In case you missed it — and we’re not sure how — the January Guild Wars 2 update went live yesterday, bringing us both the Flame & Frost prelude and a whole slew of other changes to the game.
The patch notes are extensive, but we’ve highlighted our favorites — outside of the ones covered on the prelude page — below:
- Daily achievements have been revised, having just one tier and rotating on a daily basis.
- In addition to modifications to level scaling, which scaling down making characters generally weaker and scaling up making them generally stronger, “It is now possible to receive your own level of loot from any level of enemy.”
- Fractal changes: You can now enter a Fractals of the Mist party of any level, and your level will increase if you’re in a party lower than your fractal level or receive bonus karma if your level is higher. Also, disconnected players can reconnect and you can bring in new players in the middle of a run.
- Orr: The density of creatures has been reduced (my personal favorite) and chest rewards have been upgraded.
- Orr: Uncontested waypoints have been added and visual cues on the maps have been added to alert players of active statues and their effects.
- Orr: Every temple chain has had its difficulty tweaked.
- Dungeons: Players can no longer retreat to a waypoint while their parties are in combat.
- The rich orichalcum node in Southsun Cove is now a normal ore node.
- “Weapons now continue to grant bonus stats while bundles are equipped” and “Bundles from player skills (engineer kits, elementalist conjured weapons, warrior banners) now have base damage that is consistent with the highest rarity weapons available at the level of the player.”
- “Fixed Zojja and other NPCs having invisible headgear in cinematics.” No more bald Zojja!
And don’t miss the three dev posts that accompanied yesterday’s update:
- New Items and an Updated Favorite in the Gem Store — Plush Quaggan Backpack!
- New Rewards and the Achievements System
- Upcoming Changes to Dungeon Mechanics
Whew! It’s a lot to absorb. So what’s your favorite (or least favorite) part of the update?
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