Guild Wars 2

Anet are inconsistent.
Southsun Cove was part of LS1 – available to everyone for free.
Dry Top & Silverwastes are part of LS2 – available for free, you pay only for the story.
LS3 maps – locked behind the paywall.
This inconsistency is not healthy for customers faith to the developer. Anet should either charge price for accessing LS1 & 2 maps or remove the “pay to enter” aspect of LS3 maps and start charging people only for story instances.

Leo G.4501:

Regarding mount skins in general, i am against any mounts that heavily deviate crom the original design. Like a raptor mount with 3 more dye channels and a feathered look or a springer mount with antlers or with a few articles of armor/clothing/jewelry attached. But please, no horses, chinese dragons, golems, kangaroos, etc.

But deep inside your soul you still know that there will be a bunch of totally redesigned mounts, just as we have gliders now. It is just too big pile of money not to dive into. And, heck, the only logical way someone could greenlight that bunny monstrosity was to sell us a better skin for it later for extra $.

I’d say nay for that.
I really don’t enjoy the category of joke mounts that actually don’t fit the game lore and world.

Obtena.7952:

Not sure how you can’t see what the X is … it’s just the concept of the spec. The role is whatever you decide to use the spec for.

If the spec is not good enough in any aspect of the game its role is “not to be played” and its concept is fairly bad. Just like scrapper from HoT.

Durzlla.6295:

I’d imagine that Soulbeast could be pretty good at tanking, not to mention it brings a lot of support without sacrificng all of its damage like druid does.

Tanking in PvE is monopolised by chrono. Soulbeast has nothing to keep up with countless chrono’s evades, mass distortions and blocks. Not to mention the only unique thing soulbeast can bring to the party are stanses, and they are currently meh.

Considering soulbeast’s role… I don’t know. It should be a DPS e-spec, but so far it looks very weak even compaired to the nerfed core condi. If nothing changes rangers will be taking soulbeast over beastmastery just because of the traits, ignore the dagger, ignore the beastmode and just dps with the pet out.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If Elona the nation falls and a new nation is there, then the land which is currently called Elona will be called something else.

Same way that once upon a time, we called the peninsula shaped like a boot “the Roman Empire” and not “Italy”.

Then charrs should have already renamed Ascalon by now.
Considering Elona, the direct analogy would be Europe – part of a continent with a coalition of nations (europeans). The territory of Europe is geographically pre determined, even if the nations in its borders shift. Siberia doesn’t become Europe just because Eupopean Russia holds over it. As well England will be part of Europe even if all of it population at ones will imigrate to USA.

KryTiKaL.3125:

Also how has the narrative of the game “made no sense” since the start of the game?

Revenants playing through personal story and LS2 makes no sence, especially sending Rythlock to the mists in LS2 so he can become the first revenant (lol). Compaired to that tengu playing through personal story actually makes sence, as there were some tengu in the Pact during Orr campain.

Shinzan.2908:

Actually the way I heard it tengu were going to be the sixth playable race at launch, only they ran of either time or resources so they got cut.

Actually some of the devs mensioned that in HoT they were choosing between a new race (tengu) and a new profession (revenant). They chose revenant, but we can see their work on tengu in a form of new modeled and animated ones in Auric Basin and guild halls.

Flubbernaut.9584:

So I was planning to ask the devs, what do you have planned for the end of the PoF story?

Livia will come to us and say in her bored to death voice: “Oh, you killed a god? Ok, go and save the world from the next super-villain or something”.

Sarie.1630:

a bad Warhorn skin which, when used, sounds like Evon Gnashblade cursing continually for five minutes.

Actually, I want that!

I noticed that when after pet swap you spam F1 button the pet starts attacking right away, even before his model fully loads.
Thank you for trying to fix the bug, but, please, don’t stop on a half way.

Fixing forum bugs I guess.

LimeSamurai.9140:

“Oh no, a game referencing its predecessor that is a continuation of the same franchise! The humanity!”

I’m ok with references if they are done right. Those in LS3 were done wrong. People who are playing GW2 should understand what is happening without having to play GW1 (greetings from all those “Livia who?” threads). Those references were integrated into GW2 story badly and lead to an unsatisfying season final. Thinking about it, they were implemented only to throw a treat to GW1 fans and to trash away completely some GW1 lose ends (Livia and Lazarus). If you enjoyed them – good for you. I didn’t (though I knew who Livia was prior to LS3). And, judging by a lots of thread, a lot of people didn’t enjoy it as well.

LimeSamurai.9140:

Last I checked Balth destroying the dragons and all of Tyria is pretty much an “everyone” issue.

A human god wreaking havoc in a human kindom of Elona featuring human factions of sunspears and ex-human undead under ex-human lich Palawa Joko. Pffff, not human-sentric at all. Just look on all that asuran, norn and charr culture around you. And, yes, shoud I remind you of charr in shining blade?

On the argument “oh noes, tengu don’t fit in old personal story!”

Actually, they fit perfectly. Nothing prevents Pact commander from being a tengu. There were tengu who were not sitting on their behinds beyond the wall, there were tengu who joined the Pact during Orr campain (like Itzu Steelshreik, if I recall correctly). Nothing prevents player-tengu to leave the Dominion of Winds, join one of three orders, become hero of Claw island and Pact commander. The fun thing is that tengu-PC makes a lot more sence compaired to current LS3 Ep6 (spoilers!) charr shining blade PC.

And, yes, if next epx features playable tengu, I will buy it without any questions. Unlike PoF, which contains things I never asked for and wanted (cough mounts cough all-human-centric plot cough more GW1 references cough).

Odokuro.5049:

Swap then press F1 on your target, seems to work for me…

No, it doesn’t. At least for me. Tested it like 5 minutes ago, the pets just stare for several seconds while I’m hammering F1.
I really hope that it is a bug. But what scares me the most is that it could be some kind of “artistic balance vision” and “was ment to be that way”. And someone out there thinks that it was a great game-mechanics idea. No, it wasn’t. It was a stupid idea. It makes a lot of people unhappy. It makes ranger gameplay less dinamic and responsive. It has a taste of internet lag. And it brings profession unequality (rangers got lagging slowpokes while mesmers can shatter their fantomes and necros use their minnion’s abilities the moment they are summoned). So would you kindly go fix it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Ider.1276:

Actually if the lore tablets from Ember bay are true mursaat and forgotten were the only ones who tryed to assault the elder dragon (Zhaitan). And they were completely trashed in the process while dwarfs and jotun were cowering at their homes and seers theorising in their cosy labs over bloodstone. If that information is true it explains why mursaat said “screw you guys we are going home”. Just imagine nowarday Pact, the final assault on Orr, and the only ones who show up on a D-day are asura and sylvari. In result asura lose all their golems and half of military personal. I would not blame them if they said: “We are evacuating to the fractals of the mists now, have fun with dragons on your own”.
Of course, the lore from Ember bay tablets could be false, but we will never know now (thanks, Livia).

To be fair, all other sources tell us that the mursaat had the strongest offensive and defensive magic to be used against the Elder Dragons (spectral agony and their invisibility respectively), which all the other races lacked. On top of that, their betrayal was not leaving into the Mists, but rather nearly committing genocide on the Seers before leaving into the Mists, which the tablets neatly forget to mention even in trying to make mursaat the good guys in the mursaat-seer war. The tablet also completely ignores the fact (and we know it is a fact) that the dwarves were busy fighting Primordus and Jormag to varying degrees during the last dragonrise.

To use your comparison, it’d be like the asura creating a magical device that had an easier time fighting dragon minions and refusing to share it with the other members of the Pact, and on the proverbial D-Day of invading Orr, only the sylvari showed up with them while the norn are busy studying the sky, humans investigating god relics, and the charr have their hands full with the Dragonbrand, and after the asura lost most of their military might they turned to humans and said “screw you guys in particular”, wiping out all of Kryta leaving just Ebonhawke barely alive, and then fleeting into the Fractals of the Mists.

We actually don’t know the timelines of seer-mursaat wars. But I strongly doubt it happened during the dragon rise. It makes much more sence that after the dragons fell asleep and the dust settled mursaat returned and had a clash with a seers. That chain of events is much more plausable than mursaat trying to exterminate seers during dragonrise (why bother? The dragons will get them anyway) and seers somehow succeding in creating bloodstones after being almostly wiped out.
As for the dwarfs and jotun, who were busy with Primordus and Jormag… Again, if the tablets are true, look were isles of Janthir are and then were Orr is located. Zhaitan was not directly threatening the mursaat. They were either helping the Forgotten or picked the weakest dragon to kill. So the reaction of other races “not my dragon, not my problem” is quite kittenish. kittenish enough to fill someone with salt and make them re-concider being a good guy. The current races would not succeed if they were not all uniting and taking the dragons one by one.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

and after all mursaat had a huge chunk of history when they’ve struck accords with other races only to betray them as soon as it requires to put any mursaat in the harms way, and frankly they have overlived their span for quite a bit – I may sound a little judgemental here, but I do not find mursaat race to be worthy of outliving seers, forgotten, dwarfs.

Actually if the lore tablets from Ember bay are true mursaat and forgotten were the only ones who tryed to assault the elder dragon (Zhaitan). And they were completely trashed in the process while dwarfs and jotun were cowering at their homes and seers theorising in their cosy labs over bloodstone. If that information is true it explains why mursaat said “screw you guys we are going home”. Just imagine nowarday Pact, the final assault on Orr, and the only ones who show up on a D-day are asura and sylvari. In result asura lose all their golems and half of military personal. I would not blame them if they said: “We are evacuating to the fractals of the mists now, have fun with dragons on your own”.
Of course, the lore from Ember bay tablets could be false, but we will never know now (thanks, Livia).

draxynnic.3719:

As for soulbeast… how ‘supernatural’ the skills are will depend largely on the choice of pet, I think. If you’re melding with a jacaranda, then sure, you’re calling lightning. If you’re melding with a bear, then the abilities you get are probably more mundane than some of the things we already see in ranger melee attacks.

As someone mentioned above, rangers always had a lot of magical stuff: summoning spirits, enchanting roots to entangle enemies, throwing axes imbued with frost magic, shooting magic arrows that make them invisible. Soulbeast goes even further: the process of melding with a pet is highly magical thing. So at the moment soulbeast is as close to Legolas as holosmith to Aragorn (they both have a sword). I still think the thief is the closest: just a normal guy with great mobility, lightning reflexes and exelent skills of using a short bow and stabby things. If deadeye was using longbow instead of rifle the picture would be 100% accurate.

draxynnic.3719:

Eh, renegede has a lot of clearly supernatural attacks for a Legolas. Soulbeast or even dragonhunter is probably closer.

Both soulbeast and dragonhunter have lots and lots of magic attacks, so with this kind of criterion the best petless ranger-Legolas is a thief.

draxynnic.3719:

More broadly, I don’t think it’s fair to say that soulbeast is doing away with the pet mechanic. How long you remain in soulbeast form, and how you use it, is a choice. The proof will be in the pudding, of course, but I could also see it being used to enhance the use of a pet and make it more viable: for instance, it provides another means apart from pet-swapping to prevent an endangered pet from being disabled, a(nother) means of instantly calling the pet back to you if you need it, and so on.

Well, yes, you can stay in beast mode as long as you want and switch as much as you like. But here we go to the tempest analogy, where every second outside fire attunement is a dps loss. Of course, it will not matter in openworld (even now there are plenty of staff druids on any world boss doing pew-pew with AA), but in raids and fractals it will matter. So, as long as ranger and his pet are not sharing all the boons 100% of the time we will be forced to play all the time either in beastmode or with an active pet (depends on which will be the optimal way). And discouraged to switch the mode on/off. Just as switching pets now: you are switching only if pet is going to die.

I don’t expect any improvements on core ranger. We had some core-spec love during HoT because our e-spec was full support, and running core was the only way for us to do any damage. The same with revenants and engineers. Now we have a DPS e-spec (ofk maybe I’m wrong and that stance sharing is a hint for a second in a row support spec). Anet would just shoot in their own tow if core ranger would be competable in dps with new expansion spec.
Right now I’m expecting totall pre-PoF overhaul that will nerf core viper-ranger to the level of core power-ranger, while soulbeast will be on a level of current viper ranger.
As for druid – well, as long as HoT has a price tag there is still a hope for fixes, love and balancing.
P.S. I am not salty or negative, this is just how capitalism works. That’s totally logical and justified: if you want to sell customers a new car, it sould be better then their old car.

Levetty.1279:

Name a class that plays like a petless Ranger.

If you take the pet out ranger would be hardly distinguishable from other adventurers like thief. Whether you like it or not, but pets were what distinguished rangers from other bow-firing axe-and-dagger-stabbing trap-throwing guys. Just like necro’s shroud and minions or mesmer’s illusions. Fully (more or less) controlled pets with a large roaster of abilities were the buisiness card of rangers. Well, until now. So it is understandable that some of players are not happy about petless soulbeast. At least we retain something from our pets (the skills). The most ironic thing that at this point the best petless ranger (that Legolas people wanted) is not ranger, but renegade revenant.

But lets put the e-spec theme aside. The main reason I’m sceptical about soulbeast is boon sharing with a pet and pet-traits. You see, every time you swap a pet it drops all the boons. Soo I don’t think that the dynamic gameplay of swaping in and out of beastmode (by the way, the name is stupid) will be effective. Swap out of beastmode to give your team tiger’s fury every 8 seconds? Sticking out with a wyvern and absorb it (discarding it’s boons) to break a boss bar? What about pet-oriented traits like expertise training? How will all our mechanics work with pet absorbtion? The pets were such a core mechanics of our profession that just by brining the soulbeast concept a lot of our skills and traits can become either completely useless or completely overpowered. There’s A LOT of balancing work there. Thats like complete profession overhaul. Can Anet handle it? We’ll see.

Taurid.1753:

Fractals are already being added every few months, I don’t see why they would stop doing that with PoF.

You mean 3 fractals in 1.5 years? And not a pack of fractals with new expansion? Just look at WoW: every expansion start players with a bunch of dungeons +several dungeons during expansion. Okay, I get it, prior HoT fractals were a mess and it took you almost 2 years to fix it. But now basic mechanics are fixed, can we get some content, please?

Pros:
1) One of the best jumping puzzles so far.
2) New fractal. Interesting mechanics and visuals.
3) Beautiful Siren’s Landing level design.

Cons:
1) Story is horrible. It is twice as awful if you think of it as a season finale. Story-wise it didn’t make me exited about upcoming expansion.
2) New fractal is a buggy mess.
3) Siren’s landing dailies (shrines and kingpin) take too much time to be done.
4) No, I don’t want to join Shining Blades.

Darkstar.7839:

What do you think?

I think Lazarus storyline should have stayed in raids, along side Livia and Shining Blades. Raid already did a great job of exposition of mursaat and white mantle lore, so it could handle Livia’s and Lazarus story too. I’d prefer Xera actually resurrecting Lazarus and Lazarus actually starting doing something nasty before killing him. I am not raiding, by the way, and still think that plot should not be in the personal story.

I would like all the “fake Lazarus” stuff just gone from the plot. We should’ve been dealing with Balthazar from the begining. This way we could have some time to connect with his character and, well, start caring about him at all. Cause now I’m not. All the “oh Lazarus is an imposter” stuff was pointless and existed there just for the cheap plot twist, and made little sence on its own.

The current plot of LS3 is an over complicated mess, you can’t fix it by more explanation or tossing different events up and down the timeline. Just cut down all the crap that makes the least sence, Occam’s razor way.

Ashantara.8731:

Djinn.9245:

The problem is how do PvE players find out this info in-game (not in a raid which not everyone plays):

-Who is the White Mantle?
-Who are the Mursaat?
-Who is Lazarus?
Etc.

By doing lots of online research — the GW1 and GW2 wikis should be of help here.

If the story telling needs you to go and read 10 articles on wiki to get the point of the plot, that story telling is a piece of crap. All the introductions and expositions relevant to the main plot should be available in the game itself, not in an spin-off comic book or wiki.

zealex.9410:

hmm a prisoner that the wm can find and resurect HMMMM

You are 100% right. And you know what? These charr guys. Remember the Ascolon? HMMMMM.They definitely can do the same with Kryta. Sooo… lets make ourselves a small prevential species extermination. To the last kitten. Remember your oath, young Shining Blade. And if you happen to be a charr, would you kindly stab yourself to death when you are done with genocide of your people?

Well, my main is a norn. Norns live to build their legend. What point is there for me to join and help a human secret society if I can’t boast about it? Like, ever. I killed the last mursaat and you tell me that skalds can’t sing to everyone about it? How about no.

Ep6 just breaks the character immersion. First of all, our character has to join human-centric secret sociaty that is actually almost as close to the term “cult” or “sect” as their sworn enemy – White Mantle. May be ok for human characters, but my charr and norn characters would rather die then join Shining Blades. And, again, we left Pact to get independance, and now we are Livia’s lap-dogs, with a gun at the back of our head to kill us if we say or do anything that can hurt Kryta.
Then as Op mensioned, the theme of sparing a life of a defeated foe.

So, if a look on Ep6 story, this is what I get out of it as a moral. These are its messages:
1) Joining creepy cults and secret societies is ok.
2) Helping a psycologically unstable and sociopathic person to carry on her revenge is good.
3) Executing prisoners that no longer pose a threat to the society is ok.
4) Genocide can be justified if the guys you exterminate did something bad in the past.

I know how bad the musaats were, and that they got what they deserved. But helping Livia makes me feel unclean. She is so zealotly insane over her revenge that she becomes no better than a mursaat. And so does my character, cause there he is, helping her lunacy.

You are not the only one. The story writer has gone full “Lost” in LS3. Lots of threads, unresolved, randomly hopping from one to another without actual closure. The threads of Jormag and Primordus and Braham were just droped down. Balthazar, who became the main plot point only in Ep5 gets absolutely no development in Ep6. Every story instance since Ep4 cliffhanger generates more questions it answers.
I am afraid all this will end just like Lost: with some anticlimactic nonsence and most of questions unanswered.
Well, at least the maps are good.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If the story no longer interests the OP, stop following it. Work on other things in the game. If that doesn’t appeal, take a break. The game isn’t going anywhere soon and it’s designed so you can pick up mid-story years from now (or re-start by retracing from the beginning).

Or you can write on a forum what exactly you don’t like. Thats what the forums are made for – the feedback and critique. Sometimes devs ideas can be great on paper but dull or even awefull in actual game or story. Sometimes devs create something actually bad, and it helps noone if you just shut up and close your eyes on the broken part of the game.
Of course the argument “if you don’t like it shut up or GTFO” is very common in MMO fan bases. But actually it is just anti-consumer and can lead only to the detriment of the game quality and playerbase.

Ayrilana.1396:

I had already addressed the point of it potentially attracting new players in a previous post. If someone currently has no interest in this game, how is adding Tengu, going to attract players? It’s like if WoW added crocodiles as a playable race. People that haven’t played it yet are unlikely to suddenly start playing.

Well, you’re wrong. I got into WoW cause “Wow, you can play as a huge werewolf! Awesome!” And don’t start on pandas. Pandas are not cool. Werewolves are, as well as big samurai-birds. If Mists of Pandaria featured giant ninja were-grizzly bears as a playable race the sales would have just skyrocketed.
By the way, crocodiles are fine too. But dinosaurs would fit better. People love them, people want them.

Ayrilana.1396:

Just because the new maps may have mounts doesn’t mean that they will be available in core Tyria or HoT.

Of course mounts will be available in central Tyria eventually. As soon as people who bought a rainbow-unicorn mount skin for 20$ start whining that they can’t show off there steed in Lions Arch Anet will make mounts world-wide.

Behellagh.1468:

To satisfy demand you must increase supply so the price becomes more affordable. Preferably a way that players can respond to excesses or shortages to supply and that by definition is a farm, rather than just increased random drops in the world.

Preferable way is not to create an artificial shortage of supply and then make players grind to fix it. With all other T6 mats in game it is just “you get them while you play, the more you play more you get”. With leather it is “you buy our stuff for real money then grind”. Why should we do this? Why GW2 should be like other MMOs, copying their worst mechanics (grind to play)?
Even after Doric fixes h.leather costs 3 times the ancient wood and 40 times the gossamer. And that is more a psychological result, cause the supply increased like 10%. I will not be surprised if in a month the price will rise again to 28-30 silvers, when the novelty of farm and market panic will wear off. So I disagree strongly that this farm is the best solution.

That boat means nothing, probably. Other way we would go to Cantha from Bloodtide cost, with exactly the same boat on a loading screen. I even doubt there will be that actual boat in the episode.

But sylvari are walking bushes, they even don’t have hair.

Narrrz.7532:

That seems such an obvious solution that i can’t imagine they haven’t thought of tit, which leaves two possibilities: either changing droprates is really hard to do, or else we’re misconstruing what their actual objective is.

I’m not usually that cynical, but considering recent fix the real goal is: “Buy crappy episode 4 one of the worst in LS3, hehe! And then farm there for hours making us player-hour statistics so we can present it to NCsoft.”
Still love the game, but this situation smells very fishy.

LadyHawk.5319:

Jump on your favorite farming character, put on some farming music and enjoy the loot! This may be the simple tweak we’ve been asking for, folks!

Actually, no, we never asked for this. It would be better if they fixed h.leather salvage rates from salvaging random drops, not bloodstone hides. Or downed leather in patches from 10 to 5.
All other T6 mats for crafting can be gained by just playing the game. But now with h.leather we have to farm in specifically. To make the matter worse, the farm is locked behind a paywall of LS3 Ep4 (considered by a lot of players the worst map of a game and usually not worth buying).
So, again, trying to cure a symptom, not a problem.

1. Ability to use interface addons. Customisation is always a good thing. WoW did it, and now the players are fixing all the awefull design decisions of the developers for free. Everyone is happy.

2. Playable Tengu. Just hand them over, or I’ll never shut up.

3. Casual raid story-mods. Cause, you know, it is stupid to spend a bunch of resorses on a content 99% of players can’t experience. But that content is already here, so give a chance to a “filthy casual” to see it.

4. Fix the mess the water combat is.

5. Far Shiverpeaks. That giant-tree forest in Bitterfrost looked very promising but had no gameplay or content. The whole Far Shiverpeaks have a great potential for an expack location, with a bunch of different bioms (giant forest, deep inland sea with icebergs, high mountains, lush oasis around places of geo-thermal activity). Unfortunately, that is almost impossible, cause it looks like Anet are going to put on a bus/kill Jormag in LS3 Ep6.

TheWaddler.2306:

I think I need to purchase the living world episodes that unlock those areas before I can go there. Working on saving up the gold atm.

You can get viper amulete from HoT act 4 personal story achievements. Rings and can be bought from Draconis Mons (that is current LS content, you have it) for local currency. Attune/infuse one of them to avoid unique debuff. Exotic/acsended backpack can be obtained there aswell by doing achievements. Other trinkets can be bought with magnetite shards, but that requires raiding. Consider using sinister accesories instead if you are not going to buy LS3 episodes 2 and 3 or go raiding. Crafted exotic armor and trinkets are also an option for dungeons and raids (and low-level fractals). You can get exotic viper shoulders from LS3 episode 5 achievements.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If they dropped the raid team today, it wouldn’t mean we would get any more content or the other content any faster. The raid team is tiny. One of the reasons is that they cater to the smallest demographic in the game: only some of us enjoy raiding and only some of the rest of us are willing to put up with it for various shinies. It’s much easier to design for a small group than the one-size-fits-all approach that’s required for open world content.

I am not suggesting to drop the raid team. I am just sad that the raids are the only part of content updates that gets most of developer’s love and passion. The raid team is tiny and produces great content. Why don’t we have a tiny team that can give us 4-5 new fractals in 2 years? I mean new fractals, not chaos, that is made of old fractals, or nightmare (I love this one, but) made of scrapped LS1 instance. With new bosses, enviroments and new mechanics. Like, again, raids.
The only logical answer I can give to this question is that fractal-dungeon demographics is small enough to just ignore it. In GW2 apparantely there are more raiders than fractal or dungeon lovers. Just like World of Raid-or-Quit Warcraft which I am so tired of right now sigh.

Darcwolf.6817:

Now my rant is, why does it take anet so long to push out content?

Oh, they are pushing plenty of content. It is just 50% new raids 50% new LS locations. Guess players concerned in 5 ppl end-game are just demographic too small to justify the content updates. Thats why dungeons died, thats why fractals got 2 new levels made from reused content in the last 1.5 years.

In Ep6 we will learn that Balthazar is an imposter and actually is Menzies. And Rytlock is an imposter and actually is Balthazar. And Menzies is an imposter and actually is Rytlock. And Pact Commander is an imposter and actually is a hero from GW1. And Taimi is an imposter and actually is a sentient cat.
#plottwists #shocking #wownooneexpected

DeadTreeJig.6714:

As I start season 3, I hope it brings back that sense of an epic tale.

Oh boy. Prepair yourself for great disappointment there. Ep5 story is awefull and ruins all the season 3.

DeWolfe.2174:

btw… there was no exploits required to Engi farm. Anyone can stand over a respawn area and kill the mobs.

But only engis can do it with 1 click in several minutes. Or even completely afk, if they are enlightened enough to know what autoclicker is. And that is an exploit, just as ABML.

DeWolfe.2174:

Excuse me, the volume of players engaging in the Engi farm were far greater in population than the few who complained. So it’s disingenuous to say “the community” had a problem with it

Indeed? Were there any demographic analysis on this? All I saw was a mountain of salt and stench on the forums, which is an indication of a problem in the community.
That farm was an expoit use, and it was undone as gently, as AB multiloot beforehand.
Just for comparison, the latest example from WoW: Legion. Several months ago there was exploit so players could run the same local quest over and over again and get reward every time. Blizzard fixed the exploit, and those who used it were banned for a day, and all there character progress was rolled back (exp, gold, artifact power, gear, achievements). Would you like that kind of a treat?

Bloodstone fen. The whole map is there just for your irratation. You want to get from this ledge to another with a glider? Too bad, there is a ley-line in between and you are get dragged a hundred of meters away before you can cancel your glider. Or maybe you want to get up high a little bit by that ley-line go get quickly to justicar fight? Good luck trying to detach from the line, mate. The whole line-line pattern is a mess.
Then you are simply flying on a glider, and without warning an AoE pops just in front of you, and here you go, falling to a death in a form of moa.
The ore and bloodstone nodes that are blocked by a magic rifts, and you can get randomly teleported 2-3 times before you find a safe way to mine that ore or the rift decipates.
The enemies are a pain in the kitten white mantle mesmers and jade constracts are the worst mobs in the game that should never existed. By the way, the whole jade event is a mess. It is long and repetative, with too many jades, and the legendary guardian is absolutely boring fight on the level of shadow behemoth. Just tank & spank, but it takes forever. The worst event chain in the game foe me.
And the most awfull thing in that map is that the rewards are really great. The best ring and amulet in the game. I can’t just ignore it like every other map I dislike, I have grind through the map and my teeth, cause that gear is so OP compaired to every other.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

See… you’ve suggested yet another solution anet could have gone with, and it’s still more elegant than their solution.

Unfortunately, my solution works only for Bitterfrost, cause Bitterfrost mobs were never ment for a farm by Anet. Setting a x10 spawn timer for Doric centaurs would cripple that John Smith’s glorified centaur leather farm. I was always against that farm, proclaiming that it was curing the symptom, not the root of leather problem. But apparently there are people who enjoy it, so it would be unfair to take away something people like.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

This statement fills me with various emotions that can only be depicted with a suitable emoticon but I’m torn between O.o and XD and and >.>
Which is the best (and most elegant) way to express my reaction to this statement?

Also, on a sadder note – if this is the best solution possible, then it means it’s all downhill from here. Any future farming issues can only be solved with worse solutions than this, since this is the best and all.

The community had a problem with engi farm. The solutions were: cripple engis (turrets nerf), cripple the farm (reduce droprates/spawn), cripple Anet’s reputation and Lake Doric playability (do nothing) or cripple your playerbase (just ban all the engi camp). The trebs were the best solution, cause they solved engi farm problem without hurting anyone (exept engis that did that farm, and the “hurting” was a mild one “oh no I can’t farm here anymore, I’m getting killed”, not an account-wide ban for a day).

Of course, the main problem was the design of that leather farm. Just like Bitterfrost, it is not about reward (leather in case of Doric), it is about massive spawnpoints with little cooldown. As long as mobs are dropping blue and green armor and weapons and spawn in one place in a rapid succession there will be an opportunity for AFK farmers. THIS is the root of the problem. So… just dont do such spawn points. And fix all that were already created. For Bitterfrost you even don’t need trebs. Just make the spawn timer of berries mobs x10. Problem solved. You even get a kind word from players who were tired of perma-frosting mobs in BF.

That is a problem with LS3 storytelling in a nutshell. In LS3 the writers decided to surprise the players all the time to generate hype and interest. And the best ways to do it are: 1) misleading trailers; 2) plottwists for the sake of plottwist. I miss the old times when trailers showed what actually will be in the game and plot twists were more predictable, but at least had logic storywise.

Wow, so much salt and hate in this thread without a reason. Engi turret farm was fixed the best (and most elegant) way possible – without breaking profession skills or desrtoying the farm. Just do the same to Bitterfrost and everything is ok.
Remember, AFK-farm did not exist prior to Bitterfrost and Doric. The root of the problem is the bad design of these locations. And it was already fixed in Doric. Aim the cannons on BF’s berries and problem solved.
But don’t touch the summons mechanics. For a lot of people it is a quality of life feature – to go to the bathroom and stay alive because of your pet/rock dog from ogre rune protecting you to the last. I don’t really care about the loot from creatures killed solo by a pet, but a pet should be defending his player, not gladly staring at his master getting killed.

The new maps are good maps for farming, not for playing. The rewards are great, its a best place to get ascended rings, trinkets and amulets. The ring, amulet and backpack from LS1 are the best in game so far, because you can reset their stats. Bitterfrost can give you a lot of loot by just running with a torch and opening chests.
The thing is, the farm is good, the gameplay not so much. Once in a while I have an urge to play some of HoT meta maps or Silverwastes just for fun. But not even once I had an idea: “wow, I just really want to go and farm some petrified wood!” I go there when I need ascended stuff, but the process is unenjoyable, events are boring and the hearts… I hated them even in central Tiria. And the maps on their own are tiny and with little to do besides farm.
But returning to the question of “is it worth it?” If you are a person who likes story – yes, get all of the LS3. The story is mostly ok. But if you are not, not all of LS3 are worth the real money. Get LS1 for best ring, backpiece and amulet. Get LS3 for second ring, accessory and great loot farming. Get LS2 only if you need a second ascended accessory with HoT stats. Ignore the others.