Today’s Guild Wars 2 hotfix comes with a specific fix for a Janthir Wilds bug that has sent some players into a tizzy. Initially, players reported that the Repentance patch earlier this week had forced Lowland Expertise buffs to tick down even when players were logged out – not the intended effect for the buffs, which stack based on heart completion in Janthir Wilds zones. ArenaNet is fixing the bug itself, but it comes at a hefty cost.
“The hotfix will remove players’ remaining Lowland Expertise–this is an unavoidable side effect of updating the buff,” ArenaNet wrote last night. “After the update goes live, the Lowland Expertise buff will no longer count down when you are logged out, and purchasing Lowland Kodan Expertise will grant one stack of the buff and four hours of duration, up to 24 hours. The text on the purchasable buff will not reflect that change right away, but we will add the correct text in the March 25 game update.”
This isn’t just a mild inconvenience of needing to reset the buff once; it appears to be a redesign of the buff from a 24-hour buff that refreshes to 24 hours every time to a four-hour buff that can merely be stacked to 24 hours. In other words, to keep the maxmium stack of buffs, you would now have to send your toon to do one of the Janthir Wilds hearts every four hours.
The studio did not offer an explanation for the dramatic reduction in duration applied in the fix, so the forums and Reddit are full of frustration over the apparent change, with a wide swath of players arguing that the system was already alt-unfriendly and saying the buffs aren’t worth it for that much effort. It’s also possible that ArenaNet misspoke, so either way, if you care about those buffs, heads-up.
