Showing Posts For kimeekat.2548:

Charr and Asura female precursor armor

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Yes. Charr and Asura are not humanoid, they do not have breasts. They look ridiculous.

But: Why even have separate armors for genders to begin with? Obviously there’s some slight changes that would need to go on for breasts, but that seems minimal in comparison to designing what usually amounts to two completely separate armor sets and selling them under the same name. Sometimes the same armor is SO different between genders – wouldn’t that double the amount of available skins/currency sink and allow people to choose what fits their character best and not what Anet thinks about gender? Yes, let boys wear dresses and bikinis. Yes, let girls pick between tiny tops and head to toe armor. It’s just such an arbitrary division and a waste of work.

I also like what someone else said about Asura and Charr on reddit: they probably have a very different idea of “feminine” and stuffing them in human lady armor without any charr-feminine or asura-feminine alternative is avoiding some cool attention-to-detail world building that we like to see on every level of the game.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Sick of Condi meta

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

and now this specific fractals cant be done without boon strip spam and/or condi spam

They most certainly can be done without boon strip spam or condi spam. Those things make it much easier, but it’s still more important to know the encounters. I’ve done fractals 1-50 since HoT (many of the 40s in the last few weeks), entirely with PUGs and without any discussion between us about who is running what gear/build (minus warriors making sure they all aren’t running banners). The most I ever did for that instability is camp fire more, instead of dancing in and out of air, and swap out my Signet of Fire/any arcane skills for utilities that were more support or flat damage instead of crits. Even then, most of our enemies ended up covered in boons, regardless. It just took longer and was a little bit tougher, which I assume is the entire point of the instability.

Condi is more viable now for some classes than in the past, and thank god. It’s a breath of fresh air (bad crit ele joke) to have other stats approaching the usefulness that Zerk has had for over 3 years, though Zerk is still meta in pretty much every class for the majority of content.

I’ve seen some thoughtful criticism of condis in PvP regarding the rate at which they can be applied vs cleansed, but that seems like a PvP-specific issue that goes along with the bigger discussion I’ve seen lately of wanting separate game mode skill balancing. Maybe the PvP or WvW forums would be more sympathetic?

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

January 26th Update: Your feedback

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

-Scepter changes for both ele and mes did not quite go far enough, in my small opinion. Autoattacks, especially, need to be looked at. They are painfully slow and their damage doesn’t really make up for it.
—Eles’ aa on fire scepter is 1.15s which is kind of crazy for a non-channeled aa. I expected the burn or base damage to decrease while the aa speed increased.
—Mesmers’ aa on scepter takes almost a full 4 seconds to complete at max range and the ‘reduced cooldown on scepter’ trait doesn’t really help with that. I can’t say exactly how long it takes for the first strike to hit; it’s supposed to be 1/2s, but it’s slower than greatsword and sword’s aas, meaning I almost never lead with the scepter aa or use it unless everything else is on cd. And perhaps there’s a balance issue with this, but I wish the confusion that got removed from the aa (and Phantasmal Mage, tangentially) years ago was the clone-replacement instead of giving scepter more torment.

-We have a lot of new audio cues sneaking in-game lately (lifting environmental weapons or rubble, for example). It would be nice to have character audio for the newer boons/condis (torment, alacrity, slowness, etc). These cues are a big aid to me; perhaps there could be a sensitivity level in audio settings if the team is worried about annoying players. With no more very visible auras and all these extra little boons and condis floating around with no audio cues, I’m more than ever looking at enemies’/my stat bar instead of the fight.

-Fractal level selection in mistlock observatory is great! All the Fractal changes recently have been in the right direction; I think now we just need more fresh paths to see. However, why can we no longer buy heavily discounted fractal keys in groups of 5? (I’m at work rn; maybe it was patched since I last played? Hopefully)

-Gliding in Tyria is fantastic, especially in the hyena-infested crevasse of the iron farm area in Brisbane. It is making re-exploring more fun and less tedious. It also excites me because… I don’t know, I feel like city-zones are open now for vertical development like HoT maps. I’ve wanted rooftop paths that don’t require breaking out for a long time, and I feel one step closer to that

-The art team gets a thumbs up, of course. DR looks beautiful (again) for the Lunar Festival, and it was fun to use the glider to get the fireworks in DR.

eta:
-Those sprites of the red envelopes on the daily reward panel are adorable and immediately communicate game mechanics. Perfect. I hope we see more of that in the future.

-The brew group is the perfect blend of lore and long-term reward that I like. Well done; I love having a story-reason to return to old locations.

-Ranger shouts and axe changes/buffs were well done, as were Thief sword+staff and Warrior axe changes. They were great steps in addressing why those weapons/skills didn’t get used as much.

-REALLY going to miss using Ride the Lightning in mid-jump :\ It was just so fun.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Visual nerfs [Merged]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

The adventure in Verdant Brink where you flame torch the vine tendrils is much more difficult now. I need to see where the jet is aiming. Please at least fix this very specific non-combat case where precision is important.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Visual nerfs [Merged]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I thought: Maybe particle effects are not attached to LOD cause they want to add more nuanced options (full/reduced/no fx for: me, party members, strangers). So I waited.

Instead, they’re just straight up removing the visuals from my formerly visually amazing ele and giving us magical egg bindle auras to wear. I can hardly even see the most impactful auras (shock, magnetic) now which is going to suck for PvP.

This game is beautiful. Please let the player decide when the pretty gets in the way of the practical.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

64-bit Client Beta FAQ

in Account & Technical Support

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I’m having a problem with text and graphics overall becoming blurry when playing on 64bit client. Anyone got a clue what would fix this?

I am having the same issues, text and graphics are blurry and not as sharp as the 32 bit version. Has anyone found na a fix for this? I’ve added the exe in nvidia setting and all but it’s still blurry (I have everything in max settings)

Having the same problem as well. Everything seemed to run fine except there was this weird low quality blur to everything. I looked at my settings and when I auto detected graphic settings it set everything to a lower quality by default. I set everything to max as well but it still didn’t fix the issue either.

Same here. People on reddit were saying there’s a setting in Nvidia Control Panel to set the dedicated GPU as default instead of the program using the onboard GPU…

According to this person’s screenshot I’m supposed to have option 2, but I don’t. Just one and three (numbered one and two on my system). So.. I can’t change the default there if I wanted to. I am at a total loss. 32 bit still looks stunning, while 64 bit looks like a 10 year old potato is running it ^^;;

Running Windows 10 64 bit, Nvidia GTX 770.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Boss Fight Glitched

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

OP, if you go through all the trouble of putting your entire message under a readmore… please consider the most public part of your post, too.

You have a spoiler in your title….

Sigh.

Attachments:

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

How would you rate the HoT Fun Factor?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

It’s worth mentioning that it’s now 7.0 on Metacritic. Pretty much shows that the majority of people who gave the expac a review so quickly were people who just had a grudge with a single decision that ANet made and didn’t really even play the content to get a well-rounded view.

Also worth mentioning that no one in this thread said 10 something that I think nearly 90% of the positive scores are (on Metacritic), not to mention this is as absurd as giving it a 0. This is far from perfect.

Err… that’s not at all correct. The responses are certainly varied but there have been 10s on almost every page:

10/10 – I guess I should realistically give it more like an 8 or 9 but I can’t think of anything to change, besides wanting more fractals.

10/10 Currently having a blast.

10/10 fun for now.

11/10 maybe 12/10. This is by far the most fun I have had playing GW2 since the original beta over 3 years ago.

10/10 If I can glide outside of HoT maps too.

10/10 would play again

10/10 a lot of new achievements to get

I rate it a 10. It’s beautiful and a totally new, refreshing and extremely challenging experience from GW2.

10/10 no lie. The game is epic, best expansion i’ve ever played.

I agree.

Game is fun as hell, feel bad for all the people who can not enjoy this game as it is a total blast.

10/10 – because I have a lot of fun in the HoT maps.

for me i’ts 10/10

I think it is super fun. 10/10

10/10, been having a blast.

10/10 smooth as butter launch

This does not include all the 10s as part of a section of a larger breakdown, nor the 9.5 I saw.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

New Party Icon Colors

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Also if your not in map range party members dots disappear whereas in the past it would still appear on the edge of the minimap. I am constantly losing track of party members especially in wvw where this can be incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, I’m finding this incredibly annoying to explore with, especially in the fun new combat camera mode where I have to constantly toggle it on and off to readjust the minimap zoom. Please change it back if possible.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

How would you rate the HoT Fun Factor?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

10/10 – I guess I should realistically give it more like an 8 or 9 but I can’t think of anything to change, besides wanting more fractals. I’ve never repeated an event so far, the story is challenging in a variety of ways (not just dps but sometimes cerebrally) and engaging… exploring “aimlessly” has never been this much fun! Every time I unlock a new mastery it’s like a map gets a new flavor, which is making it fun on alts and to re-explore paths to “go deeper” as one might say. My boyfriend and I were exploring updrafts underground just to see where we could get to and BOOM suddenly a nearby wall breaks down and we’ve started an event in a place we thought was the complete wrong direction.

I’m usually the kind of person that is like ALL STORY ALL NOW but I’ve been distracted (in a good way) so many times just running around. These maps are an explorer’s dream.

The monsters are tough and for the first time since hitting level 80 I really get to focus on not over-pulling mobs and I am rewarded for using my CC skills well with all those break bars :‘) Plus you’re encouraged to think a little more tactically about line of sight with snipers, which hasn’t been tooooo big of a deal before now. I didn’t get as far through the story as I thought I would because I was so busy jumping off of things or up to things and just enjoying how dense the maps are. And that Auric Basin metaevent? Geeze, I freaking love it.

I don’t understand the hero points complaint… the ones I found were challenging and that made them feel even better to complete. Some were extremely hard to do alone, tough with two and much more forgiving with more. They were harder than vanilla GW2 but that is a huge plus in my book… just hard enough to make me consider my situation and skills carefully before tackling it.

Elite specs are giving me a reason to actually play my alts. Most of them were tomed or EotM’d to 80 so it’s nice to go progress with them in the open world… it makes them feel more alive rather than dress-up dolls.

Admittedly, I haven’t yet tried to do the last story mission people are on about. I try not to rush through one aspect at launch to avoid the bugs and balance issues that are inevitable in the more end-game elements. I don’t think that one thing is enough to make me lower my opinion, though. Hopefully it gets sorted in the next week or so – Anet’s generally really good about re-evaluating and patching up things that are truly frustrating in a timely manner imo (setting aside the NPE), so I have faith.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Ranger Help Ranger [PET LOCATIONS]

in Ranger

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

You guys are amazing! I’m trying to keep the wiki updated as the confirmations roll in; I’ve already got the Bristleback location info up to date. Trying to get the Fire Wyvern sorted next…

Can someone please confirm the name of the PoI on the “Canopy over Pact Encampment” area in this picture? http://prntscr.com/8uhhm7

I’m doing this on my breaks at work, or else I’d go explore and find it out myself :3 Thank you so much for sharing!

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Elite Specializations & Hero Point Feedback [Merged]

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

What about those of us who want to carry on the ‘good fight’ and help the community? IE, be mentors, which means being in central Tyria most of the time. I was already struggling with 170: by what I have seen about 140 they would be ones that soloing would mean dying many times to get the challenge done, especially on characters who have to fight in tight quarters but wear light armor (ie, they can not do the usual staying as far back as possible).

1) Mentors are awesome :) Thanks for being awesome.

2) You bought the expansion, yeah? If you plan to do the story and if we assume it’s a similar “run to the green star and start an instance” format, chances are you’ll earn a lot of the hero points along the way – and with so many people playing I very seriously doubt you’ll have to do anything alone. Let’s say, though, that the challenges are harder than Tyria’s faceroll ones and you’re alone – do what you, as a mentor, would want a good newbie to do: Ask for help! :) Map chat is usually pretty helpful. If truly no one is around, feel free to give me a poke in-game cause I’d love to lend a hand.

14 pages of complaint because people don’t want to do a few hero challenges to get new skills… I’m perplexed.

It doesn’t take years to do 40 hero challenges, not months, not weeks, maybe a couple days.

Try 320 hero challenges if you want to try out all of the specs and see where people are having some issue if they had been expecting to do so on or near day 1.

60 HP to unlock, so I think you mean 340 after that? In any case, as Colin said earlier up-thread: HoT HPs give 10HPs each. If you focus your efforts on Heart of Thorns exploration, the most you’re looking at is 34 HoT hero challenges (40 including unlock). That’s like ten per new map. Sure, you can go grind 200 Tyria challenges, but you’ll still have to go find 20 in HoT for the last stretch. In that case, the most it would be is ~220. (200 + 20*10 = 400).

So, you can’t get the entire elite spec on day 1. You won’t have every mastery on day 1 so you also can’t get to 100% of the map on day one, or likely finish story on day 1. People can say that they want it fully unlocked on day 1 as much as they like, but it doesn’t change that day 1 unlock-it-all was never stated to be the plan for Elite Specializations.

This system is actually a little more generous for launch than I’d expected; I thought we were told at some point that Elite Spec unlock was tied into a story step, which would have completely ruled out even playing the spec on day 1. While now, it seems like everyone has at least 60 points for the initial unlock, and no one has mentioned the Elite Spec being locked behind the story. So I admit I’m coming into this with the perspective that it’s a better front-end deal than we could have otherwise gotten.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Elite Specializations & Hero Point Feedback [Merged]

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Doesn’t matter what the rate is when you take into account you need every single point in the old maps as well. That x9 is too much.

Except you don’t! There are enough hero challenges in the jungle you don’t need to do any in the core tyrian world – those simply speed you up on day one if you already got them.

This is all I needed to hear to keep me excited and not overwhelmed. They are ELITE Specs – they should be locked at first and you should have to have the base class mastered. That always seemed like a given to me. They have to be unlocked and then earned – and they can be earned entirely through exploring the new content instead of grinding original Tyria for the 5th time…?

<3 Oh yes, I am here for this. Thanks for clarifying. Now I get to focus on Halloween and HoT without the looming additional mainland map grind making me feel guilty for having fun.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Female human only has 1 animation now

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

In a pig’s eye, what I beleive happened is some players and parents complained for inappropriate content, and we ended up with only one true mini skirt and then the skirtpants were born, then more complaints and animations were removed.
What’s next Anet? The removal of gender because the word male and female offends some more people. If this keeps up this game is gonna be for 6 years old and up.
Pic 1; You remember this Anet the one and only true mini skirt without pants in game.
Is this normal for a game company to totally allow parents to tell them what to put in a game?

Pic 2: Next thing to go will be leaning froward.
Pic 3: Ontop of the old bank in L.A.. Good old time.

A month has passed without me seeing a comment blaming feminists or conservatives for the change, so I guess it’s time for my regular driveby comment on this topic: It has nothing to do with ~complaints about inappropriate content~.

Animations were removed because there were complaints on the forums that during Marjory’s sister’s death scene the human female would be yawning and stretching like it was boring. Their complaint was that it heavily distracted from the emotional impact of the scene.

Later, it appeared as though devs considered its removal a bug . But then Gaile Gray followed up 2 months later to confirm its removal due to cutscene immersion .

That said: Please bring it back.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Daredevil updates, post BWE 3 (launch)

in Thief

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

These look like awesome changes. I’d rather have reduced damage than poison or torment apply on weakened, but I see the promise of both.

Slightly related: I may be the only one – and perhaps this is even purposeful – but Bounding Dodger/Lotus Training completely kills my mobility outside of combat. Acrobatics’ Expeditious Dodger has me in the dodge-to-zoomzoom mode, though, so perhaps it’s a niche issue. Unhindered Combat’s delicious draw to me is condi removal, which you wouldn’t need outside of combat anyways, but I figure leave it alone because people might use UC for swiftness instead of Expeditious Dodger.

It’s just a pain when you’re in the SW doing escort missions, you do one last dodge out of AoE at the end of an escort ambush, and all of a sudden everything in the nearby area, even things that were not previously hostile, want to eat you because you can’t control your own AoE from Lotus Training. So you go hobbling after the escort with 3-5 trashmobs trying to bite your ankles – and every time you try to dodge their attacks you just aggro more! It was an exercise in patience, haha. You could potentially set your stealth skills up to take some of the aggro off you, but then you’re forced to carry around ?/d and/or stealth utilities (of which there are none on pure DD) for 2/3 GM traits – and not even for combat reasons.

That’s as nitpicky as I can get :3 good luck on fine-tuning for launch!

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

HoT will be a mess

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

When a customer tries to drag material they haven’t even been in contact with, that raises some red flags on my BS Radar.

I guess that’s fair enough although I never possessed a ‘BS Radar’ when I worked in that form of employment. I just assumed that everyone complaining was doing it for a genuine reason and not for BS or fun. I guess that is why I succeeded beyond that role and was given further responsibilities.

I’m not gonna passive aggressively measure kittens with you about my job, though you’re doing a fabulous job of trying to goad me into it, so pump the breaks on your concern-trolling and condescension, please. I’m glad you’ve never had to deal with a customer who won’t provide proof of purchase or warranty registration but expects free product anyways despite their model being obviously 10+ years old due to the design and therefore outside of warranty anyways (and calls every few weeks trying to get a different office employee who hasn’t turned them down), a customer who is misusing the product (which they send photos of!) but feels it is your fault despite the inclusion of instructions on the package and website and the notice that improper use voids the warranty… etc.

I love helping people but just because they complain does not make them correct or knowledgeable.

So no, I don’t particularly feel that listening to a complaint about a product the person hasn’t even used is worth anyone’s time or energy. Especially when the basis of the complaint (HoT map events are structured exactly the same as the temporary events this weekend) is completely wrong. Will there be some bugs? Probably. There always are in any launch. Beta weekend 2 was much better in that regard than Beta weekend 1, but I don’t see that being brought up.

By all means, ignore the people who are here saying that HoT (beta) is nothing like this and continue to encourage people to work themselves up over it. I’m just here to tell those who are genuinely worried about HoT that beta is nothing like this event and not to let the crowd-sourced fury over this disappointing weekend event to spoil something you haven’t even experienced.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

HoT will be a mess

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I work in customer service (not for Anet/NCSoft, to be clear) and I deal with various forms of feedback on a daily basis. The feedback ranges from satisfied positive reinforcement, frustrated but constructive, to basically just yelling at me. So my tolerance level for people’s less than constructive feedback toward others is low.

Well first of all I’m sorry you don’t enjoy your employment and that you feel that it has affected your tolerable levels for dealing with people on a day-to-day basis complaining about their experience with products. Perhaps this sort of conversation is not for you if you are so jaded. When I was very young one of my first jobs was in customer service and (despite the occasional bad-mannered person) I thoroughly enjoyed being able to help people solve their problems from start-to-finish. Seems like you are so jaded you’d rather insult people and again, I’m sorry for that. You’ve clearly had a rough run of luck with whom you have dealt with.

Thank you for your concern but I like my job just fine. It’s the leaps of logic and slippery slope’ing, which I have experienced being on the other end of, that I take issue with. When a customer tries to drag material they haven’t even been in contact with, that raises some red flags on my BS Radar.

I don’t understand why people keep falling all over themselves to link this to HoT content when this event is way closer to a S1 living story update than a permanent map-driven event chain/area event. They’re totally different beasts.

I definitely link this failed event to HoT content, because from my point of view as customer/consumer it is some kind of spoiler or trailer content to the upcoming events in HoT. A part of the upcoming content is shown here to motivate more players to want and buy HoT. From a marketing point of view, this makes absolutely sense.

Hey, this is the first new content after how many months? 8 months? After 8 months of waiting and HoT to be released in only one more month, I expected that we get a nice carefully designed and balanced living-story-like introduction or transition to the soon-to-be-happen events in HoT. In such a trailer, spoiler or demo I expect to see some part or concept of the future content. And you say now this is not like HoT will be? I almost cannot believe it.

I agree, it’s a huge bummer that this event has turned out this way. I expected more, too. You’re seeing “a concept” in that you’re seeing the mordrem. But there is just no possible way it can adequately represent HoT. First of all, you’re missing masteries (gliding, the mushrooms, plus the ones that give you fighting benefits against certain mordrem), not to mention the atmosphere (3 levels, literally learning about cultures through mastery) and story-driven events (every event has a REASON or a bigger mythos in the area, even the little shooting challenges).

The major technical issues in this event are 1) bugged rewards and 2) credit for events/working together. Rewards in HoT are not bugged; beta testers were getting loot normally even if some of the loot was placeholder like those little questionmark drops. No one in the beta that I’m aware of was having a problem getting a reward. The rewards are not set up by a personal/map buff system in HoT like it is in this event. Mobs drop loot. You get credit. The events are great fun. I don’t know what to say beyond that, really.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

HoT will be a mess

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Anet usually acknowledges and handles them in a timely manner with grace in the face of people wetting themselves into an apoplectic doomsday fit.

You probably think insulting people complaining is helpful, but it isn’t. Without the initial feedback (the complaints), ANet would have had no frame of reference to even fix things — they would assume everything is blue sky and rainbows. So whilst it is a very convenient position to attempt to be the voice of reason please try to remember you’d be left with an offline game if people didn’t take the effort to point out things that were wrong, even in the face of people like yourself who might try to insult them for it.

I work in customer service (not for Anet/NCSoft, to be clear) and I deal with various forms of feedback on a daily basis. The feedback ranges from satisfied positive reinforcement, frustrated but constructive, to basically just yelling at me. So my tolerance level for people’s less than constructive feedback toward others is low. This thread is not constructive. This thread is chicken little crying that the sky is falling because an acorn fell on our heads.

There is no constructive feedback in starting a thread just to insult content that many of the posters have not experienced. I’m all for offering up constructive ideas – which there are threads full of right now being encouraged by Anet – but I am not down for people creating imaginary problems and starting threads getting people upset about those imaginary problems.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

HoT will be a mess

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

This event really shows it. I don’t understand how all these issues can happen.

Not only that, but the fact that HoT will supposedly contain 4 maps. The expac is supposed to release next MONTH and we haven’t even finished testing all of the first one. Launch is going to be a bug ridden mess. I guarantee it.

Sigh. This event is nothing like HoT beta. The maps are incredibly beautiful and dense, the events are story-driven and challenging but doable (especially if you work together)… not to mention rewarding.

I don’t understand why people keep falling all over themselves to link this to HoT content when this event is way closer to a S1 living story update than a permanent map-driven event chain/area event. They’re totally different beasts.

eta: Also we are not their only testers. Do you really think that? And of course there are going to be bugs – there are bugs in every release of every game ever (stares at WoW, DAI, etc). Anet usually acknowledges and handles them in a timely manner with grace in the face of people wetting themselves into an apoplectic doomsday fit.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Ventari/Centaur stance too fussy

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I LOVE the Ventari stance and can see it being one of the main stances my Rev takes. I semi-relate to this post, so I hope you don’t mind that I piggy-back what I consider my biggest feedback from the BWE here:

If you’re at all mobile (and you should be in GW2), you’re going to have to baby that number 6 button to make your tablet zoomzoomzoom around the map/fight with you. It’s pretty fun to move the tablet myself, imo; I like the strategy of it, even if I do wish there was a way to communicate the tablet’s path to the PUGs around me so they don’t run out of the way by the time it gets there. Unfortunately, the positioning of this skill means my hand is seemingly always off by a column on the keyboard in the middle of a fight.

Solution make the tablet-move skill an F2 function. It doesn’t throw off the entire flow of my gameplay to hit F2, but having to make 6 my new 4 index-finger-wise started to strain my hand and my patience by the end of the weekend. Genuinely: My hand/wrist still aches a bit.

Edit: Throwing in my thoughts regarding his constant grunting, after seeing that reddit post. Alternate line ideas for Ventari moving that tablet:

  • “Heavier than I remember.”
  • “MOVE!”
  • “Take root!”
  • “Strengthen your mind.” (or some sort of “do you even lift” line, since Ventari seems to be doing all the moving; I suppose a sarcastic “oh, allow me” might be out of character)
  • “Changing sanctuary.”
  • “Keep it safe.” (Is “Keep it secret, keep it safe” copyright?)

Mixed in with some of the exertion noises, of course; I kind of love hearing him do the literal gruntwork.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Please Fix Guild Rush and Puzzle

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Adding something into the guild that can be used to griefing will lead to griefing, and that is not something anyone wants.

No one wants to lose credit for their guild activities because of a hidden game mechanic, either.

Do you have any alternate suggestions for addressing the issue?

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Please Fix Guild Rush and Puzzle

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

What if the guild leader is a kitten and decided to complete it as soon as he/she have done it (and the number of completions is right in the case of Rush) and just completes it while leaving half the guild without any rewards for it?

Then find a new guild whose leaders aren’t spiteful jerks? Devs could easily* put warning text on the first notification and a secondary “Are you sure you want to do the thing? Guild members who have not yet completed the activity will not receive credit” pop-up, which would help to cut down on accepting it out of ignorance.

As it is, you already stand to miss getting guild credit for it if you don’t know to leave someone in the zone – and there is no warning for that. The current mechanic is something my last two guilds have both told me they had to learn from the experience of auto-failing.

*I bet devs love seeing “devs could easily” in a sentence, haha. I just meant confirmation “are you suuuuure?” pop-ups exist already and are probably relatively easier to implement than the code required for this overall idea.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Liked the ready up, name still doesn't fit.

in Guardian

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I doubt any change will come from all this, but I figured I’d get my voice in while I can Thanks for the reasoning, Jon. You guys probably know that anything you say will get flack, so it’s nice that you’ve even tried to communicate your reasoning.

1. Like many have said, all my characters are dragon hunters, so I find it difficult to support the name.

2. An additional problem for me is that witch hunters were religious zealots who murdered women and the elderly because of their religious delusions. I don’t like the implication that because my guard is going to use traps and/or a longbow that this means they’ll be burning sylvari alive. My guardian’s build should not be the determiner of how far they take their sense of justice. I understand that this was just the inspiration for the name, but… why? I mean, when we say someone is going on a “witch hunt” it’s not an action based on reality – it is the murderous equivalent of tilting at windmills. Others have gone into the cultural issues with likening them to big game hunters. I assume specializations aren’t getting plot to flesh out their namesakes – so I feel like it’s an unnecessary complication.

Someone suggested this title in the Reddit thread: Purifier (also fond of Arbiter). It contains the same “looking deep for rotten apples and pulling them out before they spoil the bunch” connotation mixed in with a potential for abuse of power while keeping in the guardian theme. Its lack of historical and cultural baggage helps it remain more neutral.

As for Arbiter, I like that it has a judicial/mediator feel without disclosing specifically what it is arbiting (like “Dragon Arbiter”). The traps seem to work with this because they’re indirect, a form of keeping an enemy in a liminal space and controlling them while their “sentence” is served (like a jail cell).

The word “Hunter” should be a buzzword that stays with Rangers, or maybe also Warriors imo.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Tome Change ideas

in Guardian

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

We like the idea of tomes and if we did this we would hope to bring them back in a future Elite Specialization.

I especially like that last line :) The books have beautiful animation and are a really cool concept, I can just never find a way to work them into my shout build and end up always running Renewed Focus. It always feels like I’m too vulnerable and locked in with the books, which would be a reasonable pressure to add in if I could do something like trait to boost their effects or longevity.

I’m all for the changes; like I said I use a shout build so I’d finally feel like I had two reasonable elite skill options.

Just to pop into the cooldown topic, RF has a 90 sec cooldown (half of the tomes). Based on the skills in the original post, I’d expect “Feel My Wrath!” to be around that mark and for Signet of Courage probably a little higher (120?) depending on how wide the AoE effect is/max number of targets.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

“Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge,” sayeth Part II of their blog posts.

First, let’s categorize skill points. There are two types, ones that were legitimately earned and those that were farmed. Legitimate skill points were those that were earned while leveling (not to be confused with gaining XP at 80) and those obtained through skill challenges. Farmed skill points include everything else, which were originally only gained by gaining XP at 80, then later, skill scrolls. The new system is simply returning to the original system, minus skill points for leveling at 80.

What the above is saying is that farmed skill points will be converted into a mystic forge currency whereas legitimate skill points are being converted into hero points.

“Old skill points in excess of those earned [legitimately] will be converted into crafting materials…”

Get it? “in excess of those earned [legitimately]” means those that were farmed.

The new system is quite simple.

This all makes sense and was v well-written, however I hope you can understand that the ambiguous language of the original sentence has kind of become the point of this thread. We’ve already seen how three different people understand that sentence in three different ways that all appear to be valid.

I can add words, too :)

“in excess of those [number of SPs] earned by leveling and skill challenges” means: if you have 1k SPs total, ~465 (or whatever max is – I know this is just the number for retaining a full build) converts to max HPs with the excess ~535 and remaining skill challenges rewarding MF currency.

Without a clarifying explanation from official channels, people are just going to be arguing about what the conversion is without being able to talk about the best way to go forward from it. I find it highly probable that yours is the correct interpretation, but I still need to hear it from a dev before I can comfortably work with it as a basic premise for my actions in game or voicing my concerns/praise, you know?

Ask tomorrow’s PoI stream.

:) Getting questions through on POI is a nightmare with how fast chat scrolls and the team coming on with an outlined agenda. There was an AMA thread last week and I don’t recall a single question from it being answered on POI (with maybe 2 pulled from twitch chat). Understandably; they were v busy. Hopefully they get to more questions this week. The advantage of posting in the forum is the readability and ease of simply linking others who may be confused. Ambiguous meaning is a lot more easily and publicly cleared up with some back and forth, which the forums facilitate but is harder on twitch when there are 2k viewers trying to be heard.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

They said in the original statement, that the number of hero points will be capped to how many you’d be able to get through levelling and skill challenges, that the currently posessed skill points will be converted into hero points (at a rate they haven’t revealed yet) up to a cap, and those that will exceed that cap will be converted into some kind of crafting currency. Unknown what will happen to the skill points you have already spent on skill/trait unlocking though.

So no, nobody’s going to end up with more points due to doubling challenges.

This was my understanding, as well.

“Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge,” sayeth Part II of their blog posts.

Which I take to mean that if you have less skill points than leveling and skill challenges allow, they are converted into the new hero points system. Nowhere does it say these liminal skill points must have come purely from skill challenges to convert to hero points.

HOWEVER, I am rewatching the Ready Up and ~13mins in, Jon speaks specifically about completing 65 skill challenges. I took that to be a worst case scenario for, like, a recently purchased account with little access to sp scrolls. So, I can see why people are confused and I think some solid dev clarification would be nice.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Balance between male and female.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Every time I see a topic like this, it reminds me of the studies that showed women who talk for 30% to 50% of a discussion are perceived as completely dominating the conversation. This is one game out of the plethora of games out there that doesn’t act like the traditional 13-25 year old straight white male is its only audience and makes an effort to show traditionally underrepresented groups in positions of power. I promise, we can handle seeing the traditional script of 1 woman to 4 men flipped. It’s the same reason why Sailor Moon and Tyler Perry are successful.

I’m wary of threads like these because they are usually couched as arguments for equality when really what ends up argued is that minorities do not deserve to have the spotlight. Because that’s “pandering”. But when we pander to the straight males all the time it’s not pandering just… the natural state of things. Asking for a completely even 50-50 representation of genders is just another way of giving them a quota they have to fill without thinking of the plot and context of the game itself and industry as a whole.

I want to shower a thousand hugs and thank yous upon Anet for not accepting that as an acceptable cookie cutter template for storytelling.

1) Destiny’s Edge had Logan and Jennah as their main couple. Their romantic relationship causes a huge schism in the group and though the relationship is pre-game (Ghosts of Ascalon), its effects are arguably more plot-important what with people dying because of it and that ripping the entire group apart. There is a gay sylvari couple in a sylvari personal story arc, as mentioned upthread. I’m also partial to the Canach/Kasmeer dynamic but I realize that’s not canon. There’s also Elli and Zott although we all know how tragically that ends. Cries for days. We know Rox lost her mate in an accident and when we met Braham he was pining after Ottilia. But I’m sure there are a thousand excuses about why those magically don’t count as heterosexual representation. “They don’t have enough screen time” “They’re one sided” so are most relationships in game besides Marjory and Kasmeer. Even Caithe and Faolain are one sided now, enemies (at least on Caithe’s end) since the start of the personal story and only romantic in flashbacks. Good, imo. I want the relationships to be secondary fuel to the A-plot, which they are. I don’t want to play a soap opera mmo.

2) I fixed your list for you. Since you counted Anise, Jennah, the Pale Tree and Kiel, I’ve added Laranthir, Magnus, Aerin, Master of Peace, Phlunt and Faren. Hero Tron also has a male VA but I don’t want to get wrapped up in arguing gendered robotics. The ratio is more like 13 to 12 and less like 13 to 6. We’ll skip the two male bosses now immortalized as end bosses in Fractals, the male bosses in TA Aetherpath, the even split of Mai Trin and Horrik, the male family angst of the Mad King and Prince Thorn etc, I suppose.

Females: Eir, Zojja, Caithe, Taimi, Marjory, Kasmeer, Rox, Anise, Jennah, Pale Tree, Faolain, Scarlet, Kiel.

Males: Rytlock, Logan, Trahearn, Laranthir, Braham, Canach, Evon, Magnus, Aerin, Master of Peace, Phlunt, Faren.

3) I consider Rox and Braham to have a bromance going on, though Rox identifies female. It seems pretty clearly platonic. Not to mention Laranthir and Trahearne’s actual bromance going on in the Pact. There’s also the entirety of the Halloween plot being a father and son story. Also.. Rytlock and Logan? Tending to their delicate feelings and bromance is most of the primary plot for the personal story. I also think you’ll be getting more character development from Braham in HoT, considering his mother is MIA and from the preview of the first instance we’ve seen in the betas, we know that has lit a huge fire under his kitten . He’s also becoming more responsible as a sort of care taker to Taimi.

I’d prefer they focus on making armor of the same set more on par between males and females and offering those choices to Asura and Charr, if we really want to have a practical discussion about gender equality within the game and within the context of the industry at large. There’s nothing progressive about coding butterflies (on carapace armor) and bikini armor for girls when boys deserve those things, too. But I suspect that for some reason this is immune to the “balance” discussion because of reasons.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Builds Are Now Outfits: Bye Choice Hi Clones

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

GW1 pvx wiki got almost 200 builds for PvE only.
Gw2 metabattle has 10-20 builds.

I … Yes and do you remember how many radical balance changes had to happen and how frequently in order to make the game fairish? I would much rather have a smaller but more meaningful amount of traits, with those traits we are losing worked back into the profession in other ways (combined into a new trait, added into a skill) as they are doing. Skills also did not swap depending on weapon, there were no utility and healing skills… traits do not make the entirety of a build. I change my skills so much more frequently in GW2 depending on the situation that I don’t even really end up needing to adhere to a meta build to be successful.

You also have to take into account secondary profession combinations in GW1, the number of team builds and builds specifically in PvX geared toward a specific farm… honestly I don’t think it’s a valid comparison at all. Even with all the theoretical build diversity in GW1, you still see the same core handful of skills suggested over and over.

I guess my point is perhaps fewer builds are meta in GW2 because far more builds are actually viable (“thriveable” would be my preferred word if it existed) through far more of the content than GW1, leaving only a few standout builds to feel OP/meta. imo that’s a good thing.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Ready Up: 4/24 - Specializations AMA

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Copy pasta’ing my comment from another thread with a little editing:

How will the new armor ratings be calculated?

PURE DIFFERENCE: This is not how the gear levels are currently calculated. For ease of discussion, let’s say the current percentage gap in armor rating between exotic and ascended translates out to a flat 10 additional armor. Regardless of how it was calculated originally, if they take this difference and carry it over into the new system there is absolutely no change in the difference between exotic and ascended.

PERCENTAGE: Is how gear levels are currently calculated. For ease of discussion, let’s say the gap between exotic and ascended is 10%. Then let’s say ascended currently gives 300 armor rating. That means exotic is 270 and the gap is 30. Let’s say ascended is buffed to 500. That means exotic is 450 and the gap is 50. So the gap has technically grown by 20.

I don’t really care either way; I cautiously think working with larger numbers justifies continuing to calculate using percentages and giving a little bit bigger of a spread from Basic to Ascended, since they’ll all have higher armor ratings than they currently do. But I think it’s an interesting little point to have them clarify if they are able.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Ready Up: 4/24 - Specializations AMA

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

[casually deletes older post]

Topics merged; a tidier version of my question can be found downthread here

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

More failure: more stats to armor

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I’m glad. And let me tell you why.

First of all, my understanding is that ALL armor sets will be number-buffed to keep overall stats from all sources at the level they currently are at. I didn’t read anywhere that the percentage variance from rarity to rarity will grow, so I completely disagree that “ascended gear will give even better stats than it does today.” Numbers-wise, that may be the case. But the percentage (or the difference? unsure) of damage gained going from exotic to ascended would remain the same. Assuming I’ve understood the posts correctly. If it’s a flat sum difference, there is literally no issue. If it’s percentage-based, you would see a very slight increase in the spread. I don’t think it would be a big enough difference in the stat jumps from rarity to rarity to really register in the scheme of things, but we’ll see. They are doing a Q&A tomorrow, maybe someone can ask them.

Since we lost separate armor sets for PvP, I haven’t had a reason to have a second set of armor. The end-game of GW2 is arguably skin-based, so this poses a problem for me. What is my motivation to collect skins if I don’t have anything to put them on? I HATE the idea of reskinning a set I consider a settled outfit (both skin and stats-wise), so I wear the same thing all the time.

I finally have a reason to make a berserker exo set for my celestials ascs, a reason to keep both a condi damage and zerk set on my thief and to keep a bunker back up on my guard. Now that I know armor stats will make a larger impact on my build, I have a reason to use all those skins I’ve been collecting.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Traits Part 2

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

So to clarify something, will we have to buy the expansion to use these new systems coming out? I’m assuming “No”, but every time Anet talks about these things they keep mentioning the expansion as if it’s a requirement.

You won’t have to buy HoT for the changes to base classes: The trait system changes for everyone.

You WILL need HoT to unlock the Elite Specialization for each class (like Druid for Ranger). These Elite Specializations unlock “new weapons, mechanics, skills, and traits”. At least, that’s how I understood the posts.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Female Asura's carapace butterfly shoulders!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I’m sorry, OP :( I want butterflies on my boys, too.

Armor sets have always been done in a silly manner in GW2 (and most games). It’s not right for Charr and Asura to be gated out of “female” clothes. It’s also not right imo for one gender in a set to look wildly different from the other gender. Just make them two different sets if they need to have such vastly different aesthetics. The gender gap in armor shouldn’t be that radical, anyways.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

More Voices per Race.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I would love this. I would buy a pack like this from the gem store. My boyfriend was playing an alt human male last night and the voice, which had fit his human engi just fine, seemed v out of place coming from his mesmer.

-whispers- you could have a fan contest, maybe? I don’t know how SAG/AFTRA plays into that, so perhaps it’s not feasible. I know Bioware did a fan VO contest for DAI but it was basically an “extra” part, which I assume is somehow easier to get a pass on from the union..? It would take a large time commitment plus the money of traveling to and renting a studio.

…It’s definitely a money issue, like everyone has said.

eta: I thought a while back that it’d be cool if there was an option to record locally and have the game pull the audio files from a directory on your PC or something. That way, fans could offer their own packs. But 1) that’s a lot of work to record those lines well and for free, so people might try to sell them which might lead to Anet’s wrath, 2) would require a constantly updated script for the entire game, 3) people could go off-script and idk how that would affect their ESRB rating.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Regarding Fist and Feet weapons

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I love hand to hand monk types, so I’m all for this. I was actually hoping this is what Rev would be like, and that it might usher in more GW1 monk tattooish armor. All practical responses to OP have been covered, I think, so I’ll let my brain wander…

Weapons: You could have different “hand wraps”, though that verges a little close to glove armor territory. I agree knuckles of some kind would work pretty well, though they would be devalued for their small size (people like seeing the skins they put time and energy and sometimes money into). I think focus and torch might work well, as far as pre-existing weapons go. You could have them dual wield torch and use them like firey escrima sticks. Or they could dual wield foci for more unarmedish attacks. How cool would it be to dual wield The Anomaly? :) Maybe the attack animations involve channeling the energy through the focus before it disappears, the unarmed attack happens, and the weapon reappears (a bit like spears from GW1). Or the weapon could get a “spectral” effect during attacks and make the hands glow. There are definitely Things They Could Do. Warhorn might work as an offhand option, since they aren’t really animated as weapons and are usually about buffs.

Suspension of Disbelief: I think if my ele can run around with her breasts held up by what is basically an illogically structured free-floating wall sconce made of cloth (Flamekissed/Feathered) or my human ranger can have her breast half hanging out of cultural even in the midst of battle people can handle some magic-tinged hand to hand combat.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Not being able to get a decent name

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I’d just like to add that there is a name change contract (also available in the Identity Repair Kit) in the gem store. If you’d like to play now and wait for inspiration/the name game to come after all the time spent in character creation, you can always plan to use one of these later in your character’s life. Of course you’ll still have to come up with an initial name, but at least if it doesn’t feel perfect you don’t have to stall your entire play experience.

Good luck!

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Gold Transfer Changes - My story and impact

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

but yeah to me 500g is what everyone makes on a weekly basis.

Now, while this new limit is created to fight gold sellers, it could impact me and impact YOU as well. 500g is NOTHING in comparison to the amount of gold you can make in a week.

My feelings can be mostly expressed through Nicki’s laugh.

But for real this sounds like 1) I am rich 2) I am surrounded by similarly rich people 3) Therefore it seems normal to me that everyone is this rich all the time. 4) If you’re not averaging that rich then you could be in the future just think of the money you might make at some point and maybe have to send out/receive via mail all at once and then you’ll see how sad it is to pay TP taxes like a plebe, so support my economy-hurting practice out of vain aspirational hope. The real life parallels are too obvious so I will hold my tongue in that respect, haha. I’m baffled at how you can be trying to convince people that “it could impact YOU” but then quote the 0.175% figure and continue to act like it’s normal for ~99.8% of people to achieve these earnings nonetheless want to mail them all per week. Further, I thought Anet always made it abundantly clear that they do not approve of or support in any way trading going on by mail.

But if you really want to , I don’t see the issue in using alternate currencies to pay for things all at once, so long as both parties agree ahead of time. Mail ecto or t6 mats. Voila, this incredibly specific problem is solved. I just… would really not expect a lot of sympathy here, even if you lead in with “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and someday you’ll have this problem” rhetoric :)

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Breach: Mordrem Husk Copper

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

There’s been a decent amount written about the topic on the GW2 reddit. This might be a good starting topic. Searching the reddit for “Husk Copper” might yield more results :)

Basically, in an ideal world you’ve got people kiting the offshoots away from/murdering the bubbles before they get to the husk and a group burning the husk down. Bubbles are the bigger priority than offshoots for kiters, but if you can get one or two people kiting the offshoots, that’ll leave a nice big space for husk aoe without the bleed stacks of doom from dead offshoots. A big problem is when the people on the ledge are the only ones aggro’ing husk, which’ll cause him to reset (from what I’ve seen). That means it’s worthwhile for there to be a pit fighter, as well, though usually the kiters will give husk a few hard hits between bubble spawns/cleanse and dodge clusterkittens. I would theorycraft on when it’s more appropriate to use aoe but I agree with those in the many threads who say they saw copper go down more reliably when people just used their highest dps skills and shouted “yolo” into the desert wind. Still need people trying to kill the bubbles away from the husk, though. IMO, that’s the most important thing.

If you’re kiting in the pit, you’ll need lots of control skills (for the bubbles) and condi cleanse (for yourself/your pit group) – those offshoots like to stack enough bleed to bring down a herd of elephants. Also you are doing Traheasus’ work, so bless you. Your zerg should be helping to support you with extra condi cleanse, but often they will just ranged autoattack and then yell at you if you get downed, ha.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Burn condi is broken, nerfed, or glitched??

in Bugs: Game, Forum, Website

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Wow, how ragey. It’s clearly obvious that this isn’t intended.

This is a VERY specific change. I don’t see how them kittening up chat and other things, would affect conditional damage from fire. Why fire? What line of code would accidentally do this?

This doesn’t seem like an “oops” to me. It’s way too specific.

Many of the bugs that popped up because of the latest big patch could be called “VERY specific change[s]”. The bug with the downed state color changing, for example. But it was a bug. It seems like they merged (at least parts of) their HoT development branch and it caused the main branch to react in some unexpected ways. Not very shocking, imo.

You know they messed with stability, right? Well that’s a boon and perhaps the way they went about it also affected condis. It’s impossible for you or I to say, but considering all the other bizarre and seemingly unrelated bugs that popped up this week I think it’s safe to not ragequit yet. And it may not just be fire – some users are investigating torment as well.

Considering how up front Anet has been about nerfs (fgs comes to mind), I just don’t think this is working as intended.

Some Douglas Adams advice: DON’T PANIC.

Thank you to those crunching the numbers; I’m sure the devs appreciate the added specificity you can offer up as insight into the problem.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

My Greatest Fear Plotline

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

My advice to people who are interested in playing the restored Personal Story (which will include the Greatest Fear steps, original chapter 8 ordering, and various minor text and VO updates) is to not complete A Light in the Darkness (in chapter 6). That way you’ll be able to play the restored content in its entirety when it goes live.

We’re currently discussing release dates and will share that information when we’re able. Thanks again for all your great suggestions and patience.

:‘) ty I was confused if I should start or finish A Light in the Darkness, now I see. Are the text/VO changes limited to ALitD onward or are they earlier? I’m just wondering where we’ll need people keeping an eye on changes to compare against the current wiki content.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

New Black Feathered Wing Backpack!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I desperately want these as a glider skin instead of a backpiece. Their massive size would make so much sense in that form and they’d disappear when you’re on the ground. That just… seems like the best of both words. Realish wings you can actually use to fly and that I don’t have to see blocking even more of my screen in jumping puzzles/open world. They’re so pretty, but it’s a shame they don’t dye.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

Most Romantic Places in Tyria

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Oh, speaking of saunas, you could go to the Hot Springs in Wayfarer Foothills. Have a romantic dip with the giant burly norn.

Yes! Thank you that was driving me nuts. I had thought of this and then mentally moved and went “wait, did I forget something?” -.-() That norn is hilarious.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Most Romantic Places in Tyria

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

To the person suggesting going out to a real place on Valentine’s: Boyfriend (not OP) and I decided long ago to keep our usual weekend morning coffee date, pick up tasty food that’s too pricey to buy every week (eating on the balcony to watch the sun go down) and watch a movie we’ve been wanting to see. Going out will be crowded, overpriced, and won’t let us get safely sloppy drunk (gotta drive home!). Our favorite time is the time we have to play together.

So many good suggestions so far. GOTTA visit the Seraphette and Bandito, theirs is a classic tale. There’s also a Seraph husband and wife couple involved in a quest in Kryta somewhere but I don’t remember atm. It’s a Shining Blade wife looking for her husband and the quest chain starts here.

I love Divinity’s Reach, especially the garden of the Upper City’s Central Plaza (outside the queen’s throne room… the area around the Lion’s Arch asura gate). My boyfriend and I even had a nice day where we wandered around DR places less traveled like the Ossan Quarter. If it’s still possible, I highly recommend breaking out of the map and enjoying the moonlight on the top of the DR roofs… super romantic overlooking that garden. Just be sure to use ground targeting skills to scout before leaping to a new roof that may not actually be coded to support players walking on them, haha.

There’s also the hidden garden in The Grove. Or The Hidden Garden itself in Mount Maelstrom! You guys can take a lover’s leap off the diving platform at the top :D There’s a bridge in Mount Maelstrom, too (nw I think?) that is beautiful at night. I think the Kodan Boats in Frostgorge Sound offer some pretty romantic views if snow is more your thing. I’m also quite partial to the Oasis in Dry Top, but I can see how that might not be for everyone. The fireballs falling from the sky in Fireheart Rise is pretty awe inspiring, too, though I’m not sure where the best view of that away from a sea of enemies would be.

Is it bad of me to suggest the Dwayna quest chain that starts with Malchor throwing himself off the cliff? ;)

It might be more personal to find places that have good memories for you two. Take her on a tour of your favorite memories of playing with her, tell her the memory and give her a kiss for each one :D or play her a little song if you have an in-game instrument (you can always buy one-use bells off the trading post). Harp is the obvious gemstore instrument choice for this day, though, let’s be real.

Might I also suggest finding some chocolate foods in game to give her (there are chocolate covered fruits, yeah?) and maybe something cute to run around as, like some jackalope tonics or something. There’s also this relatively useless but sweet little accessory you could give her (maybe she’ll even find the misspelling of Memento endearing haha).

I hope you two have a nice Valentine’s :)

ETA: My boyfriend suggests the top of Rata Sum at night. The skybox is incredible.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

My Greatest Fear Plotline

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

Ah, that’s really disappointing! It’s a shame there’s nothing the episodes could easily inherit that says “if players have done this before, they don’t get rewards and no choices get recorded” and display a pop up explaining this each time you select an already played chapter in the journal.

Thanks for letting us know it’s not really on the table atm and for communicating about Greatest Fear :) I’m looking forward to playing the reworked version on my new alts.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Traits Part 2

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

I like the concept of unlocking certain traits through active world participation. However I feel like that should have been limited to a handful of end game traits. This would have allowed for the requirements to be much more difficult while not burning people out because if you do it the long way you would need to, as of now, unlock dozens of traits first.

Totally agree; finding traits and relying on events to spawn/not be bugged is something best left to the higher end traits and a more seasoned character. Especially because every individual trait must unlock this way, ugh. But Anet knows that and that’s why we’re brainstorming here, so I guess my preface is redundant, heh.

I’m also disappointed that you no longer “learn” weapon skills as you use the weapons. This sort of “taskmaster” system is what I loved about LPC MUDs… you get better at skills by USING them.

Therefore:

A “taskmaster” system would be preferred either by trait group (an ele’s groups for example are: fire, air, earth, water, arcane) or tier (adept, master, maybe grandmaster).

So for a trait group example, maybe you have to perform a combo with a relevant field type to unlock that group’s adept traits (there needs to be much better communication to new players regarding combo fields, I admit that is my axe to grind). To unlock the masters, you have to perform so many combos or kills using relevant skills/weapons. You could unlock a whole trait group at once or it could be parceled out by unlocks for trait group + tier combos as in my examples (one unlock for fire adepts, fire masters, air adepts, air masters, etc).

If devs prefer pure trait tier grouping of unlocks, tasks might be a little more difficult or specific to unlock all traits in adept, and further difficult to unlock all traits in master etc. This makes sense since you’re unlocking a lot more traits at once this way.

Something like that, where you use existing skill types and weapons to unlock deeper trait knowledge. I also like the idea that others have floated about killing RELEVANT bosses to your profession. Fire elemental or ulgoth for eles, for example. Maybe some of those bosses could count for a few professions, idk.

Or maybe you collect trash items from mobs relevant to your class or just wrack up a kill count of them and exchange at your profession trainer. I’d like to see the trainers stay integrated and become more story-involved instead of just stagnant vendors. My ultimate dream is that they have a pseudo quest chain of their own in the game someday. I loved GW1 pre-searing and having your trainer be sort of an important figure to your character. Class lore would be awesome to integrate into this, even if it’s just a series of fetch items/tasks. Tedium is more bearable when there is an interesting element to tie all these little tasks together into a cohesive narrative.

Keep grandmasters (ideally just the recently added grandmaster traits and not the original ones but I concede that may be too much to ask) locked behind the high end events if you must.

And please don’t lock points behind level 30. There was nothing wrong with level 20. I loved spending trait points each level… it felt like a very tangible accomplishment each time I leveled up. I appreciate the streamlined grouping of 5 points into one from a streamlined UI perspective, however, and am unsure how to reconcile that.

TLDR: every single individual trait currently has its own finicky unlock. Grouping traits into larger unlocks and making unlock tasks more modest and relevant to what you’re actually utilizing in all game modes would give players some much-needed breathing room, imo. If combos are gonna be part of it as I suggested, it would be nice to see training areas implemented in-game as a heart like the dodge stations were (that was a GREAT addition, we need more rewarding mechanic-teaching content like this in starter zones). My ideal trait endgame is integration of class lore and trainers into the process.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

PLS make fractal skin trade on tp

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Hey guys I have this crazy idea. What if there was some sort of…. box that the fractal weapons dropped in, where you got to pick which weapon you actually wanted. Just thinking out loud here. :P

But this box you speak of might be put in a very high level of Fractal… Say… 51+.

Oh and just in case people think that might be too easy to achieve, they might reset people’s fractal levels to Really make them earn it.

Never forget.

Iol you two <3 I am a little embarrassed for Anet at all the people responding with excitement to the first “idea”. There are already weapon boxes in-game, guys, that’s guardian’s joke. The codes are there and everything. They are just, as Kirin pointed out, drops at a fractal level we can’t even play at. It’s like slamming your head into a wall with that logic, I swear.

I don’t want fractal weapons on the TP. I want to work for them either by a token system or if it’s gonna be pure RNG, take out individual weapons altogether and just drop the effing box.

At the very least, perhaps when you finish the fractal frequenter achievement (500 fractals I wanna say?) you get to choose a skin.

This would also be nice! See, these are all great examples of keeping items elite and yet attainable.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

I dislike paying for season 2

in Living World

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Part 2:

If living story s2 was unavailable and you could not buy it, that would also not bother me.
If you cannot see the disrespect from Anet by this method of cashing-in then I really feel sorry for you when(not if) you get screwed over by Anet or any other future company.

Actually, what Anet could have done to disrespect its player base is charge up front for the episodes, regardless of player loyalty, and not allow those who haven’t purchased an episode to play it through with those who have. Every single player would have to pay ~$20 for season 2 due to the increased resources on the server and creative teams that instancing requires. Instead, they gave even the most minimally devoted players free content just for playing. Not even playing, just logging in. Someone upthread asked why it couldn’t just be free period. I obviously don’t know. I assume it’s because they’re a business and they can only put in so many man hours before they have to start charging us for something. This game has pampered us with free updates and fully voiced stories every two weeks for the last two years. The voice acting alone has got to be costing them a small fortune.

The cost of unlocking a living story chapter from S2 is less than a gem store armor set. In fact, you can buy 4 episodes for the cost of an armor set. It’s a very modest price, especially for new players who only paid $10 for the base game. I would pay this price for replayable S1 episodes.

Some people are also under the impression that everyone who has not unlocked the chapters were available to be around. Imagine if you have never played Gw2 and you see the “buy once play forever”. There is nowhere that it says “When you buy Gw2 you must also purchase living story chapters” But it still mentions the living story as playable content.

How can you use this argument but not care that S1 content that you can’t “play forever” has been removed? I find that inconsistent. I also don’t see your quoted verbage on the official website or product anywhere, but perhaps I am overlooking it. I only see a section on dynamic events.

As others have pointed out, what you paid for when you bought the game was the core personal story and access to the world, in addition to experiencing the current living story. We were never promised access to archived LS until this season under their widely announced system.

You don’t play WoW or D3 expecting to buy quests … If you look at the “Buy GW2” and view “What’s in GW2” You will see the mention of living world events which of course fails to mention that they cost money (Of course they do).

By this logic, MMOs “make” you buy quests when they release an expansion. Nothing from the base game of GW2 is locked behind an additional paywall. Even the LS is free upon release.

If you didn’t have access to a computer for six months, that is unfortunate and a terrible fate I do not envy. Sometimes stuff happens and you have to count it as a loss. Perhaps you could play through S2 content with a friend or guildie who has it unlocked, or split the buying of the episodes with a friend.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

I dislike paying for season 2

in Living World

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

TLDR: If you weren’t going to play S2 content upon its release and wrote it off as a loss the way you did with S1 then you really haven’t lost anything you were intending to do. In fact, you’ve gained the opportunity to play the content you were never going to experience anyways and you probably won’t find a lot of sympathy here.

Part 1:

let me just log into my 100 or so games in my library “Just in case” there is temporary content that later becomes buy to play.

It’s an MMO; changes happen more often than most standalone games based on its very nature. This concept is worked into the game EULA of every MMO. Do those 100 or so games send you e-mails advertising a similar system to S2 on the release day of every episode of their new content, reminding you to log in? Do the articles about those games, in-game tool tips and official website/blog of those 100 games alert you to this system? No? Then it’s probably GW2 and other MMOs you should prioritize keeping up with.

I was not even around for the living story one, but that does not bother me and you might think “why?”. Simple, it is no longer available to anyone.

So, you’re not mad at paying the same as an original player (let’s say $60) and playing far less content than them during S1. You’re not mad about missing all that and never getting to replay it because everyone is currently as miserable as you. For the record, those who missed it and had a desire to play the content spoke up throughout the end of S1, which is why S2 is replayable for you to enjoy after their release at all.

But S2 does affect you. You’re the one who is miserable now while others stayed informed or logged into the game for the briefest moment every two weeks to unlock a chapter. DESPITE this lapse in awareness or ability to log on, you now have the opportunity to play content you missed out on by purchasing the episodes.

Apparently you didn’t care enough about the game to read their many emails or to even briefly look at their site or an article about the game from the last year, nonetheless spend money in the gem store which is how they were sustaining themselves for 2 and a half years’ worth of free updates – but now all of a sudden after having your game off and your wallet zipped tight, you’re ANet’s most valuable customer who Deserves This For Free. Without giving anything back to the community through even opening the launcher and logging in for a second. …kay. If reality intruded to the point where you didn’t care this may be something you just have to write off as a side effect of that instead of blaming Anet for running a business.

I’m interested to see whether your carefree opinion on S1 changes should they ever release S1 episodes — as they have said they ideally would like to do. Perhaps you’ll think you deserve this for free, too, despite the extra work it’ll take for them to make the episodes instanced and add them into the story journal.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

Game Updates: Traits

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

Hey folks,

Now that the HOT is out of the bag, we’re able to update this thread with more details. With the introduction of the new account based mastery system for end-game progression and growth in PvE, we’ll also be re-evaluating our other systems of character progression to ensure they match our over-all pillars and goals for Gw2.

In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.

Thank you for all your passionate feedback on this topic – it not only helped our dev team lead to this decision, but has played a large role in helping us define how to build our exciting new account based mastery system for end-game progression in PvE as well.

Could actually kiss your entire staff on the face. My alts made post-trait-updates will finally get to be played in PvE. Thank you for working on this for us and for considering forum feedback <3 I’m excited to tell my new friend who picked up the game not to be discouraged by all the trait unlocking for her future alts.

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)

"Meta" does not mean "Most Effective"

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: kimeekat.2548

kimeekat.2548

As a master’s in English who wrote their thesis around some game theory concepts, I have Opinions on this.

ETA: I think it’s important to note here that when GW players say “meta” they are usually shortening “meta build”.

The most pressing one is: words change, especially in context-specific situations. In video game culture, “meta” still maintains the root meaning of looking outside the in-game world, it just has the added flavor of prescribing what happens after you gain meta knowledge (use the optimal playstyle). “Metagaming” as a term means a few different things but generally video gamers mean using non-in-character knowledge to play most efficiently. The implication is that you would use this knowledge optimally instead of suboptimally (if a DM tells you your character can swim or take the coach to your quest’s final destination but the water is filled with invading water breathing aliens from another dimension waiting to surprise attack and you will die because you have 0 swimming skills, you’re going to take the coach unless you desire for some reason a suboptimal output which in a weird twist makes suboptimal optimal from your individual perspective – but still not the game as a whole).

I’m not going to get worked up over people using “meta” as a shorthand for “meta builds” which is GW shorthand for “part of a canon of known game elements that harmonize well together or utilize game mechanics optimally” because it’s a lot less wordy and, yes, I believe it still stays true to the spirit of the root term “metagaming”. Everything gets shortened online. Sometimes shortened then expanded then shortened again back to the original word.

eta: also, I usually have dibs on being pedantic, so I like the spirit of your post

Clove Zolan – Bringers of Aggro [Oops] – Blackgate

(edited by kimeekat.2548)