Guild Wars 2

After all this years there are still a few questions i need answer to, to get at peace with GW2 (one of them i even asked the PR-Department per e-mail, and never got an answer):

- After the Death of the Great Destroyer Ogden said something like: “…..This is an other story, of the children of the heroes…”, but yet only the other races (beside the Shylvari who weren´t there) have Monuments of their great heroes (Jora, Vekk/Oola, Pyre…) and in Divinity Reach their is nothing Remembering the Fulfilling of the Flameseeker-Prophecy and the victory over the White mantle or the defeat of Abbadon (beside the Stature of Kormir) but the Queen get worshiped like a Half-God. and so we come to the second part of this Question: IF there IS ANY connection between the heroes of the old and the new ones WHY:
+ the human ones are either just: low Nobles /normal peasants/beggars while the
grand grand grand son of GWEN is the commander of the Queens personal
guard (and quite high in nobility)
+ the Charr ones getting discriminated by some low crew chief
(now the more logical once)
+ the Norn and/or Asura ones never hear a comparison with their ancestors

- (the question that was never answered) why the profession of monk simply perished but their skills got scattered across 2 or 3 other professions (and the turnback of the gods is a pretty week excuse since this skills still work, and their are people like this specific Priestess of Grenth who can still summon Spirits from the Underworld by calling out his name) (same is for some Paragon or Assassin skills who made their way into the new class-system despite the fact that the connection with Elona and Cantha has been lost)

- and Yeah, that makes a good additional question: why even have the gods abandoned humanity after they ensured close to the end of Nightfall that they will be always around as their “compassion/Strength/Justice/Inspiration/harmony” AND creating a new goddess

In Guild Wars 2 it isn’t required for your character to be related to anyone from the past, this leaves you open to create whatever kind of back story you want based on your character choices. Like how my human noble is related to my main Guild Wars character and my Sylvari was inspired by his actions through the dream.

The monk, for the most part, seems to have morphed, along with other professions, into the Guardian. There is still a lot of questions with how this happened, but magic has changed a lot over the past few centuries, and there is more ambient magic than Bloodstone magic in the world, this allowed things to change.

The reason that the gods left is generally understood as that they were basically acting as parents to Humanity, and trying to remove themselves to let humanity learn to walk with their own two feet. Especially when they saw the damage that their war against Abaddon caused.

well even this makes sense in order to the hero it just sets the end of EOTN as false statement and it is still not explained why humanity doesnt honor their greatest heroes as the other races do (and yeah i know they cant place a stature of some character but as i said, something that reminds about Flameseeker and such)

On ancestry- my great-great-great-great-add a few more greats grandmother was a president’s aunt. That fact has… just about zero significance to my life. It’s not even something I’d know about if my grand-uncle weren’t a genealogy buff. The status of an ancestor even a hundred years back, let along two hundred and fifty, very rarely carries down unless there’s a system in place to ensure it- say, the nobility, which our GW1 characters were never indicated to be part of.

Even Logan Thackery didn’t get any favors from his ancestry except the family name. Yes, the man the the foremost Captain of the Seraph now, but he was a mercenary and a gladiator before that, and he is very much not a noble. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right skillset, and Gwen had nothing to do with that.

I agree that ANet probably went too far in not recognizing our deeds from GW1, but it’s not exactly a plot hole. Humans were never statue-builders the way charr and norn are, and Ascalon had more important things on their mind than our deeds. The only thing we did that would get us a monument in Kryta is help win their civil war… but there are no monuments to the Krytan Civil War, not even for NPCs. They were given a private graveyard, and the leaders have things named after them, but we weren’t a leader and they can’t put our name on a tombstone.

On the monk- we had this explained to us in interviews before release. It’s been a long time, but from what I remember, the profession became unpopular for two reasons:
-The gods stopped answering prayers. Yes, their spells still worked, but this was a profession that defined itself by its relation to the gods, to the point where they called those spells prayers instead of magic. The power was still there, but the identity was broken.
-Other professions developed their own more potent means of healing, rendering monks less useful. Being able to heal others really well doesn’t count for much when the others don’t need healing.
That left monks without their religious identity, with their value in protective and smiting magic… in other words, guardians.

On the gods- we’re not likely to get an answer to that, because saying what the gods have been doing these last couple hundred years would be a major spoiler to any potential storylines that would bring them back into GW2, and lock them into an answer years before they need to be. That said, we have been given plenty of hints in interviews, and Narcemus summed them up nicely. The devs suggest that the gods were doing more harm than good, so they wanted humans to learn to get by without them.

- yeah that makes total sense, that a Staff mage now (+ Stormcaller elite) heals with Water insane amounts and still are able to deal 3 times as much damage (by switching to fire or earth while water is on cd) as a full heal guardian (who uses “holylight”-magic what is the closest to monk magic) (my mage even has more Armor by the same armor stats and the same Trinkets) or Rangers who are “survival experts” and “loners” now group heal and the guardian (with his/hers “skills of light” skill set and Defender image) became a cowardly trapper with HoT

- so they gods dont answers the Prayers? i hinted on the example of this one Priestess of Grenth who can help you twice (dependent on witch decisions you make) by praying to Grenth to summon some spirits – either this is terrible planed and a horrible paradox, or one side is lying

- well and to grand grand … mother/father influence on our life .. i guess you didnt really understood the feudal-system: IT WORKS THAT WAY, i mean as INGAME examples: – you set Salma on the throne of Kyrtha because her ancestors were kings 250 years ago or something (so Queen Jenna bases her rule on a around 800-1000 years old bloodline)
- the emperor of Cantha has an even older bloodline (as i remember it right)

so Thakery is still a noble and WHY shouldn´t Salma made our Characters nobles after their years as Adventures – for their deeds to all of Tyria (and makeing her Queen (in revolutions it often gone this way))

There’s an entire Hall of Monuments about our deeds. It’s missing its statues (looted?) and forgotten by the outside world, but everybody’s been kind of busy. Also, we were far from the only human saving humanity in the GW1 stories. We were an Ascalonian refugee, which people were absorbed into Kryta or turned into ghosts; or we were Canthan, which country is behind an iron curtain; or we were Elonian, and THAT country is on smart zombie lockdown. ALSO also, in practical terms, it’s hard to write lore venerating an ancient hero without… you know, mentioning their name. Ever.

Jora is remembered because renown for great deeds is a pillar of norn society. Also Svanir’s legacy is still causing trouble, so the memory of the one who put him down with extreme prejudice stays fresh as well.

Pyre is remembered because he started The Revolution, and because his daughter finished it.

Vekk is remembered somewhat, but asura are all about the next big thing; they don’t look back much. Makes sense when your entire biome is now magma and you have to survive in a blinding alien hellscape.

well about the monuments: in cantha their is the Tanakai Temple, dedicated to the greatest heroes of the nation and once i heard/read that the hero of GW2 inherit the hall of monuments from their precestors so who loots it, and why we can still entzer it without Jormag noticing it (it is in his part of Tyria)

one the one side it is correct, we not alone saved humanity, but likewise Tyria: we acsented, Destroyed the Mursaat and the Lich. and the Entire World : We delved into the realm of Torment and Faced Abbadon alone with a blind Ex-Spearmarshall (who got godhood for causing that crap) —- Were there any other humans to help us? i think not

oh and i forgot to mention: Were the Shining Blades able to defeat the highest ranking officers of the white mantle were they a match for the Mursaat? We know the answer: NO (and i hope you remember how they cut trough the npc Defenses in the Battle for Lionsarch). and if you speek to Salma afterwards she says: Kryta and I will be for ever grateful for what you did = They own us a dept that cant be repaid.

undercover.9657:

- well and to grand grand … mother/father influence on our life .. i guess you didnt really understood the feudal-system: IT WORKS THAT WAY, i mean as INGAME examples: – you set Salma on the throne of Kyrtha because her ancestors were kings 250 years ago or something (so Queen Jenna bases her rule on a around 800-1000 years old bloodline)
- the emperor of Cantha has an even older bloodline (as i remember it right)

so Thakery is still a noble and WHY shouldn´t Salma made our Characters nobles after their years as Adventures – for their deeds to all of Tyria (and makeing her Queen (in revolutions it often gone this way))

Did Gwen become a noble? I don’t know about that. Aside from the royals, there wasn’t really a noble court back in the original GW, either in Ascalon or Kryta. It was probably a recent development, so not necessarily around for Salma to award people. Also, present-day Kryta doesn’t necessarily work the same way as it did in Earth’s past. I don’t remember any noble claiming they were better because they had the blood of the gods running through their veins, or any similar claim.

As for your other issues – which I might not even be interpreting correctly – you have to accept that things changed over the years. Some professions died off or changed. There might still be monks out there, but they aren’t a common profession like they were back in the day. They weren’t the only profession to change dramatically in the 2 century gap. As you pointed out, rangers have rediscovered druidism and can use healing magic and staves; mesmers use clones now, instead of hexes and enchantments and a ton of interrupts; necromancers can summon minions without a fresh body lying around, and can enter a shade mode. Guardian-style magic is the main inheritor of the monk legacy, and unchained to religion so the other professions can also use them.

Gwen was already a noble befor the Charr taken her

And where exactly did you come to that conclusion? She seemed like a common village girl in Ashford, and I don’t remember her mother being a noble, either.

And the reason i just can “accept” it is: I just started to play GW again and released even more what GW2 is: It is a BETRAYAL on the idea of GW so many refuse to see: The Skill system is plain, uninspired, and casual friendly easy. The “Yeah you dont have to wait for a Healer anymore” *
is a Nobel cause but in long term a pretty bad idea. GW is EVERYTHING about teamwork, if you started in proph you came not even 2 meters out of Ascalon with out a group (after Tut). But in GW2 u have a bounch of Egomaniacs: they see you struggle with 2-3 enemies above what u can handle and it would take them 20 sec of their time to help you out but no, they run their way – where we at the next point. GW2 wanted to do EVERYTHING different from other MMOs but now you can fight alone 4-5 enemies alone sometimes even bosses like in every common MMO and is in many points just an other Asia Grinder.

• a great idea would have been to SOFTEN the class roles: Like Warrior or Paragon are already in GW:

if you take the impact of a class in a chart of 100%:
a warrior is basically 80% tank and 20% Damage: if u change his Build you can make him 100% tank or quit a capable Damage dealer witrh 40-50% Tank and 50% damage, but you CANT take away his tankyness (in GW2 you are either Tank OR Damage dealer (something in between is considered useless) so the diversity is even lesser as in GW)

A Paragon is around 70% Control/support, 20% Tank and 10% dmg:
You can change him to 50% dmg, 20% tank and 30% control/support (but you cant take it away because his/her concept is based on it)

the same you could do with a Ranger who is around 75% Damage and 25% Sustain (beeing able to survive thinks other DPS classes dont survive):
so we could have got the possibility given in our hands to change it to somewhat: 30% Dmg, 50% sustain (so he/she can take the place of the tank for a short time or the dmg is good enough) and 20% control/support.

Mesmer: is around 60-80% pure control and 20-40% dmg dependable from the build: now with the illusions we would have a great way to change the setup of this class in following way: 30-40% control, 20% dmg and 40% sustain – but that comes from the CONTROL ability to, because with the illusions you distract the enemies from you and your team.

the assassin who is 70-80% damage and trough his/her capability to burst casters (and interrupt) 20-30% control (or full tank with Shadow form): now we could have get the possibility to change it to 40-50% , 20-30% control and 20-40% sustain (to survive even if you are get blown of your hide or need to replace the tank

and as last example the Elementalist: basiclly between 90-100 seen for its damage and 10% crowd control and here GW2 made a quiet good job so he/she is (in my eyes) way stronger as the most other classes (in PvE encounters) (since i was able to do the Priests on the Gods statues or the asura legendary in this big statue the Grawl worshiping in the shiverpeaks, alone on full heal): you can change it how the hell you want between sustain+support/heal, Support/heal+control, sustain+control but you cant take its damage away because it is what define this class

(but this turned away from the original topic)

all in all im Not saying GW2 is a bad Game but there are so many Ideas guided it away from what made GW1 already pretty Unique that it only shares the world with the old GW and isnt really a worthy successor.

how i come to that conclusion? you looked at her Cloth? and yeah there are so many common children who you get ORDERED to care about and fullfilling her wishes 3-5 named NPC´s surly care about a Common Village girl

As you said, your rant seems to have turned away from lore issues and become more of an issue with the gameplay mechanics. While I don’t have a problem with that, perhaps your post would be better in General Discussion folder instead of here. I don’t mind that you don’t like the dramatic change in style, as a lot of things were revamped from 1 to 2, This just isn’t where such things should go…

Got any other lore questions, or is it all out of your system now?

well my basic questions aren´t entirely answered by now (beside the topic of monk/spell style change what may need to be continued somewhere else) because for me the arguments still aren´t free of arguments you can set against

undercover.9657:

- so they gods dont answers the Prayers? i hinted on the example of this one Priestess of Grenth who can help you twice (dependent on witch decisions you make) by praying to Grenth to summon some spirits – either this is terrible planed and a horrible paradox, or one side is lying

I’m with you on this one. There does seem to be a bit of a contradiction between the devs saying the gods have been quiet for 250 years on one hand, and what Priestess Rhie and the racial elites can do on the other. There are possible explanations (maybe the gods only grant blessings now, instead of sending an avatar you could chat with like in GW1, or maybe they only aid the high priests and greatest heroes and ignore everyone else, or maybe what Rhie and our characters can do doesn’t come from the gods at all), but in the end it feels like us trying to fill in a gap that shouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t mind a more direct dev response on this.

- well and to grand grand … mother/father influence on our life .. i guess you didnt really understood the feudal-system: IT WORKS THAT WAY, i mean as INGAME examples: – you set Salma on the throne of Kyrtha because her ancestors were kings 250 years ago or something (so Queen Jenna bases her rule on a around 800-1000 years old bloodline)

Right. That’s how it works… for nobles. There’s nothing specifying that our characters were nobles, either before or after the events of the game.

so Thakery is still a noble and WHY shouldn´t Salma made our Characters nobles after their years as Adventures – for their deeds to all of Tyria (and makeing her Queen (in revolutions it often gone this way))

As Rognik already pointed out, Logan isn’t a noble, and Gwen wasn’t a noble. She says her father was a warrior and adventurer, and we actually meet her mother, Sarah; she’s the village healer for Ashford. I don’t know what you mean about the clothes- they seem colorful, but not particularly fancy- and I don’t remember any orders to help her… we just give her a hand and let her tag along with us because she’s a nice kid.

There’s no reason that our GW1 characters shouldn’t have been made a noble by Salma, and in fact I know that several people roleplay just that. ANet left it open, though, so we can decide for ourselves what happened, and I’m grateful for that. None of my Tyrian characters would’ve been happy as nobles. If yours would have been, who says their descendants aren’t important? Maybe the branch that the GW2 character comes from is only a ‘lesser’ noble in the Salma District, but 250 years is a long time for branching out. Maybe the main line of descent gave us Caudecus Beetlestone, second only to the Queen. Maybe one of their descendants even married into the royal line, and Jennah has a little bit of your GW1 hero’s blood. I just don’t see why they would mention it.

The bottom line of your complaint, though, seems to be that GW2 was made to be a different game than GW1- and that’s true. You also seem to like GW1 better, and there’s nothing wrong with that. GW1 had a darker atmosphere and, imo, more interesting background lore and cultures. It also, ironically, had a more personal story. GW2 is explicitly more lighthearted and optimistic, with a stronger together theme to the plot, allies who are valued more for their quirks than their capabilities, and a story that has us reacting to events we observe more often than pursuing our own goals. If that’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine… just remember that ANet was trying to do something different, not just do GW1 over again with fancier graphics, and many people do like what they’ve accomplished here.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

undercover.9657:

- so they gods dont answers the Prayers? i hinted on the example of this one Priestess of Grenth who can help you twice (dependent on witch decisions you make) by praying to Grenth to summon some spirits – either this is terrible planed and a horrible paradox, or one side is lying

I’m with you on this one. There does seem to be a bit of a contradiction between the devs saying the gods have been quiet for 250 years on one hand, and what Priestess Rhie and the racial elites can do on the other. There are possible explanations (maybe the gods only grant blessings now, instead of sending an avatar you could chat with like in GW1, or maybe they only aid the high priests and greatest heroes and ignore everyone else, or maybe what Rhie and our characters can do doesn’t come from the gods at all), but in the end it feels like us trying to fill in a gap that shouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t mind a more direct dev response on this.

Now that I have a specific name, I can track down the character in question. The dialogue from her first instance specifically says that she’s using a ritual. A ritual, I should note, is not exactly a direct request from the gods, more like a more complicated spell. I wouldn’t count rituals as a request of the Six, unless it was specifically to summon one of the avatars. As such, we can maintain the claim that the Six haven’t directly interacted with humans since around the time of Nightfall, give or take a couple years.

undercover.9657:

well even this makes sense in order to the hero it just sets the end of EOTN as false statement and it is still not explained why humanity doesnt honor their greatest heroes as the other races do (and yeah i know they cant place a stature of some character but as i said, something that reminds about Flameseeker and such)

You’e taking the line to be literal when it’s figurative.

All Ogden is really saying is that the Elder Dragon threat will be faced by the next generation(s) of heroes, rather than the heroes of GW1 or their literal children.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

On the monk- we had this explained to us in interviews before release. It’s been a long time, but from what I remember, the profession became unpopular for two reasons:
-The gods stopped answering prayers. Yes, their spells still worked, but this was a profession that defined itself by its relation to the gods, to the point where they called those spells prayers instead of magic. The power was still there, but the identity was broken.
-Other professions developed their own more potent means of healing, rendering monks less useful. Being able to heal others really well doesn’t count for much when the others don’t need healing.
That left monks without their religious identity, with their value in protective and smiting magic… in other words, guardians.

There was one interview that gave a little bit more detail, but we haven’t been able to find it again since release.

Basically, another part of the story was that monks were increasingly realising they were particularly vulnerable to being targeted first, so they started looking into being able to better defend themselves – including wearing heavier armour, more offensive use of magic, and training with martial weapons. Around this time, Paragons were arriving as refugees from Elona (this bit may have been retconned, since the time of Joko’s conquest has changed) – there weren’t enough to establish a new Paragon tradition in Tyria, but there were enough to teach some elements of their fighting styles to the monks. The two professions merged into guardians.

Why, exactly, that resulted in a loss of healing magic hasn’t really been explained. I have some hypotheses, but they’re just speculation.

draxynnic.3719:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

On the monk- we had this explained to us in interviews before release. It’s been a long time, but from what I remember, the profession became unpopular for two reasons:
-The gods stopped answering prayers. Yes, their spells still worked, but this was a profession that defined itself by its relation to the gods, to the point where they called those spells prayers instead of magic. The power was still there, but the identity was broken.
-Other professions developed their own more potent means of healing, rendering monks less useful. Being able to heal others really well doesn’t count for much when the others don’t need healing.
That left monks without their religious identity, with their value in protective and smiting magic… in other words, guardians.

There was one interview that gave a little bit more detail, but we haven’t been able to find it again since release.

Basically, another part of the story was that monks were increasingly realising they were particularly vulnerable to being targeted first, so they started looking into being able to better defend themselves – including wearing heavier armour, more offensive use of magic, and training with martial weapons. Around this time, Paragons were arriving as refugees from Elona (this bit may have been retconned, since the time of Joko’s conquest has changed) – there weren’t enough to establish a new Paragon tradition in Tyria, but there were enough to teach some elements of their fighting styles to the monks. The two professions merged into guardians.

Why, exactly, that resulted in a loss of healing magic hasn’t really been explained. I have some hypotheses, but they’re just speculation.

thank you, that comes finally closer to a real explanation. but i thought about it, and in its core the discussion about the classes IS Lore relevant: so Guardian, Warrior and Revenant wearing heavy armor and still there are Setups (fullzerk) making them even more Squishy as Monk ever was (pointing on Guardian) and on the other side a Elementist or Necromancer can become as Tanky as a heavy armor user WITHOUT even useing skills (with Spells this makes perfect sence (Obsidianflesh etc for Mage or Dark Bound on the Minion M;aster) that is a point that makes logical and Loretechnical not really sense, ands thats what i wanted to point out in the long post that, in its details is to much for here as i admited, but the basic is relevant because it shows that the most classes got ripped their heart and soul out to imply a pseudo flexibility – and as said with the “freedom” from beeing depended from a healer … u never was in GW —> thanks to the Secondary class – give me 1 hour and i build you 3 working ways to master every PvE content (beside GoA, uw or Fissur) with no classes playing its intented role

Well, there were significant differences in durability within GW1 professions as well based on equipment. ‘Full glass’ in GW2 might well be the equivalent of loading up on Superior runes and Radiant insignia in GW1 (not that anyone except 55 monks did that). Having a higher base armour is an advantage, but not a guarantee of being stronger if you have glassy modifiers and somebody with ostensibly lighter armour has tankier modifiers.

well i play EVERY class, beside Warrior and Derwish, with 2 Superior runes, still im not glass because is still have close to 500 HP so that is not a real comprehension

I don’t see how you can do that unless you’re counting Superior Vigor as one of the two (should be obvious from the context that I didn’t?) or you’ve loaded up on a lot of Vitae runes to compensate. Or you’re running around in Norn territory. Or you’re using skills to pump it up.

Base health for a level 20 GW1 character is 480. A superior rune of vigor will make that 530. Slapping in two superiors will cut that down to 380… a 30% reduction.

Now, the way armour worked in GW1 was that every 40 points would cut your damage in half. So let’s imagine a cloth profession running Stalwart’s insignia and no superior runes (apart from Vigor) versus a hammer warrior running, say, Superior Strength and a superior weapon mastery rune. The clothie has 40% more hit points than the Warrior. They have 20 less elemental armor rating than the Warrior (60 versus 80), which works out to about 40% more damage, and 30 less physical armour rating (70 versus 100), which means they take about 70% more damage (figures here.) So far, the clothie is still squishier than the warrior. But let’s imagine that the warrior puts in a superior Tactics rune as well… now the warrior has 310 health, and the clothie has 70% more health than the warrior. The clothie is now tankier than the warrior.

Of course, nobody would do that, because making yourself that squishy as a warrior will get you killed really quickly in GW1 where professions have expected roles and the expected role of the warrior is in melee. However, the warrior isn’t alone in this – if we made the same calculations with a dervish instead, the dervish starts looking very squishy very quickly.

Plus, a significant portion of durability stats comes from profession even in GW2. It takes a lot for the elementalist to achieve the same health and armour that warrior gets in berserkers. It may not even be possible – I’m not sure, I haven’t run the numbers or done the tests.