Guild Wars 2

A lot of people expressed a lot of displeasure with how much of a role the Sylvari / Pale Tree had in both the original storyline and the buildup to HoT (and HoT itself with Sylvari, though the Pale Tree was out by that point). Due to that, I frankly wouldn’t be surprised if we never see her again, and the most we ever get is a few lines from Caithe saying she’s finally recovered. Especially since Taimi seems to be taking over the “knowing a lot about dragons and advising the players” role more and more.

I do hope its not the case. I’d like to see some closure to the Pale Tree at some point. But I’m not holding my breath.

You can read the plot for LS1 in the wiki.

I had to ask just in case I am missing something, but I was under the impression that dailies is used as an incentive to do things in areas of the game. But with the cold elixir you are loosing not gaining much if anything. The daily only gives 25 um but uses 10 berries that you don’t get back. And each berry can gain 25 um minimum by itself according to the wiki. so you are in essence loosing more then 250 um. Now you do gain a small portion of karma, but that to me does not justify it as a daily. And then there is the bonus of xp. Which if you have not gotten every mastery done is useless and wasted.
So where is the incentive or even reason for this daily?

Honestly, I hate Braham’s character so much. In itself, he is very poorly written. He showed none of this emotion for the man who raised him but now with his mother who has recently just become close to him and passed on is now the be all and end all of his life. Like I understand she is important but his emotional reactions make no sense. To me it comes off as poorly written.

To me it makes sense that their most angst-ridden and foolish character is the one who goes off and makes a weapon to chip a tooth. If you speak to Elder Ulf about the “legend” (myth), he claims that it mostly just gives people goals to aspire to and that there is no need to be honest about it just being a myth. I believe what Braham has done is meant to create a conflict between the Norn and the other races. This chipping of the tooth mean his people will look to him to lead an assault on Jormag and Braham is not ready to do such a thing due to his carelessness, he has proved that multiple times by rushing in, this time in particular getting Rox frozen and then he has nothing to contribute by any sort of idea that you have to crash the monster into the little ice things, to me this might be somewhat intentional because he just bashes an ice creature the whole time and offers no assistance. On top of that, he seemed to show no real concern to what happened to Rox due to his behavior. Like others have said, we need to be united in order to make the Dragon’s fall.

Furthermore, it is insulting to hear coming from Braham’s mouth that his mother would not want us in Destiny’s Edge. They have been hit with such deadly forces in the past, any of the current members would be able to tell it would be time to call it quits and assist a new guild in taking on forces, far greater then they ever could. Zojja told us herself that we were a huge portion of DE’s firepower. Eir, for the most part was an incredibly smart and level-headed norn, who would have learned that fighting the Dragon’s alone wasn’t an option. Why else would she end up in a guild that was filled with mixed races with common goals and enemies. If she learned anything from fighting Zhaitan, it’s that working together is the only way. Braham doesn’t know Eir and bring shame to her legacy and unless his character actually could show some growth in a way that actually makes sense rather than continue to prove him time and time again that he is just a brutish guy with a rock for a brain, then honestly I hope his character get serious consequences and with his assault on Jormag, I hope it fails miserably, maybe he even dies honestly. It is infuriating to see the lack of consequences for his dumb actions, it often effects others and he won’t even care.

The other characters all have something to offer, sure Marjory didn’t listen when we told her it was a bad idea to go off with Lazarus, but that is something we need to find out and she is someone who shows she can think things through and offer well thought out ideas. Not only that, but her personality is far better written and when her family member died, she didn’t act entirely foolish, she listened to friends and learned. Not only that but she was actually raised with her sister, side by side. I am not trying to imply Braham can’t be hurt by his mother’s death, I am just saying that it makes no sense for him to have shown no emotion for his father and all the emotion for his mother with very little presence in his life. I am an angsty person and I am not close with my mother, in fact I would say I have a similar reaction to my mother as Braham used to, but if I got close to her and then she passed away there is no way I would act out for her the way Braham does for his mother, but I am close with my father, he raised me and I would be absolutely heart broken. This is probably why to me, his character reactions make no sense.

Agreed with Arden. The thing you have to remember is that Jormag (and Primordus) are STRONGER than Mordremoth and Zhaitan. The Pact made relatively short work of Zhaitan, and then look what Mordremoth did to them; he decimated them. He made the Pact look weak, and the only reason we won was due to the Commander and his small group of allies.

But the way the story is going NOW, that group of allies is splitting and getting weaker, and so is the Commander, whilst the foes we’re facing are getting stronger. The Pact is all but gone, so we don’t have an army anymore. Our companions are split around Tyria and torn between loyalties. I find it unlikely that a small group of Norn led by an emotional, revenge-driven and reckless Braham wielding an untested weapon could defeat a foe greater than Mordremoth, who laid waste to an entire army.

I think that Anet are setting up something pretty catastrophic here, and I don’t think it’s going to be quite as simple as “X person dies, Y gets sad about it, onto the next Dragon”, nor do I think Braham is going to be even close to successful. I actually think Braham is going to be one of the reasons we fail.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

One player’s “plot hole” is another player’s lever for speculation. I know some of these gaps have been around for 4 years, but honestly, I prefer that we aren’t told everything and that we’re allowed to guess about what’s going on. Perhaps our imaginations produce better stories than what ANet could deliver is the short narrative time they have during Living World.

[…]

tl;dr I’m happy with the status quo of ANet leaving holes in the backgrounds and futures of key figures.

Each to their own I guess. There are places where you can leave a story open as a dramatic device. The plot holes of GW2 are definitely not like that.

tl;dr It’s the job of the story department of Anet to write a good story. It’s not the players who should find an explanation to their plot holes.

At least let us follow up on the identity of the mysterious “E”. We haven’t heard from him/her/it for a long, long time now, so it may not be very relevant any more, but it would be nice to know who or what was pushing our buttons in season 1 and 2.

LS1 was a series of open world events and festivals. When one episode went live, the previous was removed from the game. Making them instanced for map wide populations which took up a few episodes means
a) ensuring they have the tech to do. Megaservers aren’t the same thing as static districts
b) a lot of bug testing and QA. It took a lot of work for them to get SAB working again after all the changes to the code and that’s just an instance.

Then you end up with populations split up all over the place and not enough ppl to make sure the events are completable. The Watchwork Invasions alone benefited from full maps as did the Battle for LA and Scarlet. To re-scale them would mean more work.

Why didn’t they do it earlier? Well LS2 was a new format again and there would have been no point converting LS1 to a format that could have proven not to work as a storytelling format.

Randulf.7614:

It’s not odd, it;‘s just an enormous amount of work to convert LS1 into the newer format. The original format LS1 was released in wouldn’t work with the World today and it would still need significant time and resources to iron out new bugs with the updated code or new tech to put it in its own instanced world map.

Simply put, there aren’t enough resources to make LS3, an expac and LS1. Whilst I 100% agree LS1 is needed, I’m not sure the wider community would want new and future content dropped to make it happen.

As for HoT loose ends, I think they are done and dusted. If we end up taking down 1 or more dragons before the expac, then even more lore and potential will disappear. I just hope a rich and detailed story is being set up to counterbalance what is lost.

I suppose at this point they don’t have the resources, but I’m not sure why it wasn’t released before. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work though? A lot of old story was set in destroyed LA before it was re-built and they just modified the locations when they re-made LA. They should still have the maps they can make available as instances if it requires an older map, no?

I don’t think we will take down any dragons before the next expansion pack. Hopefully in the interim we will see some of those plot holes covered and new ones opening leading into the new expansion. At the very least I think we will hear from/about Zojja, Logan, and Kasmeer. Maybe the Pale Tree. I don’t know about the Nightmare Court or Malyck. I think the Nightmare Court just isn’t important to the story at this point (especially since it’s in disarray) so we aren’t going to hear much about it. I think Trahearne should get some sort okittennowledgement but because he was basically signed off due to opposition to his character I don’t think he will.

It’s not odd, it;‘s just an enormous amount of work to convert LS1 into the newer format. The original format LS1 was released in wouldn’t work with the World today and it would still need significant time and resources to iron out new bugs with the updated code or new tech to put it in its own instanced world map.

Simply put, there aren’t enough resources to make LS3, an expac and LS1. Whilst I 100% agree LS1 is needed, I’m not sure the wider community would want new and future content dropped to make it happen.

As for HoT loose ends, I think they are done and dusted. If we end up taking down 1 or more dragons before the expac, then even more lore and potential will disappear. I just hope a rich and detailed story is being set up to counterbalance what is lost.

Completely agreed on the LS1 thing. Why haven’t they released it? At least as a pay to play pack like LS2… I started playing at the end of LS1 (over 2 years ago) so I didn’t get to fight Scarlet at all because it ended before I was level 80. It’s a huge gap that doesn’t make sense to new players and also a lot of older players. I was thrown into DE 2.0 without knowing who any of the characters were. I had to google them to find out anything about them when I started LS2. I honestly had no idea who they were.

I just find it odd that they would release LS2 to everyone after the fact but not LS1?

I care, though I missed much of season 1. (Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite, and the Skyrim Dragonborn DLC took me out for a little, and then I got hooked on Skyrim modding, and the next thing I knew … ) The last thing I remember of season 1 is helping refugees in Diessa, without knowing what they were fleeing. Then I came back after the start of season 2 and had to buy the first couple of episodes.

The big loose ends certainly need some wrapping up. So do some of the small ones that are easily forgotten.

For example, there was a rather strange interaction in Camp Resolve between Rox and a supposed “old friend from her mining days”. Is she in some kind of trouble? Is there some unrevealed drama in her life comparable to the drama the other characters have been going through? Rox has, so far, been the most stable and sane person in the group, but also very private. Is she hiding something?

Then there’s the forgotten. What happened to them? They were still around when the Zephyrites/Exalted were recruited. There were still at least some around when Tarir was built. But then we read tablets citing the words of the last of them. Yet we know that they are immensely long-lived at the very least. In GW1 we spoke to one in the Desolation who was still carrying a grudge against the Margonites from over 1,000 years before. Did they die? Or just go elsewhere?

What about Belinda’s spirit in the sword? Now there’s a setup if ever I saw one. A restless spirit inhabiting an artifact in active use? The moment it happened I heard Trahearne in my head saying “This won’t end well.” (I also have to wonder at Jory. After all the ferocious talk about wanting to stick that blade into Mordremoth and get revenge, she seemed perfectly content to just guard the team doing the job from minions. No fuss at all.)

The Exalted finally acknowledged the existence of Gleam, previously dismissed in the game as just a myth. So what happened to that first progeny of Glint? Did the Brotherhood fail and let the destroyers get to her at some point? Did she go bad, perhaps deciding to serve Kralkatorric?

I’m sure with a little time I could think of several such minor threads that need a little resolution.

Edit: Oh, and about the Nightmare Court — what the heck were they doing in the Heart of Maguuma anyway? According to Faolin, they didn’t want to be controlled by Mordy any more than they wanted to be “controlled” by the Pale Tree. Did they think they were going to be able to fight it? Or were they just spying in hopes of finding a defense for themselves, or maybe even something they could use to enhance their own power? Perhaps something that would allow them to influence or control the Pale Tree?

Malyck

It’s been over four years and nothing so I wouldn’t get my hopes up for filling plot holes.

Even greater than him though is season one their is a massive unavoidable hole in the story for this game regarding new players and that hole is called Season 1.

New players go straight from Zhatian to a bunch of peeps calling them Boss and talking about a dead Sylvari you apparently killed called Scarlet. If there not going to fill in the backstories and whatnot there is no hope. Look at Braham I know him from his interactions with Tiami don’t know a thing about his or any other character prior thus my take on the edgy version is to just end him or chew him out and drop him I have no attachment whatsoever ever to him or the others not a lick of character development probably because I never knew them prior or viewed any introduction. There trying to build a story in which a huge chunk is missing thus filling holes is probably the last thing they’ll do.

Most people don’t care about the story because what story is there beyond the core game? After Zhatian it’s just a jumbled mess that only someone who has been a here since the start of season 1 could hope that ever care about.

I’d like to see those finished as well. I’m just afraid that we’re an irrelevant minority of another minority. It seems most people don’t really care about the story at all and those who do are usually more interested in what’s next than in how did that part end.
And there’s the fact that many people strongly dislike Trahearne for whatever …cough… stupid… cough reasons. (Yeah, I’m forever bitter about how they kittened with the poor guy )

You forgot Malyck and his story. As Sylvari player i am actually interested the most about him and his tree…

I’ve complained about this in a few other threads but I feel like now is the time to make a thread specifically for it.

Anet, I’m really tired of the Lost-style of storytelling you’ve decided to take on (I don’t know if there’s an actual term for this kind of storytelling), in which there are tons of unanswered questions and you dump on even more questions, only to answer one or two of those previous questions. There’s still stuff from HoT that hasn’t been resolved or touched upon that really should be settled before going any further into these new story plots. Just to name a few:

-Trahearne: Is he ever going to get a proper memorial for his sacrifice? Or is he just going to be forever snubbed?
-The Nightmare Court: What’s been going on with them ever since Faolain’s death? How has her death affected things?
-The Pale Tree: Are we ever going to actually go and visit her and see how she’s doing?
-Zojja and Logan: Are we ever going to see them either or get an actual update on them that isn’t just a line of dialogue from Zipper-Lips?

I mean, come on. I can only speak for myself when I say I’ve been waiting patiently for these points to be resolved only to have 10+ new shiny plot lines come up in LWS3 (I know it’s not literally 10+ new plot lines, I’m exaggerating). It’s frustrating and I’m losing my patience as well as hope for any kind of resolution and any drive to play GW2.

Is it voice actor availability that’s the problem for some of these (namely Pale Tree, Zojja, and Logan)? If so, why not find someone else to voice them, have them do their lines over. If I remember reading right, that’s what’s going on with the Male Charr VA. Find someone who’s more available.

I know I’m ranting and rambling and I’m probably all over the place with this post. I had to get this off of my chest. I’m just tired of the way the story is being handled. I’m tired of characters I care about being in some kind of limbo state, to the point that I’d rather them just be killed off so that there is some resolution. I mean, at least Eir fans got that going for them, even if her death was lame. I’m tired of more questions being brought up and burying old questions that are still waiting to be resolved.

I’m tired. :\

i hear they make good sushi to

OriOri.8724:

Well tbf the Mursaat tablets seem to imply that they went head on with Zhaitan, whereas the Pact took a much more thought out approach of cutting off his armies, starving the dragon itself and then blinding it (taking out the mouth and eyes) before fighting Zhaitan. Overall its much easier to fight anything if you starve and partially blind it first, especially if you can take away its source of renewing its armies.

Vayne.8563:

Not to mention Dr. Gor worked on a very specific anti dragon magic energy ray the he tested on minions of Zhaitan.

After we weaked the dragon by starving it of it’s food, took away part of it’s ability to make more undead, and partially blinded it. Zhaitan was hurt by a fleet of ships before we finished killing it.

Yup, we had a strategy. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re able to kill them at all . In my opinion the difference lies in defeating them completely.
Even if we let Zhaitan starve and blinded him, the anti-dragon-magic-energy-thingy shouldn’t be able to kill an Elder Dragon. It may weaken him or put him to sleep for another hundreds of years. The fact that we killed 2 Elder Dragons extremely fast and we’re about to defeat the other ones in the near future makes all of the past lore look ridiculous. They’ve always been a part of Tyria. They were able to push complete races away from their homes and take control over Tyria. In the end of GW1: EotN we were just able to kill a champion of Primordus, the Great Destroyer.

Now we’re killing tons of those champions as a routine every hour, how many Claws of Jormags did we already defeat, how many Shatterers? And after the personal story and HoT, killing Elder Dragons is now routine. It’s just ridiculous how easy it is after everything we heard about them.

Vayne.8563:

However, I’m highly entertained that there are people in this thread that would have been find having a boss fight and killing Zhaitan with their tiny swords, where as a giant airship with five giant anti-dragon magic guns are apparently not enough to do it.

It’s understandable that players want to see an actual fight. We are clearly talking about the gameplay here. If you’re fighting them with a real army, gathering all of the races of Tyria to fight together, each of them contributing their strengths (asuran technology, charr artillery and warriors, etc.) it will feel much, much more legendary and epic than pressing “F” out of harm’s way. The anti-dragon-magic-cannon would be a small part within a large battlefield. We want to see how tiny we are individually compared to an Elder Dragon but yet huge as an army.

As I said, I would be happy if we weren’t able to defeat them at all, but as it is right now, I’d like to see an actual battle instead of Taimi pressing a button and sending the message “Jormag is defeated” through the communicator. Great interactive storytelling…

“Not like” is a complete understatement. Quaggans are the worst things designs since the berlin wall. I hoped and prayed to the six gods they would never be incorporated in the story. Looks like ill have to start praying to rodgort if i want some results.

I know there’s a lot of love for the blubber balls, but I can’t stand them. I know I’m not the only one. Gimme some validation please.

ATMAvatar.5749:

The key to liking quaggan is to dip them in butter.

#toserveman

I like where you’re going. Maybe a nice Chardonnay too? Some candles would be nice. Mah lady frand would love all of that. Thanks for the tip.

ATMAvatar.5749:

The key to liking quaggan is to dip them in butter.

#toserveman

Perhaps a little lemon and garlic as well.

I don’t see any issues.
Did notice that enemies attack in large packs, and just like a group of ninjas, don’t always focus fire until death. They flee, evade, switch targets and ‘recharge’. This changes things up. Makes it so I have to pay attention to what is currently a threat and what isn’t.

It could look like pathing issues or AI issues, but I’m giving the designers credit for at least planning it to make PvE mobs more interesting. I can’t get away with a “kill target”, “once target is dead switch targets”, “kill target” mentality… as it’s very inefficient here.

This annoyed me too.

I did the collection for the Elixir, cooked it and then decided since it was 11:30pm and I’d reached the end of a chapter (which is normally a logical point to stop) I’d go to bed. I was aware the elixir had given me a buff but I didn’t really think anything of it, I assumed it would work like the buffs from boosters and would still be there when I came back, or since I’d made the elixir I’d be able to get it back.

I wasn’t very happy when I logged in, found it had gone and I had to repeat everything I’d done the day before in order to get it back. I wasted half my playtime that evening repeating things I’d already done just to catch up to where I was when I logged out.

Then I was torn between exploring the rest of the Bitter Cold region while I had the buff, so I wouldn’t have to go and do it all a 3rd time just to get a mastery point and a couple of other bits, or carrying on the story which may or may not need it.

I think it would be a lot better if either the elixir was an actual item you can use when you’re ready for it, or if the buff only wore down when you were actually logged into the character.

Okay, here’s another issue with this: My friend wants to hop on and do the story instance with me, but she finished it already and she would have to spend ~15-20 minutes repeating content to be able to group up with me because her elixir wore off.

Due to this mechanic I am playing solo even though I have someone of appropriate level who would otherwise group up with me. That’s… kind of not cool for an MMO.

Djinn.9245:

Amaimon.7823:

The idea is that you plan and prioritize your actions. Dont make the elixer without the intent of actually using it. If you aint got time to do the last instance, wait making the elixer for your next bout

Yep, this makes me not want to play the instance at all. I don’t have the game time to worry about logging in and not being able to play because first I have to fart around making an elixir.

you can prepare the elixer in one time, and then consume it in the next, just go to the font when you’re done playing. When you log in next time, you’ll be at the font to make the elixer and continue on

The idea is that you plan and prioritize your actions. Dont make the elixer without the intent of actually using it. If you aint got time to do the last instance, wait making the elixer for your next bout

Not to mention Dr. Gor worked on a very specific anti dragon magic energy ray the he tested on minions of Zhaitan. People who don’t do that asuran story don’t get the full picture of how the ships killed him.

However, I’m highly entertained that there are people in this thread that would have been find having a boss fight and killing Zhaitan with their tiny swords, where as a giant airship with five giant anti-dragon magic guns are apparently not enough to do it.

After we weaked the dragon by starving it of it’s food, took away part of it’s ability to make more undead, and partially blinded it. Zhaitan was hurt by a fleet of ships before we finished killing it.

I hadn’t noticed as it was a long chaotic day on release with me running from one shiny to the next. I’ll look when I go back in.

My side-question is, is “BF” the right acronym here? I really thought this was going to ask about the Bloodstone Fen rock targeting changes.

So, I’m probably not the first one to mention or experience this, but I feel that the AI of the Svanir in particular is quite … odd, in Bitterfrost Frontier. But in some cases, this extends to all enemies you encounter there.

Primarily, they seem a lot less eager to run up and actually attack me even when that is their primary or only way to do it. I’ll go through the most obvious oddjobs one by one:

Svanir Brute
Giant greatswords, possess that nasty Wave Attack that really wreaks havoc if you eat it in melee range…

Where the Brutes rarely ever go. For some reason they seem entirely content keeping their distance from me, much like a Ranged Mob would, while I just pepper them with arrows. Occasionally they’ll pull off their wave attack again, and they do attack back when I get close to them, but it feels strange that these guys are so scared of a little intimacy that they’d rather stand and eat ranged attacks all day.

Veteran Corrupted Ice Elemental
These guys have the eyes of a hawk! No seriously, their aggro range is ridiculously sized compared to other enemies, which isn’t really that much of an issue to deal with really. But it gets a bit annoying when you’re out picking berries in the woods and charge into that group with a Veteran Troll and a wolfpack, only to suddenly get frozen mid-lunge and eating every last Wolf Leap, because that veteran Ice Elemental on the other side of the River is part of Jormag’s elite sniper force and has more than 300 confirmed kills in Frostgorge.

Corrupted Wolves
Kinda fickle, these ones. NEVER misses the chance to leap at you and Chill you so that they can… then prance about, sometimes completely ignoring you afterwards. It’s kinda 50/50 with these pooches, half the time they’ll happily try and rearrange my spinal cord, other half they seem to forget that I’m even there and start making their way back to their original position.

You sure these guys aren’t corrupted cats?

Corrupted Griffon Chick
Tangent, but to whoever came up with this idea: Who hurt you? And why?

Veteran Corrupted Trolls
Can these guys please get maybe Quarter/half a second’s longer channel on their “2-3s of stand right there and do nothing, please” attack? I know that it generally follows their “NOT IN THE FACE!” Ice burst skill, but it’s annoying to deal with 2s of being Frozen without a shot at Stunbreaking when it comes outta nowhere like that.

I’m just there for their berries, really.

Innuendo intended.

I think that’s about all I had to say about the strange AI. Wanna give some kudos as well to the guy who created the Veteran Ice Storms and reworked the Icebrood Colossus into a Glass Cannon that will murderfy you if not focused down properly. Good work on giving the mobs some diversity, took some time before I realized that those Colossi weren’t just big, dumb and harmless anymore.