Guild Wars 2

Its bad. It barely even looks like Dry Top, the only thing I can make out that looks like anything in-game is the crashed ship (and even that’s hard to make out). Doesn’t even have the same color scheme, Dry Top is mainly browns and yellows and yet here we have a ton of orange and red.

And not only does it not really look like Dry Top, it barely looks like anything at all. Its just a big blob of brush strokes. Maybe its meant to be abstract style or whatever, but none of the other zones or concept arts have been like that (a few have been semi-abstract, but none to this degree) so it feels out of place.

Played mes since headstart, and played both PvE and PvP since then (with breaks). It’s kind of at the point, PvP-wise, where I’m not 100% confident the skills I press will do the things I need them to do.
Though I suppose a good portion of mesmer traits have a randomness factor, anyway..

(Staff 2 still occasionally gets you stuck in random walls, esp. in Legacy of the Foefire. You then have to either relog or pray that your blink/Phase Retreat will port you back outside. Previously iLeap was a pretty good bandaid-fix for that – you could target something outside the wall, throw out a clone, and port out of the wall.)

Sobiech.9613:

Not giving up on this class. Anet shouldn’t either but signs point to a sad place.

Please don’t force folks to go GWEN.

too late. i really really really loved my mesmer. before all the massive nerfs and bugs i couldnt wit to log onto my mesmer. it was fun in wvw, pve and spvp. i felt viable in every game mode. now with all these bugs and sooo many nerf i feel useless in wvw which is my favorite gme mode. no aoe nothing work the way its supposed to and instead of fixing just 1 single bug just 1…they nerf ileap…..speechless……
so yeah i have given up on this class and only play necro now, at least i get lootbags and kills and not just veilveilveilbot boredom. i think anet only sees the 1v1 mes and balances according to that, thats why they done even notice all the bug that mainly wvw players experience.
i miss my mes though but with these bugs its simply unplayable and i barely log in nowadays…just dailies…and log out.

I’m pretty excited by the end of the lil trailer. It seems we might finally see a more ‘mature’ area in the game. And with mature i mean an area that doesn’t necessarily feel like it could house droves of My Lil Ponies.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the most of the areas in GW2 so far, but in their beauty (to me) they also feel like they were meant for 8-11y olds. Over lit, and no places that get a mature player to feel any bit of fear in their anticipation. Nights that are as bright as day, no weather that make you feel like you may not reach your destination after all…

But now we get, or at least in this teaser, the dry regions of Maguma. Sandstorms that block your view, hopefully with sound effects that make you doubt whether it may be wiser to waypoint out instead of proceed into the unknown… and hopefully these storms are somewhat dynamic weather patterns, linked hopefully with certain hard enemy types or even certain dynamic events (strategic troop movements obscured by the storm, etc.) … so that these sandstorms will stay an interesting feature, and not turn into ‘just an annoying reduction of sight’.

Anyways, I am really exited about this, and I hope that feedback on the area will be largely positive, so it may inspire Anet to make Tyria a bit more ‘serious’ and ‘mature’ in it’s atmosphere (mainly lighting and weather related, in my views) and in no means less beautiful. Yet hopefully with a bit more character…

the worst part about this lag is how flawed the zephyrites’ skills work, the lightning aspect kitten me off right at the entrance, I can’t jump to the stone ahead and it should simply work because is a TARGET skill, this is quite ridiculous. I also can’t remember how many times I died trying to jump to the other side of the quicksand lake inside the Inquest cave. The sun aspect also stuck in the middle of the quicksand sometimes.
This new patch is cool but I guess nothing can be really good in this game ahem…

Post your best season two screenshots!!

Loving dry top.

Frosty in the dessert

Beating the heat with some purple drank!

I haven’t taken too many so far, these are what I have worth posting at the moment.

In Caledon Forest I was killing spiders, and whenever I used “Target Closest” the game would prioritize a neutral Moa Bird over a hostile spider. How is that even possible?!

If they’re fixing tooltips then I’m surprised we haven’t got a change to Focus 4 – ‘Applies a boon which looks like Swiftness but isn’t, because Swiftness stacks duration’.

Dont worry, the next tooltip refinement patch will add “this skill has a random chance to do nothing at all” to most of our skills. Everything will match its tooltip and so is “bugfixed”.

How did the citizens of Prosperity cross the quicksand river before the Zephyrite ship exploded, scattering it’s crystals in really convenient locations? The region is not without lumber, so you’d think someone would have thought to bridge such a deadly crossing.

The citizens of Prosperity allegedly owe their livelihood to copper mining, but I’ve yet to see a single copper node. I understand there’s more to this little mining town than meets the eye, but you’d think they’d go with a more convincing cover story.

Why did the asura bother to go so far into such a remote location to build a magi-matter-transportive device, but not bother to go the extra 300 feet to build it in the only vicinity’s only settlement?

Renkencen.6127:

While I won’t say it’s a plothole but I am baffle at how a mining town exist in the firstplace without any proper support like an asuran gate nor have they fully explain why they chose themselves to be isolated from the other major settlements.

Sounds like they get airdrops. The only clue I noticed was “from our friends up north.” Riot Alice also mentioned them, I think. So it could definitely be bandits, but I haven’t seen bandits with airships, have you?

Two storylines I’d enjoy, though I’m not suggesting these are likely: the Consortium, or… bit of a stretch here… minions of Mordremoth.

How cool would it be if Mordy had lieutenants actively extorting the locals, forcing them to produce food and other sustenance for the dragon in exchange for meager compensation?

Zhaitan enslaves through death. Mordremoth enslaves by isolating.

I need to dig into story stuff more before I really decide, but so far, there’s only two things marring it for me. I suppose that’s a good sign?

Badbad:
1. Jumping focused. Not mad at the jumping itself, but the 15-second time limit. And I play Charr, so their skinny ledges are still irritating.

2. Blind. I need to slap someone’s hand here. Your “write this on the chalkboard until your hand goes numb” statement is: Blind is not every 3 seconds. It’s getting highly irritating that this form of denial-CC is how they expect to ‘challenge’ us. It wasn’t funny with fake-Zojja in Twilight Arbor, and it’s not funny now.

But those are semi-minor details, and I’m still jazzed about my next Living Story steps.

It’s amazing how the players have to create their own challenges and content because ANET couldn’t provide enough themselves lol

Fair enough, where does it say that in game?

nope they all play war thief,engi. i ve seen only 1 anet tag with a mes in pve and when i whispered him he confirmed that mes was in a bad state with all the bugs. how about toolfixes and further nerfs actually fixing the bugs in this very thread? who cares about mimic?do we even use it on regular bases?noooo we dont! we use iwarden though and blick and aaaaaal the things mentioned here

If they refuse to fix our classes major problems then I’ll do my best to keep this front page to warn off any new players joining this buggy game.

If we get a response it’ll be the same like always: We care and there are fixes coming!

Then expect nothing because there is no fixes coming.

This is how it’s been since release and this is how it will stay.

EDIT: I really hate being so negative but after so long I’ve lost hope in anything more for Mesmers.

One good thing about all these Mesmer bugs is I’ve begun to spend a lot more time outside and not on the computer playing Guild Wars 2 or buying anything from the gem store, ever, because I have no intention of sending money to a publisher in the process of milking their cash cow until it “kitten” bleeds.

Lishtenbird.2814:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhTN9RscAuY

There’s a range where the red bar is gone, but the skill fails. Last but not least, I believe that swapping mechanics have been altered, as it often fails to swap and resets the clones position from the target closer to you.

Three patches later, still happens. Range indicator is misleading and can lead to no Leap clone when displayed as in range, Swap fails to swap with clone. Pathing is as bad as before.

I think it’s unfair to say it’s terrible. It’s just a different art style.

I like the Kotaki style slightly more, but I do think the abstract style is also beautiful.
Some of my favourite pieces of art work in the game though are the images that come up when you mouse over the different dungeons in LFG.

sazberryftw.3809:

Some of my favourite pieces of art work in the game though are the images that come up when you mouse over the different dungeons in LFG.

True that, but those pieces look gazillion times better then the new ones we’ve been getting.

starwatto.4527:

Tachenon: Well, the game’s combat is based on dodging, I wonder how you could play it until now, if that bothers you that much. But I (sort of) agree with rest except knockbacks by bosses… imo these are are awesome, I like it… my only issue is that it’s kinda unfair that we can’t knock them down too (I know, it’s about balancing stuff blabla).

Dodging every now and again is all right, but having to do it over and over again and again repeatedly, especially when dodging out of one conglomeration of red circles just lands you in another = boo.

Another (potentially wacky) Missed Opportunity: some kind of special skill/environmental weapon with an attack called ‘Pound Sand’.

Opening hyperbolic statement: With LS2, arenanet took everything I hate about GW2 and mooned me with it. Over and over. And over.

Boo: by the time I was halfway through the introductory mission, I was already sick of the endless red circle dodging. Unfortunately (for me), that set the tone for what was to come.

Boo: to the aspects travel gimmick outside of the Labyrinthine Cliffs. It was all right, there, but I don’t want it anywhere else, thanks.

Boo: to bosses using knockback skills on tiny elevated platforms. Grow up, anet.

Boo: to yet another more-annoying-than-fun gimmicky boss encounter in which the real struggle was to not throw my PC out the nearest window.

Missed Opportunities:

1. Instead of recycling the aspect travel things, why not bring back the rapid-growth vine bridges from Guild Wars?

2. Instead of moar jumping, why not introduce some form of, ya know, climbing?

3. You could have even had some type of rent-a-mount to get us through the quicksand areas.

3a: Or… given how wacky GW2 often is… sand shoes! With shoulder-mounted balloons to offset our weight and keep us from sinking (there was a movie back in the 60s in which people used gas-filled balloons and special shoes to walk on water).

4. Also, gosh, this place looks all hot and dry and all that blowing sand – here, guys, here’s a complimentary (and optional) Sandstorm resistant outfit or at least some kind of mask/filter/whatever thingee to keep the sand out of your eyes/noses/mouths/lungs.

5. Oh yeah, better take some extra water! Just in case. Gee, I wonder if there are any hidden springs out here anywhere…

Rating: three frowny faces, one meh face, one smiley face.

Huge MEH :/ for me.

While I appreciate the new area, and Dry Top (even just this first piece, Prospect Valley) is beautifully crafted and scenic, the story — first and foremost — and the low amount of content (not including the post-episode-completion achievements since I haven’t tried them yet and thus cannot make proper judgement) are greatly impairing my ability to enjoy this episode — and I’m sure they will leave their mark on the rest of my season 2 experience.

Since the content quantity and the amount of fun it yields varies from person to person, I’ll just go over my issues with the story. (However, I cannot help but think that the rest of the updates/episodes will give relatively the same gameplay length; 3-5 hours using dulfy.net for the hardcore players, 1-3 days for casual players who want to explore and discover stuff on their own. That’s not much if you ask me, but then again, as I said before; depends entirely on the person experiencing it.)

• By now it has become obvious that ANet is incapable of driving the story, making progression if it doesn’t involve slaughter, mayhem, and destruction (+ the added drama & loss that’s being set up so blatantly most of the time — you can bet your sweet coins that Belinda will either get killed or become corrupted in a future episode, based on how much they reminisced with Marjory and wished to fight together and go home to their mother). Season 1 was all about massacres, from the Molten Alliance raids on norn settlements and charr fahrars to Lion’s Arch. Now we get fresh new Season 2 — an excellent chance to start a new “life” and gain distance from that abysmal Season 1 — and what is the first thing we see? Zephyrites (one of the only, if not the sole, intriguing and likeable elements from S1) dying left and right, mourning lost friends and lovers, because another crazed sylvari, a simple-trader-turned-killing-machine suddenly highly trained in melee (knifing), sabotage, and explosives (the guy was in the early stages of the Scarlet Sue syndrome) betrayed them. I’m getting real tired of this senseless butchery, especially when they are mostly done in ways very similar to real life calamities like bombing of public events, biological warfare against civilians, bombing of an aircraft. Personally, I hoped I could escape from all that in a fantasy game, but I guess I was horribly wrong. I’m already dreading what is going to happen in the next episodes: an Inquest test-firing of some nuclear-like weapon on the crash site? Canisters holding Mordy-corruption sprayed over Dry Top? The wholesale massacre of Prosperity and the survivors of the crash? (Also, rest in peace, Morning. You didn’t have to die, but a bloodthirsty, sylvari-wubbing writer demanded that you be killed for the sake of a below-mediocre plot.)

• Scarlet, Scarlet, Scarlet. I don’t think I need to say any more than this, but I always feel compelled to over-elaborate my points. Instead of decreasing her Mary Sueness, they only increased it exponentially: it is now confirmed that she was the creator of the Steam creatures as well as their portals, and that she discovered the ley line network all on her own (something not even the asura’s overused technological genius could accomplish). However, I did find her room quite interesting, but mostly because of the books by Snaff and Ogden (that dragon one was pretty cool), as well as some props to popular theories made by the lore community, like magic seeping in through weakened/torn barriers between Tyria and the Mists where magic is in abundance. (Also, I wanted to throw up when that annoying Taimi was orgasming to Scarlet and all her stuff.)

• The fake investigation, while looks nice and doesn’t make the PC look stupid, is just cheap. Green star and the quest log telling me all I need to do, no conversation choices except for one. Probably asking too much, but if I think of an investigation, I want something similar done to Batman’s detective mode (with the amount of sci-fi and steampunk making into the game, an asura investigation equipment wouldn’t be that out of place), or Geralt’s witcher sense. Even SW:ToR could accomplish something remarkable in this field with the macrobinocular…

I’m pretty sure I could continue on, but that would lead to off-topic issues with the entirety of the storytelling as well as the writers’ shortcomings and failures. These issues were the ones that soured my experience the most, the worst being the first point, of course.

P.S.: The music is great.

Personally I find this kind of silly. Wait until a few more episodes. Although for an Episode 1, it is nice to see a new map that is supposedly going to stay. I just hope they get rid of the aspects when we move on from Dry Top. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun traversing a small map and all but the mechanics are nothing more than a gimmick and now they’re even timed. Just give me maps with a lot of content, a decent to good on going story arch, and baddies to kill. Jumping puzzles are fine as they were in vanilla but I would like to see zero-more aspects in the Episodes ahead.

That being said, ironically enough can we see teleport skills (IE: Shadow Step) get a rework to act more in line with the lightning-aspect? Let people have their moments making puzzle jumping easier, I’m just tired of being unable to traverse an object because it’s on a higher plain-level and there’s no route frame to connect the path.