Guild Wars 2

For me personally Drooburt, but that is mainly because my Sylvari has a certain ‘problem’ with beverages that she shared with this cute Quaggan. We had thing to talk about, things in common, and thirsty throats to lubricate. So when he was dangling there so unexpectedly, it was like seeing a good friends lifeless body.

But through that experience I could also understand better what Marjory will be going through, loosing a sister might well be even worse… from now on though I will tell you this, I will have my REVENGE!

Hello Bug team, and Fixers…

A few months back I posted a bug related to the lighting and the direction of the shadows being ‘inverted’ somehow. Which I discovered due to being unconsciously ‘pulled’ out of immersion, and then trying to figure out what was actually happening.

Seeing I discovered this in Timberline falls I was reminded of this during the LS2, and I bothered to check if it was fixed. Well I had subconsciously already noticed it was fixed as I wouldn’t get pulled out of the game anymore for quite some time. But actual confirmation is true confirmation…

Seeing this greatly increased my enjoyment of the game, I would like to thank you for taking it serious, and taking the time to fix it. ^^ Thanks!

Ehrm but it’s only in a specific spot, and no where else in the game. I have also noticed that it isn’t even present in that area all the time … I was actually trying to investigate it more, but then DDos happened and I got stuck on the forum for a bit…

So I do not think this is this bug that you mention, why would I disable ‘depth blur’ if the rest of the game is perfectly fine…

While I do somewhat agree that ‘we’ hardly had time to get acquainted, there is this thing called ‘empathy’ … I know it’s not present in all and there seems to be shortage of it in general, but it’s somewhat like imagining how somebody else might feel in a certain circumstance and based upon your own experience in similar cases feel for the other person having to go through something like this.

I will say though, that a cut scene where we got to witness her being grabbed, and ‘us’ (including Marjory and Kasmeer) being able to do nothing about it, would have been more impactful and dramatic. Now obviously you have to be sparse with active killings, they can become a ‘there is yet another’… but seeing we had seen so many tangled up already seeing it in action for this important plot twist might have been a good one to have seen it put in action.

Have Marjory slay her plantified sister during her funeral … gruesome but it could be a nice twist…

In this regard (and I do hope this gets added) I realy missed having some sort of dialog in the end. I mean, most of the group see me as the leader of sorts. Shouldn’t I have to say some lines to both of them. If only:

@Marjory
- I am sorry for your loss, take all the time you need.

• ty for your concern I will, I will join you there when I’m ready

@Kasmeer
- I am sorry for your loss as well.

• yes this is horrible, her sister, I can’t emagine…
  - Yes me neither, we should give her all the time she needs.
• I should go with her, shouldn’t I ?
  - Well you heard what she said, and if this is a forebode of what is to come we will need everybody.
• Yes, NO… well yes, you are probably right. And Marjory is right too… ohw poor Balinda, poor Marjory.
  - Hang in there we will need you.

I don’t see this mentioned yet, but as was declared (multiple times) in the ‘PoI show nr2.’ If something gets pointed out, it’s best ‘we’ take notice!

- So this Portal device is left in the Ley Hub cave, it’s mentioned it is ‘left’ not that it was there not yet used when we arrived.
- Also, Omadd’s machine is activated when we enter, why would Scarlet leave it behind activated? Surely she didn’t, and it has been years since she was there.
- Also, the device is described as having a ‘box’ to contain the ‘subject’, while I do spot heavy chains to keep a possible ‘box’ in place, this box seems missing.

Aka. The inquest turned on the machine, and put somebody in there, for some reason they then removed this person (while still being in this box) and portalled him/her/it out.

- Also, we seem to only view a part of a vision, I’m not sure who dragged us out (I was having a vision) but more then likely my friends did so. Now how long did the inquest leave their ‘subject’ in there? What was the result? What do they know (if anything)?

‘We’ still see the Dragon as a ‘being’ but we must not forget that it has been said that they are more like Forces of Nature. In this sense you should maybe think of them of a Tornado. Even though ‘we’ give each of them names, after they have passed, under the right circumstances doesn’t there just appear another. Like ‘Kathrina’ is dead, and past, but when storm season starts, new ones arrive that are just like her.

In this sense you should also view the Dragons, we killed off Zaithan, and it is dragon season, so Teq. may or may not grow out into another (he might actually grow and grow and go dorment and be the next ‘Zaithan’ in 10.000y when the new Dragon Season arrives… But from the vision I would say that even though we may have killed of Zaithan now, the forces that created him will more then likely ‘recreate’ him when the time is right…

In this sense I would also like to answer to Ranael, does calling a Tornado, a Hurricane or Cyclone, make it any other natural force? Does it matter if they hit the South East of the US or the South East of Japan?

In this regard, cuz I rather liked it:
What’s in a name? That which we call a Dragon, by any other name, be as horrific as any other

Also, as some might recall, Glint had babies, so she must have mated with some ‘thing’. Be it her master, be it another dragon. In any case, it implies some sort of reproduction cycle. And as far as I know it tend to take 2 to tango… So I wouldn’t worry to much about the ‘lack’ of dragons in the world, in all honesty, I would be much more inclined to worry.

Lastly, in regards to the mentions of Player Characters, do realize that they draw conclusions on their frame of reference. They conclude the orbs are the dragons, but for all we know it could be the aspects of magic, or the ‘Champions’ (do realise they awaken b4 the actual dragons do, so the activation order of the orb might be the Champs order of awakening, the ‘centering’ of one of these orbs the ‘success’ of a Champion to awaken the dragon.)

You may want to take into account that the ‘Champion’ of the Dragon awakes b4 the actual Dragon does. When Primordus champion was defeated it didn’t wake up for another 50y I think (from recollection).

Now the Pale tree strikes me a lot in resemblance with Glint, who was another Champ (of Kralkatorrik) that got turned to the good side. The Pale tree has the same ‘air’ to it. So if the Pale tree was ‘intended’ to be the champion of Mordremoth, but due to the influence of Ventari got ‘turned’, then technically Mordremoth awoke when the pale tree did (in relation to the ’activation of spheres in the vid), but her turning might have delayed the actual awakening until recently (by the actions of Scarlet).

The order would then be:
- Primordus
- Bubbles
- Jormag
- Mordremoth (<- this is the current most active dragon, and also the ball that merges with the centre)
- Kralkatorrik
- Zaithan

So the end sort of tells us the order in which the dragons awoke, and the merging sort of tells us ‘whos time’ it is. This may mean that for every cycle of dragon awakening there is one to be the dominant force to shape the world until the next awakening. In this view Kralkatorrik might have been the ‘activated’ dragon from the last period, as it’s Champion ‘Glint’ then played a major role in the unravelling of the time in between (mainly GW1 and the flame seeker prophecies).

On the other hand, we did not get to see beyond that one point, will the orb eventually leave the center, and all orbs go back to their places. And then during this dragon age, will something then start the process again, lighting up all the orbs in the order of awakening, to then place one in the center. Which might have been the case during the huge expansion time of Zaithan, and similar in regards to Bubbles, driving the deep sea creatures to the shores and shallow waters (and have our PC’s simply but mistakenly contributed this to Zaithan, because as these creatures showed up it was Zaithan that was the dragon mostly advancing on the sentient Races… And have the deep water creatures simply assumed that when our PC’s said ‘Dragon / Zaithan’, ‘we’ meant ‘Dragon / Bubbles’. What’s in a name? That which we call a Dragon, By any other name, would be as horrifying as any other…

Another thought that just struck me, what if the orbs are actually the Champions, as they awake b4 the actual dragons do (to amass a small army in preparation of the dragons awakening, scavenging some magical artefacts as if to prepare a morning coffee). Then the vision could mean that the champion of Mordremoth has managed to collect enough ‘magic’ or some other trigger (perhaps just that it’s ‘its’ time) to awaken the dragon.

In that sense then perhaps the pale treeS are meant to produce inquisitive entities, that at some point find out or deem to see it fit to awaken Mordremoth. Scarlet in a sense, was a tragedy of someone that felt she had to have the freedom to choose between more than ‘The Dream’ or ‘The nightmare’, and by her actions she actually did that what ‘in essence’ was the one thing she was set out to do. A certain destiny that was laid b4 her, as the only ‘free’ choice… Not the pale tree, but Scarlet herself functioned as the Champion of Mordremoth, quite possibly, due to her other research (mainly the plant poison), aware of the sick twist of fate, taking the precautions to then also free herself of this fate by defeating her new master, ending up ‘in essence’ as the new Glint.

I so /cry when I found out my drinking buddy had been taken by these vines! Nooo why him, we shared the bottom of various bottles and now, now he is gone :’(

Yeah, in the other thread there is a link to the Twitter account of this nub, he posted a ‘wildstar down’ tweet at around the same time the issue started… hopefully somebody with some real skills will take away his dl’ed DDos tool sooner than later. Seeing that if he dl’ed it from the wrong site, his computer should be a honeypot/swizzcheese by now…

Yeah, apparently NCSoft’s login servers were hit, we seem to have been collateral damage in an attack on WildStar servers.

Hopefully this guy will kitten-off somebody with real skills, that can take away this nub’s DDos Tool. Seeing he more then likely just d/l’ed it, his computer is more then likely one big honeypot by now…

The GFX degenerate with some weird ‘blur’ when the camera is zoomed out more then a few ‘tics’. The first 2 or 3 sections of zoom out on the mouse wheel all is well, zoom out more and the GFX degenerate with some strange ‘blur’.

I checked in the regular world, and it stayed very crisp even fully zoomed out, so it is (by me) only experienced in this instance. It happens all over the instance so it’s from my point of view some general setting or rendering issue effecting the whole instance.

I have also filed a bug report ingame, to provide a screenshot… in the section:
User Interface / Art Visual

update Ok this is weird, I now left the instance and the blur effect now also takes place in timberline falls. It almost seems like I can zoom out much further now then ‘normal’ … seeing i’m now heading to Fort Salma, I will check if it will come back to normal.

Ok, when going to Fort Salma, the GFX returned to ‘normal’ for me. But the weirdest thing, when I then went back to Timberline, the GFX were still this weird degenerative look. I’m not sure what is going on (obviously), but when I entered the game I checked the GFX in Timberline because I was already intending to file this bug as I experienced it ‘yesterday’ (and due to not being able to finish the Concordia instance, due to that DDos, I figured I should check first if all was well in Timberline b4 checking if the GFX situation in Concordia was similar to yesterday…

I will double check this issue, by restarting the client, checking Timberline (will provide a screenshot through the User Interface / Art-Visual again). To then do the Concordia instance again. To then see if it effects the whole region again.

Update 2 After logging into the game (loading in Kessex) I went over to Timberline. It turned out that the issue I have is restricted to a small section of Timberline. Running around I found clear boundaries for the effect in Timberline Falls map (screens provided in the bugtool again). This same issue is taking place in the whole of Concordia Instance, while I was unable to redo the instance, I did do it 2x and both times I had the issue for the whole duration of the instance.

note So apparently the first time I logged into the game, I checked the quality of GFX outside the effected area.

Combined with the bugreports in: User Interface / Art – Visual and provided screenshots. I do not think there is anything more I can add to this ‘GFX-bug’. Only thing I do ‘/ponder’ is if it may be related to the amount of people present there. Then again, why would it do the same in the Concordia instance, when I am all alone… unless it somehow ‘counts’ all the instances as the same area. But seeing I never noticed this anywhere else in the game, in locations with huge amounts of players, and the clear boundaries of the effect solely around the Concordia starting point and the Concordia instance itself, I think it is related to this specific area…

Unfortunately I can not ‘go back’ to the unaffected Concordia area, prior vines, to see if the issue was already present there. As that could limit the amount of things that might be the cause…

GL in finding the root of this issue (or perhaps ‘the vine’), hopefully it’s an easy fix

DarcShriek.5829:

This conclusion that Mordy is after a bloodstone is odd to me. Why have none of the other dragons gone after a bloodstone? What makes Mordy so different that he needs a bloodstone. I think the whole bloodstone thing is wishful dreams.

While I’m not sure if others have suggested this, I did a couple of posts above. And it was not so much a conclusion but a suggestion… Maybe if I give a little more background it might be more understood as to why I suggested this.

Read these two:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Magic
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Bloodstone

So, instead of being ‘magic providing’ the bloodstones are actually magic filters, they prohibit the free flow of magic into the world and restrict it to the 4 known schools. So why didn’t previous dragons go for the bloodstones (while we can’t say for sure they didn’t, we can at least say we as PC’s didn’t actively observe it), well perhaps because the kinds of magic these dragons are ‘attuned’ to are amongst the kinds of magic that are filtered through. Why would Mordi go after the bloodstones? Well maybe the kind of magic he is after is restricted by one or more bloodstones to flow freely into the world. In which case he is not after the bloodstones to tap into the magic, but rather to destroy them in order to release the flow of magic.

Also, and my memory isn’t entirely certain of this, but in the last instalment of GW1 the mursaat show up in the southern shiverpeaks, in search of another bloodstone. I think ‘we’ free one of the NPCs from the fate being slain atop it. Due to the bloodstone near Gadd’s encampment (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Bloodstone_Caves) being assumed to be this bloodstone, it can be called somewhat ‘weird’ that these caves did not come with Mursaat enemies. Which leads me to ‘conclude’ that the lore mentioned on the Wiki might be wrong, the Bloodstone that Glint hints to may NOT be the bloodstone near Gadd’s, but an entirely different bloodstone that is somewhere in the southern shiver peaks. And might be the destination of the southern heading Vines.

This may also be somewhat of the reason why the followers of Glint are involved in this story arc (besides just being a reason to start the season after the festivities). I do not mean that they were targeted because of this bloodstone ordeal, but merely to ‘tie’ these lore pieces together in the background and leave a breadcrumb ‘hint’ for us to tie this southern Shiverpeaks bloodstone to the Glint story, instead of tying it to the bloodstone in Gadd’s encampment… (to which I want to add that I can not find the exact reference of Glint to the bloodstones on the wiki, so it is hard for me to say this Gadd’s bloodstone isn’t specifically referred to!).

So, ‘no’, there is no hard conclusion that Mordi has send his vines off to find the bloodstones. But, as can be seen above, there are various reasons why one might suggest them as a possible target. This also combined with various ‘critiques’ out of the community that the Lore in GW2 seems to deviate far from the lore in GW1. Bringing back the bloodstones in some way, shape or form could be a response to this critique and offer some more entanglement (cough) of the two, and also provide a way to add more background on these illusive stones.

EdwinLi.1284:

Well you got to look it as this way.

1) Mordy’s Vines feed on Magic like how plants feed on Water.

2) Plants only grow by the amount water that is provided

3) Plants can’t grow far unless there is another source of water in the other area

4) All vines are only growing near areas that are strong with magic near its last location.

Using this we know that the Vines has the same limits as plants on how far they can grow so as of now the only source of “water” that is allowing these Vines to spread are the Ways or any other magical artifacts near the ways.

Following a similar logic I wondered whether or not these vines are actually branching out towards locations of bloodstones. I mean, a large part of the community has been ‘asking’ for a better ‘intertwining’ of the GW1 lore with that of GW2. And perhaps Anet came up with a way to let the GW2 story ‘grow’ into a direction that lets them do so, and as such enrich the entirety of Tyrian lore.

We can’t see if one of these spread vines is moving to the ‘bloodstone’ (maguma one). The other known bloodstone is ’Gad’s encampment’ (be this one fairly damaged, and no vines are moving in that clear direction), and it has been suggested that there is a bloodstone somewhere else in the south of the shiver peaks (where vines might be spreading towards). With one other bloodstone left in the volcano (unknown if vines are spreading out that way). That leaves 1 bloodstone yet un-discovered, it could well be somewhere around Ascalon, where these vines are now heading towards?

Donari.5237:

If no one ever points out an error (keeping it non-demeaning, naturally), how will anyone else ever learn?

That is true, and like I said, it can be a good thing. Point though, that more then often I see it turn into a thread with an ‘undertone’ (aka. a between the lines sentiment) of a ‘learn how to spell’. F/e the ‘Idiocracy’ picture…

And I personally don’t know who makes these mistakes (out of carelessness or just due to lack of knowledge) and what their native language is. Like you, I react out of a pet peeve, with the argument that maybe you shouldn’t assume that the person is a native English speaker with a lack of care for their spelling. And as a (be it mildly) dyslectic person, I have more then often in my life been ‘accused’ of not putting in the effort, while I was actually doing the best I could…

So, yes, pointing out correct spelling of certain keywords in a thread like this (Ley and not Lay (even though phonetically the difference between an E or A is rather hard to make out in this particular word)), can be a good thing. Though personally I think a ‘PM’ to the particular person might work better, as opposed to nailing them to a public ‘shaming’ pole, which from my point of view can only turn into a ‘learn how to spell stupid’-thread, which, as you noticed are a personal pet peeve of myself. Mainly due to not being a native English speaker (and yes that means I have had these kind of conversations aimed at me, assuming I was a native speaker btw.), and being somewhat dyslectic (though I seem to have mostly grown over it) I have more then often been singled out due to my spelling, and been accused of carelessness and what not, while in fact I was doing the best I could.

From those viewpoints these kinds of threads are all but encouraging to keep doing your best to express your opinions on what should be an international platform. And more often than not they do seem to imply a certain disdain for the non-English, or at least a lack of understanding from the English community, in regards to the world they live in. Which (from my experience) btw. is far from the truth in most cases, but also, from those English I did interact with, a fair number could only express themselves in English …

So perhaps to most in this thread that share a certain ‘spelling pet peeve’-thing, try and learn a different language yourself, it can only increase your understanding of the language phenomenon, and perhaps give you a bit more insight into why people make certain errors, and thus have a bit more of a base ‘respect’ for even the most poorly constructed English instead of pulling the ‘idiot’ card at the first sign of a typo…

lastly, as you truly dive into language you will soon discover it is a living thing, now sure you may have a conservative view on the way people spell, but then again, I don’t see you spell like a ‘Shakespearian’… so clearly your spelling is all but ‘right’ and ‘conservative’, in fact, your spelling is so modern that Shake Spear would more then likely have a hard time conversing with you

This whole thread is a personal pet peeve of mine, being a non-native dyslectic English speaker I keep being amazed by the lack of understanding of the English speaking community. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_language

This is the international, official GW2 site, meaning people from all over the world of all ages join in on both this site, as well as the game servers (which as you may or may not know are open to all participants, f/e I play on a US server as a EU player, because the ‘prime times’ line up better in regards to my playing hours). So, in a sense you should always keep in mind that there are thousands of people that do their utmost best to speak their best English, so that those that don’t speak ‘their’ native language can understand them. And while spellcheck might help (for as far as it’s not polluted, or for as far as people themselves know differences in ‘Their, They’re, There, Etc, words that might all show up as ‘correctly spelled’ in a spell checker. Checking grammar is of yet not an option, and when English is NOT your native language it is actually fairly common to keep thinking in your Native Grammar rules, and translating the words into English (for your reading pleasure).

Now, pointing out that something is continuously written wrong as part of educating people doesn’t have to be a bad thing. But I see all to often that this turns into some sort of mockery of the non-English speakers that make certain ‘mistakes’ as if they ’can’t spell’, while the real truth is, that English isn’t the language of the world, and those that do come here are more then likely doing their best to let themselves be heard.

Lastly, and this is where my pet peeve (besides the mockery in the undertone of the self-centered, that don’t think beyond their own borders) mostly comes from. As a non native English speaker I use context to understand foreign languages, as such I can understand what is being said (even in other languages like French, German and various ‘latin based’ languages.) From this my understanding is that if you are unable to read passed some minor spelling or grammar mistakes, and are only able to read ‘perfectly spelled, formulated’ language you are actually rather ‘bad’ at language…

This thread gets a big plus from me, I still have (had) various ´belongings´ and other stuff in my chest from the LA event, as merchants just disappeared at some point…

As far as ´NPC´ available for this kind of ´get rid of event items´ perhaps some of the Karma Vendors (that seem to sell the same 3 things all over the world) could be converted to take it event items for a considerable amount of time after events.

And-or design events with the end of them in mind, so make sure there is an NPC available to sell/hand-out all of the event rewards for a 2 week period after an event has ended, an perhaps offer small other rewards for the event tokens-items for the period there after, for all I care these are the same boxes for every event… set for a different token after each event, for the time until the next event ends (or possibly even with ´tabs´ for each of the events).

VIVorcha.7853:

Then go watch a movie.

Video games are so that the player can actually influence events.

There are hardly ´any´ games that let a player actually influence events in any way. A Video is basically a movie (atleast in my native language a videotape holds a movie). So a video game, lets you live through a movie by being a part of it through a character in said movie.

Even table top RPGs mostly let you live through a story, and not ´make´ the story yourselves, and any table top GM with a restricted amount of time will let you choose to walk the meadow or the dark forest to end up at the enchanted castle. Sure you have some sense of control over your actions, but anything grand that has to be achieved in a limited amount of time will cut some corners.

As far as the Duststorm goes in Dry Top, so far I am pleased. They don’t last to long, and not to short, they impair vision far enough where there is a feeling of discomfort, yet there is still enough sight to engage in battle and find your way.

What I don’t like is the fact that these storms are announced on a timer … as far as that goes there is no anticipation what so ever, the timer is there, you know it’s coming, when its coming and how long it’s going to take. :-/

How I would have done it is to have at least 3 stages in severity of a storm. A very mild one, that would announce the possible occurrence of a storm, a intermediate one, following the mild one, that tells you it’s fairly likely to get worse, and the current heavy storm. Then linked to this could be an (hidden) timer that rolls a script for the occurrences, something like:

at the end of (weather)-timer
- check occurrence:
- roll dice:

if occurrence is 0.
- 50% chance on a mild wind for 3min (start stormtimer), set occurrence 0
if occurrence is 1
- 60% chance on mild wind for 3 min (start stormtimer), set occurrence 0
if occurrence is 2
- 70% chance on mild wind for 2 min (start stormtimer), set severity to 1, set occurrence 0
if occurrence is 3
- 80% chance on mild wind for 1 min (start stormtimer), set severity to 2, set occurrence 0
…etc…
Else, set (weather)-timer to 5min, set occurrence +1

At the end of stormtimer:
- check severity
- roll dice

if severity is 0.
- 30% chance on end storm, set (weather)-timer to 5 min, set occurrence +1
- 40% chance on intermediate storm for 3 min (start stormtimer), set severity +1
- 30% chance on severe storm for 3 min (start stormtimer), set occurrence 0

if severity is 1.
- 20% chance on end storm, set (weather)-timer to 5 min, set occurrence +1
- 50% chance on intermediate storm for 3 min (start stormtimer), set severity +1
- 30% chance on severe storm for 2 min (start stormtimer), set occurrence 0

if severity is 2
- 10% chance on end storm, set (weather)-timer to 5 min, set occurrence +1
- 50% chance on intermediate storm for 2 min (start stormtimer)
- 40% chance on severe storm for 1 min (start stormtimer), set occurrence 0
…etc…

at the end of storm timer:
- check severity
- roll dice

if severity is 0
- 20% chance mild storm for 3 min, set occurrence +1, set (weather)-timer to 7 min
- 40% chance intermediate storm for 5 min, set (weather)-timer to 10 min
- 40% chance severe storm for 10 min, goto ‘set weather’, set (weather)-timer to 15 min

if severity is 1
- 20% chance mild storm for 3 min, set occurrence +1, set (weather)-timer to 7 min
- 30% chance intermediate storm for 5 min, set (weather)-timer to 10 min
- 50% chance severe storm for 10 min, goto ‘set weather’, set (weather)-timer to 15 min

if severity is 2
- 15% chance mild storm for 3 min, set occurrence +1, set (weather)-timer to 7 min
- 25% chance intermediate storm for 5 min, set (weather)-timer to 10 min
- 60% chance sever storm for 10 min, goto ‘set weather’, set (weather)-timer to 15 min

´set weather´
roll dice (0, 1, 2)
set ´occurrence´
roll dice (0, 1)
set ´severity’

ps. I am not a coder, and while I do understand code, it´s now more then clear to me that if you don´t keep practicing it you get worse at it… still though, a coder should be able to read this and somewhat understand how this would produce a fairly random occurrence of storms, with increasing chances for a storm if non was had last time. Obviously a last bit is missing where it sets some sort of ´end storm´ condition based upon what kind of storm it was, so that it has a nice flow…

obviously never going to happen, as the current ´want it now, and want it predictable´ gamers of today would not be able to deal with not knowing when to go do what, let alone wait for a random event to happen and unfold… can´t have it all I guess…

Some responses from my end now that the content can be experienced… and some more directly towards some comments made by others…

Sarie above here comes closest to what i meant, although I don’t necessarily mean scary. Perhaps ‘realistic’ or ‘character full’ is still more to what I’m after. A good example of what I mean is the new central crafting area in LA, it is hardly lit by ‘general lighting’ settings, but almost exclusively by torches. This gives a much more flavourful emersion, especially at night, although I noticed that the area doesn’t change much when daylight starts, likely due to shade, or some other lighting limitations.

Another good example is the northern mine in Dry Top, although personally I would have lit the a central ‘walkway’ with a few torches, which would have made the area not entirely dark, yet not entirely lit either, the shimmer of the torches would have made the area more than just dark, and more then just lit…

@Tiger, I know my computer is somewhat limited in it’s display of grafix options (mainly due to being stuck on DX10.1) but I never actually changed anything in my Gamma, and I will expect Anet to set the base gamma to the setting that will best display their creation…

I personally miss seasons in GW2, it was a feature of Saga of Ryzom that I greatly enjoyed, as it changed the scenery, and with it the visual experience of areas. With seasons also comes dynamic weather, and each season can have it’s own ‘chance table’ on certain weather types, as well as changes to foliage, possibly even creatures, and events. I have great hopes that one day Anet will install a ‘living world’ team, that is sanctioned to make this happen…

@Windu, in a sense they are, they are somewhat of a stereotype scary, due to a certain level of gore and fear of fire. The Brand hardly does it for me, and the only thing I find somewhat ‘pressing’ is the shade that looms from above (guess it explains why certain ground dwelling creatures IRL seem to always be on edge). But more over, this is not what I mean with ‘Mature’ or ‘Character’ or even ‘scary’.

For one: Both Orr and the Brand could have been made a lot more ‘scary’ or ‘pressing’ if they were to be ‘foggy’ (brand obviously purplish) to an extend where vision is obscured to a certain distance (the Dust storm in dry top seems to be doing fairly ok in this regard). If you ever read ‘The Fog’ then you will know that, besides from the horrors that emerge from it, the presence of the fog itself brings with it an atmosphere of the unknown, a certain claustrophobia settles in the mind that brings with it a certain irrational discomfort.

The same can be said from the dark, but in this regard the dark can be made more atmospheric by introducing a limited amount of light. This causes a certain duality in the mind between ‘safeness’ (of the light, the visible and identifiable) and ‘danger’ (of the dark, the invisible and unknown), if these places alternate at certain distance each traversal of the dark becomes a journey in itself filled with anticipation of the unknown in between. Fear of the dark isn’t so much fear of the lack of light, but fear of the unknown which lurks in the dark, in the right setting even a shade of the simplest thing can cause a fright or a scare.

Next to that it’s also the atmosphere that lighting brings, which has a lot to do with the ‘light/dark’ mental tension. In this regard I can point to the central crafting area in LA again, which has little to no ‘ambient’ light sources, and a lot of circumstantial ones (torches, firepits), the ‘play’ of shades on the walls, the creation of mental ‘safe zones’ around the lit places. I deem this location more ‘mature’ or ‘characterful’ than say the crafting zones any where else. (though I am sure there must be 1 or 2 more crafting zones that are equally characterful).

@Beldin, yes! that is the inherent danger, like I said in my earlier posts, these things can also become to much of an annoyance (mostly with vision impairing effects), and good use of these things is to alternate them. Similar to how I described the use of light as opposed to a totally dark area. Like the saying ‘a change of spices, increases the appetite’ (freely translated from my native language), the same applies to these effects. It’s not the enduring sand/water/snow storm that awakens mental discomfort (it will instil annoyance). But it’s the ones where you know that better things are ‘on the other side’ (be it in distance or time), they become a hurdle of the unknown. It’s the ‘I will just have to endure this and survive, safety is just on the other side’ feeling that is way more engaging, than the ‘will this annoyance ever end’ feeling…

In regards to writing, planning & organisation
I think there is a writing form that suits itself for the type of content we sort of long for (besides the examples I gave just above here). That is the ‘split group’ story lines. You see this in books at times, where multiple groups are followed that at some point merge or sometimes never even meet. Yet still paint the same story, but from different angles…

It is a bit more difficult to pull off seeing ‘we’ have to still be a part of it all the time, and it might feel somewhat weird at times, for us being in ‘two or even three’ places at once. But, it reduces the workload considerably, and it voids the making of ‘never seen content’, though, yes, there are void storylines…

What if our ‘group of heroes’ were to split up, possibly because they disagree on course of action. Now instead of throughing a choice in our faces on how to persue, we get to go along with each group, and within each individual persuit there are actions or choices that defy how that line of the story unfolds. Each ‘instalment’ of the LS could focus on one ‘group’ and we follow along and make the choice or make an impact. Now the next instalment would be with the other group, and then the last group. For a total of 3 instalments of 1 story step in 3 story lines all focussed around a different approach to the same issue.

Then there be enough time, to factor in the actions of a previous step, sure the outlines might have to be written beforehand, but once a focus group’s story step has ended there are 2 instalments time to build w/e needs to be build to factor in the actions of the players within that story line.

And if the ‘stage’ (scenery) in which these actions are to unfold remain the same, but the that what happens on ‘stage’ is different, the work can be planned even more efficiently…

This kind of story telling also gives the writers more options and us as players opportunities for more experiences. An approach may fail, and we would have to acknowledge ‘defeat’ or ‘dispair’ within one story line, while another storyline might yield an easy success, or a hard fought success with a unexpected outcome. Even what seemed to have been a failure, might yield a bit of information that, combined with another storyline, might offer a new angle of approach, or give the info to make the correct informed decision.

Combine that with showing just a tad more of what is going on behind the scenes, even if we have no impact to make on what will unfold (aka. the empty airship facilities). Or giving us a clear success in a battle that will change what will happen on the stage, yet not the ultimate outcome, and I think this could give us all the feeling we are having this impact, while at the same time the workload for Anet remains manageable, be it with a bit more preparation on the side of the GM for as far as what happens ‘On stage’.

Will it feel like less of a ‘rail road’? Well, seeing we can not know the future, and thus we are unable to know we changed the future that remains to be ‘lived’. But as long as we can see that our actions have an outcome that is to be expected, and we are ‘informed’ of things that we didn’t prevent or even ‘changed the course of expected action’ from our foe. Then chances are we will at least feel like we are in the locomotive and not riding along in one of the carriages…

Just to add my thoughts to some of the things mentioned…

Another thing is that you do not know the future, so you do not know if you changed something. This in regards to the ‘rail road track’ feel… In other words we would only know if there was something to change if we were told there was something at stake we could or could not prevent…

On the other hand I do agree with the OP in a sense that efforts could be made to ‘hide’ these facts. And that with clever writing, planning and organisation the impact of the players actions could have more of an impact…

Now personally I really liked the fact that LA got destroyed, I am of the firm conviction that in battle (or war) ‘in the end’ all that remains is the losses that everyone suffered. There is no true ‘victory’, there may be a short relief the thing ended, and a bit of cheer for not having died through it all. But as soon as that buzz is over, the reality of it all hits like a ton of bricks. Showing this in LA, to me, was one of the great parts of the LS1, and I truly felt emotionally hit by it as well (being a long time GW player, seeing the rebuild LA in ruins brought back a lot of memories of times shared in LA). I do not mind it was inevitable, most of the destruction was done in the initial invasion the rest when the whole thing blew up (in our face).

Thing is, due to not knowing if we changed something, because we can’t know if our actions changed anything as we only live through the events as they unfold…
- What we didn’t destroy the tower.
- What if we didn’t destroy the marionette.
- What if we didn’t destroy the molten alliance manufacturing plant.

Well, thing is, we will never know, and can only guess… Yet I agree that some of it felt like what we did didn’t matter, mostly in regards to the LA invasion. Or that what happened in the LS didn’t impact the world (f/e the Centaur ‘invasion’ in the tower of madness chapter.) Well a lot has been said about this already…

What could have been better, f/e:
- What if we found some scriblings in the airship plant, and Anet set a internal ‘time’ for us to decipher it IRL. Which could even be ‘unlimited’… And in those scriblings were clues to the other facilities. because there had to be others, we smashed one and still the invaded with airships … Now, sure, you will say, why another facility to smash… well, it could have well been cleared out, it could have some nice hints at the time it was operative… This would have told us there was a considerable amount of airships ‘around’, thus increasing the tension, and the invasion with airships in LA would have felt less ‘lame’ after smashing that facility to bits…

- The story could have still unfolded the way it did if we f/e managed to totally destroy an alliance… This is something I also sort of missed, and what you seem to be asking for. I mean, lets say we smashed the molten alliance. This would obviously mean we wouldn’t see that many molten foes in the fray (f/e in the invasions), but would that make the content any different? It would be even more interesting I think if Scarlet had acknowledged our victory with a ‘You may have won this battle, but you are far from winning this war’ comment. Still, our impact would be visible in the content, yet the outcome could have still been the same…

Yeah I fully agree, I mean don’t get me wrong, like I said, I like the beauty of GW2 zones a lot. But, in all it’s beauty (to me) it lacks character. To me this is mostly due to lighting and dynamic weather, mostly lighting tbh. the clear nights, the always overly lit caverns.

It’s sort of like some of the art made by Rembrant, see he isn’t so famous for what he painted, nor his brush strokes. His most renounced quality in this paintings is the use of light. Light sets the mood, or the lack of light, a bright day will make you happy, while I grey one makes you grumpy. A clear night with a full moon will feel fresh, while a poorly lit night will make it feel damp and cold. A cavern with some flickering torches gives a whole different mood than an overly lit subway entry.

Same things happen with weather, a heavy snowstorm will create a bit of claustrophobia, it feels like a struggle. A mild snow creates anticipation, and some what of a joy (for snowball fights, building snowballs, hot choco and a warm fire place).

These are things I would call ‘character’, as they are character building circumstances. So I have nothing against the beauty of Tyria as it is now, and I thoroughly enjoy it. What I do miss, is the icing on the cake, the character, those things that make a pixelated world (even in a painterly style) feel like almost real. Where the lack of light leaves room for the imagination, or where an abundance of light creates a true focus point (though I did see these).

With this new dust storm area (as long as they are dynamic), we do get an area that has more character. That does leave room for imagination, or at least anticipation. And thus, hopefully the responses will be overly positive, so that Anet will start to touch up Tyria with this in mind…

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…

Region specific
- Multiple ‘maps’ in the game have had their events analysed, and where it made sense, events may now cover multiple maps. Various new stages have been added to numerous events and where event lines meet they now interact with each other. Seasons may have their impact on how events roll out. These events small and large now convey not only the story of a specific map, but also the what is going on on a regional scale. Outcomes of World events also play a factor in various regional event outcomes.

PvP
- Various new maps added.
- Team Death Match added as a PvP Mode.
- Capture the Flag added as a PvP Mode.
- Various Mission oriented modes added to PvP mode.
- PvP servers will either be dedicated to a specific mode, or will cycle through the various modes ‘at random’.

WvW
- New Server specific ‘Homelands’ have been created, our WvW team has worked intensively with our 3D modellers to create a ‘homeland’ for every server, due to restrictions of balance these homeland will have the same ‘overview’, but where possible each homeland will have a distinct visual appeal. We hope and expect that players will have an easier time to feel connected to their home borderlands and that these BL’s will feel more like a server distinct ‘homeland’.
- Crafting stations have been removed from BL’s, and Guild Chests and Player Chests have been added to compensate.
- Specific WvW Daily category created
- Dolyak guarding has been added to the WvW daily. Escort 10 dolyaks to complete this daily achievement.
- Scouting Keeps and Towers added, and also comes with rewards for scouting. A similar system as the ‘ruins’ has been implemented in Towers and Keeps, keeping these strategic locations ‘active’ by running around the keep will give a reward after a certain time interval. Keeps & Towers have been (re)designed to give botters a hard time. let it be known that we will keep a close eye on this system, in order to evaluate if it will not be abused. If we deem that it doesn’t live upto our expectations that we might remove the reward and add this category to the daily’s instead.
- Befriending NPC races on the Eternal battlefield now also has an impact on the BL’s of your opponents. An option to ‘Chase off’ NPC from EB has been added, this will increase NPC presence on all BL’s and NPC races will find a new home where they find the least resistance. The ‘home’ location on EB will turn into a camp, that will benefit your tic score on EB. Once an NPC Race is on another BL, the same applies, NPC’s can be ‘befriended’ and help your BL along, or they can be ‘Chased off’.
With this system we hope to increase dynamics in EB and BL’s for those in these BL’s when there aren’t that many players around (low population times), as well as offer interesting strategic choices as far as NPC allies are concerned

Legendaries
- A new way to attain legendaries has been added to the game, instead of a weapon specific effect, legendaries are now a ‘weapon set’ effect. Legendary sets are linked to various NPC crafters, living across Tyria. These crafters will become available to players once they completed a legendary feat. Each crafter has a specific feat linked to them. The crafters will require the player to bring them the components needed to craft the legendary, specific components have been created to serve the role as ‘pre-cursers’.
By making the legendaries sets, linked to certain feats, we hope to give more of an ‘earned’ quality to these weapons, as well as give players the opportunity to gain a certain legendary effect of their choice, regardless of which weapon they prefer to use …

GuildWars2, there is only one way to move forward, that is Onwards!

GuildWars2 : Onwards

Story
- Crystal Desert region, Kralkatorik & the Undead Resistance
- 12 New zones in Crystal desert region.
- 3 New Dungeons.
- Personal main story to pick up after death of Zaithan

- Living story, to focus on Maguma Jungle & Mordemoth, During the year we will explore the regions of the Maguma Jungle, with 1, 2 area or new Dungeon, in the Maguma Region, every 2 months.

- New Personal side stories introduced, branching off of the 3 orders.
- New Fractal Fractures, the content of the Fractal dungeon is ‘re-used’ to introduce ‘Fractal Fractures’ spawning through out Tyria, the fractal dungeons now randomly turn up where they make the most sense (design or historic wise).
- New Renown Heart reset. Renown Hearts (inside) will reset every month, and heart completion is added to daily and monthly completion.

Characters
- Level cap remains 80
- Energy reintroduced for balance purpose.
- New Choice Weapon skills added to slots #2 & #4 (choice for 3 skills on each total, also see specialisations.)
- New ‘existing weapons’ for various professions, 2 New Weapons introduced.
- New Specialisations, each profession can now ‘branch off’ into 3 specialisations, each coming with 8 utility skills and 2 elites, each branch also adds a choice skills for slot #2 & #4 on weapons.
- New Traits, useless traits are removed (like those concerning fall damage and replaced with useful ones), 2 new traits are added to each category. (resulting in various new traits in each traitline). New traits are scattered across tyria’s bosses, events, etc…
- Various new armours introduced.

World General
- True Day & Night, nights get darker NPCs will sleep, and various items will only be available at certain spots during the day or night (set up so that each item can still be attained during both day and night, just not in the same spot or from the same NPC). Addition of ‘campfire consumable’.
- True ‘weather’ and ‘seasons’, each map in the world has been assigned a climate zone, and based upon the season of the game world, the weather in these area’s is ‘randomized’. Along with the seasons and weather changes regions will see changes in foliage textures as well as migration patterns of creatures.
- True ‘Living Trade’, production regions in the world have been evaluated for their produce in relation to traders in cities. Caravan’s now move from these production area’s to cities all across the world. The ‘state’ of these caravans will determine if produce is available in these cities.
- True ‘player housing’, all structures ‘houses’ in the game that make sense to be liveable for players (aka. not already taken up by NPCs, or being ‘production’ facilities) have their ‘door’ interact able. Renting a key will give players the option to choose one of these structures as their home. 3 New crafting professions have been added to the game to facilitate the construction of furniture.
- True Guild Facilities, various maps and major cities have structures assigned specifically for Guild ‘Housing’, a special door in these structures leads to an instance version of this structure that is available for your guild to customize and decorate.

I don’t know about mesmers, but as a thief player I wouldn’t mind if they nerfed stealth in favour of being able to stay alive when NOT in stealth. Almost everything hits like a ton of bricks, and without stealth and running away, I would certainly die in any fight I end up in…

And lets be real, the only ‘long lasting’ stealth these days is the more then obvious telegraphed one, and more then often I get downed in this due to ele.bombs, swinging warriors, or feared out, or even immobilized with entangle. If you keep mobile than the dagger5 is hard to pull off, and the only really annoying instant stealth ‘blinding powder’ only lasts like 1,5 sec since the recent changes (even when traited for longer stealth, if it wasn’t instant it would be worthless beyond believe). Then there is the ‘heal stealth’ also telegraphed…

So really, ‘yes’ stealth is annoying at times, but there are tons of skills to counter ‘going into stealth’, and being in stealth doesn’t stop ‘condition ticks’ or even ‘being hit’. So yes please, moar hard counters please!! And balance it with more survivability for the thief, and stat.options other than ‘glass’… because now it is ‘hit and run or die’ … and any sole nerf to stealth would make it merely a ‘die on encounter’ class…

Glad i looked around first, saves me the time making this thread… tnx Musky

I mostly wanted to come in and say i am pleased to see this MegaServer system, and even more pleased that the implementation will include all low populated maps instead of a fixed set. This will ensure that people of all levels and locations in the game that could benefit the most from this system, will do so from the start…

One ‘minor’ note, I am not to sure if implementing this system in cities is a good one. While I can see how it will improve the experience in the lesser visited cities (basically all but ‘LA’). The cities, most noticeably LA, are also the places where players expect to find there fellow server population…

Even though LA is currently in ruins, and rebuilding has not yet commenced, and may never happen in favour of a homecity in nearly the same location for a birdrace… Having a certain ‘home-city’ that corresponds with one’s ‘home-map’, is something that I hope Anet will consider thoroughly. As it benefits server-community bonding, benefits the WvW Experience, and may well prove to be beneficial in regards to WvW impact on the ‘home’-world. Mainly in regards to festivities, but possibly also Guild-‘housing’.

BARRAGE

Zorpi.5904:

Barrage … doesn’t fit well in longbow.

(not just pointed at you, just quoted you because you were the ‘somanyest’ pointing at this)

I just have to come and say this: “Barrage is the ONLY skill on the longbow that actually has ANYthing to do with longbow warfare”.
Saying ‘it doesn’t fit’ on the longbow is saying that longbows have always been used for their accuracy over long range. Barrage actually defined Hoplite and Roman defensive tactics. It’s like saying that ‘firing squad musket warfare’ was implemented for accurately shooting down a lot of targets at the same time. It’s like saying the gatling gun and machinegun mechanics ‘do not fit’ on a gun. It’s like saying Carpet bombing and Clusterboms weren’t noteworthy ranged tactics.

I do not know where the ‘heck’ you people get your references, when it comes to weapon skill design, but it sure ain’t reality. Now all is fair in the world of fantasy, I get that, but really saying that ‘Barrage’ doesn’t ‘FIT’ on a longbow ?!?!?

@Orpheal seeing I found out the hard way how long it can take to make these elaborated revamps, and how it feels as though nobody pays any attention to them :P … while you yourself (myself) crave for some feedback, as it is really hard to judge one’s own creative work. Some general feedback from me

- Like you thinking outside the box on the traps, I do agree that some would also fit on a weapon very well.
- Personally i’m in favour of a different way to use the F-keys but that doesn’t negate the fact that this is another way to deal with them. And one I haven’t read yet
- I like some of the changes you made to signets they could deffo use a boost. You made lightning reflexes WAY TO powerfull, its almost an elite now?

next post of suggestions
- I don’t like the spirits you made, they feel a lot like elemental skills wrapped on the engineer backpacks, and slapped onto the ranger as an alternative. Seeing a lot of them are creative, I would advice you to leave the Elementalist realm and move onto a more nature based Druid feel, change the names to ‘marsh/bog spirit’, ‘mountain spirit’, ‘forest spirit’, ‘desert spirit’ may well give a whole lot of different skills that feel a lot more like a ranger’s. Still though, I personally do not think that using a mechanic so iconic for a certain profession (engineer backpacks) should be reutilized 1on1 on a different profession.

last list of suggestions, assortment of new ones
- Like a lot of your ‘new’ suggestions, especially the nature ones … One specific thing, ‘not being able to move while stealth’ed is absolutely not useful’ i play a thief as well and stealth does not mean you won’t be hit! Especially with the large amount of Area of Effect spells and skills, as long as people have a rough estimate of where you are, you are not at all safe

Further more, I have two questions:
- one of the things noted was that the ranger does ‘not’ have a lot of condition removal, i don’t see you deal with that.
- Another thing is that ranger do not seem to have a lot of reliable party support, I do not see you deal with that either… ? …

Soo, maybe you could change the spirits in some other way to supply party support? And or maybe some new skills could deal with that too, or nature ones, and/or condition removal.

Aveneo.2068:

thefantasticg.3984:

Frostfang.5109:

@ Arghore…. on page 60.

Game mode: PvE

If I want to be a beastmaster (which I do prefer) i want my pet to be able to stayby my side constantly as today… Not just for a period of time like a summon that dies/diapears.

If the pet would become a temporary summon, that would ruin the class totally IMO.

Funny, because IMO, making the pet a summon that dies/disappears would totally fix the class.

Actually, IMO the current pet is more like a summon that dies/disappears (becomes useless) mere moments after you enter combat.

The ranger needs a permanent (and functional) companion, or it will just be a druid with some nature magic.

@Frostfang , that is why I suggested to add a ‘companion pet’ on the pet-portrait that would de-spawn the moment you get agro. And possibly have some interesting other things on the display pet (like butterflies, bees, f/e). This would also help a lot with ‘theme building’, see, if you like certain pets for the theme they bring to you while playing. But, that pet may not be the pet that goes with my build or play style. When these two are separated, I become more of a beast master, being able to choose from multiple pets to summon, based on the situation I am in, while having a companion pet to signal my profession to the world.

This last thing is also on ANet’s mind, even though it has not been stated here. But I know it is. They want us to be able to distinguish easily between a ranger with sword/dagger and a thief with sword dagger. And seeing we are in the same armour class, the only way to do that visually is the pet. This might actually be a bigger reason to not have a perma-stow then any other reason… With a visual ‘dummy’ pet integrated into the system, that would all be solved ^^.

And lets face it, any pet you have when you are not in a fight might just as well be a dummy pet. It’s not doing anything … And it would also make it possible for people to bond with their one pet (they could put it on F1 and on Portrait f/e), while still having the opportunity to call in another pet if the situation calls for it.

@thefantasticg , I agree, f/e it would make it a lot easier to balance the pet for what it is intended to do and after that it can de-spawn. Making room for another pet to be summoned for the situation that happens to be there in 25-30 sec, or how ever long a ‘recharge’ mechanic for Necro/Warrior f/e takes. Some pets could be hugely tough, it doesn’t really matter, as they will de-spawn just as hard as a glass-cannon pet.

I also like it because it strengthens the ‘beast master’ theme, beyond the ‘boy and hit pet dragon’ or the ‘Guard and his dog’ Tropes. In favour of a more serious beast-master that can all in several different pets to his aid. And it keeps the pets as the mechanic.

@Aveneo Druid ?!? with ‘nature magic’ ?!? … I don’t know if we are talking about the same Ranger. But truly there is no Druid to be found (well maybe in muddy terrain, but beyond that ‘Druid stain’ there is hardly any Druidic action. Which may well be due to the spirits being as unreliable as the pets, I don’t even count those skills.

Nah, and that is another ‘pet peeve’ of mine about the current ranger. The ‘themes’ it has are way to weakly implemented. The pet is that, a pet, like you own a dog or a cat, or bunny. Nothing in the class truly feels like a beast master (the #4-warhorn is about the only other thing that contributes), this is also (man a lot of reasons) why I like the summon suggestion a lot. As all of a sudden there are 4 pets to be summoned and possibly commanded, add to those some shouts, and charms (signets), and there are 10-‘skill’ dedicated to beastmastery.

Then add some truly nature skills, like muddy terrain, rapid growth, roaring winds, or some of those that Opheal suggested above. And make Spirits somewhat similar but different, and you would have 7 ‘nature magic’ skills on the ranger (including heal). Then add some more and clear weapon traits, and survival skills, and the ranger gets more of that ‘bowman, woodsman’ feel to it. But before I repeat myself…

@Above…
If you would like to, you can read the suggestion including pet-traits to go with it … (and some truly nature magic skills) here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Suggestion-typed-out-for-the-CDI/first#content Feel free to give feedback

based upon more close analysis of pet behaviour

Specific Game Mode
PvX-Pet

Proposal Overview
Make ‘passive mode’ truly passive

Goal of Proposal
Not have the pet run into a fight when it is hit by something, and still act in an aggressive manner and get itself killed.

Proposal Functionality
When you put a pet on ‘passive’, it doesn’t do anything but follow you around, and perform the [F]-key skill when it is pressed. Even if this means that the pet is under full assault by some source or force it will remain as passive as Ghandi.

Associated Risks
The pet will die eventually (if it doesn’t receive heals), because it will get hit eventually by something, with the large amount of AoE that is a given. ‘BUT’ it will at least die at my side, and not run off to fight a big boss because the AoE of that boss happened to hit the pet.

this may have been mentioned already, as I missed about 15pages somewhere in the middle, but seeing I noticed this on my last couple of game sessions, and haven’t read it yet myself, I thought i’dd add it here

Seeing we are back on pets for a bit, I thought I would partially quote myself from the bottom of page ⁵⁸, and add some new things in here that have been mentioned since (or brought up again). I have removed the analysis of these suggestions, due to the fact that new additions likely made the whole thing to long…

Arghore.8340:

RECAP on PET Suggestions II (also see near bottom of page 58)
0. Remove the pet entirely and give ranger a different mechanic

1. Do what ever can be done to improve the pets functionality (various suggestions for this one, not recapping here)

2. Make ‘stow pet’ a perma stow, nothing else (bare bone stow)

3. Make ‘stow pet’ a perma stow, give rangers a straight buff to damage through stats or a specific [you have stowed your pet, +X% damage buff skill specific for rangers]

4. Make ‘stow pet’ a perma stow, give rangers a whole new F system replacing that of the pet. (be it preperations, traps, quivers)

5. Make ‘stow pet’ a perma stow, giving rangers an Aspect buff based on the pet family stowed. Each pet family would supply a different buff, and thus stowing the pet would become part of making a build.

6. Make every F-key summon a pet the Ranger choose to link to it. These pets are ‘summoned’ to assist the Ranger for a period of time and then de-spawn. For the time a pet is summoned, the F-keys could turn into the current ones (or an improved version), to give the ranger control over the pet. (could be augmented with a ‘non combatant’ pet linked to the ‘pet portrait’-button, this ‘non combatant pet’ de-spawns on agro, so combat pets can be summoned).

7. Pets become a ‘utility skill’ just like in GW1 (possibly even 3), and Rangers get a new profession mechanic.

8. When pets are put to ‘passive’ they no longer attack for any reason, their skills are changed into more supportive versions, the AI triggers on various things happening around the ranger and pet and uses the support skills. (Variation of this customization idea https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/57#post3749922 )

9. Likely I forgot a specific idea for the pet, though from memory, most other suggestions are a permutation of some of the above. Either with more details, rules to the mechanic, or a tad different functionality.

For those that like to read possible new skills, or new traits, that like to evaluate them on their own or as a whole. For those that need a break from this thread and read something else. For those that want to read what sort of pet interaction a ‘4 summoned pets on F-keys’ is possible trait wise. Or if you are just interested

I would love to invite you to this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Suggestion-typed-out-for-the-CDI/first#content and give me some feedback.

Thank you for your feedback, I wasn’t quite done with deciding on where to place which secondary stat…

Still though, this setup is created with a new profession mechanic in mind, where pets are more balanced around ‘profession mechanic’ skills, and thus Rangers receiving around a 20% increase in damage/utility back from the pets (as they are now).

Still though, I moved condi and crit damage and that helped me a lot in figuring out the actual placement of traits. I’m still not entirely happy, but on the other hand I am thrilled that I finally managed to get a trait everywhere. :P Now it’s time to hone these traits by reading over the whole thing a couple of times and letting it all sink in.

Feel free to give any feedback ^^

Chrispy.5641:

Atherakhia.4086:

Chrispy.5641:

SkiTz.4590:

Ranger is a single target DPS class, that is the unfortunate truth and would take a lot of change to make it viable in terms of doing AOE damage like eles or necros.

I’ll give you the fact that they can’t spread them to other targets (again, this class is pretty much designed only for 1v1s). Traps aren’t big enough to be considered AOE. But rangers can apply/stack them pretty quickly…maybe not stack as high as a necro but who can? My ranger builds can reapply condis pretty much at will (poison,bleeds and burns that is) yea would be nice to have access to torment or confusion

Still, the build variety would be much better if anet could actually add something to make viable power builds for our class, but there is no such thing right now outside of the joke of a swop + bash + maul combat, which any idiot can see coming. and effectively dodge/block out of it

How big do traps need to be to be considered Aoe? Traps have an effective radius of 240 when traited, which is the same size as Barrage. Is Barrage not considered Aoe to you or something? How big does it have to be to be considered Aoe?

And what about Bonfire? Whirling Defense? drakes? What the heck else do you need to be able to do Aoe? (oh, let me guess, blast finisher like Thief shortbow….)

(oh, and necromancer marks are the same size as traps until you trait them to be bigger as well)

Take it in context. We were talking about AE application of condis between classes. Are you implying Ranger is even a contender when placed next to Engineers and Necros? Cause I have news for you… it’s not. It’s about on par with Warriors but can’t stack bleed to eleventybillion in .5 seconds every 5 seconds like a Warrior can.

Settle down…

…

Here’s my trap build :::http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMEQRAnf3XjMqUuaHLerw1agYpQQ7vpITmn9wQO6RlcnoA-zECBYhDimWAgqI0k0Q5QFRjtaqIasqbY6YER1BAQA2ZdWnBYn7co7coJFAMLrA-w

It is my most used build, and I use it in PvE and WvW, and it is equally effective against all professions, and it is my 2nd highest dps build because I can hit multiple targets at once with almost all of my attacks, unlike, just about everything else the Ranger has.

So no, I won;t ‘settle down’, and yes, I am a little touchy when people try to suggest changes to traps, but fail to explain why beyond “Uh….it deals condition damage, so, it should be in wilderness survival…right?” (why do you want to move damage to a trait line that almost entirely focused on defense and force us to choose between one or the other?) or “It should deal more physical damage,…because, uh, BURST!” (which it shouldn’t because all skills have a maximum dps to consider when balancing. If traps dealt more physical damage, then the conditions would have to be nerfed because of gear stats like Rampager.) You should consider what Crit Chance and Sharpened Edges does for Traps before you go off blindly making suggestions to change it.

from a post a lil.further down
Also @everyone reading my posts, don’t get too angry at my posts for being the lone wolf pushing back against almost all of the proposed trap changes. Its just that it is one of my most used builds (probably most used), it is very effective, and I really don’t see why Rabid/Rampager/other crit gear has to essentially be less optimized and take a nerf to traps, just so other builds (anything without crit and condition damage) can be optimized for traps. It doesn’t make sense to nerf one only to buff the other. (I still think that moving traps to Wilderness Survival is a nerf to Ranger survival in general, because if you run any trap at all, you now have to choose between survival traits and traps, or conflicting traits like off-hand training.)

You are certainly not the only one looking at these suggestions with a raised eyebrow. I run a rather similar build to yours, but with warhorn and less focussed on max condition application. I would be less hit with a switch to Wilderness, due to not using throwing traps, and likely my play-style is a tad different. But I agree with you on most accounts where you defend traps being in the line they are now.

In my ‘in the ranger subforum’ suggestion for the CDI I tried to make more clear that traps are suitable for the critline by giving traps a ‘pulse’ action on trigger. Traps would pulse a bit of damage and condition application, meaning it is now more clear that traps supply crit.triggers. And due to the pulse action, PvP players get the option to use a dodge to negate some of the trap action, which somewhat justifies the addition of some damage, while at the same time giving the ranger a reason to imob/chill/cripple in a trap. (just don’t check the suggestion now, traps there are currently in the wilderness line :O , they may not be eventually though. )

Aidenwolf.5964:

Frostfang.5109:

Arghore

U’r suggestion on Permastowing the pets and making them utility-skills….

NO thank u. That would ruin the entire class for me.

Then don’t stow your pet. The pet stow mechanic that is already built into the game changes the UI to remove F1-F4 completely. What is proposed is that the pet UI F1-F4 become something else when the pet is stowed, such as traps (my idea), and that the 30% base damage given to the pet be given to the ranger.

Again, if you don’t want to stow your pet, don’t. Permastow adds to the ranger if you stow, or plays exactly like what we have now if you like your ranger as it is now.

We are trying to get changes to the ranger that are both meaningful and easy to code because I for one don’t want to wait 6 months for a fix to a problem that is already 1.5 years old.

@Frostfang I would like to know which one you mean? suggestion #4 or #5 (from the post linked below). Now it so happens that I suggested both (though more then likely not exclusively, aka. more people may have suggested a similar suggestion, so credit where it is due please, aka. I will not accept full credit (or blame if you so desire) for these suggestions.)

4. is the one where 4 pets become linked to the F-keys, and you summon them for a period of time.

5. is basically how pets worked in GW1, with the difference that they now come with some of their own attacks.

I personally prefer #4 at the moment, mainly because it introduces something new (this is GW2 by all means), and somebody else (sorry that I forgot your name, and didn’t include that specific addition in my summary, I fixed that) suggested that once you summoned the pet of your choice, for the time the pet is up, the F-keys could turn into the current F-keys and let you have more control over the pet you summoned. I prefer it also because I favour ‘CHOICE’ over perma-pet/perma-stow positions, and #4 is the closest to a solution that has perma-stow, could come with a perma-pet (be it only a visual indicator of a ranger), and still keeps the pets the class mechanic of the Ranger (which seems to be high on the wish list for Anet). In this sense it is the suggestion that does the most for all those involved (except for those that want nothing to change, and trust on the a fix to pets to be sufficient, which I doubt will be the case else it would be fixed by now).

@Aidenwolf please read this post, if you haven’t already: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/58#post3750947 there are more then one options to deal with the pet, and a possible stow mechanic. Yours basically adds another, or you could see it as a different way to supply a bonus to a stow, though giving a whole new F-mechanic is more akin to a whole new suggestion.

Man this is turning out to be more work then I thought, and a long read too :P … I am getting there though, slowly but surely. Must say that the way I envisioned Nature Magic, Spirits and Beastmastery with the Summon mechanic made it a lot easier to fill in the traits. Now I am struggling with dealing with 11 weapons, and 3 kinds of damage (straight up, crits & conditions) and also with the 3 ranges. They are supposed to go on the Power/Skirmish/Wilderness catagories, but what to put where and are my secondary stat effects in the right place for that? …

Feels like a puzzle where it’s not just putting the pieces in the right spot, but you have to make up the pieces as you go. And while that sounds simple in a puzzle analogy, it’s a lot harder in this ‘puzzle’ :P

RECAP on PET Suggestions
-1. Remove the pet entirely and give ranger a different mechanic

0. Do what ever can be done to improve the pets functionality (various suggestions for this one, not recapping here)

1. Make ‘stow pet’ a perma stow, nothing else (bare bone stow)

2. Make ‘stow pet’ a perma stow, give rangers a straight buff to damage through stats or a specific [you have stowed your pet, +X% damage buff skill specific for rangers]

3. Make ‘stow pet’ a perma stow, giving rangers an aspect buff based on the pet family stowed.

4. Make every F-key summon a pet the Ranger choose to link to it. These pets are ‘summoned’ to assist the Ranger for a period of time and then de-spawn.
(could be augmented with a ‘non combatant’ pet linked to the ‘pet portrait’-button, this ‘non combatant pet’ de-spawns on agro, so combat pets can be summoned). For the time a pet is summoned, the F-keys could turn into the current ones, to give the ranger control over the pet.

5. Pets become a ‘utility skill’ just like in GW1 (possibly even 3), and Rangers get a new profession mechanic.

6. Likely I forgot a specific idea for the pet, though from memory, most other suggestions are a permutation of some of the above. Either with more details, rules to the mechanic, or a tad different functionality.

Analysis of the Suggestions
-1. So many people would dislike this, that even for most ‘stow favourable’ rangers, this is not an option. But hey, it was suggested.

0. Should be done anyways, for those that do not want a stow, or to improve reliability of #4. It would increase creatures around Tyria as well, likely increasing our gameplay. (a full separated AI rework is said to be very unlikely). This may not solve the issue entirely, and doesn’t offer a solution to ‘other wants’ expressed in this CDI.

1. Sounds like the least amount of work, would be great for jumping puzzles, doesn’t do much else really, and makes the Ranger loose 25-35% effectiveness (if not more) if used in combat, due to various traits and skills being less function, weapon effects not being used, and obviously the pet not doing anything.

2 & 3. Are somewhat the same, with the difference that the aspect idea is far more elaborate and interesting as a game mechanic. While #2 is pretty much not more than a rough work-around the pet. Still though, both these mechanics suffer from the same setbacks as #1, traits not working, weapon combos with pet not working. #3-aspects may also complicate things for newer users, all of a sudden the profession mechanic has 2 things going on.

4. Increases the amount of pets available to the ranger from 2 on a swap to 4 on a cool-down, it has an inherent stow mechanic in it. It would add an element of surprize. It can be combined with a non-combatant pet that could display way more animals than can be used in combat (bees, butterflies, parrot, minis even). A lot of the traits can stay as they are, and serve to improve the pet when it is called upon, if the user traits for them. The pet can be balanced more according to a profession mechanic, as the pet is only active for a certain duration, and could be made a lot sturdier as well due to the cool down. Weapon combos only reduce effectiveness on pet cool down (which comes close to them being now, if two pets die and you are left without a pet for a minute). And with an addition of a swap to the F-keys to control keys to the pet, it stays very close to the original mechanic.

5. Would solve most things too, pets just become a choice, the traits would still work as would traiting for beast mastery. Controlling the pet(s) would be a lot harder though, as a new mechanic would take over the F-keys. Likely on the following functionality would be possible. A pet window in the UI would let you slot a pet to a signet. When you load the signet on the bar the pet is there. The signet itself would function as a toggle, for ‘aggressive/heel’ functionality, and shouts would be used to further ‘utilize’ the pet. It would keep it’s own skills but they would all be AI controlled. If the pet dies, the skill could go into a recharge and turn into a resurrect pet.

Now to me the choice is fairly obvious at this moment at least, but feel free to form your own opinion. Just make sure that when you talk about pets, you talk about all solutions and not just those that fit the point you want to make. It felt somewhat silly to read those 2 pages, going over merely 2 solution to the pet, as if it was the end all. I do not blame those participating though, hey 58 pages so far, I am fairly sure I miss about 20 somewhere in the middle… HENCE, I give you this small recap, now you are up to speed on the options for a ‘perma stow’ and you can discuss them honestly next to each other.

Substance E.4852:

The problem is that beast/minionmaster is an entire class identity unto itself. Shoehorning 2-3 different class designs into one body is what is causing a lot of our problems. We could be an archer/woodsman, a druid, or a beastmaster but we don’t have enough focus on any of them to perform those roles well. Beastmaster also suffers from the obvious limitations of the games unifiorm mob AI.

That is not true! If the F’s were 4 pet summons there would be more of a beast master vibe. If there would be a nature magic group the druids likely be fine, and with a bit of effort going into power there would be a viable archer.

The real problem is the ‘tag-team’ idea, which sounded nice on paper but doesn’t work at all! … See the best we could ever be is McGyver tag teaming with Justin Beaver, and just imagine them in a Pro-wrestling team, up against just a single wrestler like f/e Hulk Hogan (I know, it’s been ages since I seen any of that). McGyver in a ring without things to work with, and J.Beaver dire to get into any sort of trouble.

The mental image I get from that is J.Beaver dry humping Hogan’s leg, like its Selena Gomez. And Hogan holding off McGyver at arms legth by the head while he is franticly trying to hit Hogan. And you know it’s only going to get worse for the two of them from there on out.

And to be frank, that isn’t even that far off of how the Ranger feels like playing in various game formats. So, realy, I would rather be an Archer, Woodsman, Beastmaster, Druid rolled into one ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Suggestion-typed-out-for-the-CDI/first#content ) then to be this dysfunctional tag-team monstrosity.

And now that I am on this, I don’t want to feel like McGyver with a J.Beaver tag-team. I would rather like to feel like Chuck Norris, with the A-team on [F]-speeddial. Even if that meant I could only call upon 1 A-team member at a time…

@Berk,
The first comment I have already answered too in my response to Drarnor. I think they are not there because they may well be to strong?

The second, ok yeah, didn’t entirely follow the conversation, did think about piercing but figured that only be truly helpful in bunched up places, so yeah WvW … and I fully understand and also am a bit sad about the whole stat situation. Personally I feel ‘we’ went backwards on that one, when coming from GW1 :/ … what about throwing in Quickening instead of Quick draw? … because you should realize that when slotting throwing traps you will be doing that too, and might only need a quicker bow while your traps are on cooldown.

So 30/30/… 10 somewhere… with bow, spring, 2 traps, quickening.
Keen Edge, Piercing, Remorseless, Sharpen, Expertise, Potency, something…
Put a warhorn on your swap, for added speed and fury/might, combo with spring or any other WvW blast need of the moment. Focus stats on power, condition damage or duration, ignore the crit.damage stat on traps, you just need the investment for the traits. And grab a bear so you can mostly ignore it too…

I can see how it’s not optimal, you would likely rather go 30/20/30, focus on bow and traps, condition duration and damage… and playing WvW on my ranger, i have played it somewhat like this, but then 10/30/20/10/0 which is my axe/trap setup, mostly with zerker gear, and toughness trinkets (2 are ‘all stats’ as well as 2 travelers’, and 4 lyssa). I just equipped a bow and basically switch in the throw traps. Other set is Axe, warhorn.

So i can see where you are coming from… especially since, well, objectively spoken it is currently the only somewhat possibly reliable WvW build, where you can actually do something that has some sort of impact that seems to feel it’s related to what everybody else is doing in WvW. And i should likely put somewhat viable here too just for good measure :P

Thing is though, I would rather see other things added (or changed) to give us more viable builds in WvW. Though I fear that if traps move to wilderness, that condition damage moves to skirmish. It may improve the situation somewhat. And i could likely alter my build a bit, just not to sure about any other trapper builds… or condition builds for that matter…

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Arghore.8340:

OR what am I missing here?

Thematically, traps belong in Wilderness Survival (you know, snaring wild game to get food?). In addition, all of the traps in GW1 were Wilderness Survival-governed.

By a happy accident, Wilderness Survival is also the condition damage line, which helps make the traps better.

You do realize that that may well be an additional reason as to why traps are ‘not’ in the wilderness line. And that, where they have been in the wilderness line, that condition damage would have likely been on skirmishing instead…

@Aria , because if traps were ground targeted by default, they would be a big pain to use in any close range or medium range skirmish fight. There is just no time for the extra ‘place the trap’ and in those ranges there is also no real use for them being thrown. Hope you will trust me on that, coming from an Axe trapper…

Chrispy.5641:

Berk.8561:

I did some sample builds in a build editor and to really do the trap build right, I’d also have to drain the Marksmanship trait line, since it doesn’t add to Condition damage at all, which reduces Power and eliminates all of the traits that would make a bow worthwhile to use. It would be nice if the Trap traits actually added to Condition Damage instead of Precision (useless with traps) and Critical Damage (also useless with traps). If the trap traits were in the Wilderness Survival line that added Condition Damage (which actually goes with traps) and Toughness, I would work much better and I wouldn’t have to sacrifice every bow trait to optimize the trap part of the build, just Quick Draw.

True stuff said here…

I also want to point out that ‘maybe’ the reason why traps are in the skirmish line is because they are intended for skirmish kind of battle?

But, if you choose your weapons and your skills, and to those you add those traits that maximize (within the boundaries) the thing you want to do with those weapons.
For the build you seem to want, I myself would likely go 20/30/20/0/0, with:
Marks
- Keen Edge
- Eagle Eye
Skirm
- Sharpened edges
- Quick draw
- Trap Potency
Wilderness
- Expertise training
- w/e (or spend these w/e you want – f/e nature magic and “nature’s bounty”)

- fix some more condition damage with armour, trinkets and weapons

Two bows, healing, two traps, sharpening stone, entangle
Likely use spiketrap & firetrap; seeing most foes go for melee range, you pull them with bow, sharpening stone + rapid fire, switch bows, cast traps at your feet, hit poison volley, few steps back, traps spring, hit quickshot, either do some crossfire/concussion, or switch bows for barrage, and another rapid with sharpening stone (if it doesn’t trigger from the trait by now). Type /laugh and find something new to kill ?

Sure with the build you will have very little heal or boons, but if you pick some nice condi armour that reads like a pretty nice bow/condi/trap build to me ? And if all goes wrong you hit Entangle and have some time to regain momentum (or run, or use invis on longbow)… ?

OR what am I missing here?

Specific Game Mode
PvX, mostly WvW.

Proposal Overview
Make spirits non-targetable, reliable, long range (1200 or so), short lasting, AoE anchors.

Goal of Proposal
Spirits right now are fairly unreliable in their effect when not traited, but even then their impact is almost negligible. They can be killed, which, in the AoE rich environment that GW2 is, combined with a lot of really hard hitting powers, makes them even more unreliable. Both to the point where only spirit of frost is used for it’s bugged nature (from what I understand), and spirits themselves are used not for their designed function but as ‘walls’ to hide behind in sPvP. Spirits also foster a somewhat ‘passive’ play style, especially when their ‘trigger’ can be traited ‘on death’.

The goal thus becomes to change this, and to give spirits ‘back’ their impactful nature they are renowned for, to all those that know GW1. And add a bit more ‘attention demanding’ to them.

Proposal Functionality
Spirits are non-targetable, long range (1200 or so), AoE anchors, they also provide a combo field. They can be ‘changed’ to provide an additional (different) effect. The spirits are also renamed, to provide a different thematic feel (as opposed to the Elementalist feel they have now). This idea was copy/pasted from: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Suggestion-typed-out-for-the-CDI/first#content hence there are only 3 spirits and 1 healing skill.

Krytan spirit – Spirit (this spirit can’t be a target and lives for 7sec, on a 25sec couldown.)
Summon a krytan spirit that grants all allies in range a 40/40% chance on regeneration /or remove a condition on attack. The area around the spirit (trap size) is a water field.
-> Evaporate – disgard your spirit, the spirit gives off 5 pulses (1/sec) that heal allies, during ‘this time’ the area around the spirit (trap size) turns into a smoke field.

Shiverpeak Spirit (this spirit can’t be a target and lives for 5sec, on a 30sec cool down.)
Summon a Shiverpeak spirit, the spirit grants allies in range a 33/33% chance to knockdown /or remove stability from foes. The area around the spirit (trap size) is an ice field.
-> Avalange – the shiverpeak spirit releases 3 pulses of chill (1st, 3rd, 5th sec) to foes in range, during ‘this time’ the area around the spirit turns into lightning field.

Crystal Desert Spirit (this spirit can’t be a target and lives for 5 sec, on a 30sec cool down)
Summon a Crystal Desert Spirit, the spirit grants allies in range a 33/33% chance to inflict blind /or burning on attack, a small area around the spirit (trap size) is a light field.
-> Ablaze – the Crystal Desert Spirit releases 3 pulses of fire (1st, 3rd, 5th sec) to foes in range, during ‘this time’ the area around the spirit turns into a fire field.

Maguma Spirit (this spirit can’t be a target and lives for 5 sec, on a 25sec cool down)
Summon a Maguma Spirit, the spirit grants allies in range a 33/33% chance to apply weakness /or vulnerability, a small area around the spirit (trap size) is a water field.
-> Quicksand – the Maguma spirit releases 3 pulses torment (1st, 3rd, 5th sec) to foes in range, during ‘this time’ the small area around the spirit (trap size) turns into a dark field.

Associated Risks
- I may have made them to strong.
- I will have to mention that I may not have their balance (up times, recharge, effect% etc) entirely right yet.
- I haven’t formulated the traits to go with them, but ideas were to increase % to 50/50 (likely as grandmaster), to increase their uptime OR reduce their recharge (as master choices). To give them ‘summon at target location’ functionality (likely also master, maybe adept). And likely some other minor improvements, f/e make the combo-field on the activation a traited function instead of a basefeature.

- Lastly, these spirits may have a game changing effect on WvW , with multiple Rangers around and various spirits popping up (or continued functionality in coordinated groups), I do not see this as a risk though, I designed them specifically to impact large group content, and I think they may give Rangers a well deserved feature for WvW, while not impacting sPvP to much.

@Afoot , various other rangers have elaborated on your question (for which I thank them). I have nothing more to add really except maybe why I am apposed to adding spirits to pets, as some sort of aura on the pet.

1. Foremost, both the pet as well as the spirits seem to be the most unreliable (they can die fairly quickly) sets of Ranger ‘features’. Combining the two will not change that at all. It will only mean that now instead of two squishy targets there will be just ONE.

2. (resulting in) The ranger gets even more penalized for being a ranger, not only will 30% of his damage be dead, but also his spirits. While this may not matter much in the grand scope of them being equally unreliable, it will surely increase the frustration over the pet.

3. Even more defining features of the GW1 ranger get tossed aside. Although, in GW1 the spirits were highly impactful area of effect anchors (something like ‘global enchantments in MtG). Right now they are, well either some sort of Theme enabler (where a ranger likes to walk around with spirits), or they are a ’defending wall’ for as far as sPvP goes (and yes, defender, wall are words I choose from MtG as well). They are by no means ’highly impactful AoE Anchors.

4. Instead of spirits adding aura’s to pets, there is a much simpler and much more effective and much more benefitting way to change spirits: Make them nontargetable, short lasting, reliable in effect, long range (1000 or so), AoE anchors. also see the next suggestion I am putting up.

5. It solves nothing, while I like the idea for its creativity (just for being ‘an idea’), there are other more serious issues to solve than adding auras to pet through a rework of spirits. And by solving nothing I am sort of back to 1. & 2. the pet’s reliability doesn’t magically increase through the addition of auras, nor does the reliability of spirits. Solving the other issues should (in my point of view) be more important.

Yoh.8469:

Proposal Overview
Change pet’s from being Always On to Summons.
This means having individual durations, cast time and cooldown.

SNIP all sorts of stuff i agree with…

I wondered if to this could be added a strictly visual pet, to signify that the character is a Ranger. This pet would be solely a visual identifier, it wouldn’t draw agro trick anything, or do anything but ‘be there’. It would actually de-spawn if the ranger were to get drawn into a fight or hit, to make room for the summoned pets. It would, by all means, be nothing more than ‘a pet’. A ranger could also set a visual cue pet that works best with the theme (s)he wan’t to go with, or the RP idea (s)he has for the Ranger. But (s)he wouldn’t have to use this specific pet in combat, if it were not suited for the desired play style.

Something along the lines off:

[F1][F2][F3][F4][A/P*][Visual Pet selection]

- F1-4 would have 4 pets assigned to it.
- A/P would be a toggle for Aggressive/Passive (heel)
- And the current pet picture would give the option to select a pet as a visual cue.

If there would be merely visual cue pets, ANet could design a whole lot of pets (or even assign in-game creatures, not necessarily being pets that can be used in the pet system) that could visually represent pets to the ranger class. While at first this might seem confusing, I am fairly sure it’s easily picked up by everyone.

Another thing that just struck me in regards to doing a ‘summon’ instead of a ‘always there pet’, is that the ranger gains a bit more vertical progression through this system. The Ranger obviously starts out with one pet, which is set to both the visual cue as well as the F1 key. As the ranger ‘charms’ more pets, he gets to fill up the whole F1-4 bar with them, and after that actually start to pick and choose.

idevourwater.3149:

I would like to see ranger playing an interrupt disrupter role …
More dazes and stuns, and have skills that deal more damage to people who are interrupted or under a cc ( this would promote more skill and less spamming)
If we go this route, Devs need to address for the fact that asura has an extra long daze compared to other race for possible balancing concern

I were to suggest you take a look at page1 and use the appropriate format for suggestions. Not that the suggestion is bad, but without the correct format it will get lost in-a-mids the general discussion

@Tobias, I wanted to mention that I think this is one of the better [F]-key suggestions to improve control over the pet. Didn’t get to that yesterday, so I wanted to mention it now

Pet Active/Alive
F1 – Lock Target
F2 – Activate F2/Offensive Skill
F3 – Block (Pet channels for 2s and will block an attack made during that time.)
F4 – Heel/Switch Pets (Heel if in an attack animation, Switch if not. Pets may be switched again in 30 seconds after a switch.)
(Can still toggle Attack/Guard separately)

Pet Inactive/Dead
F1 – Call of Vengeance (Gain a damage bonus for the next 3 attacks, pet heal timer reset. Cooldown 20s)
F2 – Comfort Animal (Restore 25% health to the pet and it gets up.)
F4 – Switch Pets (Dead pet may return in 30s)

Basically letting the F# buttons have more control over a living pet, and letting you help a dead pet back up quicker.

Chrispy.5641:

Arghore.8340:

idea to put pets on F1-4 as summoned allies

I don’t like this idea, because there is no way I can see Anet keeping our wide diverse set of pets with the amount of work they would have to do overhauling pretty much everything to make this a reality. I see them reducing our pet selection down to 4, 1 for each F key, and then giving them very specific functions, like what the Mesmer or Guardian F Mechanic does now.

If that is the case, then I do not support this idea, because it gives us a much smaller toolbox to play with no matter how you look at it.

I full heartedly agree with you, doing it that way would be horrible!

Though I can see them doing it like the suggestion intended to work:
when out of combat
- click on Each of the F-keys to set a pet to it (from the current selection of pets), or a lil-triangle above the F-key gives access (like normal skills have), or there could be a pet UI window (most work) that lets you set pets to each F-key.

when in combat
- the F-keys get locked
- pressing an F-key ‘summons’ the pet linked to it.
- when the pet is summoned, the skill changes to the current F-key-skill associated with the pet.
- all other F-keys get ‘locked’ or as per Yoh’s suggestion, the whole interface changes to the current setup for the time the pet is up.
- when the ‘pet-uptime’ is over, or the pet dies, the summon system goes into cool down.

As far as work goes
- Most of the ‘modules’ that accomplish this UI-behaviour are already Coded.
- The ‘thing that isnt’ is an ‘uptime’ for the pet, which can likely be copied from another class (lots to choose from) and added to the pet.
- Depending on whether there is just one ‘control-pet-mode’ to ‘aggressive/heel passive’ or a full pet control on pet summon. There is more or less work, though the control part is also already made…

- As far as skills and traits go (while not having gone through them extensively, I glanced over a bunch yesterday though), those that I saw didn’t really have to be changed. A lot of heals and weapon additions for the pet can work just as well with the summon, a lot of traits would also benefit the summon. The only set and functionality that strikes me are the ones that deal with pet-swapping. But with the new mechanic it is pretty clear what these should turn into, traits that assist the ranger or pet, on summon, on despawn, or deal with recharge time, uptime of pet, or otherwise improve or slightly change the new system.

- Actually, apart from a ‘stow pet is indefinite until the stow pet button is hit again’, the Ranger gets a an overall buff (stats * X). The suggestion to make pets summons seems to be way less work than creating aura’s on a stow option, or add spirits to pets (which I personally don’t like at all, but that’s some other discussion) and also a lot less work then fully recoding the pet-AI. Though some improvements to the current AI would also benefit these ‘summons’ behaviour, as apart from the way they are brought into the game world, they would be governed by the exact same AI ‘obviously’…