Showing Posts For GummiArms.5368:
My point is that Trahearne is entrusted with EVERYTHING, while the player is told to help him out. Again, a usurpation of the quest the player has been working toward the entire storyline up until Trahearne came along.
What quest would that be?
There wasn’t one (Unless Sylvari where your wyld hunt is to go after the dragons). Before that point, you went from being another person, to joining the order and helping them and other races out.
There wasn’t a clear epic quest going on, not until the Pact formed and it was clear that we would march on Orr.
Perhaps not explicitly stated, but if you read into the interactions with your mentor from Destiny’s edge, or your the order leaders or various other NPC’s throughout the storyline, it is clear that you are being prepared for an eventual showdown with the elder dragons. I will concede that some paths make this more apparent than others, and it is handled with a degree of subtlety, so that thread could be lost.
Nevertheless, this is how a great many of the players will view the situation, this is a big cause for the hostility directed at Trahearne.
Here is my anecdote for the post: Let’s say you’re playing some zelda game. You’ve beaten the first set of dungeons, and gotten the three pendants you need to unlock the Master Sword. Things are getting serious now. You go the temple of time or wherever, pull out the sword. Then Zelda appears, and she explains that there has been a terrible mistake and you are not meant to be the hero to fight Ganondorf. Instead, she has you hand the Master Sword over to a random skull kid, he is the one that has to defeat Ganondorf, but if you want you are free to tag along. How would you feel? Some people might not care, but not everyone is going to want to roll with that.
I just don’t understand why now looks can be transmutable only and stats no more.
Before you had to have two complete items to transfer skins and the side effect meant you had to choose which of the two items stats and upgrades you wanted to keep. This also meant you could “salvage” upgrades off of unsalvageable items. I’m going to assume that this was unintended and a fix would either be too time consuming to do or since they knew they were revamping the whole skinning system, a waste of manpower.
I’m going to also assume that this “loss” is entirely intentional. They always wanted a pure skinning system. That the preservation of upgrades was just something that happened by accident or that they soon realized was a mistake and needed it to be fixed. So instead of removing it immediately, they waited until there was a change in the skinning system to remove it.
This.
Using a few uses of your Black Lion kit is not a huge sacrifice if it means preserving an expensive and powerful rune set.
You’ll definitely want to go after a good set of exotics as your first priority. Buy what you can, craft what you can’t. Orr Karma vendors are a good option once you hit 80, and if you have a mess of Karma to work with, but you’ll either have your stats in a mess or you’ll have to hop between the various temples to cobble together a cohesive set. crafting/buying from TP gives you more control over your stats and presents more options, but will be costly either way.
Ascended is a long term goal and can easily take months to complete a set, as well costing hundreds of gold. It is not quite on par with crafting a legendary, but it is a very involved undertaking. You will want to have your exotic set first as it has nearly the same effectiveness as ascended with a fraction of the investment. Then you can decide if you are happy with that, or if you want to go all the way.
Best, I couldn’t say. But probably Celestial/Zerker is what you will be wanting. PVT might also be a thing, not entirely sure.
If you want Celestial, you’ll probably have to go to the TP at the very least for the insignia. It makes use of quartz crystals, which the only readily available source is from special nodes in home instances for those who completed the meta in a LS event from last year. You’ll also need recipes which may not be available outside of the TP in order to craft Celestial exotics. Also a note about the quartz crystals, should you find/purchase a good number: in order to use them in recipes it is necessary to ‘charge them’ find a place of power type skill point and sacrifice 25 quartz crystals to make a single charged quartz crystal. (you’ll need 5 for each dowel/insignia) This can only be done once every day, however, so you may it more efficient to simply buy the dowels/insignias that you need, though this will be costly.
Ascended Gear is a whole new beast. Crafting the armor and weapons involves leveling your crafting to 500 in the relevant skill- which is absurdly costly. As well, you will need to amass various ascended crafting mats, as well as manufacture several more using a combination of different mats from different tiers. You will need to spend skill points for a few of the items, so make sure you have a good supply of those. Bear in mind some of the materials you will need are time gated to once a day, though they can be purchased on the TP for an arm and a leg.
Ascended trinkets are somewhat easier if you are consistent about your daily and monthly achievement challenges. There are laurel vendors that can get you the rings and trinkets, and guild commendations and some gold can get you the necklace and trinkets. Also rings and the backpiece can be acquired by running fractals of the mists. I highly suggest finding a good and active guild to run guild missions if you can, though the recent megaserver patch makes this extraordinarily difficult to coordinate.
Good luck and I hope that this information is helpful to you.
I’m going to suggest Mesmer, mostly based on your criteria.
It has good single target damage, though it suffers from a lack of aoes. It has a lot of different tools to approach situations from, in fact some of its skills are downright mean-spirited. It has access to proxies in the form of up to three illusions that you summon using various means that can easily distract mobs while dealing damage, or even be sacrificed for different effects. If you want teleports, ways to control the battlefield, you’ve got them. Be warned though, it does have something of a learning curve.
I imagine a great deal of initial planning is needed for the next LS season. Especially if they want to prove the nay-sayers wrong. Also adding in the chinese servers is a massive endeavor that is likely to take up Anet’s resources for the foreseeable future. I wouldn’t expect to hear anything until the end of the month minimum.
I’m really hoping for some new permanent zones, though. I dare say we have been waiting long enough since southsun.
Many hate him for stealing credit, which never happens.
I didn’t accuse him of stealing credit. The bias that causes this misconception has a foundation, however. Trahearne was not built up at all for 4/5 of the races. I seem to recall he had a part in the sylvari storyline, but the majority of players won’t meet him until the first claw island mission. The problem is that for these people, he pretty much comes out of nowhere and is put in charge of essentially what the player has been working toward for the past 50 levels or so. A lot of players see this as a usurpation. Basically, it boils down to them saying “He stole my quest!” Hence the accusations of credit stealing.
We really don’t know how much the actual nations put forth for the effort.
Its more a matter of politics, than contributions. All of the pact soldiers came from the various nations, even if it was as part of the three orders. Forming a military force using an array of different citizens from the different nations means that the nations will expect a degree of cooperation and control over their citizens. There should have been liasons and diplomats and tense meetings, at least some of which, as vice commander, the player would be involved in. I could see it being swept under the rug for the sake of gameplay, except that similar matters weren’t in earlier story-lines. Especially with the Asura.
I suppose the point that I was trying to make is that not only is this rarely if ever addressed, but the story would have greatly benefited from the presence of another NPC who was specifically made to be the diplomat for the pact, who had experience with and prior dealings with the various leaderships of the five races.
And then there was the child of destiny subplot, with visions from the pale tree. With everything else Trahearne is taking on, this more than anything else will push a player into asking himself “Why am I even here? I don’t really have any part in this story other than as a monkey to get things done.” This is not how the medium through the story is told (the POINT OF VIEW) should be made to feel for half the storyline.
I never felt like a lackey, considering how much praise is laid at your character. Your character shows a chunk of leadership as well, as YOUR character is the one who suggests the Pact to the orders first.
My point is that Trahearne is entrusted with EVERYTHING, while the player is told to help him out. Again, a usurpation of the quest the player has been working toward the entire storyline up until Trahearne came along.
The main character of the story needs to feel like he’s a necessary part of what makes the storyline work in order to be believable in that role. However, Trahearne does his job too well, so there really isn’t the sense that the main character is needed for events to progress properly in his own story. This is why it fails.
Trahearne is good at being the leader because he asks for advice and gets help, not natural talent. Introverted people can become strong leaders once placed into a spot to do so in real life.
This isn’t really about how Trahearne manages things, though. The problem here is that you, the player, the POV character, are not necessary for the story at that point.
(edited by GummiArms.5368)
They need to add more solo content and small team content. Things like liadri were great. Give us skill based small group fights and solo stuff. This zerg auto attack stuff is boring and pointless.
Really? The whole entirety of the rest of the game isn’t enough solo content and small team content? Yes, adding the occasional new dungeon would be good, but some people also want HUGE group content, of which there is an insignificant amount when compared to the entire rest of the game.
Ok, it’s great for farming and completing your monthly but, it’s not much fun, you just showing up and spam the 1 key, it get’s old fast.
The game went from no one doing an Event to everyone doing Events!
I just want some way to do temple events, they now seem to be open 24/7. I miss doing temple events with some pug groups!
Sorry, but doing the minimum necessary effort to complete a task is your bad, not theirs. If you find spamming the 1 key to be boring, don’t DO that. Use all your powers, treat the fight like you are the only one there and maybe it will be more fun?
What solo content huh? Aside from the boring personal story and running around maps there is no real solo content. Team content is just dungeons nothing else. EVERYTHING ELSE IS ZERG ZERG ZERG. You can’t lie. I don’t know what game you are playing but 90% of the things in this game are focused on just zerging it. World bosses zerg content, teq and wurm zerg content, wvw zerg content and some small team but even then zergs out do small teams as small teams wont matter if there are lets say 3 30 man zergs around the map, pve events turn into ppl just piling in and killing randomly.
There is nothing for those who want to test their skills on their own because there is no effin solo content. The game forces you to hold hands and mindlessly kill kitten. Liadri was the only thing ppl had to test their own skills on. I mean sure you can go try hard and solo dungeons but those don’t come down to skill most the time it just becomes how you can abuse certain things.
More content like liadri. Less content like teq/wurm. Thanks
I also would second this. Not so much the challenge aspects as much as there needs to be a solo play alternative reward-wise to simply zerging champs/world bosses or people won’t have any reason to stop.
Yeah, Dungeons offer better rewards, but honestly some people have a harder time getting groups together than others, or cooperating with other players. Even the friendliest player will simply not have anyone on to group with at times, or want to spend some time on their own for a while.
I would like to see mounts in this game, especially in light of how Megaservers have affected way-pointing. My main gripe isn’t the added cost, no its the time wasted going through multiple loading screens if I have to port more than once to get where I’m going. Add an extra minute, or even 30 seconds to traveling time, and you might miss a major event if you were already running late/not on top of things when it popped.
If people think them to be an unfair advantage, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to have some generic mount available for only a few gold. Low cost means high availability. Maybe they don’t stack with signets that grant movement speed boosts to level the playing field for those who refuse to get one. (This makes an interesting tradeoff- investing in a mount to free up a utility slot) And naturally, people will want to invest in better looking mounts given the chance. Adds another source source of revenue for the game, or another gold sink depending on how this is approached.
I feel like there was a lot of misused potential in the personal story.
Personally, I’m rather neutral about Trahearne. I don’t loathe him the way a lot of people do, but I certainly understand the reasons for which he is disliked.
My analysis is that he filled too many roles all at once, and that some were mutually exclusive. I’m fine with him being the scholar that is able to cure the blight and purify orr. He was withdrawn, cynical, and stoic, fitting of that role.
A man with those qualities does not act the charismatic leader. The role of leader and general belonged to another character. He was also the man with all the connections- somehow able to get not only all of the orders to cooperate with raising an army together, but also able to get the leaders of the five races to sign on as well. A tough task considering he is proposing building an army like none that has been ever seen and a lot of politicians would not be particularly thrilled about that. Again, this should have been another character’s role, and easily a good eight to ten missions of personal story.
And then there was the child of destiny subplot, with visions from the pale tree. With everything else Trahearne is taking on, this more than anything else will push a player into asking himself “Why am I even here? I don’t really have any part in this story other than as a monkey to get things done.” This is not how the medium through the story is told (the POINT OF VIEW) should be made to feel for half the storyline.
The main character of the story needs to feel like he’s a necessary part of what makes the storyline work in order to be believable in that role. However, Trahearne does his job too well, so there really isn’t the sense that the main character is needed for events to progress properly in his own story. This is why it fails.
Another problem: When Trahearne makes the scene, the realtionship with the PC and other NPCs becomes far less invested. While some of the previous ones from older storylines make appearances here and there, and this is appreciated, they typically have a very minor role in things. Trahearne calls in a lot of friends with whom you have limited dialogue so you don’t get to know them quite the same way as say, Tybalt, or Lord Faren. It would not be unreasonable to change some of these so that instead of having Trahearne calling in favors from every boy and his dog, the PC can suggest, “I know a guy for that.” It would go a long way toward making the player feel more invested and giving more merit to their choices of branching paths during the early parts of the story.
Also maybe wouldn’t hurt to have the PC’s “mentor” character from Destiny’s Edge make a few more appearances here and there in the personal story missions. Sure, they show up in the story mode for the various dungeons and at the very end, but for how much their guidance is played up in the early missions, they hardly ever make an appearance after you join your order.
This, for example, would be a nice touch. After Claw Island the PC is very demoralized- they just lost a close friend and at the same time they have to come to terms with their first real taste of the war against the dragons. They seek out their mentor from Destiny’s Edge hoping for guidance and a way to cope with their recent losses- only to find that the mentor has their own problems. Over the course of a mission or two, they help their mentor overcome some of his/her personal hang ups while being able to come to terms with their own. Then after that has been concluded they part ways as equals.
Simple to do, uses existing characters, works naturally with the story, and gives us insight into other characters as well as our own.
And I’ve begun to ramble…
I’d love to see a Taoist (Onmyoji) type profession. Would fit in well with Cantha lore (though Anet has been doing everything in their power to keep that region out of the game >_>) and has a lot of possibilities for their abilites
I wouldn’t mind some swimsuits. Especially if they were southsun resort compatible.
Seems silly that the fix there is to strip down to your underwear. And making the swimsuit as a tonic rather than a proper skin does make sense too.
Either way, this should be implemented.
I know a lot of people who would love this. Yes, myself included >_>
Bring the ears back!
I can kind of see what the spirit of the changes were, but I don’t believe they are productive to game play as a whole. The skill point requirement for unlocking traits seems a very strange choice, for one thing, and reducing and moving back the trait points to level 30 was excessive. You’ll only alienate new players, and you’ve done little to entice older players into staying on.
You can also expect champ trains and zergs in general to be more common, because until they hit 80 most of the player base will be far less capable, while the zergs will remain an effective way of accumulating wealth and skill points (via skill scroll drops) that will now be even more necessary. This will come at the expense of exploration, because of the increased difficulty of doing anything outside of a large group. So if you wanted to encourage players to explore and experiment, this change pretty much does exactly the opposite of what you wanted.
Let me add that the reason I and a lot of my friends picked this game up in the first place was because it was different, with the focus on exploration rather than grinding.
Definitely address the issue of the player as involved in the living story. I know some have argued that they prefer to be an uninvolved grunt, and this will likely be a divisive issue simply by virtue of the game being an MMO. However, by committing to the personal story, you have set a precedent that the character is in fact a part of the world and should be treated as such. It doesn’t matter if there are millions upon millions of other players, the simple fact is that the player character is the set of eyes through which the player sees the world. This makes them a significant character in the mind of the player.
On a related point; don’t be afraid to use your existing heroes. You have the Three Orders- powerful organizations that adding depth to could not hurt. Beyond that, you have the various races and factions throughout the world all with their own heroes and it would not be a bad thing to bring them into play. It was weird that there wasn’t more of Logan Thackeray or other Seraph investigators in the aftermath of the Clockworks fiasco. The Queen and bunch of nobles were very nearly killed in the incident, and Divnity’s Reach… hired a PI. That’s not realistic. This is the kind of thing nations go to war over. Its sort of why nations have armies in the first place.
It isn’t a bad thing for the villain factions to have to struggle and finagle their way through the existing powers that be. It makes the villain seem more realistic and allows us to relate to them, and if they really do overcome the odds it makes them seem that much more formidable. We get a sense of who they are by how they choose to overcome the opposition and how they react when seriously pressed. You miss out on that when they steamroll everything until the heroes press the self destruct button. I also agree that we needed more of Scarlet’s Lieutenants. Plenty of missed opportunities when you consider the potential of who they were, how they met Scarlet and why they chose to follow her, and what effect following her had on them. It would be good to see how their personalities would play off of each other. Would some of them bicker? Is one a prankster that gets on the nerves of the others? Do they play and joke around like old friends, or is the alliance barely held together by a common goal and constantly in danger of falling apart? This would open up potentially epic moments. Opportunities for a heartbreaking betrayal if one of the leaders is unexpectedly left to burn, or an epic moment when one of the leaders saves his comrade even though he acts like he would rather see him die in a fire. Maybe one has a starscream type moment. “Oh no, Scarlet totally accidentally died, completely by accident, I guess I’ll have to take over now!” It will make their interactions with the players that much more meaningful in the long run, and could make interactions with the npc characters more interesting.
*Spoiler/Theory* We Made Everything Worse
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: GummiArms.5368
Evidence might suggest that she planned for this eventuality and in fact plans on making the players take out the dragon.
Supposing Mordremoth’s first move is to simply follow his food source, he will naturally find the Pale Tree and no doubt set about corrupting it/regaining control of the Sylvari. However, Scarlet has effectively ‘trained’ Tyria’s defenders to be able to cope with this situation. The lessons applied in the Tower of Nightmares could easily be applied to an assault against the now dragon-controlled Pale Tree, effectively killing or severely wounding both. Further, the various boss gimmicks she throws at the player- training for attacking the dragon once he is driven from The Grove. The various factions could be seen as defeating a variety of dragon minions that would have advanced abilities and tactics- since who knows what the dragon could throw at Tyria.
Of course, that’s all just wild speculation on my part.
I also support this idea.
I agree that a boss of that caliber does need to be instanced separately from the over-world. At the very least, I can say that the inherent lack of coordination it entails is unreasonable under its current circumstances, primarily for the reasons listed above.
This makes the event very frustrating at times. It also makes exploring/completing the area a challenge since it is very likely a player will get stuck in overflow. This may not sound like a big deal, but some waypoints/pois/ and whatnot are much more difficult when certain events in their area are ongoing. In the normal server, there’s a good chance that there will be players in the area to take care of these events or be able to group up long enough to do so. In overflow, all bets are off. If the overflow is newly created because of a flood of new players camping the event, then players will have to contend with contested waypoints and events choking out key areas all the more.
If the teams plans to do similar things with all of the world bosses, I might end up sorely disappointed. Yeah, they’re an easy farm when giant zergs of players gather together, but is this level of cooperation amongst the players not something the develops wanted to achieve in the first place?
The point is that the achievement is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and you don’t miss out on any story content by not doing it or failing to complete it. Sure, maybe you have bragging rights, and maybe some players that used exploits will be able to brag about achievements they shouldn’t have had. But you can’t fault people for looking for creative solutions to difficult problems either, and I don’t foresee a situation where someone would say “if you weren’t good enough to get this one achievement then you will be kicked from the group.”
So yeah, there’s no real reason to complain about it.
I, for one, would not mind seeing new fractals thrown into the mix.
As far as temporary content goes, I enjoyed the holiday themed dungeons. The Halloween and Christmas events, for instance. They were fun, freshened things up, and while they weren’t crucial to my character’s personal story or my sense of progression in the game, I was able to walk away from those with some nifty rewards. The Halloween back-piece lasted me most of my career in the game, and I still have a candy-cane hammer and princess wand.
The problem as I see it is with the higher difficulty curb is that it sucks the fun out of the event. Suddenly, you can’t just walk in with your friends and have a fun romp. Or if your friends aren’t available and you resort to shouting for a group to take you in, you end being restricted on what you can play and how you can play it. This is unnecessarily stressful. It excludes players from the benefits of the new content.
We want to be able to explore new environments and fight enemies we haven’t been able to fight before. We don’t want to have to give up on characters we have spent hundreds of hours on and developed our own methods for dealing with situations on. What if I don’t have a Guardian or Mesmer? It would be a strain to level one to eighty in order to remain competent enough to see the new content within the time frame of nine days. For many people, the time investment it would require simply would not be realistic.
@ Esplen
I read and understood the entirety of both arguments. Perhaps he could have stated this better at the outset, but the fact is that as a matter of perspective it wouldn’t make sense for a player to see the game from the point of view of the world itself. That isn’t how the games like this one work, because that isn’t how life works. As human beings, our experiences are limited by our perception. Because the temporary content will generally lack in lasting consequences for the game world, it might as well not exist for those who don’t have the opportunity to perceive it. It may provide a break in the routine for players, but it does not cause the world of the game to grow and evolve in a measurable way.By your posts, I can see that you are reading Dog’s posts. But I don’t get the impression that you are truly understanding the thrust of his argument.
And by your post, you’re understanding his points but not mine, even after reading them.
Sure, we can’t see the game from the worlds view, but that doesn’t mean that the world won’t change because of that. In fact, the world does change. Most people are too stubborn to realize the changes that have happened ingame (every release has had some permanent change to the game, regardless how small, even Flame & Frost, and no I’m not just talking about skins).
Also, it doesn’t matter if content is permanent or temporary, it still won’t mean anything to a new player that comes in. If I try showing a player that just starts playing the game the Living Story, they become overwhelmed. It’s happened to me more times than I can count. It doesn’t matter that it’s temporary, they’re trying to get used to the game. So, please, unless you ARE a new player that is complaining that you didn’t get to partake in the F&F event (which is an entirely different argument), don’t try to argue for those players, let them come in and realize that they’re missing something big and come here complaining. I really want to see one of their point of views for once, instead of someone who’s BEEN a part of those events trying to vouch for people who it doesn’t even seem need to have people vouching for them.
Just because I did not reference your points does not mean that I did not read or understand them. My intention was not to refute your argument, but to explain why Dog had refuted it in his post. I was trying to help you understand his side.
I won’t deny that I have been playing GW2 for a long time now. However, you had no way of knowing that. You jumped to conclusions. Further, how does my not being a new player invalidate my logic? Does the feeling of being overwhelmed by the new content not indicate a problem in its implementation? And does putting it off and thus missing out on the potential rewards not hinder a player’s progression?
And yes, minor changes have occurred. When I say I would like the world to grow, I refer to more than just the occasional new way-point or point of interest. You claim that there are examples of substantial changes. Illustrate them for me. That kind of argument needs proof to be valid.
@ Esplen
I read and understood the entirety of both arguments. Perhaps he could have stated this better at the outset, but the fact is that as a matter of perspective it wouldn’t make sense for a player to see the game from the point of view of the world itself. That isn’t how the games like this one work, because that isn’t how life works. As human beings, our experiences are limited by our perception. Because the temporary content will generally lack in lasting consequences for the game world, it might as well not exist for those who don’t have the opportunity to perceive it. It may provide a break in the routine for players, but it does not cause the world of the game to grow and evolve in a measurable way.
By your posts, I can see that you are reading Dog’s posts. But I don’t get the impression that you are truly understanding the thrust of his argument.
My tiredness does not prevent me from making intellectual statements or conclusions.
Except it obviously does when you focus on what I leave in the quote rather than what I am telling you.
I apologize, I didn’t realize you were telling me something that you weren’t putting down on paper. OH WAIT, THAT’S RIGHT, YOU WERE TELLING IT TO ME THROUGH YOUR SCREEN. DUH, I DIDN’T HAVE MY HEADSET ON Give me a second, grabbing my headset…
Oh okay, suddenly your entire argument makes more se- no… no it really doesn’t.Oh, and by the way, since you’re just going to quote one line and respond, that’s what I’m going to do now too, so your entire argument has been refuted.
Just a tip: If you want people to take you seriously when having a conversation or debate, or even an argument, listen to their points, don’t just home on that one line that seems the weakest to you, because then your entire argument is balanced on top of a really weak line that tends to have little to do with the anything in the first place.
I’m with Dog on this one. You’ve taken an incredibly defensive stance in all of your recent posts. You accuse him of logical fallacies, but this argument falls through when you take into account the context of Dog’s argument. He isn’t attacking you, as your reactions would indicate. Your argument was simply untenable to begin with, and pointed this out.
I enjoy how the world moves forward like this. Not to say there can’t be permanent content, but living storys should be temporary and new ones replace them. Its like reading a book XD
No, it isn’t like reading a book. In a book, there’s a logical progression form point A in the polt to point B in the plot. This progression does not vanish if you were to say, set the book down for a week before picking it up again. That’s essentially what the temporary content boils down to.
No, this is more like a weekly tv show with an ongoing storyline. Like a soap opera, let’s say. You miss an episode one week, and you’ll be pretty lost to what’s happening. Why is Michelle suddenly with Derrick when she was Richard last week? Basically, confusing and frustrating. It denies opportunity rather than create opportunity.
If you want to see Tyria change and grow, it won’t be through limited time events, it will be through new permanent content that expands the world in a way which all players, new or old, can appreciate. It is by creating new opportunities.