Yesterday was Guild Wars 2’s April feature pack that suppose to improve a lot of things including quality of life. So I would like to break down all that is important to me, meaning I will not talk about the world bosses since I don’t care enough about it.
First off on the list is PvP content.
PvP Reward Tracks
To be honest, I have a mix feeling about this. On one hand, I love that there’s another way to receive the items I would normally get from dungeons. However on the other hand, it devalues the dungeons since each dungeon is different and to put them into one format — it seems wrong. Overall, I love it, but I can’t help to feel guilty for those who frequent the dungeons to get the same item.
PvP Gear Unification
Now the travesty begins. The gear unification is a great idea, however, changing outfits costing a transmutation crystal that can only be purchased from the Gem Store is wrong. Other games like Aion, another NcSoft game, uses in-game currency to transmute your items. World of Warcraft uses in-game currency to transmute your items. And Guild Wars 2 uses something that you have to purchase with real money? PvE players can still get the trans. charges from map completion which the PvP player do not have access to. We’ll explore more about this in the Wardrobe section below.
PvP Ranks Update
This is really a good thing. With the loss of glory, PvP feels tedious the rewards are coming in at a slow pace. It seems to me that Anet is trying to attract PvE players into PvP with these changes. Not sure how the fulltime PvP players feels about this.
PvP Map Updates
The removal of the Raid on the Capricorn map from the map rotation is a tell tale sign that we are not going to see any new underwater skills any time soon. Underwater skills needs to be looked at because a lot of the skills are not functioning well as expected.
Wardrobe
The dreadful wardrobe system. Personally, I have no problem with this. I have a problem, however, on how the system works. Spending Transmutation Charges to change the look of our armor is nothing but a shake up to get real money from the players. Other games with this feature uses in-game currency while this system uses gems that are purchased with real money. To me, this is nothing but a scheme to shake up their player base and a lot of players have already expressed their feelings against this. This feature would have been praised if not for trying to nickle and dime their player base. Another negative thing about this is the fact that they’ve changes all the looks of the skin. There’s this one particular head piece that my guardian was wearing that have its look completely changed. The new one is simply horrible to look at.
The UI is similarly horrible. When I visit my Hero panel, everything is just blank. I design user interface and on rule of thumb is to always have a default settings that is informative. Have a blank panel and having the stats hidden under the Equipment tab is simply not acceptable. It should default tot he Equipment tab because more often than not, I open my Hero panel to view my gear and my stats. That’s extra click on the Equipment tab is not an improvement to the quality of life — I’m already annoyed about it.
Transmutation Charges
The transmutation crystal is not only used to apply skins. It is also used to transfer stats, runes, sigils, and stones. With the new Transmutation Charages, you can no longer do this, yet it cost the players the same amount of gems for something with less functionality. It’s a total rip-off in my opinion. They need to change this and they need to change it fast. The loss of the previous feature is simply not acceptable.
Outfits
This is a total mess. They replace all the pieces I bought with gems with the useless tonics. They have to pay me $1 million to take a tonic over the outfits I’ve purchased. This is an out right bait and switch and the last time I checked, this is illegal. If they don’t issue a refund, I’m afraid that this is the opening the U.S. Congress need in order to get involve with online digital transactions. Anet need to stop this practice before the government gets involve.
Ferocity, Gears, and Traits
I have not played my champions since I’ve spent so much time trying to understand all the wardrobe and PvP fiasco. I’ll create a new post covering all these once I’ve a chance to evaluate how the changes affect me.
