kind of boredom during the icebrood-saga. The Balance-Patches weren't enough to keep things interesting for me personally. I still played the story but other than that I stopped playing GW2 until EOD was announced and the Elite-Spec-Betas arrived.
However, GW2 without Elite-Spes isn't a total deal breaker for me, as long as there is something new added to the craft Builds with. Adding skills or weapons could be fun but I don't think one random skill is enough to be a major expansion feature. I like the idea of ascensions a lot. Something like this would satisfy me completely. Working with what's already there is such a cool idea. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, the wheel is fine. Adding new Elite-Specs that feel unique and fill a niche is basically impossible after 3 waves of Elite Specs. There's maybe one more wave somewhere to be found but that's it. Ascensions could fill the void the absence of Elite Specs would leave behind. Racial Skills could also fill that void but there is one major issue. The racial skills we currently have are weak and most the community ignores them. They need a major reputation overhaul before the next expansion is announced in order to be successful and I'm not sure if the Devs can pull this off. Personally, I'm into the of Cultural-Specialisations. They could also be used to expand the lore. It's a really cool idea.
I feel like there are are many good options to replace Elite-Specs and I hope the Devs have already thought of something. The real problem are Masteries (in my opinion). There is not much left to add. Housing is of course an option but other than that there's not much left.
Something I’m surprised you didn’t bring up (although I guess this could be lumped together with the ‘free form’ approach) is additional/alternative skills for existing weapons.
I really think some weapons struggle with having a clear identity. Thief dagger is power but also Condi? Ele water is sometimes healing and sometimes DPS?
I think allowing us to pick and choose from a couple different options per slot would really put a lot more power in the players hands when buildcrafting. I feel like it would also help with skills being seen as either “PvP” or PvE.
This would definitely keep me interested.
More weapon options would be cool. Ive imagined some cool weapon skills based around off hand shield for thief. Pistol shield thief could get a dual wield skill called cover fire where it's a half second block that turns into repeater for 5s and if you block an incoming attack you get quickness for 6s. Shield 4 could port you to the target and daze them for half a second with a shield bash.
The Ascension thing is kinda neat. I'd love to see that. It feels doable without devs having to come up with new utilities or styles of gameplay. Just beef up and double down on existing concepts.
One thing i'd personally like to see is them decoupling weapons from the elite specs. I'd like to use Greatsword without being Vindicator for example. You can still have the need to train the trait to unlock it but you wouldnt need to have the spec equipped to use them.
in secret, i hope they'll work on multiclassing. bringing universal traitlines for all specializations that give your toon some characteristics of a certain class x. for example, multiclass set "warrior" would bring the same traits and maybe another weapon to all specializations to take on a warrior-like approach to their profession.
less developing time, less balance issues (if you block out trait synergies with existing trait lines) and they could publish them in different x-pacs one by one.
I’m I the only one who just wants to spam 1 and do world boss trains not caring about my traits and skills
I like both Ascension and Cultural specs. If the cultural specs came with some special miniquests that would trigger when you spend points in the spec for the first time that would show how your character got to learn these new abilities, it would be enough imo to break that barrier of "this race cannot do this". And with the ascensions, man, i imagined an idea of the supercharged minion master and i loooooove it so much.
"Ascensions" is great. Always wanted to see the possibility of having a "core elite spec" and maybe that's the way to do it, giving players the option of any of the five core specs to "specialise" or have a stronger focus on.
But wow.. that last idea of cultural trait lines.. that is PERFECT for mini-expacs. Might even have two per expac, one offensive and one supportive.
I think a good substitute for entire specs would be adding brand new weapons or even existing weapons to core classes that never previously had them.
Think of it this way, that’s something that builds upon every spec at the same time and would be less dev time and they could probably push out a new weapon every expansion.
Even if they were still interested and the demand in elite specs were high, they could still rotate .
For example, the next canthan patch could give a brand new weapon like a spear or everyone, the wizards tower expansion might give a staff/sceptre/focus to those that don’t currently have one of them.
Then the utopia expansion might give a brand new elite spec.
Proposal 3: new weapon sounds great. It is actually for me the most exciting part of the new elite specs and it would be preserving that without developing an insane Black Desert-esque amount of classes that have to all be balanced. Also, I feel at some point we just start running out of new class paradigms that are truly distinct.
New weapons give the new flavors without all that and it’s cool because you basically can get a new class specific skill for that weapon. And the idea of the first mini expansions expanding the weapon choices of existing weapons to offhand or different classes with unique skills is a great start - which can then move into introducing totally new weapons later. And in fact, I would unlock the weapons from their elite specs in that maybe you need the elite spec unlock it… but once you do, you can use the weapon no matter your spec.
Another thing that would be cool, but not mentioned in your video would be introducing Racial elites that are actually viably powerful. This would have to be balanced, but you could make them very similar skills to each other, but just with different flavors. So, for example, a Norn turns into a bear with proper buffs and duration, and Asura gets to ride a golem like Taimi, Charr gets a steampunk war armor suit, humans take on the avatar of the gods, etc. All maybe having very similar mechanics and buffs but just different icons names and animations
Haha the "norn shouldn't be able to use Asura skills" thing reminds me of during Tekken 7 initial release everyone complained about Lei Wulong not being in the game, and that it "didn't feel like Tekken without him on the character select screen" and lo and behold when he is added as DLC the character usage statistics come out and NOBODY is playing him. I think the idea of repurposing old racial skills and making them universal and potentially meta-build-worthy is a fantastic idea and any way to get pre-existing content to again be useful without it feeling forced sounds awesome! Fantastic idea WP, and really good stuff that that Bahamut person and their UI thing, really interesting to see.
They could use something like a weapon training mastery to adopt a new weapon in the expansions when they do add them and then have some customized profession events or quests that are part of getting each skill for the weapon. Maybe getting another utility skill at the same time
So here's an idea that's a bit of a curve ball: profession change. i know it might sound silly or whatever but it's like a total makeover kit, or an identity repair thingy. The first one could be free and then it'd cost like 100 gold if you wanna do it again. Or maybe, and hear me out here, maybe Anet could make it possible to change races... maybe they could add some summarized instance to get you acquainted with the new race you're changing into so you wouldn't just transform from a Norn into an Asura after an awkward loading screen. It's kind of a filler content that wouldn't hurt players I suppose...
Love the ascended spec idea, supercharging a core trait line sounds awesome. Definitely my favorite with doing 2-3 elite specs per expansion as my second choice
The important thing to keep in mind about the elite specialisation poll is that the voter base is full of players that engage with gw2 content. The casual userbase that goes in and out will majorly be of the midest of wanting elite specs, otherwise they may not find a reason to return.
Tbh i think they could make weapon and race specializations and fill up all remaining skills.
So for example you could take a base class spec into the e-spec slot and add a weapon type that they already have access too whoch changes completely in behaviour.
Race specializations could also be a thing which emphazises on your heritage.
And lastly they could fill all skills that are missing.
Imagine a world where the Icebrood saga was giving us additional parts of the Race trait lines. Champions could have been reworked to have mini quest line surrounding each of the races that was involved (.....though actually they were barely involved). We did have them weird faction rally events between the releases. The examples of races you had in the video such as Exalted could have came about in Season 2 but then later expanded upon with the saga.
We did have a mastery line where the allies gained new skills / upgraded as you went. I could have seen the systems all tie into eachother and also people value the saga more had they had done this.
I think the modification of utility lines is a great idea for spicing up the expacs. But I would prefer some weapons just added baseline.
Honestly, I'm one of the weirdos mostly playing just one character, a guardian Sylvari, and of the elite specs I'm still stuck with Dragonhunter. I tried the new ones a bit but I got too attached to the Longbow ranged option over the years to give it up, even though I was initially excited about finally getting dual-wield swords. :D
So no, I wouldn't really mind not getting any new elite spec, or waiting a long time for one.
It's different with other classes, I actually liked some of the newer specs better, but I don't really play the other characters that often (after leveling them to see the different origin/order stories).
I've just returned to GW2 and have no idea what an elite spec is. All I know is my bags are full of things that I don't know if I need to keep or chuck.
I like the idea that these new expansions focus on the core classes. say for the next expansion they add 2 new traps maybe 1 new survival skill and a new spirit skill and a new elite skill. these can all be used on any elite specialization making more build diversity perhaps.
The idea of the "ascension" you came up with was something i also thought would be cool
Yeah, I've been wishing for the Racial/Cultural specializations for years, though I always imagined them to be Masteries instead of new specializations. Making them Masteries instead of specializations would mean they could be even lighter on mechanics, even down to just allowing you to use the racial skills and nothing else. But even just that would allow Anet to make the skills useful.
I've also wondered if they might consider adding very basic specializations that just unlock a new weapon and a new skill type with no changes to current class mechanics, but have those specializations be accessible by more than one profession.
For example, they could release the "Greatsword and Shouts" specialization that's accessible by any class and can be used to either unlock access to those things or to further specialize into one or both of them as a class that already gets one or both. A guardian could go hard into greatsword and shout synergy or an engineer could use it to unlock a whole new weapon and set of skills.
I can see Elementalist and Engineer causing trouble with that idea though due to the extra work required.
So happy your back to making normal GW2 videos WP. You’re the best in business.
I think a good idea might be to just make sure that every classes gets a new weapon on the first mini-expac (even if some classes just get the same one, like warrior and ele getting main hand pistols, rev, necro and mesmer share the spear, etc.), then do the same or something else of a similar dev-effort or resource cost (or whatever the right terminology is for such things) for the next 2-3 mini-expac while slowly building a set of 9 Elite spec that gets released all at once at the 4th or 5th mini-exac or in 2 batches for the 4th and 5th mini-expacs.
Proposal 3 is a great idea as well if they can at least do super-charged fire with SOME trait change that gets altered into new stuff that change the playstyle a bit but less than Elite Specs. That works for me. I'd be fine losing the skills and weapon for something like this (And im the one who was the "Alien" in the last video where you looked at comments lol).
Thanks for all the recent content, it brought me back to gw2 even before the very recent anouncement and its just been feeding my hype since then.
the problem with balance patches is that it always means replacing something. yeah it can be exiting to get a new build but that will most certainly mean losing something in return if it is something like what you mentioned in regards or retooling a complete trait line or set of utility skills.
Whatever brings more build diversity and build craft. Thats the main way of keeping people playing. Both the asension and the 4th line of interchangable Specs are good ideas.
They could also add new "cultural elite Spec" as You mention which also include interchangeable weapon skills for existing weapons.
Example there are 5 new skills for greatsword which every Specs can use and You choose how to slot them and what to replace individually. Increasing build creativity.
This way they could do 1 elite Spec per expansion very cost efective and everyone gets new toys to play with.
I'm still very partial to the idea of cross-specializing, which takes Core Specs from one class and gives it to another, e.g. Warrior's Arms on a Necro, or something. I doubt it'll be any good in practice, but it'd be a nice callback to secondary professions from GW1 without the mad complexity of it -- the modularity of the Specializations system prevents the system being abused or getting out of hand.
20:00 Problem with Ascensions is that plenty of Elite Specs already feel like Core Specs++. Soul Reaping jumps to attention. They'd have to be very careful about stepping on toes, not least because by your description it'd be much easier to obtain an Ascension than an Elite Spec. And as an aside, another (albeit, admittedly, much stupider) idea in the Ascension vein of hyper-specializing into one line is to allow us to slot the same trait line thrice, so if some one wanted to be a Fire-Fire-Fire ele and possess every single Fire trait, then one should be allowed to do so. Ultimate Pyromancer.
Also, I haven't thought about Fire Magic in a long while. I've been much more on a Magic Fire kick. Very refreshing to go back to these older ideas.
It would take a lot to balance properly, but the idea of dual classes/specs like in GW1 sounds cool to me.
Not only it is hard to balance, but they already got as close as they could of dual specing with e-specs like mirage or mechanist. The main problem is that gw2 classes are far more mechanically demanding than gw1's. You have to manage the fact that 2 of those mecanics overlap. I hardly see a dual class system outside of the "other class inspired e-spec", and we already have some of it in the live game.
@@Hasarian-Maybe they could just limit you to using 1-3 skills from other class? Cherry pick skills that are not game breaking?
im pretty sure they already said this wont happen
I would like to see a rework to elite specs altogether to drop the unique weapon access. Instead, add a fourth trait bar which allows for the use OF one non-core weapon type. That way, the new weapons still feel unique and exclusive, and Anet can continue to add new weaponS to classes without having to worry about running out of trait, class mechanic, and utility skill ideas.
I think the best and most marketable thing they can do is what ESO and WoW is doing - adding a 10th class. A new class is something marketable, something people generally like in expansions, and also something alot of people would get new playtime on no matter what class their main is, AND gets them sales for new character slots. They could do new class + 1 elite spec for that class on launch, then every half year or whatever add another elite spec for that new class.
I feel it's really important to have new weapons for classes - it's genuinely the only thing that keeps me coming back to the game. Like others, I've been waiting for weapons to come out for classes since 2012. Namely, Longbow Ele (I prefer ranged).
Other than that, the Ascension idea I really like, but I'd prefer if it "upgraded" the set of fire skills for example too. They could adjust the icon colour, add a gold border like the trait line, give them more damage, longer ranges, larger explosions (more oomph etc). And to keep it fresh, add some visual effects to the skill bar like smoldering or glowing red hot.
I think that in one expac they will do new core weapon for all classes that works well on many elite specs so it would shake up many builds. Then for another expac they will add elite specs, so they aren't getting rid of them but not adding them in each time. Maybe the expac after we get elite specs they will add a new trait line to core.
The thing on my mind is that for many vets or people used to the game mechanics, builds just revolve around DPS, alac and quickness, maybe you can add heal for endgame instances. Then these builds just have little adjustments to fill the open world slot by adding a bit more sustain. I hate to say it but as much as I love new elite specs, there isn't much they can add that makes the classes more exciting for me after each class can fill each role. We aren't in the old chrono days of one single spec having access to alac.
What I look for in an elite spec is for a real game changing mechanic which is why I love mirage and vindicator for their dodge roll shakeup and it actually feels unique because of this.
Otherwise the next elite specs will just give a few new animations and a new set of buttons to press to get the same outcome as before (i.e. DPS most of the time). And then if there's one under or over performing we will wait a few months for a balance patch.
So yes I'm not totally against elite specs, but I would rather more mechanics are added, the same way break bars were added. This could include new boons and new conditions, maybe more skills that are specific to a profession like the warrior banners and ranger spirits (before nerfed) which makes different classes actually add value and feel unique.
I really like the Ascension idea! I think it could cut enough resources for ANet to focus on the other aspects of the game and it could satisfy well enough the community (once an inital outrage ended, 'cause it will always happen). With that said, what I feel could be safe and funny is to rotate each year: one year they would release 9 Ascension lines with an Elite Skill and new Profession mechanic, and on the next year they would only release (with the next expansion) 9 new weapons (not tied to any Spec/Ascension). That way they could really build new cool Ascension lines with fun new traits and not burn themselves out every year. And we would still have something new and cool on the years without a new Ascension.
P.S. - What I mean by 9 new weapons is of course a new weapon for each class, that they don't currently have available
In theory I want to say that the current Elite Specs are enough for me and in terms of just number they are. However, most Elite Specs have not really satisifed me in part because it feels like nothing really exemplifies the core fantasy that I feel is presented. Elementalist is my main class but I honestly rarely feel like the long range mage I feel like the character creation and some of the descriptions are trying to sell. I want a spec for Ranger that focuses on bow and pet usage but I dont feel like i have that. The core trait lines should cover that but Elite Specs give access to whole new weapons and mechanics so its really hard to be satisified with just core traits.
Long term I dont think I personally need new specs or classes forever but I want them to "finish" the current specs by make sure the "core" fantasy is served and is as exciting as the Elite specs.
I'm still watching so I'll see if you say this, but barring the "2-3 specs at a same time instead of 9 but its the same system", I think my first choice would be sort of what they did in the past, when they added heal skills. What I mean is basically, its freeform each expansion can be whatever. Maybe one expansion every class gets a new weapon but nothing else. Maybe the next they get new mechanics the way elite specs have always done, reimagining the core ideas of a class. Maybe the next it's just utility skills. Or even JUST one slot, like elite, but every class gets 2. Or they get 1 with the expansion and a second during the patches between expansions. With all of these, they can be spread out over the entire range of the expansion's cycle. An expansion with 5 new weapons and the 2 next patches add 2 rounding it out to one for each class
Ascending the base lines is such an easy way to create elite specializations.
I’ve been assuming the mini stories will have new characters and those characters will have some new skills for whatever elite spec they’re trying to build on. Similar to how the expansions always have characters of the new elite specs, what if we meet a Tempest that has a new elite skill and new utility line? Seems pretty “elite-spec-esque” to me. But while you’re saving on UI etc you’re still adding more to balance.
Unless we just start embracing chaos and over powered things because everyone plays almost everything nowadays anyway.
elite specs or full stop, for atleast 1-2 more expacs, then after that i think they could say there's no more they could do, but then if no more elite specs after that then they need to fill the void with WvW maps/Spvp maps, etc...
It seems to me the 'Ascension' system could be accomplished thru the Mastery system. Where, instead of buffs/debuffs, etc., the trained mastery would unlock a Cultural skill or passive. It would eliminate the need for more hero points, but require playing content to gain Mastery. There could even be a mastery line with levels - ie. lvl 1 Mastery could be skill 1, lvl 2 mastery skill 2, etc.
I do quite like the Ascension idea, especially tied to cultural or faction (ie. Sunspears, Kurzick)
I think the last idea would be really cool. But instead of grinding hero points I would love for there to be a quest that unlocks it for you similar to mounts. That way they can also work in some lore for these trait lines.
The problem with new weapons is that you either need to rework old traitlines to work with the new weapons or you have to make a completely new traitline (and that's an elite spec).
I think the only way Id be okay with no new elite specs, is if they instead give each class a new weapon that can be used on all specs. That would be a a lot less work than doing a full specialization for each class, and open up far more possibilities with the current specs and even core classes. Even with 3 specs per class, I still feel like there's classes that should have a weapon they havent gotten yet. Like a rifle for ranger, or any ranged weapon for elementalist.
Also after reading the title, I was totally expecting this to be a video of you playing through the expansions on a core class lol.
I’m so glad we get regular gw2 videos again!
I think what's gonna happen is:
Anet is probably gonna keep making Elite Specs, however they simply won't come out with every expansions, instead, Anet's probably gonna dedicate a whole expansion to them once every 2 or 3 years, with 2 maps related to their origins along with every classes getting their new specs
Think of it like how ESO has been doing it, they are doing yearly expac with one new flagship feature tied to them, however the playerbase have been craving for a new class for a while now, and in response to that, the newly announced Necrom expansion will be adding a brand new class to the game, which directly correlate with the theme.
Hey WP, not sure you'll see that now that this video is a week old, but my idea on the replacement of elite specs for a while now has been similar to what you've said in this video in that a lot of what people look forward to is not necessarily the spec as an entire package, but the prospect of getting a new weapon to use and a new set of skills with it. Considering that doing entire trait lines, utilities AND weapon skills is beyond the scope of what they're capable of at this pace, and people have been thirsty for completely new weapons for a long time now, I would propose instead of elite specs that they add TWO new weapons to the game (1 ranged 1 melee, some variance between the 2, however they want to do it) and each class gets ONE of them. This way, they only need to design weapon skills for each class and could even bake these into existing traits (i.e. if they add Greataxe they could include it in trait lines that provide bonuses to Greatsword etc.), everyone gets something new and shiny to play with and it could also be used across every existing elite spec. Not sure what the logistics of creating multiple sets of brand new weapon skins would look like/how feasible that actually is for the art team, but I feel like it could be a reasonable alternative if that's not an issue
Wp if you think about icebrood saga was working in new elites , Almorra was a Willbender