Guild Wars 2

IndigoSundown.5419:

The only thing I find unfair about the story missions is client instability causing DC’s after you’ve done the fighting but before the long-winded NPC’s finish emoting.

This.

The only thing I find unfair about the story missions is client instability causing DC’s after you’ve done the fighting but before the long-winded NPC’s finish emoting.

I also like where the story is going, the execution is weak, though.

LS3, although I’m at the end of chapter 3, feels too short. They crammed way too much story together into a small timeframe. I’d like more development, more time.

Also, I do NOT like the way my character is going. My asura should NOT be dumbfounded by every invention Taimi makes (as much as I love Taimi).

My asura, she’s extremely intelligent (as shown in my fan story in my sig, and it’s only going to get better with the revisions). Later, she starts to invent things which makes her thief skills way OP. First, she invents a device (which is being worked on at the beginning of Chapter 1), which turns her invisible, called the Savant CD-100. The device has mana in it which is drained while it’s on, when it runs out of mana, the device automatically shuts off. The device also cloaks her heat signature, making her harder to find (good luck, Samus. Your Thermal Visor is useless!)

Other devices she makes: Dagger S.TO.R.M. (because, can you really realistically throw that many daggers?), which stands for “Storage of Tactical Object Rapid Manipulation.” (My guildie came up with that phrase). This offensive device has mana stored in it, in which my asura can produce mass daggers. She can either spin, or unload all the daggers on a single target.

Then, she makes a device much later, which, when activated, slows down her down when falling. Basically like Feather Fall from DnD.

Then, there’s a device which she doesn’t make until after the story, tentatively called the IMS (Industrial Magiteck Scanner) which is like Prime Samus’s Scan Visor—gives info on the target, race, gender, weaknesses, etc. It also allows Vini (my asura’s name) to scan objects.

Basically, she’s NOT DUMB. I was offended in LS2 when she had to put together an Inquest Device and one of the choices was “Instructions are for chumps.” … She wouldn’t say that.

I just feel like my PC is being dumbed down more and more.

Each race has 2 VAs (one for each sex), and yet every single one of them uses the SAME dialogue. Why? Why can’t we have them say different things? Each VA could make each race and each sex of each race say something different and say something they might say! A little more resource intensive, but Anet has the basic resources to do that!

It’s just so frustrating… I really want Vini to be Vini, or at least close enough to her.

See, I’m of the opposite opinion. I feel like the story has been regressing/devolving since about the last fifth of LWS2. I’m really tired of how Anet leaves certain plots hanging and hanging to the point that audience retention is completely lost. They have too much going on at once and try to do too much at once.

What really sucks about all of this is that despite my own disdain and loathing for the story now, there are characters that I genuinely like. However, those characters are part of the hanging plot thread collateral that Anet has created by (again) trying to tackle and do too much at once with the story.

If they can’t dedicate enough time to start and finish a plot thread then they shouldn’t bother trying to bring it up at all. I don’t think Anet does a good job with trying to make cliffhangers and they need to stop. I feel like they’re losing audience retention with the way they try to do cliffhangers.

At least that’s what happened with me with regards to Zojja’s condition after HoT. :\

inb4 people start quoting the hearsay from Ep 1 of LWS3 as evidence when hearsay is not reliable evidence

Rauderi.8706:

I can see how the storytelling would be underwhelming, especially for Living World episodes. I kept getting excited by them, only to be let down with dropped threads, baffling ‘plot twists’, random deaths, and isolated responses with no root in the continuity.

Episode 6 is going to have to do a LOT of heavy lifting to resolve plot arcs left behind from the start of HoT…

This is a concern of mine. I fear little will be resolved. We don’t feel at a finale point with so many sudden and unresolved threads popping up left right and centre. LS2 at leats felt like we were heading somewhere, LS3’s GPS fell off somwhere round ep3 and it feels a bit like we are driving around with an upside down street atlas…

My rubbish metaphors aside, the story just isn’t cutting it for me anymore like it did. I was excited for each episode, but the lack of any real coherent plotline and the bizarre identity reveal of Lazarus last episode has hurt my excitement for a release. Luckily, the open world content is still thoroughly enjoyable to me and some wonderful map building, with their own mini stories are keeping me back for more.

If I was to feedback anything constructive, it’s the same as what I’ve said for the last 2-3 years. Each Season and expansion, should be concise, and keep to a clear and central narrative as many players as possible can keep to following. A clear central story for each Season/expansion and leaving no more loose ends left dangling with engage with players a lot more. Shocks for the sake of shocks is also not a positive sign.

I know they want to write this like a TV Series, but this is not the right medium for the style they are going for. Video games work better with self contained linking stories/campaigns.

draxynnic.3719:

You picked “Act with wisdom”, didn’t you?

I think sylvari lost a lot of what made them interesting when their origins were revealed. This has essentially turned them from being the most mysterious playable race in the game to the least – about the only thing left that isn’t known about them is how the Pale Tree came to be independent of Mordremoth, and whether the Pale Tree is capable of growing seeds for new Pale Trees. Basically everything else is known.

There’s still Malyk as well. Moreover knowing that Mordremoth has access to the Dream and was able to influence Sylvari’s thoughts through the Dream (even if he couldn’t dominate them, like with Caithe) I wouldn’t be all that surprised if our assumptions about their origin would turn out to be wrong and that their weakness to Mordremoth was inherent to their connection to the Dream rather than due to being Mordremoth’s “offspring” and that attempting to let them believe they were meant to serve him (by messing with Wynne’s Dream) was just a con to attempt to lower their resistance to such.

I don’t remember if the Pale Tree actually confirmed the Mordremoth link (how could she do so reliably anyway, seeing as she wouldn’t exactly know how she was created, for pretty obvious reasons) so all we have to go on are Wynne’s Dream and Mordremoth’s words.
The first could have been manipulated, the second is hardly a reliable source and the susceptibility to Mordremoth’s domination could be explained away through the shared connection to the Dream.

So yeah, I wouldn’t exactly be surprised if the last word about the Sylvari’s origin hasn’t been said yet…

There’s nothing wrong with niche content in this game, except for the fact that ANet too often makes niche content matter towards things like meta-achievements or collections. Niche content rewards (because there have to be rewards or no one bothers after the first time or three) should not be part of reward structures for overall play. They should be intrinsic to the niche content.

Ashen.2907:

When faced with an innocent who feared being captured and tormented by someone that Caithe agreed would torture the poor woman, Caithe opted to kill the innocent rather than oppose the person she actually believed would commit the heinous act. This despite the fact that she was more powerful than the villain of the piece and could easily stop her.

Great hero there.

You don’t have to hate every character who isn’t a hero. Besides, Wynne begged Caithe to kill her, because if Faolain didn’t get the information from her, then someone else eventually would, and Wynne knew that it was for the best for literally their entire race that she die before that happened. Caithe was absolutely devastated over this, but she carried out her friends wishes. How the kitten can you think that was an evil action, or one that should make you hate her?

Fact of the matter is, the hate towards Caither is almost 100% irrational, and its getting ridiculous.

According to the Pale Tree’s vision, it’s supposed to be the PC that protects the egg, not Caithe. So it’s possible that the egg wouldn’t have granted its power to Caithe in order to escape Faolain. Maybe it would have, but if it did really want the PC as its champion, it might not have allowed Caithe to pass the test.

It is curious, though, why she has the egg as her Wyld Hunt with that being the case.

I suspect it’s a mix of two things:

1) Whatever is behind the Wyld Hunts wanted the egg to have more than one powerful protector.

2) And here’s where it gets interesting:

What would have happened if Caithe hadn’t run off with the egg?

It’s quite likely that we would have on an airship over the jungle when the fleet went down – possibly because we were with the fleet, possibly because the Zephyrites tell us about Tarir and we take our own ship there, or possibly the fleet goes to Tarir rather than Verdant Brink. Either way, it could have been an even bigger disaster if the PC got caught with the egg due to being on a downed airship.

Caithe running off with the egg meant that we were too late to go down with the fleet… which meant we could go into the jungle fresh and, ultimately, achieve Mordremoth’s destruction. That may have been part of the reason for her egg-related Wyld Hunt all along: to keep the PC and the egg away from the fleet when it went down.

I’m mostly okay with Caithe. I’ll identify it as a go-with-the-flow attitude. I actually thought my character was being too hard on her.

Our own PC’s beef against Caithe seem mostly egg related, so, let’s go with that.

The PC was trying to figure out where the Master of Peace was. Ogden revealed with the magical hourglass that the Master of Peace was given an egg. Glint’s egg. Dramatic dun dun dun.

Caithe hears from this, and from that point on, she starts following us. It sounds like its part of her Wyld Hunt, so, obviously she meant to be all on top of it.

Enter us tracking the Master of Peace into a mordrem labyrinthine stronghold, and we find the dying Master of Peace. Our -group- finds it and he asks us to take care of it.

Caithe goes “no time to explain” and she spirits off with the egg. When you meet up with her against in that golden cave where the Forgotten previously were, Caithe assures she is still on the PC’s side, and then goes off again.

Caithe actually goes a long way into bringing the egg to its intended destination. We didn’t know where she was. The Mordrem hadn’t caught up either. Ruka the Wanderer was already on her tail and might have arrived to help her sooner if we hadn’t held him up. Caithe – even opposed by Faolain – could have run the same gauntlet we did and reached her destination. The trials in Tarir, she might have been able to pull them off too.

To me, the Pact Commander’s problem steemed from his/her own entitlement. The egg -had- to be under his/her charge. He had to be in control, and he/she wasn’t.

History ended up showing that Caithe overreached and it’s only because we doggedly followed that we arrived in the nick of time to salvage the situation. Victors ends up writing history. Yay us.

But how would history have taken it if Caithe -had- actually succeeded in bringing the egg all the way to Tarir – while everyone else got their behind handed to them? She would have proven that her penchant for secrecy and holding her own counsel in a time when it was hard to trust would in fact have been wise.

Regarding the egg, Caithe was mistaken to go without support, but it doesn’t mean it had been a bad initiative to take. Her heart was in the right place. I wish she would’ve allowed me to carry the burden… and somewhere along the line, I think that’s really what I’d blame her over. She wasn’t a traitor so much as she didn’t dare trusting anyone. That’s relatable.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

CETheLucid.3964:

She’s … apologized for her personal shortcomings.

except she hasn’t — she basically says, “I’m sorry that I annoy you.” Even while claiming to apologize, she engages in the very behaviors for which she claims to be apologizing.

I’m particularly unimpressed by the PC’s claim that Caithe can be trusted with the dragon, stating that she’s (Caithe) never exhibited ill-well toward the egg or dragon. Well, no, she just stole the egg and put it at risk until the PC could get it back. “No ill-will” isn’t something I’d look for when hiring a security guard.

Pretty sure she has apoligized. Profusely. Caithe was never an honest threat in this regard, just a poor friend and communicator. She’s gotten much better.

Even at her worst, Caithe has always been on our side despite her antics. There’s no reason to distrust her with Aurene.

But we’re not going to agree with each other on this and I don’t suppose the story is going to let you keep her away from Aurene.

Skipping all the giant posts.

Do note, EXPLICITLY. Caithe doesn’t charge into slaughtering the centaurs with a kittening grin. She hears Faolien scream in terror/pain, rushes outside to see her lover and a centaur in combat. And rushes to defend her love who has apparently been attacked.

And then things escalate.

She’s shady, yes. But the hate for her is so kittening overblown I’m completely and utterly sick of it. She’s been shady her ENTIRE LIFE. She hasn’t changed that much, yet the Pkittenerally goes from trusting her, to unsure, to utter hatred threatening to kill her if she twitches.

The Pkittenerally threatened to murder Canach for listening in on her talking about the egg, then suddenly is best pals with him in HoT. Canach has also tried to murder the PC, where Caithe has not. We’ve known Caithe for a very long time, we’ve hardly met Canach.

Yes, she made mistakes. But she’s not been hostile toward the egg or the commander. She’s never been hostile toward the commander. Her guarding the dragon not only adds more protection to it, but it also actually removes her from those who would want to harm her for earlier, ‘mistakes’.

How would people feel if Anet removed visuals from legendaries, chak eggs the bee item and poly luminescence items?

My response to this sort of remark is why should they care? The people in this thread looking at these items aren’t admiring them. They aren’t wishing they had them. They aren’t saying, “how cool. Where can I get that.” You can not show off to someone who dislikes the way you look.

The people who do like it will leave the slider untouched and enjoy the flashy. Those are the people to show off to and get the admiring looks and whispers. Not the ones who think it’s ugly.

Full disclosure. I have the ghostly infusion, the Polys, the queen bee and various wings, butning backpacks, etc. If they don’t want to see it, what do I care if they move a slider over. I’ll never know (or care) if they do or not. I’ll enjoy my shiny, they’ll enjoy their standard models and we’ll both be happy.

In the place of a Dark Lord wings you would have a Queen particle-effect laden backpiece! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me my backpiece and despair!

~EW

sephiroth.4217:

How would people feel if Anet removed visuals from legendaries, chak eggs the bee item and poly luminescence items?

Wouldn’t bother me.

People with such items should have them so that they can look at them, not so that people who they do not know, that don’t know them, and who don’t want to see the items/effects can be required to see them.

Can’t they just re-plant him and see if he grows back?

since about a patch after living world season 3 all the main cities have been loading in very slowly/half loading in (i can see floors and names and my character), i got the 64bit version but its been well hard to load into some maps like lions arch which already takes me a little bit to load into. however other maps i have little to no problems with them loading.

my graphics card is amd radeon HD 6670 xfx card 2 gb, also running in border-less window mode.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Donari.5237:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/choose-a-name-for-tyrias-heroes/

There was a player done vote between three names and Dragon’s Watch was picked. See also threads from early June discussing the merits or lack of merits of the various choices.

My recollection of the consensus was: no one loved any of the choices (and that it could have been even worse). Regardless, my preference is that in the future, they ask for suggestions first, cull them down to a list of three they like, and let us vote on those.

They may have considered that. I can imagine how the conversation goes now.
“I think we need a new guild. Got a name?”
“How about Guildy McGuildface?”

“Dragons gather, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher of the dragons. I am the shield that guards the realms of Tyria. I pledge my life and honor to the Dragon Watch, for this dragon and all the dragons to come.”

Everyone has favorites among the maps. In some ways, Dragon’s Stand is the easiest, since there’s time to complete it after finishing the meta.

What I wish is that ANet had included a transition zone, between Silverwastes and VB, without a meta, without important gifts requiring zone completion. That would give people a chance to figure out how to get around the different levels, learn gliding without also worrying about dealing with the new foes.

Put another way, I don’t think that VB is ‘hard’ so much as it is the zone that requires learning the most new techniques to navigate.

I see you are NA. If you want me to lead you to the right spots to get up, I’ll be happy to. There’s only one canopy vista, easily reached from Mellagan’s, and from it you can get to all the canopy pois in stages. You may have to glide a long time but you’ll never be straining to get to an updraft in time.

If you want to try on your own, here’s how: Go to Mellagan’s wp. Run to the cliff edge, angling to the right, to jump up the heap of green rocks and ship debris at the edge. There is an updraft there. Jump in that and turn to go towards the main wreck with the rotating fans, you can reach the updraft there by this method without having to do a finicky little JP with frogs shooting you.

That boosts you up enough to get onto the big curve of the wreck. You run up that and along the wing rib to get to the vista. Turn left, you’ll see the next poi atop the place where the group boss fight is. Glide over there and use the mushroom to get up. Then you can glide northeast to more updrafts and canopy pois. The only thing you can’t reach in daylight is the top of the patriarch’s platform, but there is a slightly tricky to get on vine you can use to get up in the passages under it to collect the poi there.

All of that takes a lot longer to type than to do.

I am most interested in playing tengu and kodan. Quaggan would be awesome, but probably not practical due to their mesh.

I might be misremembering, but I thought I read that tengu use the same mesh as charr. So armor meshes could be somewhat retooled, although we have plenty of clipping issues with charr.

We don’t necessarily need to start with the Zhaitan story and shoehorn the new race in. Story could also use the old gw1 style with a message that pops up. “this happened before your arrival.”

Pet name: Stupid
Ranger name: Im with stupid.

Consume all for Silky Sand and similar items.

I have noticed that a lot with the new maps… its feast or famine. Cant tell you the number of times I’ve been fighting for my life, and just wanted to stop fighting cuz it goes on forever. Would be nice to see some new explorable areas. When I think of this concept, I think of the Deidre gardens. Pretty place, not a lot of combat, but some… places to explore and discover. or the rookery…

Its a serious question, an i have a serious answer:

I was a WoW player for over the last 12 years, on and off. I love the lore, and i loved the game, but i moved on. In terms of sheer quality, WoW and FFXIV own this market. They are the best at the ‘stand in place to fight’ MMO. No questions asked. All around, great games.

However, nothing compares to the combat that one finds in GW2. Sure, ALOT could be done to fix this game, but in terms of sheer gameplay, no matter what Blizzard throws out there, its just not worth looking at a new xpac, with the same old combat that has aged terribly over the years. So no, i will be passing on Legion. I’ve seriously tried to get back into it, but i just couldn’t handle how boring it is anymore.

Now, if Blizzard reinvents WoW, to be more like GW2’s combat and stats system, and make it better…well, we all wouldn’t be discussing this on a GW2 forum. Thankfully, it’ll never come to that, and we can continue to enjoy GW2 and expect great things from Arena Net.

Zok.4956:

The Caudecus story was predictable. I never thought we catch him in this episode.

Lazarus really was a badly presented deus-ex-machina.

Players of the last raid wing will know that he was (kind of) resurrected (or at least it was tried) and maybe there was a NPC in the map that did a story recap of the raid story part, but he should have been introduced into the LS3 story much better.

Ah I see. At the time I wrote my review I didn’t think about the raid story. I haven’t had the opportunity to do any raids yet, so maybe that is the thing that would have filled in the gaps. However even though I support the existence of raids, I firmly believe essential story elements should not be hidden away in a raid, and players shouldn’t rely on a vague recap of a raid to understand the main story.