Guild Wars 2

Saint.5647:

Hah yes. I blows me away how many people chose to just whine instead of optimizing their builds for the content. I only wish we had a build save feature like in GW1. I would be willing to bet that there is a huge portion of players who googled “Best X Build” and run it 24/7 through all content; no trait swap, no weapon changes, no utility changes.

Edited my original post to express my views about the GW1 skills vs. GW2 attributes/skills. I hope it clarifies my disinterest with GW2’s system or perhaps opens some doors for revelation. I just find that the lack of the diversity in GW2 is a lot larger than people give credit for. That’s not to say I’m up-in-arms for efficiency, I’m not trying to convince everyone to switch to Zerker gear and learn to dodge and spec themselves. I just think that coordination leading to the same result becomes dull, while in GW1 you could have several different builds and teams that all accomplished the same thing just as effectively, entirely dependent on the player and the player’s ability to craft builds around what they wanted.

I guess to me, in so many ways, GW2 feels like Skyrim felt to Elder Scrolls. Many tools can be disregarded as useless and make little to no impact on performance. Such as almost no need to use stealth or magic in Skyrim (other than the Stealth line was pretty awesome, although stealthing itself was useless).

Saint.5647:

Oh I’m certain that if the open world required more coordination, the outcry would be legendary.

Already is.

Saint.5647:

There is diversification. This is how runs get better and faster! Trait loadouts are not individual. They’re not like GW1 attributes but rather like the GW1 skill bar. In GW1 the skill bar was a group puzzle. This is the same in GW2 with trait loadouts and utilities. The reason we don’t take Engineers is that we already cap vulnerability with Elementalists and Thieves. This doesn’t mean Engineer is useless. Rangers, for instance, do have a place in some dungeons. Some folks use them more, some less, and some not at all.

It all depends on how you build as a team, not as an individual. Five players all running yolo builds without coordinating can never be optimal. My bet is that people just trait up for w/e and then just roll parties. It is a give and take. You sacrifice some trait points for group benefits. You give up utilities for group benefits.

I would say the puzzle is far less innovative, though. If you want redeeming examples of how skills in GW1 worked well to mold players more effectively than trait/skill combinations mold teams in GW2, look up Khometway. It’s just one example, of many, that utilizes strengths of classes and class combinations to maximize efficiency. That kind of mold-less efficiency can’t be obtained in GW2.

There are plenty of other examples of GW1s skills being able to outshine GW2’s diversification while maintaining efficiency: Discordway, Necroway, Mesway, Smiteway, Melee Support, SFway — The biggest obstacle in whether or not these builds would work was the player’s own skill bar. The fact that a player could run anything – from support with Imbagon to Curses to DD to Shutdown and still be as efficient as anyone else was a good thing.

When we consider traits in GW2 though, there really isn’t much room for diversification. Well, there is a huge room for diversification, but the ranger who wants to maximize their bearbow has no truck with the warrior who will optimize shouts and banners. There’s just no equal grounds where a class can excel.

Wharrgarbl.9263:

hannah mee.7925:

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

-snip-

Please don’t take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

All of your points reinforce the problem that DD and supporting DD (via blind, prot, reflects, vuln and location) is the most efficient strategy in this game and has a leg up on the rest of build options.

“Play how you want” whittles down to “Play how you want…but you might not be able to perform.” Sure, realistically in every game there are going to be methods that work better than others but the key point is that there is usually some diversification. Necromancers, ranger pets and engineers are perfect examples of people being unable to fulfill roles they want (minion mastery/support/turret/beastmaster) because the AI is broken to compensate for the trinity’s removal.

No. As some1 said above you, the gane plays like an arpg mmo (closer to diablo than dark souls). There is no problem on everyone being DD, it was actually one of the games selling points. And again all your complains apply o ly to a small subset of game modes (NOT valid for spvp, wvw, nor some open world events). The other builds are MUCH better performing than zerker in the other modes.

Going to have to disagree. The only real place where DD and DPS don’t outperform support is in WvW, zerg on zerg fights or PvDoor tend to make use of support though more than bunking/roaming/solo fights due to not needing the DPS – zerg needs to stay alive, rams hit doors, don’t forget the Swiftness so stuff dies even faster! Yet that’s all support to maximize the DPS. There’s no need/ability to counter the enemy’s DPS in any way.

It’s not about some inability to perform support tasks. It’s just that they’re not efficient.

Moss.5371:

Loki.8793:

There are no such thing as tanks in GW1, as there is no hate mechanic to grab the attention of mobs.

what.

Minions say hi.

ozma.3498:

It’s limited time only, and was bugged for most of the update.

Literally 99% of people won’t be able to get onto a map that has enough people to actually complete the achievement due to the overflow system.

However, just because you personally aren’t into achievements or you were lucky enough to get it doesn’t mean your “just don’t do it” argument has any merit whatsoever.

You wouldn’t say “don’t watch the match” to a football fan. You wouldn’t say “don’t listen to the new album” to a music fan. You wouldn’t say “don’t read that book” to an avid reader.

Being bugged is an entirely different problem though, one which reflects nothing on the achievement itself. I know there is an achievement in Sly 4: Thieves of Time that is apparently buggy on the PSP version of the game, so the best solution is to only play the PS3 version if you want to get it. So, what do people do if they want the achievement? They don’t play the PSP version. Simple, really.

I advise you to look up the meaning of literally. I’ve never had a problem with numbers on my main server (Dragonbrand) or any overflows. However there is a huge issue with a lack of coordination. Which, again, can be better addressed without making QQ threads on every single page of the forum.

It’s actually worth a lot of merit. There are plenty of achievements out there, the meta-achievement is still possible to obtain and if people aren’t putting forward enough effort to try and coordinate the event, that’s their problem. Look on the forums, there have been servers working to coordinate the event and get the achievement. I’m sure you could even find other third party sources that maximize their coordination efforts to achieve the goal. The lack of trying to coordinate efforts, however, does not merit QQ threads.

You could say those things to fans. The value of something like this is situational, not intrinsic. You could save an avid book reader by saving them time with “Holden Caulfield was a spoiled kitten and the book was bad” or you could tell them to not recap Super Bowl 48 because John Fox almost died in January it was still his worst moment of 2014. The value of the achievement isn’t intrinsic by any means.

Wharrgarbl.9263:

Please dont take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

-snip-

Please don’t take it the wrong way but your post shows a clear lack of game mechanics knowledge.

All of your points reinforce the problem that DD and supporting DD (via blind, prot, reflects, vuln and location) is the most efficient strategy in this game and has a leg up on the rest of build options.

“Play how you want” whittles down to “Play how you want…but you might not be able to perform.” Sure, realistically in every game there are going to be methods that work better than others but the key point is that there is usually some diversification. Necromancers, ranger pets and engineers are perfect examples of people being unable to fulfill roles they want (minion mastery/support/turret/beastmaster) because the AI is broken to compensate for the trinity’s removal.

One point in particular though is it’s not necessarily the lack of a trinity that makes the system so bad. GW1 really didn’t have a trinity (not in the typical sense of a trinity, anyway, if you were playing in the metagame) but their solution to that lack of combat design was with the unique implementation of skills. By allowing enemies to have skill bars similar to player skill bars and developing AI to use the skills rather intuitively, they created a range of diversity in PvE enemies. Instead of making every difficult combat situation a giant healthpool that dealt massive damage, they were able to change up the skills – give enemies more attribute points than normal players could gain and give some minor buffs to bosses.

In GW2, with its open world design, there’s not much chance of anything that inventive to ever work because it would just end up being this.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I’m glad that my guardian can be a DPS truck and a cleric

Playing how anyone wants is awesome.

I would say this sentimental appeal would be stronger if people could do clerics or support better. Not that a person can’t, per se, run a support/tanky build but in Guild Wars 2, these options just aren’t that great. They are certainly viable and I would never remove someone from a dungeon party just because they aren’t maximizing DPS but these builds will never be efficient.

Carighan.6758:

For another example, I personally dislike the type of modifying grind achievements. “Get 500 kills with a shotgun” (these can be automatic if the game requires you to kill more than 500 times with the shotty, anyhow). I hate them. But, that’s a very easy thing to fix, I won’t do them.

Likewise, you don’t like achievements like the 6m one (or I suspect the 30s Magda kill one in multiplayer in D3 :P ). Then well, don’t do them. No one is forcing you to, and no one is forcing me to do the 500 Shotgun kills one in a shooter.

Realistically the difference between achievements like this and 500 shotgun kills is that this achievement relies on a large number of coordinated people who, let’s face it, aren’t that coordinated. Shotgun kills only rely on you and your ability to shoot 500 enemies with a shotgun.

I’m not sure why everyone’s getting their panties in a twist over it though. I agree with you 100% that the best solution is to just not do it. If people are trying for the meta-achievement, there are dailies that help accumulate that. Sure, people can’t be on every day but most people can get on for the five minutes it takes to get a single daily that will add to the meta-achievement. It’s not like map travel fees are a huge hindrance on one’s ability to complete.

I think, when it really comes down to it, completionists are just kitten that they can’t complete something. Sure, it has adequate foundations in an argument, but QQ threads like this one aren’t appealing. There are plenty of other threads discussing the 6 Minutes to Knightfall mechanics that don’t have titles like “Never do anything like 6 Minutes…” where constructive criticism of the actual problems with this event could’ve been stated without seeming QQ.

Yup.

Maybe they can use the future proceeds of GW2 to revitalize GW1. Finish Elona’s Guild Wars: Beyond and the Lunatic Court stories.

Still, even with all of the flaws of not having a true trinity in the game, GW2 is fun to play – I just don’t see GW2 ever being as successful as it could have been without some major, redefining overhaul. How will they accomplish that? Beyond me.

Star Ace.5207:

I think intolerance is much sadder (in-game or in real life, doesn’t matter). Playing with Berserker’s gear is not inherently good or evil (works great for most content), but players deeming others “selfish”/“baddies”/“carebears”/“playhowyouwants” for playing this or that way that is not “meta” is the true sad story in this game-the need to belittle others for being different/playing whatever.

Those kind of players are usually the cancer of society and you can be rest assured that online they’re belittling the carebears and offline they’re not doing anything productive.

While melee DPS is far superior to ranged DPS and everything the OP said was his inability to dodge, I think there is a fair point about the lack of a holy trinity. There are several players who enjoy the Monk/Cleric/Support role that finds little use in GW2 except maybe a few shouts on warrior or guardian while not bringing nearly as much as they would like to the table. It’s not a matter of “learning to play the game” when the roles are broken down into DPS and how to best support that DPS – usually via more DPS. The lack of support roles in this game really drives away a chunk of the playerbase.

Proposal Overview
Basically an idea I’ve often humored, not sure if it’s been mentioned (with 29 pages of proposals), but there could be Fractals that are somewhat similar to Bonus Mission Pack in Guild Wars 1, offering the players 5 unique skill bars and preset stat combinations. This would allow people to experience more skill bars, using skills that aren’t used anywhere else, and also allow us to see some really interesting development in potential skill balancing.

Goal of Proposal
The goal is simple, to utilize the idea of the “Bonus Mission Pack” concept to create more skills and skillbars in unique and developmental ways. These could be “test runs” of possible new skills and bars that they want to add to the actual game.

Proposal Functionality
It would work exactly like GW2 already works, just different skills. Similar to how an engineer can have kits or guardian can use tomes, the skill bar of the player will be replaced – except all 10 skills instead of just the 5 weapon skills. An example of this could be having a Fractal where the 5 players take on aspects of the 5 Gods – one gets assigned Balthazar, one gets assigned Grenth, another Lyssa…etc.

Each of these Gods would have skills and bars associated with their “profession” by lowest common denominator (Balthazar=Warrior, Lyssa=Mesmer, Grenth=Necromancer, Dwayna=Guardian, Melandru=Ranger). They would also have unique weapons that cannot be unequipped during the duration of the Fractal.

This example could be extended to other aspects – embodying the members of Destiny’s Edge, playing as a Charr warband, playing from an enemy perspective such as Zhaitan scouts, Aetherblades and more.

Associated Risks
The biggest risk I can see is someone not fully capable of adapting to the given bar, however in the original Bonus Mission Pack that didn’t seem to be a huge concern for the developers, as they made the builds centralized around a certain profession anyway. However, the risk is still possible – such as a warrior suddenly getting a Ranger- or Mesmer-esque bar.

uknortherner.2670:

Umut.5471:

Player housing
Marriage
Mounts
Harder gameplay

These are the best features of korean mmos, I think euro/american mmos need these too.

Other than harder gameplay, none of those other things are “needed” in GW2.

I’d like to see Mounts as well.

I also agree on harder gameplay, although I don’t see harder gameplay coming out any time soon without more instanced content being implemented. Simply because the game lacks much ingenuity in content that is “difficult” as is. A game with “difficult” content that almost purposely isolates bearbow or staffmentalist because of efficiency is not exactly “difficult.” However, in the same regards, it can be difficult. Try running AC or Arah with 5 mediocre players – it can be a challenge if not every person immediately resorts to the most efficient build as being the only “viable” option on the table, as many players like to mistakenly believe.

I’m not proposing there would ever be an actual solution to this, but the game’s designed currently so someone using bearbow, staffmentalist or conditionmancer can actually do something other than get in the way of an objective. Efficient? No. Viable? Yes.

Difficult? Well, that entirely depends on how much efficiency vs. viability is going on.

Only if I can marry one of my minipets because that’s the only way I’d ever want this to happen.

Plus, I see absolutely no positive reinforcement for this. I guess I could apply marriage to one of my friends on the game but the idealistic standard that I actually give a kitten about anyone that much in the game? I have friends, I have guildmates and I have acquaintances in the game but my relationship with them comes pretty far down my list of priorities; much farther down than, say, a relationship I have with my neighbor or, even more importantly, a boyfriend/girlfriend.

I mean I guess it’d work…but it just seems like self gratification for people who try to make relationships in the game when for the thousands of us who, like, don’t bother pushing our lovers into playing a video game or don’t care to build an e-relationship lose out on a buff.

If the idea were implemented at all, it would have absolutely no bearing on the gameplay whatsoever. Like all of your other personal decisions, it should really hold little bearing over anything in the game’s function. Why? Because that’s fair. Lowest common denominator will always be fair.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I actually would like the idea that on the Isle of Janthir, Surprise surprise, the Mursaat become an anti-villain playable race, in the most ironic of twists they agree to help us, bitterly, and grudgingly, and remain distrusted, but allied to the races of Tyria on loose terms.

Why not? The Charr made a turnaround. I wouldn’t say the Charr were always “good in their own way” either, considering that they invaded Ascalon, Kryta and Orr – not necessarily in that order.

Tyme.1067:

The only problem with mentioning Dwarves as a playable race?

They can’t reproduce.

They’re all dying.

They sacrificed their race to save the world in GW1:EotN

This makes me sad because it’s true. I only wish they could pull some BS out to make dwarves an option without causing a complete mental ragefest through the community.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

6. The Tengu don’t really have any interesting lore going for them, since they were added mostly as a Cantha thing which means the real strength of their lore actually came from the Canthan Empire fondly trying to obliterate them.

Firstly, I agree 100% with this point. I think Tengu would be better rolled out if a Canthan expansion ever happened. Maybe helping them re-establish a role in Cantha after the injustice that occurred, either as a foreign visitor, a domestic rebel or a Tengu.

Secondly though I would disagree they don’t have much lore. Quests in GW1, including the Tengu Accords and Winds of Change quests, gave some insight to the Tengu. While they are a bit like the Charr in a way, they are also a bit like norn in their sense of honor and loyalty. Comparing them as bird-Charr seems a bit off.

Basically, the Tengu can be seen as stereotypical samurai – loyal to death to those who prove themselves worthy of their loyalty (such as Talon’s loyalty to the humans after Togo’s exploits in the Tengu Accords). Then there are the outcasts who only have loyalty for their fellow Tengu, not necessarily aspiring to flame legion shamans or anything.

haviz.1340:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Your build in GW2 is defined by your gear. It is just so that everyone runs zerker gear, so you make up fine nuances to build an artificial build variety.

All are DDs in first place. Then they get some support to raise the DPS of the group. This has nothing to do with what the DEVs were talking about.

The system is broken, the encounters are all about burning down the boss, no other mechanic needed. No tanking – no tanking gear needed, no real healers – no healing gear needed, nothing else needed but DD.

This is why all group (zerg) content feels the same: Do as much damage as you can, dodge, damage.

If you say so, record a fractal 49 or 50 with just direct damage, nothing else. No support and no controls.

I can agree that open world zergfest is pretty much what you say but how would you design a content with tanks and healers in open world for 150 people?

Fractals is instanced.

Instanced requires more balance.

Your point is moot.

haviz.1340:

If it’s useless it means it’s useless and you shouldn’t have to use it. So is it useless or not? Because I’m constantly reading that defensive stats are useless. Was it always a hyperbole? I don’t like using hyperboles in serious discussions.

As Shib said, they’re not “useless.” Useless is a strong term to use. The problem with Defensive gear setup is that in most of PvE it doesn’t matter. Many champions/legendaries can OHKO a player who doesn’t dodge, regardless of their offensive/defensive setup. This is why I personally call PvE “Dodge or Die.” Many trash mobs won’t deal enough damage (and if they do, it’s in conditions) to make defensive setups any more useful than damage (think the best defense is a deadly offense). Only world bosses which are designed as structures, so crit hits don’t work on them, really dissuade any use of maximized DPS gear.

In PvE, there’s just not much reason to use any more defensive gear than absolutely necessary for the player because more defensive gear doesn’t make up for the DPS loss because in any situation that it could be useful, you look closer to find that it’s not actually useful.

TLDR; Defensive gear is “useless” in PvE by the standard that maximizing on it actually hurts a player more than help them in any way.

I agree that they did a good job. I also feel like having Braham cut her short seemed like a nice break from the stereotypical villain tropes. I think a lot of questions, at least the ones regarding Scarlet, will be answered in the Epilogue. Mai Trin, Caithe, and other questions are just doors to further LS arcs. It’s just one LS, it’s the end of Scarlet’s part in it. That’s really all there is to that.

Traveller.7496:

Mordremoth.

I just have to wonder how Colin thought this was a “one in a million” prediction.

Maybe it’s a one in a million prediction because it’s actually not Mordremoth. Mindblowing plot twist to follow in the Epilogue.

I also expected a bit more but I was satisfied with the ending. It left me with plenty of questions about the Sylvari and Caithe that can definitely be an asset to future storytelling. In regards to the fight, I don’t find it that surprising. We can fight her hologram and that’s good enough for me.

Dakota.4591:

Kasmeer’s hiccuping really took away from any tension leading up to the final fight and the relief afterwards, and that last kiss between her and Marjory just was really goofy with the way it was rendered.

I agree the kiss was goofy, but I think the hiccuping had its own special little place in my heart anyway.

Malediktus.9250:

sPvP is far from being balanced… look into the pvp and profession subforums

You mean all those people crying that they suck? Yeah, that’s nothing new – there’s hardly a coherent argument for why PvP is imbalanced that can’t be concluded with “because I’m bad at the profession I play.” The fact that any class, with any setup can hotjoin and do well allows for more unique playstyles. Of course there are always team imbalances, but that’s mostly because choosing which team to join is a terrible idea because stronger players tend to stick with stronger players. Team balancing is an extreme issue, but hardly relevant to the balance of professions, gear and viability.

PvE doesn’t have that. When some people suck at PvE, there is a strong argument that it could be because their profession is broken in PvE.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I don’t want PvE to be more like PvP. If I wanted to PvP I would just PvP. I don’t want to PvP. All they need to do is start considering that this game does include PvE elements when they do their balance passes. Too often if something is over or under balanced in PvP they take a wild swing at it as fast as possible (maybe not for the better, but at least they’re doing something), while issues that only impact PvE play they tend to just leave on the back burner, because apparently they don’t give a kitten.

Issues that only impact PvE are a lot larger than minor skill, trait and attributes edits though. Making PvE more like PvP would solve a great deal of problems with the game, instanced content in general tends to solve a great deal of problems – Guild Wars 1 did right with instancing. The reason for that is that if enemies are on the same playing field as regular players (in terms of health, attributes, traits/skills), such as how it was handled in the first game, your options for diversity become greater because defensive/offensive makes a larger difference as a whole.

The current structure of PvE offers little room for diversity because it’s basically Dodge or Die.

Zaoda.1653:

I want to get the tormented shield but I’m just really put off by how puny it is :-/ I like the GW1 version of it better – it’s bigger and has much nicer detail.

I did purchase a tormented greatsword skin today for my Mesmer though – no complaints about that skin :-P looks epic.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the greatsword…but I’m not a huge fan of many greatswords except Fellblade and Twilight. I didn’t find the shield to be too bad (on my sylvari/human) but I have absolutely no use for a shield.

Also, to people complaining about the GW1→GW2 skin changes, GW1 Tormented weapons were just as ugly, if not uglier.

Ohoni.6057:

Zerker needs more effort to survive because it’s glassy and usually fights in melee while condies spammer stay back with all of his soft cc and additional tankiness. Go play pvp with zerker and then condies build and tell me again how condies are “significantly harder to play”.

That’s the problem. Too much balance discussion focuses around PvP tactics, which are completely irrelevant to PvE. You can have build that devastate in PvP and are completely useless in PvE, or that are worthless in PvP but dominate in PvE.

PvP is proof that this game can be balanced if they worked really hard to restructure PvE. A lot of content just needs to be instanced and enemies need to be reworked in those instances to provide adequate balancing.

kokiman.2364:

But like I said the main problem is the “me” mentality in MMOs these days, when it used to be a “we” mentality.

Sure A.Net said a lot times “play how you want” but I am pretty sure they meant “play however you want, but try to be reasonable” and not “well yeah just don’t try at all, just press autoattack everything will be fine other people will piggyback you through this”

A “me” mentality has also never been as corrosive as it can be in Guild Wars 2, because in Guild Wars 2 a lot of things don’t work in PvE. Conditions…toughness…Dodge or Die gameplay will be the downfall of the game if it’s not restructured significantly.

Avascar.9237:

That has been my problem not just with villains like Scarlet but the Elder Dragons themselves.

Why are they doing what they do? Are the dragons just one-dimensional Evil™ beings that want to destroy the world because they are Evil™?

They want to destroy the world, great. Why? This has not been answered by ArenaNet and we haven’t been given any indication that elder dragons have any motivation deeper than an inanimate thing like asteroid or earthquake.

As for Scarlet, awakening a dragon makes no sense from what we’ve been told about her motivations. Maybe Scarlet became a dragon minion the second she made mental contact and got converted into another of the same boring dragon minions we’ve been seeing before.

The motivation of every single dragon minion in Tyria is “Obey dragon’s will. Do whatever dragon says.” And the dragon’s motivation is nothing but “Destroy everything because I am Evil™.”

I like the other characters in the story like Rox, Braham, Majory, Kasmeer and the rest but ArenaNet really, really needs to think about what it takes to make a good villain. We haven’t seen one yet in GW2.

I find that the dragons’s motives are executed not-so-well. I believe they’re forces of nature, it’s like saying why does a tree grow? Why do people die? Why do plants have offspring? It’s to keep things in balance. Although I have no idea why magic goes high and low throughout Tyria’s centuries, since I see no effect on the world. Maybe their spells and rituals weaken, yeah, but what difference does it make? Is Tyria’s magic the life force of all life, or something more/less?[/quote]

Dragons are a force of nature, yes – however I’d disagree on their motives not being executed well. They balance out magic, although it seems that Gods at one point figured out how to balance magic using the bloodstones. At some point I imagine that the Ancient or even the Forgotten could yield secrets to balancing magic without the need for a complete onslaught every so often.

Also, magic seems to grow more/less. Of course this theory could just be the mechanical differences, but elementalists being able to master all 4 elements at the same time, mesmers with their clones/illusions, necromancers with their wider array of skillsets, guardians with their defensive and offensive monk/paragon hybrid skills…we basically have seen professions that are more than twice of what the old professions were. While it could be entirely mechanical, I like to believe the magic-rising lore plays into a bit.

This isn’t the first time NPCs had desirable builds.

Vigorato.7951:

FearedbytheGods.8617:

Rising Dusk.2408:

My issue is that this painstakingly reminds me of all of the skill-requiring content in GW1 that just doesn’t exist in GW2.

Which is what people in this thread, who have never played GW1 don’t understand. Torment weapons actually required a degree of ability to achieve and persistence to obtain.

GW2 took a treasured weapon set and commercialized it. They just needed to throw in some cute babies, a tear jerking song and a conflict that gets resolved so everyone lives happily ever after.

Rose tinted specs…

As a GW1 player I can assure you having a torment weapon was not a badge of skill, it just showed you had enough ectos to buy an armbrace of truth. There was not a single `prestige` weapon that you could not buy if you had enough gold.

Even at that skins like froggy scepter were more expensive anyway…

Wait a minute, you can get a froggy scepter in GW2 for dirt cheap. kitten it, it should’ve been exclusive!

#EndSarcasm

Vol.7601:

It seems the GW1 crowd wants everything exclusive to them.

Don’t you already have exclusive mini? A fire sword? Multiple titles?

Three exclusive miniatures, I believe. We also do have exclusive armor sets but heritage armor (which is actually really nice if I wasn’t more stoked with the cultural armor skins, however heritage is a great choice for someone who can’t afford 100g+ for cosmetics) can be obtained stupidly easy since you get 3 points for just linking your Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 accounts.

I’m glad that Tormented weapons are not exclusive, I think they were more than handled in a fair and respectable manner due to the lack of circumstantial introduction.

However, one thing does bug me about them…I’m sick of weapon skins being released that require tickets to acquire and still not selling ticket scraps for possibly 100 gems each. Their acquisition via tickets is purely RNG or paying stupendous amounts of gold on the TP. They might as well let us buy ticket scraps so we can obtain new weapon skins that we enjoy with gems.

Counter Terrorist.7421:

‘’ Tormented weapons for people that can afford it’’

Give the skins to the GW 1 players that got em in there HoM or remove the kitten…. imo . Else im pretty sure u will see alot of gw 1 veterans just leaving you and your precious gemstore to play games where they actualy care about there old players.

Giving out the end game weapons from gw 1 to every 1 but alot cheaper and not to the ppl that actualy alredy own em in there HoM.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hall_of_monuments

Guild Wars 1 players got plenty of goodies. Fellblade, Fiery Dragon Sword, Stygian Axe, Centurion’s Claw, Diamond Aegis, Mountaincall…they’re nice skins. Not to mention they have a large amount of exclusive titles depending on their progress in Hall of Monuments and GWAMM carried over.

Not adding Tormented, Destroyer or Oppressor to the list of goodies offered is more than fair.

Farzo.8410:

I don’t mind ArenaNet wanting money, and putting skins in the store, really.

But it just gets too much when Iconic Weapons that were special in the prequel just becomes store items.

I think it, again, boils down to many of those iconic weapons being circumstantial and they really have no place in any part of the game except through gem store or Fractals and if they could only be acquired in Fractals (unless they chose to make them exotics or Ascended that could be purchased), that would cause a complete meltdown.

To maybe clarify the point, think of it like the destroyer weapons. You can access all of the destroyer weapons now by killing destroyers – you don’t have to go craft them or anything. However where are you going to get tormented or zodiac weapons? Go kill margonites or head on over to fight Kanaxai? Newsflash: They’re dead.

The three options that, realistically, remain open are to either add them into the gem store, to add them exclusively to Fractals or to not add them at all. Gem store, at least in my opinion, seems like the wisest of the three options.

Doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Granted I wish the items they release would have more relevance to the living story’s continuity. However when it comes to zodiac and tormented weapons…I don’t see much of a problem there. We’ll likely never, ever go to the Deep or Urgoz ever again because, spoiler alert, our Guild Wars 1 heroes all put an end to Kanaxai and Urgoz. Not to mention the fact that the Echovold Forest and Jade Sea are no longer affected by the Jade Wind and everything is probably green forestry and roaring seas with islands again.

As for tormented…again, Abaddon is gone however I would’ve felt it more appealing if they had released tormented weapons and/or primeval armor skins when the Abaddon fractal was released instead of wait until now but whatever.

Having nostalgic skins and items from the first Guild Wars isn’t really a big deal. Especially if you consider that the acquisition of those weapons seemed pretty circumstantial, circumstances that are not likely to happen again.

Hidori.3472:

yet another qq thread…

now poor boy, if us farmers got rich doing it, why did you still save the citizens? are you just such a samaritan or what? if farming was the way to get rich, why save citizens then? is it not a poor choice of yours and also other qqers?

If an intention is to get rich, I recommend a part-time job. 40 hours a month on minimum wage can earn roughly 1200-1600g in gem-gold transfers.

Edit: To see that in comparison, that’s about 50g every day for 2 hours of work. While you could certainly get 50g a day on GW2, it would take a lot longer than 2 hours.

Traveller.7496:

With the loot so abysmal across the board it’s no wonder people will take the path of least resistance to get their bags.

If they change/take away champ bags, people will stop playing. If they keep them, nothing will change.

Meh.

Let the farmers farm. If they’re farming that much they probably deserve what little gratification comes from being super rich after doing 15 runs in Lion’s Arch each day.

I enjoyed this LS too and I think the next one will also be good. Reminds me of the last 5 quests in GW1’s Winds of Change. Sneaking into a meeting, defending Kaineng Center when nobody else would answer the call, saving all of the Kaineng citizens from footloose bandits, warning the citizens about the Ministry and lastly defending the place where it all began…Shing Jea Monastery.

It truly felt like heroism.

I think one particular reason LS updates in the past didn’t feel as heroic though is so little was done in a 2-week timeframe. I mean…if you consider it, playing detective and investigator would be your first priority in combating a mysterious threat you know little to nothing about. However, due to the fact that you couldn’t move on to the next step of the investigation and then finally to the heroic conclusion without waiting for periods of time, it lost its mojo.

To use the Winds of Change quests to illustrate the point – imagine you could only do one quest every 2 weeks. By the time you got to defending SJM the heroism you felt saving the citizens would’ve felt a little dry.

Taygus.4571:

They might, they may not.

I can’t see how we’d go fighting for LA, while theres STILL civilians to rescue.

to make sense story wise, there would be no more citizens in LA, there would also be less time we could stay there as there would be a lethal dose of miasma around. (unless of course we all get gas masks or something)

Why can’t you have rescued all the citizens by tomorrow? Also, it could be possible they’re finding a way to divert the miasma. Really the idea that you can’t go back in to LA because it wouldn’t make sense has been rejected since it restarts every hour. To “make sense” story-wise you shouldn’t be able to do it again after the first round.

…But we do.

Can also assume that there’s a possibility of the miasma not being permanent. Think of fumigation, there is natural air that can go through the city – so unless Scarlet is continuously pumping out this miasma nonstop, eventually the gas will be diluted enough to be a “safe zone.”

Story-wise, would it be safe? Not really, but neither is fighting an undead horde with a wooden stick but quite a few professions do that just fine.

…

It’s not just been like this with every LS…it’s been like this with every game. Whether it’s trying to get multiplayer achievements on xbox or going for personal reward lines of some sort, most people stop caring after the initial hype. Since LS content is meant to last 2 weeks the hype is, of course, exponentially smaller to a few days rather than a few months.

I imagine there’s some sort of psychological reasoning behind this behavior but it’s certainly a trait you’ll find in any multiplayer game over a span of time.

Tanith.5264:

Dragonhero.1852:

You mean like Tybalt? Though he was an Engi

He was, just as Taimi is. However, the wiki states that the explosion only “mangled” his right hand; apparently he was still able to wield firearms as we have seen.

Slightly OT…does anyone recognize Taimi’s armor? My own Asura engineer likes it.

It did mangle his hand but he became effectively “useless.” As he said, “Nobody wants a shaky engineer.” Whether he meant shaky as in trauma after the incident (which I find it hard to imagine a charr would feel that way) or that he just wasn’t as good with explosives. Anyway, he didn’t have a warband anymore and he was shaky so he joined the Order of Whispers doing clerical work. What I like about him, at least in comparison to Taimi, is that the player-character gave him confidence to go kick some kitten after he had been distraught over the loss of his greatest functionality.

He by no means compensated for his predicament with intelligence or the like, rather it was the confidence that the player-character passed on to him that really boosted him up. The kind of interaction that made the relationship, at least in my opinion, feel less degrading than Taimi. What I’d like to see more than just more of Taimi would be more of Braham and Taimi and their relationship.

Taimi alone, on the other hand, currently reminds me of a Professor X kind of stereotype. I would like to see her relationship with the rest of “Destiny’s Edge 2.0” grow to more than just a genius in a wheelchair.

It reminds me of Family Guy’s Brian & Stewie episode and MacFarlane’s commentary about it and how he knew by the time the crew worked on it that their relationship was strong enough to make a 22 minute episode without gags, cutaways or any other characters. That’s a good relationship in anything.

Steel Fenrir.2791:

Just don’t kill Taimi if that was her fate in the Eternal Alchemy. I think that would be a much better gift. But I’m OK if they kill off Logan. kittening disgrace to his ancestor Gwen.

Gwen wasn’t much better, she was a mesmer and that was the extent of her usefulness.

On topic, I think a fundraiser would be great – such as how they had breast cancer awareness sales in GW1. It could just be incidental that a mini Taimi is related to MS research. Would be nice to see some miniatures of all of the newer additions anyway: Braham, Rox, Taimi…but it’s completely unrelated to Christina’s situation.

However, on the subject of giving somebody like Christina a free mini, that’s a no. That’s kind of part of that whole “equality” thing, you get treated as equally kittenty as everyone else. Lowest common denominator is the name of that game. Not only would they also have to verify her story but then they’d have to justify why they selected her, or any select group of people, for such treatment. There are so many other aspects…why not give every orphan a free Kasmeer mini?

TL;DR – Yes to a mini, no to the free one for Christina.

Quick, everyone build fans!

I’m genuinely surprised you can’t find anyone…if you guest to Blackgate you should hopefully be moved to an OF and while they definitely aren’t quite as manageable (for some reason) as regular servers in getting great completion rates (usually less than 900-1000 citizens saved by the end), their ability to do the events seems rather in-touch. If you want to give it a try though, guest to Dragonbrand because I know that they usually do all of the events to what is considered, by many, to a fault.

Tom Gore.4035:

Plus if he was buried under LA and you needed his corpse, wouldn’t the GIANT FRIGGIN’ DRILL be a little bit wrong tool for that?

“Shovels? To hell with shovels! Make me a drill!” – Scarlet

mercury ranique.2170:

We know the location off two bloodstones.

Three*

We had to kill the lich on the third bloodstone. There are still 2 more bloodstones, I believe? One could be under Lion’s Arch, and if it’s the keystone then she would need that particular one to unlock the other bloodstones. However I’m thinking this has something more to do with leylines than bloodstones or dragons now. Maybe she thinks she can harness the leyline’s flow of power and the indirect result of crippling that sleep supply from a dragon will be that dragon being very, very, very mad (since dragons consume magic), cue for Living Story Episode 2 (or an expansion).

Zoid.2568:

I’m not sure but i can assume that King Doric is buried beneath LA and his blood is needed to unseal the magic of the Bloodstones.

Doric probably isn’t buried beneath Lion’s Arch, and even if he were it’s hardly necessary when Scarlet was able to kidnap Queen Jennah so easily since any of his lineage would be okay too, which includes Queen Jennah. Although I did sport this theory because Scarlet tried to kidnap Jennah.

Kalavier.1097:

Okay, can I actually see confirmation about these “limited time rewards” coming back? All I’ve seen is vague statements and nothing concrete at all. I saw something ingame about “Oh, do this event over here because you have a chance to get a 600 gold worth item!” and when asked… no actual information.

edit: Okay, so the ultimate save bag drops them. Probably not a high rate, and frankly these items are all related to the Scarlet forces. It’s not like we are stomping through a krait base and finding molten jetpacks or monocles….

By that logic then every time we fought the Molten Alliance it should’ve given us a chance at the jetpack + more. These items were limited to a particular instance and now have made a comeback during the finale – other items that didn’t have a comeback are either:

A) Not obtainable

B) Extremely high priced in the Trading Post.

While it’s not a big deal that these things happen, it’s unfair to bring back only some items but not others. I suppose realistically though you could say it’s the penultimate release of the story arc so of course all of the Scarlet-related goodies will be up for grabs if you save enough citizens and stop Scarlet’s endgame from being effective.

If they’ve changed their mind about re-adding exclusive content (which was hardly promised, it was one ArenaNet staff member that said it, not like it was a PSA or something by the company as a whole) – I wouldn’t mind seeing Marjory’s weapons (namely Axe) or the Bone Pick back in the gem store, due to medical circumstances I was unable to get either of these items and I would like a second chance at them.

And I’m sure a lot of people would like second chances at Halloween 2012, since a lot of folks who got their games in the later half of the year probably weren’t leveled enough to enjoy the event.

Oh well, whatever they do they will do but at least we know these options aren’t off the table now.

Zaxares.5419:

^ Exactly! The majority of players tend to just buy/wear whatever is “in fashion” or that shows off their wealth. (If you’ve ever played GW1, remember all those characters running around in black/white dyed Obsidian armor with Chaos Gloves?) I used to see so many players wearing the Holographic Wings; now I usually only see one a day in hub towns at the most. The Shatterer Wings are even more rare. Having more cosmetic options means that people can instead opt to wear something different that they personally like. Variety is good!

Well another reason Obby/Chaos gloves were so kitten popular in GW1 was they were really quite fashionable armor sets. While certainly not the most fashionable all of the time, it was hard to rival. Paragons, Monks and Rangers definitely felt the sting of lacking armor quality.

Point aside, I agree with diversity and I think things should be purchased on the TP but I’m not a huge fan of bringing content back. There should be a token system in place for limited content that stays limited – if you didn’t get it while it was out, too bad. To run back to the GW1 example, it’s not like ANet lets every new player use the old version of Shadow Form so they can get up on a year of easier-than-hell ecto farming. Nope, they have to join the game exactly in the state it’s in. Does it mean there’s equipment they can’t obtain? Not necessarily, but they missed out on the biggest cash cow of the game’s lifetime.

Stormy Dragon.9210:

Frankly I’d go as far as too consider the person who bought the Jetpack to be cooler. Someone who deliberately saved up that much gold because they wanted it is, to me, far more meaningful than someone who just happened to having drop into their lap because they were in the right place at the right time.

While they are undoubtedly more special, because their desire to get one exceeds those who got lucky, I think the point of this most is more about rewards being brought back rather than rewards being purchased on the TP. I think the Deathly Mantle is cool, but I would rather save up the money to buy it from TP than ever reduce the Mantle’s value (both financial and sentimental) by asking it for it to come back.

Pandemonium.8473:

Yep, she built herself a Death Star

I’ve always wanted some more rifle skins, blasters would be awesome!

Lightsabers wouldn’t be bad either.