Guild Wars 2

Neverender.7581:

I for one do not like it. This is just the first of what will surely be many more universal skills to come. If we start adding universal skills, then what is the point of having professions?

You do realize there are already tons of skills that aren’t specific to professions right? Further, the point to professions would be their class mechanics, utilities, and weapons. Having universal skills doesn’t remove the other utilities/heals that you do have, it’s just more choice. Further, no universal skills will get rid of the primary class mechanics behind each class (Necro DS, Mesmer Clones/shatter, Elementalist attunement, etc…).

Meridian.8730:

There should be NO build in the gw2 system that a person can stand still in 1v1 dueling and only heal occasionally, and never die. Warrior, Ranger, Guardian can do this.

Guardians that can do this almost always have to constantly be rolling and standing still is usually a bad idea.

There should be NO build in the entire gw2 system that is completely unbeatable by all builds of some other class.

And there are NONE.

[quote=3072541;Meridian.8730:][quote][quote]

kingcragus.6810:

Hahahaa YES! I love this thread. My thief is nearly 80 now. Can’t wait to grief some pve kittenface

You might want to get that looked at. Kind of sad that you just want to make others not have fun.

Eh, I’m split on this. I don’t like that play style and actively avoid it, but that’s because I prefer being nice to folks and try to even help my enemies in Obsidian. It’s WvW, that’s to be expected and so it’s fair in my mind (even if I personally disapprove).

Ultrajoe.8674:

How does this apply to Trahearne?

… (message body length, I’m responding to everything removed as well)

In a lesser manner, Trahearne’s relative uselessness as an NPC companion does a similar job of undermining his believably as a military leader with a magic sword as his flat affect does for his commanding rank.

But who contested this? It seems that you’re attacking straw men, and perhaps intentionally leading the topic away from my point. I never said Trahearne’s performance wasn’t bad, it was. I said his voice acting was serviceable even if it was not good. There’s a significant difference between the voice acting of Trahearne and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bangt7d9vGA

You say the player is the hero of the story, because we are showered with accolades after victories. I think this is ignoring entirely the issue of agency.

No, this isn’t what I said it all, but okay, let’s get on to your points…

In our personal story up until the introduction of Trahearne, the player character is depicted as a very active agent, both in the narrative and in terms of player choices. The player determines much of their direction within the story, and on a closer level their character expresses expertise and awareness. The early Asura quests are a perfect example of a very active character. The player character injects ideas, objections and observations directly into conversations on their own initiative.

Agreed, and this persists (albeit in a somewhat diminished form) up until the last few personal missions. You’re actually given more control over what missions you go on during the later part of the game than during, for example, the pact. Your character not only makes more decisions, but plays a more “in charge” role as in many missions you’re the highest ranking character around. Even when you’re not, Trahearne often takes on a somewhat subordinate position and lets you do the leading.

Low-level Asuras surprise others with their actions…

This agency and initiative vanishes with the introduction of Trahearne.

And the example you give is really bad for one reason, your Asuran isn’t part of the military and insubordination is flat out expected in Asuran culture (even if frowned upon at times). You absolutely cannot have that in a military situation. Further, this criticism of yours isn’t even necessarily Trahearne related, so much as it is pact related. Unless we were literally the highest ranking person in the entire military, your criticism would still go through (even if Trahearne didn’t exist).

The player is not in control of their own actions, they lack agency, the stuff of heroes. The player does not input anything to the story, they are actors in the unfolding story of the pact, and by extension Trahearne. It is not their own.

This is actually false. Repeatedly the player not only advises Trahearne/the military. The player is given more control over the missions he partakes in as there are more branching paths later in the story (which directly requires the player to be calling some shots int he story). Further, there are entire mission ARCS dedicated pretty much only to the player (the ones selected by telling the Pale Tree your fear, or the ones where you select which pact operation to go along with).

To put it another way; Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Standing in opposition to an unsatisfied majority and telling them they simply don’t understand is missing the point.

Firstly, it is yet to be demonstrated that the majority is unsatisfied, as it is a well known fact that forums are the vocal minority. From the forums, you’d think this games sucks, is dead, and is horrible. Yet, the game is growing, it has a huge standing population, is critically acclaimed and even has a massive user score on Metacritic. Forums are not a necessarily good sample because they’re OPT IN, that’s statistics 101, literally.

Finally, I’m not discussing the story, I’m discussing Trahearne, so the last bit of your paragraph is pointless. I think the reactions to Trahearne are incredibly overdramatic and poorly thought out. I’m here to show that there are counter arguments, not try to prove that people’s opinions are wrong. Think what you will, I’m debunking bad argumentation, not trying to change overall opinions.

Stooperdale.3560:

To the OP, in one sense you are right that the credit does go to the players and nobody gives Trahearne any rewards (forgetting that players do actually find Cadalbolg in the Sylvari personal story and the Pale Tree gives it to Trahearne instead). However in terms of story advancement, the story that advances is Trahearne’s. The pact commander is pretty much the pact commander all the way through and that’s it. Do you make any friends and alliances in the personal story? No you tend to make friends with Trahearne’s friends and work with them. The story of Trahearne advances with the Pale Tree, Cadalbolg, creation of the Pact, establishing Fort Trinity, his Wyld Hunt, and the cleansing of Orr, etc. Trahearne is not in the Arah story dungeon but that is in a different story, the story of Destiny’s Edge.

Going to have to disagree here. The operations into Orr weren’t only for Trahearne’s Wyld Hunt, they were about combating Zhaitan. True, Trahearne’s Wyld Hunt figures significantly into that, but it’s not about that until the very end. Also, I don’t see how your point when you say that you make friends with all of Trahearne’s friends. One, I don’t think that’s true, two, even if it were true it seems to be relatively unimportant. Whether or not they’re friends with Trahearne doesn’t seem to have much of a bearing on the overall topic.

1) That doesn’t in any way follow that Trahearne being placed in command is inappropriate because you played a very significant role in uniting the pact. It just doesn’t follow. Further, stories don’t need to conform to your expectations. You may have expected that you’d get the leadership role, but that doesn’t mean you should have.

2) I completely agree! This is not a “GW2 sucks” thread, this is purely for discussing Trahearne. They sort of threw us into an order in a very weird way. I think we all expected to be joining an order, really, but IMO the joining should have taken place AFTER you squashed the threat. They could have all simply offered to let you join and you pick after, you literally wouldn’t have to change anything else. You could even still have the choice on who to side with in the last mission. That would have been much better.

3) That’s actually false as Trahearne is a very studied scholar and would understand how wars are to be waged. Remember, he’s trusted highly by all of the orders including the Vigil, that means he has must have a good deal of battle experience. Further, Trahearne’s knowledge proves useful all throughout your journey (e.g. choosing your base of operations).

4) What? If Zhaitan didn’t die and it were cleansed he would just corrupt it again… Of course Zhaitan has to die or it’ll all be wasted.

5) Right, and that’s a fault with GW2, but you do still get credit for killing Zhaitan. Destinies Edge says as much on your return to Fort Trinity, next time you play through the story speak with them. Again, we’re not discussing how bad the rest of GW2 is, only as it directly pertains to Treahearne. My point goes through regardless of how much you hated that final mission. You’re credited with accomplishing the greatest feat thus far in GW2: killing Zhaitan.

This was not a personal quest because not only was your presence entirely superfluous but also because your character might not even participate. Furthermore the focus isn’t on your character but on Destiny’s Edge who actually come out of nowhere and remain in the limelight throughout the entire instance.

Alright, you can keep spouting off factually inaccurate statements. A personal story mission is what it is, and this is a personal story mission. If you think it shouldn’t have been, take it up with Anet. Until then, you’ve been shown to be incorrect on this point. It is a personal story mission and there is no room for discussion on that point.

Ellisande.5218:

And how do you suppose one acquires the experience needed to be a general? The experience needed to be a diplomat? A negotiator?

Rhetorical question, I presume. This does, in no way, indicate that we assumed any qasi-leadership position. You’re shifting it from “we assumed a leadership position” to “we showed leadership qualities”. They’re not the same.

It isn’t by being thrust into that position the moment that the army is ready to head off to war. You do it in pieces, steadily progressing to ever greater responsiblity.

Right, but you sort of have to get to a point where you’re actually high ranking before you’re given a leadership position. Dude, after everything you go through before joining one of the orders, you become a recruit. That should tell you right there, you have a long way to go.

In essence it felt like your character was being groomed for the role of Pact Leader. And suddenly when the moment arrives to choose a Pact leader, who gets chosen?

It’s not sudden at all, you’re actually given a good deal of forewarning. Further, the decision itself is quite rational. Finally, you should have known you couldn’t lead the pact, you were a member of one of the orders (which excluded you by default).

The character that we have seen already filling a position that would lead to being the Pact Leader (our character)? Nope, it goes to Trahearne who has no demonstrated leadership experience or ability and it goes to Trahearne simply because he was there and was the only person who wasn’t part of an order. Trahearne thus usurps the position that our character had already filled during the earlier levels and that’s how he steals our story.

Actually, Trahearne had demonstrated copious amounts of ability and competence. He’s one of the only (if not THE, I can’t remember if anyone else did) people who has regularly gone to Orr and returned. He’s also one two people known to have survived an encounter with Zhaitan personally. He has spent all of his life learning about Zhaitan/Orr. It’s natural that he would take a leadership position in the pact.

His mission also steals our story as he replaces “kill Zhaitain” with “cleanse Orr.”

There is no replacement… It’s a stop along the way, and objective before THE objective, a side quest. Last time I checked, you do Kill Zhaitan (or boy do I have a vivid imagination, as well as a loose grip on reality).

But cleansing Orr was never our goal, killing Zhaitain to save our homelands is. Cleansing Orr also happens to be the very last personal story mission, as killing Zhaitain is a 5 player instance where there is only a 20% chance that your character will be the one that speaks.

That’s actually factually false. “Victory or Death” is a personal story mission that requires you do a 5 man dungeon, but it is a personal story mission nonetheless. It has the green tracker, shows up in your journal, and is counted as such on the wiki. It is a personal story mission, regardless of your feelings of it.

sirflamesword.3896:

Out of that whole article THIS is the thing they have to understand the most IMO:
“People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is. Especially watch out for the ones who tell you that nobody understands your genius.
Honestly, this is going to sound horrible, but self-doubt is one of your most powerful tools for craftsmanship. None of the designers you admire feel self-confident about their work in that way. None of them think that they are awesome. They all suffer from impostor complexes the size of the Titanic.
I am not saying that you need to lack confidence in yourself. (Heck, you’ll never put anything out if that’s the case! You need to have the arrogance to assume anyone will care in the first place). I am saying that nobody is ever done learning, and people who tell you you have arrived will give you a sense of complacency. You should never be complacent about your art.”

Edit: I actually think I’m going to save that article and quote this every time some rabid fanboy freaks out on someone’s good ideas.

This is completely wrong and backwards. If you don’t have people telling you when you’re doing an awesome job, you’ll mess it all up. Look at SWG. Basically, one patch ruined the entire thing. If more people had spoke up and told them they liked things the way they were, SWG might still be alive and kicking today.

I’m sorry, this is so wrong and quite insulting. The people who tell you you’re “awesome” are just as right as the people that say there’s something wrong with the game. This guy defeats himself when he says that everyone who dislikes your game is right. If that is true, then the reverse is equally true.

Ellisande.5218:

Arius.7031:

If that’s incorrect, could you be more specific.

Perhaps you are the one who needs to be more specific.

Ironically, I need you to be more specific about what I should be more specific about…

During the first half of Act 2, second half of Act 1, you and the three orders work together to resolve some problem that arose because of Zhaitain. When you are working with the three orders they are presenting you with ideas and thoughts they have on how to resolve the situation and you choose which option you think will work out best (but this is a false dichotomy as there is no reason why you can’t do both options) making sure not to step on anyone’s toes and keeping things civil knowing that everyone wants to get a word in and not feel forgotten or less important than the other delegates. Once you get to the last quest in this chain your choice of which option to use in resolving the situation suddenly solidifies your position in one of the orders in exclusion of the others even though this choice was exactly like the other choices you had been making which in no way lead to you joining one of the orders.

Okay, and how is this important to our discussion? Remember the topic here, we’re discussing Trahearne. You were suggesting that we assumed a “qasi-leadership status” over the orders. I was suggesting that this was false, especially before we joined the orders. We assumed a “qasi-leadership status” in strategy talks on a fairly low level operation.

In fact if you are a Sylvari, Trahearne actually tags along on this last quest but says that he will help them finish the task but he won’t join the order and all I could think was, “That’s exactly what I wanted my character to say.” There was no reason why I suddenly ended up joining this order when this quest was exactly like the 5 quests that came before it which didn’t result in me joining an order and in fact I should have been able to tell each delegate that they should all do what they presented to me for the sake of saving the town." For the Sylvari this involved saving some human port town out in the boonies which was about to be attacked by one of Zhaitain’s minions. I should have been able to tell the vigil delegate to get her troops to defend the town, told the OoW delegate to create a diversion to get some of the undead to attack the centaurs and then told the Priory delegate to head out with Trahearne to kill the Lich.

Yes, I just replayed this part in my newest Sylvari’s story. While I understand why you don’t like this segment (and can somewhat agree), I have no idea what this has to do with our Trahearne discussion…

To my mind that is exactly how the story was naturally progressing and the decision to make you join only one of those orders felt forced, as if they were intentionally trying to make it so that in just that one moment you’d suddenly no longer be able to evolve into a role that resulted in assuming the leadership position you had been building up to based on the 5 previous storyline missions.

I never felt like I’d been building a leadership position, and I don’t see anything to indicate that we were. Again, you were mostly dealing with delegates who were relatively low ranking. We were never building to a leadership role OVER the three pacts. Instead, we were in a leadership role over one of their operations.

VIVorcha.7853:

Yes.

His voice acting is terrible and I hate how the order mentor is killed off to make room for him.

1. What’s your evidence that the mentor wasn’t just killed off for drama or some other purpose?
2. Voice acting ruins a STORY? Are you sure about that? That’s just like the people who say a game sucks because it doesn’t have gore… it’s incredibly superficial IMO. Regardless, I think 99% of rational people can agree that his voice acting is bad. But, they can also agree that it’s not so bad that it ruins the personal story, it’s serviceable enough.

MeGaZlo.9516:

Arius.7031:

MeGaZlo.9516:

Does anyone else tired of this Trahearne topics already?

I’m sorry your eyes had to see my thread’s title in the personal story section. I’m sure that was a traumatic experience for you.

If you’re tired of it…

tension builds

the anticipation is killing you

Don’t read it.

dun dun dun

Do not mean to offend you.
If you if you are a bit bothered about taking a look at this forum, you will find that it is teeming with such “Trahearne” topics. Not only PS thread, but also the discussions and lore. In his support or disapproval. No matter. Not to mention “we do not like Trahearne” topic on 15 pages. This themes has become so jaded and shabby, that creating of new one topic on this subject become banal and bad taste. Begins to seem that everyone who did not have anything to write about but want to write something anyway – writes about Trahearne. Everything has been discussed and overdiscussed dozens of times. Why not to just subscribe at one of the dozens of existing topics?
Well.
Something like this.
Retire.

Because my post is, basically, a systematic rebuttal to most attempts to show that Trahearne ruins the personal story. There’s precisely one more thread on the first two pages of threads that gives me the opportunity to give my thoughts. If I were to post this in some random Trahearne thread, it’d be off topic.

Regardless, I don’t know if you meant to offend me or not, but those types of posts are offensive and annoying. I spent a lot of time making a pretty detailed and (in my opinion) well thought out post, and the first responses I get are completely ignoring it and whining about how there are other Trahearne threads. If people don’t like Trahearne threads, don’t read them. Let the rest of us keep discussing it for years to come if we want, so long as the mods permit it.

You are probably the most amazing person ever. Just saying. Ty for this ;D.

MeGaZlo.9516:

Does anyone else tired of this Trahearne topics already?

I’m sorry your eyes had to see my thread’s title in the personal story section. I’m sure that was a traumatic experience for you.

If you’re tired of it…

tension builds

the anticipation is killing you

Don’t read it.

dun dun dun

Ellisande.5218:

Trahearne does take over the personal story. His personal mission to cleanse Orr (which apparently never really gets cleansed anyways) overrides your mission to kill Zhaitain.

Where is your evidence for this claim? The corruption of Orr is symptomatic of the corrupting influence itself: Zhaitan. Killing Zhaitan is far more important because it gets rid of the problem, not a side effect. Further, the celebration after the death of Zhaitan is far more elaborate and important seeming. Finally, the mission to kill Zhaitan comes after the cleansing of Orr, which in this case again seems to indicate importance.

He is made a leader of the Pact despite his complete lack of leadership experience or ability of any kind.

He does have an ability, he’s the foremost expert (in the world) on Orr/Zhaitan/the Undead. Even if this were true, this is an example of bad writing, not a reason why he ruins the story.

This was probably the worst idea ever, especially when you already have several other candidates who actually did have experience leading armies before. There simply was not enough justifcation for why Trahearne was appointed leader of the Pact given his lack of credentials.

There are quite a few, actually. The most important being:

1. He was respected by all of the orders very highly.
2. The orders needed a member who was not from any of the orders to be leader, so that no order would essentially take higher rank. If one did have higher rank, the others would be resentful and the higher ranked one may even abuse that position.
3. He’s the foremost expert on Orr. He knows the terrain, the area, etc…
4. He’s the (no, not A firstborn, THE firstborn) firstborn of all Sylvari, giving him a naturally high status compared to even else.

I think there would have been a lot less complaining about the player’s character not being appointed leader were two things to have happened:
1) The player was previously introduced to Trahearne who was shown brilliantly leading troops into a battle that no one thought they’d be able to win. And I mean shown, the game needs to do more than say something is in order for the player to actually believe it.

Agreed. But, agreeing things could have been done slightly better does not equate to admitting that he ruins the personal story. Far from it, in spite of them not taking the optimum route, I really loved Trahearne and enjoyed the PS.

2) The player needs to have not worked as the arbitrator for the 3 factions during levels 20-30 where they had already assumed a quasi leadership position over the 3 factions which should have naturally evolved into becoming the leader of the 3 factions rather than being forced to join one of the factions. Had the character instead simply gone from newbie quest to being thrown into one of the factions based on their armor type instead of having worked and lead the members of all 3 factions this wouldn’t have been such a gaping plot hole.

You may have felt that you assumed a qasi leadership status, but that’s really odd, because you never did. Up until the very end, you were literally a new recruit who was like a dog on a leash. You were still tied to your handler (Sieran, Tybalt, etc…). Even after then, you only end up achieving a rank equal to that of a billion other members of your order. You don’t even advance to a terribly high rank, and there are at least two members of each other order that outrank you.

Or are you referring to the part before joining the pact? That’s not even an issue, because you’re literally helping to lead one operation in one small part of the world… you’re not even arbitrating between high ranking people. You’re arbitrating between low rankers, which clearly indicates a relatively low ranking operation.

If that’s incorrect, could you be more specific.

Zoltreez.6435:

Arius you reminded me of this moment:

“Here, at the end, I’m glad it’s just you and me”

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

no spoilers just the music.

when this started to play I wished the story would last way longer

Yeah man, I absolutely love that music… and it always reminds me of that one moment with Trahearne. Such good music T.T.

How do you deal with hammer warriors? In my experience, while this build is epic against most things, it’s still inferior to the hammer warrior. I just can’t break stuns that many times, and they are just so freakishly tough that it takes forever to kill them.

Orr, especially Cursed Shore.

I may have missed it in your post, but could you share what this build is intended for? WvW zerg/roaming? SPvP? PvE?

Aerlen.5326:

There’ no swaying you, friend.

Then we shall have to agree to disagree, as Wesley said.

milton.1796:

I didn’t feel like I was praised at the end…

Really? All of the cheering/bowing/saluting of almost every single NPC in fort Trinity for you after both the Source of Orr and Victory or Death didn’t make you feel praised? The fact that each member of Destiny’s Edge literally gave you credit for defeating the big bad didn’t make you feel praised? What will make you feel praised? People sacrificing themselves upon an alter, in front of a statue of you, while muttering your name?

MauricioCezar.2673:

C’mom Colin. You’ve promised Precursor craft in the start of the year, I’ve awaited because i don’t want to spend (In that time) 400g in a precursor. I’ve been about to buy it when it was 600g at half of the yearr, but then in you blogpost you’ve stated that IN THIS YEAR you’ll introduce this.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

But now another post saying that is highly possible not coming this year?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-precursor-crafting-going-to-happen-or-not/first

Now Precursor is at 800G. Will keep with all this lies around, making me lose TIME and MONEY?

Sorry, a little bit angry with all this sort of “Politic promises” around.

Let me quote a very important part of the text that you seemed to miss.

“As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.”

Devs can’t magically poof content into existence. And you calling a person a liar just because they MAY NOT (they still might, which is what is most pathetic about your post) make the cut on something they never promised to do in the beginning is disgusting. You really should be ashamed of yourself.

coglin.1867:

Tarinis.6054:

Taking damage brought one out of stealth, unless vanish was just used. Here, we got thieves stealthing, then stealthing right after their first stealth runs out. I guess we all have to spend money to beat a class…

I have no problem destroying thieves all day. Simply because you have not learned how to do so with your preferred profession doesn’t make stealth OP. It just displays a common pattern of how folks like to blame their inabilities on anything but their inabilities.

What might serve you better is to focus on developing a solution instead of complaining about the problem and transferring blame.

Oh and by the way, stealth was not balanced in WoW in the least if you ask me. But again, that is a matter of perception.

To be fair, even if a mechanic isn’t OP, that doesn’t mean it’s a good mechanic. As it stands, most people hate thieves not because they’re OP, but because they’re seriously annoying. Further, predicting where to hit doesn’t do you much good against thieves, as they’ll be doing far more damage to you while you while you’re relying on luck to even score on hit against them.

Trahearne feels like that “baggage” you’re forced to take on a video game escort mission and that fault lies entirely with how he was written and how his AI reacts in combat. If Trahearne’s role was instead filled by your Order partner, I doubt there would be a lick of complaining – you cannot discuss Trahearne though without touching upon how poorly he is introduced, written, acted, scripted, etc because they all impact why he isn’t liked and why many feel he takes over the Personal Story.

The voice actor clearly didn’t do a great job at voicing Trahearne (although he does have a lovely voice IMO). I don’t think he was poorly written at all. His scripting, you mean combat behaviors, or are you talking like actual scripts as in where he goes and what he does at certain points? I’ll assume you’re talking about combat, and do somewhat agree.

Also, none of those except for writing and introduction factor in at all to him taking over your personal story. Even if the voice actor was a 12 year old girl that was mute and blind so that she couldn’t read the lines, it wouldn’t make you feel like she was taking over the story.

As for the SPOILER moment in The Source of Orr – boy did that feel fake, that Trahearne line especially. The story gave me no reason to consider Trahearne my “dear friend” or to care that we were sharing this “special moment”.

Of course it did! It gave you all of the missions post “retribution” that you do with Trahearne. That’s dozens of lengthy missions where you’re learning about each other, adventuring, and fighting together. Further, he takes you in as his most trusted confidant, his only friend, his second in command. He looks to you when he needs advice, and he looks to you when he needs help.

There’s plenty of reason to care about him. You may not find any of it sufficient, but it’s a whole different ball game to say it doesn’t exist.

Edit: There will be spoilers in both this and the following post.

Aerlen.5326:

I’m sorry but the moment he showed up, I noticed the quality of writing declined and I really did feel second fiddle to Trahearne.

Okay, I didn’t. We can’t really have a rational discussion about what “I feel”. Tell me, what lines made you feel this way? What makes you feel second fiddle? The only lines you’ll be able to give are ones that talk about how Trahearne is higher ranking/more well known than you. That’s all that made you feel that way (I bet at least), and let’s face it, that exists in every game ever.

The writers wanted me to like him, this much is obvious, but he plain isn’t likable by a large majority of players and I’m sure then can explain much better than I what’s wrong with him and direct instances and quotes of how he affects the PS in a negative way.

You’d actually be surprised. The “majority of players” see the end fight as a true monstrosity that never should have existed. It is bad, IMO, ftr. BUT, in game, people’s opinions are far more friendly than they are online. In fact, in the most recent Arah story I ran (2 days ago), 3/5 people came out with a fairly positive impression of it. I’m not counting myself, and the other one had already done the dungeon and had been talking about how much it sucked all the way through.

Anyways, my point is that opinions aren’t quite as universal as you seem to think they are. Many people don’t have much of a problem with Trahearne.

Yes, there is dialogue of [YOUR CHARACTER] getting the glory but it doesn’t feel much like it. Who is leading The Pact? It’s not you.

But this happens in EVERY game (almost). There’s almost always someone above you giving the orders. I can reference popular TV shows, games, movies, etc… Popular examples that come to mind are the Mass Effect series, Stargate (O’neil and Hammond, Shepard and Weir/Woolsey/Carter), Dragon Age, etc… Further, the companions that everyone loved from the personal story were actually higher ranking than you, Tybalt, Sieran, and what’s his face. You really were treated like their puppy dog or something, Tybalt was quite literally your handler.

It is someone who came out of no where and preached to the Orders of Tyria, even had a vision of preaching to them and quibbled that he was no warrior before being given a super special weapon for his super special quest. Do you see what I’m saying there? Trahearne literally is “The Chosen” in this story, he is Luke Skywalker. The problem with that is that this is YOUR Personal Story and you shouldn’t be R2D2 or even Han Solo in it. The player wants to feel as if they are the chosen one, they want to be the hero. Trahearne’s issue is that he takes that from the player character, he praises you again and again as do others but it’s very very clear that this is his story and he will make the choices and he occupies the most important position. What is being said and what the story is showing you are two different things here.

No, he’s not. The ultimate goal is not to cleanse Orr. Cleansing Orr is helping to repair damage, but stopping the source of he damage is the greatest calling. In the Sylvari storyline, the main character and Caithe are the only people with Wyld Hunts to face Zhaitan. That is the highest calling in the world. Cleansing Orr is secondary. Further, Trahearne says that both he and YOU were destined to cleanse Orr. Not only did you play an important role in cleansing Orr (perhaps the most important), Trahearne had nothing to do with the even more important fight with Zhaitan.

Now, ask yourself this, which battle in the Star Wars universe was more important:

Yoda Vs. Palpatine
or
Obi Wan Vs. Anakin

Even if it were true that you had nothing to do with Trahearne’s goal (and it’s not) you still did the more important thing in destroying Zhaitan.

About the Order reps – really they were the Obi kittenenobi’s of the story. They didn’t step on you, you felt like partners. This ties into how Trahearne is written and absolutely cannot be discussed as a separate issue. You say “this is the story of you and your friend” – the problem is that Trahearne doesn’t feel like a friend at all.

I beg to disagree! I can’t argue your feelings with you. What I can say is that Trahearne is my character’s friend for sure, I feel like we are friends. I’ve never been so touched as when all of the sound went away, “fear not this night” started playing, and Trahearne said “Here, at the end, I’m glad it’s just you and me”. That was the most touching moment of the story, without a doubt, and I will remember it as one of the two most standout points in all of GW2’s personal story (the others being the death of your mentors).

Why should WvW players have to do PvE for legendaries? Just a thought.

Melchior.2135:

Lightsbane.9012:

to an extent, i care about the story, but since trahearne totally dominates it after level 40, it becomes trahearsonal. QED, race change items won’t change the game that much.
can we have it now? i want all my characters to be angry giant cats. charrs<3

For non-Sylvari, Trahearne doesn’t appear until level 50. It’s not much of a difference, but it’s worth being accurate. He dominates 3/8ths of the “Personal” Story, not quite 1/2 of it. From 41-47, you’re still with your Order helping out one of the tribal races. At 48 you go in to your Order-specific mission to discover Zhaitan’s scout in Lion’s Arch, and at 50 you go to Claw Island the first time.

I hate to be nitpicky, but overstating robs your complaints of some of their very real credibility.

I’m actually on the pro-story side, but to be fair, there are more personal missions later in. After 70, you get 1 personal mission per level, and multiple missions at level 80, so it’s pretty closeish, though there is more before still.

Adine.2184:

RedStar.4218:

Arius.7031:

He’s actually a very experienced combatant, and will have access to a very powerful weapon. He’s the first born of all Sylvari. No, he’s not a firstborn, he’s THE firstborn. He’s the oldest of all Sylvari.

What do you mean he’s the oldest of all Sylvari ? I don’t remember seeing that anywhere.

Hes a first born so he is among the oldest of the Sylvari . not necessarily THE oldest but among them

No, he’s necessarily “the” oldest. You may have missed it, or may not have played a Sylvari. If you play a Sylvari, you meet Trahearne early, and he’s introduced as the first of the Pale Tree’s children.

Aerlen.5326:

Really?

No, I was joking, it was all just a big joke. For the record, you can find all of the quotes I’ll be using on the wiki pages for the relevant missions.

The problem is Trahearne is like Veggie Jesus who unites the Orders of Tyria with little to no effort and, unless you are Sylvari, he comes absolutely out of no where with no backstory and is suddenly respected by everyone.

Firstly, the player is given credit for uniting the orders of Tyria, NOT Trahearne. You’re the one who’s credited with the victory at Claw Island as well:

“The Order of Whispers never thought to see the day that one of the greatest champions of Zhaitan would fall. You did this, <Character Name>.”

Trahearne is given some credit along side you, but you are given the credit for the most part.

Further, you need to separate complaints about what Trahearne is a bad character, and complaints that suggest that it’s Trahearnes story. The fact that he appears out of no where with no back story has nothing to do with it being Trahearne’s story.

I think you missed the point of a higher up as well. When you join an Order – you also get a higher up that you share the spotlight with and those higher ups feel like real people with real personalities who are there to benefit you and your story. I am staying spoiler free but just look at how many players love and care for Tybalt Leftpaw. He shared your spotlight, like Han shared Luke’s. Tybalt worked with you even though you were technically working as his charge. Trahearne takes your spotlight but allows you to graciously stand in his shadow while he goes on and on and on and displays he has absolutely no charisma or battle skills but somehow, everyone adores and reveres him.

But see, that’s just not true. You’re the one who everyone celebrates at the end of “The source of Orr”. You’re the one who everybody celebrates at the end of “Victory or Death”. At the end of the source of Orr, he doesn’t say “stand back while I save the world”, he says:

“Here, at the end, I am glad that it’s just you and me. We will SPOILER REMOVED together-as were meant to do.”

So I’m sorry, but the evidence does not point towards Trahearne being the one who gets all the glory/reverence.

He doesn’t feel real. He isn’t sympathetic.

Okay, but this is more of a “Trahearne sucks” issue. This in no way means he takes over your personal story. I’m more than willing to respond to this bit, if you’d like, but that’s a different discussion.

His Wyld Hunt is purposeful but the way he is written leaves you feeling like he could have just gotten any old lackey to do the dirty work for him – why must he be a focal point anyhow? It’s like choosing Tingle to rescue Zelda while Link is standing right there. Why would you do that?

The only time you get your dues is in Victory or Death and guess who isn’t there for most of that? Guess who sits that one out? Guess why that final dungeon feels like a Personal Story and not “Trahearne’s Big Adventure”?

Firstly, you also get your dues in “the Source of Orr”.

Secondly, no part of the game ever felt like “Trahearne’s Big Adventure” to me. Trahearne isn’t even present for a good deal of the post-order storyline… The focus is on you, but it also focuses on Trahearne. It’s the story of you and your friend, with the focus on you. While you’ve got your own story you’re going through, you’re going through it with your friend who has his own. That doesn’t mean it’s his story, just that you’re not the only one who the game is focusing on. This is true for Tybalt, Sieran, and the big guy from the Vigil (forgot his name). In fact, you’re more like THEIR sidekick, at least with Trahearne you’re the hardcore commander who does all of the ownage…

All throughout the personal story you’re being showered with praise for your accomplishment. I’m just not seeing any evidence that it’s all about Trahearne.

Lord Rheios.4152:

I care thus far, though I’ve been slow to play it because I got buys saving the world form other threats.
I'm just to where your mentor (my vigil mentor in this case) dies.
And I cared. I consider him an awesome character.
I haven’t made an opinion on Trahearne. He seems to me like just a smart guy to bring along. A tactician who has knowledge of Orr. But I hear he fights with you, which seems strange to me. Why would you send out an inexperienced, lightly armored tactician with a fullblade to the front lines to fight with the experienced foot shock-trooper?

He’s actually a very experienced combatant, and will have access to a very powerful weapon. He’s the first born of all Sylvari. No, he’s not a firstborn, he’s THE firstborn. He’s the oldest of all Sylvari.

2. Trahearne’s the leader of The Pact, not you! So it’s not about you.

I can think of a thousand games where there’s a very important character to the game that is higher ranking than you. Let’s go with Mass Effect, Shepard is certainly not the highest ranking in the alliance military and yet he’s certainly the focus.

Why do you need to be the highest ranking in order to be the hero? Was Luke the highest ranking in the rebel alliance? Wasn’t he still the big hero?

3. Trahearne takes/gets all of the credit, thereby making your achievements seem pointless.

Response: This is simply not true. He specifically gives you the credit at multiple junctures in the story (see my response to the first argument). You’re the one who is hailed as the hero at multiple points (see Source of Orr and Victory or Death as certain standout moments).

4. Trahearne makes all your decisions for you! Or rather, he limits your choices and forces you to pick between his options!

Response: This is how the game has always worked. You’re given certain choices by someone (usually higher ranking than you, like Logan for humans) and you have to choose from them. This is a fault with the game if you dislike it, and has nothing to do with Trahearne.

To sum it up, we’ve rebutted 4 common arguments for the proposition that Trahearne ruins the story. I’m not a Trahearne apologist, I like him, but I don’t really care what other people think about him. What I’m trying to do here is to show that some of these arguments people are using are just bad.

There will be spoilers, you’ve been warned.

To start, the point of this thread is not necessarily to defend Trahearne because I like him. I do, but that’s incidental. Instead, I see a lot of very bad argumentation used to support the notion that Trahearne sucks, or that the personal story sucks because of Trahearne etc… I want to take the time to debunk some of these arguments. I’m sure there are valid arguments for why Trahearne sucks, and ultimately, one does not need arguments to dislike him. So I’m not really hoping to convince people to stop disliking him. I hope those who dislike Trahearne and think he’s ruined the story can at least come away from this realizing that it’s not as bad as they may think.

I’m also going to actively try to reference key points in the story in order to demonstrate my points.

Let’s get started:

1. Trahearne takes over the personal story, and therefore sucks.

Response: No, he does not. Trahearne is the leader of the pact, and definitely above you in rank. That does not mean that the focus is on you. You’re the one who gets all of the salutes when you enter Fort Trinity after “the source of Orr”, not Trahearne.

Trahearne also has nothing to do with the last mission at all. A certain someone (Caithe) says this in the final mission:

“We have succeeded, but only by coming together to fight a greater foe. You have shown the way. We, and all of Tyria, are in your debt.”

They’re not talking about Trahearne. He was not present for the most pivotal moment of the personal story, the defeat of a certain baddie. The cleansing would have been undone without the defeat of the big bad, Zhaitan.

Who does Rytlock want to come show all of the Charr how to conduct military campaigns?
To who’s victory does Rytlock want to toast?
Who does both Caithe and Trahearne owe a debt to, according to Caithe?
Who succeeded spectacularly according to Zojja?
Who does Zojja say cleansed Orr and beat the big bad?

You, the main character.

1a. Ahah! Although the story does shift back to focusing on you at the end, it focuses on Trahearne up until then.

But this is simply not true. The focus stays squarely on you, and Trahearne has nothing to do with a lot of missions.

Eurhetemec.9052:

reapex.8546:

Your choices still affect how Trahearne responds and what course the Pact take. Without you the story would go one linear path, there are several ways to affect the story after you are made Commander.

Not in any meaningful way. The story is effectively completely linear. All you are doing once the Pact is formed is deciding what scenes to “get in on”, essentially.

It’s really bizarre. Even the “end” of your personal story is essentially about Trahearne, not about you. Which is really the precise opposite of all four GW1 campaigns (I note all the GW1 campaigns gave you a really solid, last-forever-type reward, too, where this personal story just gives you a yellow with a so-so skin).

No, it’s every bit as much about you. In fact, Trahearne can speak in his own defense.

“Here, at the end, I am glad that it’s just you and me. We will cleanse Orr together-as were meant to do.”

It’s you AND Trahearne. He does the cleansing, but he can’t do it without you protecting him. Further, that’s not the end of the story. There’s one more personal mission, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Trahearne. You may have forgotten about that one, cus the ending does suck, but it does exist and it has nothing to do with Trahearne.

This is just not really true. You’re the one that gets most of the acknowledgement. It’s you the pact salutes after “the source of Orr”. Trahearne doesn’t credit himself with what happens in the source of Orr, he says that you did it together. It’s true that Trahearne leads the pact, but doesn’t every game have an authority higher than the player? Doesn’t every game have an order giving person? Almost all games do.

Trahearne doesn’t even participate in “victory or death” (the final mission)…

Seriously, I think these arguments are just bad. I’m trying to remain as spoiler free as possible, but I have a lot more ammunition against the notion that it’s Trahearne’s story. You’re still the focus. You’re still doing all of the risky stuff. You’re still the one who gets the most honor. You just have to share the spotlight somewhat, which is not a new concept in gaming. Luke didn’t complain that Han was with him all the way until the end of episode 4…

I love the personal story, and Trahearne is my favorite character in it after Tybalt/Sieran. I’m really glad he’s with you like all the way through it. Also, never understood the whole complaint about it being Trahearne’s story personally. He say something in the “source of orr” that gives you equal credit for it. Also, he isn’t in the final mission… Truly, you accomplish far more than Trahearne, he’s just your commander/higher authority (and there’s a commander in almost every video game since the beginning of time).

Lord Kuru.3685:

They should have an alternate version of the same joke, except with: “run faster than Logan.”

As fast as Logan, you mean? Logan ran fast enough lol.

For the record, this is primarily about sPvP.

minbariguy.7504:

Adine.2184:

Yes and no . Complaining for complaint sake is pointless and achieves nothing . Constructive criticism is another story . Unfortunately constructive criticism is the exception not the rule on this forum

While I see your point, I’d argue that blindly praising the game for the sake of praising it is equally worthless, and achieves an equal amount of nothing. It provides absolutely no constructive feedback to let ANet know what, specifically, they are doing right.

Non-constructive praise isn’t any more worthwhile than non-constructive criticism.

I actually disagree with this. Non-constructive criticism (being a hater) divides the community and created a lot of tension. If a person says this game is amazing and leaves it at that, people may disagree, but nobody is going to be angry/offended. If someone says this game is horrible and leaves it at that, quite the opposite, everyone who disagrees will be deeply offended and feel sorry for the poor Devs. This is even worse when you consider the fact that non-constructive criticism simply breeds a negative atmosphere, it’s actually damaging. On the other hand, non-constructive praise breeds a very positive atmosphere, and can be very helpful to the community (even if it’s useless for development).

Topic is pretty self-explanatory. What do you guys think is the best Necro build for 1 on 1 fights? More interested in power builds than condi builds, by the way.

Haha, had some fun with a few people from FC in SF’s borderlands. We teamed up to fight a few SF players (they outnumbered us). Fun times! Good matchup so far, eager to see if y’all can overtake DH. I guess we’ll find out over the next couple of days.

1. Warrior.

2. Warrior/Thief.

3. Debatable.

4. Probably Warrior.

5. What would mean best to you? Healing Signet is the best for sustained combat, but has a really low activated heal on a fairly short CD.

6. Mesmer.

7. Necro (death shroud and plague).

8. Necro.

These are just my opinions. I’ve got about 500 games in SPvP so I’m by no means an expert, just my observations.

Copestetic.5174:

A game with:

Balanced PvP.
Splits Skills from PvP and PvE.
Requires more than spamming 1.
Trinity, or at the very least, roles that are better defined.
Missions.
Epic end-game bosses.
Requires more than spamming 1.
Craptons of lore.
Low level cap.
Lots of Titles.
Requires more than spamming 1.
Good storylines.
Has great survivability throughout the years.
Requires more than spamming 1.
Has a heavy emphasis on team-play.
Has recruitable NPC’s if you can’t find a team.

Assassin’s that can be tanks…Oh, wait. That game’s already out. BRB DL’ing GW1.

More than half of your list is true of GW2 lol…

-Balanced PvP.
Almost all builds have counters, the “OP” builds are only “OP” in a 1v1 setting (and they tend to suck in team fights). Very well balanced compared to most games, not by everything being equal in every respect, but by there being a counter for almost everything.

-Missions
What does this even mean?

-Epic Endgame Bosses
The dragons? The 5 other big enemies? Every single exploreable path (especially Arah with Gigantus)? This makes no sense. The game does have epic end game bosses.

-Lore
This game actually has tons of lore, people just don’t actively search for it. Talk to NPC’s by hearts. Talk to random NPC’s everywhere you find them. Play through dynamic events and talk to the NPC’s participating. Play through dungeons and talk to the members of Destiny’s Edge. Go to the priory base and read their library. Walk around and listen to people talking in the background.

The lore isn’t as easily accessed in GW2 compared to GW1, because it’s not all thrown in your face before you accept every quest. It’s all perfectly optional and you have to actively seek it.

-Low Level Cap
80 is very, very easy to hit. It’s low in time to acquire by MMO standards.

-Good Storylines
The overall story may not be great, but it does have good storylines.

-Game Survivability
Dude, GW2 still has a massive playerbase. It’s often cited to demonstrate the amazing success of B2P games from launch. GW2 is not only still huge, it’s actively growing and old players who quit are returning. It’s even getting significant patches every two weeks, and it’s NO SUB. That’s incredible survivability.

-Has a heavy emphasis on team-play.
Later explore paths and tPvP require heavy team play. Even the most recent dungeon requires that pugs really work together. Teqatl requires lots of organization (almost always requiring a huge presence on server teamspeak).

-Requires more than spamming 1.
… That only works in some dynamic events. If you only spam 1 and beat dungeon explore paths, sPvP, WvW zerg battles, etc… then you are the best thing since Elvis. You’re not even close to the best thing since Elvis, and you certainly cannot spam 1 and beat everything in the game. This game requires lots of teamwork and has fairly hard gameplay by F2P standards.

Demonts.4593:

Think about a 2v2. A warrior (or almost any other class) can tank damage so the other person doesnt have to. If you go in to stealth you all of a sudden make it a 2v1 and ur teammate will be killed extremely fast and you will have to run. Stealth is kind of an underpowered mechanic in PvP because it takes you out of the game. This is why most thieves never trait into shadow arts. The only viable thief build at the moment is S/D and it focuses on evades so it can tank damage like all the other classes. The only other sort of viable build is burst which doesnt have much stealth. Thieves in stealth just make the other team focus harder on its teammates.

That’s the point of stealth. You don’t seem to understand, stealth is a lone wolf mechanic by design. That’s the way stealth is intended to be used. It’s like saying that bunkers don’t do enough damage to kill people fast. That’s the point, they’re not supposed to. Stealth is supposed to save thieves from dying and aid them in beating people 1v1. It’s ridiculously overpowered on both of those, especially when thieves perma (d/p) stealth.

The mechanic isn’t intended to be a selfless party helping mechanic. You’re saying it’s underpowered because it underperforms in one setting, which is true. But it was never meant to perform well in that setting to begin with.

Thanks for the build! That definitely does look interesting. The only issue I see is, it doesn’t look like it’d survive too well. My build actually has 1k in healing to give some serious survivability. Do you think that build is tough enough?

Idk if there’s a build out there that’s like this. The point here is to have good damage, decent toughness, and great healing bundled into one. That means I have low health and little ability to support, since I went with meditations for the burst healing if in a pinch.

I basically put 10 into radiance just for the prec. I felt it needed to be a bit higher.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASRlUgSDHHyNEf4EiVBBC7BBWRZ01DIiiaIA-ToAgzCnIwRhjDHDOScsUNIYRA

Any tips on how to improve this, or similar builds that are better? I don’t like being support, I’ve done that enough at this point. I want good (not necessarily amazing) damage with solid tanking ability (again not necessarily amazing). Thoughts?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I, however, say…

Why put all this effort into the trailers – not just the living world release trailers, but even that anniversary Heroes’ Edition trailer – which are indeed epic… then have less than epic cinematics in-game…

Been starting to feel like ArenaNet’s caring more for marketing than the quality of the game. Well, I guess that’s no surprise from a business perspective. sigh

They probably have set budgets for advertising and for development. They may not be allowed to use the money from advertising for development, so it may just be wasted if they didn’t.

Novomundum.8325:

Hmmm… so basically thieves are hated because of ignorant fools who refuses to open their mind and play the profession to see it for what it truly is?

You’re on the thief sub-forums, are you really expecting to get a fair answers? I’m sorry, but anyone who tells you this is just ignorant or a thief lover. There are legitimate complaints to be levied against thieves, and also bad ones that are levied unfairly. My and my friend (600 and 1600 hours in the game, respectively) both believe thief to be ridiculously overpowered in a 1v1 setting in WvW on certain builds. I consider my own character overpowered, but I simply have no way to counter a thief who can nearly perma-stealth, it’s not possible for me. I die within a few seconds and am hardly able to get any hits off. The problem is less severe in SPvP, and IMO they’re not OP in PvE. But, anyone who says they’re perfectly fine and it’s 100% due to everyone’s ignorance is ignorant or lying.

FTR, my friend has a max level thief and I have multiple max levels and almost all of my time in game has been spent in PvP.

Again, you’re not going to get a fair answer in these sub-forums. Too many people here are thieves that can’t really give you a fair answer. That doesn’t invalidate their opinion, but it’s easier to give a fair opinion when you’re not as invested in the class (not against it).

Aerlen.5326:

Looking for a Dev to give a valid reason why a PVP area is needed for PVE World Completion and why people with no interest in playing war games have to go into WvW if they want to craft a Legendary for PvE.

I’m frustrated with dealing with the Call of Duty Tea Bagging crowd just to get PvE world completion – can’t WvW world completion be removed or tied to a special WvW reward?

Why do I have to deal with a part of the game which isn’t PvE, which I’m not interested in playing, and which is completely against what PvE stands for to get PvE world completion?

Why are legendaries for PvE? They seem to be both for PvE and WvW, you may want them only for PvE, but they’re for both. Why do WvW players have to do PvE to get legendaries for WvW? The sword does cut both ways. Further, it is called “completion”, not “PvE completion”.

Okay so, let me start by saying, the SAB is great IMO. It’s a fun little mini-game that I think was done very well. It’s quite a bit of content too, which is nice.

With that said, I’ve found one glaring problem with it and I will never, ever set foot in it again (even though I’m absolutely obsessed with achievements). I was play World 2 Zone 2 (think that’s what it’s called). It’s the one where you fight tons of assassins. Anyways, I got pretty far into it, to where you’re at this tower where there’s projectiles that shoot out of the walls everywhere. Basically, you have to do a very specific pattern to keep ascending this tower until you find a thing you can hit which will start rolling down. Once this thing starts rolling down, basically, you have to follow it down to the bottom (or suicide as I later figured out). Down there, you have a very limited window to walk past a certain trap which will allow you to progress the map.

So, I died about 60-70 times throughout this entire thing. Yes, I’m really bad at SAB. I spent about 2 hours in this instance. Two. Hours. So, I get my strategy down, and reach the top of the tower. I’m going to hit the thing, suicide, and wait for it down below. I reach the top, ready to set my plan into motion, after having taken hours to get here. I DC. I DC right then, at that moment, DC.

Here is the glaring flaw that I’ve found. I can’t reload at my last checkpoint. If I could, this would be no big deal. But, I can’t. So, here I am, no baubles, and the legion of revive tokens I had saved up heavily depleted, two hours of doing the most frustrating content I can imagine, and I get nothing. I get absolutely nothing.

Now, is there a way to fix this? Is there a way to load your checkpoint? If not, then I simply will never play SAB again. Two hours of grueling misery, getting viciously murdered repeatedly because I have bad eye sight… Not at all worth it.

I’m not raging, this is a lovely game with this being a lovely little content addition to said game. It’s made very well. But, I think this is a critical flaw, and until it’s fixed I refuse to so much as set foot in this zone again (or until someone tells me how to get back to where I was, which would be greatly appreciated).

The great and mighty ANet saw fit that even though I disconnected right before the end of the event, that I was able to join that overflow (thanks to having a party member there) right after the event ended. I was able to get the chest!