Showing Posts For Tauril.8504:

Eurogamer interview with Colin and Mike

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Wait… did they just casually announced new professions and new PvP game modes in a random interview, just like that ? o_o
Their stance about that used to be something along the lines of “no way” until just now (and on new professions I agreed that it would be a huge balancing mess).

wow.

Melandru Stalkers. . . ?

in Lore

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

My second issue was their location. I found there in Caledon Forest. They somehow — while being a dieing breed — got all the way across the continent, and then survived in a drastic climate change (they survived the Shiverpeaks, somehow). It could be argued that one guy was like, “I’mma bring my cat here!”

Yup ! That’s my GW1 ranger !
I don’t have any other serious explanation unfortunately. I just like the idea that the devs unvoluntarily aknowledged my RP ^^
The theory that ranger players would be responsible for this seems like the most logical explanation, and it wouldn’t be the first time Anet did something like that. Ecto farmers are supposedly the reason why you’ve got portals to the underworld in the south of Queensdale.

On a side note, you can find some melandru’s stalker in Ascalon, somewhere in the east of the Fields of Ruin map.

Dolyak Express Jan 10, 2014

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Hello ! I’d like to point back to this lore interview from Esprits d’Orr : http://esprits-dorr.fr/node/261
I’m sure the writing team is aware that it raised a lot of concerns and I guess it would be good to answer a few questions about it.

- Was retconning the Mouvelian calendar really necessary ? I mean it really felt like it was done on a whim, erasing one of those things that make GW’s universe feel authentic just like that for no real benefit. It’s not like dates and calendars actually played any role in the storyline so far so it could very well have stayed the same. I believe the people who are curious enough to find some reference to the Mouvelian calendar can handle the fact that it only has 360 days and you need to do some imaginary stretching so that it aligns correctly with our real-word time.

- What sort of internal structures do you have at work to maintain consistency of the universe in the long run ? I know you have a big wiki for pure objective and logical consistency, but what about the spirit of the universe ? For instance, in the aforementionned interview, the lore explanation for waypoints just felt way too comical, cheesy, and frankly a bit ridiculous for what we’re used to see in the GW universe. How do you make sure a story doesn’t suddenly switch from Shakespearian Drama to Monty Python Burlesque ? Do you have a lead writer to keep it in check or do you expect every single writer to be very well aware of the major themes that GW’s story is built upon ?

Thank you very much for your time Anet. I know my questions contain a bit of a personnal opinion but I guess it’s important to voice one’s concerns from time to time

Vigil's new defense plans?

in Living World

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Guys, these maps of Shaemoor have been all over the place from the very start of the game. You got them in the Vigil but also in the Charr command core, and even on the Priory’s tents.

It’s not meant to indicate anything, it’s just that Queensdale was the first map Anet worked on during the early development of GW2. So when the 3D artists needed some map textures I guess it was the only thing they had at the time. Then they didn’t bother to make new, more relevant ones for other places. So it’s just one of the two or three default map textures you see in the game, the first one being the whole of Tyria, the second one being Shaemoor, and the third one being something compltely unrecognizable (but I think the third one is only on the Priory’s tents and not on paper maps).

Nothing relevant here.

Armor Class and Class

in Lore

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

There’s also GW1. Although GW1 professions were never explicitely stated to have certain types of armor, the armor stats on the equipment, the materials used to craft them and their visual style was pretty much a light-medium-heavy classification.
They couldn’t keep their approach of having armor styles linked to professions in GW2 because of races, so they limited it to armor class.

But yeah, in the end GW1 was also borrowing some of these trinity-based RPGs archetypes.

Armor Class and Class

in Lore

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I guess it’s mostly a cultural thing with a few random practical reasons here and there (such as the possibility of enchanting light armor, magic shields compensating for lack of armor and so on). The in-game restrictions would represent the most common cultural representation of each class.
What I mean by that is you could say “scholar” classes mostly live in safe cities for their studies and thus don’t need armor. “adventurer” classes need a bit of armor for various reasons (rangers live in the wild, thieves live among gangs in the streets and engineers handle dangerous materials) but have no use for the burden of a heavy armor (especially if they travel a lot). And then “soldier” classes are commonly associated with the military and thus wear heavy armor for battle.

But of course if we were to be realistic, no one would wear heavy armor outside of big battles (and they would need a squire to put it on), plate isn’t really appropriate for travels. Every class would wear light armor as town clothes, medium armor for travels and heavy armor (more or less heavy depending on your combat style) for when you’re going into a large battle. But the game doesn’t work like that, you don’t plan a large battle with an opposing kingdom where you bring your armoured knights, you just travel the world and hop in whatever fight you come across.

So, what you see in-game is just based on archetypes. It’s up to you to fill in the blanks while roleplaying.

Why are people hating on Halloween?

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I actually enjoyed the story this time around.
Nothing tremendously exceptional of course, but at least Anet’s starting to understand how to use their gameplay mechanics as narrative tools, and to do it without anything feeling buggy or clumsy. Given what we’ve had before that’s an extremely impressive improvement.
The candy elemental part may be weird (well, it’s just the usual disconnect between story and gameplay) and the end instance just went as expected (albeit with some decent boss mechanic), but the intro instance had some nice and cleverly done story-telling to it. I hope we’ll see more of that sort in the future.

Caithe's Secret. The murder of Snaff.

in Lore

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Tauril.8504

If she knew for certain that there was no redemption possible for Nightmare Courtiers due to the influence of a dragon I’m not sure she would behave the way in TA story.

The Mallyck idea, however, is very interesting, it’s not so much of a personal secret, but at least [t_it censored…] it ties all three characters together (Scarlet has, or should have, after all, her own way of struggling with the question of Dream and Nightmare, meaning Mallyck is as important to her as to any other sylvari). There are only two ‘problems’. The first is considering Scarlet’s nearly unlimited capabilities and ressources, you’d think she would have found Malyck and his tree by now. The second is that considering how Malyck completely disappeared from even the late personnal story (where you could legitimately have expected him to make a return), I don’t think Anet is anywhere near ready to explore such an important part of the lore.
Any way, that would definitely get me interested, especially if it can make Scarlet a more plausible character by exploring her relationship to her own race and to the Dream.

Instant Trait Reset Item!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

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Tauril.8504

This item is… Eh. It misses the problem. Respecs are already very easy to get, unless you’re in the middle of a dungeon/fractal, where it’s not necessary.

What we need is templates, not respecs.

Indeed, and with this new cash shop item I’m worried that we may not see templates until a very long time… Well, why the game wasn’t designed with templates to begin with is still beyond me, but whatever…

Condition Catastrophe

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

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Tauril.8504

As far as I know we still haven’t had an official answer to the idea of not having condition stacks constantly re-updating themselves depending on the source’s condition damage stat and how much it could help performance. Somehow, I feel like a 100 conditions stack just doing their thing on their own would hurt performance much less than the 25 stacks constantly requiring data from the players that we have now, but I’m by no mean an expert on the subject.

I know it would induce some change to the way we play the game, making condition bursts more predictable, but also involving a bit more thought in the execution of a build (rather than the “fire everything !” method we tend to have now) and bringing back a certain gw1-like feeling, would that be so bad ? Also, since you can’t update direct damage after it’s been dealt, I wonder if this would not simply add consistency accross the board. Plus, I’m having a hard time imagining the logic behind making a guy bleed more by shouting “for great justice” or blowing my ranger’s warhorn…

While this would require gameplay testing and balancing from Anet I feel like this solution (which isn’t mine, I’m just bringing it up) would be a more simple one in that it wouldn’t add new mechanics (hence more complexity to the rules of the game) like full stacks dealing direct damage or other work-around solutions that are about adding mechanics on top of already existing mechanics instead of modifying and re-arranging those existing mechanics. And I think the effect on gameplay would be interesting.

Scarlet is the BEST villain in GW2

in Twilight Assault

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

LOL

You guys are forgetting one important detail…

You don’t know what Scarlet’s motive yet…

How about you let them finish the story.

Flat Character LMAO
Not one you have a clue on the … (cough) letter on the subject.

Ho so you mean it’s ok that we have to wait way past the introduction of a story to finally know why we may be interested in said story (or to have the right to express our concerns about the story not catching our interest in the first place) ?
I’m sure the Lords of the Rings would still be a perfectly fine story if we had to wait until the third book to finally be introduced to the ring. I’m sure Star Wars would still be the success it is if the rebels vs empire theme had only been introduced in the Return of the Jedi.
You know, there’s a reason why, if you study litterature, cinema, or any other storytelling media you’ll necesarily be taught about the rule of the first five minutes, or an equivalent. It’s just the harsh reality that, as a writer, if you can’t give your readers/viewer/players a good reason to care about your story from the very beginning then they have no reason not to close the book and put it back on its shelf, or leave the theater, or just stop playing the game, even though they paid for it.
We’re not asking for her motive, we’re not asking for her detailed background and origins, we’re just asking to know what is at stake in this story Anet is trying to tell us. Because if nothing hangs in the balance and all remain in a perfect status quo why would our characters even need to lift a finger ? (Anet putting a plot shield on pretty much everything due to them trying to avoid any “paradox” between LS and PS doesn’t help that).
Anet could have used Faren’s kidnapping to great effect, giving us reason to act against Scarlet (even if you don’t like Faren it’s better than no reason at all), but we didn’t even know about him getting kidnapped until we had to save him… such a great way to build tension… The only thing Scarlet did was preventing us from farming the Crown’s Pavillion, but since the invasions were far more lucrative, and it was so poorly communicated (I’m not sure if there was even one clear, explicit mention of the fact that Scarlet locked herself in the Pavillion during the Queen’s Speech instance) I can’t reasonnably consider it as a decent attempt to engage the players.

We’re not kittening just for the sake of it, we’re simply pointing out that there are a certain number of base elements that, as a writer, you need to put together if you want to build something that can be called a story. Catching your public’s attention is probably the most important one.

(edited by Tauril.8504)

Why can we use Asura gates for free?

in Lore

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I can’t remember where I heard it nor what it said exactly, but I’m sure there are more dialogues than just that one with the Charr and the Asura and the lifetime supply of rifles that confirms that everyone has to pay. Its location was just… less obvious than directly near the gate hub in LA.

As for the waypoints, I’m still having a hard time considering them an integral part of the lore. I mean… instant teleportation from anywhere on the map, and not only do people still use gates, but it is never mentionned anywhere in the books, in game story and dialogues, or any other kind of lore support. The only way I can see the waypoints included in the lore is to have them be some kind of advanced direction signs, with access to a UI (for a fee) with features like itinerary searches, well something like that, that stays within the acceptable boundaries of the game universe.

Scarlet is the BEST villain in GW2

in Twilight Assault

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

How are we supposed to know anything if they just introduced her?

That’s precisely because she’s being introduced to us that we need to know something about her. That’s what an introduction is for.
But what we need to know is not her whole biography, delivered through a 5 minutes monologue that would spoil any kind of mistery and just bore us to death. What we need to know is just the right information that will tell us why we may want to care about this character.
What we need to know is why this character is relevant to the plot (can she threaten or help the heroes’ goals) and/or why we may want to discover more about the character (does this character behave in a way that makes us wonder if there’s something more going on that what appears at first glance ? Bonus points if this secret is relevant to the plot).

Re-using my Vader analogy : After less than two minutes of Vader screentime, we already know that his goal is to find the droids and that Leia gets on his nerves when she refuses to kneel before his almighty evilness. And here you have it : why the character is relevant to the plot, and why Vader may be more than just some evil lord in a black suit. As viewers (or players), it makes us want to see more, to see if the droids can escape Vader, and to see more about Vader’s personnality, and his struggle with authority, as we will later see that his rivalry with Tarkin and the other officers and his rivalry with his old master Kenobi are other expressions of his constant need to prove his authority (that’s what I get of it from my memories, you may interpret it differently).

In the case of Scarlet, well, she fails to shoot the Queen, she kills a handful of the most random civilians possible, and she sends her minions to the least populated corners of the map possible… She doesn’t make anything that could make us want to care about. Everytime she does something significant, the story instantly falls back to a status quo, with nothing hanging in the balance. The Queen is instantly saved, those dead civilians are just as important to us as those stormtroopers we see dying everyday, and her invasions don’t threaten anything more than a few flowers. Faren’s kidnapping could have given us a great goal as to why we would want to see the rest of the story (at least he is a character we can care about), but his kidnapping is never explicitely announced until we finally get into Scarlet’s Playhouse (any sane person would have assumed the fall killed him).
As for discovering more about Scarlet’s personnality, her need for self-determination has great potential toward making her interesting, but it is completely overshadowed by her OP engineering skills (which should only serve toward advancing the plot, and not define her as a character) and the fact that she just goes “ah ! ah ! Look at me ! I’m so evil !” without any kind of underlying goal. I’m not against a character that acts like that as long as there’s something behind it. In her case, she targets the Queen, then kill random civilians, then kidnap some ambassadors then invade some parts of Tyria. It feels like she doesn’t know what she’s doing, or she doesn’t have the guts to carry things through. Her actions point toward completely opposite goals. And no, her insanity isn’t a good excuse to that. If this character is going to be about refusing any kind of predetermined way of life imposed on her then at least make her actions show that.

So yeah, her just being introduced isn’t an excuse for her not being interesting.

(edited by Tauril.8504)

Scarlet is the BEST villain in GW2

in Twilight Assault

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

[second part]

Do you know what makes Darth Vader an interesting villain even in his first minutes of screentime ? Not the fact that he wears black, has a dark voice, can lift people and strangle them with one hand and is overall soooo evil. Well, it helps, but what actually makes him interesting is the fact that the droids escape and that Leïa isn’t impressed by his evilness. It sets two goals for Vader : finding the droids and breaking Leïa’s will. That’s why the desctruction of Alderaan is an emotionally impactful moment. Not just because it is soooo evil, but because that’s when Vader starts winning and Leïa starts losing, that’s when the balance changes. So, Vader has two things : a goal that threatens the success of the heroes, and a weakness in his rivalry with Leïa (and later, Tarkin) that makes us want to see if he can overcome it and, by doing so, evolve as a character.
Scarlet ? Well… she just blows stuff up, deliver some good voice acting and fails to have any kind of meaningful impact on the overall plot (if there actually is one, because we still don’ know what really important thing is at stake in this whole Living Story thing).
The fact that the game mechanics are not able to deliver the narration properly doesn’t help either. Those ingame cinematics were way too buggy to actually care about the implications of what was going on (the painterly one was ok though), and, let’s face it, Scarlet’s “invasion” being only about spawning mobs that will stand still in the least populated corners of Tyria doesn’t make me want to take her seriously. Her minions can rule over the local flowers, or clean the Brand for the High Legions, I honestly see no reason to stop them.

Right now, Scarlet is a nicely wrapped gift, with good voice acting and funny, crazy actions but it is an empty gift that doesn’t give me any reason to care about it once it’s been unwrapped. She doesn’t have a goal that can threaten the course of the overall plot and make me want to see if it can end well anyway, and she doesn’t have the weaknesses that make me want to see if she can have some interesting character development.
I hope this metaphor sums things up correctly.

Now, about GW1, while Anet has never been renowned for their storytelling skills, at least they’ve always been very good at keeping their lore in order. I hope the “all three colleges” incident never happens again, and I hope the quality of the writing improves and that Anet will learn how to better deliver their narrative through gameplay, and not only writing. I’m not asking for anything complicated, just for the most basic level of story telling, the one that you learn in writing and cinema schools, the one that’s just good enough to actually make you care about the story. Even if that means using some very obvious tropes it’s perfectly ok as long as they are used to keep me interested

(edited by Tauril.8504)

Scarlet is the BEST villain in GW2

in Twilight Assault

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I feel the people who excessively dislike Scarlet didn’t actually read anything about her and just think she’s a joker clone

Edit: there is reason and a cause behind her actions.

There is, but not only is it very poor, but it doesn’t help make her interesting.
Plus when you see that the writers actually had to minimize the whole “three asura colleges” thing in an interview when they realized it was clearly too much you actually start wondering if they have thought things through.

Scarlet background is actually more about focusing on justifying her ridiculous level of power than on making her a fully fleshed out character. Anet, if you’re going to have characters that are so powerful that you feel the need to justify it, don’t make them so powerful in the first place.
Power is not what makes a character interesting, character is. You can actually have a character that is all about power and still have her be interesting by focusing on how this character relates to this power rather than just saying that she has power. Tell us what it means for her to have this power, what she aims to do with it and why, tell us what she fears about this power and how she can overcome this fear. These are things that we can relate to as human beings, and if a character isn’t going to have any of this you may just as well have a lifeless machine.

In the case of Scarlet, her reject of both Dream and Nightmare, and any kind of pre-determined path imposed on her actually has a lot of potential toward making her interesting, but it is completely overshadowed by a long series of “power-ups” that completely miss the point of the character. When Scarlet goes to several of the races to learn stuff, we could have seen her struggle with how those races also involuntarily try to impose their views and expectations on her, it would have reinforced the main theme of the character and create situations in which we can empathize with her, or outright disagree with her since she is a villain. Instead, she’s just given more power so that she can bypass any kind of interesting struggle.
Same thing for her madness. Seeing the meaning of the world and suddenly wanting to kill people is… well, sure it’s way overdone and now boring, but that’s not even the real problem. The real problem is that it doesn’t add anything to the character. Her madness could have come perfectly naturally, from the struggles she experiences. See, she likes engineering, she believes that understanding systems, breaking them down and rebuilding them is the way she can forge a way that is truly her own, but at the same time, her love for engineering probably comes from the Dream. So she’s caught in a paradox that’s slowly driving her mad, especially if people point it up to her. Add in one or two traumatic events to unleash the underlying insanity and you can have an insane character, with enough justification to it, that holds itself together by constantly staying true to its original theme, without having to resort to excuses. Because that’s what Scarlet’s background currently is, excuses. We know from quite a long time now that Anet likes to design content using the “rule of cool”. Someone comes up with an idea “hey let’s make a villain that’s skilled in engineering”, or “let’s make her insane, it will be fun !” and then the writers have to patch together all these “cool” ideas, and their solution is to use excuses like “she graduated from all three asura colleges, that’s why she’s so good at engineering” to make sure that it’s coherent. But here the problem is that while coherence is important for proper immersion, I actually don’t care if a character’s abilities suddenly come out a bit out of nowhere, as long as they serve to flesh out the character, either by teaching us more about her or by making some interesting character development (the character overcoming her fear for instance). Focusing on the character will go a much longer way toward making a story believable than focusing on the logical details of why this or that character has this or that power.

[second part on next post…]

(edited by Tauril.8504)

Who was King Roderick?

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Tauril.8504

Edair’s reign must have been short if Roderick was already on the throne ten years after Baede’s death. Maybe Roderick is that elementalist son they were talking about in SoS ?
I wonder what happened to Edair, probably got killed in some battle judging by the character.

As for the tomb of Mazdak, my impression is that Anet has a tendancy to twist the original purpose of a place to accomodate the story when using it as a personnal story. What I mean is that it feels like they tend to choose whatever random place looks nice enough to put some story in it. The place is only what it is in the personnal story for the duration of the instance, and then it returns to its former state in the open world with absolutely no mention of the lore developped in the personnal story.
You see that in the first Priory mission. You arrive at this mine that is clearly a dredge mine, but Sieran somehow sees a dwarven mine and never notices how it is clearly dredge until they get under her feet. To me, Anet just took some place that was already created and used it anyway instead of trying to build something that would look dwarven on the outside and dredge on the inside.
So yeah… the mini-dungeon in Gendarran Fields probably only is the tomb of Mazdak when playing the sylvari personnal story.

Ranger's Pet's Names

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

As explained before, this would amount to a significant amount of data for the servers to memorize just for one single profession. Dev talk implies that the size of it is way unreasonnable compared to the amount currently required by professions.

Just imagine every ranger now has the ability to store a name with a 20 or so character limit for each of their 35 pets.
The way I could see them do it is by using a local .txt file the same way they used to for saving builds in gw1. Only problem is it doesn’t transfer if you play on another computer. And that’s developping a new feature for one profession only.

But, instead of being able to name every single pet I own, I would definitely love it if the game could have the names attributed to and remembered only for the first and second pet slots. What I mean is, whatever pet you put in your first slot, it always bears the name you attributed to your first slot.
The way I use my pets is that I only change them when the content requires it (dungeons for the most part). I always keep the same two named pets while casually doing some open world and I honestly don’t care if the temporary pets I use in dungeons use the same name or not, but it sucks that I have to rewrite my pets’ names when I change them back. So I’d really like the game to always remember the name we attribute to each slot (instead of to each pet) and only change it when we want to. I mean there’s no good reason to have the game completely erasing the name without givins us any options.

The "story" of Tequatl Rising

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Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I have a feeling Anet could go back on the “post Zhaitan’s fall” thing and use a possible future revamp of the fight against Zhaitan in Arah to officially mark Zhaitan as defeated once and for all, instead of just having it confirmed in some random interview.

Making content your engine can't handle?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Take my sources for what they are (not the most reliable that is), but a friend of mine who had several opportunities to speak with devs had one of them told him that they had the engine written by someone whom they gave very precise instructions and specifications. This resulted in an engine optimized for what they had originally envisionned for the game, but not necessarily suited to be flexible and evolve over time. Thus why we see things as stupid as the zephyrites Aspect skills failing because of lag despite the fact that it is a targeted AoE, which, logically, shouldn’t hesitate about where to land you since you’ve gokitten targeted it. But apparently there are complications in the engine that doesn’t make this sort of “logical” things possible. Overall I feel like it relies way too much on physics, and that’s why we see the Aspect skill rubber-banding, because it’s probably recalculating physics all the time when, really, it shouldn’t if it was better optimized, or it could at least handle lag better.
So yeah, Anet are trying to push the boundaries of what the engine allows, and I’m sure they’re working on improving it, but I guess they’re somewhat stuck with something that wasn’t meant to be as flexible as they wish it was.

Why wasn't Almorra Soulkeeper turned?

in Lore

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Tauril.8504

Pages 97-98-99.

“The others turned to see what could terrify such a charr as Soulslasher, but I reached out and grabbed my friend by the shoulders to shake the fear from him. As I did, I saw the changes start to take him.”

Next pragraph is a description of the transformation. The one after that:

“And then he turned into living glass, crystallizing in an instant before my eyes into his twisted form, and at my back I could feel a presssure, like a great hand was pressing down on the entire world as the dragon passed overhead.”

In another paragraph:

“I don’t know what spared me from sharing his fate. Every other member of our warband succumbed to it. I was standing no more than a foot from Harthog, and he and the others were warped beyond recognition, yet I was spared.”

Final sentence in the next paragraph:

“The pasture [had to edit this word because of filter] shattered under my feet as I walked on it grinding it into sand.”

She was clearly inside The Dragonbrand when the corruption took place, at least from what is shown in the book, and her surprise by not being corrupted, despite being in the exact same conditions as the rest of the warband, leads to believe there was nothing that could’ve explained it logically; like standing right outside of it.

May I add that in the Vigil welcome cinematic she clearly states “I stood beneath the dragon as it passed overhead. I survived where others did not.”
Clearly, if she was spared because the brand missed her by a few inches (which would be unlikely, the branding seemed like a very destructive process, not just drawing a precise line where everything on one side gets corrupted), she would have stated she was lucky enough to be outside of the area of effect.
Unless she’s making things up to make her more interesting and worthy of leadership… but she doesn’t seem like the type to do this.

Why the Priory isn’t constantly sending request to conduct research on her is curious though.
Or the Priory knows of Destiny’s Edge anti-magic/corruption tatoos, but they don’t seem to use them in Orr.

(edited by Tauril.8504)

Cornered, Caught, Collared

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Hi there,
my guildies and I just completed the aetherblade retreat dungeon yesterday evening, and I’ve realized that while they all got the achievement for it (cornered, caught, collared) I, surprisingly, didn’t.
We all did the dungeon from the beginning to the end, without any deconnexion or without ever leaving the instance. The only thing I could think of is that when Horrik fell I was on that aircraft with the cannon just looking what it’s all about, but since I had my pet (I’m ranger) reducing Horrik’s health during the whole fight and I did hit him a few time before rushing onto the aircraft I believe I got the contribution for his kill.
I think I’ve noticed an achievement notification popping on the right of my screen when we completed it but I can’t remember what it was.

I could care less since it’s only 2 achievement points and I’ve got my mini Horrik anyway, but well, that’s still a bug.

Concerning the Overall Feel of Skills

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I believe the problem (in PvE) doesn’t lie within the skill system of the skill themselves, but in the mobs’ design. You can tweak the switch cooldown all you want, add all sorts of crazy combos to your skillbars, if the outcome of the fight doesn’t depend on your capacity to execute these combos well it won’t create any kind of depth or challenge.
Right now, who would ever create a general PvE build with a boon removal utility ? Or plan to use the anti-endurance effect of weakness ? Who would use Chill to counter a specific ‘high-power high-cooldown’ skill on a boss ?

GW2’s combat system is based on positionning, timing your dodges and blocks and making tactical decisions about when to use your skills, yet the AI hasn’t been designed to do that.
There are a lot of mobs with interesting mechanics. Skales with their regeneration that you need to counter, Skelks with their teleport that you need to dodge with good timing, but its motly one or two mechanic per creature and its never really making an extensive use of the game mechanics. The only mobs that can fire while moving, or dodge are centaurs and bandits, but even then, it’s just a skill giving the illusion that they use these mechanics, the dodge isn’t even using endurance.
So after the mob you’re fighting has used its only interesting mechanic you’re generally left with hittin a dummy, a dummy which then has to be filled with a lot of hp and damage to make it somewhat interesting.
I’m not asking for more difficulty, I’m asking for more challenge. “Challenge” here means something that stimulates you to act. A boss that insta-kill you without a warning is difficult without being challenging. But how about a boss who doesn’t necessarily deals a lot of damage but is quite resistant, not because of a lot of hp, but because it doddges often and well. There you actually have to find a good strategy to create openings in its defense, using poor little Weakness conditions to limit its dodges, chills, cripples and immobilizes to keep it in place, stuns and KD to time some spike damage and also using swiftness to stay on its toes and fury and power to make the few hits you can give it worth it. It’s challenging, but not necesarily difficult.

The base of GW2’s combat is good, but they need to use it more in depth in PvE to really make it what it deserves to be. I’m no even dreaming about mobs that memorize you skill rotation and will time their dodge right the next time you use a sequence they recognize. No, I’m only talking about ennemies that will move while firing their spells, will move to leave AoEs or stay a certain range from the players (especially if they have a shot like ranger longbow or mesmer greatsword), and also please, ennemies who do a few well-timed dodges here and there, using an endurance bar. Then just add a few boon and conditions and their removal (used intelligently of course, not just everytime they hit a certain percentage of hp) and it will already be a great deal of a change for this game since we would be able to make full use of all the crazy options our skills have to offer (like weakness).
Plus, if the PvE starts using all the game’s mechanics as extensively as PvP, splitting skills and traits between the two modes will be less and less needed.

(edited by Tauril.8504)

An option to disable right click targeting

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Wow, never heard of anyone using both buttons to move, seems bizarre to me, but as an option that`d be best for all

You don’t always have both your hands on the desk. Moving with both buttons can sometimes be pretty handy when you’re lazily going from the TP to the bank in LA, or when you’re drinking a cup of tea with your left hand

Rarely use it in combat though. Except when I’m going akitten (<= the forums censoring “Away From Keyboard”… this thing never ceases to amaze me) and some mob randomly spawns on my face and I need to gtfo, if I’m doing something irl it’s not necesarily possible to reach my keyboard :P

(edited by Tauril.8504)

New Red Ring of Death

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Some may not like it because it’s more aggressive but I believe that’s the goal. It may be a little too much ‘in your face’ on its own but I’m sure it’ll be helpful for AoE fests (that’s probably part of what the devs were saying about improving the visibility of effects during that sPvP tournament livestream lately).
I’ll have to find a real AoE fest and see how it feels.

A Casually Fading Game

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Please let us not forget that challenge and difficulty are two completely different things.
GW2 does need a more challenging PvE (to be precise, a more challenging AI), but its difficulty is fine for the most part.

A guide on How to Win at Crab Toss.

in Last Stand at Southsun

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

This mini-game is so well designed. I love it. I hate to bash on sPvP but I feel like it would make a better e-sport. There is a great amount of depth in predicting your opponent’s move, faking, counter-faking, and anticipating everything that’s going on in the arena. Good players have lot of room to express their skills and at the same time the game is thought so that they can’t dominate all the time and so that even a complete noob can hold the crab at least once. And from a spectator’s point of view (if there was a spectator mode for this), what’s not to love about seeing the whole team getting rolled on by a giant karka (this and things like the fishing pole or a leaping plank make for great turn of events).

30 seconds of revealed for 500 Karma. [merged]

in Thief

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Oh, come on! Some of you guys really think you’re the center of the universe… Newsflash: the world doesn’t revolve around the thief.

This new trap’s main purpose is to stop the Veil-zerg; nothing more.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Veil

If this is the only goal I think it would have been much more intelligent to simply limit the maximum number of affected players of this skill, just like they did for the Portal skill.

Oceanics! Do you experience this?

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I’m also having rubberbanding on falls since the last patch, and I live in France so it’s definitely not a oceanic-only thing.

I also got some small periods of lag, but I don’t particularily trust my internet connexion so it may come from Anet just as well as from me.

Also, but I don’t think it has to do with lag, since the last patch it seems dodges will queue when interrupted. For instance if I get immobilized when I begin a dodge (which, in fact, shouldn’t happen right ? the dodge should evade the immobilize so I suspect this is where lag plays a role) I will automatically dodge once the immobilize ends. It also happen on rezzed.
This can cause a few accidents. For instance a friend of mine got downed right on the edge of the boss platform in the new Flame and Frost dungeon. When I rezzed him, he automatically dodged and ended up falling off the platform. I believe this was because he got killed while dodging and because the queued dodge apparently only goes backward and the downed state probably repositionned him so that he faced the boss at the center of the platform. So the game made him dodge-roll into the void.

(edited by Tauril.8504)

PvE NPC recruitment

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I’m not sure about hire-able NPCs in PVE (NPC companions were abandonned early in GW2’s development for a good reason I belive), but I could definitely see them included in WvW !
WvW Mercenaries are very lackluster at the moment. When they were first announced I imagined them as NPCs you could hire so that they follow you and help you in your objectives, instead, you just capture an NPC spawner that will regularily send a few mobs to death always at the same locations.

I believe hire-able NPCs could help in adding diversity to WvW strategies (I mean doing something else than zerging). A few AI-controlled allies probably wouldn’t be of much help to an already big zerg, but I think it would give solo players or small groups the opportunity to have a lot more impact.

Some thoughts on ranger spirits

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Hi there !

The last update have, once again, increased the health of ranger spirits and their chance to proc their effect. This is all well and good but I can’t help but feel like this proc chance doesn’t make much sense in the first place because of that long 10 seconds cooldown. Can’t we just have the effect be consistently activated every 10 or more seconds and then balance this cooldown rather than the proc chance ? I feel like balancing a cooldown would have a much more meaningful impact on gameplay than nitpicking over this relatively useless proc chance.

Of course this means a little rework for Spiritual Knowledge, but I’m not the only one saying spirits need a rework anyway and that a little increase on their stats once in a while isn’t truly changing anything about them.
Their passive effects aren’t so game-changing and their active effects are too small and slow to cast to be reliable outside of PvE. I’ve seen some interesting discussions on the forums about quality of life improvements and the spirit’s survivability with or without Spirits Unbound. There was one that suggested to have spirits be more like engineer turrets that can be picked-up and repositionned. From my own experience Spirits Unbound usually helps my spirits survivability a lot, but sometimes I wish I could indeed switch that trait on and off so that I can keep them away from occasionnal dangers.

Personally, I feel like something’s missing from GW2’s spirits. Their theme : changing the environnement to give the ranger an advantage.
This was very present in GW1, not visually, but mechanically. The spirit’s effects affected everybody, not just allies or ennemies, and the spirit gave you the advantage if you had picked an appropriate build. There was no visual effectof the ground becoming muddy terrain or frozen soil, and you couldn’t see favorable winds blowing through the trees, but the idea that you influenced the environnement over a large area was very present.
Now, this idea of affecting both allies and ennemies wouldn’t work in GW2 for obvious grieffing reasons, but GW2 is all about positionning and very visual skills so I believe spirits could be more than buffing machines with tiny aoes to add the missing flavor.
I think the elementalist’s meteor shower is a good example of what I mean. By casting this large, long duration AoE before engaging they set up an area where they will have the advantage because their ennemy is likely to be hit by a meteor or two if they stay within. Wouldn’t it be interesting if your Storm Spirit actually summoned a storm with lightning randomly striking over a large area ?

So, mixing up all aforementionned idea, here is how I think spirits could be made more interesting gameplay-wise.

All spirits move and follow the ranger by default. When moving, they can only apply their passive buffs to nearby allies, but the ranger can use the skill a second time to root them at their current position. When rooted, the spirits will still apply their passive buffs but will also set up a large AoE in which smaller AoEs strike at random locations. Using the skill a third time unroots the spirit, back to moving mode.

Sun spirit :
Adds burning to an attack every X seconds.
Rooted : sun rays randomly strike the area, blinding foes they hit.

Storm spirit :
Gives swiftness every X seconds.
Rooted : lightning randomly strike the area, dealing damage.

Frost spirit :
+ Y% damage on hit every X seconds.
Rooted : small areas of frozen ground randomly appear in the area, chilling foes.

Stone spirit :
Gives protection every X seconds.
Rooted : small areas of muddy terrain randomly appear in the area, crippling foes.

Spirit of Nature is the only spirit that works well in its current state, but maybe it could work the same way as the others. It would still heal allies over time and, when rooted, it would also heal downed allies over time and regularily cure a condition.

This would of course mean that all spirit-related traits should be redone… except Vigorous Spirit but this one is really a bad trait. It feels like a requirement to play spirits instead of adding something to the gameplay. I’d much rather have something that adds some useful functionnality rather than this sort of unimaginative traits.

Anyway, I think all rangers will agree that spirits need to be worked on thoroughly and not just getting some insignificant increases on some of their stats. Having a whole category of skills be officially subpar is quite sad. I say officially because of that interview where devs admitted that ranger spirits had been nerfed too hard and it made me think about this : http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter%27s_Boon_%28PvP%29

I hope to see spirits becoming a fun and useful addition to our builds

Chill & Weakness in PvE

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I don’t think NPCs have endurance at all. The only mobs I’ve seen dodge are bandits and given how the animation looks I think it’s a skill with a cooldown and not the traditionnal dodge with endurance.
Just like centaur archers are the only mobs capable of firing while moving… except it’s a skill, they can’t fire their other attacks while on the move, and they can’t fire that attack without moving.
Anet have built a wonderful combat system based on positionning and dodging… and forgot to give the AI the ability to position and dodge…
So we happen to need separate skill balancing for PvP and PvE, although Anet wanted to stay away of that.

(edited by Tauril.8504)

Southsun update May 14th

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I’m sure the supply drain trap works by unleashing an angry mob of Skritt thieves who scream “Shinies !” while pickpocketing players

Southsun update May 14th

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Eager to see those traps in action, although I don’t think anti-stealth is a good idea, unless every profession also gets access to stealth through an item. Anti-stealth items are still much better than the anti-stealth skills some have asked, but I’d rather have them fix the abuses of stealth rather than making us buy items specifically for dealing with a few skills of only two professions.

WvWvW completion

in WvW

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

They definitely need to get colours rotating.
I’m on Vizunah Square, stuck at the top of board, last time we were not green we only got as far down as blue, and all the points I need are deep in red territory in Eternal Battlegrounds, the kind of points that rarely gets captured at all.
And no, changing servers is not an option, and I’d bet it’s the same for a lot of people.

The current system makes me want to see my server loosing, that shouldn’t happen in Anet’s plans of creating server communities.

Sylvari -the sexiest playable race in Tyria?

in Sylvari

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

The male sylvari pc has quite the sensual voice, I can’t deny. Aside from that accent problem many mention. But since english isn’t my mother tongue I don’t really have any kind of sensibility when it comes to accents :P Still play the game in english because the french version is terrible both in the voices and the translation. Really a shame when you compare it to GW1’s quality. So I’d rather play a sylvari with a sexy voice…. and work on my english at the same time of course.

What happened to GW2?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

April Fool’s Day. You should have been prepared, especially considering Anet’s record on the matter. Every GW1 player around here knew this was going to be the day when you need to set your suspension of disbelief on maximum. Your fault for not preparing yourself
Relax now, the game you love is still there and all this joyous nonsense will be gone by the end of the month. And it’s not like the mysterious chests are constantly spawning in your way, I actually have to go out of my normal way of playing to find them.

Really nothing worth throwing a tantrum. On a side note, it’s a good thing to see game developpers who actually know and love video games :P

(edited by Tauril.8504)

SAB: Ok what kind of game is this?

in Super Adventure Box

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

It’s April Fool’s Day so I was more than ready to give this day some extra suspension of disbelief and enjoy whatever awesome surprise Anet concocted us. They never failed to surprise us in GW1, and they’ve just gone over the top of awesomeness with this one

Chillax mate ! Your good ol’ fantasy game is still there and all this joyous April Fool nonsense will be gone by the end of the month. Some fancy login screen music seems far from impossible to overcome to me
(You can still use the custom music functionnality if you really hate it that much)

Thank you, so much.

in Super Adventure Box

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

True. While playing I was thinking “this is gonna leave some sweet memories” :’D

Missing human faces

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

And all of them are so desperately drowned under a ridiculous sh#t ton of make up. If only they had made make up an option equivalent to beard on men, so that we could choose not to have it !

Anyway, I’d be much more interested in those human male faces that we see on NPCs but not in character creation. Now these would actually bring some diversity with their wrinkles and not-so-ridiculously-clean-and-ultra-handsome look. These female faces above all look so similar it’s depressing. Character creation needs more diversity and “honesty” in its representation of humans, people have been saying that since what… the first gamescom demo ?

(edited by Tauril.8504)

Awesome cities, mostly abandoned because all the action is in LA

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

If there was a way to get to my race’s capital city just as fast as to LA I would constantly be in my capital city just to avoid the loading screen and lag (I would be in the Grove particularily, since it has the awesome advantage of having no loading screens if you tp between its floors ).

For that matter, it would be nice if Anet could just give us 6 nice little buttons somewhere on our UI that port us directly to the capital city of our choice. There really is no need to make us suffer additionnal loading screens nor to transform the Heart of the Mists into a highway. Show the sPvPers some respect !
This is basic quality of life measures. If Anet didn’t want us to tp to LA and other cities for free they should have designed the travel system differently.

If guildwars 2 had monthly fee

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

A fee wouldn’t achieve much I’m afraid. Sure they may hire even more people, but the bigger they grow, the more effort they will need to keep cohesion. The vast majority of disciplines required to build a video game are creative in essence. What I mean is, you can hire more workers to build more cars/houses/whatevers, but when it comes to, for instance, the next balance update, adding more game designer around the meeting table will just mean they’ll be wasting time discussing too much diverging opinions.
Even for 3D modeling, you can’t just hire more modelers and get more armor skins and stuff in the game because everything the 3D modelers do must first have the art director’s approval. If you don’t have that, the game will just start falling because of lack of good cohesion and coherence in any facet of the game’s design (even right now we get some very debatable things like Rox’s eyes.

In short, I don’t think more money equals more quality, there is a point when a structure cannot achieve much more than what it’s designed for. Not to mention, of course, the fact that a B2P model most certainly gains a lot more audience because of its fair price than it looses becauses of the loss of quality some believe it causes.

Enemies made GW1 exciting. GW2 however...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Very nice read.

I’ve been saying this recently. We need ennemies that play by the same rules as us. We need them to use dodge and have an endurance bar that can we can affect through weakness. We need them to use positionning against us, for instance by giving them attacks that deal more damage from behind, or the closer or farther away they are from us. We need them to use conditions and boons as well as their removal and manipulation almost as often as they are used in PvP. We need them to use active forms of protection and damage mitigations (blocking, dodging, protection, regeneration, aegis and healing) that actually encourage dynamic play instead of them relying on increasingly large (and boring) HP pools. We need them to build combos and skill sequences that we need to stop to avoid loosing instead of bosses that just have some oneshot ability to provide some sort of so-called ‘challenge’.

The devs said they want to avoid splitting skills between different game modes (PvE, PvP, WvW). The only way to do that is by making every game modes use the same rules and utilize the full potential of the combat system. Building an AI that cannot use the fundamentals of GW2’s wonderful combat system was a very big mistake, and until they change that PvE will forever be a missed opportunity. Well, PvE is already one of the best in an MMO, but its quality and fun could go through the roof if it wasn’t so disconnected from the basics of the combat system.

Capes.

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I would have loved to see guardians have the originally planned cape, mantle and scarf (especially the scarf) as their biography item instead of the current pauldrons and helm.

I believe the issue isn’t as much about clippping (as Kraixus says, other games manage it), but maybe more that if they use clothe simulation like in GW1 (which clipped a lot) I believe it would put some unnecessary pressure on the already poorly optimized engine, especially in wvw, and if they use keyframe animation (which hopefully wouldn’t clip if it’s well done) then it probably requires a lot of work for the animators (especially if you want it to look good), as well as probably some additionnal optimization because of this new layer of animation on each character. Creating new skins isn’t easy, you can see that in each update there wasn’t a full plethora of them, and none of them were armor (and none of them required a full animation work). Actually they may be working on it but it will take time, and I believe preparing the incoming ascended armors may be a higher priority. If they use new skins that is to say.

Robert Hrouda on pets in dungeons

in Ranger

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

About dodge. I believe this raises this more general and fundamental problem with AI not playing by the same rules as players. The devs say they want to avoid splitting skills between PvP and PvE, yet the AI is incapable of using core concepts of the game : mobs cannot dodge or use positionning, and conditions/buffs and their removal and manipulation are only used in a minimal and almost anecdotic quantity in PvE while they’re all over the place in PvP.
This leads to a PvE that doesn’t uses the full potential of this game’s mechanics. Interesting skills being disregarded because raw damage is just generally more appealing ; boss encouters that quickly become boring because their only defense comes from a lot of HP instead of dodges and blocks and mobility and then have to compensate their lack of appeal with enough damage to oneshot a player arbitrarily.
I would love to see, for once, bosses or even random mobs that you need to control in order to bring them down. Not just dazing them once in a while, but actually preventing them from moving and dodging. I would love to see mobs trying to dodge my skills based on the casting time and a bit of randomness to simulate human reflexes. I would love to see them flank me for more damage. I would love seeing them trying to keep their distance for more damage on their ranged attacks and I would love to see things as basic as them leaving my aoes, removing the conditions I put on them or stealing my boons.

Well, back to ranger. I’m all for a dodge on the return button (not even with a trait) as well as endurance bar for the pet so that it can be affected by vigor and weakness. But this souldn’t be only for the ranger’s pet, it should be the result of a general redesign aimed at using the full depth and complexity of GW2’s combat.
PvE is already very nice. It even manages to compensate for what I’m talking about by having some mechanics of its own, but until it evolves toward a more thorough use of all the game’s mechanics I believe it will remain a missed opportunity and the devs will have to split skills between PvE and PvP eventually

(edited by Tauril.8504)

To all the PvE exclusive players...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

You can’t force a playstyle on someone.

/thread

For more details, I occasionnally WvW because I like it, not because of bonuses and scores for which I couldn’t care less (being on Vizunah Square doesn’t help, I’ll give you that, but I honestly wish it wasn’t the case, we’ve been constantly green for… quite a few months now, effectively making map completion impossible).
But anyway, some people don’t like PvP, and out of these I’d say quite a lot are terrible at it so there’s no need to force them to do something they don’t want to do while more useful players are waiting in the queue. People will just do what they like to do, bonuses and score won’t magically transform pure PvEers into champions of WvW.

Largos must be a new race

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

One other thing that needs to be taken into consideration : How do you make them play anything else than thief without killing the main (and almost only for now) feature of the race (i.e. perma-stealth) ? Racial skills won’t be enough that’s for sure.
That’s like wanting quaggan as a playable race without thinking about the fact that they should turn all hulky pretty much everytime they get in a fight.

70% darker nights

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

We need darker nights, real sunsets et sunrises (I imagine making the sun and moon travel from east to west could kill performance because of constantly changing shadows orientation, but still, it feels like Tyria is trapped in a constant near-sunset time), more gameplay differences between night and days (not only events, but also different spawns, civilian NPCs who go to sleep while monsters and predators start roaming the woods, and a slight sense that your visibility is reduced (not to the point where you have to use light source and it becomes a gameplay mechanic on its own though, no need to change the game completely).
Ho and shadows need to be different between night and day, currently it feels like a ‘day for night’ technique.

Well, basically the idea is that if Anet invested the time and money to build a day/night cycle, it’d be better if it was actually noticeable and had its use in gameplay. And I have to say a day/night cycle where you can’t admire a wonderful sunset is disappointing to say the least.

Largos must be a new race

in Suggestions

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

Largos need a redesign. Then we can possibly start considering things like a new race without Anet losing their credibility.
Sad thing is the concept art was ok, but that’s because it was a concept art, it just couldn’t fit in the game.

T3 Cultural armors - why so expensive?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

I think Anet needs to clarify what they want to do with cultural armor and dungeon equipment. Either they sell stats or they sell skins, but selling both feels like a scam (especially when the stats are not amazing at all). After all, all these pieces will end up transmuted anyway, so there’s no reason to pay extra for stats we’re not going to use. That doesn’t mean vanity items shouldn’t have a high price, but we should be able to buy only the vanity.

Well, of course it’s very unlikely we actually get to buy skins because of fine transmutation stones being accessible almost only through the gem store, but still…

oh the lag!!

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: Tauril.8504

Tauril.8504

That was yesterday yes.