Showing Posts For Hawkfeather.2071:
Another quick think I’ve noticed: when you zoom in while on a mount, the camera suddenly swings up and gives an almost top-down view. I’m not sure if this is something being caused by my camera position sliders, but I like where they’re at when I’m not mounted, so I’d rather not have to move them for when I am. But currently every time I try to zoom in to look at something, that sudden camera swing makes my stomach do a flip. Can we maybe get some mounted position sliders for the camera?
I’m not getting motion sickness from moving, but the stop animation gets bad in some situations. With the lack of strafing it takes a lot of fiddly movements to get into a particular position, and each time you do the raptor does this rocking motion (a smaller version of the stop skid). I just did the raptor race and everyone inching forward to get to the front of the line… rock rock rock rock rock.
Be really nice if that animation could be limited to after you’ve been moving for a couple seconds or something, and a tiny tap forward would just be a step. When the raptor turns and stops it doesn’t rock, but the tiniest forward motion and it’s suddenly swaying like a ship.
ugh, I really hope Dragon’s Watch doesn’t win. Nothing against the people who like it, but it reminds me too much of malicious things in its setup of words. It’s too much like Dragon’s Stand and The Dragon’s Reach. Dragon’s Watch sounds like a bad thing to me, not the name of a group of heroes.
I voted Eternity’s Guard. It seems a nice continuation of Destiny’s Edge. Eternity and Destiny are similar in word form, and Guard and Edge give a sword and shield connotation. If they have to have a different name, I like this one because it’s complimentary.
Plus then you have the option to do something like Destinies Eternal for then entire group. There’s always going to be someone to take up the mantle of defeating the elder dragons. Lines up nice with how each original member of Destiny’s Edge has some sort of successor in the biconics group.
I do wish they hadn’t tossed Rytlock in with this group name though. It muddles things quite a bit.
I’d just like to vouch for Crab Island Getaway by stating that that event was entertaining by virtue of having scores of people squashed to death by invisible karka rollers they could never see coming.
That puts it one-up over this one in my book.
Heck yeah. I played that train wreck on a terrible college-given laptop with a terrible dorm connection. It was a complete slideshow and I loved every second of it. It was utterly hilarious, and the rewards at the end were pretty fantastic too. I loved being part of that even if it was near impossible to play on my worthless equipment.
This time I’m playing on a great computer with a great connection. I never lag at all on this thing. Yet I’m bored out of my skull playing this. Not to mention the rewards are near impossible to get based on how many blossoms we’re getting/how much the rewards cost/how short a timeframe we have. You’d have to play nonstop. It’s flat out ridiculous.
This event is boring and poorly designed, and the rewards are so impossible to get it almost doesn’t feel worth it to even try. Honestly this is the only time I’ve been really truly disappointed with content. I am not enjoying this event at all.
Adding a new class that can't be played
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Hawkfeather.2071
The game comes with 4 empty character slots yet starts out with 8 professions. Does that mean you bought the game to access the concept of all 8 professions and not the ability to try all 8 professions? You have the same amount of free slots as everyone else, just because I enjoyed the 1st 4 professions I rolled and decided to keep them, does that give me some sort of handicap that should be rectified with more slots?
This isn’t what I’m talking about though. It’s not about comparing within a single game, it’s about comparing between two different people buying the same game. Yes, the game starts with 4 slots and 8 professions, but that’s what everyone starts with. There’s no conflict there. Everyone has an equal chance to pick and choose from those 8, and to spend as much or as little time testing/deleting/keeping any combination of those 8 in those 4 slots. Maybe one person picks ranger to try and one person picks warrior, but they all have the ability to try any of them. It’s simply personal preference which they actually pick, and irrelevant. Everything is equal at that level in terms of what everyone has the ability to do.
When you bring the revenant in at this point though, new players have an empty slot already available that they can try that class out in. For veteran players with full slots, there is no slot available unless they pay for it with either time or money. So in a sense, yes, there is a handicap there. Because you have no way of knowing if you’re going to prefer the revenant or not until you try it, which you can’t do until you fork over payment of some sort to free up a slot. A new player can try it, mess around for a few levels, and not risk or spend anything significantly extra. A vet player can’t do that. There is now a difference in what these two players, who have spent the exact same amount of money on the exact same game, can and can’t do. That’s the problem.
Do I want them to just hand out a free permanent slot, though? Not necessarily. It’d be great, and I’d totally love if they did, but no, I agree they don’t have to. What they do have to do though, in order to not devalue the game for vets with full slots, is allow us to try the profession. A temporary slot, or as you mentioned perhaps some test server…. anything really that would give you a chance to try it out, is needed.
Disclaimer: I actually already have an empty slot all set up and waiting to be used. So this doesn’t cause me personally any problems at all. But it’s clear there’s a difference in value in what is being offered, and that’s not fair.
Adding a new class that can't be played
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Hawkfeather.2071
I agree that there’s a problem that due to the inherent nature of the setup, veteran players with full character slots get less value out of the package. And I think people arguing against this are misunderstanding. It has nothing to do with the number of professions or character slots.
It has to do with the ability to try the revenant at all, and what that will cost you.
A new player has all empty slots. Buying the game thus comes with the ability to try the revenant. Whether they like it or hate it, keep it or delete it, is irrelevant.
A vet player with full slots has a different situation. Buying the game gives them access to the concept of the revenant (it is in the game physically), but they do not get the ability to actually try the revenant without paying extra.
They can “pay” either with money (buying a better version outright, or buying gems then a slot), or they can pay with time (farm up gold to convert, or delete an old character they invested time in previously).
Either way, in order to get the exact same end result—the simple ability to take the new profession for a test drive—the vet player must invest more than the new player. This devalues the content being delivered to the vet player compared to the new player. They’re both paying the same initially, but the vet player is then required to bypass an additional hurdle to access what the new player can do right away.
And then what happens if after bypassing that hurdle, the vet player doesn’t even like the revenant’s playstyle? They had to pay extra (either time or money), only to discover they don’t like something and thus wasted that payment. The new player can discover this same thing for free.
There’s a tangible difference here, and it’s a problem.
HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Hawkfeather.2071
I was really excited for this expansion. I prepurchased the core game right away and have been playing since beta, as well has having spent a decent amount in the gem store. I saw HoT was ready for prepurchase and raced right over…and….I’m not happy.
I understand the intent is to give something nice to new players. I understand you are valuing the expansion at $50 on its own. Unfortunately, I can no longer justify this purchase and will not be getting HoT anytime soon.
$50 is practically what I paid for the base game, and from what I’ve heard of HoT, it’s just not worth that much. It also kind of stings that you’re willing to reward hypothetical new players with a free game, but give absolutely nothing to longtime supporters.
Sorry, but I’ll survive without HoT until it goes on sale. Or until you make another expansion and give HoT away free to people who don’t have it yet -__-
I’m pretty neutral on the question of traditional mounts. I see different pros and cons. I do actually really like the idea of rideable mobs scattered around the map though. But I also think crystal desert might be a better place for it, since mounts over large open areas seems to make more sense than in the untamed wilds. Plus I’d rather save them since we’re getting gliders and mushrooms and the like in this one.
An idea for the speed boost problem though: what if riding gave you a reasonable speed boost, but NOT on top of your other ones. What if it overrides them? That way, someone with no speed boosts already equipped will move faster (but not as fast as possible), and someone with max speed boosts might move slower. That would solve the “everyone will use them because they’ll make you faster and it’ll clutter everything” problem. They’d instead be used for a quick boost on slower characters, or to get past a specific obstacle on faster character. But they wouldn’t be optimal for map travel so they wouldn’t be overused.
For dismounting, maybe all mount mobs have a specific “home range.” If you get too close the the edge of that range, they do something to warn you. Either a popup (like the strong currents one) or something more immersive like slowing down or rearing up or something. If you go too far they toss you off and go home (maybe not literally, they could just vanish), and you’re automatically dismounted and lose the mount. That would keep them from being used out of the areas they’re intended for.
one thing that would help:
if they reversed the change to “rez skills” to allow them to revive fully defeated players. like the elementalists revive glyph. i know they changed it for PvP balance before, but these skills are almost never used. they are in NO meta builds, because they are so useless. it generally takes longer to channel the skill than it does to simply use the F key to revive someone who is downed.
there was a time near launch that i always took the rez glyph on my ele, just for PvE events. because it was really cool to be able to revive a defeated player (or 3) during combat when it really mattered.
Maybe I’m not recalling correctly, but I can’t remember a time when those skills EVER revived fully dead players. As far as I can remember, it’s only ever revived downed players and dead NPCs.
Glyph of Renewal absolutely used to revive dead players. I carried it through beta and at launch when people were still trying to learn the game and everyone died all the time. I don’t believe it was intended though (or at least that’s what the claim was when they changed it), and very early on it was adjusted to only rez downed players.
…and with the long cast time I doubt anyone has ever really used it since.
So I have some alts just at or nearing 80. One of them I had already popped a bunch of skill scrolls for. Then this news came out. I’ve been trying to keep up with everything, but have a couple questions I can’t seem to find answers for. Can anyone point me towards where they’ve explained the following, or if they even have?
Grandfathering
Have we received any official word on if characters with certain skills/traits already unlocked will continue to have them? The general impression I’ve been getting is no, but has it be flat out stated or just implied?
Skill Points from Skill Scrolls
Anet has said the following:
Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge.
We’ve gotten clarification that this new ‘material’ will in fact be a currency. I have no real problem with this.
What I’d like to know is does “in excess” include points that have been spent on skills already? Or is it only currently unspent ones?
In theory it should be possible to determine how many extra we spent, since they’ll be awarding us hero points based on our level and already done skill/hero challenges. So they should be able to go in, see how many skill points we should have from leveling and challenges, then subtract that from the total number unspent+spent on skills. That would give you the total number of “excess” skill points. Though I’m not sure if the game keeps track of “levels” post-80. Alternatively the Skillful achievement might help determine this if everything is totaled acountwide, but that depends on if the game continues to count these points somewhere even after the achievement is completed. It all depends on exactly what they keep track of, but if they have the data available I would hope they would use it.
If this is the case, then I’ll go ahead and spend my skill points so I can play the character until the change comes out, knowing I’ll still get something for them later.
However, if they’ll only be rewarding the new currency for skill points that are currently unspent (and characters will not be grandfathered in) then any scroll skill points spent on skills will be wasted. If that’s the case I’ll just set the alts aside and continue on my main until this change occurs.
Armor
Has there been any word on what will be done about armor? With stats being divorced from traits, people may have to swap out some pieces to compensate for certain stats being lost. If this is going to be solely on us to sort out, I’ll just wait to gear my alts until after the change. If anet is going to give us some way to swap out stats once after the change if we need to, then I can get started gearing now.
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Hopefully someone has had better luck sorting through all the info they’ve had everywhere, and can help me track down some answers to these questions. If not, it would be awesome if anet would consider giving us answers to them. They’re sort of crucial to knowing if I should continue playing with these alts or just wait until the changes are made.
Back in Wintersday 2012 there was a mystic forge recipe to drop in a toy frame, magic glue, enchanted stuffing, and glittering dust with a chance to get back an endless toy tonic based on the frame.
Since then the endless toy tonic recipes have been adjusted, but are the originals still in the game?
I just realized I still have some extra frames, and glue and stuffing I can buy off the trading post. But I don’t want to buy them if the recipe has definitely been removed.
My main issue with this new way of doing WvW Achievements is that it’s pulling in the exact OPPOSITE way of where the PvE seems to be going; NOT forcing people to have to be able to log in during specific dates in order to get the achievement(s).
I’ve been on vacation for 2 weeks, meaning I have no chance of completing the meta, and thus no chance of getting the title and no chance of getting the max ammount of tickets, no matter ho much I participate or work my kitten off the remaining time of the Tournament. I can put in 10 times more time and work in the remaining weeks and get less rewards than my guildie that spends a total of 2 hours killing Dolyaks. NOT FAIR.
Also, making people do 5 events is bullkitten. You’re not gonna “increase” participation in WvW by reducing the ammount of time and/or effort needed to do the achievements.
Am I gonna have to plan my vacations around Guild Wars 2 if I want to be able to get the titles? Then give me a 100% accurate time schedule for the upcoming year because vacations that include travelling need to be booked in advance…
Agreed. While the weekly time gated events encourage people to play during the entire tournament, someone who misses a week for whatever reason, if they’re aiming strictly for the meta, then has absolutely no reason to continue participating afterwards.
My suggestion is a combination of both this and last seasons achievements. Have a set of weekly “do x number of events” achievements that offer no AP. I’d say more than 5 events, but it could still be low. People who are able to log in every week can get it done easily and without grinding. However, there should also be a few grindy, more difficult achievements that can be done at any point. “Kill X number of Y” or “Capture X number of Y.” These can offer achievement points. The meta will only require as many achievements as there are weeks, but all achievements count towards it.
This way, you have options, all of which are rewarding. If you’re a wvw player, you can continue on as you usually do. You’ll get your title and tickets with no trouble at all, and some bonus AP since you’ll likely get the extra achievements just by playing. If you’re only there for the title/rewards, you can log into wvw for a little each week, and get it done without any grind. If you just want AP, you’ll have to do a little extra work, but you’ll effectively be getting free rewards on top of it in the form of wvw tickets (since you’ll no doubt complete the needed number of events for at least one week). And if you’re looking to get the meta but miss a week, you’re not locked out. In fact, you’re then encouraged to play even more since you’ll have to do one of the more time consuming achievements to replace the missed week. I feel this kind of setup would satisfy everyone.
You should probably be more careful when crafting things.
For the record, I was. I was trying to make the Exalted coat and boots, since those were the only ones I still needed for the collection. I opted to make them instead of buy them, since my tailor was around 420 and I also wanted to get them to 450 at least to make bloodstone bricks and the like. I wanted to do it as cheaply as possible, so I looked at the insignias on the wiki to see exactly what used what and in what quantities.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gossamer_Insignia
The Ineffable Embroidered Gossamer Insignia uses fewer gossamer, spools of thread, and T6 mats. Clicking on it, the wiki currently has no further information indicating that the recipes that use this insignia require extra ectos.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ineffable_Embroidered_Gossamer_Insignia
If it had I never would have made it. But it’s really not the wiki’s job to stay 100% up to date on everything ever (as great as that would be), nor is it the players job to have to consult outside sources before doing anything (even though many do).
Just a warning on the insignia recipes that these are NOT standard and require extra mats, or even being able to vendor them would be a huge help. Frankly though, I’m really not sure why they’re account bound to begin with. The use the exact same tradable mats as anything else to make.
Can these please be sellable to vendors or salvageable or anything at all besides destroying them?
Or can they at least have some warning prior to crafting them that the recipes that use them require an obscene amount of ectos to complete?
I was just trying to craft some of the armor I still needed for the new collections, and randomly ended up making some of these because the insignia itself used less mats. Being used to the “armor component 1+armor component 2+insignia” recipe style, I didn’t expect these to need a huge amount of extra ectos as well.
While I understand the high cost now based on looking up the purpose of the final crafted items, for anyone just looking to make some armor there’s no real indication in game that those recipes are going to be so drastically different. You only find this out after making the insignias and putting them in the discovery tab, at which point you are then stuck with otherwise useless insignias if you dont want to craft the final item.
So either a warning on the insignia recipe, a way to get something back for accidentally crafted insignias of this nature (anything is better than destroying them which is currently all you can do if you don’t want to craft the armor), or both would really be awesome.
if it works as OP says…the biggest problem would be if they lock you out of PS until level 10+………since PS missions are excellent ways to level and get lvl-appropriate gear for new characters.
if you can do the PS during the first lvls, the change doesn’t matter much to most….it just becomes a pacing change.
smart thing to do, whould be to have the PS missions run as they do now until about level 35-40 (when you choose an order)….then create the gaps, because its around that time that you end up doing more farming./world events/ etc. that would pull you out of the PS story groove
This I think could absolutely work and would be a pretty good compromise
Even if you find you level too slow for the current system, this will not make it better. This will make it worse, as far as I can tell.
For example, doing nothing else, I can do the first chapter of the personal story as it currently is, and be level 5 by then end of it. I should be level ten according to the recommended level. This means if I want to catch up I’ll have to do something else and gain 6 levels, then begin the next chapter, which currently has a first step level rec of 11.
Under the new system, most likely the first chapter will not unlock until level ten. This means you must grind ten levels before you even start. You then play straight through the personal story, and gain at most 5 levels (potentially less due to the leveling curve.) This puts you at 15, an you have to then go grind another 4 levels to get to 19 (the current level rec of the last step in the second chapter)
If you rush through the story steps you’re going to have to grind some levels somewhere else at some point, regardless of the system in place. At least with the current method you have the option to get started right away and then grind later, or to do some minor leveling while walking to the next step and progress naturally. Whatever works best for you. The new system seems to effectively force you to go do grinding between chapter chunks whether you want to or not.
The only way to eliminate this is to increase the experience you get from playing the story, which they could do without forcing it into blocks. Basically what I’m saying is by the nature of this system as they have presented it, the system itself cannot inherently reduce the grind/need to do something else between story steps. It just pushes it to the end of the chapter, which is what most people rushing through the story did anyway. Now however, it also actively locks you out of the next chapter until it decides you are ready for it. Which I don’t think is a good thing any way you look at it.
You know why it doesn’t make sense? Because we don’t have all the information. Granted, it still might not make sense afterwards, but there’s no way of knowing until it’s implemented.
Just because we don’t have all the information doesn’t mean we cannot express concerns based on what information has been released. All of my concerns come from directly quoted statements in the blog post and the facts of the game.
-“they come in story chunks that unlock all at once per chapter”
This means the story sections are lumped together
-“chapter is unlocked as a level-up reward”
This means the lumped together sections will be unavailable prior to reaching a certain level
-“you’ll be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops”
For this to be true the chunks MUST unlock at least at what is currently considered the recommended level for the last step in that chunk. Otherwise you would run into level barrier problems mid chapter, which they have said will not be the case.
All my concerns were derived from these key points.
If it turns out they’ve completely worded something in some odd way and it works nothing like how they’re suggesting, then I would be ecstatic. As it is I am concerned and I am expressing that on the forums, which is what they are here for
I’m not sure how this new method of blocking together chunks of the personal story and locking them behind a level barrier makes any sense at all. As it is, the recommended levels increase slowly, and it’s a very natural progression to level along with the story. You can easily meet the level requirement by doing hearts and events on the way to your next step star. In fact, I have several friends who just started playing, and that’s how I recommended they play. The personal story helps lead you first around your starting zone, then out into other level appropriate zones. In my opinion it worked incredibly well.
Now it’s going to be a grind to unlock the next chunk. Assuming they want you to “be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline,” this means the chapter has to unlock at what would be the level recommendation of the final step in that chapter.
So rather than have some minor “awkward starts and stops”—which really equate to a level or two that can be gained in no time and isn’t actually awkward in the least—we’re going to get approximately TEN LEVEL LONG GAPS of no story, no guidance, no nothing. By the time the story is supposed to be leading you to a new area, you’ll now be well past the level range of that zone when you unlock that step. This seems infinitely more awkward to me than the current system.
This also makes it seem like since they’re effectively removing what was a very natural way to guide players to where they should be, we’re now getting a little arrow in the corner of the screen as a replacement. I would MUCH rather be shown around the world by an expanding story than by a UI.
tldr: The level gap lockout between these blocks of story is going to be more “awkward” than the current implementation ever could be. It also completely destroys the ability of the story to guide you to level appropriate content and push you into new areas of the world. It does not make sense with what anet claimed its reasons for implementing such a change was, and in fact seems to actively contradict them.
I agree that they really shouldn’t do the daily meta achievements. Though I don’t think giving us one more daily now is unfair. If you have 2 or more left right now, you could have figured ahead of time you wouldn’t have been able to get it done. If you did it early, good for you, but it’s not like you’re losing anything if someone else manages to finish up last minute. It’s only the people who were one away, and hoping for the ability to do it now that lost out. They participated as much as they could hoping this last daily would be available, but since it isn’t they’ve lost out on that time put in.
I’ve seen several people who are only one more daily away from the wings, myself included. If there had been more achievements to work towards I would have done it, but I wasn’t able to log in until a few days ago and I’ve managed to get one everyday since, but I’m still short one. Any chance of having one more daily until the new patch goes up?
So we can only get one ticket, but we’re restricted by armor types, even though the gauntlets all look the same. Is there definitely no way to another ticket? This just seems really unfriendly towards people with alts.
On a similar note, is the ticket going to be redeemable forever? Say I’m not sure what character I want it for, and I want to save it so I don’t get it for the wrong armor class. Will the ticket still be usable months/years in the future?