Guild Wars 2

Names and Weapon concepts in my head canon ive had for a while now:

Guardian:

Inquisitor:

This sub-role basically sacrifices the guardians shields, healing and defence for raw aggression and excelling at burning magic, its weapon of choice is an off hand pistol and its focus of combat revolves around a focused version of your guardian burn aegis.

Main Abilities:
Mechanics
The Guardian trades its defencive Aegis and Regen for a singular F1 burn burst, the difference is this one actually adds burnstacks from every attack automatically and can be activated to consume them for a fraction of their damage.
Mark Of Purity: A Sigil placed on a target by various abilities that can only be activated within 5 seconds of its placement, when activated, burn stacks are immediately consumed for a portion of the damage dealt.
Purify (F1): Any target afflicted by Mark of Purity is immediatley struck by purify, which takes 1/3rd of the maximum damage afflicted by current burn stacks dealing that full damage immediatley while consuming the stacks in the process. (3 2/3 CD)

Offhand Pistol
Purifying Bolt (4): This ability fires a bolt of light that rebounds off up to 3 targets, inflicting a mark of purity upon each of the afflicted targets which increases burn damage to them by an additional half of its current damage. (1 1/2 CD)
Blazing Seal (5): The Guardian creates a circular seal that fires forwards immobalizing the first target it hits, in addition the targets around that target recieve a burn effect. (2 CD)

Skills
Zealous Accusation (6): You accuse a target of impure intent, marking them with a mark of purity, in addition all damage dealt against that target is returned to you as healing for the next 5 seconds. (2 CD)
Pious Provocation (7/8/9): Up to 5 enemies in the area are accused of heretical intent, you strike these targets with a mark of purity and in addition taunt the target for 5 seconds.
Devoted Concept (7/8/9): You heal yourself for (number of health determined by healing power and current level) in addition making yourself immune to damage for 2 seconds. (4 CD)
Righteous Anger (7/8/9): Your next three attacks will apply 5 stacks of burn per hit. (3 1/2 CD)
“Purification” (Elite 10): You summon a powerful blaze from the heavens that smites up to 5 targets in a set area after a 3 second cast time, when the spell is cast all ther targets are immediatley inflicted with 25 stacks of burn and a mark of purity. (10 1/2 CD)

Specializations

Tier 1:

Devoted Path: Gain access to Mark of Purity and Purify which allows you to mark targets for combustion and immediatley combust burning stacks on them for a portion of the damage.
Obligation: Your Purifying Bolt now hits up to 4 targets instead of 3.
My Judgement Is Absoleute: Your Zealous Accusation now adds a stack of vulnerability in addition to its previous effects.
Fervor Of Justice: Pistol Damage increased by 20%

Tier 2:
Deny The Impure: Your Mark’s cannot be removed by any form of clense effect.
Righteous Retribution: The cooldown of your Purification skills are decreased by 10%
Absoleute Truth: Your Devoted Concept skill now activates automatically upon falling below 10% health, this effect cannot work more than once every 1 minuate.
Noble Divinity: Your health passivly regenerates for 0.5% of the damage to all targets afflicted by mark of purity in a 20 yard radius.

Tier 3:
Judge, Jury, Executioner: Your Pistol attacks are now unblockable.
Faith Is My Blade: Your power swells with conviction, your purify now deals the full extent of damage but your burns are halved.
Its The Only Way To Be Sure: Purification now strikes up to ten enemies and its radius is expanded, but its burn stacks are halved.
Hatred Of Evil: When downed, you deal 100% more damage from your attacks on a burned target.

Heres what I think they should do:

Rather than adding new weapons yet, which id like to see eventually, id rather have overland abilities added to the underwater weapons, basically give underwater weapons the same general abilities the same way you get skills with underwater versions, except have them have overland weapon versions too.

So anyone that can use a spear underwater, can now use a spear overland too.

Frankly theres an easy way “around” the idea of the DE stuff and the current personal story:

Simply give the races their own personal story from 1-80 cut into 10 level segments.

This would also add an opportunity to add more than one race, possibly Tengu “and” Largos if were talking deep sea dragon, since it would allow both to have a story “specific” to them that lets them bypass all the previous personal story.

But What about HoT?

Again, this would be “tied” to their personal story, they would have a segment in HoT that would lead on “into” what ever new expansion content there is for those at end game.

An idea I would have is if they made season 3 involve Tengu and Largos suddenly, possibly have the Tengu wall collapse near LA (using the d’alessio seaboard as a small hub for Tengu interaction) we could learn the Tengu/Largos have had an uneasy truce forming their “own” version of the pact.

This gives us a perfect story excuse, the Tengu/Largos could have a flashback story that involves level 1-80 in their starting zone, they level rather rapidly as their starting zone carries them from level 1-40, their early advantage gives them a fast way to catch up to the other races.

From there they have “open world” segments that involve season 3 tie ins sort of a prequal to season 3 and a side-story tied to it.

We find the Tengu/Largos helping us in post HoT stuff thats tied to HoT regions, then everyone mutually moves forwards into deep sea dragon territory.

(Personally id like a break from the dragon plot myself but it could be an idea if were still going with that).

HoT has too many bad design ideas that aernt just about casual friendly content, honestly its just a poor concept from the start making 4 zones that have group oriented content that will go stale in later game expansions.

This has nothing to do with casual friendly on that front, the casual friendly aspect, is the fact that prior to things like LS1, Fractals, and all that crap, GW2, was an entirley open game that allowed even the laziest player to enjoy it with ease even with some frustration, it wasnt without challenge, Orr was pretty bloody challenging to a solo player and frustrating at times.

But it was at least playable solo, except for that forced final fight with Zhaitan.

Other than that, the world was your oyster, if you wanted to do personal story a few levels lower than you should you could and still reaped the rewards for it. You could do alot of things that the game now forbids you access to.

Alot of changes were made poorly and dont really make any sense to have changed them at all.

E.g. Changing the dungeons multiple times from rush-runs where you rushed a boss to death to gold-sinks to removing even that makes them valueless if your not in the skin-farming market.

Or the fact that we never “had” raids, or fractals where the only content appeal was to a minority of people that wanted that kinda thing.

Its a case of a-net catering to a minority, that minority is a group of people that came from WoW, SWTOR, other mmo’s with group content they’re bored of and want to do it on another MMO, so they changed the casuals mmo into something “they” wanted.

Thats not how it should have gone, or should go.

There are MMO’s designed for people that “dont” want the challenge and should exist for people that “dont”.

So yeah.

Since my previous topic has its own agenda to discuss I figured id start a fresh one that isnt about negativity and what was but rather what could be if the game moved forwards.

This isnt exactly a wishlist, its a suggestions board as to the things that could be done to help tackle the problem of GW2’s painfully obvious shift lately and whats wrong with it.

So lets start with the obvious:

Theres just too many War-Torn Zones

This one is going to come across as highly ironic for someone that loves dark fantasy and grim atmosphere but the problem with HoT is that all 4 zones are a rush-hour of activity, you have 4 seperate zones with meta-events that are time-taxed and demanding peoples attention 24/7 if they really wanna get the best rewards out of them.

This doesnt even factor the problem of having spirit vale’s entrance in one of those four zones making the value of said zone’s ability to que for tier 4 progression very difficult.

So moving forwards what is the answer?

- Not “every” zone needs to be a massive meta-event slug fest of group oriented content, we need zones that can just be relaxing walks in the park with no real agenda, places with nice vista’s to sit and chill at for hours or just spend time in solo play.
- The Spirit Vale needs its own “entrance” so to speak, a tiny zone portal to allow players to gather there in a giant LFG style lobbying room to help people find pugs and other various groups for the raid itself.
- Group content oriented meta zones should really stick to “one zone” per continent, rather than multiple zones as it splits people up too much. Alterntivley, make better alternatives that can be soloed to aquire things like 4th tier zone contribution chestpieces.

Season 3 cant come fast enough

Season 3 is overdue, the content drought between now and HoT has been bad, with raiding only appealing to a specific audience it doesnt help the rest of the playerbase. People need something to “do” that is activly doable by everyone not just a specific audience, and the lack of content is what is killing Gw2.

- Go back to the Season 2 style fast content with filler approach, while it wasnt necessarily the best answer to a bigger problem it “did” allow chunks of meat to be spoonfed to an instant gratification audience. We need smaller content that can fill the time gap, perhaps even recycling current open world areas for Season 3 storyline content, if only to give chunks of juicy dialogue and depth to the world thats already available.
- Raiding, PvP and WvW are filler contents too that should not be neglected, but they dont need the centerstage, raiders have the spiritvale and now one extra wing comming soon enough, let them have that for a while and focus on WvW getting something new, like maybe an overhauled eternal battleground as part of a long term project. PvP might like a new stronghold too.

Guild Halls for the big and small

Not every guild has 50 raiders ready to launch into open world pve, and pvp, some are minor small proxy groups comprised of 5-10 people who just enjoy casual chill content and would love to feel like they had their own small place in the world.

- Make more guild halls, but smaller ones designed for smaller guilds, allowing 5-10 man guilds to have some smaller but still significant themed places of their own to call home (besides larger guilds might like this too).
- Make guild missions even easier to access, multiple guild missions focused on various group sizes should give an even amount of guild mission points rather than discriminating smaller guilds.

Its time for a break from the dragon plot, its obviously going nowhere

The story of the Elder Dragons has tried multiple inceptions to really spark an interest but never really gone far, Season 1 had us face off Scarlet and her machines which was a hit and miss showing human villians can be done good and poorly if not written well or impliamented deeply. Likewise, the Dragons themselves seem to be very dull antagonists that always lack a sense of personal threat when aside from killing off characters we barley know or token murders that are too forced feel very, unmenacing and un-personal to us.

(Im going to be honest, I felt more threat in season 2 from Mordremoth’s Lieutenant the Shadow of the Dragon than I did Mordremoth himself and he only even appeared 2 times in the entire story).

- The game needs an anti-pact, a long term enemy that isnt just a one off threat, something that can appear in multiple seasons as some kind of personal nemesis faction to our own and be a constant menace even after the dragon threat is defeated or gone forever (I still think the white mantle would be perfect for this).
- The player character doesnt always have to be the hero, being a good guy is boring, people “like” being responsible for bad things in video games since fantasy allows us to be the hero “and” the villian, dont be afraid to take risks, let the player character do some menacing things or even morally questionable ones. Even an accidental evil can be interesting since it triggers consequences we will have to deal with personally.

(An example of this:)

Lets say Glints Egg hatches and instead of a dragon some kind of ghostly essence appears, it takes over the player and “you” the player have now become bonded with the dragons child, the dragons child now sees the world through your eyes and speaks to you in a genderless (male/female) telepathic voice.

The player then goes on an adventure of personal resolution, helping your wounded comrades in HoT deal with the problems of their individual lives and fixing them while seeing the darker side of both your companions “and” yourself having to handle dealing with the pacts consequences.

Maybe the dragon offers you something, a power? The power to command and control peoples will and force them to obey you, the commander is forced to use it for some unknown reason and as a consequence, for a moment, you loose control of yourself.

Your character awakens to find people kneeling before you, in dread, in horror, you realize that you are capable of great, and possibly terrible things.

You resolve to find a way to make the dragon leave your body, and by the end of the story you succeed, the dragon judges you lack the ability to do what has to be done to save the world, and considers you unworthy.

You are left wondering the consequences of your actions, but you know on the immediate part you’ve made some poor choices.

That, right there, is the kinda thing that can be done, impliamented, the kind of thing that allows players to remain the hero but “explore” being the villian, you can fall, and rise, you can see your darkest moment, and reach your highest peak.

In season 3, the hero needs to fall, before they can be the true hero of the world

We need a dark story, a dark story that explores the commanders personal battle with themselves.

So far HoT teased that with the Sylvari Commander, but that was only to their particular benefit, but it should affect all of us, the Sylvari Commander might have experience sure, but that doesnt stop them being tempted.

What if you could have the power to bind the world to your will?

Would you remain the hero everyone wanted you to be?

Or would you rule the world and change everything that those fighting against you believed to your benefit?

I want to see the commander “fall”.

Anyways this is just my view, im interested to see what others think on the matter moving forwards.

The problem with HoT is that it has shifted from world content to exclusive content, putting most if not all of its content behind endless farms to lengthen its value instead of allowing content to be enjoyable without making it a chore.

See, its the burn out philosophy, take A-nets compeditor in the field Blizzard as a good example of why burnout is bad.

Warlords of Draenor focused exclusivly on raiding content while having other content around it that could be used to contribute towards that. The problem was that the raiding content was limited and the experience was easily repedative after a while.

This kind of content isnt healthy for an MMO of the new age because people like faster gratification over longer gratification.

Theres a difference between something thats hardcore and something thats elitist to the point of exclusivity.

Hardcores, do content that can be accessed by anyone, but requires a long term challenge such as fighting bosses and earning loot to achieve, but you do earn loot as a reward and feel incentivised to keep playing the content to earn more loot.

Elite content is much more biased, it only allows very specific players to benefit from it of either exceptional skill or connective influences operating in a way that runs through the “I am superiour than everyone else” logic.

That is the worst kind of gameplay any mmo can offer because it creates a barrier between one generation of player and the next. If you want to attract new players to an MMO you dont focus on making them feel downright isolated from the old.

E.g. I barley if ever got to experience Aetherblade Retreat, the content in that dungeon was a little too much for me even though I did get to the final boss. It was frustrating, not fun, and I genuinley felt like I was being pushed aside as a target demographic in favor of those that wanted specific players for a specific content.

I havent even done the Aether Path in Twilight Arbor yet, and I never got to experience the Aether Fractal because I barley touched fractals at all.

This content wasnt for me, and to some extent dungeon content was never designed for my demographic.

But then you have content like the tower of nightmares which was challenging, but accessable, an open dungeon that people could go to when the content was relevent and ascend the tower to the top eventually getting access to the story content.

And I enphasis this here, story content was accessable via this, content that as vital to anyone trying to understand the lore and universe of the game, content that in my opinion should NEVER be barred behind any kind of wall.

If the lore has to be blocked by a challenging gameplay mechanic then you’ve failed to understand the point of an RPG, you cannot possibly have an RPG thats foundation of making “you” the main protagonist, wall its content off so that you and 10 other randoms can experience the same content that apparently makes “you” the main character so special.

This is where content can feel poorly designed for casuals, designing content that should be accessable to everyone, that requires a group to access.

E.g. The aweful decision at the end of GW2’s launch to gate the final story mission behind a dungeon was just bad, no matter how you excuse it. Thank god they changed it because frankly it was an aweful choice in the first place making the entire story side of the game redundant.

Then theres the world content, making zones entirley focused on having groups of people micro-manage the map in order to complete it together is a really bad design choice. Especially considering that the content in those maps will be redundant by the point a new map is released to replace it or a new challenge.

This content is what I like to call gated content, it claims to be free but its not, you cant really do Orr alone and thus you cant experience the world story without having a dedicated guild help you, or groups of friends.

Group content, always group content.

Theres no focus on the solo player who allegedly is important considering the entire storyline likes to enphasis how you, the commander of the pact, are leading the charge against these dragons.

It makes, no sense, to create content that actually defeats the point of that. From a storytelling POV its just poor, from a gameplay POV its literally putting multiplayer in a singleplayer RPG.

How does that even work?

Either way, its not the only point id like to make about GW2’s shift in focus lately but it is “one” point the game world and the story dont balance out when you make the commander important, and yet they have to play with others in order to feel any sense of relevence.

If theres one thing that I will give A-net full credit its their scores since Season 1, the music has been so much better now that the new composers have taken over, and im not saying Jeremy Soule wasnt good, just that I have a great respect for Maclaine, Lief and the others.

Personally though im curious to see what the score of season 3 and future expansions will be.

Also, id like to offer my own insight into certain themes, going into the crystal desert one might need something a bit more ambient and less exciting like the jungle dragon’s theme but still we need some kind of theme tune for Kralkatorrik assuming that is where were going next.

Id assume they’ll be using arabic themes obviously in coexistance with the general scope of such things, but im also curious as to future iconic villian themes. I really did like Mordremoth’s iconic beat, but what about the future, what future antagonists will we see that have their own iconic musical masterpiece, or general themes for races and factions.

Will we see a newer version of DR, or the Norn Theme, or maybe the Charr?

What of the White Mantle, if they ever come into play, im hoping theres some use of creepy choirs akin to angels and demons or the davinci code if they go down the mantle due to its illuminati vibe.

Eh, I just wanted to say, im interested to see what masterpieces you guys at A-net come up with next.

A long time ago, there was an MMO that advertised itself out there to be “the” casual player mmo. This mmo promised it would create content that would be designed for relaxing and open social gameplay, the ability to play with friends without having to, the ability to do dungeon runs that werent frustrating or tedious, a massive world vs world vs world pvp mode that encouraged thousands to play. Huge map wide raids were also a big deal in these casual event systems designed to help casual gamers play with other casual gamers.

It also introduced a level based pvp system entirley seperate from its main game with an entirely class-balance based focus on that pvp system.

That game also had a decent roleplaying community on at least 2 major servers prior to the introduction of mega-servers and a number of other new additions to the game.

It also promised that absoleutley no content in the game would be a tedious chore.

It lied.

GW2, What ever you promised to be, you need to keep it, screw this “1%” minority that are into e-sports, and raiding 24/7 this isnt WoW just abbandon that entirley and focus on the people that “do” care about the game, and “do” care about it surviving longer than 3 months.

GW2 was the first MMO SINCE World of Warcraft I could activly play for more than just a month, I felt a certain satisfaction in exploring the world, doing random questsa t my own pace and leisure, having the options to see Tyria at my own adventuring pace.

Now, I feel like the game wants me to rush into content, get my ascended mats, aquire legendaries, 5000 acheivement points minimum and alot more content thats just locked behind farming for content so that an kitten group of stowaways from other MMO’s can have their moment to shine.

Can we please, PLEASE go back to what MADE GW2 special in the first place.

Going forward, GW2 needs to abbandon this “challenging group content” kitten and “e-sport pvp ladder” system and just focus on what MADE GW2 special.

Its a game, people can play at their own leisure for fun, with nothing overly complicated about that at all.

Season 2 did this ALOT better than HoT did.

Going into Season 3 and future expansions, I would seriously hope A-net goes BACK to what made the games CORE gameplay special.

I want a game that isnt just another WoW clone, dont become another wow clone, A-net.

Theres a few visual bugs on my slayers outfit, I dunno if its just me but I have noticed while trying to wear the thing that it has a few mesh details that dont properly change and end up looking various tones of pink/green for no reason, it appears to be the decorations at the end of the tabard aswell as the stomach area and a point just around the waist that seem to have this bug, no other part of the outfit seems to have a problem.

Earlier today in DR I had a random player come up towards a group of my friends and I roleplaying on the server Piken Square who felt the urge to start throwing insulting and demeaning commentary at roleplayers.

I believe personally A-net needs to do more towards helping their roleplay community as its struggling enough as it is to thrive without players harrassing them in public.

See I could have reported this but I feel it works better to do this while also helping raise awareness of that some of us actually do enjoy engaging in roleplay using the setting of Tyria and the lore as our canvas to engage in stories and interactions that are memorable to all of us Tyrians.

Id like to say I hope that A-net focuses some attention on the social aspects of the game after and during this wintersday season, we RPers are an unsung minority that really needs more love!

I pretty much agree entirley with this, we need to keep raiders “out” of the PVE maps and let them be part of their own little world.

Move the Instance to LA or something, just keep them out of VB, they’re disrupting the map completion.

We tried to get tier 4, and the only thing stopping us was the pact encampment, as soon as Sylvari Incident was triggered, we tried killing the tentacles, they bugged after the second one died, preventing us from killing the rest and ultimatley costing us Tier 4.

This needs a serious fix.

I know this is asking much of A-net considering you’re focus is on raids atm, and not necessarily on story content, but I have been told that dragons stand and several story segments may have been cut from this game, id like to know, were they and if so, why?

Also, would it be possible like the personal story to add them back in the way they added back apatia, potentially helping to complete the story of HoT more, e.g. adding more story with the Nightmare Court and that Countess in Dragons Stand and why we are suddenly allied to the Court, adding more layers to the current storyline and more depth to the dialogue, possibly more Tyria refferences and going back to Tyria to resolve problems back home?

I dont know, im not necessarily naysaying but I was told that in Dragons Stand at least theres supposedly some cut content that should have made it into launch, could we potentially see this content make it in at a later date? I am happy to wait if it means getting a more “complete” HoT experience.

As to the err refference it was on the reddit a few weeks ago, someone pointed it out so I dont wanna get into trouble or anything, im just asking, inquiring.

Would it be possible to get an extended story cut?

Regarding why the mantle would work for other races:

The idea in my head canon was that the mantle could be lead by Lazarus in the shadows, using the pacts defeat to start coersing people into thinking you know what, sure they got the job done but they took alot of lives to do it.

Almost ironically considering Lazarus and the Mursaats methods, he would then poison people against the Pact by convincing them that “his” way the “mantle” way could be used as a more effective counter, demonstrating by one shotting a lesser dragon LT, maybe the Shatterer or something.

Combine this with his other method of gathering troops, he goes to scarlets former armies, the Aethers, Molten Alliance, Toxic Alliance and so on, gathering their support while building the mantle into something more than just its origional group of religious fanatics, but a new world order, with “him” at the top.

They become something of an anti-pact, evolving from the mantle of old into a newer faction, maybe the mantle, maybe something else, something ultimatley, that rivals the pact, something powerful, and formiddable, but ruled by much more unethical ideals.

We throughout Season 3 onwards try to stop it, but in the end he succeeds by outwitting us and forcing us to deal with proxy affairs like Lions Arch having feuds with Sylvari, distracting us from the real threat thats growing in the shadows.

After its inital insurgency the mantles new face and existance allows it to spread globally, becomming the worlds “biggest” super threat save the dragons themselves.

This basically allows the mantle to be more than just an average enemy we wipe out after one season or expansion, it allows them to be a reoccuring villian, weather Lazarus dies at the end of S3 and his matyrdom allows the mantle to spread like a wildfire, or, that he simply influences the world with his manpulations forfilling his promise that generations would suffer, he ultimatley succeeds and creates an enemy that we will know for a long time to come.

Endlessly tormenting us in various ways with smaller cells from his deaths legacy.

So, title says it all for fans of GW1, isnt it about time we had a massive resurgance of everyones favorate insane religious fanatic cult as an ultimate anti-pact, they would be the “perfect” enemy to serve as a reoccuring villian from Season 3 onwards, since you could always find new ways to bring them back and cause new found havok after Lazarus promised revenge in GW1.

Id love to see these guys come back as some kind of anti-pact, perhaps trying to find a way to control the dragons as opposed to killing them.

I think the important thing we have learned is that Heart Of Thorns showed us that a storyline thats been rushed while all the other content got fleshed out is a bad storyline, using gating, game mechanics and cruxes like grinding bugs is a cheap clinch for a good storytelling medium.

Season 2 had some truly memorable story moments throughout its 8 episode journey, but this felt like Dragons Reach part 1 with bits you had to do with tiny bits of story between them, that frankly, sucked, as a medium of storytelling.

I personally preffered every episode “but” Dragons Reach part 1, and maybe episode 6 when we found the Master of Whispers in an anti-climactic way, but honestly thats the problem.

A-net, you rush good stories too easily, you need to draw them out, this should have been a 16 episode storyline with at least 4 major events “per” episode rather than 5 major stories and the rest being just… gameplay.

The story, is an aspect, of the MMO, not a part of the game, it needs to be its own thing, seperate, from the game itself.

And its meant to be soloed, so can we stop making group content that has to be completed to progress the plot, please?

Ultimatley heres what I think:

HoT had the potential to be good, I see what you did with its plot but I think you should have drawn it out more with depth, not mastery points, with longer storylines that traveled back to Tyria to do stuff like, e.g., see some major racial tension in Lions Arch, where we might have to put down riots and side with the rioters or against them to protect/harm sylvari.

Or stuff like an assassination attempt on the Queen by a rival political body blaming Canach, we have to help him escape DR while the mobs try to kill him.

There are many other plots I could have easily conjured here that would be easily able to draw this out more.

But the worst culprit, was Mordremoth himself.

Mordremoth never once after S2’s finale felt like a threat, he didnt feel in your face or personal, even as a Sylvari player.

And that final battle was a joke, you should be ashamed.

It could have worked, but you should have spent more time building it, maybe riding Mordremoths back in an instanced version of Rata Sum being attacked by the dragon while we have to climb into its body and “THEN” do the whole mind thing.

There was room for expansion, but you just rushed it too easily with no depth or substance.

LS season 3, needs to be “deep” with ALOT of character development, and less focus on mob grinding.

Id like to say that the RP community is an unsung but loved small but still potentially growing thing even though often it suffers in trying to find itself.

I believe and id like to see that the next major content update Gw2 does (not necessarily an expansion but more like a living story content update) might feature some features designed for roleplayers in mind.

A few things id like to ask for this wintersday:

- Sitting on Chairs
- Beds that can be lied down upon
- More Emote options for sitting/general emotes (hell make them gemstore if you want)
- More faces and hairs again, and possibly hair colours and even skin colours (crazy blue humans!)
- Roleplayer tools such as a /roll system to allow people access to that kinda thing and maybe a specific “roleplayer” commander tag for rp group squads.
- Guild Alliance options for roleplayers, and event tools such as the ability to mark areas on the map with colour icons for…. I dunno, imagination reasons.
- A raid warning system so a leader can give a large indicator of something going on!

(useful tools for PVE and PVP too in some cases, but seriously we RPers are an unsung minority, we’d love something this wintersday, its not much to ask!)

Help us grow and build that world you love to see flourish A-net.

Look im not gonna be mean im gonna be honest OP, this is a game “for” casual players, the WOTLK MMO that everyone in that generation wanted since every other MMO’s focus is so heavily on “hardcore” player content and trying to relive the burning crusade glory days that, im sorry, are long dead.

Its time to either move on, or adapt to the change, the “hard” content you want doesnt fit GW2, nor the quota it was intended for, GW2 was made with the mind set of solo, casual, relaxing, content, for people that wanted an easy ride and no unnecessary strings.

This game isnt obliged like wow to deliver on its designs since they not only went fully free to play recently, but are essentially making a market loss by doing so, in essence, they choose to make a relaxing game and tbh, content “will” be more soloable over time, and more easy to do.

Maybe you just dont enjoy this game no matter how much you want, maybe, its just not for you, but you have fractals, raids, PvP tournaments for “challenging” people that want “challenging” content.

That gate, that set of content is for “you” the entire thing is for you, all of it.

I am certain the raids will appeal, the fractals will be engaging, the pvp will be rewarding and tough.

But the open world pve is meant to be for everyone, not just 1% of the player base getting upset that everything is too easy and too fast to complete.

You have, your content, its called Fractals, Raids, Dungeons, PvP.

That, is your content, stick to it.

Its a start, 250 is still a chore but at least its not a mountain.

Alt friendly players like myself will be a little happier with this change as it gives some longevity but allows room for progression with other toons not just your main.

As to the entire expansion:

The Zones: 3 out of 10
They are too group friendly and lack any solo content and practically force you to do them to progress the main storyline, A-net managed to create 4 seperate silverwastes which dont conjoin at all in any way or form.

The Storyline: 4 out of 10
In a spoiler free opinion Mass Effect 3 would be on par with the dissapointment I felt in this after the hype that was Season 2’s storyline. While it does have an epic moment or two that are memorable it ignores so many plot points S2 left us that HoT, as a massive expansion should have answered but instead blatantly paves the way for a Season 3 in a very shameless manner.

The Revenant: 4 Out of 10
Its a new class that kittenises itself off other classes, and kind of lacks “alot” in terms of personal uniquness because of that factor.

The Specializations: 6 Out of 10
Druid is by far the most needed thing Rangers ever had and some of the others are fairly fun to play when you do get to unlock them, its just the tediousness of doing it at all that can be annoying.

New WvW: No Comment, havent had enough time to really explore it yet.

New PvP: Beta tested Stronghold, it showed promise then it still does now, honestly it would be a far better replacement to the current PvP type conquest.

New Gear Asthetic and Maps: 8 Out of 10
Visually the gear is stunning and the graphics team did an amazing job of making some truly stand-outish gear, cant add more to it, its nice, only gripe, its a little limited when it comes to armor sets.

The Music: 9 out of 10
Musically the game has some absoleutley memorably amazing tracks this time round but my critism ironcially comes from the theme, an example is Tarir that kind of feels odd and out of place and too “hopeful” after the Verdant Brink regions darker ambient tracks. Still, amazing job, loved it absoleutley loved it.

The Character VA’s: 8 Out of 10
Voice acting definatley was an up to the stories down, emotions were running in actors performances and layers were added that were not there before in vanillia GW2 and Season 1 (season 2 was better). It did show that A-net can at least make a Meh and forgettable storyline quite deep with some memorable dialogue, especially from the PC character voices.

Over All?: 5 Out of 10
A promising expansion but short of many things, it tried too hard to eliminate its casual friendly focus and left a bad taste for casuals but at least A-net is working to fix that and stick to their guns, maybe in time that may ramp it up to a 7, but its not quite good enough, and seriously lacks layers despite being what could be considered a monumental project for A-net.

Content is good when it shines but too sparce and too unrewarding when its done, the gating was just a terrible idea from the start and a lesson learned which im thankful for.

The main story sadly revealed little and left more questions and paved the way for what is likley going to be Season 3.

But over all, the game is decent, passable, just not as good as it could have been.

Raids are a different creature, raids are a choice, Specializations are meant to be fun, not a chore.

Mastery woven into the story was a chore, farming HP for a max spec is a chore.

People are upset that their chores are being taken away in favor of fun, a paradigm I will never understand.

Raiding however, is a choice, so yes, raiding can stay hard, it will likley be difficult and be up to people if they want to play it or not.

The only thing I “dont” want to see is the main storyline being gated into raiding or dungeons like it was in launch and season 1.

Forcing people to group to advance a “personal” story should “never” happen, period.

But if raids have their own unique secondary storyline that advances lesser known aspects of the lore thats fine, as long as they aernt needed to be part of the main story.

Id like to point this out first and foremost, I like the new map designs, the music is great, the mobs are interesting the encounters have promise.

But the entire thing is one giant open world raid.

Now theres a problem with that design immediatley off the bat, you’re essentially saying every map is silverwastes 2.0 which means to complete the map you need people present, the problem is, people will choose a favorate map, stick to it, and zerg farm it until they get bored.

There is no doubt in my mind this is exactly what the mentality of alot of group players is right now, and its the reason that the new maps are bad.

Basically, what needs to happen is the following:

- Verdant Brink, Auric Basin and Tangled Depths need to be nerfed to be designed with solo players in mind, allowing progressive adventuring in those maps with more frequent events and better event XP (at least for early mastery levels from 1-2).
- The meta events in these maps need to be less tedious and lengthy and more to the point, some of them go on for literally ever and are extremely boring after the first time you do them with very little XP progression.
- Sadly, even worse than this is the absoleute truth that there is no way in hell that you can make 4 seperate zerg-required maps work tangably, its basically Orr all over again except even worse because now its MANDATORY to zerg.

So basically, you need to remove the zerg for every map but Dragons Stand, and perhaps even throw in the odd heart quest or two for the earlier maps to make them feel more like “progress” maps on account that the storyline literally makes you go through each of them to progress.

More importantly, remove every prequisit requirement for the storyline and just “let” solo players enjoy it at their own leisure, theres always a group mode for people that want to replay the same content with a challenge.

You need more options here, theres not enough, and they need to be more open to every access, not just one peoples favor.

Im not saying that ALL zerg content should be removed, just 3 of the 4 maps, allowing the 4th, Dragons Stand (which works Perfectly for Zerging) to remain exactly as it is.

You created the mastery system in the subtlest way of adding a completely new set of tiered levels to the game, you said there would be no more levels but thats ‘exactly’ what mastery is, leveling.

And its not a fun kind, when you literally “have” to do it, to progress content that doesnt “need” it.

I believe A-net you had a plan here, to make group content that was challenging and fun, but you failed, you know its not going to work and you need to accept that.

Make Verdant Brink the way it was during Beta 3 when people complained it was too easy, at least then you have a starting point people can get through to reach later bits that can gradually curve the challenge upwards.

I want to see this game do better than it already has, im sure some people enjoy this content, but by doing this, you can make alot more enjoy it at a small expense of those few that get upset over content not being “grouped” enough considering they’d still get dragons stand which would be their little “thing” while everyone else gets the open world progression on an easier curve.

Was pretty empty for me, left a very bad taste after trying to find people to event with for 3 hours straight.

The Mastery wall has to be the worst possible design A-net has ever made, it worries me because if the story is gated behind mastery then your expecting people to be patient enough to play through the game to reach it.

People have lives, GW2 was about casual friendly content that fed that addiction when they were in need for a small buzz.

Should there be an optional hardmode for the story, yes, should it force people to do the gearwall to reach it, no.

The Mastery system is bad, simply put, take it out of the requirements because its just, bad.

Absoleutley, bad.

Im sorry but I vehemently have to say that using the Mastery system as a giant, gear wall to prevent people accessing the story was a … blatantly put, kittenmove.

Ive never felt so grindy before even back in launch this wasnt as bad, this is argueably the most boring farm ive ever done in any mmo to date with events giving barley enough xp to progress as you get further, mastery point 3 and a half and im already loosing the will to carry on.

The storyline should “not” have been put behind the mastery gearwall, mastery is for world content, world pve, world events, thats where it “belongs” even raiding perhaps but the actual “personal” story that doesnt feel very “personal” when it forces me through world content feels redundant if I am forced to do it via a mastery wall.

Top that off with the hero points needed to max specializations and you can immediatley see why GW2’s current expansion could be “the” worst thing to happen to GW2, the only MMO out there that activly tried to support casual players.

What happened A-net? Did the pressure of the burning crusade fanboys finally get to you? Come back, stop trying to appease 1% of idiots that are never satisfied unless everyone else is behind them.

Forget them, come back to the remaining 99% who wanted to play together, in group content for fun, not by force, who wanted to solo as a choice, not be made to group to progress.

Come back A-net, please.

Scarlets short story was beyond fantastic, the problem was translating her char into game which only worked so well.

Her inital introduction at the Pavillion was great, especially her ominous “threat” to you that it was personal.

From there… it basically fell into “random events were all scarlets doing”.

Her ending and the Origins of Madness to LA finale bit were great.

And the Season 2 little mini story worked well.

But….

Scarlets storyline was put too forcefully into every other plot, instead of being focally its own thing.

A good villian is just that, what they are, they dont need to be responsible for EVERY event that goes on, hell some events SHOULD surprise them.

Villians can have depth too, even in video games, the best ones, are often woven into the game itself.

Their actions in game often speak for their personality and what they are, their presence is iconic when it appears and it should be representative of what kind of personality they are.

Villians have to be personal too, they have to be “your” problem, no matter how fun it might be to make them a threat to the world, the player needs to give a reason to “care”.

That can only happen if the antagonist themselves is in some way or form trouble for the player.

Mordremoth speaking to Sylvari will be an interesting way to show this, if it works, they are going slightly the right way, if not, it might show a lack of imagination from the writing team.

The biggest issue is weaving it into gameplay, but still making it driven enough that the plot and the antagonist “feel” like a problem for “you” to deal with that gives “you” a reward for dealing with it.

Some plots even have you joining, the villian, or inavertly “being” the villian by causing trouble to the world, unleashing terrible evils that you will later come to regret unleashing.

These are things that “need” to be touched on when making an antagonist in video games.

I suggest that ventari’s tablet becomes a followable pet instead of a stationary object, especially since for underwater combat thats going to make it completley useless.

Its a cool idea in concept, but in delivery its just dumb.

Also, this class still doesnt really have enough weapon choices, sword/sword axe/mace staff/hammer it also lacks variation.

Id like revenants to have offhand dagger, focus, and shortbow (since then we’d have a heavy armor class with shortbow/dagger) and it’d at least make them a little more choicey.

See, balance to me isnt as valueable as content, if people have issues with balance, that can be addressed in a patch with multiple fixes.

But content is a well, once it dries up, people get bored.

At the very least they need to release “something” even if it lasts literally less than a months worth of hype as some kind of “minor” bridge gap between now and HoT.

LA reborn was nice, but its not enough.

We need something to “do” for at least 2 weeks.

LA reborn was nice, but its nothing more than a glorified overhaul of lions arch, the game needs a new “pve” content to bridge the gap, something between now and HoT launch.

My proposal?

Return to Southsun Cove.

Synopsis:

After LA is rebuilt, we return to Southsun to find it developed too, the Karka have been “mostly” repelled but something isnt quite right.

The lava pit where the ancient karka lays has sunk inwards and a gaping hole has formed, leading to a new underground expansion of Southsun that leads to a new Karka Matriach World Boss.

Features:

Revamped Southsun, most of the region is now secure from karka attacks, barring the north western region which is now heavily infested with Karka defending their Matriach.

A new world event requires coordinated zergs to fight off waves of Karka and unlock access to the Matriach chambers, leading to one of the toughest fights between now and HoT.

Mini Features: The new Boss HP Bar and Breaking mechanics.

Impliamenting the new mechanics for the HoT bosses into open world via this would be a good way to add new stuff while streamlining HoT’s development.

That building thats been under construction near Southsun beach for a year now? A Landing strip for Airships!

Southsun is sort of a psudo Lions Arch 2.0 while not as secure or safe, its become a Consortium Vista, giving the Consortium a place to proudly call home. (Home also costs 10G per calendar month to maintain by any resident wishing to live under consortium residential legal fees, no repayments after the first fee!)

The Consortium welcomes Tyria’s residents back to its paradise vista, an island truly safe and sound, for all.

(TheConsortiumisnotresponsibleforthewellbeingofwaywardadventurerorsattemptingtoslayresidentkarkaortheirhealthcare).

Thoughts?

Triple Wurm is the worst impliamented group content in the game because it simply cant be done without a guild or multiple guilds organizing in the same instance at the same time.

Your asking for rocket science with content like this and it just isnt do-able by the majority of people.

People like content that requires a focus, Teq was a focus, so is the Vinewrath.

Granted, the latter is laughably easy almost, too easy, but its still challenging enough that it can have consequences for messing up or getting lazy.

Teq however does at least require tactics, but the good thing is the area required to do them isnt too sparce that only a minority of people can be there for that particular fight.

Thats where the wurm fails, you literally cant do it because you need impossible levels of organization that cant be achieved with phasing, availability and constant tactics understanding of new players.

You need content to be doable but “dumb” enough that people can learn it, as to a challenge, add an optional hardmode like Ulduar then you can have your hardcore experience.

The game needs more challenging content but it is a casual mmo game so if your not interested in playing the game then maybe you need something more akin to wildstar or WoD if you like grinding.

Honestly, that “hardcore” thing, is the worst part about any mmo community, you call casuals downright unpleasable but the “elite” are the worst.

If content doesnt appeal to them in some way thats so hard that only a minority can achieve it at the expense of the rest of your money making base then apparently that content is bad.

Anyone, with the logic, that content has to be so challenging that its only available exclusivly to guilds/groups of people at a time has obviously not realized at this point that GW1 and GW2 will “never” be about group content, ever.

GW1 was entirley soloable even if it was next to impossible to do, but it was, dooable.

Likewise, GW2, is intended to be played generally by the soloist which is why personal story appeals to people who play solo.

Now I admit, fights like the shadow of the dragon in Season 2 (episode 4 version not episode 8 ) were pretty challenging and fun, but admittingly lacked consequence, it was possible to just mass respawn every time I died till the guy fell and even I admit its almost too easy when something like that happens.

However.

This game was “made” for casuals, it was listed during its announcement as the “casual” MMO, for a reason.

If you dont “like” that then its not “for” you and the design was never “made” with you in mind.

You might say that feels exclusive too, denying hardcores their 1% hard content that only they can acheive.

But there are MMO’s out there “for” your demographic that have small but thriving communities of people of “your” group type.

You literally dont belong here, if your interest is exclusivity over inclusivity.

You literally have no idea why exclusive content is bad for an MMO as a whole if you dont realize what kind of impact it has on the over-all community and the amount of damage it causes between the casual demographic and the hardcores creating a pointless division that causes more trouble than good.

Guild wars 2 is one of the most social mmo’s out there despite the fact that the content is almsot laughably easy, and thats a “good” thing.

You add content thats so challening that only a tiny demographic will ever bother playing it, you already lost the game of community because you obviously dont care for it over self-inflated ego.

And nobody will care for your ego, if nobody plays.

Nobody wins, if hardcore content becomes the norm, Warlords of Draenor, prooved that.

As did 3.5 million people who quit after thinking it’d be the game for them once more.

Im not saying hardcore content cant exist, im saying it needs to be mediated to the point it can be “doable” by people that want to be amoung the hardcore.

Interesting choice A-net, Sya who used to be Symon but has now “embraced” her true self, not that im transgender myself but I admire the decision to be subtle about it, for anyone thats wondering, you can see this char near the new fractal portal.

Title says it all, do I have to wait or what? I havent recieved my title/gems/char slot etc.

Honestly I dont think Eir will die.

Eir dying would not only be too easy but too weak as a plot twist, I actually think its more subtle than that.

Rangers are getting staff, so I wonder if Eir will become a druid and pass on her longbow to her son.

I just want to see the lions arch statue get destroyed, again, and that one asura that rebuilt it a third time crying and kicking around before going on a revenge spree on all of Tyria for his magnificent statue constantly being destroyed.

Im fairly sure thief gets a rifle, the only one im interested in now is warrior.

Theres alot of possibliites for that one, main/offhand dagger, staff, shortbow…

Heck even mainhand shield.

Take a shot every time a table or any surface used to put things on is mentioned weather its putting it on the table or taking it off the table or everythings on the table.

Enjoy your drunken stupor.

While theres no plans for anything like this in mind presently, it’s always fun to speculate, create ideas and let our fan fic go crazy so this was what I had in mind.

This topic is basically an idea of your “wildest” ideas and concepts, stuff you’d love to see in game that may or may not potentially happen in the future but wont likley happen in HoT’s launch or any time soon after it.

So, my ideas for this list are:

Living Story Seasons Renamed:

Living Story Seasons would instead be renamed simply to mini expansion set names, e.g.

GW2 “Point Of No Return”, covers the entire Season 2 arc.

GW2, “Origins of Madness” Covers The Scarlet and Season 1 arc.

In addition…

Guild Wars 2, The Restoration of Orr (Living story, Season 3 idea)

This story idea follows on from the events of HoT, regardless of the outcome, and focuses on a new approach to the story.

While I am a fond provayer of the phrase dark fantasy and how much it fits into GW1’s universe and GW2’s I like the idea of hope too, and healing.

Season 3 in my mind would revolve around Orr, giving us a pleasant change of tone, where as Season 2 was about the discovery of a new dragon, Season 3 would focus on healing the effects of one we have defeated.

The focus, would be on rebuilding Orr, starting with the Straits of Devastation for the first 2 episodes followed by Malchors leap in episodes 3 and 4.

There would then be a brief pause to allow a content update such as a new pvp game mode, or a new wvw update, followed, by a revamped cursed shore, and the conclusion of a new region, the Ascended Coast, located to the south of the Cursed shore spanning across eastward from it.

The story revolves around the Pact gradually building its expansion through these regions and rebuilding Orr as it had planned to. This story also ties in with a revamped update for each zone, that features a new “zone wide” mechanic that revolves around rebuilding the verdance of Orr and restoring it to its former majesty.

The zone wide meta event would be a challenging new combat mechanic that if completed would allow players to access a new and refined version of the temple bosses starting with Balthazar, which would also offer a completely “new” set of weapon skins for the ascended tier weapons, only, available, by defeating these bosses.

Their accessaiblity would only be possible by completing the meta achievement, which would then make them accessable for 2 hours, with a 1 hour reset interval between each hour. Following this, the entire zone resets and the players have to once again complete the meta achievement before accessing the bosses.

The goal would be to give Orr a feeling of purpose again by using HoT’s zone meta events as experiments for this kind of transformation level upgrade to Orr.

The plot of the season would revolve around rebuilding orr, while discovering the value of the dragon zhaitan’s existance in the first place, leading to a revalationary discovery that would change the perception of dragons and their influence on Tyria, and a grey morality question as to weather destroying them would honestly be for Tyria’s benefit.

I have other ideas, but this is my “wild idea” whats yours? Anyone got a few to throw around?

I know this is a pretty long stretch but something that came to my head a few months ago as a future investment for GW2 would be, what if we had focus/shield/warhorn/torch in mainhand?

Mainhand Shield/Offhand Shield (yes it sounds silly but it is fantasy too)

Also, alot of Focus look like fist weapons.

Another idea of note is regarding underwater weapons like spears and tridents, why not just give them overland versions of certain abilities and keep the rest as they currently function.

Also, rename Harpoon Gun to Crossbow and potentially reskin some of its stuff.

Eh, just a few musings about the futue weapon types of Gw2, I mean I know folks want Scythes and other things but it was food for thought.

Opinions?

So from my opinion of Stronghold, this is what ill say…

The Short Version

+ Fantastic for Ranked PvP and Premade Groups.
+ Actually requires tactical thinking to win this map properly.
+ Good concept with a solid design in the long term.
+ Keep it to this map for now, dont bother adding any more, it’d be a great tourney map.

- Horrible for Pugging, never ever let this be part of the custom game rotation, ever.
- Can be Unforgivingly easy if one team resorce hogs early game.

/ Suggest making heroes cost no resorces instead of 2, possibly use 2 resorces to buy powerful minions instead.
/ Suggest making the hero path through the resorce area in order to help players force enemy team out of the resource point.

Other than that, its a fairly solid design.

Slightly Longer Version

As mentioned above, the game has a solid Ranked PvP viability, but would be terrible in unranked pugging matches.

This map is literally a map that you either know what your doing or you might aswell wait till the other team wins. Conquest was designed with a very dumb and simple objective in mind.

Stronghold, was not.

This is why I advise strongly against this ever being in a custom game rotation unless private matches because it just doesnt work for pugs, the gameplay is too unforgiving to expect random nobodies to suddenly pick it up and grasp it like that. I myself was the only one in my team with 1 friend whom id brought with me that had a remote clue how to play this gametype and it showed when the team got utterly trashed.

This game type requires strong strategic coordination, you literally “cannot” pug this because of that, it requires pre-emptive thinking and tactics and would be a fantastic map for e-sport gameplay because it actually feels worthy of that kind of vibe.

We’ll have to see how Revenants faire in shaking up the PVP balance but the map is solid.

He means the story RandomGuy, aka: How gritty will HoT be and Edgy.

Judging by the themes of Sylvari Racism I can say that we will get a fairly dark storyline in HoT and the chances of a happy ending are very bleak looking with the Pact’s predicament.

The way I see this, HoT will end with a Pyrrhic victory, if Mordremoth is defeated, its going to cost a lot, and leave Tyria damaged forever.

Season 2’s finale promised that Beyond The Point of No Return would chance the face of Tyria forever.

HoT suggests to me that the great Sylvari struggle will continue even beyond Mordy’s defeat.

I dont mind that A-net has its new 12+ policy of making the story light hearted, but id take hints from Avatar the Last Airbender for a story that can still do some dark and edgy stuff and get away with quite a few edgy themes.

And this game is way more violent than that TV show is, which basically means to me A-net should just enjoy themselves and not be afraid to take risks.

However, I do think we need to have proper long introductions to new characters and some time spent with them before killing anyone off.

There is also a lot of hints Mordy may be sentient for a dragon.

In summary:

TL:DR

- The Story has a lot of room to be the darkest expansion of GW yet with a very Vietnam themed plot regarding loss, betrayal, shellshock, trust issues and overcomming the impossible.
- It needs some element of hope though, a silver lining in this, that can at least leave us with continuation, as fun as the bad guy winning would be, we already had that with season 2’s finale.
- I do personally hope however this is the “Last” Sylvari heavy story we see for some time, Norn/Charr/Asura need “a lot” of attention after this.
- And Orr.
- Also In B4 Evil Treesus/Maguuma Tree Corrupted.

Definitely found it an interesting experience.

Id say my only criticism is that without at least adding stronghold to test the area we got to play in was very limiting and so were the options.

I understand that its targeting specifics of the game but it would have helped to give us specific things to target, since the content we had to test was very minimal barring Revenants very small game-play sampling and the mastery system.

So what can I say:

Revenant:

The hammer/mace/axe combos were interesting to play with though I tried mace/axe more than hammer just to be different from the amount of flying hammers I saw being spammed, it worked rather well with the Mallyx combo.

The PvE is rather solid and fairly balanced for the class, messing around with it felt right, nothing too strong, nothing too weak, you get punished if your too excessive and equally not excessive enough.

Its a burst damage class, it works well if you like building up and slamming down but that does kind of make it feel weak with only 2 of its legends to sample.

My criticism here is that I didn’t get enough weapons to play with and enough Revenant legends to really form a solid pros and cons list because there just isn’t a lot I can say.

It works? For what it is.

The Story PVE content:

I definatley say that one of the biggest pros of this “demo” lets call it that, was the way that the story both in open world and in personal story seeminglessly transitions.

The voice acting is star quality, the content really flows nicely and each individual situation feels challenging enough that it actually makes you have to play with engaging game-play rather than just hit buttons to win.

That said the content was, again, too little to give you a strong enough impression on pros and cons.

A small bug I did notice was when I played the story segment I noticed that there was a small glitched patch of land near Laranthir that appeared elivated over the normal terrain.

That’s about all I can say really.

I did not bother with the activity games since its not really my thing so lets skip to the gliders and mastery.

The Mastery system really does work for what its supposed to be and I like the fact you actively have to earn extra bits as opposed to just farming your way to the best parts.

Gliding was entertaining but without more to experiment with, again, I cant really tell you how I feel because there’s not enough to say.

Overall then, ill leave it at.

Stress Test was functional, had a tiny bug with the Laranthir thing, and apparently Shroom mastery didn’t work.

Other than that, the rest was fine.

Major plus for PC character voice and the way you’ve done it in game, and, major plus for the way the commander actually feels “like” a commander for once.

…What if the Revenants specialization replaces glint with another character…

Specifically, the only character that would make sense to replace her, trained to us by Rytlock himself.

What if the Revenants specialization legend is…

Snaff.

Well, my opinion of this topic is a two sided sword.

In Season 1, I quite liked Kasmeer and Marjory because their introduction and romantic buildup was playful, engaging, plot heavy and had a believable transition if you paid attention to all their idle dialogue in the open world.
They built on each other and off each other well, with a lot of their narrative directed at the idea of grasping their partnership and their working together.
However, this started to go wrong when Season 2 happened. After the kissing scene at the end of Season 1 which I actually didn’t mind they more or less reduced the role of Jory and Kas to “glorified lesbians on steroids”.

The problem we had was that in the original take of Season 1, Jory, was meant to die.

Mordremoths name was first mentioned in unused dialogue That_Shaman kindly provides us that would have taken a much more darker twist on the ending with Jory actually staying dead as opposed to surviving her ‘death’.

As much as I feel like this particular moment of Jory surviving was great and all, in retrospect I look back and feel like it would have worked better to have that level of tragedy where Kasmeer was ripped from Jory in a tragic moment of disaster.

Instead we had Belinda to replace Jory who first appeared during the toxic alliance storyline but only had an acting cameo in season 1’s ending then had 2 minor bits in season 2.

The problem with Belinda’s role in this was that she was basically a back-story character with no development vs Jory who we had known ever since the Aetherblade investigation.

Jory unfortunately lost her mojo in Season 2, she was strong in Season 1 because she was quirky, flirty, playful but very independent with or without Kasmeer around.

Instead she just became a glorified lesbian in Season 2 who’s only role was to be close to Kasmeer, and to cry when her sister died.

After that she more or less vanishes and while she does play “A” part in the glint storyline and the seeds storyline she doesn’t really do anything other than serve as a side narrator.

The problem is that Jory doesn’t get char growth, and Kasmeer in contrast got quite a bit in Season 2, but also didn’t because a lot of it happened off stage, the same with Jory.

This made their chars feel weak.

Over all, do I think removing them would fix this? Not really but I do think they need to retire after HoT for a while so we can put other chars at the forefront of storyline.

I think a-nets problem is they dont take enough risks with their main characters while side chars are treated like minor chars with no growth (master of peace/belinda) and that feels like their being put there for the sake of filling a role that, in the end, putting jory/kasmeer in would have worked just as well.

I think A-net needs to take more “risks” with their chars, and let chars that are major die, or suffer terribly, even turn into villains, temporarily or permanently, or become redeemed and join the heroic team but in a believable translation rather than a sudden one.

How does one Form, an Alliance?

A guild leader from one group must approach a guild leader from another, from there they offer them a request to join a guild Alliance, if the requested party accepts, the two guilds become united and the guild leaders have an equal share in the power rather than dividing who gets what.

Adding additional alliances works in the same way, a guild leader must be approached from said alliance ‘before’ such a thing can cooperatively be agreed upon.

In order to create a level of heir-achy however, when an Alliance reaches its second rank, the first five guild leaders are considered the “founders” of the guild alliance and have a slightly superior rank to any subsequent rank members, who are known as vassal leaders.

Vassal Leaders can be promoted in the event a guild leaves the alliance, or be forcefully removed if the guild alliance does not find them adept to fit in their ranks.

Likewise, the first two founding members of the Alliance have access rights to forcefully remove any founding members that misbehave, and can also elect to remove the other original founder after a month period has passed.

However, to prevent the idea of having a tyrant dictator ruling over all the rival guilds, any creating founder that is removed is automatically replaced with one of the other founders or next in line using an inheritance system to prevent dictatorship.

Vassal leaders will not be permitted to elect in votes and will not have any rights to an elective vote when members of the alliance, allowing a degree of control that prevents coup de grace.

Ultimately, the idea was to create a concept, that, if hopefully making it in some form in HoT will allow smaller guilds a chance to equate their larger rivals and perhaps even promote more players to join and thus, more guilds to form.

Smaller guilds in GW2 have always struggled to survive in the face of towering titans used mainly for WvW and heavy PvE end game.

So how does one fix this problem?

Introducing the new Concept: Guild Alliances

Guild Alliances are my idea on how to tackle a growing issue for smaller guilds trying to thrive in a world of larger competitors on a larger scale.

A Guild Alliance is comprised of 3 various sizes that cap at a number of guilds depending on alliance rank and effort.

The Guild Alliance Ranks:

Each Rank depends on several factors that are tallied for each alliance over the course of a month.

These factors are:

- World Boss Kills
- World Events Completed
- World Vs World Captures
- Longest WvW Point Held
- PvP Rankings
- PvP Activity

Each of these are tallied by scoring a capped limit of Alliance Points that can be spent as a superior version of influence.

The Three Guild Alliance ranks, depend on the number of guilds inside each rank and can only be promoted when the guild alliance has capped its guild rank number and has enough guild alliance points to buy a new rank.

The First Rank is a Cohort, a band of five guilds comprised of no more than 50 guild members per guild is put together to form a 250 man super guild between them.

When accumulating 10000 Alliance points, a guild alliance can advance to rank two, a Legion

A Legion is a 10 Guild group of guilds comprised of no more than 100 players per guild, making it 1000 men strong at its biggest peak.

At rank 3, which costs 50000 Alliance Points, a guild alliance is converted into a Horde.

A Horde is a 15 guild strong 150 player per guild super faction full of various groups and troops, and in addition, a Horde can participate in a new WvW gametype, Horde Vs Horde.

Horde Vs Horde?

Horde Vs Horde ignores the boundaries of traditional WvW boundries and instead brings every guild in those groups together into a super clash of the titan battle of epic proportions for the right to be the best Horde in Tyria.

These Super Alliances represent actual groups of unified people as opposed to random people within an individual server, competing on a competitive play level of brutality for power over their rivals.

Each separate WvW Battleground from the borderlands to the eternal Bg supports 250 players “per” alliance making each one capped at a staggering 750 players per fight, making them true titanic displays of war on an epic scale.

In order to balance this and prevent painful lag spikes, the alliance has to specifically assign specific guilds to be available at X or Y battleground, tactically choosing who fights who in what region.

This gives that ‘strategy’ element to its finest level, allowing players to feel like part of an RTS game where they can decide where their troops move in order to fight which enemy troops.

Guilds that are chosen are locked in for an entire week and unable to leave that specific battlefield, giving a sense of responsibility to each BG as opposed to random war-fields.

After the week, the players get a 3 hour break period to decide who to put where and begin a new.

What other functions would Alliances serve?

Alliances would also act as an aid, to all smaller guilds specifically looking for aid from bigger ones while wanting to retain their identity as a group in a larger commune.

An example of this, is that alliances may perform guild missions regardless of who is apart of them, when a guild mission is activated, every guild int hat alliance shares the same mission, and the same objectives, allowing more room for smaller groups to be supported by equal sized or larger ones.

This allows smaller guilds to have absolute support in acquiring merits and medals from their larger allies while keeping a strong sense of personal identity from their accomplishments.

The guild that activates these missions also receives a “vassal” reward, giving them an increased number of personal merits for being the one to start the mission and complete it.

A refreshing way to look at Guilds and creating them

In addition, Alliances would (obviously not at launch, but possibly in later days) have access to a great personal base called the Alliance Hall.

The Alliance Hall is less of a guild housing and more of a congregation of the guild leaders and their vice commanders, serving as a political epicenter for meetings and office.

The Halls would have individual customized interiors by the respective founders of each alliance allowing for some role-play and thematic value for more social guilds.

They can be earned Via World Events, and other monumental goals the alliances accomplish.

Pale Tree Number 2, and Possibly 3 and even 4!

Id like to see Sylvari multiculture, rather than having everything too heavy on the pale tree as it stands. It allows us to have a more diverse look at the Sylvari in the sake of lore like the Human nations or Charr Warbands.

Either that, or a much heavier use of each individual cycle and putting more depth into what separates each Sylvari from their cycles.

Either way, what I am sure of is this:

We are going to see at least one more Pale Tree, possibly alive, a friend, possibly. I suspect that if there is more than one, then we will see at least one that is neutral and one that may be somewhat half-good.

I also believe one will be corrupted, and from a concept art picture I saw another may be dead since we see sapling pods laying next to a broken tree corrupted by unhealthy growth and briars.

While I doubt we will see a “tree on tree” battle, id like to see more tree culture, and more use of each tree’s distinctiveness from the other rather than making them too uniform.

It makes each Sylvari “nation” so to speak feel a bit more unique that way rather than making them one cliched race surrounded by the same stereotypes.

Maybe Mallyck’s Tree is nonchalant, and thus the reason it does not dream is cause it doesn’t take a side nor see a need to give its children some false protection from the nightmare? Maybe its a tree that only values survival of the fittest?

There’s a lot of options, lets not make every tree all cuddles and compassion.

Also, the name Pale Tree suggests an identity, I am wondering if each tree has a color code or maybe a name that defines it, e.g. Amber Tree or Blighted Tree, etc-etc.

Another one of my musings, hopefully provoking discussion.

Problems away from Maguuma

Based on the trailer we clearly saw Canach escaping DR surrounded by pitchfork wielding peasants trying to skewer everyone’s favorite anti-hero.

I am pondering if this will lead to some kind of Krytan Civil War long overdue, or even an assassination attempt on the Queen that might stir such a thing.

There is a lot of possibility for tension once news of the Pact Fleet being wiped out reaches the races of Tyria, creating a lot of name and blame and internal struggles preventing them from fully cooperating.

Perhaps this is the symbol of the division of races, while still united against Dragons they dont all have to help each other like mutual pals. The Humans for example might decide that enough is enough and choose isolation as Cantha did.

Maybe the Charr being so far away from Mordremoth dont see it as a threat at this point? Maybe the Norn dont feel its enough of a challenge to their own people to consider it a problem?

Asura might care, and the Sylvari obviously do, which might give chance to give Asura more attention lore wise as-well as everyone’s favorite vegetable people.

I think the story needs layering, regardless, and not just surface level tensions but something that can trouble us now, and leave seeds for later problems post HoT.

In conclusion, food for thought, any one interested in a lore heavy theory-craft?

Some things I’ve been re-watching in the trailers of late trying to decipher for fun.

So, a few theories I’ve crafted:

Enemies turned Allies, possibly turned Enemies again, the Mursaat

So, its clear to me that there’s some kind of new visual for what could be the Mursaat returning. The hints to Asuran Architecture that, keep in mind, the Asura found, it wasn’t their original designs is there, with a possible golden city vibe, this seems to be the city Saul found during his exile.

What I find interesting is that we find other Golden places across most of the Silverwastes, some people attribute this to the forgotten but my theory is that the Mursaat and the White Mantle “once” inhabited these ruins but left them after something transpired, what could that something be?

Theory Time:

I Believe the Mursaat were extracting magic from the nearby Laylines, and have been drying up the Maguuma’s natural magic thus drying up the land and turning it from a tropic into a barren wasteland.

The reason we see abandoned forts we are now inhabiting is because they have drained all the magic there was to be found here.

This can be evidenced by the fact there are more Silverwaste style ruins in the Heart of Maguuma trailer showing a giant sinkhole that reminds me of someone driving a drill into the earth, possibly like Scarlet did?

So whats this got to do with the Mursaat and their alliance?

They are a race of self-preservationist survivors that betrayed Tyria not once but twice for their own gain. First by leaving four other races of ancient times for dead while hiding away from the dragons wrath, and secondly when they used their powers to try enslaving the Humans after hearing a prophecy the Humans would be their doom.

I… hope, they do not willingly join us at first. By the way Rytlock was approaching them and the fact he basically kicked the door down one might get the impression we are “invading” their safe haven from the dragon, and forcing them to help us fight it because they have no where left to run.

I like the idea that the Mursaat wouldn’t willingly join the heroes of Tyria, but rather be forced to as a matter of unholy alliance.

This retains their selfish nature while giving them a sort of logical redemption story that revolves more around their ability to judge common sense more than their morals and ethics.

It also begs the question how long can such an unholy truce last? They will help us, certainly, but will they betray us later?

We will see.

I would like to believe the Mursaat will retain that anti-villainous persona of being a morally grey race of preservationists. Their ultimate goal neither to destroy the world nor kill everyone on it but simply to survive.

If we are to believe Lazarus words as “generations would suffer” then potentially the Mursaat would betray us at a crucial moment, possibly a powerful artifact (what glint left behind?) they decide to try coveting for themselves instead of sharing it with Tyria.

I believe their revenge needs to be a subtler one, not the kind that destroys continents, but more a pivotal moment of manipulation where they use us to get what they want and betray us when they no longer need us to get it.

Again, the Mursaat … weather they have this moment of salvation or at least reason, or simply choose to retain their selfish ways, need to be portrayed as what they always were, anti-villains, people that used us, threw us aside, and gained something from it.

The enemy of my enemy…

I dunno what everyone else thinks of this, but id really like these guys to somehow betray us while having some ironic redemption for it. Maybe smack them around a bit and knock some sense into them, or force them to submit to us instead of the other way round.

Question: Will we finally see the Pale Tree Malyck came from and if so, will we see “more” pale tree’s and will they be defined as Pale Tree’s or will each individual tree culture have its own tree name and identity?

Also, will we encounter a corrupted Pale Tree?

All I can say is there is going to be a LARGE number of Mary Sue’s that claim they have the divine power of Shiro Tagachi and a number of other named NPCs like Gwen etc etc.

Revenants will be the “bane” of good RP for a while since the amount of god emoters are going to sky rocket because of them.

I am not saying the concept is bad, nor do I think the idea of using the power to summon ancestors wisdom and use it to empower yourself is a bad concept for rp.

I just think people are going to abuse it to “know famous npcs” and basically glorify themselves aloooot.

Okay, ill bite on this one for two reasons of my own.

To the OP this is what I have to say:

The game needs an end game not everyone can achieve

Keep this in mind, I am a casual gamer, the idea of exclusivity really gets on my bad side but there is one value to it in terms of the mastery system.

Mastery is not denying you content based on a gear grind where you have to farm an entire week for a piece of gear that will let you do slightly more damage to a mob. Its a radical system that basically gives you specific upgrades to your characters actual progression which makes the idea of progression itself more valuable.

To me, most MMO’s fail to make content interesting because the only progression is a vertical bar of farming gear, getting random loot rolls that aren’t really that useful to you and being locked out by elitist jerks that judge you on your item level, not your accomplishment.

See, this system works better because the elitism side of the game is literally IN the game-play, it visually SHOWS you have earned what you have a right to access by having the ability to glide, or to fight Mordrem armored mobs.

My only gripe is that I hope they dont focus too much of the content entirely around leveling in end game zones since that may defeat the entire point of the system to my honest opinion.

This brings me to point two.

A-Net used to call Gw2 a casual friendly MMO, if not The Casual friendly MMO, but opinions change

A-nets focus has always been on trying to AVOID exclusivity but in Season 1 and in Season 2 to an extent they failed to achieve that by making a lot of the content a rush hour of die hard gamers followed by a dry well of those that missed out or chose to wait until the lag dies down.

The problem I have is not that the game is changed its demographic, but the fact A-net needs to come clean and ADMIT its changed rather than be shy to admit that they dont believe casual friendly content works anymore.

Even so, I still hope they develop content focused on optional game-play rather than mandatory. One thing I do believe however is that the STORY of Heart of Thorns must NOT be interfered with by using the mandatory mastery mechanics players denying them right to it.

The story is not the game, its a lore based thing for nerds and fans to enjoy the experience of an adventure in the Maguuma, dabbling in politics, being involved as the Pact Commander.

The Personal/Living Story is “your” thing, not everyone else, and if they start adding exclusivity to that like they did in certain season 1 releases (I’m looking at you Aetherblade Retreat/Thaumanova Reactor) then people are going to have a problem.

Season 2 was a good example of doing a personal story right for all its flaws and glaring issues it did at least achieve the idea that the story itself was YOURS to do.

The story is and always will be even as far back as GW1, soloable, and must ALWAYS BE, soloable.

The game itself, the raids, the hard bosses, the challenging loot? That’s for completion seekers that want engaging game-play.

As far as I am concerned, they can have that, but the story, should remain everyone’s free range.