Guild Wars 2

It feels like they had this mechanic planned for a while but couldn’t find a good place for it so they went “kitten it” and just stuck it here. It feels really out of place.

I’m struggling to understand anything about this mastery. How does it activate? How regularly should it activate? What are the conditions for it to appear? Does it have to be in Orr? Do the reliquaries have to be activated? I don’t understand at all x.x

Crinn.7864:

The PC character quit their position in the Pact and by extension their position in their chosen order.
The PC is no longer bound by their order and could join a new order at their discretion.

No. Your Character never left its order. Otherwise you wouldnt have access to the inner sanctum of your orders headquarters.

And if Anet really did pull that off, that is even worse. Because that would make any decision you made in the main game completly irrelevant. Which is exactly the opposite of what they were trying to do in HoT. And that would suck. Because getting that little extra information for my lightbringer from other agents was a really cool part of the world building, if that will be gone in future because Anet cant handle a customizable protagonist ….. is kind of sad……

I would prefer to have a bit less story but small bits depending on your choices then having completly the same story with every character, where none of your decisions matters.

Looking back at season 3 and comparing it to season 1 and 2 for example it feels like going from a bicyle to an F1. We went through so many different aspects and (somewhat) closed down a whole bunch in just one season. I have a feeling they want to divert from dragon stories and took this oppertunity to quickly get it done so they can focus on other things in the expansion. Perhaps that is also the whole reason it’s set up this way. I do like the map design and battles in this new story.

My main is also a Charr and I agree, would absolutely never join the Shining Blade. Even if he’s not an anti-human racist I think he shouldn’t be in the spot even if he’s being offered one properly.

Agreed on how they botched Lazarus. An extremely important story character from gw1, teased and foreshadowed a lot in LS3, and then we finally summon the real thing only to go.

“Hi. Die.”

After all that you-know-what-teasing with fake lazarus, the whole mursaat themed raid wing, not to mention Ember Bay mursaat ruins….

Nothing new here..
Taimi treats my Asura.. who won the Snaff Savant title.. as a braindead skritt….

VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618:

why should a charr, that worked with humans, fought side by side with humans against dragons, joined order that is at least partially composed of humans, have problems working with the shining blade?

At that part of character development, the charr char should either grown enough to see beyond the species – or should not be part of the story anymore.

Two reasons, one top-down, the other bottom-up:

1. As a Charr, he should still be loyal to the Legions. That’s not something you just “get over” when it’s been a tight bond of your social structure since childhood. GW2 never really addresses this, but it the sort of loss the character endures, more than once, should be devastating. Add in that Kryta is barely an ally (cease-fire, not a treaty), and the notion of forging a soul-binding agreement to a human (still a potential enemy) cult should be a non-starter.

2. As a former leader of the Pact, the character should be free of complicated entanglements and loyalties to a particular sovereignty. Theoretically, this would include his home nation, or he would be pressured to step down. None of the PC characters, regardless of race, should have made that choice, especially for a simple scrap of information.

I second this. I appreciate the idea that they want to challenge themselves and introduce new mechanics with every new map. But it’s just too much. I just want to do my hearts and get along with the mechanics we have.

I’m talking about oakheart’s essence, lava tubes, zephyr skills and now these ley line critters that look like they came from Pre Catacombs.

Nearly every single map released under living story for the past year has used some gimmick to get around.

I hope it’s not this way with xpack 2.

When I land on a new map on day 1, I know absolutely Nothing about how to use these things. It’s confusing.

You gave us gliding, isn’t that good enough? Can’t we just use that to get around? You gave us bouncy mushrooms that we had to grind to use. Why can’t we just use those methods?

None of the methods introduced in older maps are viable in the newer ones. You never see these things carry over. It’s wasteful

Anet: you want the game to be accessible. You want some kinda tutorial when you release new maps. If looking up a guide or watching a video is mandatory, then the whole game should run in my browser, get it?

When I dive into a new chapter I wanna get out there, get into the action, get things done. I don’t wanna have to hunt for little neutral skelks in out of the way places to get the nearest vista/poi/wp/whatever.

It’s frustrating and makes me wanna exit game rather than find the one true method.

After completing the LS3, something just didn’t feel right. I felt that it was worse than LS1, Scarlet War.
Then it hit me, the ending if completely against the overall theme of the LS3.
The theme of LS3 was unintended consequences of doing thing that you thought were right. It was discovery the the noble act of killing the elder dragon would bring destruction to the world. All stories revolved around this idea. Braham cracking the tooth doom him to a crusade against Jormag. Taimi attempting to kill the dragons lead to the loss of Omadds Machine. Killing Caduceus lead to Deimi and Aton dieing.
And how did the story end? By committing genocide against a contained foe, with no consequences or objections. Feel completely against the theme, it was just way to get to the ex machina trailer generating triangle. And the xpac trailer show the consequences of killing the elder dragon.
I dunno, I think back to Lord of the Ring, and the conversation about if Bilbo should have killed Gollum after getting the ring. “My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.” Livia’s action may rule the fate, unless the writers just choose to ignore it which they probably will.

I was completely disappointed with this episode and the new map…. I really enjoyed the first half of the season leading on from HOT…. hatching the egg…. taking care of Aurene…. preparing to fight the next elder dragon….. Then Head of the snake came along and all of a sudden this story line gets abandoned… in favour of Caudacus and White Mantle…. totally out of left field….. I was still optimistic and really was enjoying the new maps…. I thought the two story lines would come back together…. never did…. instead they try to wow us by bringing Balthazar into it at the last minute… lame move…. totally ruined the lore and the story imo…. Before the gods were… well… gods…. all powerful and distant…. now Balthazar is just some kitten making a power move in Tyria… dont like it. Yet with the final episode looming… I was still hopeful… they would tie it all together with a triumphant finale…. and um… we got One Journey ends… completely anti climatic end to the season.

Instead of pushing to a powerful climax… we get introduced to a new character… I found the banter incredibly cheesy and irritating…. Then we spend the rest of the episode relating to her…. Where is Dragon’s Watch? Where are our friends? Where is anyone or anything I could possibly care about? Locked away as throw away comments in the endless sea of irritating dialogue. The elder dragons we are supposed to be dealing with? Dismissed with hardly a word.

I thought the masonic style ritual that made up the second part was ridiculous… Terribly scripted and performed…. One of the worst pieces of storytelling Ive seen in a game… The lack of cutscenes or cinematics made the whole thing feel boring and mundane… as opposed to the second half of Season 2… which I felt was riveting…. by the end I was shouting for more.

I found the new map completely uninspiring… definitely the worst of the lot… full of gimmicks and no apparent reward…. the new mastery is lame…. I just really dont understand what they were thinking? As I said at the beginning… I am completely disappointed with this instalment…. They took a perfectly good series and dropped it on its head.

As far as it goes… I am still looking forward to the expansion… will definitely be buying it…. but this episode did nothing to encourage me… In fact it kinda worries me about the direction the story will be moving in from now on… If I weren’t such a die hard fan and avid player…. I would be totally put off by this and probably wouldn’t buy the expansion… but I am… so I will.

I just hope this episode was just a glitch in the matrix and not a sign of the story telling that is to come…. Sorry for being so negative… but after finishing the story last night… I needed to get this off my chest…. Thanks for listening

This episode probably has the worst story for my character, i simply hate the fact that my charr character joined the “inner circle” of the shinning blades. I play a charr serving in the ash legion for gods sake he most definitely would not take that oath or be allowed to by the humans.

My Charr didn’t just join a guild like destiny’s edge or dragon’s watch, he joined/cooperated with a foreign government intelligence agency at the highest level without orders from command which is treason.

BTW for those who dont play Charr
the Charr PC never left the legion instead the Charr PC asked for and was granted military leave from their respective tribune to join the pact as special assignment, it was explicitly stated that the Charr PC is still a centurion of their respective legion.

I have low expectation for MMO stories but this is just preposterous, whats next a human joins the legion? an asura joins the sylvari first born?

A lot of this episode is just fillers running around doing heart quests, sure its cool to have human ghosts shout at my charr but it is nothing compare to the fact that my charr is now part of the shinning blade. It just reminds me how ridiculous it is that the charr responsible for two human genocide in ascalon and orr is now part of the human secret service “INNER CIRCLE”.

In addition the info we got was so underwhelming, everyone knew shinning blade wanted to kill Lazarus that’s not a secret, the white mantle is public enemy after they attacked divinity’s reach.

This oath and Braham’s tantrum are the two flies in the ointment for season 3 story telling and in this episode they seem to change the commander’s attitude toward Braham’s actions based on player feedback. It suggests it is impossible to fix an episode’s story once it is out, which is a shame since no matter what happens in future story Braham’s tantrum and the shinning blade oath will always be ridiculous at the time of their presentation.

From Scarlet to world summit to the pact assembling the hot expansion was well setup, season 3 chased after white mantle, lazarus, primordus and jormag all of which now seems irrelevant to the next expansion. I sincerely hope the announcement sets up the next expansion well, so far it seems shoddily done.

Oh yeah how I miss the times where I was optimistic that in future Arena Net would fit the story to your Characters decisions, race and gender etc …… like the previous Story-Chief told us at the annocement event for HoT …..

I really happy that I didnt play that episode with my lightbringer. That would be kind of an awkward conversion with my bosses.

“So Lightbringer, I heard you have managed your way into the inner circle of the shining blade. Noticed anything which might conflict with the goals of the order?”

" I am sorry sir, I am not allowed to tell you that. I promised to never tell any secrets or try to harm kryta or the queen."

“And if someday kryta decides to rekindle the war with the Charr Legions, destroy the order of whispers and seek for world domination, then …. "

" I will keep silent and stare intensively, like I have promised."

“Lightbringer, please follow me. We have to do an intensive conversation about secrets and loyalties ….. "

I do not like the so called comedy element, has it worked well for wildstar? GW2 was never silly, childish, stupid, daft … GW was serious with a little sarcasm, there is a line and i feel it has been crossed

Why does auto loot – world ability, fail to work once you are dead? You end up seeing 5-10 bags around your corpse and you cant collect them unless you are raised by someone else or immediately respawn and then the bags will again automatically go into your inventory but the ones on the ground that appear when you are dead before you can respawn stay.

Plz fix it so it goes into your inventory no matter what.

I do really like the outfit a lot (largely because they look like the Orochi guards from Secret World), but I am in agreement with some of the sentiment behind your post in terms of whether it fits the game or not.

At the end of the day, the game has long since abandoned any sense of individual style and if this helps finance the game, I mostly just let it wash over me and ignore it best I can.

Hey ,
I’ve just found this on youtube :
=> open 500 Black lion chest :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yuHr60Lpeo
not a single permanant contract !! what a scam !!!!
=> open 1000 Black lion chest :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohvl5x7XLYc
and only 1 single permanant contract……..
1000 keys ( about ~~ 1000$ !!!! u can buy a real car for this price dude !! ) and 1 single contract ? really ?
I ve never see a worst publicity to sell keys…

To conclude :
After get a look on this , im pretty sure i will never give a single $ to buy a single keys… what a scam.
I will not waste money and gold for nothing.

The Trading Post has always left a bad taste in my mouth in terms of simulating a player run economy. Just like with any Auction House implementation, it destroys a crucial part of the concept of supply and demand, in that global supply becomes the only kind of supply. In reality, this is obviously not the case, and if it were, the world would come crashing down faster than a North Korean rocket.

Enter The Merchant; a player run subsidiary of the Black Lion Trading Post, the Merchant allows players to set up player run shops anywhere in Tyria, bringing a supply of goods to weary travellers and armies that need them. The Merchant is able to set up a shop, that persists as a static NPC, from which players can purchase goods. Naturally, some cut of that profit goes toward maintaining the Merchant’s trading license.

The Merchant’s skills would revolve around improving their shop, for example, being able to stock more or rarer item types, reducing the Black Lion trading license fee, or increasing their inventory space. At high level, the Merchant would gain access to crafting bonuses, and might even be able to sign their crafted insignias, armour or weapons with a “created by” tag.

Naturally, this will tread on some toes: ANet sell increased inventory space for example, and with improved crafting bonuses the Merchant would be a must-have class for all players. Player shops would also increase server load, and persisting across the merge cycles of mega servers would be difficult.

Cyninja.2954:

You have yet failed to explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling.

You are hung up on that strawman of yours… NO ONE has made any such claim that changing racial skills would improve story telling. The suggestions to improve racial skills and to improve story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… matter are TWO ENTIRELY SEPARATE CONCEPTS.

1) Improving racial skills and making a racial skill slot makes your choice of race feel more impactful and meaningful in general content as you can actually make use of your racial skills without sacrificing build performance.

2) Improving story telling by making your race, background, class, etc… have meaning in the story again (how it was in the early part of the vanilla story)… would have a profound impact on the quality of the story. Our “personal story” would actually be personal again.

Two related but separate ideas. There is ZERO need to “explain how a change of racial skills would improve story telling,” because that was NEVER a part of the suggestion to begin with. You called it out as a strawman when you brought it up in the first place, but the truth is, you created the strawman with that very same breath.

FairyNuff.3452:

A single extra slot for a racial skill could be a good answer, as currently they aren’t game changing so it shouldn’t matter as much.

I really like this idea. An additional slot dedicated to racial skills would be a good addition. To the points already made these skills are far from best in slot so they rarely make build and I think this would be a good option to allow people to slot one with less concern that they had a better skill to use.

On top of that I agree racial skills add an additional level to toon creation and should have more importance than they do. Ask any alt-o-holic and those that have more than one of a class and odds are they would have more if different races played differently for the same class.

2 cents.

I dislike the current system, I often end up in matches that contains people that

1. don’t know how to properly play their class
2. don’t know basics of spvp IE. fighting on point (lots of roamers trying to kill another) some teams abuse players who are like this, by capping and running off to help prevent point capping
3. are just not very good at the game

now the problem is how often this occurs, you can try and get around this with a duo for bunkering mid and a decap thief

I myself would like to see a new system to help fix this, probably a new requirement system

so minimal casual matches played with a certain class, matches award say proficiency points

overtime those points degrade, so those who stop playing a class will have to play some unranked first (accounts for loss of skill)

perhaps a voting system to help determine if those players have effectively played their class, this could be how one achieves those proficiency points

that from what I can see imo would be the most efficient system, not a complete idea but still an idea!

They should have converted the profession mechanic trait line into a core tyria elite spec when HoT dropped, giving everyone 2 elites to pick from (and preventing the profession mechanic traits from being used at the same time as the new elite specs, which limits build diversity but improves class balance).

I agree – it’s nice to see little nodbacks to personal story every now and then, like what they did with Auric Basin. Pact Medic Ceera and Lieutenant Francis, for example, were excellent callbacks to personal story – making it less a story about a generic cookie cuter, and more a story of a commander who actually has their own resources, their own history and their own opinions (compared to other characters with different backstories).

I think this could be done…and within the lore. Perhaps not a festival ALL the time, but it it could be live all the time.

I could see some of the survivors of the crash in Dry Top migrating back to the cliffs and it becoming the “2nd Home” for the Zephyrites.

Then, once a year they could have a festival honoring the spirit of the Zephyrite people and having all the special events and such as a celebration of life…which is greatly valued by the Zephyrites.

I am not a programmer, but I would hope, since the area exists, it could be done with a smaller investment of time and resources to set the area up as an independent area, perhaps a couple of dynamic events, and a few crystal nodes…nothing too complex. Possibly the biggest adjustment would be adding gliding…which we all know people would want.

Its an idea…take it for what it is…:)

Linken.6345:

Bearhugger.4326:

No compromise, please! A replayable season 1 should be just like the replayable season 2, 3, etc. Take the important parts of season 1 (there aren’t that many) put them into instances and tell the story that way. If it’s too much work for them they’re more than justified to charge gems for the episodes, but I want a full-blown story chapter, not fractals.

You do know that most of season 1 was open world right?

Of course I know, but how do you want to relive world-changing events such as the destruction of old Lion’s Arch if it remains open world? You can’t.

What people want them to do is a remake of season 1 that plays in instances so that you can live the story and it’s major dungeons and battles solo. Yes, that means taking things like Tower of Nightmares and the battle of Lion’s Arch and making solo instanced versions of those where you play with your bros of Dragon’s Watch.

So basically, season 1 would be new content, simply because the actual content of season 1 is not reusable in the new format. New content, which would monopolize some development resources, but if they put a season 1 I want an actual story I can play through, not some half-done excuse like a fractal or a bunch of cutscenes. If they have to charge for it I will be happy to pay up, but I want a real season, in the current format. Nothing less.

As you might know, the NA world, The Sanctum of Rall, was named after a long-time GW1 player who died before the game was released. However, generally speaking, guilds can place Monuments in memory of longtime friends, co-players, companions.

Notably, devs used to name things left & right for GW1 fans. For GW2, ANet changed the policy and has only done it in some very compelling cases (although they do name quite a lot of stuff after GW2 employees).

In a game with millions of accounts and millions of long-term players, it’s inevitable that some players will die, some tragically. It’s noble to want to honor them all. As a practical matter, it’s not possible to do so.

I’m not against honoring Valcorie. I am against putting ANet in the position of feeling that they need to do so or refrain from offering condolences when people mention the passing of a loved one.

1. Monk – maybe not identical to GW1, but close
2. Ritualist – as it was in GW1
3. Necro – revert minion summoning to like it was in GW1
-only summon from corpses
-bring back the minion army (with cap of course)
-teleport to heal via corpse
-minions degen and die (the degen timer like in GW1)
4. Mesmer – keep portal; make the rest like it was in GW1

Matchmaking cannot create balanced matches. It does not happen (i am sitting in games where team is zerging animal, chasing 1 guy somewhere off point etc. while we losing everything, 3 golds vs legends – yeeeeeee balanced matches guizeeee). Alone due to lack of population. So basing rank gains/losses on personal mmr vs avg enemy team MMR is simply stupid, unfair, doesn’t make sense, you name it.

Either make sure that matches are always balanced or fix the rank gain/loss system.

Why should one even queue when you need to win 2-3 games just to make up for 1 loss (it gets worse the more games you play)? This has been going on for 3 seasons now, this is one of the reasons why people quit pvp or exploit the system by tradewinning, queueing at 5am etc.
Rank gain/loss should be based on team mmr vs enemy team mmr because the base (balanced matches) for the current rank gain/loss system simply does NOT exist.