The wait is finally over for Tyrians. After months of waiting, ArenaNet launched The Only Way, the second major update for Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity. This massive drop pushes you deeper into the mysteries of Castora by introducing a stunning new explorable zone called Eternity’s Garden. It also brings a wave of account-wide progression and rewards.
Ahead of today’s launch, we had the privilege of sitting down in an exclusive dev session with the ArenaNet team—including developers Roy Marks and Indigo—to peek behind the curtain. As you will read bellow, the team gave us incredible insight into what makes The Only Way tick, right after the trailer jump!
The Right Amount of Grind: Legendaries and Progression
With The Only Way, we are getting plenty of new toys to play with. We’re talking two new mastery tiers, six new expansion relics to shake up your combat builds, and fresh additions to the Wizard’s Vault. More importantly, we are getting new legendary accessories. One is earned through PvE content, and another via World vs. World multiplayer.
The word legendary immediately brings the concept of grind to mind. We were curious about the gaps the new relics were meant to fill, but more specifically, we wanted to know how ArenaNet determines the “right” level of grind for these top-tier items.
Roy Marks weighed in on the philosophy behind the grind, noting that players have choices on how to earn the accessory instead of always being locked behind one single path:
“This is probably going to be a little more of rambly answer, so apologies if it’s not as specific as you might like. Feel free to ask follow up/clarifying questions!
I do think that the ‘right’ level of grind is somewhat subjective – players are going to have different ideas of what that level should be, and it’s the same for different designers. For myself, I try to look at what previous legendaries did, and how we could potentially improve on their unlock/acquisition if necessary. Also for the WvW accessory specifically, the biggest ‘time gate’ is collecting WvW Skirmish tickets in order to purchase an item needed to buy the accessory.
Since tickets generally have a specific amount earnable per week, we can figure out roughly the time it would take for someone with 0 currencies to earn the legendary. However, the way the cost for the accessory is set up, it’s actually possible to skip that biggest time gate with gold if you want to. I like giving players choices on how to earn the accessory instead of always locking it behind one single path.
All that being said, I think it’s probably somewhat different from designer to designer, I tend to try and avoid super long grind/time gates, but I also think it’s important that players aren’t earning these items instantly as I think that does take away somewhat from the value of the item. To summarize, I don’t personally think there’s really a ‘right’ level of grind, I think high level items like a legendary shouldn’t be something that’s earnable instantly, but in general it shouldn’t be something that feels super frustrating for players to earn either.”
A Villain for the Greater Good
Mechanics and loot aside, the heart of Guild Wars 2 has always been its narrative, which is always evolving. The launch story of Visions of Eternity had us investigating secretive Inquest voyages to a mysterious, ley-magic-rich island. Now, the Commander is tasked with stopping Vloxx, a newly-elevated Inquest leader who genuinely believes his destructive machinations are exactly what Tyria needs.
Writing a compelling antagonist is tough, but writing one with a gray moral compass is a tightrope walk. We asked Indigo how the narrative team approaches a character like Vloxx, and how his worldview challenges the Commander’s perspective. According to Indigo, Vloxx is a reflection of the Commander’s journey over the last 14 years of story:
“Hey Martin! That is an excellent question. It might be a little tough to go into too much detail until the story concludes in the next release so we can give a more holistic response (we’d love to do a blog post about this topic, if possible), but writing a villain like Vloxx is an immensely fun challenge that took a lot of iteration and discussion.
We sought out something that would be more tonally complex than our historic villains, but also someone that could be a genuine counterpart to the Commander as a character. In a way, Vloxx is a reflection of the Commander’s journey over the last 14 years of story, and between this release and the next you’ll see the two (and Isgarren) interact more and unravel those differing perspectives.
Vloxx will push the Commander in a lot of ways, and vise versa, this release, but it’ll truly build to a climax in the next. But I’d love to go into more detail on this question in the future when more of the story is revealed, so I’m added your question to my notes.”
Perfecting the Narrative Pacing
ArenaNet has already confirmed that there will be one more major update following The Only Way. It’s meant to cap off the Visions of Eternity storyline. Knowing this, pacing becomes everything. Dropping too many secrets leaves the finale feeling hollow, but holding too much back can make the current chapter feel like filler.
We asked Indigo about this “reveal-to-mystery ratio.” How do they balance wrapping up existing threads in Eternity’s Garden while saving enough firepower for the grand finale? Indigo revealed that the team intentionally restructured VoE’s quarterly updates to act as proper, robust story acts:
“That’s another great question! For this set of post-launch updates, we wanted to refine how we tell stories in this space. That’s in part why we decided to restructure VoE’s QRs and release story across the last two releases versus smaller updates across all three like SotO and JW.
One, that allowed for more iteration time, but two, it gave us a bit more runway for make these releases more robust and meaningful narratively. Structurally, and without revealing any overt spoilers, we approached each of VoE’s two quarterly updates as proper story acts. This release has a meaningful beginning, middle, and end with an exciting climax that also sets up the next release. While it doesn’t have a definite ending, it does set up the true conclusion of the VoE story, which we’ll release in the coming months (in short, the path to the next release is clear). The launch story revealed some sneaky bits about the location and focus of this release, which should become more obvious when you start digging in, while this release will tease upcoming details in a few fun ways.
Our goal is for this story segment feel meaningful and exciting, but also sprinkle in enough details to keep the conversation going while we wait for the next (and I am SO excited for the next one haha). And more tangentially, in terms of the broader global narrative that spans beyond VoE, we’re constantly trying to find subtle ways to show that Tyria is always evolving even when the Commander’s focus is fixed on one location.”
The Castoran Swiftwing and What’s Next
As our session wrapped up, we threw a final, broader question at the dev team: What part of The Only Way are they most excited for the community to experience on launch day?
While the new narrative chapters are undeniably a massive draw, it sounds like the community should keep their eyes on the trading post and the wild new map meta. Here is what the devs had to say. Please note that this isn’t a direct quote like the ones above. Here, we were capturing the developers’ words in real-time and took some liberty with the phrasing to better reflect the intended tone.
The meta is shifting!
We’re excited for the new ranger pets and the adventure ahead. We can’t wait to see the community’s reaction to finding the Castoran Swiftwing Raptor—a rare PvE mount skin. While it can be sold on the Trading Post, it cannot be mailed or stored in the guild bank.
We’re striving to make these releases feel more complete and unique by providing greater context; our goal is for everything to feel like a seamless part of a larger whole. We can’t wait to see how the community acceps that.
Whether you’re set to confront Vloxx, grind out those WvW Skirmish tickets, or hunt down the rare Castoran Swiftwing Raptor skin to strike it rich on the Trading Post, The Only Way feels like a meaty chapter for the Guild Wars 2 faithful. There’s a lot more in this update and we can’t wait to share our next feature article soon!
Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity and today’s new update are available now on Steam and the official Guild Wars 2 site for $24.99. Expansion owners get immediate access to all of today’s content. See you in Eternity’s Garden!
Hey, did you know that there’s a mobile version of the first GW in the making as well? Read more about it here:
Leave a comment