Showing Posts For Chadramar.8156:

Crafting queue?

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Chadramar.8156

This is a QoL feature that I’d really like to see. I finally decided to waste my resources and money on casually levelling a scribe, and boy is it fiddly. I remember wishing for a queue when working on the other skills, but I swear scribing (and sometimes cooking) is the most annoying with its sub-recipes and sub-sub-sub-recipes. Plus, a queue would be nice when you’re trying to process 200+ raw items of various types after a long day of playing. Go AFK for five and when you come back it’s all done, no need to check back every 20-40 seconds to order another stack of planks/ingots/whatever made.

Bonus points if, when making an item that requires several steps for each component automatically queues all those if needed, instead of us having to manually adding each item to the queue.

Problems with Epidemic

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What baffles me is that I don’t see how this makes it less of “heavy toll on our servers” than the old Epidemic was.

Mounts [merged]

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Chadramar.8156

I definitely want mounts, especially race-specific ones. Never seen a convincing argument against them, and they’re not just another way to customize our characters but also a massive QoL boost in my book. “Every other MMO has them too” doesn’t count by any means, since the same is true for so many other features and mechanics as well.

Plus, they’d be gemstore-fodder i.e. more money for Anet. Just make sure you give us a nice choice of 3-5 skins per race to pick from for in-game currency too, please. Not like the one dinky standard glider which dyes so badly.

New Hairstyles (Wants and Needs)

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Chadramar.8156

Natural black hairstyles for human women. Seriously, where are they? You can put afros on asura but not humans. Why?

Other than that, I’d mainly like all hairstyles to not be gender-locked, especially for sylvari and charr. Sylvari have a lot of unisex styles as it is, might as well go the whole way.

Where do you feel most "at home"?

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As far as cities go, it’s the Grove any day. I mainly play sylvari, but even my non-sylvari banker alts are stationed there because I find it soothing and know it well. Plus, I have to agree with marelooke that the other cities feel “over the top” in some way.

Who would you invite to join Dragon's Watch?

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I don’t have any norn I’d add: the ones I’d want already expired. :/

Norn die a lot in the PS, don’t they? Not that there are many to begin with. Wynnet Fairhaired of the Priory is the only one I recall who makes it all the way, norn-specific story arcs excluded.

Speaking of norn story arcs, I also have a bit of a soft spot for Margonel and Ballista from the Gear warband ever since playing through the “got drunk at the moot” chapter. :p But they are in a warband, so they’re probably out. Sadly it’s really the only time we see a warband as such, instead of individual charr who may as well be gladium.

Who would you invite to join Dragon's Watch?

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Living Story Season 4:

Paperwork is the Marshal’s job. No one with sense would make the Commander a paper pusher — which is part of General Almorra felt so OOC in Ep1. She’s a charr, a veteran, a leader, if anyone knows better than to try forcing a round peg into a square hole, it’s her.

Plus, even if it was true, I don’t see how a paperwork is worse for a story than combat. I do want more meetings and research and discovery and negotiation and, well, story. There’s plenty of combat outside the story as it is, it doesn’t need to dominate there too.

Anyway, add another vote for Laranthir. He was #1 on my mind, too. And I’m also very much in favor of the suggestion of an older, wiser, Raven-following norn shaman. I’d keep Caithe and Rytlock, and probably take Canach once he’s had his breath of freedom … though he could have been a bit more polite about phrasing his desire for it.

Which LS 3 Map Do YOU like the best?

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Bloodstone Fen for me still. The mobility, especially with the new gliding skills, beats everything else in terms of fun and convenience. I don’t really miss the repeatable hearts from the other maps, since they just add to the “daily grind” feel and tend to take a bit too long for my liking (except on Ember Bay). The mercenary-related heart on Draconis Mons is the worst in that regard IMO.

Charr credibility

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Also, not everything needs to be voiced. A charr and human’s immediate reaction to Balthazar? Absolutely. Race-specific lines with a tertiary background character? Eh. Nor did the Charm/Dignity/Ferocity approach to convincing Phlunt to shove off feel out of place unvoiced, IMO.

Taimi is all we need... (potential spoilers)

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Cute attempt at putting words into my mouth, but no. You’ll notice that I praised the vanilla storyline because my character was part of something much greater, something that actually felt like it was built by and for the many different people of a world coming together to fight against their utter destruction. And they were all needed, they all had something to contribute. The Pact flagship Glory of Tyria was said to embody that, which is why I was actually sad when I found its wreck in HoT. I liked Trahearne and was fine being his second instead of the head honcho.

I don’t want to be Taimi any more than I want to be Taimi’s utterly replacable errand runner and NPC punching bag. I want that feeling of “we all come together” back.

(And I’d very much like a break from “asura magitech can do everything” even if Taimi miraculously wasn’t involved for once.)

Who would you invite to join Dragon's Watch?

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I’d much rather get rid of Dragon’s Watch altogether and go back to the Pact. Being made to drop it like a flaming kitten in a time when it most needs its Commander was a terrible move from the writers and nothing my characters would ever do … especially when the alternative is being kicked around by a bunch of “friends” who are anything but.

Ditch the wangsty NPC drama in which my character has no place and instead let me pick up the pieces of her life’s work as she would and should.

If I have to be forced into a guild because that’s the name of the game, I’d make “Dragon’s Watch” a group of proven and dedicated Pact officers and specialists who help me keep tabs on and coordinate matters.

[SPOILER] Out with the Old. In with the new?

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True, plot threads being dragged out can also be bad. But I don’t agree that the Elder Dragon plot is an example. Rather, the problem with it in my mind is that they wrote themselves into a corner because it’s really difficult to present incredibly powerful and incomprehensible beings like that in a satisfying manner … especially while storytelling in games is almost inevitably left to languish in the shadow of endless mass murder and loot-grabbing.

Still the vanilla story at least try to do the Elder Dragon theme justice and IMO it worked, despite its flaws, but people complained that it was impersonal and unheroic. So they made Mordremoth talk (which dragons weren’t said to do) and turned it into an utterly pitiful generic bossfight, which wrecked any chance of seeing the dragons as the world-shattering threat they’re supposed to be.

That only gets worse when you add a kid being on the verge of single-handedly destroying two of those unfathomable forces of nature at the same time because they are completely helpless against her omnipotent wonder toy.

Y'all need to chill out about Braham.

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She didn’t go down fighting and taking her enemies down with her, which I supppose could be considered shameful in the eyes of some “hardcore” norn. From an OOC perspective, it definitely is shameful (though not for her) that she was so blatantly fridged. Yeah, there’s dignity and strength in looking your inevitable end in the eye, too, but it was still not worthy of the character she was supposed to be, but never got to be in the game. Legendary warrior, force of nature and all.

At least she got to kill Faolain, and good riddance.

Disappointed in Trahearne's Fate

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He wasn’t weak. He held on to himself long enough for us to reach him despite being physically and mentally half-absorbed by Mordremoth. The unending mental battery and insidious thought-twisting that every other sylvari suffered must have been peanuts compared to that.

The “The Elder Dragon of Mind’s weakness is its mind!” and “Trahearne can send us into it!” asspulls will never be anything other than BS of the purest kind, though.

It did feel a bit like they got rid of him because of his haters, and it didn’t help that HoT ended as abruptly as it did, leaving so many threads hanging what feels like permanently. Still, with the recent bit of closure I’m more-or-less satisfied with his arc, and I say that as someone who liked him and never understood the haters. Yeah, some of his writing in the PS was clunky and hamfisted … but he’s hardly alone in that. And very much unlike the new batch of NPCs, with Trahearne I actually felt that he was my friend, that he was always glad to see me or work with me, that he knew he the Pact needed me and trusted me with it in return.

Charr credibility

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My biggest facepalm was when my Blood Legion warrior gave Forgal the same “I don’t understand why they can’t just hug and be friends” speech about the human/charr peace talks as my barely a few months old idealistic sylvari who was never personally involved in that ugly conflict did. :p

I still like the first chapter of the personal story better than anything else in the game because it’s pretty much the only time where you get to feel like a sylvari/charr/norn instead of a generic human. Afterwards, at least a sylvari occasionally has their Wyld Hunt acknowledged (though no word on it in LS3) and the sylvari-specific bits in HoT were good … but norn and especially charr get zip and that’s a crying shame.

More dialogues and NPC reactions that depend on race, PS choices and also the personality system (I was glad to see that return when convincing Phlunt this last episode) would add a lot, IMO. Class as well, that was a neat addition to the last part of Ep4, though not for all classes.

Marjory and Kasmeer: a heartfelt thought

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What I am surprised about in this thread, though, is the degree to which almost all commenters seem to feel the Player Character should be the central figure. I’m not interested in the slightest in having writers tell me or show me what my character thinks or feels

What’s the point in having a player character, especially one that we can customize over a preset one, if they’re completely worthless for the story, though? And in a proper roleplaying game, we’d have choices. The writers would create a rough framework, but also constantly give us a solid variety of options, influenced by culture, ideally sometimes also class, and personal history. And have the NPCs react to us accordingly.

No, I want to watch and listen to the rest of the characters just as though I was watching a movie or reading a comic.

Interesting. Gaming is the only interactive medium, that is its appeal for me. I only care about the NPCs, any NPCs in any game, in relation to my character(s). Oh, I’m perfectly fine with providing them with opportunities for characterization and development … but I expect the same in return, too. Writers forget that recicprocity far too often and just focus entirely on their pet NPCs, to the point that it feels like they, too, would much rather create comics or movies. (Hello Bioware, looking at you.)

Taimi is all we need... (potential spoilers)

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Actually if I could get rid of anyone it’d be Taimi — because I agree with BlooDyliCious that she has (almost) completely usurped the story and the protagonist role. Need anything? Taimi has the knowledge. Taimi has the toys. Taimi has the resouces. Taimi has the contacts. Taimi has everything. And yet at the same time she’s also an oh-so-oppressed victim of her evil, evil elders who don’t have the merest fraction of her incomparable genius. Yeah.

I’m really sick of it, and it doesn’t help that I can’t stand her personality either.

For all its flaws and clunkiness, at least the vanilla storyline tried to show many different people coming together to work on one goal, approaching it from multiple angles, gathering information from multiple sources, and we had an active hand in it all. As I said before, I miss the Pact (and the racial storyline of the first PS chapter even moreso) and would take it and its characters over the current batch any day.

Let's get real about about leather prices.

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I’ll never understand why we can’t get leather from skinning enemies. It really shouldn’t come from humanoid enemies’ loot bags. Need ore? You go mining. Need leather? You go hunting.

We’re talking a basic resource here, not precursors. It shouldn’t be at the mercy of the RNG and TP scalpers.

Y'all need to chill out about Braham.

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Braham isn’t just loathed because he turned into a puerile POS, but also because the supposed actual protagonist, i.e. the player, is written as a spineless faceless incompetent doormat for his (and other NPCs’) sake.

When the NPCs get all the development (however well or badly written) and all the completely one-sided “friendship” overtures from us while they are never shown caring about us, when in fact they spit in our faces while we are still made to wring our hands in worry about what they think of us … something is messed up big time.

Braham’s grief was treated with respect throughout HoT. I bet many of us, my story main included, didn’t even consider not bringing him for the final fight because of course he should be able to get personal revenge for Eir. That makes his actions now feel even worse. And then there’s his “try losing your mother” verbal attack. A sylvari PC’s mother, the sole source of her people, has been in a coma for many months with no signs of improvement (before the Caladbolg mini-story). A human PC can be an orphan. A charr PC lost their warband, the closest bonds in their society, and as a result almost became a despised gladium through no fault of their own. Can we express any of that? No.

If we were given roleplaying options and race-influenced dialog choices, I think many people would still dislike Braham, but at least there wouldn’t be the irritation of every PC being the same meek punching bag.

Good job with the new mastery devs.

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It’s awesome, yes. I’ll miss it almost as much as Bloodfen’s gliding skills, because mobility — especially on-demand mobility — is both fun and a big QoL boost.

Human gods and human characters [spoilers]

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I think this is something that would have benefited from humans having special dialogue.

Adding my support to this. I don’t play humans except for a third-rank thief alt who hasn’t done any story at all, but IMO the game is undeniably at its best when it 1) remembers that it has several very different playable races, 2) recognizes the player may have high personal stakes in a situation based on that, and 3) which it then allows us to express in race-specific dialogues.

Heart of Thorns, some parts of LS2 and the recent Caladbolg mini-plot absolutely needed their sylvari-specific dialog options and NPC lines. The situation with Balthazar absolutely needs to acknowledge that the Six Gods are not something that humans would be just fine going up against like any random miniboss. (And while we’re at it, why not give us charr-specific dialog as well because I am sure many charr would like nothing better than to kill this human god in particular. :p )

Excess Energy

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Seconding a request for more graphical contrast in scavanger hunts. I did find them without getting frustrating, but it did give me a bit of an eyestrain-headache to stare so hard at the very bright magma chamber in search of tiny, even brighter blobs.

Zhaitan's Weakness

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Yes! For all of it’s faults, the personal story got this right – the campaign against Zhaitan felt like a campaign. There was build up, multiple fronts of attack, and for all the flak it got, I like that we killed him with an airship instead of walking up to him to give him a beatdown sword and board style, as it felt like the final push of an army, not a handful of dudes.

Likewise. Not every threat has to be dumbed down into a typical MMO bossbattle. Let the world-devouring threats be too overwhelming for a bunch of fragile little mortals to YOLO up close and personal. There’s plenty of room for typical MMO bossbattles in a proper and complex campaign to prepare for taking out said world-devouring threat in a different manner.

If you consider the HoT metas as part of the story, the attack on Mordremoth involved a lot of fighting outside.

Fighting, but no planning, and especially no planning that we get to be part of as the now defacto leader of the Pact. The beginning of Heart of Thorns was actually quite gripping for me because there’s a lot of potential in losing everything and being faced with the prospect of a battle against an Elder Dragon while internal strife rages and, if you’re sylvari, the dragon tries to crush your own mind to boot and your people wonder when you will break. But it lost steam very quickly because that plot thread gets abandoned halfway through VB.

And absolutely nothing can change the colossal facepalm that is “Kill the dragon of Mind by attacking its mind!”. If we had attacked it through the Dream, with the Pale Tree (aware of her own culpability in the whole debacle by not warning us in time), mustering all of her fading strength to act as a conduit and protector from afar, and maybe even with an desperate alliance of convenience with the Nightmare Court who strike back in their own twisted way … I could have bought something like that, possibly, and it would have picked up the two loose threads of Mama Tree and the Court as a bonus. But its mind, directly? Ugh. The “weakness” notion is poison for this game’s story.

and in DS we had to occupy Mordremoth’s attention to allow the Pact Commander to attack his mind.

Which makes the DS meta a bit weird because we are the Pact Commander. :p I could overlook that if the actual story finale wasn’t such a fustercluck of nonsense, though.

Marjory and Kasmeer: a heartfelt thought

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The worst part is that as the story currently stands, the Commander seems to a character outside the main story.

Exactly. That is one thing that the vanilla storyline, despite some undeniably clunky writing and contrived moments, managed to do so much better. It was “my story” then as they advertised, and there were other characters who obviously came to care about me and expressed as much. Here, I’m barely present except in the parts with Aurene (whom we haven’t seen in two episodes now), and none of the new characters have ever had any actual friendship-building moments that I recall. The sole exception is Canach if you play HoT as a sylvari. Which is why moments like Kasmeer “joking” with the Commander fall so flat — they have no foundation and feel like just another salvo of “eff off” in the barrage of “eff offs” we’ve been getting from the NPCs. I have more positive feelings for tertiary old characters like Laranthir, Carys, Warmaster Efut, Galina and Snarl or the Gear warband than I have for the current crew.

By ditching the Pact like something gross that the cat dragged in and focusing on the “biconics” instead and especially on Taimi-ex-machina as pretty much the only source of information, contacts and resources, we went from being a planner, leader, decision-maker and information-gatherer to a glorified errand runner does as told and otherwise meekly stands by while the NPCs drama at each other. Hell, even among the NPCs themselves there’s no real group cohesion. It’s just Marjory and Kasmeer in one corner, Rox and Braham in another, and Taimi and her colossal ego in the third. Even Braham’s old “big brother” act has been dropped and turned into overbearing condescension.

If I could ask one thing of the writers, it’d be this: in any scene you create, ask yourself what the role of the player character is. Are they vital and active and personally invested? No? Then get back to the drawing board and change it so the supposed protagonist gets to be the protagonist!

(edited by Chadramar.8156)

[SPOILER] Out with the Old. In with the new?

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Should think of it more like in game time rather real world time.

Not really, because this is both about IC logic and OOC motivation. It’s hard to get or stay involved when it somtimes feels that the devs throw plot hooks and characters in and out willy-nilly. You can only string people along for so much before interest turns to frustration, especially when the last time there even was a string was 1-2 years ago or more.

Whether some of those Sylvari get added later on doesn’t matter as much as how they’re incorporated into the overall story. It could be something as little as a brief acknowledgement as neither of those really seem large enough to dedicate part of an episode.

I disagree. The Pale Tree is a important on various levels, and a lot of people are going to have complicated feelings about her now, what with her keeping the big secret and all. Learning that Tyria’s newest sentient species, who were one of the driving forces behind the Pact and the first ever death of an Elder Dragon, were meant to be dragon minions themselves is also not something that I imagine people would just shrug off and ignore. It’s both personal for the PC and political, and both aspects deserve to be addressed, as more than a throwaway comment here and there.

Storylines need a (timely) conclusion and epilogue, even if parts of them are meant to be picked up again later.

Marjory and Kasmeer: a heartfelt thought

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There are already far too many NPCs and plot hooks that go nowhere, IMO, for them to shoehorn in even more. While I do agree that some positive relationships would be good, let them grow between the characters we have, as friendship and (found) family bonds, not some Obligatory Romance.

That way there would also be room for the actual protagonist i.e. us in the story, if they try to write the NPCs as building real friendships with us instead of making us at best a mute outsider to and at worst a punching bag for all the NPC angst and drama.

Question about Taimi that No One is Asking

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The devs did they that they have been slowly making her taller as she grows older. It’s a nice touch.

Marjory and Kasmeer: a heartfelt thought

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It’s not often that scenes on TV or in an MMO make me squirm, but that fragment of Season 2 made me question things, uncomfortably. It framed a horrible, abusive relationship as part of some superhero backstory, and I did not care for it one bit.

Tell me about it. More than anything else, it tanked my opinion of Caithe. In LS3, she’s actually among the few NPCs that I don’t want to throttle, and it’s refreshing to see an NPC actually trying to make up for (some) past wrongs to the point where as a mainly sylvari player I want to think of her as a friend again … but holy smokes, that episode.

And in the what, twenty years since she still hadn’t gotten over moping over Faolain.

Navigating Draconis Mons

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Yes, the minimap is painfully inadequate for multi-level zones. This is no Tangled Depths, thank goodness, and the new mastery is really fun at least, but I think this will be my least visited map of the new bunch if I ever just want some karma/magic or a way to kill a free hour.

Movement and orientation challenges can be fun once in a while (I actually loved the Labyrinthine Cliffs as a cool change of pace) but in terms of everyday gameplay I want quick and easy movement as a basic QoL issue. Compared to Bloodstone Fen, which I really enjoy as an example of “verticality done right”, this feels like a much bigger hassle to navigate.

So why did "Lazarus" help us protect Aurene?

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To earn the Commander’s trust for access to the dragons, also so he can later harvest Aurene’s magical powers?

Again, he doesn’t “earn” anything, and IMO it would be complete nonsense for him to think that this particular form could inspire trust in anyone anytime soon. Nor does he seem to need our trust or our permission in any way, since he manages to just barge in on both the hatching and Taimi’s experiment without so much as a “please and thank you”. He can go wherever he wants and we can’t stop him, and he clearly has some independent way of staying informed of what we’re doing.

It just baffles me.

Zhaitan's Weakness

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Retroactively looking for Zhaitan’s “weakness” is futile IMO because the whole concept was one of HoT’s worst kitten pulls, overshadowed only by Mordremoth’s weakness being one of its own domains. That’s like saying we can kill Jormag by throwing snowballs at it, or Primordus by holding a lit match to its tail.

I know the vanilla story gets flak here, but IMO it beats the pants off anything that came afterwards in terms of actually feeling like a massive concerted effort instead of “go wherever and do whatever some gasbag brat who singlehandedly knows everything and has absolutely unlimited resources and contacts tells you to”. Zhaitan didn’t have a single simplistic killswitch, defeating it required a multi-pronged approach of tackling its supply of corpses and magic, its eyes and mouth, and the corrupted Source of Orr, and that was information from multiple sources that we actively participated in acquiring.

Kasmeer in Flashpoint (Spoilers)

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One doesn’t have to be an evangelical fanatic to be a strong believer. I’m atheist myself, but I don’t see any issues with Kasmeer here — except that if she’s supposed to be that devout, maybe it should have been established a little more strongly in advance, instead of Marjory telling us about it after the fact.

Seeing a quietly devout side of the character would have given her a bit more, well, character beyond merely being Marjory’s tagalong and someone who wants to be part of the 1% again.

Plus, the bafflingly resounding “whatever” reaction that most people have to Balthazar rather needs to be balanced out by something “apppropriate” for his own believers. Faith in the Six is supposed to be the defining human racial trait, after all. Not everyone has to have it, but when nobody does, it becomes a bit of a farce. You need characters who show “expected” traits for their culture, or “outliers” and “rebels” don’t really work because they have nothing to be contrasted against.

(edited by Chadramar.8156)

Silverwastes "Legendary" Bosses

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Didn’t they increase the spawn rate of these bosses at some point? But yeah, the RNG is still a kitten. I’ve been on several maps where three legendaries popped up within minutes of each other, but also on maps where nothing spawned although every fort was levelled up and permanently controlled.

And they can definitely die incredibly fast when enough people happen to be at the right spot at the right time.

Kasmeer in Flashpoint (Spoilers)

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For the most part, Kasmeer acted normally. Her little jab about us being occupied as “flimsy excuses” was annoying, but it seemed like she might have been joking and still wanted to help out.

That was my impression, but given the combination of the writers never actually establishing a friendship and various NPCs treating the PC pretty badly this season (or since HoT if you’re a sylvari), I think it’s easy to see this as just another “eff off” moment instead of a joke between friends. Hell, given our character’s reaction, the Commander her/himself apparently expects everyone to just snap at them by now, too. I really hope that this will eventually be adressed by the writers, but I also doubt it sadly. :/ It’s a shame when everyone except the supposed protagonist gets a character arc.

[SPOILER] Out with the Old. In with the new?

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Chadramar.8156

Many elements in stories are seeded early in order to further various story arcs later. What may feel to be an unresolved plot point now may not be so later when it becomes more important to the overall story. Giving updates (i.e. In regards to the story development) on whatever each individual players prefers, whether that be Zoijja’s status or what’s up with Logan, slows the pacing down.

The problem with that attitude is that momentum only carries so far, and when it runs out even important unresolved “hooks” end up feeling like a farce. The Pale Tree has been in and sometimes barely out of a coma for how long now? What about anti-sylvari sentiments and mistrust, as well as holding the Pale Tree responsible for keeping a fatal secret — none of that was ever resolved, but how weird would it be if it was only picked up now many many months after HoT and eyeball-deep in a dozen other plots? When will there ever be a story arc that calls for revealing more about Malyck and his tree and siblings the way the Mordremoth arc did? Zojja has been mentioned already.

That’s not to say that even a very very late update can’t be good and welcome, of course — just look at how generally very well-received (much moreso than the actual LS episodes) the “current events” bit about Caladbolg was. People want and stories need closure and continuity, but while “better late than never” is a thing, it also feels very sloppy.

Marjory and Kasmeer: a heartfelt thought

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Chadramar.8156

Now the other problem is that since they both have limited screen time, and their relationship is a big part of their character arcs, that means the relationship stuff always happens in the thick of things. The effect of this for the players is to leave us with an impression of an unhealthy relationship. Anyone more focused on domestic disputes than these crazy world changing events going on in their immediate vicinity will come across as having unhealthy priorities.

I think that hits the nail on the end — especially combined with the dismissive, uncaring or flat-out hostile attitudes that most of the NPCs have been displaying towards us the whole season. (Or since HoT if you’re playing sylvari, thanks “friends”.) I’m seriously sick of the “biconics” because of all the in-your-face drama that I’m supposed to care about while none of them show any signs of caring for my character in any way. It’s all so bloody one-sided.

As for whether it’s (supposed to be) “healthy” or not, I have no idea. It’s not remotely as revolting as Caithe and Faolain, or Jenna and Logan, but those are laughably low bars to clear. Marjory has always stuck me as a selfish gasbag, though, and Kasmeer as a wimpy follower-type, so if Kas is trying to assert herself more now it’s no surprise there’s going to be trouble. Unfortunately, any wrongdoing on Marjory’s part is probably going to be handwaved away due to Kasmeer doing something worse i.e. breaking down and running way after the “Lazarus” reveal. That’s going to be fodder for a lot MORE in-your-face drama-llamaing that we’ll have to sit through.

How would you rank the new maps so far?

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Posted by: Chadramar.8156

Chadramar.8156

Haven’t played the new map enough to have a definite opinion on in yet, for now I feel that I should like it more than I do. Maybe I’m just burned out again. Part of me likes the variety of enemies, another feels it’s too much crammed into one rather small map, kind of how the writers cram too much into the story. The new mastery rocks, though, without a doubt — mobility is always awesome. I’m going to miss this in other maps as much as I miss the gliding skills when not in Bloodstone Fen.

Stonehead King (?) fight resetting repeatedly

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Apologies if I got the name of the bugger wrong … it’s the boss that pops up at the end of the event to help a sylvari escort some young bristlebacks to a new home. I fought it today, and no kidding it reset four times in a row, almost causing the event timer to run out on us. Nobody was running away from it like a headless chicken, instead it apparently reached its leashing distance just by doing its own charge attacks.

Were we just really unlucky, or has anyone else encountered this?

What did my character say...?[spoiler]

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Ambient dialog not showing up in chat is annoying — and inconsistent as well, because some do and some don’t. I understand that in areas with a lot of NPCs, maybe they don’t want to hopelessly clutter the log, but this “blink and you miss it” ambient chatter should be handled better.

One More living Story before I give up.

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Chadramar.8156

The only part of LS1 I liked was the first appearance of the Zephyrites. That was a really fun time, I still remember fighting RL vertigo while aspect-jumping around the Sanctum way up in the air. It was whimsical and unique and gave us a glimpse of a different human culture. The rest? Yeah, that was garbage IMO. Scarlet was the worst thing in the game so far, and since her influence was still felt in LS2 with Taimi fangirling all over her, that dragged my opinion of LS2 down as well.

Certainly the presentation of the story is better than it has ever been, but there is still room for improvement. Anet now needs to improve the actual story itself.

I think that’s a very good way to put it.

So why did "Lazarus" help us protect Aurene?

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But he didn’t actually gain our trust, or anything else for that matter — except for an unwelcome tagalong who spotted his mirror, which allowed Kasmeer to promptly unmask him. Hardly beneficial for him, even if he never intended to pose as Lazarus for long. If the deception had gone on for long enough, and we had interacted with him enough to at least grudgingly trust him, if he had managed to make himself somehow indispensable for our plans so he “had to” be given access to the lab and everything else — then it would have been a very smart move. But as it is, I don’t see what he accomplished for himself.

In retrospect, it now feels as if he was shoehorned into that scene just so we don’t forget he’s supposed to be a Big Deal for a story that juggles too many balls to really give any of them the treatment they deserve.

[Spoiler] Lazarus' identity a poor plot twist

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Why all the hints on the Fire Island Chain of the Mursaat feeling double crossed when you put Balthazaar in Lazarus’ place? I wanted to see Lazarus become a thing but be that kind of anti-villain who is doing horrible things just to save and protect his people that would inevitably usher in the Mursaat as a race again who butts heads but doesn’t necessarily go to war with the other races.

That would have been more interesting, yes. The game already suffers from too many story hooks that aren’t resolved properly, or don’t really go anywhere to begin with, so it’d be a shame if that tidbit about the mursaat doesn’t amount to anything instead of being part of a moral-dilemma arc about how far we can trust an actual mursaat for the sake of saving the world.

Living World Update - Well done overall!

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My main criticism of this patch had to do with dialogue of the player character. This would have been the PERFECT time to have unique dialogue based on race, given their varying attitudes towards “Lazurus.”

Absolutely. The game is at its best, IMO, when it remembers that it actually features five very different playable races, and offers different dialog options accordingly.

So why did "Lazarus" help us protect Aurene?

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If he had been who he claimed to be, combined with the Ep2 hints about the mursaat’s all-out villainy being at least partly a “the winners write history” thing, it might have been interesting to see a “gray” mursaat proving himself as a (questionable) ally.

But if he was Balthazar all along, doesn’t give a toss about Tyria and just wants power, why not just gobble up the little bite-sized package of dragon energy, especially since she may otherwise grow up to be a problem? What did he gain from “helping” us? It’s not as if his actions at her hatching made us trust him with our plans or even a rusty old horseshoe — he still had to barge in uninvited to nab the big plot device.

One More living Story before I give up.

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Chadramar.8156

Good point about giving the player something to do while the NPCs drama at each other. That was well done.

Episode 5, first thoughts (no spoilers)

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First story instance? “This was actually kinda fun, given how much I don’t like the NPCs involved.”

The new map? “Please don’t let this be another Tangled Depths. Nice variety of enemies, though. And druids are neat.”

The new mastery? “WHEEEE!” (Giving me mobility instantly makes me a happy player. :p)

The diving goggles? “Wow this is a long way down … ow ow ow why am I oh I’m dead. Ooh, achievement.” This one is going to take a few tries, I bet.

Final story instance? “Eff off Taimi I swear I have had it up to HERE with asura-ex-machinas. Really pretty graphics, though. Wait, is that big crudely-textured rock supposed to be the big P? And it just buggers off? Elder Dragons keep getting more unimpressive, that’s a bloody shame.”

and now probably the normal “population” in uproar/anxiety about the PC due to the current mess-up.

That’s what sylvari players thought after LS2 and HoT, but nothing came of it, sadly. No suspicions or hostilities from anyone beyond the new maps themselves, no chance to ask Mama Tree what the hell she was thinking when she kept this from us and let the Pact run to its doom without a warning. I wish the writers did focus more on consequences and tying up story arcs instead of just adding new loose ends.

If this does end up making waves both among the humans and between humans and the other cultures, I’ll be duly impressed (and a little jealous because I’m still craving for resolution for the HoT themes).

Could we get better boss balancing please?

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Chadramar.8156

Adding the gliding skills to the old maps would be a mess, definitely, but since those skills were introduced in Ep1, they could/should have built the LS maps around them at least IMO. Getting around quickly and easily is a good thing as far as I’m concerned, but then I’m the kind of player who’ll never not want mounts or at least a flat out of combat speed boost for all professions.

The new mastery is really fun, too. Mobility rocks.

The Commander and Phlunt [spoilers]

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That’s cool. I’m a massive fan of race-specific dialogues. I overlooked the option to see if there was anyone to talk to in the hidden lab, so I can’t confirm or deny whether it is asura-specific, but I do hope so. Gotta remember to say hello to the old bugger with another character.

Kasmeer in Flashpoint (Spoilers)

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I think her reaction to Balthazar was understandable, realistic, and preferable to just shrugging it off like some on-so-unflappable 2-k3wl-4-sk00l-n01-tells-me-whut-2-d0 gasbag twit (oh hello Marjory, didn’t see you there). She’s a human, this is one of her gods. Also, she unmasked him, so saying she contributed nothing isn’t exactly fair.

I don’t like any of the biconics except for Canach, if he counts as one, but Kasmeer’s reaction wasn’t remotely on Braham’s level of “Okay writers, give me a single reason why I should EVER want to see his face again?” (*), or even just my annoyance with Taimi and Marjory. Yeah, she runs off, but at least she doesn’t spit on us while doing so. Yay for small mercies. :p

(*) Biggest WTF moment in this episode: why would my character give a dead rat’s last fart about what Braham thinks, or how much she’ll have to kiss his sorry backside so he might, maybe, ever-so-graciously, forgive her for taking Jormag off the menu?

One More living Story before I give up.

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Chadramar.8156

and the overall lack of centralization around the main character (you).

This is the only criticism I really agree with, and have been disappointed by ever since vanilla. I’m sick of the drama-llamaing around the “biconics”. I’m aggravated that my character would just casually throw away her literal life’s (sylvari main) work i.e. the Pact at a time when it badly needs her after the devastations of HoT. The only time I felt that “This is my story” since the end of vanilla plot was during some sylvari-specific dialog moments in HoT and recently in the Caladbolg follow-up. If I mained my charr or norn, it’d be even worse — I don’t know if they get anything race-specific at all once the first chapter of the personal story ends? At least a sylvari gets their Wyld Hunt mentioned once in a blue moon. There’s so much potential for interesting stories that are either specific to or at least heavily influenced by what you’re playing as, and it all lies fallow.

Still, overall I think the quality of the Living Story has improved since the first seasons, though that may be odd for me to say since I dislike many of the NPCs so much at this point. :p For one, the return of voice acting for the player character means we actually get to participate in conversations again, which is pretty huge. It’s still not “my story” by any means, but at least I’m part of it again.