Guild Wars 2

It’s especially bad in the northwest and west, because there’s two active lasers over there.

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’. There should be many things trying to kill you in a siege, and it should really make your character start dancing a little more often.

This!

I felt like one of those action movie protagonists getting chased by lasers.

I was exploring towards the pirate cave and I had two separate lasers targetting me non-stop, slightly off from each other, guaranteeing I could never revive a citizen and killing them when they get up.

The lasers seem to look for a new target if they actually hit you. At least, that happened when I was trying to revive a player near the dive tower.

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’.

Realism may be good in simulations, but too much of it in an entertainment can kill the fun. This is the second case.
Yes, i agree, that with Scarlet having complete aerial superiority, heavy machinery and overwhelming military presence in place (which is not realistic, by the way, but let’s not concentrate on it) most of the rescuers should die within seconds of entering the city (and any zergs should be wiped out from above with aerial barrages within minutes of forming). I’m also sure that noone (or practically noone) would actually want to play the “Omaha beach” scenario where you are one of the frontline grunts bound to die so that the next waves can deploy in slightly better safety.

Those lasers drive me crazy in places, like when one kept targeting and retargeting me clean over the edge of a cliff on the west side of the map, but I’m not sure I’d want them changed. They make for an interesting challenge, generally, even if they’re occasionally a little aggravating.

They never tag me with a large group, they just target solo roamers to help citizens. Figures.

aspirine.6852:

They never tag me with a large group, they just target solo roamers to help citizens. Figures.

Yeah, instead they should work the other way round… More than 10 people grouped? Zsssssssss…..

Agreed; on the northwest side you just can’t get a breather from these things. I appreciate the realism but it gets incredibly frustrating and discouraging after a while.

What we need is some way to counter the lasers. Some event that, if successful, stops or slows the rate of fire for a short time. Or maybe all the lasers on map should give priority to zergs larger than 15 or 20 ppl. Would be a great way to help break up the zerg.

The only thing that frustrates me about them is that we can’t fight back. If my mesmer could cast Feedback on the kitten things, it would be so much more fun.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’. There should be many things trying to kill you in a siege, and it should really make your character start dancing a little more often.

This!

I felt like one of those action movie protagonists getting chased by lasers.

With the irony being that they didn’t do camera control lock because it would make the game too action-y…

They really need to make up their mind about how action-focused they want the game to be.

digiowl.9620:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’. There should be many things trying to kill you in a siege, and it should really make your character start dancing a little more often.

This!

I felt like one of those action movie protagonists getting chased by lasers.

With the irony being that they didn’t do camera control lock because it would make the game too action-y…

They really need to make up their mind about how action-focused they want the game to be.

What do you mean with camera control lock?

Astralporing.1957:

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’.

Realism may be good in simulations, but too much of it in an entertainment can kill the fun. This is the second case.
Yes, i agree, that with Scarlet having complete aerial superiority, heavy machinery and overwhelming military presence in place (which is not realistic, by the way, but let’s not concentrate on it) most of the rescuers should die within seconds of entering the city (and any zergs should be wiped out from above with aerial barrages within minutes of forming). I’m also sure that noone (or practically noone) would actually want to play the “Omaha beach” scenario where you are one of the frontline grunts bound to die so that the next waves can deploy in slightly better safety.

Best i can tell from the NPC chatter, we are replaying the time right after the cutscene over and over. Meaning that we are not trying to retake or rescue stranded survivors as much as we are trying to help with the initial evacuation and defense.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

digiowl.9620:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’. There should be many things trying to kill you in a siege, and it should really make your character start dancing a little more often.

This!

I felt like one of those action movie protagonists getting chased by lasers.

With the irony being that they didn’t do camera control lock because it would make the game too action-y…

They really need to make up their mind about how action-focused they want the game to be.

What do you mean with camera control lock?

Being able to control the camera without the need to hold a mouse button down constantly.

Someone on Reddit found a setting for it in the EOTM test client. and Peters entered the discussion to state that they considered the option during development, but found that it made the game too action-y for their tastes.

Makes me wonder if the targeting issues some have are a result of that code not being properly disabled in the release client.

Honestly, just removing them because you feel that they are annoying should just not happen.

Everything in a game shouldn’t be for convenience, really.

If they were lasers that appeared for 1 second to then one shot you, I might agree, but now that you have 8 seconds to move away from them, and they only damage like 40% of your hp with a knockback. No, keep them.

Having a ‘’I miss vanilla WoW’’ line in your signature this should be nothing for you.

Honestly, I love those lasers, and I play mostly solo. I think they should go even further and increase the amount of lasers, many of them can just shoot at random locations. I think Wildstar does something like this in some locations.

If zergs don’t suffer from them, well, they should. Make the explosion twice as big, activating twice as fast, and hitting twice as hard. Zergs would probably not even notice the tiny laser with all those effects they throw everywhere.

They are slightly noticeable when fighting aetherblades and highly visible when fighting toxics. In bigger molten alliance fights there’s no way to see them at all, however. There’s just too much flame effects and aoes all over the area.

They’re just obnoxious, and anyone saying otherwise or defending it is insane.

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’. There should be many things trying to kill you in a siege, and it should really make your character start dancing a little more often.

It’s not realistic at all. These lasers should take quite a bit of energy to fire and the aetherblade simply waste them to kill people who are alone?
Shouldn’t these lasers be used on the zergs instead so they can kill many more people?
This doesn’t make any tactical sense whatsoever.

Ganathar.4956:

It’s not realistic at all. These lasers should take quite a bit of energy to fire and the aetherblade simply waste them to kill people who are alone?
Shouldn’t these lasers be used on the zergs instead so they can kill many more people?
This doesn’t make any tactical sense whatsoever.

So you would find it more realistic if there were just NPC’s trying to stop you saving citizens?

Astralporing.1957:

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’.

Realism may be good in simulations, but too much of it in an entertainment can kill the fun. This is the second case.
Yes, i agree, that with Scarlet having complete aerial superiority, heavy machinery and overwhelming military presence in place (which is not realistic, by the way, but let’s not concentrate on it) most of the rescuers should die within seconds of entering the city (and any zergs should be wiped out from above with aerial barrages within minutes of forming). I’m also sure that noone (or practically noone) would actually want to play the “Omaha beach” scenario where you are one of the frontline grunts bound to die so that the next waves can deploy in slightly better safety.

She wouldn’t need a overwhelming military presence. Her air superiority is all she needs to turn the LA farm into another Omaha Beach or worse. You only need one Airship to turn a zerg into a pile of dead bodies. Unleash the cannons and they are dead. Would be quite amusing to see this at a high scaled miasma event.

Instead the Airships play Low Orbital Ion Cannons, possible because of Inquest technology but not so effective like a full cannon barrage. More like a compromise, but I don’t mind it all, because it shows us who has the air superiority.

Ganathar.4956:
It’s not realistic at all. These lasers should take quite a bit of energy to fire and the aetherblade simply waste them to kill people who are alone?
Shouldn’t these lasers be used on the zergs instead so they can kill many more people?
This doesn’t make any tactical sense whatsoever.
Zalladi.4652
So you would find it more realistic if there were just NPC’s trying to stop you saving citizens?

I would find it more realistic if when I hit an OP NPC with a knock-back, say, by the edge of a cliff, or the rail of a bridge,that they would go over the side, just like me were the tables turned. I would find it more realistic if the OP NPC’s were not ever-so-conveniently, immune to the one specific spell or ability that might allow me to survive the fight. I would find it more realistic if, say, the OP NPC were in mid-cast & I were to move out of it’s direct path (not dodge, move <—— more realistic if they were one and the same, because they are.) it would miss me instead of follow me like a guided missile.

I’ve got MANY more where these came from.

toxicmuse.7642:

I would find it more realistic if when I hit an OP NPC with a knock-back, say, by the edge of a cliff, or the rail of a bridge,that they would go over the side, just like me were the tables turned. I would find it more realistic if the OP NPC’s were not ever-so-conveniently, immune to the one specific spell or ability that might allow me to survive the fight. I would find it more realistic if, say, the OP NPC were in mid-cast & I were to move out of it’s direct path (not dodge, move <—— more realistic if they were one and the same, because they are.) it would miss me instead of follow me like a guided missile.

I’ve got MANY more where these came from.

Yes, but isn’t this a thread about the sky lasers?

My opinion is the Aetherblade Sky lasers are used by the devs to troll us.

I like the gameplay effect the lasers create but there’s a couple of issues I have with them.

First of all the fact that they seem to prioritize lone or small groups on the edges of LA instead of bombarding zergs makes little tactical sense. The few times I’ve been in a zerg and been targeted by the lasers they are more effective but still easily avoidable due to the targeting laser and charge up noise. While it’s fun saving citizens while dodging/outrunning the laser barrage it really does feel silly that they’d waste so much artillery on a single or small group when there’s a whole army rampaging around elsewhere.

The second is the lack of exposition on where exactly these things are coming from, in the attack on LA cutscene we see the airships using nothing but conventional cannons. I actually assumed the lasers were coming from turrets mounted on the top of the drill because the airships certainly didn’t seem to have the laser cannons. Although the airships having them makes a fair bit more sense in the areas they’re able to target with them.

Backward Sass.6791:

On another note, they would make an awesome Finisher!

Do want.

Heh they would make an awesome finisher indeed.
But they can be downright annoying. Eastern ward, where it’s full of dead people, laser firing every chance it gets + those annoying aetherblade vets with so many annoying skills. That alone makes it more like work when you are solo. The Vet’s there are more trouble than the elites also running around there.

Sororita.3465:

These really need to be changed, if youre the only one in an area( usually away from the zerg trying to save civilians- you know, the whole point of the event) then the lasers will continually target you. The last round i had 18+ lasers in a row on me, thats just plain ridiculous.

So why don’t you walk out of them?

Serious question. This is a siege attack. If you run alone into a wave of 20+ Aetherblade at a miasma event, you’ll probably not have a lot of fun either. So why do you want to be alone with 2-3 lasers targeting you?

digiowl.9620:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

digiowl.9620:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Zalladi.4652:

While they can be very annoying when there are two, they really do add to the realism of a ‘siege’. There should be many things trying to kill you in a siege, and it should really make your character start dancing a little more often.

This!

I felt like one of those action movie protagonists getting chased by lasers.

With the irony being that they didn’t do camera control lock because it would make the game too action-y…

They really need to make up their mind about how action-focused they want the game to be.

What do you mean with camera control lock?

Being able to control the camera without the need to hold a mouse button down constantly.

Someone on Reddit found a setting for it in the EOTM test client. and Peters entered the discussion to state that they considered the option during development, but found that it made the game too action-y for their tastes.

Makes me wonder if the targeting issues some have are a result of that code not being properly disabled in the release client.

Heh. The lack of that feature is so much of a sore spot that I actually programmed one of my extra mouse button to perform ‘right button down’ to enter panning mode without having to hold right-mouse down.
Dodging and moving around is so much better, that way – and I doubt that keeping a button pressed on your mouse for long is that good for your arm health, either.

more annoying than the lazers are the two aetherblades (with hammers) that tend to target the player. they do that silly attack that knocks you down for some time and when you get back up the other one knocks you down too. it’s almost an infinite knock down time.

- you either die because you can’t back up.
- someone sees you down so they help.
- miracle that you get out of it.

though i see what you mean about how annoying those lasers are, i was targeted by 7. though that just made me feel special, going after me so many times because i’m reviving the heck out of civis.

Carighan.6758:

Sororita.3465:

These really need to be changed, if youre the only one in an area( usually away from the zerg trying to save civilians- you know, the whole point of the event) then the lasers will continually target you. The last round i had 18+ lasers in a row on me, thats just plain ridiculous.

So why don’t you walk out of them?

Serious question. This is a siege attack. If you run alone into a wave of 20+ Aetherblade at a miasma event, you’ll probably not have a lot of fun either. So why do you want to be alone with 2-3 lasers targeting you?

And this is how the game (again) promotes zerg content, by discouraging people from doing non-zerg activities (saving people).

Astralporing.1957:

And this is how the game (again) promotes zerg content, by discouraging people from doing non-zerg activities (saving people).

Not at all really. The sweet spot is at 5-10 players.
Anything above that and you get significantly more mobs and lasers.

You probably have the stance that ideally the game wants you to run off and do your own thing? Well, it is a MMO. They’d go against the very underlying nature of their game if solo was better (it isn’t in PvP either, see: all those balance whine threads :P ).

But this event balances it rather well. Because just zerging genuinely makes it more lethal for an individual player. Each spawning Molten or Aetherblade wave will down 20-40 players and kill 10-20 on the initial attack.
In contrast, if you’re 5 or 6 people the spawning mobs are few and at best Veterans, easily handled.
If you’re solo, they just gank you.

As… it should be?

The lasers need to zap all the AFK’ers hiding along the edges of the map.

Naevius.3185:

The lasers need to zap all the AFK’ers hiding along the edges of the map.

That would be fun. If you stand around the same spot too long it starts targeting you slowly and if you don’t move and do something then bam, you’re disintegrated and teleported out of the zone to the reconstruction lab in…. let’s say Rata Sum.

Carighan.6758:

Astralporing.1957:

And this is how the game (again) promotes zerg content, by discouraging people from doing non-zerg activities (saving people).

Not at all really. The sweet spot is at 5-10 players.
Anything above that and you get significantly more mobs and lasers.

You don’t get what i was trying to say. The lasers are not aimed at the zergs at all. They are aimed only at areas where survivors appear or move through. If you see lasers hitting the zerg, it means there are some survivors nearby (most likely in the middle of the zerg, being ressed). And the number of lasers is in no way dependant on number of people nearby. I have been targetted many times by 10+ beams in succesion while being the only player in the immediate area.
The only aim of aether killsats seem to be inconveniencing players trying to ress/escort survivors. Which is the only solo/small group part of the whole event (and should be done in groups of 1-3, 5 at most, certainly not more).
There are already too much incentives to go zerg instead of saving people, due to rewards imbalance. There’s no reason to discourage people even more by additional, extremely irritating game mechanics.

To bad we can’t have Will Smith fly his plane into the lasers. I always feel like in in the movie Independence day…

Naevius.3185:

The lasers need to zap all the AFK’ers hiding along the edges of the map.

Agreed. Honestly, I’m not sure why they don’t.

They do have their uses. If you see random lasers shooting an area it’s either:
A) Targeting players
B) Targeting fleeing/saved citizens
Or C) Targeting citizens that need saving

I always look for the lasers because more than likely that’s where I’ll find citizens that need saving.

I’ve had these lasers spammed on me as well when I wasn’t in the vicinity of any mobs or citizens which I found kind of odd.

To me, these lasers seem to be better served spammed around the spawn areas where people congregate and go AFK?

DeadlySynz.3471:

I’ve had these lasers spammed on me as well when I wasn’t in the vicinity of any mobs or citizens which I found kind of odd.

It means you were in an area where survivors spawn or go through. Perhaps there just weren’t any at the moment.
So far i have seen only one exception of that rule, which seemed placed purely for trolling purposes – the last part of Troll’s End jumping puzzle. As soon as you go out of the cave, you start being targeted by the beams. You’d better have 100% stability upkeep, or you won’t be able to get to the end without getting knocked off the cliff first.

Astralporing.1957:

DeadlySynz.3471:

I’ve had these lasers spammed on me as well when I wasn’t in the vicinity of any mobs or citizens which I found kind of odd.

It means you were in an area where survivors spawn or go through. Perhaps there just weren’t any at the moment.
So far i have seen only one exception of that rule, which seemed placed purely for trolling purposes – the last part of Troll’s End jumping puzzle. As soon as you go out of the cave, you start being targeted by the beams. You’d better have 100% stability upkeep, or you won’t be able to get to the end without getting knocked off the cliff first.

Actually, I did that puzzle yesterday, and not even a single laser shot at me.

I think Scarlet likes you.

To my engineer’s lasting annoyance, they also target healing turrets.

Tanith.5264:

To my engineer’s lasting annoyance, they also target healing turrets.

That… could actually be useful to one of my engineers. Toss out a turret, and while it’s getting blasted I can revive someone.

when i am roaming around and the lasers spot me i always think of someone bored up in the air ship and him and a buddy making a bet to see who can kill me, i mean how many times do we play with stragglers… when i run with my minion army i will pick single mobs that get separated from their group and kill them just because, then move and kill the whole group.

I think the lasers are cool. It’s the actual noise they make, and knowing doom (or at least, a mildly irritating hindrance when one repeatedly targets the one citizen I’m trying to save) is upon me. It’s like the noise the War of the Worlds tripods make (Spielberg version - this contains four minutes or so of the "intersection scene" from that film, so don’t watch if that bugs you!).

The whole feel of Escape from LA has had this WotW vibe for me, although I’m a nut for it since childhood anyway. I’ve even been listening to the original 1978 musical version whilst running the "dungeon". I’d wibble on all day about it if I could, but I’d take us dangerously off-topic!

Palador.2170:

Tanith.5264:

To my engineer’s lasting annoyance, they also target healing turrets.

That… could actually be useful to one of my engineers. Toss out a turret, and while it’s getting blasted I can revive someone.

Yeah, I’ve been using my mesmer clones in and around this.

To those who think they are cool and they add to the action… these are way more annoying when you’re trying to fight for your life (to escape) and they keep targeting while you’re fighting off the mobs.
And just as annoying at the southern end with the hell gates active spewing out fire while the orbital strikes spam the area WITH molten effigies rampaging.

I am not exaggerating.

kitsuneshoujo.5734:

To those who think they are cool and they add to the action… these are way more annoying when you’re trying to fight for your life (to escape) and they keep targeting while you’re fighting off the mobs.
And just as annoying at the southern end with the hell gates active spewing out fire while the orbital strikes spam the area WITH molten effigies rampaging.

I am not exaggerating.

Hee, that’s happened to me a fair few times.