Guild Wars 2

I submitted an in-game bug report, but thought maybe I should post here too.

Female charr heavy armor chest pieces now clip at the top for almost half of all armor sets. The attached image shows the issue on three armor sets (zodiac’s, grasping dead, and the one I use, Whisper’s), but the issue is present in many more chest pieces. Unfortunately I can’t remember which body type I picked for my charr. Note that this bug was not present prior to a month ago or so, though I’m not sure which patch introduced the issue.

This bug affects multiple armor sets in a very noticeable way, so I fully expect it to be fixed. Thank you.

Thanks for the update! I’m excited to finish the PS on my more recent level 80’s

Well Pandaman, I for one wanted the same thing. I appreciate efforts at consistency in lore, and hate having to overlook when living story Mordremoth vines sprout through immersion in the personal story. Ideally for me, the new revenant profession would have some story explanation. It would be unlocked as part of a story or quest, similar to unlocking class specializations in Dragon Age Inquisition. I imagine Rytlock training you, and undergoing some kind of trial in the mists with the legends being channeled. I understand that this is infeasible and wouldn’t be enjoyed by the majority of players, so like so many other aspects of GW2, I’ll just have to fill in the holes with head canon.

It’s somewhat frustrating how negative everyone else’s responses to your post have been. It’s not a crazy idea that Arenanet should strive for consistency in story. I like to think that people participating on this forum generally aren’t those who care about lore. Regardless, thanks for posting your thoughts, Pandaman.

I find the new gem purchase limitations to be kind of insulting. Please re-allow the option to buy custom quantities of gems.

I don’t have time to look through all of the posts in this CDI, unfortunately. What I do have time for is to list what I do and do not want out of Guild Halls:

Do want:

• Functions seamlessly with existing game modes and systems (PvP, PvE, WvW, dungeons, guild missions, etc).
• Provides guild activities which utilize the guild mission system.
• Awards guild commendations for guild team-building activities.
• Increases participation in existing game content.
• Allows choice of theme/location (Shiverpeak, Krytan, Maguuma, Ascalonian, Orrian, etc.)
• Gives a physical space for guilds to meet in.
• Have guild rewards NPC’s in the guild hall space.
• Has aesthetic unlockables to work toward that decorate both the Guild Hall and the individual.
• Sets the stage for GvG matches.

Do NOT want:

• Redundancy with existing game modes or systems (especially with convenience centers, such as the Captain’s Airship).
• Instances which detract significantly from existing game maps.
• Implementations which are biased toward certain game modes (PvE, WvW, or PvP).

More concrete ideas:

• For PvE, have Guild Halls be based out of dungeons instances. Guilds first have to clear each path of the dungeon together, which represents cleaning out the dungeon. Once each path has been completed, they can spend influence to unlock the area as their Guild Hall.
• After unlocking the dungeon, guild members can teleport there via the guild UI and congregate in a separate dungeon instance which is clear of enemies.
• Completing dungeon paths for the unlocked dungeon will additionally unlock guild commendations, and perhaps increased dungeon tokens.
• Allow guilds to unlock all dungeons, select which one they want active as their guild hall, and switch between unlocked halls.
• Completing dynamic events in the zone outside of the dungeon will provide dramatically increased gold/karma awards, and a rare chance of guild commendations. Conceptually, guild members are bettering the zone outside their guild hall, kind of like a fraternity adopting a highway in front of their frat house.
• Introduce a few new dynamic events which involve “rival” guild NPC’s attacking the area outside the dungeon in an attempt to raid the guild.
• For WvW, unlocking Guild Hall locations would work similarly—once unlocked, you’d have access to a private instance which uses structures in WvW one of safe zone corners of the map). Unlocking criteria might involve claiming a keep on that map for your guild. Participating in WvW events on that map would similarly reward increased karma/gold/guild commendations. There could perhaps be increased influence benefits for claiming keeps on that map.
• For PvP, the Guild Hall would simply be a custom arena. The increased rewards would work similarly to the WvW and PvE suggestions.

Thank you for holding this CDI, ArenaNet. Despite trying to be concise, my post ended up being much longer than I hoped it would be.

I can confirm that the Fear Arc recap is missing from the Story Journal for all of my level 80’s. This is a bug, and should be fixed.

I haven’t yet been able to attempt the arc post-Feature-Pack to see if this makes a difference in what appears in the Story Journal, and whether the Fear Arc is actually missing from the game.

The post-destruction model of Lion’s Arch completely ruins the personal story instances which take place in Lion’s Arch. I can only imagine what new players will make of the jarring scenes. Personal story instances should retain the pre-destruction Lion’s Arch map.

For example, in the attached screenshot, children are cheerfully pretending to be Destiny’s Edge, while the actual Destiny’s Edge members bicker about their old problems as if the the city weren’t just ravaged, killing who knows how many civilians, ready to collapse on them at any moment. Not to mention that Laranthir’s presence in Lion’s Arch firmly establishes that the destruction of Lion’s Arch took place after the defeat of Zhaitan.

I think this is unacceptable, and would classify this as a bug. I seriously hope this issue gets rectified, and that future living story content doesn’t continue to degrade the quality of the personal story.

Edit:
Swept the GW2 reddit and found some threads on the same topic for further perspectives…
Personal Story and Current LA Discussion
Personal Storyline- in the past?

I like the discussion that’s happened around preserving the nature theme in whatever changes come to ranger spirit skills (Orpheal, Phenaphone, a few others). And for most posts I’ve seen in this thread regarding spirits, a recurring theme is that spirit skills aren’t fun to use because they’re so passive. However, I don’t see people complaining about signets, which are perhaps even more passive than spirits. If spirits didn’t die so easily, and provided buffs people found more useful, I kind of doubt people would care as much about spirits effects being passive. As for the usefulness of the mostly defensive buffs spirits provide, defensive skills not being useful in PvE isn’t a problem with the spirits; it’s a problem with PvE combat system design. Giving spirits more offensive buffs can alleviate the symptoms, though.

Making pets the epicenter of spirit buffs is still the most promising solution I’ve heard for addressing issues with spirits. With imaginative reworking of the skill animations, I think it’s entirely possible to preserve the feeling that rangers are summoning the same spirits of nature, while mechanistically behaving according to Allie’s proposed skill change. Along those lines, another idea I had is to make it so that, during the 1.5 second casting time for spirit skills, the spirit model actually appears (but isn’t targetable), runs to the ranger’s pet, and appears to imbue it with the respective aura. And when the skill expires, or the pet dies or is switched out, the spirit will appear to leave the pet and vanish into leaves, like the sylvari fern hound elite summonable. The skill mechanic could say “Imbue your pet with a <element> spirit that grants nearby allies a chance to gain <effect> when attacking,” perhaps. It’s a fine line, but it’s important to preserve the roleplaying affordances and nature-themed aesthetics of the ranger profession.

Arghore.8340:

…or add spirits to pets (which I personally don’t like at all, but that’s some other discussion)…

Please, elaborate. The potential change to spirits is the topic I’m most interested in at this point.

Substance E.4852:

I can almost guarantee you they would give the pet a massively obvious aura that showed it was in “spirit mode”.

They aren’t going to just take spirits and stick them on an always mobile mob with more health and armor than before and not make it obvious they are there. We’ll probably have to sacrifice the active effect of the spirit as well for the reasons I just listed.

I just want the roleplaying affordance that spirits provide to be preserved. What would they even call the skill if we’re not actually summoning a spirit? It’s not a clean solution.

How about this: the effect is moved to pets as Allie suggested, and for the visual indicator, they just have the spirits follow our pet around, but they’re not targetable and they die with our pet. That’d make us both happy—rangers are still summoning the same nature spirit, but with the same strategic change that moving the spirit bonuses to pets would provide. The only people who would lose anything are those who don’t like visual clutter.

Flytrap.8075:

The simple truth is that spirits in their current form are ridiculously toxic in sPvP. They require no skill and offer far too much passive power. The whole strategy behind the build is essentially to spam your auto-attack and to hide in the zoo clutter.

I don’t think that Ranger’s “roleplaying options” should be placed ahead of balancing the class.

Allie’s suggestion wasn’t regarding removing the passive effects, it was that spirits no longer be visible and that the effects are carried by your pet to remove “visual clutter.” The change would have no effect on spirit passive effects being overpowered in PvP. In fact, putting the passive effect on pets would probably make spirit skills more powerful in PvP, since you wouldn’t be able to see that spirits are in play as easily as you can now.

Shadowbane.7109:

Now you plan on taking the spirits away and adding it to the kitten pet.

Someone else agrees with me! Removing the spirits diminishes the ranger’s roleplaying options. You might as well rename the vitality traitline if you remove spirits, because the spirits are the only “nature magic” a ranger does.

Just going to reiterate that making spirits automatically follow you, non-targetable, and dependent on the ranger’s health (not the pet’s) would be a much better solution.

Can we focus on specific and tangible problems here? If there’s an issue with the suggestions Allie compiled, point it out, say why it’s an issue, and what you would do to fix it. Bickering over house metaphors and getting emotional isn’t going to fix the ranger profession. Furthermore, remember that it’s a privilege to have this conversation with the developers. Try to make this experience enjoyable for them, and maybe they’ll do it more often.

Allie Murdock.8152:

PvX
General:

1. Remove spirits. They clutter up the map and provide less strategic value with target changes.

I’m disappointed at how many people participating in this forum would prefer to see spirits go. Making them non-targetable and automatically follow you should suffice. It seems like what half of the people here really want is for the ranger to be recast as a petless, medium-armored warrior. The profession should keep as much of its nature theme as possible IMO.

afoot.6932:

Suggested changes sound great, except for the removal of spirits. Spirits add a lot of roleplaying flavor to rangers. Removing spirits would take the profession from having nature based cantrips to having no spellcasting ability whatsoever. I’d hate to see that roleplaying affordance be removed, as it’s one that I find particularly attractive about the ranger class.

A previous poster suggested making spirits non-targetable, which sounds much more promising to me. Instead of having their own life bars, let the ranger’s health determine when the spirit dies. So when the ranger’s health drops below a certain threshold, the spirit dies, or perhaps automatically triggers its AoE activated skill. For example, if a ranger casts Sun Spirit, you’d still get the spirit following you around, but it’s not targetable. Instead, the spirit dies when you get the ranger below, say, 50% health, at which point solar flare automatically activates and blinds nearby foes. Since spirits are tied to the vitality trait line, this change makes even more sense.

Furthermore, in PvP or WvW, changing spirits to behave this way would be better than removing spirits and putting the buff on pets, since the spirit following a ranger around is a much better visual indicator that a spirit buff is in play.

Reelix.6319:

Ranger main here (1k+ hours on my Ranger)
> Remove spirits. They clutter up the map and provide less strategic value with target changes.
Instead, apply an aura to the pet that does the same thing spirits currently do.

Simply making them non-targetable would have the same effect…

> Give them something similar to shouts.

… Spirits?

Shadowbane.7109:

What a great idea to remove something partly unique to the ranger (spirits) and add it to the most controversial thing the ranger has (pet).

Reelix and Shadowbane further emphasize why keeping spirits as non-targetable but visible entities linked to the player’s health would be a good idea.

Suggested changes sound great, except for the removal of spirits. Spirits add a lot of roleplaying flavor to rangers. Removing spirits would take the profession from having nature based cantrips to having no spellcasting ability whatsoever. I’d hate to see that roleplaying affordance be removed, as it’s one that I find particularly attractive about the ranger class.

A previous poster suggested making spirits non-targetable, which sounds much more promising to me. Instead of having their own life bars, let the ranger’s health determine when the spirit dies. So when the ranger’s health drops below a certain threshold, the spirit dies, or perhaps automatically triggers its AoE activated skill. For example, if a ranger casts Sun Spirit, you’d still get the spirit following you around, but it’s not targetable. Instead, the spirit dies when you get the ranger below, say, 50% health, at which point solar flare automatically activates and blinds nearby foes. Since spirits are tied to the vitality trait line, this change makes even more sense.

Furthermore, in PvP or WvW, changing spirits to behave this way would be better than removing spirits and putting the buff on pets, since the spirit following a ranger around is a much better visual indicator that a spirit buff is in play.

Dalanor.5387:

If you make an actual dodge animation to pets, how would they use it?
How would you prevent that when you aren’t on the exact same spot as your pet and use a dodge the pet wont dodge right in a aoe circle?
If you make an invulnerable frame to pets while the Ranger use a dodge, how would you prevent them to move out of dangerous zones?
(Okay, micromanaging with F3 would solve this but you get it.)
How would a possible built in damage reduction (be it single target or aoe) affect the pet and the Ranger in a PvP environment?

I’m happy the topic of pet dodging (or just increasing pet survivability in complex content) came back up! I posted a proposal for player controlled (not AI) pet dodging fairly early on, but I suppose it got lost in the tide. So here it is again:

• Specific Game Mode: PvE (though honestly I think any new pet-dodge mechanic should be consistent across all game formats)
• Proposal Overview: Alter the ranger-specific profession skill bar to allow rangers to execute timed pet dodges.
• Goal of Proposal: Pets suffer from limited mobility and unnecessary vulnerability in the GW2 combat system, which is centered around the dodge and evasion mechanic. As NPC’s, pets will and should always carry certain disadvantages, but taking significantly more damage due to not being able to dodge should not be one of those disadvantages. Adding the ability for pets to dodge will increase the control rangers have over their most crucial, unique, and valuable profession mechanic, their pet. Note that the specific proposal aims to give the player more agency, create consistency with existing game mechanics, and hopefully be easier and more feasible to implement.
• Proposal Functionality:
  1) Alter the “Attack my target” (F1) ranger profession skill so that when pressed twice consecutively, the pet dodges in the direction of the targeted enemy, and continues attacking. Similarly, alter the “Return to me” (F3) ranger profession skill so that when pressed twice consecutively, the pet dodges in the direction of the player and returns to the player afterward. Alter the pet health bar interface so that a pet’s dodge meter is shown above the health bar. Note that pressing the pet movement commands twice consecutively is meant to mimic players pressing movement keys twice consecutively to dodge in a given direction.
  2) Change the Guard and Avoid Combat functions to effect pet dodge behavior:
  - Under “Avoid Combat,” pets dodge whenever you dodge. Thus, you’d be controlling pet dodge movement in this mode directly with your character’s dodge movement. Furthermore, pets will physically stay closer to the ranger in this mode.
  - Instead of the Guard combat function, have two new functions: Aggressive and Defensive mode.
  - Under Aggressive mode, pets will continue attacking enemies and only dodge when you directly tell them to with F1 or F3. Furthermore, they will automatically attack enemies who are further out than in Defensive mode. This mode will be useful when the pet is fighting at melee distance, but the player is ranged. It will also be useful when using the pet as a tank, while the player either attacks at a distance, or from behind with melee.
  - In Defensive mode, pets will dodge with the player, like in Avoid Combat mode, but will resume attacking thereafter. Thus, whenever the player double taps the movement key to dodge (or presses the dodge button), their pet will dodge alongside them without having to press F1 or F3. Furthermore, pets will only automatically attack enemies in melee range, and will need to be directly commanded using F1 to attack enemies further away. Pets will also physically stay closer to rangers in this mode than in Aggressive mode. This mode will facilitate defensive melee combat alongside pets, and prevent players from having to scramble to make both their pet and their character dodge separately when they’re getting hit by the same attacks.
• Associated Risks:
  - Ranger pet UI may seem overly cluttered with a dodge bar above health bar.
  - Timing pet dodging may make it difficult to use.
  - Potential for new bugs with new skill functionalities.

Matthew Oswald.3082:

We are at the beginning stages of overhauling our cinematic tools. It’s still very early on, so you wont see anything big for quite some time…In the meantime, you should see a gradual improvement in the quality of cut-scenes as the cinematic and writing team strengthen our collaboration efforts.

I should add that custom animations take up a substantial amount of dev resources that aren’t dedicated to cinematics.

The GW1 cinematics team was created for machinama and traditional 3D animation…whereas the GW2 team was built around animating concept art (motion graphics work)

The cinematics that you see in the personal story where 2 characters talk to each other on a stage-like environment have been…retired.

Cinematics/cut-scenes are an important part of our game. We are constantly striving to make them better and push the limits of our current tools in the process.

Thanks for the news—exciting! It definitely sounds like the cons outweigh the pros at this point for the two-person cinematics. I hope that future cinematics will have improved facial gestures and emotional expression, and that the awesome concept art from the stage-like cinematics can still be worked in somehow. And most importantly, I hope we get to hear our characters speak again in the future—and that we get to choose what they say!

afoot.6932:

afoot.6932:

Issue: Female sylvari t1 heavy cultural armor leggings (Arborist set) show female genitalia. This is NOT a joke. I noticed it when updating my dyes. It’s worse with colors that show more contrast. Please fix this—I can’t unsee it. Since there’s another issue with the Arborist leggings (the torso skin being reflective and not matching the skin of the upper torso from the chestpiece; I’ve reported it before, so see my forum account history for more info), it makes sense that the two issues would be fixed in concert. Thank you!

Update:

• I photoshopped a prototype of roughly what I expect after the two Arborist leggings issues have been fixed. The groin doesn’t have to take on the pinkish hue from my sylvari’s skin tone, just please remove the genitalia.
• The pic also shows my character’s normal dye scheme. Note that the genitalia issue is actually worse with the dye I’d like to use, walnut, than in the first pic where the leggings are highlighted red. Thanks again!

Update 2:
I was playing around with a total makeover kit when I noticed that the Arborist leggings issue is only on the “rougher” looking physique textures (the bottom row of physique options for female sylvari). On the “smoother” physique textures (the top row), the stomach on the chest and legging armor pieces seems to match, but for the rough textures, the leggings use the same stomach texture as the smooth. The attached image shows the discrepancy between the two.

Karl McLain.5604:

Sigils:

• All sigils now have independent cooldowns, meaning you can use two on-swap sigils, or an on-swap and an on-crit sigil at the same time. You will not, however, be able to use two sigils of the same name at the same time. On-kill sigils that provide attributes, such as Sigil of Corruption, will not be able to be used simultaneously with other attribute modifying on-kill sigils.
• Two-handed weapons can now be slotted with two sigils.

Sounds great. Will you be adding in-game information reflecting the limitations on sigils of the same type? That’d be really helpful in making sigil mechanics transparent. The first place I used to look for that info was the “help” feature in-game, but adding it to the tooltip would be good if it’s not too cluttered.

afoot.6932:

Issue: Female sylvari t1 heavy cultural armor leggings (Arborist set) show female genitalia. This is NOT a joke. I noticed it when updating my dyes. It’s worse with colors that show more contrast. Please fix this—I can’t unsee it. Since there’s another issue with the Arborist leggings (the torso skin being reflective and not matching the skin of the upper torso from the chestpiece; I’ve reported it before, so see my forum account history for more info), it makes sense that the two issues would be fixed in concert. Thank you!

Update:

• I photoshopped a prototype of roughly what the Arborist leggings issues might look like when fixed. The groin of course doesn’t have to extend the leaf structures exactly like I did, just please remove the genitalia.
• The pic also shows my character’s normal dye scheme. Note that the genitalia issue is actually worse with the dye I’d like to use, walnut, than in the first pic where the leggings are highlighted red. Thanks again!

Issue: Female sylvari t1 heavy cultural armor leggings (Arborist set) show female genitalia. This is NOT a joke. I noticed it when updating my dyes. It’s worse with colors that show more contrast. Please fix this—I can’t unsee it. Since there’s another issue with the Arborist leggings (the torso skin being reflective and not matching the skin of the upper torso from the chestpiece; I’ve reported it before, so see my forum account history for more info), it makes sense that the two issues would be fixed in concert. Thank you!

Amiron.1067:

Ascend:
1. to move, climb, or go upward; mount; rise: The airplane ascended into the clouds.
2. to slant upward.
3. to rise to a higher point, rank, or degree; proceed from an inferior to a superior degree or level: to ascend to the presidency.

4. To commune with higher powers of Tyria, as in human Ascension in the Crystal Desert, or becoming Weh no Su--gaining hidden power within oneself, the gift of True Sight, and the ability to enter Realms of the Gods.

Ascension wasn’t just a 5% stat increase in Guild Wars 1; it was an important part of the story and lore of both the Prophecies and Factions campaigns. What I gather from the differences and similarities between Ascension and Weh no Su is that it’s a set of exceedingly difficult trials which gives an individual a degree of mastery over the Mists, and thus the powers listed above.
Regardless, to me “Truly Ascended” gear will always be connected with the lore of Ascension, and getting one’s armor infused thereafter. Therefore, my thoughts regarding the current state and future of ascended gear are as follows:

• The current amount of materials required to craft ascended gear is appropriate. It should be daunting, given the gravity of Ascension in the original lore of GW1, and they were successful in making it daunting. The 5% stat boost is also in line with the stat boosts gained in GW1 Ascension; the biggest gain with Ascension was in story progression and elite area access privilege.
• The story behind obtaining Ascended gear in GW2 is exceedingly weak. In GW1, my character fought his way to the Crystal Desert, completed the three trials of Ascension at the Dunes of Despair, Thirsty River, and Elona Reach, and then fought his own doppelganger to Ascend, meet the dragon Glint, and then finally fight the mursaat, all as foretold by the Flameseeker Prophecies. In GW2, players collect thousands of piles of grindy goo by playing the same dungeons, jumping puzzles, world bosses, and fractals hundreds of times over and over again, and level up their crafting until they can combine all this grind into one gigantic grindy-monument known as an Ascended Item. That is our story.
• What would be most fun for me is if Ascended gear now took on some purpose in the story of GW2, in fighting the Elder Dragons, and the Scarlet story arc. The 5% stat boost is fine, and appropriate, but what would make gear “Truly Ascended” is if it had some greater narrative significance, not just a minor stat increase.
• The problem with requiring Ascended gear for narrative content is that it gates players who haven’t put time into crafting Ascended items. A possible solution for this is to have a narrative for an individual becoming Ascended as a person, as opposed to having Ascended gear. The gear would remain separate, and the story would only require character Ascension, not Ascended gear. Meanwhile, high-level story missions could be created for those who are fully decked out in Ascended gear, like elite areas in GW1.
• Crafting should not be required to obtain Ascended gear. Players shouldn’t have to craft if it’s not something they enjoy. What I think would be ideal is if new narrative content provided the opportunity to trade Ascended gear materials and money/laurels/karma/etc. for an item which you double-click on and apply to an existing piece of gear to “Ascend” it. Using the item’s existing stat-base, the item would simply go up to top-tier stats. The catch would be that Ascending a piece of gear this way would have to take into account the cost of leveling up a crafting profession and of buying fine transmutation stones to transmute crafted Ascended items. Otherwise it’d be unfair to people who have already crafted.

My favorite part of any game is the story and lore. This is relevant to horizontal progression in that, while my character may be level 80, I still feel like I’m making progress if I’m moving through a storyline and uncovering new lore. This has been true somewhat for the living story; moving through it felt like progress, even though I wasn’t really leveling up. However, I think having a way to track personal progress in the living story and any other future storylines in the hero UI would make the experience more enjoyable. I imagine it would look somewhat like the personal story pane which summarizes progress through the personal story.

Similarly, the home instance was not fully implemented as was discussed in a blog post prior to release. Fully developing the home instance so that it tangibly shows progress would be awesome. Also, the home instance seems like a great location for supporting various types of collections (imagine if we could keep an armor/weapon collection in our home?). Another collection idea would be to I’d love to see added to the home instance would be an element which allows us to re-watch cinematics from past events. We’d collect and unlock cinematics as we watch them, and the interactable cinematic collector would show how many we’ve collected, like the Scrying Pool in Guild Wars 1. Basically, I’d love to see the home instance become the GW2 version of GW1’s Hall of Monuments.

Finally, the best way to add to my sense of horizontal progression is to ensure that future story releases are high quality, to keep me compelled to continue progressing through the story. Thanks for having this discussion!

Thanks ArenaNet, and good turnaround time responding to the community!

That’s awesome! Glad they could roll out a fix for this skin so quickly. I guess clipping issues are easier to fix than texture issues, since I’ve been waiting an entire year for my armor fix.

Title says it all.

All I want for Wintersday are my two armor sets to be fixed! (Tier 1 heavy female sylvari cultural armor and Priory asura male medium boots; the bugs have been reported, so don’t worry about that). And my female sylvari Marshal wants to kiss Caithe under the mistletoe.

Fantastic post from Skyy-High Reddit regarding OP’s post which I agree with completely:

• The basic idea of merging the PS and the LS is nice.
• I don’t agree that we need seasons (Dragon Bash was a good example of how they can put story beats into otherwise “normal” festivals).
• The “Scarlet is boring” routine is, itself, boring. We’ve gotten plenty of context at this point (both in and out of game) to speculate on her motives, ANet has already admitted that they’ve gone too slowly with her, and above all else, we’re going to finish this arc. There is no possible way they are going to just forget about Scarlet at this point. The image asks the question: Why do the people of Tyria care about her so much? Because she is demonstrably dangerous, that’s why! The Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades committed real crimes that had an impact on the world, whether it was displacing refugees or killing a member of the LA council. She’s reshaped an entire zone, for Dwayna’s sakes! She is clearly immediately dangerous, there is no question about that.
• The “PS is all about the NPCs” is also boring, and false. It’s a meme that started because we weren’t technically leaders of the Pact, but it’s been exaggerated to the point of absurdity. No, the PS is not just about NPCs congratulating each other. No, your character doesn’t lose the ability to choose his path. Yes, your character actually does have a huge impact on the fight against Zhaitan. No, the fight against Zhaitan does not just consist of a 10 minute bombardment of an already heavily weakened dragon, it’s the entire campaign through Orr. I’m truly tired of people with such negative and objectively false views of the PS getting backslaps all around while these misconceptions continue to propagate.
  The Pact doesn’t need to die in order for the PS and LS to grow closer. They’re not going to retcon the Pact being a big part of the current LS, anyway.

Aelaren.3784:

Sylvari split in half by heavy T1 armor.
Also, texture on legs looks like it was stretched from a much smaller sample than was enough for smooth look. Like magnified jpeg or something…

Kristen, can we get a fix for T1 female heavy along with the upgrades to the other sylvari cultural armor sets? You know…while you’re in there with all the other cultural armors. That’d be awesome!

Aelaren.3784:

Sylvari split in half by heavy T1 armor.
Also, texture on legs looks like it was stretched from a much smaller sample than was enough for smooth look. Like magnified jpeg or something…

Yes yes YES PLEASE fix this. I’ve been complaining about this for a YEAR now. I’m so happy to see somebody else notice this bug and report it!

I can empathize with those who are upset about the changes to sylvari armor, since I’m fairly obsessive about my armor/dye setups. It’s unfortunate that this change was made without communicating a warning to players who were already vested in the affected pieces.

I’m especially surprised that the change was made when there are still actual bugs on other armor skin textures that need to be fixed. This includes the heavy female sylvari t1 cultural armor, which I’ve been asking to be fixed for about a year now. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, especially when there are broken skins that could have been fixed instead.

I can empathize with those who are upset about the changes to sylvari armor, since I’m fairly obsessive about my armor/dye setups. It’s unfortunate that this change was made without communicating a warning to players who were already vested in the affected pieces.

I’m especially surprised that the change was made when there are still actual bugs on other armor skin textures that need to be fixed. This includes the heavy female sylvari t1 cultural armor, which I’ve been asking to be fixed for about a year now. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, especially when there are broken skins that could have been fixed instead.

Kristen Perry.5260:

This currently affects Medium Tier 2 (legs will be re-addressed for better glow and dye alignment, sorry about that, it got past me) and Tier 3, Light Tier 1 (female only), and Light Tier 3. The other weights and tiers will be assessed for a similar pass to give glow or upgrade glow results when possible.

Female heavy tier 2 seems to have been tinkered with as well, though not to glow. My dye channels were reset after the patch: unless I’m imagining things, the leggings and boots now have a third dye channel, whereas before they only had two. Certainly a welcome change.

I can empathize with those who are upset about the changes to sylvari armor, since I’m fairly obsessive about my armor/dye setups. It’s unfortunate that this change was made without communicating a warning to players who were already vested in the affected pieces.

I’m especially surprised that the change was made when there are still actual bugs on other armor skin textures that need to be fixed. This includes the heavy female sylvari t1 cultural armor, which I’ve been asking to be fixed for about a year now. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, especially when there are broken armor sets that could have been fixed instead.

Female sylvari T1 (Arborist) has a related bug, I think. The torso skins don’t match up—the bottom half of the torso is shiny—creating a pretty terrible seam. Do they have the same root cause? (see attached picture: torso is shiny on lower half, but not on upper half).

I’d like to add my support. Tequatl was designed for 80+ players, right, so that’s 0.31 of a condition stack per player, if you’re lucky. Not fair or fun, especially considering that the trait system encourages sticking to a single build. Why can’t the condition limit be 25 stacks per player for world bosses instead of 25 stacks between all players? Given the drastic increase in condition damage that players would be doing, developers could perhaps just increase Tequatl’s health to balance it out.

Glad to see this bug has already been reported. On the plus side, ArenaNet fixed the clipping issues with my Durham Priory coat!

Just completed the solo-mode living story content, and the poison and caltrop mines had no effect on Canach. I take it they’re supposed to inflict the poison and cripple conditions? Maybe the fix for Canach taking condition damage accidentally prevented him from taking condition damage from the mines.

On a side note, Subdirector Null is also not taking any condition damage whatsoever. Pretty sure the two bugs are somehow related.

The skin texture on the torso of the female Arborist leggings, part of the tier 1 sylvari cultural armor set, reflects light, creating a seam with the rest of the torso and making the skin look like a lighter color than it’s supposed to be (see ArboristLeggingsTorsoTextureIsShiny.jpg). I’m certain the torso area is supposed to be skin texture, since it’s not dye-able, and when paired with the Arborist chest piece, the torso has a harsh seam where the models for the upper and lower torso meet.

In the second attached picture (ArboristFixoChango.jpg), I photoshopped my character’s torso to look the way I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to.

I’ve been hoping every time there’s a new update patch that this issue might be resolved, since it’s just a problem with the texture…hope to see this fixed soon! Thanks!

First off, I’ve loved the Living Story so far…but there’s always room for improvement, right?

My biggest criticism:
My character doesn’t truly feel like they’re part of the living story. It feels like my character is watching the living story, not a part of it, like my character is a voiceless spectator of Rox’s and Braham’s stories.

Yes, Braham, Rox, and other instanced characters tell my character thank you and send letters and goodies for the help, all of which contribute to the feeling that my character made a difference, but it still doesn’t feel like my character is truly connected to what’s happening.

Suggested ways to improve on this:

• Add branching dialogue or quests where Rox/Braham’s actions or some other outcomes change based on my input.
• Have Living Story NPC’s in the open world react based on my character’s involvement in the Living Story. I’ve already finished the the Molten Facility dungeon—why don’t the heralds shout about my progress, or recognize me or at least talk about me when I go up and talk to them? Some of the NPC’s do this already, like Agent Brandubh, the dead drop collector, but I’d like to see more of the impact of my progress out in the world.
• Add voiceovers for my character during Living Story cinematics or cut scenes. This may be unfeasible given your develop budgets or timelines—I understand that you’d have to record dialogue for each race/gender combination—but hearing my character speak during cutscenes would make my character seem much less like a voiceless spectator.

I look forward to magic find gear being replaced/removed! I made my entire first set of exotic armor/weapons/accessories MF before learning it wasn’t worth it. Now I just have a pile of buyer’s remorse, and a sense of embarrassment at the time I wasted on all that gear. It’d be great if I could just change all of that equipment to a different stat set without having to pay extra…

If/when magic find is redone, I think it should be removed as a possible buff from food, too. Choosing whether to boost my other stats vs magic find via food presents the same dilemma as choosing with gear; it’s not fun.

Love it. Keep up the good work with.

Guild Wars 2 defines the future of online roleplaying games with action-oriented combat, customized personal storylines, epic dynamic events, world-class PvP, and no subscription fees!

The facts:

• Custom arenas/time tokens can only be purchased with gems (according to what they’ve stated so far)
• Gems can only be purchased with real money or with gold
• Gold cannot be acquired in sPvP
• Therefore, if you want to purchase and renew a custom arena without paying a monthly subscription fee, you or one of your buddies has to play WvW or PvE to earn gold enough to buy a time token.
• A monthly subscription fee goes against ArenaNet’s mission statement for Guild Wars 2 (indicated in the above quote).

My opinion:

• Having monthly rental time tokens that can’t be purchased via the sPvP reward currencies, glory and laurels, may feel too reminiscent of a monthly subscription fee for some players. Why should PvP players have to grind for gold in game modes they may not even enjoy, just to own or support a custom arena? What if the PvP player doesn’t have time to grind for gold—they have to pay real money every month for the “convenience” of playing how they like? I can see how that would feel like they’re being forced into what’s essentially a monthly subscription fee.
• Whether obtaining gold for a custom arena or time token is actually a significant time sink will depend on pricing.
• My gut tells me that custom arenas and time tokens should be purchasable with glory or laurels. It makes sense that, after playing sPvP enough to earn a significant amount of glory/laurels, a custom arena or time tokens would make great rewards. Laurels make more sense than glory to me; that way, players don’t feel like they can’t use their glory to create cosmetic rewards because they’re saving up for custom arenas or time tokens.
• Custom arenas are still in beta. I hope ArenaNet creates an alternative way to purchase custom arenas before releasing to the public, especially to avoid the PR nightmare of coming off as introducing a monthly subscription fee to play sPvP. sPvP was highly censured by the eSports community, and the last thing GW2 needs is to appear to be adding insult to injury.

Adding another developer to a team doesn’t necessarily speed up development, as per Brook’s Law. The man month is a myth.

As for the game being in “beta,” I kind of agree; GW2 released as a bug-ridden product that is constantly being honed and improved. But I’m glad that I’ve gotten to play it in the meantime! I feel sorry for sPvPers who bought the game and found the PvP content to be sorely lacking, but at least I didn’t have to wait a year to play through the PvE content.

Just thought I’d share how extremely pleased I am with how SAB was incorporated into the story and lore of GW2—Moto’s backstory, how the SAB reward items are for his ‘fundraiser,’ etc.—instead of just being a non sequitur minigame. Awesome work.

Armor: “Leather” medium coat and shoulders
Gender/Race/Class: female norn thief
Character name: Fejra Afoute
Where armor came from: crafted level 50 masterwork armor

Issue:
While standing still, the coat clips through the shoulderpiece on the backside. Since these pieces are in the same armor set, clipping is unacceptable. The clipping issue is probably due to my character’s height/body type combination (she’s close to max height).

Thank you!

Noticed the fix today. Thanks ArenaNet!

Armor: Pirate medium coat and pants
Gender/Race/Class: female norn thief
Character name: Fejra Afoute
Where armor came from: loot/trading post

Issue:
While standing still, the pants clip through the coat on the backside. While my character is moving backward, the pants clip all the way through the coat in the back. Since these pieces are in the same armor set, clipping is unacceptable. The clipping issue is probably due to my character’s height/body type combination (she’s close to max height).

Thank you!

Male asura Heritage medium armor shoulders, chest, and gloves (obtained from Hall of Monuments)
Character name: Fritz Afoute
Issue: clipping

The heritage chest piece clips significantly with the heritage shoulders, and also in a few places with the heritage gloves, even while the character is just standing in place. Armor pieces of the same set should not clip with each other. The issue may have to do with my character being max height.

Thanks!

I can’t believe this bug hasn’t been fixed in a month’s time. That’s an unacceptable turnaround time.

Could we get a known issues list for character art, weapons, or armor and for map/seeing ma kitten ues? Since the threads for these issues are now purged on a monthly basis, we no longer have a way to search for whether an issue has been posted or not. It’ll probably save you time reading through redundant posts if we had a known issues list, and I’d certainly like feedback on whether issues I’ve posted are recognized as a known issue or not.

Remember, stakeholder communication is vital to the success of any IT development team. A simple known issues list will go a long way to ensure healthy communication between user and developer. Thanks, and keep up the hard work!