Take the current EBG: The towers on the sides where the NPC camps are now block the entrance to those camps. The tower must be taken to gain access through the NPC camp into the enemy territory.
Add new “gate” targets on the major paths up to Stonemist. these gates act as a third gate to stonemist and are controlled by the last army to destroy the gate. Each gate starts under control of the side it’s on (red controls the north gate).
Really nice idea that isn’t particularly complicated to implement. I’d like to see the concept of territory stretched a lot further but for the sake of some variety, this would be a great start.
One thing the EotM layout has made clear is how versatile the WvW format could be.
ESO model looks great, only problem is the game it’s in.
Replacing WvW with that (EotM-style colour grouping, fighting over a worldmap 8 times as big) every second week would make a nice change.
…and that is the only reason I’ve yet to buy any armour from the gem store. There are a couple skins I would have bought were it not for clipping and floating shoulders.
Not really interested in arguing or defending the overall interest in this map. I’ll just say that most people are probably more interested in Account Bound WxP.
From the people I play with, that’s not my impression (and I could seriously use account-based WXP because my ranks are spread across four characters).
one question, how is this gonna fit in terms of lore?
the 5(6) abandoned the world quite a bit, would you allow someone to enter your realm if you want nothing to do with them?Lorewise there’s not an issue with that. Grenth responded to prayer in the heart of his cathedral in Orr, and sent an avatar to speak with the priestess. Kormir, Dwayna, and Lyssa also answer prayers (Human racial skills).
So it’s not they “don’t want anything to do with the world”, they simply stepped back. And the reasons or that are either more theologically appropriate (“Gods help those who help themselves”) or . . .
. . . fear of being caught by the Elder Dragons and devoured or destroyed like Owl.
giving a power is one thing, showing a portal to their own world is another.
as you said, they are afraid to be devoured or destroyed (maybe), i don’t think you would let everybody in when there is a chance it can go wrong.There are already portals from the UW — see the swamp in Queensdale. If there’s a portal from there could be a portal to.
There’s still an existing Grenth monument in Lornar’s Pass, as well. Since the asura already figured out how to connect gates to the Mists, they have plenty to work with to break into the Underworld.
What gave you the impression that the WvW community isn’t interested in more maps? EotM might be a slightly different format than we had in mind but at least we’ll have more than the same two maps we’ve been playing since beta.
^ I think there are 24 US server. Only 2 main server did the last Tequal. Nothing wrong with what he says.
If you really want to kill Teq. Join a guild which do them. It’s not hard. The problem is I dont’ think most people cares.
That’s because the last Tequatl event was during working (and school) hours on a weekday. No surprise at all that turnout was low.
Wait until primetime and check again.
You’re thinking of this one, I suspect. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tactical_armor
The PvP locker seems to have slots for almost the same skins you can get in PvE. Didn’t realise there was a difference in the Masquerade skin until I read this thread.
That would be a good one actually.
Hmm.
I like:
1. Roaming / small group play is (generally) working well.
2. Good venue for GvG and medium-sized group combat.
3. Risk/reward system on the strategy level – balancing defense with offense (in theory)
I don’t:
1. Limited incentive or capacity to hold assets long-term
2. Too few maps – too many servers and a small world leave the WvW environment feeling more like a battle than a campaign
3. Only one WvW setting since launch – it’s weird that Southsun Cove is the only permanent zone added yet, considering the number of maps built over the period leading up to launch.
Knowing that won’t actually help you until you’ve got all five diary entries – only then can you use the console.
Re-releasing dyes makes me very happy. Seeing greedy schmucks cry about having to drop their prices makes me even happier.
Don’t play mine very much – I think she’s only around level 25.
The timers and mob HP were balanced and rebalanced several times in an attempt to find a sweet spot that would ensure people couldn’t faceroll the event, but wasn’t so difficult that no one could do it. Everyone’s mileage will vary. And as with any group activity, virtual or real life, there is luck inherent in that. Some people hate that dynamic and some love it. If someone has an idea about how to ameliorate the inherent luck factor in group events, please speak up!
I’d suggest a morale boost on beating each platform, so it becomes less and less likely for the last platform or two to get wiped – GW1 had something similar for many missions but with a slightly different intent.
Another possibility would be requiring only four out of five to win. You generally have to be unlucky to get wiped or run out of time on any given platform, but it only takes one.
I personally prefer a morale boost – whether it’s just a temporary stat increase, rallying downed, or anything else – because it actually does mean you’re helping everyone else when you beat your platform, without giving anyone a free ride.
Seeing as how this game is named Guild Wars, i think the content is designed around guilds getting people together and doing the hard content, rather than being designed around Teamspeak. How your guild communicates with each other is not Anets problem.
People really still don’t know why the game is called guild wars more than a year in?
Almost nine years in, in fact – the original game didn’t show you the Guild Wars either, except for an April Fools’ quest one year.
Actually, that particular quest played a lot like a Fractal…
Anyway, these wurm bosses – the real problem with them is the timer is just too short. I’m not exactly sure how difficult this encounter was intended to be, but 30 minutes would be far more reasonable for a co-ordinated server. The issue right now is that even the best co-ordinated servers available are only just able to finish the first stage – I can’t imagine this event being completable on many, if any, once interest falls away.
Lionguard at Fort Marriner, I’d figure. Zaishen aren’t that influential anymore.
She reminds me of Snaff – no class in particular, just works with golems.
Scarlet ain’t likely to reform. Once you’ve been claimed by an elder dragon, you stay forever altered even if the dragon dies.
Other issue is that Rox has too much motivation to kill her for any such reconciliation to work. Rytlock is unlikely to rescind the order, and Rox would remain a gladium forever if she doesn’t carry it out.
This is indeed pretty generous.
Of course some prices will drop as a result, but all the ecto I’m getting from salvaging is going into levelling Ascended crafting tracks anyway… so…
All of the things that are balanced differently in PvE… like confusion. If you thought PU mesmers were bad in WvW…
Then there’s the PvE-only consumables.
GW1 has/had body blocking capabilities – both foe and ally. People hated it…. I can sort of see why they removed it here.
The reason people hated it was because walking in GW1 was automated through clicks and skills made you run to your enemies through the fastest path. In this game you steer your character, so you shouldn’t be bumping into others if you’re anywhere near an experienced gamer.
Actually GW1 had the same controls as GW2 except for jumping. Clicking was just another way to do the same thing but not recommendable in competitive play.
The reason why GW1 was able to support body blocking was never having more than 24 players in one map, except for towns – but non-hostile players didn’t body block so that wasn’t an issue.
The gate to Divinity’s Reach would be shut down after retreating from Ebonhawke. They’d have to be caught well and truly off-guard for it to be breached.
There’s also a lot of people who don’t want to see mounts since then, for a variety of reasons. My concern is that the waypoint system makes them redundant, and a low-waypoint zone would be there for reasons incompatible with just chucking mounts in to bypass everything in the zone.
I hope I’m getting the point across. Waypoints exist for a reason, but their utilization is by people with a variety of reasons for using their convenience factor. Removing them for the sake of exploration (which a lot of players might not even want to have forced on them) seems . . . to be adding some fresh new vibrant color to the Mona Lisa.
I see what you’re saying.
I do not want to REMOVE waypoints.
I want to add new content built without waypoints in mind.
totally agree.. If they add the Crystal desert I think it would be amazing if it were 3 huge zones that only had 1 entrance WP. It would add to the feel of the epic wasteland.
GW1 had the outposts rather than waypoints – that could perhaps be a model for how many waypoints this wilderness region might have.
A personal waypoint consumable may be helpful for exploration of this zone, too. The opportunity to duck out and play something else for a bit before picking up where you left off would be helpful in such a zone – otherwise you have to walk all the way back or use an alt.
So, if it’s possible to have a single-use consumable – kind of like a Twisted Watchwork Portal actually – that takes you back to the place you activated it within a 24-hour period, that may solve some of the problems forseen with this kind of content.
The other thing that I’d recommend to avoid making the zone any more dead than it has to be (being a vast desert, after all) would be providing paths through the desert with a relatively low mob density. If you’re trying to join someone out there you at least want the option of reaching them quickly.
Requiring group play to complete some challenges in such an area is fine, but requiring group play to reach them is going to result in either a dead zone or a zerg (if the rewards are good enough).
The charr are far more powerful than the human armies – it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference. Breaking the treaty now would just result in the deaths of hundreds of human settlers outside Ebonhawke, and the ones inside would have to contend with charr armed with Pact siege weaponry.
The problems the charr are faced with are individually not as serious as the centaurs are for Kryta. It’s stretching resources to fight 6 different groups (Separatists and ogres are other irritations not on that list) that allows the Flame Legion to even think about striking the Black Citadel… and this while their soldiers around their own base are being ambushed all over the place by the Ash Legion.
Well, the problem your describing is partly due to your very narrow definition of what Control is, and again is part of the problem with control is, no one knows what the hell it is.
If your talking about just CC, then yeah it’s really ineffective outside of PvP, and even then it’s just an extension of DPS, your still a DPS at heart.
But your right about GW1, it did have a lot more options when it came to control, largely because of Energy. Energy denial and manipulation was a huge part of control in that game, heck it even was a part of support by being an energy battery.
While not having resources is good from a DPS gameplay perspective, all other forms of play seem to suffer considerably.I really don’t know if it was the best course of action in hindsight. And it’s probably too late to add an energy system in now?
My definition of control is effects that cause, promote, restrict or prevent certain types of action. I don’t know if that’s narrow, but I seriously doubt it.
GW2 actually has more methods of control than GW1, but in dungeons they’re less effective. The walls, knockdowns, immobilize, and so on are on long cooldowns – you can’t usually block foes into tight spaces and wipe them all out with AoE, because they have too much HP to die before you run out of ways to keep them still.
Because there are no healers, you don’t need skills like Diversion, Distracting Shot, Power Block, etc. so much- though it sure would be nice to have something similar against a few of the GW2 bosses. But in GW1, failing to shut down elementalist bosses in hard mode meant that without huge defensive buffs, someone (or everyone) was going to die.
I think in a nutshell, the problem is it’s nowhere near as easy (if even possible) to stay alive due to judicious use of CC as it is to just DPS the target down. I don’t think adding energy to AI-controlled foes would change that at all – they don’t attack fast right now, because if they did it’d be impossible to beat them with that kind of HP.
And, actually, it might cause even worse lag problems on large-scale PvE events if they did use actions more frequently.
As a PvE’er who dislikes PvP, I’m kinda annoyed at ANet’s insistence on trying to push more people to do WvW or PvP (they wanted to add the Heart of the Mists for World Completion too!) I don’t particularly like fighting other players (aside from Activities like Keg Brawl or Southsun Survival), and I dislike having to constantly look over my shoulder when I’m mapping in hostile territory. It’s always a feeling of relief when I’m done and I can return to the safety of my Keep, which I don’t think is the experience ANet is hoping I would get from WvW.
Heart of the Mists is the lobby; it’s a PvE zone. (And a free ticket back to LA, too.)
For anyone who’d like to get the world completion achievement, but really doesn’t like the idea of fighting players in WvW, you may be able to get some assistance from your server community.
For players on my server, Stormbluff Isle, there is a community website at http://www.stormbluffisle.com/ – you can ask for assistance on map completion in the WvW forums. We have quite a lot of PvE/WvW crossover guilds who can help out with map completion and the WvW jumping puzzles as well. It will take repeated visits as we never own the whole map all at once anymore, but you don’t have to do any PvP at all if you don’t want to. Got plenty of experienced WvW players and scouts who can keep you well clear of the trouble spots.
Thou I think that support shouldn’t be too bad overall, because at least you have something to work with. It could do with another stat for Boons, because their kinda broken right now since a full DPS can get just as much out of them as a full Support, which makes you wonder why should you go support in the first place.
No, you real problem lies with Control. It doesn’t even have any stats to it’s name, beside maybe Condition Duration. (blind, weakness, cripple, etc)
It’s not even well defined to mean anything as far as I know.
What does Arenanet even define it to be?I don’t see how control can be it’s own thing until it gets 2-3 stats of it’s own.
If it did, and support got one as well, then you could probably have 2 completely new trait lines for every profession, which would be pretty cool and avoid power creep.Currently every control build is essentually a DPS that has more of a focus on interrupts/disabling/or conditions, but it’s still at it’s core a DPS, and there is no way around that currently.
From my point of view, the control side of this new trinity is fairly effective in PvP combat, although against a WvW zerg many of the skills have diminished utility due to AoE caps. It’s PvE where it’s really not that useful.
Control skills were actually useful in GW1, but GW2 made three changes that nearly took it out of the picture.
- Almost all dungeon mobs are veterans or above, so they have high HP pools – one well-placed control skill will make a difference for 1% of the fight at best, instead of making a substantial contribution.
- Cooldowns are so long you can’t disable a single enemy permanently, or even most of the time.
- Enemy groups are usually small or built around a single major threat. When they’re all a threat, choosing which one to lock down (or which two to put heavy pressure on) is a thoughtful inclusion to gameplay, but in GW2 you could just keep the big one unable to use its major skills and the encounter would be a cakewalk.
I’d like to see all of the above changed in future dungeons but I have to admit that’s outside the scope of this thread.
Now, with regards to sub-classes:
I personally don’t want them either. But I think some of the ideas for introducing them could be used for other means of progression that the game already supports – namely, new skills, traits, and perhaps weapons. I think the role of traits could be expanded a little, and the variety of skills (weapon, utility and elite together) increased somewhat.
I think that introducing new archetypes, comprised of new traits and utility skills only, using the story/gameplay methods discussed for subclasses in this thread, might be a viable way to improve horizontal progression without pigeonholing people into certain subclass roles.
The main issue is that we already have some traits and utility skills that are outclassed by others, if not already useless. However, there’s already a balancing team looking carefully at those, and so I don’t think adding new skills to provide options previously unavailable to a class has to result in people always selecting the same few skills and traits. It’s actually the synergy between skills and traits that dictates what you’d take and why.
I never run Mantra of Pain on my mesmer, for example, because outside of a mantra build it really doesn’t offer much utility, and I don’t run a mantra build.
And I never run Signet of Illusions because the active effect is a bit overkill for most shatter builds, the passive effect is a bit overkill for most phantasm builds, and either the active or passive effect doesn’t contribute anything useful to one of the two. So there’s always another utility skill that could offer something I otherwise wouldn’t have.
I’m guessing you propose the land around this guild hall also be instanced?
I do see merit in setting it up that way, but at the same time I wonder what becomes of the home instance in your starter city, and how to handle people in multiple guilds. That much real estate could be quite some work.
Principally I like the idea of guild hall-based housing because it allows a (potentially) large number of people to see what you’ve got without sprawling across the open world. The home instance doesn’t have that freedom, though it has a stronger connection with the individual character.
This thread is not a soapbox.
Is there any chance of widening the volatility a little bit, without pushing the cap out too far?
Right now, there’s a gap of 170 points between T1 and T2 on the NA servers, and a gap of 130 points between T3 and T4 – in theory if both servers either side of that gap rolled low on one end and high on the other, they could swap places, but it’s exceedingly unlikely.
If the weighting was changed somewhat so that it was more likely to roll (-100, -50) or (+50, +100) than (-50, +50), we’d get more movement within that range without giving us the massive blowouts we had before. We’d still see blowouts, of course, but that happens any time you deviate from strict tiers. But most importantly ratings between the tiers will be tested more often.
Right… which means you still need to be able to survive the important bits solo. And underflow servers could help with the rest.
The other problem is I don’t really like the idea of getting all these …advancements in the same place. Why would you go to the Crystal Desert to learn the art of the druid?
I wonder if you could have zones that large in GW2.
The idea of getting ascended… subclasses/proficiencies/traits/whatever-they-might-be through trips into the desert where Ascension genuinely is a battle for survival and you don’t even get waypoints to hold your hand…
I really do like it. It’s almost like Hard Mode, but more compelling. Of course, I say that now, with no idea of whether it’d work in the game, but it takes the Crystal Desert of GW1 with all those notes in the sand that leave you thinking “you got how far in a week?!” and makes something genuinely dangerous, with minions of Kralkatorrik and whatever else may inhabit the area to watch out for.
Give people a reason to take defensive builds.
Ehhh, factual problems. There were three of outposts along the way: Yak’s Bend, Ice Tooth Cave, Beacon’s Perch. There were also two missions making it easy to reach Beacon’s Perch if completed. And you didn’t have to respawn at the outpost if you wiped, you’d respawn at the last Resurrection Shrine you passed with -15% death penalty to a maximum of -60%. And it would go no lower but you could still die and respawn and get plastered really easily
Not in the Jan ‘05 beta – there were no resurrection shrines so you had to stay alive. At the time I had no maps to refer to, so I had to find the route over the Shiverpeaks – missed Grendich Courthouse, which was too well guarded by charr to make it with a group of level 4’s, and had to run past level 11 hydras in the Ascalon Foothills who’d just about one-shot the party with a well-placed Meteor.
Finally got to Borlis Pass where I got higher-level henchmen, but didn’t know that missions allowed you to progress further along at that point, so I ran through Iron Horse Mine and found Ice Tooth Cave. After that, I fought from there through to Scoundrel’s Rise – I think I skipped Lornar’s Pass (as Beacon’s Perch was called during that beta, hence the incorrect description in GW1 later) and into North Kryta Province on to Lion’s Arch.
Ascalon Foothills was by far the most treacherous bit. The Droknar’s run after release never had the same impact because the resurrection shrines had been added.
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Even IF, you simply brought back the original ascension trials, and made it so that we had to kind of “follow in the footsteps” of our ancestors from 250 years ago, to reach Glint’s lair and possibly find….. Glint’s child, who is looking to avenge his mother, and is willing to teach us the skills needed to face a dragon and it’s champions…. It would be great.
Truncated for brevity – but I love the idea of revisiting the Crystal Desert for ascension like that. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense in the Prophecies storyline but it does here.
One thing that this game completely lacks, which I’ve always actually kind of enjoyed in MMOs in a kind of masochistic way, is actual fear. It’s hard to be afraid in a new, unknown place when you know you can just respawn at the waypoint a minute back. I would love to see some experimentation with regions that don’t have waypoints.
One of my favourite memories of the GW1 beta weekends was trying to make my way over the Shiverpeaks to Lion’s Arch from Piken Square with a small party of under-level characters. Back then you had to respawn at the last outpost – Piken Square – if you wiped. It was a dangerous journey and it felt like quite an accomplishment when I made it, regardless of how I eventually discovered I was doing it wrong by not going through the missions to get there.
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Another poster mentioned that they’d like to see unlocks through story quests, but that implementation in WvW might be tricky. My suggestion is that this might be a good place to bring back the Signet of Capture (at least in spirit).
That’s where I thought PvP trainers with more of a gauntlet-style challenge, using events inspired by WvW situations, could handle the problem. Quicker to unlock, because WvW players are more interested in competing with these new abilities than the journey to get them – which is only important as a tutorial of sorts – but more challenging than the PvE version, because WvW players are up to the challenge.
I feel that whole system might be excessive for individual skills though, both in PvE and WvW (I’m assuming sPvP continues to allow free access to everything). Rather, using the ‘druid’ as an example, I’d figure it would unlock a set of thematic skills and traits, and possibly a weapon if appropriate.
I’m actually talking about different methods of acquisition for different things – quest lines for traits (and some? skills perhaps) and SoC for skills only.
You’re saying… scouts, but for capping skills? That actually sounds like a reasonable compromise to me – there’s a few zones to check but it won’t be overwhelming.
[Edit: Whoops, you’re talking about two different things entirely. :x ]
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Signet of Capture seems like a fun way to get skills (for PvE players) but in GW2, where you don’t have millions of skills to go around, you’ll want some loremaster NPC who knows where to find them. Otherwise people have to use wiki – the idea of stumbling across a skill unassisted is still possible but most players simply can’t be bothered, and if going hunting for the skill they want isn’t their idea of fun, then… who am I to argue?
I think for something more trait-oriented – or for sub-classes/secondary classes/masteries if any of these concepts end up being used – the Order-based or personal story options start to shine through. It’s not just one skill; it opens up quite a bit more, so the extra investment makes sense.
Whatever system is used, locking people out of proficiencies based on their order, or restricting them from switching later, is just not a very nice thing to do to people. I’d like to see the different Orders unlock the same proficiencies in different ways. If ANet can spare the time to develop three chains per proficiency – quite an undertaking really – it adds that bit of flavour but doesn’t restrict anyone’s options.
They don’t belong to different orders, you’d get all masteries from all orders.
In terms of unlocking masteries in a WvW context, I’d have to guess that Edge of the Mists is a more appropriate venue for such things – I’m not familiar with the place as I missed the beta period while I was away from home over Nov-Dec. But I’d still go with a quest chain of sorts, just from a different angle.
I’d start by talking to one of the old trainers from Shing Jea Monastery or the Zaishen in the Mists… somewhere. They’d set a series of challenges – for a druid, capturing and defending an area / point / fortification from the dredge, where the new skills are well matched for the situation, would be the start. For a scout, it might be evading such enemies to collect one of those mysterious orbs we don’t see anymore, and escaping again to deliver it back to base. Scenarios from present and past in WvW, basically, tailored to test players on the new build.
Final step would be a 1v1 against the trainer (or a 5v5 for team-oriented builds).
Generally I like the GW1 Battle Isles approach to introducing play styles to WvW players, and a story-driven plot to achieve a similar result in PvE. I’d expect the WvW version to be shorter but somewhat harder to complete.
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The event idea is an interesting one, but it doesn’t feel like a “grand journey” so to speak. Do you feel like if we asked you to do 90 different events in a month, and that allowed your ranger to say become a Druid, you’d feel like that was a cool system?
I’d prefer a personal storyline branch but it might need another system in WvW … and that’s a tricky one to work out. Will have to think some more on that.
The biggest problem with the charr storyline is you don’t see most of the characters again. Suspect the other races are similar however.
Vitality should help against retaliation. And conditions too, which are probably the biggest concern for an ele presently.
The CDIs are so much more useful than the suggestions forum that it makes sense to get rid of it, honestly. The CDIs are focussed, solve problems, and don’t give you the impression that no-one’s paying attention.
So an open question: If you don’t announce it, how do players who want to progress their character down these new paths of exciting character progression know what to do it, or how to progress? We’ve seen if the path of progression isn’t relatively clear, most our every-day casual players won’t bother doing it, which isn’t a system that buys us much game play over-all.
Trait quests – you go to an NPC in your home instance, or your Order’s home base, to open a quest line for any unknown trait/skill. They tell you what you haven’t got and give you tips on who to talk to in order to get it. When the NPC is introduced, use mail to point out where they are.
Because I can’t stand Conquest as a game mode.
I don’t really like sub-classes as a concept. I don’t feel they offer anything to the game that couldn’t be done better by just offering more options in trait lines, skills and weapons.
For the customisation options listed by Chrispy above regarding the Ranger, for example, you could achieve the same effect by adding Grandmaster traits that have more significant effects than they do now, whether as part of an across-the-board grandmaster trait buff or additional traits that sacrifice one thing for something else. But I suspect part of the problem with more customisation in terms of class roles isn’t necessarily the lack of options available now, but the game simply not supporting that style of play.
For example, I like the idea of a mesmer build that specialises in stealth/evasion – but in PvE, a character that can enable its allies to slip behind enemy lines doesn’t really achieve much. In WvW, it would be horribly overpowered – if you changed Prismatic Understanding so that, perhaps, it allowed ultra-long-duration stealth and Decoy to affect party members/allies, you’d need to add revealed debuffs of 15 seconds or more to prevent spamming, and change Portal so only the caster could use it in WvW.
Then there’s a ranger that specialises in tracking – although it could be useful for spotting stealthed enemies in WvW, there is absolutely no way to use the concept in PvE.
Those two concepts, and likely more, would seem great in a storybook – actually, I’m pretty sure something close to both has appeared in Edge of Destiny – but GW2 is really just a combat game that doesn’t have room for that many RPG archetypes. Maybe it could change? But that’s probably beyond the scope of this discussion.
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not really, we have had more on this week during eu time because of the holiday though
Well, that would explain why we’re keeping up with YB during that hour… but far from dominating it looking at PPT history.
Either way, it’s funny to hear someone from SoS saying that off-hour capping is “cheesing” PPT. It’s actually non-tick point sources keeping SBI in the game here.
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Think you might have confused SBI with YB.
Unless SBI actually has EU these days, and clever ones at that.
