Guild Wars 2

Gluttony.2017:

The thing is, doing the event takes arguably more teamwork and definitely more time then Tequatl, and holy crap, the amount of loot you get from a successful Tequatl fight is at least twice as much, so the effort > reward for sw.
As it stands now running around the map while occasionally helping a fort here, escort a bull there, kill that plant somewhere… it’s just more profitable and a better reward then successfully completing the breach. And with less and less people doing that, the lower the reward becomes because not enough shovels are around and from then its just a downwards spiral.

edit: inb4 anet nerfs fixes Tequatl loot.

Isn’t that sort of the point, though? That running around and doing things is how to make the money?

I don’t understand why everyone keeps comparing the chest runs to the rewards for the Breach. The Breach is a single, 5 minute boss fight that runs about once an hour, give or take the individual conditions of the map. Comparing that to a solid hour of activity, whether chest running or completing events, is sort of like comparing the literary content of apples to chairs.

As far as I’m concerned, the farm hasn’t really gone anywhere. Its still Defend the Fort, save a dolyak/hunt a mordrem, run the chests, then get back to the fort in time to resupply before the next cycle. That’s 5 champ bags and 3 equipment bags for three or four minutes activity, plus whatever random spawn you might have run over in the middle of the event. Then a five minute breather for a guaranteed rare and another 5ish champ bags, assuming people actually try rather than just afk.

My suggest would be to run clockwise from red – amber – blue – indigo, then reverse once you get to indigo. There might be a handful of chests north of the base camp, but that long stretch it takes up in the corner doesn’t have any I’m aware of. You pretty much just need to follow the supply dolyaks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if their pace just about matches the respawn on the chests.

For the record… I now owe my fiancee $100.

kitten ed Tamini dropping keys…

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Those drop rates must be insanely low.

Low enough that I’ve got a bet with my fiancee on whether we find a key or a precursor first. I bet on the precursor, since I’ve at least seen people get them during large events (Tequatl, Scarlet’s invasions, etc.,) Never seen someone claim to find a key before, at least not outside of this thread. Personally, I’d love to see them added to champ boxes or world boss chests, even if only at the same rate as rares/exotics.

Strange as it sounds, I think they actually count as Griffins. I landed on one doing a jumping puzzle, and the kill ticked over enough to get me AP for that title.

I think the question that needs to be answered is, what do they mean by story steps? Are they talking the individual arcs which are then broken into submissions, or just the individual submissions? I’m under the impression that its the former; that each LS update will involve 1-2 arcs of 4-5 missions a piece, on top of the adjustments to open world content.

If I’m tracking their plans accurately, we’re basically going to be looking at three different updates semi-cycling with one another:

Living Story: These updates will most likely include connected story arcs with perhaps half a dozen personal missions coupled to a major open world activity, such as an invasion or world boss. The missions would remain as repeatable content, and its likely the world bosses will as well; invasion events may or may not. (Scarlet’s Invasion did remain active long after its LS point had ended, but was then removed AFAIK for lack of interest. The refilling of maps with the megaservers may make maintaining that sort of quest more viable in the future.)

Festivals: These will periodically interrupt the LS updates for a bit of a breather. There are six of these currently, I believe: Festival of the Winds, Queen’s Pavilion, Dragon Bash, SAB, Halloween, and Winterfest. I expect this is where we will see more of the player driven but less plot critical events to occur, IE the election between Kiel and Evon.

Feature Packs: If I recall correctly we’re going to be getting one of these about every quarter or so; expect this to be where they introduce material developed via the CDIs.

Thanks!

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Quick question on Twilight Arbor. Does the Aetherblade Explorable path reward Deadly Blooms at the end like the other two paths? Or does it have its own set of rewards? My fiancee has her heart set on the dungeon armor, but doesn’t enjoy pvp enough to earn it through grinding matches, so we’re looking at adding at least one TA path to our weekly guild runs. We did the general guy last week, so I wanted to know ahead what our options look like going forward for variety. I know there are only so many paths, but three paths compared to two is the difference between repeating a route once a month and once every two weeks.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Boss Blitz is a very weird event, I do wonder how it came about.

Rest of the update is great though.

Because people have been begging them to stop zerg-style events, so they’re trying to create events that people can’t beat by zerging. This means making bosses that get tougher in the face of large crowds so that people simply don’t try to take them down by sheer weight, and by tying rewards to group achievement rather than the individual so that people just stop grouping up to tag everything in site.

So the initial entry crush saw the same bosses from last time, and immediately tried to zerg them. At which point the ball of players bounced off unexpected boss traits that weren’t there before, ignored the helpful timer telling them their loot was going away, and started trying to hack things down for loot. When things failed to pay out in time, it became time to complain instead. Unfortunately, what its mostly coming down to at this point is, “We didn’t get paid enough for failing new content we don’t yet understand properly.”

I give it a day, no more than two, when the usual in-game leaders get their heads around the mechanics, at which point instead of one huge ball trying to run in a circle you’ll start getting six smaller groups camping the bosses while farming the vet spawns to keep them down. If the loot scales even vertically from bronze, a gold level achievement would be 6 champ boxes + tokens + spare loot for less than seven and half minutes worth of work. Considering it takes only a minute or two to refill the donation box, people will get back to farming it in almost no time at all.

bri.2359:

Wanze.8410:

I havent done all world bosses after the patch yet but at Moodnir Ulgoth, Mega Destroyer, Karka Queen, Wurm and Foulbear Graal, i got more gold, item value and champ bags from the pre events than the world boss kill.

Yesterday, I did Maw, Shatterer, one of the events in Harathi, Karka, Teq and 3-headed Wurm

Sorry Wanze, but all loot at these events was the usual crap. In fact, it seemed worse than before the patch.
You will need to prove to me, with comparison numbers, that there has been any increase in gold/items.

The drops aren’t going to be more plentiful per player, they’re mostly likely going to be more plentiful because now more players can participate. Servers such as my home on Devona’s Rest could rarely, if ever, get enough players gathered together to defeat major events such as Teq or the Marionette, even when those events in their prime. That left the bulk of item generation to the few servers that could. Now that I can jump to Teq and actually expect to not be standing on an empty field anymore, those of us willing to once again try these events will start producing more loot. And if that loot is more item based and less coin based, you’ll see the changes Wanze is predicting.

Gotcha. So its not that rewards are equivalent, PvP is just in a sort of in-between state. Thanks!

I decided to give PvP a whirl today, and I admit I was…underwhelmed, to be honest. Oh, the fighting was fun, don’t get me wrong. But when it came time to start dishing out rewards, I was getting piddly little materials and the like. The coins were generally larger lump sums that individual kills in PvE, but just barely even with what I could get for just roaming for a bit and harvesting materials.

Now, I know I’m just a piddly little rabbit right now, but do the rewards improve substantially? Or will I just be accumulating the same sort of gains I could get for hanging out in Orr for a few minutes? I understand why they did away with Glory, but is there anything that is supposed to replace it? Or did I miss picking up something when it was handed to me?

Schizo.1375:

I assumed it was easier to obtain but based on the wiki it seems relatively similar sources. Leather from medium armor, 6 salvage items, and 4 Loot bags. Silk from light armor, 4 salvage items, and the same loot bags as leather plus one more for a total of 5.

I think what you are missing out on is character level. Remember, loot scales to the individual as much as possible, but characters can’t go past level 80. So as a level 80 running around a level 30 zone, the bags you find will be dropping mats for level 30ish items, but the weapons, armors and so on will mostly be between 75-80. As far as I can tell, its the same thing that keeps Mithril ore down below the 50c mark. The only thing keeping it from being as depressed as leather is the fact that it is used by nearly as many crafting disciplines as silk. Even then, I never really expect to see it break the 30c mark it hovers around, short of a massive Living Story requirement.

I dunno, my inner completionist sort of applauds the 250th meat thing. Because yay, now that end of the box is full! {Which makes my crafting habits horrible, since then I don’t want to take anything out and spoil the full stack. }

But I do think that sort of raises the heart of the issue: Why are we gathering all this gold? I mean, I know that as a casual player I don’t need to have 5,000 or even 500 gold sitting in my bank. After a while you run out of things to buy with it, especially if it doesn’t fulfill your purposes in playing. Does having all this gold actually accomplish any goals for you guys outside of taking it out of the economy and/or using it to sending taunting pictures to Jormag? I ask this of both sides.

Ohoni.6057:

That’s my problem with the current economy, it’s player verses player and only the payers that fool other players successfully profit from it. The economic model should be cooperative, in which players help other players to find the items they need, and players pay a fair rate for those items, but which don’t rely on the other players knowing less about how the game works than you do in order to make your profits.

The thing is, though, the economy is not PvP. In order for it to be PvP there would need to be an endgame, and there isn’t. If you make 100 gold on a trade, whether to an NPC or another player, that doesn’t mean there is only X-100 gold left for me to earn. I just need to make my own 100 gold, either via similar exchange or through my own harvesting methods. The economy is action based, and so long as people continue taking actions the economy will continue to develop, and there will continue to be other gold for players to acquire or spend as they see fit. The speed of the income has no impact on the amount of resources available.

I think the question is, what do you want the gold for, personally? Are you trying to cash it in for gems? Do you just want the fattest wallet? To purchase a drop skin that you really like? Because I can’t see the end to your arguments other than, “If I sell something to someone for $, they can’t turn around and sell it for $1 because I should have gotten $1”.

Essence Snow.3194:

Idk if I can even reply to you anymore. Can you seriously believe that what players want in a game has no impact? If that’s the case…I’ll simply have to cease replying to you b/c that’s too far in left field for me.

That’s not what he is saying at all. What is saying is that there is nothing in the game that requires gems in order to be defeated; everything necessary to play, win, and achieve the maximum capability of the character within the game is available through effort rather than money. The items available in the gem store provide either small bonuses, cosmetic differences, or a few ease-of-life features. There is nothing in there, however, that will give you a significant advantage over another player.

I will use myself as an example- All my weapons and armor are either hand crafted or found items. While I have not yet crafted any ascended items, judging from the weapons around me neither have most players. Further, while some of the ingredients necessary are available from the trading post, they are equally available to me through a bit of farming and combat work.

I honestly don’t have much use for my gold, and mostly use it for my fiancee’s benefit when she wants a new dye or weapon. So the fact that I only have about 30g while some other player has 200,000 is completely irrelevant. His wealth doesn’t stop me from soloing champs, solving jumping puzzles, or shoving a sword down Scarlet’s throat in order to finally shut her up, or making fun of my friend for constantly breaking her armor. The fact that he could buy my character ten times over is not going to slow down my filling in my vault in any meaningful way. Can I go out and buy every legendary on the TP? Nope! Nor would I really want to, considering I only really like three of them, and can only wield (at most) four at one time. Granted, I can’t buy them either, but there is nothing to stop me from going out and making them myself, and by the time I have harvested the necessary materials I will most likely have made enough to buy the precursors.

Personally, as the sort of casual player who is supposed to be most put out by the TP, I don’t see the harm in these guys getting rich off it. There’s more waiting for me at the end of a sword’s swing than there is sitting there playing ‘stock market lite’.

Eh, there’s a necromancer in the party.

“Don’t you want to know my evil plan?”
“Yeah, hold that thought…”

Stab
Bang
BOOM
Squish
Splat
Pewpewpew

“Wait…where did her jaw go? Oh, there it is, hand me that would you?”

ominous necromantic chanting

“There’s no time, the entire place is coming down!”
“Well, kitten. Well, we only need this bit so hit her right here…”

Run for the exit
More ominous necromantic chanting

“Now, you were saying something about an evil plan…?”

Sariel V.7024:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Poor Marjory, you’re not wearing enough clothes!

Come to think of it, with Kasmeer wearing nothing but aether and a smile, how is she getting through these fights?

Judging from the way she was hiccuping during the final scene, my guild decided that she must have been partaking of some liquid fortitude before/during the fighting.

I run Cleric’s on my warrior, so that I can serve as bait during encounters. If you’re going to try and do that, I would suggest a rifle so that you can stack bleed as you kite.

I am going to offer what I know ahead of time is an unpopular opinion.

This should have been a zerg event.

I think the big problem with this event is not necessarily just the zergs not knowing what to do, but that the objective is contrary to the instinctive reaction. Lion’s Arch is a major focal point for the game, both from a lore standpoint and a gameplay standpoint. It is one of the touch stones to the fiction of the original Guild Wars, many character story and living story events take place there, and its the central economic hub for just about every server.

Then comes the big update where it gets blown to smithereens. A lot of our favorite side characters are either displaced or missing. Battle is raging across the city as the Lion Guard dukes it out with Scarlet’s army to the tune of orbital death rays. Fires rage everywhere, buildings lay toppled in heaps, and a giant drill is obliterating our heritage with each passing moment as invaders loot and murder.

And our job is…show people to the door? Walk up to NPCs and shout at them until they feel better? Nursemaid a bunch of racing birds?

We’re the main characters of our own stories. We’re the heroes of the piece. We should be leading the charge to take back the city and kick Scarlet’s motley band of losers into the harbor, not just nodding our heads and going, “Yup, its all over, best get the civvies out while her folk run amok.” Sure, there should be escort missions such as rescuing the kids or the lighthouse workers, those make sense to evacuate from the front lines. Lawson Mariner though? We should be running him to his mansion, to show that the city hasn’t given in yet. Those pack dolyaks? We should be running them to Trader’s Plaza, so that we can set up an actual rallying point from which to retake other sections of the city. The racing birds can become krait feed, because we’ve got bigger problems to tackle.

Now, there are a couple of arguments against this that can be made. The first is that saving people is equally heroic. And this is true. But when was the last time you watched an action flick where the heroes spent all their time looking for wayward souls instead of confronting the villains? Look at the Avengers. Captain America didn’t personally escort every last noncombatant out of the city, he passed it to the NPCs while he dealt with the source of the problem.

The second is that the final chapter will “obviously” involve us retaking the city somehow. This one I doubt; the story has been pushing that Scarlet has been searching for something, which reads to me like we’re looking at another boss fight on par with Tequatl or the Marionette. That means any – if any – events to retake the city will most likely play second fiddle to that encounter. Which would mean it comes off, at least in my opinion, as us giving up the city without much of a fight.

Hmmm, this got a bit longer than I intended, but ah well.

To be fair to Evon, how exactly was he supposed to do anything to protect Lion’s Arch without being on the council? “Don’t mind me, Councilor Kiel, I’m just installing my Asuran megalasers and Charr cannons on my buildings, where they will be crewed by my employees/soldiers. I know you don’t trust me, but I swear its purely a self defense measure for when that kitten Scarlet attacks. What are you giving me that look for? No, really, I swear I’m not planning on using them to overthrow the Council. I want to be on the Council, not run a revolution. No, stop, you don’t need to call the guards…”

Personally, though, I blame the Asura and the Pact for all this. Scarlet has a fleet of giant airships, which we’ve broken dozens of and salvaged the parts. Scarlet has giant mechas, which we’ve broken dozens of and salvaged the parts. Scarlet even apparently has orbital laser cannons. Why haven’t they developed any actual counter measures? Why wasn’t the Pact fleet standing by to engage hers? Where are our clanky tanks? And where is our air cover?!

(Ok, fine. I really just want to see Heal-o-Tron piloting the partially rebuilt corpse of the Marionette into battle, like the Tyrian version of Mechagodzilla. is that too much to ask?)

Rajani Isa.6294:

Warden 3 has a crush on my character, I swear.

My guess is that you play something with heavy armor? Especially if you go for a more defensive build. I’m running exotic’s cleric armor with guardian runes and the wardens (and most bosses and champs, now that I think about it) come running at me like a kid whose been offered a free trip to Disney. Just means its our responsibility to try and control the fight as much as possible.

My theory: Palawa Joko.

Hey, stop laughing!

No, seriously. We know Joko took over Elona shortly after GW1. We also know that he was most likely aware of all the developments taking place in Tyria, including the arrival of the Charr, Norn, and Asura. Then came the elder dragons and the Sylvari. To a guy playing the role of Evil Overlord the addition of four new races of wannabe heroes is bad news, especially when you add in the bigger threat of the dragons. He’s got his slice of the pie, thank you, and would really rather not have to deal with pesky “champions” trying to rob him of his hard earned gains. What, just because he’s an undead necromancer who thrives on terror and murder, he’s not allowed to be happy or something?

Worse, airships. Suddenly people can come and go from his kingdom at leisure. Then he hears about this strange psychopath terrorizing the lands to the north. She’s got moxie, some plans, and the charisma to pull people together, but she’s also pretty much intent on starting up the biggest conflict Tyria has seen since the Searing. So he sends an emissary. He’s got lots of territory, and the undead really don’t stop working. He’ll cut a deal with her: in exchange for resources and labor, she makes sure his northern border is safe. He doesn’t even really need her to succeed at overthrowing Queen Jenna or taking down the known races with her piddling little alliance, just keep everyone busy so they stop asking what’s going on in Elona. That gives him more time to plan and shore up his defenses, and better yet, her war is going to leave behind lots of extra corpses. What sort of necromancer doesn’t like lots and lots of corpses? And doing the production gets him access to her tech base as well. Its win win, all the way around for him.

Gene Archer.8560:

Gilgalas.7860:

Server population too low to succeed on the Marionnette fight ? Don’t make me laugh, I don’t think there are server with less than 150 active people at a given time of the day. And even if there were some, ANet included server guesting. .

Server guesting is a bandaid at best with its own problems. As for not making you laugh?

Come on over to Devona’s Rest and then tell me that the server population is just fine. In fact, every single player that thinks server populations are just fine, please. Come to Devona’s Rest. Maybe then the server will have the numbers it needs.

This. I don’t know if we just have a typically low population on our server or if there is a major talent drain going on as people try to flood a place like Blackgate, but I’ve been doing the boss nightly and it isn’t uncommon to be standing there on the server reset and have only 5 – 10 people in lanes 3-5. Seriously, if you folks are sick and tired of overflows, come guesting to DR, because I can guarantee that we have plenty of room.

Most of the failed Marionette runs I’ve been a part of have included extensive training sessions for the newbs, very supportive Commanders in each lane. We failed because those who didn’t know what they were doing were unwilling or incapable of learning, not because nobody was willing to teach.

This as well. It gets frustrating when you watch someone stand there and blast away directly at Warden 1’s shield, or when someone stops to rez a dead player instead of breaking the generator as the last few seconds tick away. And that’s not getting into the endless little things that go unmentioned, like the targeting priorities the bosses have. I know going in that as a tanky warrior that Wardens 1 and 2 are going to love me in a way that would violate forum rules to describe, so its up to me to call the dance tune and make sure they are supposed to go where they need to. I also know I need to do it at range to keep them from smacking me to death. But its hard to pass that on to the few players who need to know this in the middle of explaining the shields and mines.

Ohoni.6057:

Yup. And that needs to be compared to the number of players who would have quit the game without the new challenges,

Most players that came to this game looking for raids left over a year ago, and are quite loud about it on other boards about how terrible GW2 is, has been, and always will be. They won’t be coming back for a few new bosses, either.

This game made a choice early on to not cater to the raid crowd, and there’s no turning back now. All they can do now is lose players who liked the way the game was originally designed, not gain new players that want to raid.

I’m not talking about raids, I’m talking about material that uses the game mechanics and requires something other than standing there pressing 1. As I’ve said before and will say again, I think things like Tequatl on their own are a bad idea. A major boss fight like Teq should be used as a capstone to LS content, not just dropped into the world to add a random difficulty spike to a zone. In that regards something like the Marionette is good, as it provides a temporary, community based challenge. The new Wurms, by contrast, are not. They don’t add to the story, and the only end result will be a new target for TTS and Blackgate to hit up after reset while the smaller servers avoid the area like the plague.

What I’m talking about is taking things like the Wardens and mixing them into something like the Invasion battles. Instead of just whomping on a larger Champ version of a stock minion using slightly more powerful skills, imagine one of the 3rd Chain Wardens popping up in the open map, or a 1st Chain Warden backed by control elements, or a 2nd Chain Warden that needs to be pushed and pulled into its mines. Introduce them in something like the current event, so there is a small area for players to learn and test reactions, then unleash them on the wild. That would accomplish what Josh is looking for in getting players to learn and develop their abilities with the various game mechanics.

Squee Squashington.5189:

Valor Singus.7049:

The consequence, of course, is that some players either can’t, or won’t put in the effort to develop. Some will drop the game, while others will stick to their safely determined routines. I would wager that ANet is entirely aware of this, however, and considers it acceptable so long as they don’t do something that epically screws things up and alienates the entire base. Since even Tequatl didn’t -quite- do that, and they seemed to have learned from some of the mistakes made there, just as they will from the ones made with the marionette, then by all metrics they are doing their jobs well.

Rift, SWtoR, and WoW: Cataclysm lost a lot of players to time and difficult, annoying, and/or unengaging endgame. Since we’ve already started down this road, what’s the X and Y% on players that will leave with ESO, WoW:WoD, Rift 3.0, or various other non-MMO titles on the horizon.

Yup. And that needs to be compared to the number of players who would have quit the game without the new challenges, how many will be content with old stuff, how many would move on simply for the shiny factor of the new games, and how many will end up playing in multiple worlds, and so on.

The simple fact is that not all players value the same experiences. For example, while I found Tequatl to be frustrating because of the population issues, I thought the mechanics were pretty interesting, just like I think the Marionette mechanics are interesting. My fiancee, on the other hand, hated the entire Tequatl experience. She’s in it much more for the aesthetics of the game such as decorating her characters and the vista shots. Standing there whacking a dragon till its bar went away was boring, especially with the wait. For her, things like the initial Invasion and the Queen’s Jubilee have been her favorite events, because of rapid, epic scaled combat and large amount of loot, despite the content being considered “a mindless zerg”. Right now we’re both enjoying the Marionette, me for the mechanics and her for the lane defense and stacks of loot at the end.

Personally, I think ANet really just needs to interweave the two. Some LS content should have us hacking our way through endless mobs of bad guys every fifteen minutes, while other times we gear up and tackle a single Big Bad. SAB makes for a good breather episode, though I would try and avoid things like the Fractal update. (Then again, there are folks who love Fractals, but probably would skip the mindless zerg bits. Just goes to show, though.) This is going to end up turning into a large review post though, so I’ll end this here and start a new thread once I have the info dump ready.

Squee Squashington.5189:

3.) You, as developers, need your players to play better? Did I just read that?

No, they want people to learn about the game so that the game remains interesting. If someone doesn’t know about traits, they can’t really test new builds. If someone never changes their skills, they definitely aren’t testing new builds. Which means fights start becoming predictable, and the predictable becomes boring. Boring means you stop playing the game.

By introducing content that encourages players to develop both their skills and knowledge of the game, ANet can keep the game from becoming the cookie cutter “Stand here and press autoattack” that many people decry PvE as. This, in turn, encourages people to play the game more to experience these challenges, which extends the lifetime of the game, especially as players go back to face things they couldn’t face before. And if that seems circular, well, that’s because its supposed to.

The consequence, of course, is that some players either can’t, or won’t put in the effort to develop. Some will drop the game, while others will stick to their safely determined routines. I would wager that ANet is entirely aware of this, however, and considers it acceptable so long as they don’t do something that epically screws things up and alienates the entire base. Since even Tequatl didn’t -quite- do that, and they seemed to have learned from some of the mistakes made there, just as they will from the ones made with the marionette, then by all metrics they are doing their jobs well.

Red Queen.7915:

Kajin.5301:

2 suggestions:

-make the scaling of the amount of mobs in the 5 lanes match the amount of players in the area. When you’re in an overflow at the 4-5th lvl, you really don’t have enough to stop the leaks of champs reaching the portal.

-dynamic scaling of the platform wardens to match the amount of players inside.

It already scales just fine. We did it at around three in the morning with ~10-15 players on each lane and we got to two severed chains, so we didn’t fare any better or worse than we did earlier with more people. That said, the scaling of the wardens might need some tuning, yes. Still, the wardens scale as well, maybe just not as much as the mobs in the lanes.

I’m honestly not sure they can be scaled down much more. Granted, this is based entirely on anecdotal evidence, but… My fiancee managed to solo the first Warden using a level 80 mesmer with all her traits spent on defense, rare armor, an exotic greatsword, and no runes, sigils, or other benefits to her name. Granted, there was only about two seconds left on the clock when she finished off the generator, but this was also her first run after having not played for four months and all she knew was that she had to hit it from behind.

The biggest problem in my experiences is that people just can’t wrap their head around the mechanics and time limit. Too many people just stand there and attack, rather than trying to move around, or beat the champion then stop to rez the dead instead of attacking the generator. Or, worse, one person screams, “We’ve lost!” and suddenly half the people fighting vanish rather than take cannon blast, even if chains have already broken and its the first lane to fail.

Thank you, folks, and much appreciated.

Once all fifty have been acquired, is it a permanent key, or do we need to harvest another fifty once we leave the lair? I ask because I still need to fill out two more stacks of cyphers, and would rather do it in one trip than have to run around scavenging another 50 if I’m just going to get locked out.

Why do people think that Scarlet personally found the Obelisk shards? Personally, I would have expected something more along the lines of her handing a bunch of maps to some Aetherblade engineering crews and saying, “Here, there should be some Krait relics at these locations. Make a magic beacon thing, do a grid search, and call me when you find them. Now excuse me, I am late for my daily invasion.”

Smooth Penguin.5294:

But that doesn’t make sense, as if you make it easier for one server to do, people will just guest to that server. That ruins the balance. And I think everyone will agree that Tequatl shouldn’t be Easy Mode anywhere.

Except people are already doing that; as you yourself pointed out, people are now racing to see who can kill him fastest, and at this point there are three sorts of servers: Ghost towns, Overflow Hells, and Guild Raids. The first is being caused by people flocking to the other two, leaving behind those who have stronger reasons to remain on their home servers, thus denying the content to both them and those who get stranded in overflows. There needs to be some form of enticement to end the talent drain that has occurred. We don`t want the content to be easier, we want the content to be more accessible.

The difference is subtle, but important. There are too many frustrations currently built into the event, mostly due to time and social issues. We want to see those issues ironed out, so that it is still fun even if you get beaten like a dead horse. In the Invasion events, even when you failed there was still a sense of fun and accomplishment to it that Tequatl lacks. Part of that was the Monty Haul nature of the event, yes, but the majority of it was you were actually in a large scale battle against enemies that wanted to fight you, rather than just standing there taking lumps or forcing you into awkward control fights.

Hmmm. There’s an idea. What if Tequatl had limited mobility, and could actually move around the Fen?

Mastruq.2463:

I think the encounter timer is good as it is as far as the actual difficulty goes. Perception matters though and the fact that the timer will be suspended throughout the fight is not apparent unless you already know alot about the encounter. That creates this “at 80% and only 10 minutes left thats impossible” impression in people which leads to some giving up or not giving their all, and the encounter fail-cascades.

They should probably design future encounters differently (I dont know why they didnt simply roll the battery defense timers into the main timer and let it run throughout).

That was one of the reasons I suggested adding on some form of “bonus time” achievements to the events. If the players could interact with it, even in some small way, it goes from being an invulnerable enemy to something that lends a sense of accomplishment to player actions.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Both the mobs and the timer are part of the challenge. Working as intended I’m afraid. That’s why you need defenders to focus on defending the Turrets, so there won’t be CCs that pull you off. And with the 15 minute timer in place, you no longer have unlimited time to just spam “1” all day until Teq’s dead.

My problem with the mobs is not that they are challenging, but that they are the wrong kind of challenge. The mobs on the Tequatl event are a control style mob, which doesn’t fit a sprawling, aggression oriented event on a wide open plain. They are better suited for a dungeon or similar encounter where they player has to battle on their terms, most likely around or for a terrain feature to provide options for cover or the like. Honestly, as they are now they’re not even really a challenge but a random frustration if the spawns choose to focus on you. An event like Tequatl should have more combat oriented support, such as what was seen in the mobs for the Invasion events. His followers should be dropping AoE bombs, stacking on condition damage, and engaging the players, not merely getting in their way.

Finally, TIME: Both the Timer and the Timing. First the Timing, since that is the most easily addressed. Frankly, Tequatl did not spawn nearly enough for a Living Story event. The best bit about the Invasion story line was that even if you missed one event you did not have to wait long for the next one. With Tequatl, chat was often the frequent host of that long car ride cliche, `Is he here yet?` No.` `Is he here yet?` `No.` `Is he here yet?` `No, and if you don`t stop asking we are all going to feed you to him when he does get here!` If something is going to be a major promotional event, then it needs to be something a player can jump into with a minimum amount of fuss.

Second, the Timer. If a player is unable to interact with the timer, then it becomes a punishment mechanic, pure and simple. It is one thing to use them for endurance purposes, i.e. `Can you survive for this length of time?`, and another to use them as an arbitrary means of ending a fight. Mechanically it serves to prevent player participation. The nearest waypoint to the fight is roughly a 1:00 to 1:30 travel time. Two deaths on a 15:00 timer means you have now missed 20% of the fight simply running to get there, not counting whatever loading time. Anyone not there when the fighting begins is also not contributing for that amount of travel time, further hampering the player efforts. This was not so much a problem with the Invasion events because they were timed not to end but to cycle. The two hour wait for Tequatl negates that difference.

Also, like the issue with the mobs, it kills flavor. Why is the big hulking dragon leaving after only 15 minutes? Is he bored? Is he jealous that we are too preoccupied with the mobs to give him the attention he deserves? Is Breaking Bad starting soon and he forgot to program his DVR?

Failure should be tied to either the death of the dragon, or the accomplishment of the dragon`s goals. In that regards, the dragon either needs a target (such as the laser) that it intends to destroy, or the players should have some way of extending the timer by accomplishing goals implying they have prevented the dragon from achieving his.

As it stands, the changes to Tequatl have effectively removed content from the game for some players. Why? Because rather than start from a point that could be scaled up to epic proportions, it started from a point of artificial difficulty. Once it was demonstrated that that difficult could be overcome, those who could afford to flocked to those who had demonstrated the ability, dooming their home servers while complicating things for those native to the ones that had initial success. Players then learn to avoid this event, and others like it, because they have seen that either they will be stranded in an overflow server or left to face an impossible task with insufficient numbers. This is not to say that difficult content should not be added to the game; we WANT a challenge, we WANT to experience glorious and epic events. Unfortunately, Tequatl has not yet reached that point.

MOBS: The Mobs are, in my opinion, the second worst portion of this event. They fail on both a functional and flavor level. Tequatl IS the event. It is his face plastered on the loading screen, the front page of the wiki, and the front page of the opening news screen. He is the one with his own bar on the achievement tab, the one with the new mini, the one with the new weapons skins. And yet the Mobs supporting him were designed to PREVENT the player from fighting him.The majority of spawns were Risen Nimross, Risen Brutes, and Risen Abominations, with a few Damoss and Hypnoss. The majority of their abilities were lumped in Pulls, Knockbacks, and Immobilizes, often locking the player out of the battle either through a `pinball` effect, where the character would be yanked around by multiple attacks, or by just pinning them to the ground.

These abilities by themselves are not bad, and should not be denied to the monsters of the game, but they should not be the primary tactics for the mobs in an event like this solely because they are designed to prevent the player from participating. Compare to the majority of the spawns in the Invasion events, where the monsters engage and fight the player, rather than try to control them. Worse, this draws attention away from Tequatl who is the headliner of the show. Who has time for the dragon when a bunch of undead asura are playing you like a game of Whack-a-Mole?

There are two paths to correct this, depending on what is expected to be achieved of the event. The Abominations should be left in, as they are perfect shock troops for breaking up clusters of players or hitting unprepared positions. If the idea is to go for a more wave style approach, replace the Krait with Risen Servants, Thralls, Undead Hyleks, and Undead Quaggan that focus their attention on applying conditions to players. If the idea is to use more aggressive opponents, consider using Risen Pirates, Risen Jesters, Plaguebearers, Nobles, and so on. This will maintain the sense of engagement that I feel is currently lacking.

To open, no, I have not killed Tequatl. My home server is Divinity`s Reach, and as far as I can tell its pretty much been a ghost town in Sparkfly Fen once people got their wings. Those of us still showing up appear to be a mix of those waiting for their wings and a few die hard hopefuls, wishing, praying that we might eventually have the bodies to succeed. Otherwise, I am a level 80 War with maxed exotic gear. This is not intended as a complaint or whine, but as honest feedback on the event, what I feel was done well, what was done poorly, and what could be improved for next time.

TEQUATL: The big man himself, the star of the show and…he was perfect! He had a good mix of abilities to test a player`s skills and builds. The wave mechanic especially stands out, as it meant players had to pay attention to more than just timing their skills, but also be aware of other game mechanics in order to fully participate. There does appear to be a bit of a hardware issue with the graphics on it, but that is in a consequence of another problem with the event and is at least partially remedied by the NPCs calling the time on those attacks.

FINGERS: The Fingers are another positive in my book. They are good method for keeping the battlefield mobile, were not too difficult to remove by savvy players, and the use of poison was a good choice. The said, there was one problem with them. The fact that they flung their poison field meant that it often became difficult to track the dangerous spots when other environmental factors, such as water, came into play, as well as making it difficult to determine exactly which Finger was causing problems for the individual player. For the next time I suggest centering the poison field on the Fingers themselves, and either increasing their spawn rate, the radius of the field, or both to compensate.

TURRETS: The Turrets were another positive, creating a symbiotic battlefield that required players to work together. My experience with them is that their abilities are well balanced, and do not quite require perfect play in order to be used. That said, there were far too few of them for this event. It is my understanding that the event was designed for 80 people, and yet there are turrets for less than 10% of the players. That makes them an easy source of failure before the event either begins, either through deliberate trolls or players forced AFK. Trolls/AFKers should automatically be factored into any design, as they are a simple reality of the community. You cannot prevent griefers any more than you can prevent the hazards of real life from interfering with the game. In my opinion there should have been at least 8 – 16 turrets, based on the math of 5 man squads, with the ideal number being around ten. (For those wondering, assume the minimum of 80 players for the event. Split them in half, forty going for the dragon and forty sticking by the turrets. Forty broken down into 5 man squads is 8, +2 to compensate for trolls/afk.)

I think the biggest problem is that Teq is currently a bit too much of a good thing. Teq + Mobs? Great! Teq + Fingers? Great! Teq + Timer? Great? Teq + Timer + Mobs + Fingers + Contested Waypoint? Not so great.

This is just from my experiences last night. Show up around 8 PM, Divinity’s Reach. I get there just in time to watch Teq fly off, but figure I can wait around until the next one. I go and do some nearby quests and events, get in some mining. 9 rolls around… No Teq. Well, ok. Find some teeth. 9:30 rolls around… Still no Teq. Finally, around 9:48, Teq appears! He gets an awesome swoop by, lands, the guns open fire. I’m gonna fight a dragon!

Er, hold that thought. Sorry, Teq, I know you’re the main attraction and all but you’re just going to have to settle for staring at the turrets shooting at you, since these runty little undead asurans and those krait want to play pinball, and apparently I’m the ball. At least, I THINK it was the asurans and krait. Honestly couldn’t see what I was bouncing off of, I just know I would randomly go flinging around the screen while my control failed to do anything. Then I die, go to the WP, and lose a minute and half dodging brutes and slavers while I try to get back to the fight.

I stab a krait, shoot a brute, kill a couple of Fingers and hey! I got the wave jumping achievement! Er, not really sure how, I only actually saw one or two waves, but I’ll take it. I pop a couple of shots at Teq, then get pulled into another game of pinball. Dead once more, its back to the waypoint.

Another minute and a half gone as I run back. Dodge the poison clouds, dodge the krait, shoot the dragon aaaaand its another game of pinball, this one dumping me back in a poison cloud. Back to the WP.

I have now spent nearly a third of event running back and forth between the WP and the fighting, but I charge back in. Get slammed around by a couple more invisible waves and things, but whatever. Shoot the dragon, shoot the mobs, shoot the mobs again, get poisoned again, nearly bite it a fourth time…

Then Teq gets up and flies off. I can’t really blame him, I mean its HIS show and everyone is ignoring him as they fight off evil sticks, midget zombies, and cowboy snakes. Sure, he’s taken a few lumps but c’mon! He’s a frickin’ undead dragon and now one is paying any attention to him! I’d have flown off too! Meanwhile, I’m out the ten or so silver its going to take for armor repairs and WP costs and have no desire to wait around for another two hours to waste it again.

Teq doesn’t need to be nerfed. Teq is fine. The timer needs to be extended, and the waypoint needs to be removed from contested, but other than that I would be willing to do it again.

Vrin had been lost in the swamp for several days, and it wasn’t the first time the misplaced barbarian had encountered one of the demonic ambushes. But where Moirre had only been out on her own for a few weeks, Vrin had been at it for several decades. He had earned his scars battling the Sons of Svanir and other minions of Jormag, the ancient ice dragon that terrorized the northern Shiverpeak Mountains, and no mere demon could hope to compare to the danger they presented. So there was no hesitation on his part when he saw the young woman attacked. So what if he was standing fifty feet above them? That just meant gravity would be on his side for a change.

Vrin lead with his shield as charged, and the aatxe’s spikes splintered and broke as the shield’s face smashed through them. Vrin hadn’t thrown himself at the demon, but through it so that his extra momentum carried them both away from the dazed mesmer. The aatxe tried to gnaw through his helm and received a headbut for its trouble. Its claws skittered across his armor, but it was too close for Vrin to effectively use his sword. The demon came out on top when they stopped rolling, so the norn had to content himself with punching it in the face over and over again as it tried to eat him alive.

A blast of purple lightning ripped through the beast’s side and pouring out the other in a welter of ectoplasmic gore. The demon continued to stand there for several more seconds as smoke and steam poured from the wounds in its side, but it was already dead. A moment later it dissolved completely, soaking Vrin in a black goo that smelled like rotting shoe leather. He had to spit several times to clear it from his mouth, and was eventually forced to duck his head into the swamp’s water to get his helm clean. Well, cleaner. Ish.

“Thank you, lass,” he said when Moirre offered him a hand out of the muck. “I appreciate the assist. Such a new and…new taste you managed to discover there…”

“Well, it was the least I could do, considering you saved my life,” Moirre answered. “I’m Moirre. Would you mind if I tagged a long for a bit?”

Vrin had readily agreed, and not once regretted his decision. Back in the present he shared a smile with his wife. “Well then, let’s hope this one brings us just as much luck, eh?”

She had finally managed to kill one of the skelks, putting a bullet right between its beady little eyes when it had been leaping for her throat, and had set down her weapons so that she could get to pulling out its tiny little fangs. So she didn’t see it when the emerald ring appeared behind her, temporarily linking the swamp to hell. Her only warning was the terrifying roar the aatxe had let out as it leapt into the world of the living, showering her with green-brown water as it landed in the swamp. The aatxe was built like an enormous bull with a hide the color of a moonless, starless night. Two ram’s horns curled forward in front of its snout, and its eyes and mouth were lit from within by an unearthly glow. Jagged, rocky spikes stabbed outwards from its back and sides, protecting its flanks from those who might try to get around it.

Moirre immediately flashed out half a dozen illusionary clones of herself, hoping to distract the demon into pursuing a false target. The demon wasn’t fooled, however, and was on her in an instant. Fiery pain burst from her side as the demon’s claws glanced off her ribs, sending her sprawling into the muddy water. The beast leapt at her exposed back, but Moirre managed to twist around at the last moment and shoved her pistol between its jaws. There was a horrendous squeal as the monster’s teeth grated against the barrel’s steel, and the aatxe began thrashing its head back and forth in an attempt to wrest the weapon from her grip. It wasn’t much of a contest, not when it came down to purely mortal strength against abyssal might. Her gun was ripped from her hands and sent flying into the swamp, where it sank deep beneath the murk. The aatxe reared back as it howled in triumph and Moirre threw her arms up to protect her head. She knew it was a futile gesture, but she really didn’t want to die and was willing to do anything that might buy her a few more precious seconds of life…

The last thing she expected to hear was a full throated voice of a flying norn yelling, “VAAAAALOR SIGNUS!”

Moirre nodded. It had been a swamp that had brought them together, just over a year ago if the calendar behind the bar was accurate. She had really just started as an adventurer, but had heard that there were still rare and powerful artifacts to be found in the ruins under Godslost swamp. A hundred years before the Elder Dragon Zhaitan had raised the sunken continent of Orr from the depths of the Sea of Sorrows, causing a massive a tidal wave that had devastated coastal areas, including the lands where the Temple of Ages had been established in honor of humanity’s gods. There had been several attempts since then to either drain the swamp or excavate the broken temple, but the swamp guarded its prize jealously. Only a few souls with the right mix of bravery, foolhardiness, and a certain amount of luck ever managed to wrest treasure from the hungry muck, while far more simply added their own bones and wealth to the casualties already lying far below.

Moirre had wanted nothing to do with the ruins – at least not until she had better equipment. Instead, she had planned on looting the dead bodies of the various beasts slain by other, more ambitious adventurers and selling what she found back in Divinity’s reach to finance a more prepared expedition, maybe even hire a guild as an escort. There was a thriving market for claws, teeth, and vials of blood, all of which were believed to have magical properties and were often used as fetishes by weapon and armor makers, as well as the less savory bits which were often touted by hucksters as medicinal cures to be ground up, drunk, eaten, or just sprinkled around one’s home while muttering nonsense pretending to be a “spell”.

She had discovered, instead, that the swamp was just as protective of corpses as it was of artifacts. She had made some progress against the fireflies that infested the area, and had managed to harvest quite a bit of their venom. (Why, exactly, there were fireflies the size of a small dog that produced a caustic acid capable of boring through a steel breastplate in several seconds was a question she decided it was better to leave to the philosophers. She just made it a point to sneak up on them from behind to make sure they couldn’t spit any of it at her.) What she hadn’t been prepared for were the skelk. The slimy, foul smelling, black skinned lizards were a horror to deal with. They would appear out of nowhere, try to stab or bite through her protective wards, and then disappear just as quickly. She managed to kill a few of the cowardly little creeps, but the rest seemed intent on bleeding her to death.

In the end, though, it wasn’t the skelks that proved the most dangerous thing in the swamp. The Temple of Ages hadn’t just been the most prominent place to worship the gods, but had also been built on a soft spot in the walls between realities, allowing those with the power and knowledge to travel to the demesnes of the gods. That magic still lingered in the swamp, but it had grown corrupted under Zhaitan’s influence. Now instead of allowing the devout to visit their patrons it allowed…things…to enter into the mortal world, demons and nightmares that otherwise should have been trapped deep in the darkest pits of the abyss.

“I’ve got something for you.” Vrin finally gave up on the chair, and pushed it aside so that he could kneel at the table instead. He set his backpack on the floor and opened the top flap before reaching into pull out a small glowing figure. It was a ghostly white, semi-transparent figure of a goat-skulled abomination. Moirre clapped her hands in delight as it spread bat-like wings and leapt from the table to sit on her shoulder.

“Oh! It is beautiful!” she exclaimed. She reached up to pet it, and the creature nuzzled against her hand. The creature had almost no weight, but it was warm and solid to the touch. “Where did you get it?”

Vrin shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. “I came across some asura setting up one of their strange little devices along the road, and they asked me to test it for them. It summoned ghostly monsters, including a larger version of that there beasty. I fought them, four against one, until none remained. The krewe gave me that as thanks for helping them with the test, and I thought that you would like one as well so I convinced them to give me two.”

Moirre stopped petting the creature and her eyes narrowed suspiciously at her husband. “You didn’t hurt any of them did you?” Her only toy as a child had been a stuffed asura, and she still had a big of a soft spot for the diminutive blue furred race, even after discovering just how crazy they could actually be in person.

Vrin held his hands up in surrender. “Peace, woman. They had plenty of spares. They are intended to be won as prizes for defeating the ghosts summoned by the machine. They had no problem giving me a second when I asked. What news from the city?”

“The Seraphs and Shining Blades are preparing a mission against the remnants of the White Mantle, and we’ve been asked to assist,” Moirre replied. One of the servers came by and placed drinks in front of them. She reached for a wine filled goblet as Vrin tried to digest the news.

“Politics? Why would we be getting involved in politics?” he finally asked. “Politics are dangerous. I’d rather go hunt a dragon. By myself. Armed with only a toothpick. Nak-“

“Yes, all right,” Moirre said with a laugh. “I get the idea. But it isn’t just any job. I managed to track down some information on my parents, but in order to get the actual details I needed to exchange favors with a pair of Seraph agents. So we go in, kill a bunch of idiot cultists, I get the information and we split for greener pastures and whatever monster is infesting them now.”

“Sounds like a plan then,” Vrin agreed. He quaffed down his own drink, draining the gallon sized tankard of ale in five huge gulps. Moirre instinctively ducked as he let out a thunderous belch that blew out a nearby rack of candles. “So, where is this mission taking place?”

“Not too far from here. I was told we should meet them in Blackroot Cut.”

“Ah, another swamp.” Vrin’s smile was genuinely warm as he waved for another round. “We’ve always done well with swamps, eh love?”

“Aww, now that’s no way to talk,” the second man said with a false pout. He was wobbling from side to side, and Moirre could tell the leer on his face was from the way he was staring down her blouse. “Pretty girl like you, on a night like this, she shouldn’t be all by herself. She should have some company.”

“I am already with someone,” Moirre said, her voice tight as her patience was strained. “Now, please leave me alone.”

“I bet he ain’t as big as I am,” the first man said with a rude laugh. “If you know what I mean!”

“No, what do you mean?” someone rumbled from behind the pair of troublemakers.

“Eh, kitten off!” the sitting man said, waving his hand dismissively without turning around. “We were here first!”

“The lady asked you to leave her alone,” the newcomer insisted.

“Hey, what parts of ‘piss off’ did you not understand, mate?” The man still refused to turn around. He leaned in closer to Moirre, who leaned as far back as her chair allowed. “I’m a friend of the owner’s miss, wouldn’t be too hard to get a room, ya follow?”

“Er, Kal?” The second man had turned around, and now he took a step back from the table. “Kal, maybe you should get up, mate.”

“What, Sil?” Kal demanded, finally turning around to see what had his friend so worked up. Kal’s jaw dropped as he found himself face to thigh with possibly the biggest norn he had ever seen. The norn where a wild race, half savage by the standards of human society. Even their women were known to wrestle bears for fun, when they weren’t drinking ale and mead by the cask. The shortest norn stood over eight feet tall, while the one standing behind Kal was closer ten and a half. The monstrously large barbarian was dressed in haphazard armor that looked as if it had been hacked off the corpses of his fallen enemies. His boots, gauntlets, and pauldrons mounted spikes that were easily as long as Kal’s forearm, and his kilt was bound by chains thick enough to serve as ship’s anchor line. He didn’t have a shirt on, just a loose collar of chainmail to protect his neck and upper chest, and his face was hidden by a full helm mounted with four fully functional horns. Strapped to his back was a large shield that crackled with pent up electricity, and the sword at his hip was actually on fire. All of it had been dyed the same colors as Moirre’s outfit, a point that did not seem all that insignificant to the two boozehounds.

“As it happens, I was here first,” the norn said as he grabbed Kal by the front of his shirt and lifted him bodily from his chair with childish ease. He waited for the terrified hunter to unbend his knees before setting him down, and Kal immediately sagged against his friend, while a dark stain slowly crept across the front of his trousers.

The norn looked down and let out a bark-like laugh. “I was going to tell you to kitten off, as you so aptly put it, but I think you already have. Run off, and remember this the next time you decide to ignore a lady when she tells you to leave her alone.”

The two men nodded, then nearly collided with one another as they hastily departed. The norn waited for them to get out of the way before pulling the now vacant chair even farther from the table and sitting down. He then spent the next several minutes fidgeting as he tried to get comfortable on a piece of furniture designed for a person half his size.

Moirre tried not to laugh as she watched Vrin shift back and forth. The big man was her loyal traveling companion, best friend, and most importantly of all, her loving husband. Despite that, he really just did not fit in any sort of building designed with humans in mind, but he put up with it for her. They might have moved north, to the Shiverpeak mountains where his clan made their homes, but it was too bitterly cold there for her tastes. They both thought that the lands around Maguuma were too hot and humid, which meant their only other option was the blasted lands occupied by the Charr and, well. It was strange enough being a human married to a norn; being a human married to a norn living in legion controlled territory was just begging to become a punch line to a bad joke.

Thick, greasy smoke clung to the ceiling of the Hunting Lodge as boisterous young men boasted of near misses and exaggerated their prowess with bow and spear. Sitting alone in the corner was a young woman of about twenty-five years. She wore a simple, home spun peasant’s dress dyed the color of the sea and trimmed by the hues of winter, the better to compliment her fair skin. Her eyes were a pale green and sparkled with laughter at some unheard joke, while her hair was cut short in the preferred style of most adventurers.

Moirre tried to shrink into the wall as she watched everyone else partying. She absolutely hated crowds and always had. She hated the noise, she hated the crush of bodies against hers, she hated the way they made her feel trapped and alone. Crowds had always meant trouble, back when she was growing up on the streets of Divinity’s Reach. The other guttersnipes had seen gatherings as the perfect targets, with plenty of pockets to be picked and purses to be snatched. Moirre had known better. The more people in the square, the more guards there to watch them. She had seen more than one friend’s hand reach into a pocket, only to come back out with a spell-laced snare clutched in their fingers. Then they would disappear entirely, hustled off by grim faced guards to an unknown fate. No one ever escaped, not with a crowd surrounding them on all sides.

Moirre had always been careful, sticking only to those targets who could afford it, and never taking more than she needed to stay alive. There were always plenty of drunken young fools who liked to go slumming, and more than one followed pretty young lass with a swaying derriere into a dark alley, only to wake up the next morning with a bruised skull and an empty purse. The best bit was that it was never, ever Moirre. She made sure to change her illusions every time, mixing and matching features from dozens of people so that when the guards came around in the afternoon they were looking for someone who didn’t exist.

As Moirre grew older her powers matured, finally giving her the way out that she had been seeking. There was no future in petty thievery and con artistry, no matter what her few remaining friends believed. She wanted a home, she wanted four sturdy walls and a kitchen where she could cook for herself. She wanted fine clothes, a roof over her head, and a fire to warm her when the night grew chill.

Most importantly of all, she wanted to discover who her parents had been, and why they had chosen to leave her wrapped in her swaddling clothes, alone and afraid, on the altar of Dwayna one dark night.

So she bought a backpack, wrapped her few belongings in a thin blanket, and headed out to see what the world might have held for her.

‘And now I am here,’ she thought as a wry smile crossed her lips. The smile turned to a frown as she watched two drunks totter their way over to her table. They were both young men, most likely younger than herself, and already half wasted from a combination of exhaustion and too much ale.

“Heeey, pretty lady,” the bolder of the two said as he pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down with a thump. His leathers were stained with mud and dried blood, and the faint stench of offal hovered around him. The pair had obviously been skinning their catches before they had gone drinking, and hadn’t even bothered to clean themselves up before entering the lodge.

“Please leave me alone,” Moirre asked as her nose curled in disgust. It would have been simple enough to send a frightening illusion into their minds and send them off screaming, but she didn’t know if they were alone or if they had friends who might object to their brief torment. Besides, the lodge’s owner would probably object to her starting a fight.