Guild Wars 2

DaShi.1368:

phys.7689:

DaShi.1368:

This event is by far my least favorite and has really turned me off to the game. Not sure what Anet was thinking. If there technical issues that prevented it from being played the way they wanted us to, then consider not doing the event at all.

I want to do the achievements, but it’s just not possible. My platform always completes, but all it takes is one to fail and cost us the achievement. No way to help them.

This entire event is DPS based, so I die a little for every bear/bow ranger I see there. And there are so many.

The only good part of this event is that I’m catching up on my reading. I expect to finish a few novels while waiting for the event to repeat.

the entire event is not really dps based, dont know where you get that idea. The timer on the fight is very generous, if the timer fails, its because a bunch of people on the other platform died. It also generally takes 5 times to fail the event, so its not like one platform lost the whole event.

I’ve seen tons of groups unable to kill the wardens within the time limit. Yes, those are groups with rangers, but it is still dps-based.

Also i dont know why people are waiting around for the event, if this is the only thing in the game holding your attention, then maybe something about it you like? you really can just log in 10 minutes before the event and usually get a team with a shot to win

It would help if you read people’s posts before replying. I, like many others, want to complete the achievements. Obviously you have not played this event, because getting a team of 100+ players who can win it is extremely unlikely. The only advantage a home server has over an overflow is that it can get 100 players to fill each lane. The overflows I’ve been in usually have 2 or 3 lanes with 10 to 15 players in them.

I have done the event only in overflows, every time we had enough people to win, we lost due to people not being able to fight the wardens, throughout multiple paths. I havent aimed for the achievements.

I also have never waited on the event. You really dont know who is capable of winning till you play with them. Many people have succeeded on overflows, and lost on main servers. From what i have seen it mostly comes down to people being familiar with the wardens different strategies, and able to deal with said strategies.

I have beaten wardens with 3 people, and im not a berserker. I have seen them soloed for like 40% of thier hp, This means the dps required is not high. The failure due to time, is mostly due to death/disconnects/people being alone, or just fighting the boss completely wrong.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Qaelyn.7612:

let people on platforms who have already completed help out with other platforms

We tried really hard to get this in. Every solution we came up with had technical constraints.

Just a thought, but would it have been possible to implement something like the Conundrum Cubed portals? For example, after destroying a console it would discharge a ton of electricity like those portals, and touching it would distribute the players card dealer style to platforms that still had those consoles intact.

I wouldn’t expect something like that to be implemented now, but just a bit curious if that idea would’ve worked (or if it was mainly just an issue of not enough time to finalize an idea that was being worked on during the development period).

Anyways, despite some of the issues mentioned here, I’ve felt the fights have been rather enjoyable so far. They’re pretty challenging until you get a strat down, and I’d rather have challenging content over easy content that you could just roll through. =)

phys.7689:

DaShi.1368:

phys.7689:

DaShi.1368:

This event is by far my least favorite and has really turned me off to the game. Not sure what Anet was thinking. If there technical issues that prevented it from being played the way they wanted us to, then consider not doing the event at all.

I want to do the achievements, but it’s just not possible. My platform always completes, but all it takes is one to fail and cost us the achievement. No way to help them.

This entire event is DPS based, so I die a little for every bear/bow ranger I see there. And there are so many.

The only good part of this event is that I’m catching up on my reading. I expect to finish a few novels while waiting for the event to repeat.

the entire event is not really dps based, dont know where you get that idea. The timer on the fight is very generous, if the timer fails, its because a bunch of people on the other platform died. It also generally takes 5 times to fail the event, so its not like one platform lost the whole event.

I’ve seen tons of groups unable to kill the wardens within the time limit. Yes, those are groups with rangers, but it is still dps-based.

Also i dont know why people are waiting around for the event, if this is the only thing in the game holding your attention, then maybe something about it you like? you really can just log in 10 minutes before the event and usually get a team with a shot to win

It would help if you read people’s posts before replying. I, like many others, want to complete the achievements. Obviously you have not played this event, because getting a team of 100+ players who can win it is extremely unlikely. The only advantage a home server has over an overflow is that it can get 100 players to fill each lane. The overflows I’ve been in usually have 2 or 3 lanes with 10 to 15 players in them.

I have done the event only in overflows, every time we had enough people to win, we lost due to people not being able to fight the wardens, throughout multiple paths. I havent aimed for the achievements.

I also have never waited on the event. You really dont know who is capable of winning till you play with them. Many people have succeeded on overflows, and lost on main servers. From what i have seen it mostly comes down to people being familiar with the wardens different strategies, and able to deal with said strategies.

I have beaten wardens with 3 people, and im not a berserker. I have seen them soloed for like 40% of thier hp, This means the dps required is not high. The failure due to time, is mostly due to death/disconnects/people being alone, or just fighting the boss completely wrong.

Again, this doesn’t address anything I’ve said. They are your own personal anecdotes, which may or may not be true. Why are you replying to my posts with these comments? Please don’t reply to my posts until after you’ve read them.

I have yet to see any of these events. If I didn’t read the forums, I’d swear they never existed.

To say this type of living story content is more about waiting around with you hands in your pockets than actual play time, is an understatement.

DeathWraith.6341:

Shadowcat.6752:

I’ll say my piece here.
The events themselves I’m not doing. I’m not against them or the LS. Such large scale things are not for me, but that’s not the issue.
My gripe is the zone-wide death upon failure, and the subsequent armour damage.
To me, that seems a little unfair.
Example: I was further north doing a dynamic event against grawl. I was doing well as I know this one. Suddenly the big LS one fails, a green beam shoots from the sky and kills me. Why?
I was not in the immediate area and was not participating. To me it seems unfair to be punished for something I had no involvement in.
I hope ANet changes that. As a roleplayer who was doing that grawl event in-character, it was fairly immersion breaking.

How’s it it immersion breaking for a role player? It’s a huge marionette that is suppose to kill everything the area of the map. You were in the map and died. Just because you role played to ignore it doesn’t mean it role plays to ignore you

This is very easy to explain: In some parts of the world, death is taboo. The United States is one such country. That’s why some RPGs, like Call of Cthulu, never became popular in the mainstream. Plus it doesn’t help that the US has been through 2 wars and that has made people more sensitive to death. Some people may have even lost loved ones so scenes in which everyone dies bother these individuals. The ending of the marionette was not something that is expected by the Americans playing this game. I know for a fact that some teens playing this game were distressed when they saw the ending. It’s too simillar to events in the RL War on Terror.

To me, something like this comes across as “too European”. Scenes where everyone dies and the naked Marionette is not appropriate for the T rating in the US. If Anet continues this, they’ll need to consider changing their game rating from T (for Teen) to M (for Mature) for the North American market. Let’s face it: Europeans love seeing death in their media. I’ve seen enough films, games, and shows from the other side of the Atlantic to know this. If I had been part of the dev team for this event, I would of included an alternative event for people who don’t like Cthulu-styled RPGs and placed a warning for those folks who are too sensitive. This is what happened in the past with D&D’s Tomb of Horrors as well as the old PnP version of Call of Cthulu. It’s only fair to warn people.

FYI — I’m not against the Marionette event. I do have enough experience to explain why this event doesn’t appeal to everyone.

…. Americans don’t like death in their media? Watched anything out of Hollywood lately? Plus we’re super insulated from the death in our wars, unless you mean back to WWII, of which most gamers of today have no personal memory.

The simpler answer was already given: in that particular RP scenario, the Marionette didn’t exist. Sometimes one wants to tell a smaller story. That doesn’t mean the player wouldn’t incorporate the Marionette in another RP, but likely this one was set before or after, or wasn’t even in Lornar’s except the cave had the right set up to use as a background (I did one RP set in Shaemoor using a house in Kessex because Shaemoor didn’t have any enterable houses that worked).

I think one point some people may underestimate is the probability of failure to severe a chain in the Marionette event. In chat there are often people who just can’t fathom how a lane could have messed up but it’s usually only one or two platforms that lose. Assuming each platform has a 90% chance of beating their champ then the probability of all five platforms succeeding is only 59%. For a 80% base chance (which in itself still looks fairly easy) this would drop to about 32%. Of course, it’s not as simple as that and for the event as a whole the math gets more complex since you can repeat the chain events several times. But my point is that failure to severe a chain is not that unlikely even though the chances for an individual platform to succeed are fairly good.

Of all the suggestions that have been brought up I really like the idea of making it so the amount the meter increases after a failed chain event depends on how many platforms have been cleared. This way your performance still matters even if others lose.

Having said all that I want to point out that aside from the growing frustration of being ever so close and still always losing out badly I really love the general idea and the mechanics of this battle. Otherwise I wouldn’t keep trying after 10+ attempts without ever getting beyond 3/5.

This one time i was on a overflow and tried to organise random people whom i guess all spoke different languages to do worm……………

ghostwriter.5826:

I think one point some people may underestimate is the probability of failure to severe a chain in the Marionette event. In chat there are often people who just can’t fathom how a lane could have messed up but it’s usually only one or two platforms that lose. Assuming each platform has a 90% chance of beating their champ then the probability of all five platforms succeeding is only 59%. For a 80% base chance (which in itself still looks fairly easy) this would drop to about 32%. Of course, it’s not as simple as that and for the event as a whole the math gets more complex since you can repeat the chain events several times. But my point is that failure to severe a chain is not that unlikely even though the chances for an individual platform to succeed are fairly good.

This is a very good point.

I did a run today where our turn on the platform failed with 4 platforms done and the 5th one busily DPSing the final part down. It counted as a “failure” even though we were literally less than 5 seconds away from doing it successfully.

kta.6502:

This is very easy to explain: In some parts of the world, death is taboo. The United States is one such country. That’s why some RPGs, like Call of Cthulu, never became popular in the mainstream. Plus it doesn’t help that the US has been through 2 wars and that has made people more sensitive to death. Some people may have even lost loved ones so scenes in which everyone dies bother these individuals. The ending of the marionette was not something that is expected by the Americans playing this game. I know for a fact that some teens playing this game were distressed when they saw the ending. It’s too simillar to events in the RL War on Terror.

To me, something like this comes across as “too European”. Scenes where everyone dies and the naked Marionette is not appropriate for the T rating in the US. If Anet continues this, they’ll need to consider changing their game rating from T (for Teen) to M (for Mature) for the North American market. Let’s face it: Europeans love seeing death in their media. I’ve seen enough films, games, and shows from the other side of the Atlantic to know this. If I had been part of the dev team for this event, I would of included an alternative event for people who don’t like Cthulu-styled RPGs and placed a warning for those folks who are too sensitive. This is what happened in the past with D&D’s Tomb of Horrors as well as the old PnP version of Call of Cthulu. It’s only fair to warn people.

FYI — I’m not against the Marionette event. I do have enough experience to explain why this event doesn’t appeal to everyone.

I really hope you are trolling.

The problem with these events is that they don’t reward you for contributing as much as they punish you for someone else failing.

DaShi.1368:

The problem with these events is that they don’t reward you for contributing as much as they punish you for someone else failing.

If you’re a pessimist. I’m getting so well rewarded by keys its a chore to go use them!

No, I’m simply stating the nature of the system. If you disagree, please provide a counterpoint. Try to do it without using the word I.

It wasn’t a particularly serious post but the counterpoint is in there. Plus the pessimist remark stands.

Sorry for all the I’s

Like I told phys, please read my posts before replying.

And your unique experience not only doesn’t address the point I made (which I now believe you don’t understand), it’s not even a counterpoint to anything in this thread. Unless you really believe every post is about you.

there is little in the specific chests you cant get from other events, or just killing mobs in this event.

Yeah, fair enough, so take out that “little” that is exclusive to the chests and leave it at that.

Actually here I do have to put in a good word for Arenanet. You do get lots of cypher pieces just from the lane defense portion, so you can still use the chests in the secret lair and have a chance at getting the rare drops even if you fail the event.

Do the smaller chests have the same drop rates as the big one? I was not aware of that.

So mainly the problem is with the Teq and Wurm chests then.

To me, something like this comes across as “too European”. Scenes where everyone dies and the naked Marionette is not appropriate for the T rating in the US. If Anet continues this, they’ll need to consider changing their game rating from T (for Teen) to M (for Mature) for the North American market.

This is just nonsense. Those things may be too mature for you, but they are by no means too mature for the US audience in general. I’m not a fan of the Marionette wipe-out exit, but that has nothing to do with puritanism.

Ohoni.6057:

there is little in the specific chests you cant get from other events, or just killing mobs in this event.

Yeah, fair enough, so take out that “little” that is exclusive to the chests and leave it at that.

Actually here I do have to put in a good word for Arenanet. You do get lots of cypher pieces just from the lane defense portion, so you can still use the chests in the secret lair and have a chance at getting the rare drops even if you fail the event.

Do the smaller chests have the same drop rates as the big one? I was not aware of that.

So mainly the problem is with the Teq and Wurm chests then.

To me, something like this comes across as “too European”. Scenes where everyone dies and the naked Marionette is not appropriate for the T rating in the US. If Anet continues this, they’ll need to consider changing their game rating from T (for Teen) to M (for Mature) for the North American market.

This is just nonsense. Those things may be too mature for you, but they are by no means too mature for the US audience in general. I’m not a fan of the Marionette wipe-out exit, but that has nothing to do with puritanism.

from tequatl you can get some tequatl related items. mostly flavor, a mini, and ascended weapon chest, but you can get ascended weapon chest from anything that drops ascended materials, the only difference is a particle effect and color, i think the wurms is also reskins of ascended with a particle effect as well. So its nothing you cant get just as easily elswhere except for the cosmetic/flavor text.

Josh Foreman.8250:

In the never ending quest to improve our design and find ways to please as many people as possible we’re always digging into constructive criticism. We have not perfected the recipe for an open world boss event, probably because we’re pioneering new territory here.
I agree that the open world boss event isn’t perfect and needs work but it is still very good.
As far as I can tell there are a couple challenges we are trying to overcome. First, we are trying to teach the community a new skill: self organization. And I’m happy to see that in the aggregate, they ARE learning. I’m sure as this process continues we will find better ways to accommodate the communication structures that will emerge.
The problem with the event is that it is open world and self organization, especially in overflows is difficult not only with the tools ingame but the need for TS to function.
Secondly, from both a technical and player-experience perspective, it’s best to break up zergs as much as possible. Thematically keeping everyone feeling like they are contributing to a common cause from multiple locations, and still feel heroic is an interesting challenge to balance. Always looking for new ideas on this issue!
I agree that breaking up zergs is great! GJ on that and keep it up.

distribute players by parceling them out one platform at a time like a poker dealer rather than selecting platforms for them randomly? Really? As a programmer myself I was astonished when I found out that it was possible to have 5 on one platform and 1 on another. I mean, this is really basic stuff!

Having 5 on one platform and 1 on another could only be a very edge case requiring several people to drop out at the right moment. Our script does exactly what you said, poker dealer style.
An issue that I have is not having enough people to kill the champs. I have gotten one shotted from the bomb champ many times lol. Better explanation or mechanics and scaling is needed.

let people on platforms who have already completed help out with other platforms

I agree this would be a good idea.
We tried really hard to get this in. Every solution we came up with had technical constraints.
Easy technical solution, make the players randomly teleport into another circle when they defeat their own. You can have that one for free

Qaelyn.7612:

lengthen the timers a bit

The timers and mob HP were balanced and rebalanced several times in an attempt to find a sweet spot that would ensure people couldn’t faceroll the event, but wasn’t so difficult that no one could do it. Everyone’s mileage will vary. And as with any group activity, virtual or real life, there is luck inherent in that. Some people hate that dynamic and some love it. If someone has an idea about how to ameliorate the inherent luck factor in group events, please speak up!
I think that the timers are ok but perhaps should be adjusted for people in the map(event circle?)

Qaelyn.7612:

make it easier for parties to be in the same overflow where there’s actually enough people to win

I know there are people working on various solutions to this problem.
This is the biggest problem that is plaguing the game and the open world group event. Not only is a solution needed for overflows but communication tools inside the game.

Qaelyn.7612:

have the event scale in difficulty based on the number of players

It scales quite a bit. The more people there are in a lane will change the number of vets and champs that spawn, and the platform boss’s HP scales based on how many end up on the platform.

The scaling outside the chains is ok. I haven’t mentioned the wurms really since they are their own can of “wurms”

natzmc.2895:

kta.6502:

This is very easy to explain: In some parts of the world, death is taboo. The United States is one such country. That’s why some RPGs, like Call of Cthulu, never became popular in the mainstream. Plus it doesn’t help that the US has been through 2 wars and that has made people more sensitive to death. Some people may have even lost loved ones so scenes in which everyone dies bother these individuals. The ending of the marionette was not something that is expected by the Americans playing this game. I know for a fact that some teens playing this game were distressed when they saw the ending. It’s too simillar to events in the RL War on Terror.

To me, something like this comes across as “too European”. Scenes where everyone dies and the naked Marionette is not appropriate for the T rating in the US. If Anet continues this, they’ll need to consider changing their game rating from T (for Teen) to M (for Mature) for the North American market. Let’s face it: Europeans love seeing death in their media. I’ve seen enough films, games, and shows from the other side of the Atlantic to know this. If I had been part of the dev team for this event, I would of included an alternative event for people who don’t like Cthulu-styled RPGs and placed a warning for those folks who are too sensitive. This is what happened in the past with D&D’s Tomb of Horrors as well as the old PnP version of Call of Cthulu. It’s only fair to warn people.

FYI — I’m not against the Marionette event. I do have enough experience to explain why this event doesn’t appeal to everyone.

I really hope you are trolling.

Nope. That really is my opinion. In the past, I’ve known people who run RPG PnP events where characters are supposed to die, and potential players were warned that their characters would experience Perma death. Why tell players this? Because some players don’t like RPGs that have Cthulu-type elements or Tomb of Horrors type material. One Game Master (GM) had policy that only players who were 18+ could be part of his Cthulu game. The goal of any RPG is for people to have fun, and some people don’t find Cthulu type games to be fun.

Another thing: Notice that when you’re GW2 character runs out of HP, the game says “You are defeated.” It never mentions death. Why? Death is taboo!

There also seems to be a culture gap situation with GW2. I realized this after comforting some kids during the first day of the event. There is just some stuff in the game that American folks like myself don’t quite get. In my case, I know people who can explain stuff to me. Other gamers might not have anyone to reference if they don’t understand something. A good example would be the whole Trahearne show event in the PS. I was informed that the event is modeled after the British military concept of the Officer and his Assistant (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlT1mRYlXZg — At 22:13 the video explains this concept) . I had no idea about that. I’m an American from the Pacific NW, so my understanding military relationships is in the form of comradeship (Example: Stargate SG-1). For many people, including myself, the military is a second family and a second home. From my POV, my PC was a slave to Trahearne. From a British person’s POV, my PC was in a normal military relationship.

I could go on and on about similar situations I’ve experiences with anime and Korean dramas, but I’ll stop here. Bottom line: What is understood in one culture may not be understood in another. What exists in one culture may not exist in another culture. I do think there are some things in GW2 that are not translating well to American gamers. I believe that alot of the complaints stem from this fact.

On the positive side, these mistakes helps us learn something new!

Ohoni.6057:

This is just nonsense. Those things may be too mature for you, but they are by no means too mature for the US audience in general. I’m not a fan of the Marionette wipe-out exit, but that has nothing to do with puritanism.

[b]Hey, don’t make false accusations. I made it very clear that I’m not against the event at all.

The event made me think of every European art film I’ve seen in film school. It does come across as European, and I’m entitled to my own opinion. That opinion isn’t threatening anyone. We can agree to disagree, but what I said isn’t puritanism. If I were a Christian Extremist (aka modern puritan) I wouldn’t be playing this game. [/b]

Donari.5237:

…. Americans don’t like death in their media? Watched anything out of Hollywood lately? Plus we’re super insulated from the death in our wars, unless you mean back to WWII, of which most gamers of today have no personal memory.

I’m a filmmaker. I think there is a difference between how we American filmmakers portray violence vs how European filmmakers portray violence. European films, such as Funny Games (a 1997 Austrian film<— Don’t watch this if you’re under age 18), do portray violence in a gory, grotesque manner. Most people in my film classes couldn’t sit through a showing of this movie. It bothered people despite the fact that it’s a piece of fiction. Contrast this movie with Hunger Games which everyone in my class could sit through. So what was the difference?

Funny Games made me feel helpless. There was nothing I could do but sit by as a small family was victimized by 2 serial killers who had a magical remote that can cause them to go back in time and the torture the family over and over again. To make matters worse, the bad guys get away with their crime. I don’t like feeling helpless, and I like to see bad guys go down. In RL, if I see someone in trouble, I automatically try to help them. That is a value that my elders taught me when I was young.

Hunger Games, on the other hand, has Katniss, a protagonist that refuses to be a victim of the system. Through the course of the story, she rebels against “The Man” in small ways (like shooting an arrow at the distracted sponsors or saving the life of another contender). In my mind, I was thinking, “I don’t have to worry. Katniss will stop this BS.” I also found myself rooting for her.

How does this apply to GW2? People want to be proactive and save the day. We don’t want to feel helpless.

@Josh Foreman I’m hoping ANET can really see the hype excitement and amazing feeling that these kind of difficult encounters can provide, what I’m hoping is you realise that logistically managing 150 in overflows where you can’t get your friends etc is bad design. Reading your prior responses it seems you definitely know of some of the concerns.

What is making you guys so scared of adding encounters like this measured to 8-10 man instances for guilds?

• Too difficult for casuals? – So is the current system of these bosses and they should be. That was why you designed it hard like this correct?
• Players without a guild can’t complete this? – Not true, every other traditional MMO has had guilds lead and help PUGS complete content. PUG’s would form up together outside of instance entrances.
• Requires gear? – There is no gear treadmill, content thats beatable, is strictly based on builds and skill.

Also instances would alleviate this whole 2 hour wait thing, which 1 forces people to stay on that same map to keep their spot, 2 boring as hell and 3 is the same time as other mega world bosses….

from tequatl you can get some tequatl related items. mostly flavor, a mini, and ascended weapon chest, but you can get ascended weapon chest from anything that drops ascended materials, the only difference is a particle effect and color, i think the wurms is also reskins of ascended with a particle effect as well. So its nothing you cant get just as easily elswhere except for the cosmetic/flavor text.

Right, so take all that stuff out, leave it as the same sort of chest that old Teq dropped, and we’ll call it even. I don’t mind if content is too much of a hassle to do if I don’t feel compelled to do it, but if you lock cool unique rewards behind that content, no matter how cosmetic or “unnecessary” you may view them as, then I feel compelled to try and participate, and when I do so I will tend to feel frustrated and annoyed with the game, rather than engaging content that I think is fun.

If there are players that really want content that plays like Teq and the Wurms and that sort of thing, failure mechanisms and all, then that’s fine, but that challenge should be its own reward, the goal should be to beat it, and then to beat it again for a better time, and so on. They should not need, or receive “bonus candy” for playing the type of content they enjoy, they should get reward equivalent to the time they spend on each run, but no more, nothing that cannot be earned, EXACTLY, through other methods.

A good example would be the whole Trahearne show event in the PS. I was informed that the event is modeled after the British military concept of the Officer and his Assistant (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlT1mRYlXZg — At 22:13 the video explains this concept) . I had no idea about that. I’m an American from the Pacific NW, so my understanding military relationships is in the form of comradeship (Example: Stargate SG-1). For many people, including myself, the military is a second family and a second home. From my POV, my PC was a slave to Trahearne. From a British person’s POV, my PC was in a normal military relationship.

This is a bit nonsensical. The player is clearly just an assistant to Trehearn, just like Shepard is to Anderson in Mass Effect. There’s a chain of command, and you aren’t at the top of it, there’s nothing particularly “British” about that. Why do you feel the need to take certain elements and insist on making them “foreign,” when this is a game that was designed by Americans, for Americans?

[b]Hey, don’t make false accusations. I made it very clear that I’m not against the event at all.

The event made me think of every European art film I’ve seen in film school. It does come across as European, and I’m entitled to my own opinion. That opinion isn’t threatening anyone. We can agree to disagree, but what I said isn’t puritanism. If I were a Christian Extremist (aka modern puritan) I wouldn’t be playing this game. [/b]

I’m not making any “accusations,” false or otherwise, I’m just pointing out that “Americanism” is not a problem this game has, either for or against it. It may remind you of some European films you’ve seen, but it also has plenty of parallels in American fiction, nationality has nothing to do with it, other than Tyrian nationalities.

I’m a filmmaker. I think there is a difference between how we American filmmakers portray violence vs how European filmmakers portray violence. European films, such as Funny Games (a 1997 Austrian film<— Don’t watch this if you’re under age 18), do portray violence in a gory, grotesque manner. Most people in my film classes couldn’t sit through a showing of this movie. It bothered people despite the fact that it’s a piece of fiction. Contrast this movie with Hunger Games which everyone in my class could sit through. So what was the difference?

A different rating. Hunger Games is for a mass audience. You could just as easily compare The Collector to A Royal Affair, European film-makers do not have a lock on death and violence. There actually was a US remake of Funny Games in 2007, and while I’ve seen neither, I highly doubt the remake is tamer than the original. Again, you’re comparing American apples to European oranges and insisting that the distinction is where they came from, when in fact Europe has apples and America has oranges too, and when you compare the apples to apples and oranges to oranges the distinctions are minimal.

There’s no value in that, the value is only in saying whether you prefer apples, or you prefer oranges, wherever each comes from, not in saying that oranges are bad because they’re too “European.”

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

There’s actually several constructive suggestions on this board now on how to avoid these inconveniences. If ANet ignores the suggestions, then of course we have the choice to either live with the situation – or decide that other hobbies are more fun. The point of the feedback threads is that we’d rather have fun and play guildwars at the same time.

Most of those come down to raid instances, and people never once stop to realize that those aren’t all sunshine and rainbows.

No wonder no one takes these “constructive suggestions” serious. They’re always “Hey, do this!”, followed by long trails of “Yeah, this’ll solve all the issues, do it nao!”.

Because we all know that never backfired in the past.

Carighan.6758:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

There’s actually several constructive suggestions on this board now on how to avoid these inconveniences. If ANet ignores the suggestions, then of course we have the choice to either live with the situation – or decide that other hobbies are more fun. The point of the feedback threads is that we’d rather have fun and play guildwars at the same time.

Most of those come down to raid instances, and people never once stop to realize that those aren’t all sunshine and rainbows.

No wonder no one takes these “constructive suggestions” serious. They’re always “Hey, do this!”, followed by long trails of “Yeah, this’ll solve all the issues, do it nao!”.

Because we all know that never backfired in the past.

I’m not even talking about raid instances. I’ve been talking about suggestions for better overflow management, changing the starting conditions for mega boss fights (pre-events or number of player presents instead of timers on the hour), etc.

Ohoni.6057:

This is a bit nonsensical. The player is clearly just an assistant to Trehearn, just like Shepard is to Anderson in Mass Effect. There’s a chain of command, and you aren’t at the top of it, there’s nothing particularly “British” about that. Why do you feel the need to take certain elements and insist on making them “foreign,” when this is a game that was designed by Americans, for Americans?

I got a few questions for you Ohoni: Have you ever served in the US Military? If you haven’t, have either of your parents served?

My answer is based on personal experience with the American military. I’m familiar enough with the culture which is very different from civilian US life. I come from a military family. I myself (a woman BTW) was in Army JROTC with intentions going to Westpoint until an accident during my junior year in high school. My father served in the Navy during Vietnam. My grandfather served in the Army during WW2. The rest of my male ancestors in my dad’s lineage served in the military. The officier / assistant relationship that was illustrated in the video link I showed you doesn’t exist in the US military. If you had watched the video, the people in the documentary did state the Officier / Assistant military relationship is purely British. I hate to break this to you, but there really are some cultural differences between Americans and Brits.

Plus military folks in the US earn their ranks via hard work or by graduating from a military college like Westpoint. Americans don’t gain ranks because of their lineage or because their parents are important. Well-known, powerful military families often send their kids to military college so they can succeed their predecessors. John McCain is a good example of this.

If I’m supposed to see Trahearne as a Grand Marshal, he has to earn the position. BTW, my main character is a Sylvari, and during the course of the Sylvari PS, Trahearne never earned his position. There is no set of quests to indicate that he has earned his ranks. Mommy just gave the sword and the position to him. That just doesn’t fly where I live.

Simply put, I couldn’t emotionally relate to the last part of the PS (aka "The Trahearne Show). I wasn’t the only one who felt this disconnect or had a negative reaction to it. If there was a few previous quests that educated the audience members like myself, then I don’t think I would of had such a negative reaction.

To be continued…

…Continued from the last post…

The current problem with the Scarlet Briar storyline is very similar and make the problem extremely obvious: they plop the PCs in a situation and expect us to know what is going on. That idea works in French art films (which my instructors have had me watch for homework), but those films are niche films that are understood by art buff. [b]When it comes to story, audience members like me have to be given a reason to care, and we have to relate to the situation. In regards to GW2, I ask:

—What causes my character to get involved in the LW story? Answering this question will identify the catalyst of the story.
—The villain has to prove they’re frightening too. We have to slowly discover the villain’s motivation and goals over the course of the story.
— And why should my hero fight the villain?
—What is my hero’s motivation to fight?
—What are the stakes?[/b]

[b]If people can’t relate to the characters or the situation, the problem is with the writing. The audience has to be able to relate to what is going on. If an idea is very new, the writer needs to slowly introduce the idea and educate the audience. [b]The Japanese do this really well with their games, and we all know how vastly different Japan and America are.

The Japanese devs take time to explain new concepts by showing them in their games. Final Fantasy 6 is a really good example of this. When the game came out in the US (under the name of FF3 btw), the concept of a villain defeating the heroes and becoming a god was very new to Americans. Not only that, the villain, Kefka, separates the heroes and sends them to different parts of the globe. Of course, the heroes eventually make a comeback and pulverize the psychopath’s godly @___.

Also keep in mind that 80% of Americans are Christians, and in the Christian worldview, the idea of an evil person becoming a god is impossible.

Kefka’s story was introduced slowly in FF6. We meet him, and we’re led to believe that he is the typical dumb criminal who want to be the leader (like Starscream from Transformers). His crime spree starts small (he burns a castle). He eventually moves on to bigger and bigger crimes (like poisoning thousands of people and committing genocide). We get to know his personality and philosophy over time. His path to godhood is slowly introduced as well.

Scarlet Briar, on the other hand, is a character that we don’t know very well. I started back in October, and the first Scarlet LW story I played was The Nightmare Begins. Since the previous updates weren’t permanent, I have no idea what went on before. I don’t know Scarlet’s personality or philosophy. I only see an anarchist who destroys things. She comes across like a bland cartoon villain. The villains in Warcraft are better than her. The Nightmare updates don’t drop hints about her goals or her motivation. My hero has no real reason to go after her. My character is just dropped in an LW scenario and he’s expected to destroy things. That’s not much different from a Mario game.

Ideally, I want to have my hero discover Scarlet’s background by starting from the beginning of Scarlet’s story (before she becomes evil) and then run through the previous events when she starts causing chaos. Telling me her story via blogs and in-game scholar characters isn’t the way to introduce any character.

Ohoni.6057:

A different rating. Hunger Games is for a mass audience. You could just as easily compare The Collector to A Royal Affair, European film-makers do not have a lock on death and violence. There actually was a US remake of Funny Games in 2007, and while I’ve seen neither, I highly doubt the remake is tamer than the original. Again, you’re comparing American apples to European oranges and insisting that the distinction is where they came from, when in fact Europe has apples and America has oranges too, and when you compare the apples to apples and oranges to oranges the distinctions are minimal.

You have never, ever seen either movie I mentioned??? Why are you commenting on the films if you’ve never seen them? The two films have the same theme: serial killers who make a game out of killing innocents. Anyways, I’ve already explained my position. I’m not commenting anymore about this.

BTW, US remakes of foreign films don’t count. I was only referring to the original version of Funny Games to make my point.

kta, can I just point out that a) film and video game are two completely different things that may or may not borrow from each other, but don’t have to be the same, and b) that we are talking about a fantasy world here, so your real-life experience, while valid, does not have to apply here.
Again, its a borrowing thing. Of course, it’s based on what we know, but at the same time, it’s different, so, America/Europe differences aside, you can’t expect anything to be a certain way.
As for Trahearne, he was chosen for his position precisely because he isn’t involved in any of the Orders’ business. He’s not a high-ranking member of, say, the Vigil, so the Order of Whispers and the Priory don’t feel like the Vigil is given preference over them. If you had paid attention to the personal story, you would have noticed. The other reason is his Wyld Hunt and his experience with Orr that came from pursuing it. He knows his way around Orr, so he was a better choice than, say, Doern Velazquez. In short, he was the best choice.

As for “make the player care” and your issue with feeling disconnected from the whole LS: That’s what comes with playing an MMO. In a single-player game, you are the one and only hero. You have a cause that no-one else has, and you are the only one who can save the day. In an MMO, you share that cause with millions of others, so the open world content at least (not the instanced personal story) has to be designed to include all those millions of people.
Then you seem to ignore the fact that your character is part of the world that’s being threatened, plus you apparently have already completed the personal story, so you have business with the orders as well as the Pact and are an all around accomplished person. Now someone like Scarlet comes along and tries to kill everything in her path; would your character just sit idly by and let her succeed? if so, your character is a… yeah, I don’t have a word that won’t get transformed into a kitten here. But you know what I mean. In this case, being someone who can stop a threat (to your home and maybe imaginary family no less!) should be reason enough for you to intervene.

EDIT: And to list a few American films that are exceedingly violent.
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Saw
- Alien
- Crank
- The Expendables
- The Nightmare series
- The Halloween series
- Anything by Quentin Tarantino
…

Need me to go on?

So. This bit, you don’t have to read, I’d understand if you stopped because you won’t like it. No-one’s forced to listen, after all.

Regardless, you should realise that America is NOT the centre of the world. And neither is Christianity. So claiming that a game designed for millions of people from all around the globe should be changed to fit the world views of a specific group of Americans is simply preposterous. I said it before, and I will say it again: Tyria is a fictional world and as such is not subject to the rules and world views of the real world. BUT, and this is important, you don’t have to play it. I won’t force you to read my books where premarital sex is abundant, people get killed a lot and morally questionable choices are made. Anet will not force you to keep playing Guild Wars if you decide you don’t like it anymore. You’re free to leave, as are those kids you mentioned that are “upset” because of the LS content.
It seems like you fail to see that this is an issue of personal taste and, in some cases, personal maturity. I’ve been playing violent video games and watched violent films since I was twelve and I grew up all right. My brother, who is just as avid a gamer as I am, tentatively started exploring those same games when he was about sixteen. Differences in personal preferences. Take a group of a hundred average eighteen-year-olds and have them watch Funny Games (since you mentioned that already). Some will get up and leave, some will keep watching but be uncomfortable, some will enjoy it for the violence and some will enjoy it for the fact that it’s a well-made film. Same goes for, say, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Crank, Shining, whatever. What you think is appropriate for you or any young children/teenagers you know is one thing, what other people think is appropriate for them and/or their children is another. The world is not one huge padded cell, and it will never be, thank god for that.
The key is learning to deal with it and respond to things that bother you in a mature way instead of yelling for someone to fix the mean stuff or take it away completely just so you don’t have to see anything you don’t like. And if you do, you are free to get up and leave.

kta.6502:

Plus military folks in the US earn their ranks via hard work or by graduating from a military college like Westpoint.

You are really so rude. Members of the Army in Europe work just as hard as those in America, shame on you quite frankly.

I feel I may just be feeding a troll here (which I hope to god is the case cause otherwise I am so embarrassed for you) but the fact you think that America is a country were death and violence is a taboo is just laughable. May I remind you that the Americans bombs Vietnam’s cities despite knowing that the Viet Cong where in the jungles and practised guerilla warfare? Can I remind you of the unnecessary use of 2 nuclear bombs on Japan? As for films and popular culture, how about films like American History X, Hostel, Training Day, anything Tarantino has ever done, True Romance, Natural Born Killers, The Saw movies, Apocalypse Now, TV shows such as The Walking Dead, Dexter, Game of Thrones is produced by HBO and the novels it is based off are written by an American author.

In fact it is well known that violence, especially gun violence has markedly increased in American films in the last 3 decades. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/business/media/gun-violence-in-american-movies-is-rising-study-finds.html?_r=0

America is just as comfortable with death as the most of the player base. If you want to look at countries who are less tolerant about violence in video games feel free to ask an German or an Australian about their experience and compare what they have to deal with to your point of view. Make sure to ask them whether they think their censorship is necessary.

Also the reason anet use the word DEFEATED and not DEAD is because we are not dead because we can be revived, either by player or by waypoint. Death is finite, and clearly what we experience in the game is not.

natzmc.2895:

America is just as comfortable with death as the most of the player base. If you want to look at countries who are less tolerant about violence in video games feel free to ask an German or an Australian about their experience and compare what they have to deal with to your point of view. Make sure to ask them whether they think their censorship is necessary.

Also the reason anet use the word DEFEATED and not DEAD is because we are not dead because we can be revived, either by player or by waypoint. Death is finite, and clearly what we experience in the game is not.

Thank you. I forgot to mention that. The amount of censorship we have to deal with is downright ridiculous. Games and films that are 18+ getting edited because adult people supposedly can’t deal with it? Laughable. Can I just say “purple blood”?

Excellent point about the dead vs. defeated thing. It’s simple logic. Also, raising the dead is for Zhaitan. We wouldn’t want to end up as his minions, would we?

In all fairness, I dont think the reward is any good even if you succeed. You might as well follow the champ farm train or what ever the flavor of month money making scheme is.

2 suggestions:

-make the scaling of the amount of mobs in the 5 lanes match the amount of players in the area. When you’re in an overflow at the 4-5th lvl, you really don’t have enough to stop the leaks of champs reaching the portal.

-dynamic scaling of the platform wardens to match the amount of players inside.

I loved the queen gauntlet arena, even up to improved Deadeye Dumwell which I could still farm back to back with 5gambit. I’m sure a lot of players love the platform fights too. I think if it scaled to match the population, even less populated overflows should have a chance.

Was weird last night seeing a platform empty as 4 others managed to kill their respective wardens. Platform #5 was just empty, not even dead players, just empty. I understand it’s techinacally difficult to work around this; but maybe destroying the power regulator of a platform should also deactivate the platform’s dome (thus allowing support to adjacent platforms in forms of ranged dps/heals even if we can’t move out of platforms… ?

Kajin.5301:

2 suggestions:

-make the scaling of the amount of mobs in the 5 lanes match the amount of players in the area. When you’re in an overflow at the 4-5th lvl, you really don’t have enough to stop the leaks of champs reaching the portal.

-dynamic scaling of the platform wardens to match the amount of players inside.

It already scales just fine. We did it at around three in the morning with ~10-15 players on each lane and we got to two severed chains, so we didn’t fare any better or worse than we did earlier with more people. That said, the scaling of the wardens might need some tuning, yes. Still, the wardens scale as well, maybe just not as much as the mobs in the lanes.

Red Queen.7915:

Kajin.5301:

2 suggestions:

-make the scaling of the amount of mobs in the 5 lanes match the amount of players in the area. When you’re in an overflow at the 4-5th lvl, you really don’t have enough to stop the leaks of champs reaching the portal.

-dynamic scaling of the platform wardens to match the amount of players inside.

It already scales just fine. We did it at around three in the morning with ~10-15 players on each lane and we got to two severed chains, so we didn’t fare any better or worse than we did earlier with more people. That said, the scaling of the wardens might need some tuning, yes. Still, the wardens scale as well, maybe just not as much as the mobs in the lanes.

this,
same experience in terms of scaling.
its just a really well designed event. the bug where you can’t attack sucks tho.

…if only this was the permanent event.

Relshdan.6854:

the bug where you can’t attack sucks tho.

Is it the one where you can’t use skills anymore? If so, that one can be solved by getting downed, then rezzed, if you don’t want to port to a waypoint.
Doesn’t just happen there. I went to replace a guy in a dungeon group these days who had bugged like this, three minutes in, bam, same bug happens to me. It’s really totally random.

@ kta – I have to say I do not agree with majority of your statements. I mean I do understand the part of wanting to protect children but this is up to the parents to do and guide their children through it. It’s down to the parents to study a game before letting their children play it and make sure they feel free to ask questions. This is not the games responsibility.

Secondly, You will have been killing creatures/people and have experienced your character dying for quite some time before getting to the marionette stage so you can’t honestly say people weren’t prepared for it or wouldn’t have known what this game might include at this point.

If kids really get upset about it. Suggest games like the Myst series. They’re really good puzzle games that are also challenging intellectually without any violence. Most games will include some sort of death or failure situation so I honestly don’t understand how this is a sudden big surprise/issue. I think it’s important that children are taught to be okay with failing as reality is that nobody can always be perfect at everything and everything has consequences that require people to take responsibility for their mistakes.

Furthermore, Arenanet is an AMERICAN company and a lot of American movies and horrors and games are extremely violent. You cannot honestly say that violence and gore is an European thing because American media is just as bad for it (I mean, you’re even fine with people owning guns in real life… if you don’t teach your kids the severity of death and killing and distinguishing it from games/movies/media than how can they possibly learn to understand the seriousness of guns).

Guild Wars 2 is quite suitable for 12 year olds. They will have seen much worse in other places or heard/seen from friends. Again this is up to the parents, the rating system just sets a guideline for parents to follow. Whatever you feel is suitable is best but it all comes down to you, it’s your responsibility to research these things and set boundaries.

If there really are kids who gotten upset about a giant robot/ufo killing their pixel character in a virtual world than their parents must have done something really wrong in teaching their kids on how to distinguish reality to games. This just sounds like a parenting problem not a game problem.

First let me say that I love the story in guild wars more then anyother mmo. it has a great amount of stupidity and seriousness.

You have short plots, like Ho-Ho-tron, that pop up once in a while, and you have longer, multi-episode plots that i still have no clue whats going on, and I love that, its very LOST-ish. Thats what i used to love about TV until it started treating me like an idiot.

Infact thats one of the reason i love Marjory’s and Kasmeer’s story line, it started very subtley, as a lot of GW2 plots do.

Guild Wars 2 is very well written, but one of the problems I have, as stated, is that it depends a lot on how much you interact with the charactures.

Such as, I find Scarlet very unrelatable, I think they are trying to fix that this update, but the only real time you ever get to see her is when she says her monolouge before she kills you. Not a lot of time for characture building.

My answer is based on personal experience with the American military. I’m familiar enough with the culture which is very different from civilian US life. I come from a military family. I myself (a woman BTW) was in Army JROTC with intentions going to Westpoint until an accident during my junior year in high school. My father served in the Navy during Vietnam. My grandfather served in the Army during WW2. The rest of my male ancestors in my dad’s lineage served in the military. The officier / assistant relationship that was illustrated in the video link I showed you doesn’t exist in the US military. If you had watched the video, the people in the documentary did state the Officier / Assistant military relationship is purely British. I hate to break this to you, but there really are some cultural differences between Americans and Brits.

And irrelevant to the matter at hand. In the case of this game, Trehearn is the Supreme Allied Commander, and the player character is his most trusted go-to field commander. There is nothing at all unusual or “British” about that from a narrative perspective. Trehearn was Eisenhower, the player is Patton.

Plus military folks in the US earn their ranks via hard work or by graduating from a military college like Westpoint. Americans don’t gain ranks because of their lineage or because their parents are important. Well-known, powerful military families often send their kids to military college so they can succeed their predecessors. John McCain is a good example of this.

If I’m supposed to see Trahearne as a Grand Marshal, he has to earn the position. BTW, my main character is a Sylvari, and during the course of the Sylvari PS, Trahearne never earned his position. There is no set of quests to indicate that he has earned his ranks. Mommy just gave the sword and the position to him. That just doesn’t fly where I live.

Again, not relevant. This is not an established national military with established rules, if we waited for people to “rise from the ranks” it’d take decades for anyone to be qualified. This is an ad hoc alliance of multiple armies, the person put on top of it was someone they agreed could pull it off. Btw, the supreme commander of the US Military is the President, the Commander in Chief, who is a civilian that in many cases has had zero military service prior to that role, so the idea of having a civilian in Trehearns role is extremely “American,” if we’re going to be putting such labels on things.

And btw, Trehearn was given his sword and suggested for the role by the Pale Tree, but nobody else was obligated to go along with him. He had to earn the respect of the three Orders to command them, and he managed that. Perhaps he didn’t earn your respect, but they felt he was best capable of directing their efforts.

And you’re welcome to not like Trehearn or his role in the story, as you note, you’re in good company, I was only objecting to the ridiculousness of you trying to wrap your distaste for it in some banner of it being “foreign” in some way, rather than just standing on the grounds that it was something you personally did not enjoy.

Continued. . .

The current problem with the Scarlet Briar storyline is very similar and make the problem extremely obvious: they plop the PCs in a situation and expect us to know what is going on. That idea works in French art films (which my instructors have had me watch for homework), but those films are niche films that are understood by art buff. [b]When it comes to story, audience members like me have to be given a reason to care, and we have to relate to the situation. In regards to GW2, I ask:

Again with the “it’s bad because it’s foreign,” when in fact all the writers involved are American, working for an American company, for a primarily American audience. I just don’t get it. Plenty of American films use “in media res” too, it’s not a foreign concept just because the films your teacher picked out happened to be French.

—What causes my character to get involved in the LW story? Answering this question will identify the catalyst of the story.
—The villain has to prove they’re frightening too. We have to slowly discover the villain’s motivation and goals over the course of the story.
— And why should my hero fight the villain?
—What is my hero’s motivation to fight?
—What are the stakes?

-Your character becomes involved in the LW story by recieving a letter in the mail from a friend that says that there’s some bad news going on. YOU choose to do something about that (or not, up to you).
-That has been done. The villain in this case has caused a lot of damage all over Tyria.
-Because you don’t want the villain to succeed, presumably, but your motivations are up to you. Maybe you don’t care about the moral stakes and just want the fat loot (mercenary).
-Stakes are pretty tricky to do in an MMO, but the presumption is that if you don’t fight back, the villain “gets away with it.” If you, or someone else, failed to enter the Jubilee, then Feron would have stayed kidnapped. If you (or someone else) failed to shut down the Nightmare tower, then it would have poisoned the entire world. They can’t break up a persistent world so that if you do fail to prevent her then you live in a world where she succeeded in each stage, but they do present the case that the world would be a different place if she succeeds at any given step.

The Japanese devs take time to explain new concepts by showing them in their games. Final Fantasy 6 is a really good example of this. When the game came out in the US (under the name of FF3 btw), the concept of a villain defeating the heroes and becoming a god was very new to Americans. Not only that, the villain, Kefka, separates the heroes and sends them to different parts of the globe. Of course, the heroes eventually make a comeback and pulverize the psychopath’s godly @___.

Also keep in mind that 80% of Americans are Christians, and in the Christian worldview, the idea of an evil person becoming a god is impossible.

Not really. American superhero comics had told similar stories in the past. Characters like Doctor Doom and Red Skull had been raised to become gods in the past, under similar circumstances. It’s not particularly shocking to the Christian mindset, they understand that “a” god is not the same as The God, and only the more fundamentalist types get upset about that idea in a work of fiction.

Ideally, I want to have my hero discover Scarlet’s background by starting from the beginning of Scarlet’s story (before she becomes evil) and then run through the previous events when she starts causing chaos. Telling me her story via blogs and in-game scholar characters isn’t the way to introduce any character.

You’re playing in a persistent online world. It isn’t, and shouldn’t be about you. You’re joining the story in progress, and you have to catch yourself up on what you missed, rather than them pretending you didn’t miss a thing. You joined WWII in 1943, don’t expect that you should have to have participated in Pearl Harbor or the Blitz to give you motivation, those things happened, but they happened before you were personally involved, and you need to accept that and move forward.

You have never, ever seen either movie I mentioned??? Why are you commenting on the films if you’ve never seen them?

Because you were complaining that the foreign film had excessively objectionable content, something an American film is not likely to do, well I’ve seen plenty of American films with plenty of objectionable content, it’s not a “for’ner” thing.

BTW, US remakes of foreign films don’t count. I was only referring to the original version of Funny Games to make my point.

And I was pointing out that the point you were making was an invalid one.

I’ve actually never really been bothered about scarlets’ character/motivations as she was obviously awaiting a reveal of some sort. In her secret lair, the reveal has started and i’m pretty stoked as to how it will pan out.

Someone in the thread keeps saying that u can port to lornar’s pass 5 mins before the event starts and you’ll be fine; well i can categorically state that if you try that on Gandara you will be in an overflow which will most likely fail. On Gandara, you have to be on the map at least 30-40 mins before the countdown or you won’t make it unless some poor sod disconnects. I suspect it’s like this for all high-pop servers which defeat the marionette as a matter of course.

When i’ve done the marionette once, i will just stay on the map to get more achievements until i’m out of time for the night or done. Then i’ll likely do it once a day for the loot chest.

This means i do my daily, jp’s, etc before the marionette to get them out of the way because i know Mari will eat the rest of my evening. Again i ask- is this really what Anet wants from it’s players?

idk, I think wurm needs tweaking but I think Marionette is pretty decent as it is. My only regret is that it’s temporary.

That and I kind think you should improve the loot a bit. I think I get more from tequatl atm. Maybe I’m just having bad luck though….

Funky.4861:

I’ve actually never really been bothered about scarlets’ character/motivations as she was obviously awaiting a reveal of some sort. In her secret lair, the reveal has started and i’m pretty stoked as to how it will pan out.

Someone in the thread keeps saying that u can port to lornar’s pass 5 mins before the event starts and you’ll be fine; well i can categorically state that if you try that on Gandara you will be in an overflow which will most likely fail. On Gandara, you have to be on the map at least 30-40 mins before the countdown or you won’t make it unless some poor sod disconnects. I suspect it’s like this for all high-pop servers which defeat the marionette as a matter of course.

When i’ve done the marionette once, i will just stay on the map to get more achievements until i’m out of time for the night or done. Then i’ll likely do it once a day for the loot chest.

This means i do my daily, jp’s, etc before the marionette to get them out of the way because i know Mari will eat the rest of my evening. Again i ask- is this really what Anet wants from it’s players?

Im not saying you can get into main server easily with 5 min before events, im saying you can get into an overflow, which seems to have just as much chance to succeed as the main. Overflows come from all servers, so it doesnt matter if your main is gandara or it aspenwood, could end up in same overflow.

Im not saying you can get into main server easily with 5 min before events, im saying you can get into an overflow, which seems to have just as much chance to succeed as the main. Overflows come from all servers, so it doesnt matter if your main is gandara or it aspenwood, could end up in same overflow

And I can say that this is patently untrue, as I’ve participated in the event about 7-8 times now, and in every time my team has gotten on stage we’ve killed the warden (except once), and yet I’ve never been part of a run that got further than two cut strings. It failed CONSTANTLY on overflows.

The problem with the Marionette, is that 1 guy can ruin it for everyone. When your party defeats its warden, the walls should go down letting you fight the ones next to you.

Also the camera sucks, as usual.

If ArenaNet is going to keep releasing content like this, they need to add an expanded party option that can include everyone in the zone. This would be so much easier if there was something like WoW’s old raiding system where you have multiple parties in a raid allowing you to organize very easily. Just being able to say “Groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 go crimson. Groups 5,6,7,8 go Amber, ect. ect.” would make this so much more accessible and less frustrating. Just an easy way of counting and organizing the zerg rather currently counting manually, and shouting what lane needs more and hoping a few people pop over would make a world if difference.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t a commander form a squad that functions exactly like that? So all you have to do is find a commander for each lane/wurm and have them keep track of their own group. That’s how this is supposed to work, anyway, so I don’t really understand this particular complaint.

Ohoni.6057:

Im not saying you can get into main server easily with 5 min before events, im saying you can get into an overflow, which seems to have just as much chance to succeed as the main. Overflows come from all servers, so it doesnt matter if your main is gandara or it aspenwood, could end up in same overflow

And I can say that this is patently untrue, as I’ve participated in the event about 7-8 times now, and in every time my team has gotten on stage we’ve killed the warden (except once), and yet I’ve never been part of a run that got further than two cut strings. It failed CONSTANTLY on overflows.

yeah, they fail on the main servers as well. I dont seem to get much farther on main than overflow, but maybe just me

Red Queen.7915:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t a commander form a squad that functions exactly like that? So all you have to do is find a commander for each lane/wurm and have them keep track of their own group. That’s how this is supposed to work, anyway, so I don’t really understand this particular complaint.

Trust me, the organization and team composition of the commander and squad system is extremely lacking compared to what you see with other MMOs and what this game is asking from its players.

I’m still not sure what exactly you think needs changing. We have parties of five and commanders to organise up to ten of those parties, often via teamspeak, and it works. Not always and sometimes not for a while, but it works. I don’t get how that’s so vastly different from WoW’s system.

“Raid groups are a way to have parties of more than 5 and up to 40 people, divided into up to 8 groups of up to 5 players.”
This is exactly the same thing, isn’kitten I don’t see how you would want to change this.

Edit: Really? “isn’t # it” gets censored because it looks like another word for breast? That’s… I don’t even… oO