Yet some of us only get rares in events that at minimum guarantee a rare.
It’s not the only class. I watched a thief stealth on his fall damage reduction trait while having revealed (unless it ended right before his impact which is unlikely as he was targeted and I didn’t see it go down). And no, it does not need “fixed.” Its duration does not stack with other stealth skills.
Sorry I believe you just didn’t notice that it has ended short time before.
Do you have a proofe for the thief thing?This is the proof for my post.
I just tryed out the falling thief thing and I was Immune to stealth!
Decoy works on a different stealth mechanic than other forms of stealth. It also won’t stack with other forms of stealth.
Tri-chest. Which requires three keys, for which you can also barter with Marjory.
And then there happen to be three weapons wielded by Marjory and her little helper Kashmere which have been found in the game data.Coincidence?
I hope this is not the case or I will never get those weapons because my RNG is so bad that they will never drop for me and I won’t get enough good drops to be able to buy it off the TP.
Jeff, do you start a Scarlet thread every week? I think you may have a crush.
Firstly, I want to say thank you for for the Living Story and dedication to continually improving the game. Below are my opinions and suggestions regarding the LS. I hope that you find them useful.
1. Timeliness. I agree with many of the posters here that the 2-week schedule is exhausting for players (and can only imagine that it is exhausting for you as well). A longer time between LS events would allow more time for developing and bug-testing them. Quality over quantity.
2. Storyline Cohesion. Here I disagree with others. I like that there are several stories running throughout the LS, some with tenuous connection to others. This allows you to experiment with different story ideas. I look forward to the next part of the story featuring Kiel and that it might have little to do with Scarlet.
3. Scarlet. Again, I disagree with others who outright hate Scarlet. I think she is a good villain archetype. However, I do believe that there is room for improvement. There are many different types of villains, and her character is refreshingly quirky. But quirkiness isn’t enough. Currently, there are no known stakes with Scarlet. She doesn’t feel like a threat, which makes many feel that her quirkiness is too cartoony. My recommendation is to let her win. Give her a storyline where she comes out on top. This is what made the GW1 villains work. Khilbron effectively deceived us. Shiro killed us flat out (don’t do this again ). Varesh massacred our forces in a well-laid trap. Even Zhaitan was responsible for the death of our mentor. Give us a reason to hate and fear Scarlet. Make it hurt and make her look powerful doing it. I want to hear her taunting laugh of victory so that we’ll all want nothing more than to punch her and put a stop to her. Not because we don’t like the character, but because she’s our villain. Right now her cackling looks delusional because we whipped her so many times. It’s hard to take seriously.
4. Don’t focus on the dragons. Again, I’m probably in the minority here, but with good reason. I feel the dragons need more than what the LS can offer…yes, an expansion. The issue is that once a LS is complete, it’s gone. That event doesn’t happen again. Fighting the dragons is something that all players should be able to do whether they started the game late or took breaks from it. The LS risks denying them that. However, the LS may be a good vehicle to introduce a new dragon, but the story to take it down should be more like the Personal Story.
(edited by DaShi.1368)
Anet was sorely temped at that time.
I’m hoping for more Scarlet. The more we see of her the better we can understand her actions. But I really do like the way the LS has been delivered, in general. I like that there have been a variety of stories that separate but not completely disconnected from one another. If you don’t enjoy one type of story, there’s another type just around the corner. If you don’t like any of them, well forum complaining has become its own recreation here.
However there should be really a ingame barber where you can change it for about 15 silver.
Yup. I tried so hard to get the permanent hair stylist kit, but I just wasn’t able to do it.
Alright, let’s do this.
-Marjory Delaqua[Old-School Necromancer Detective]: Her short story was awesome, the cut scene was beautiful and she is simply great. I like her back story, I like the way she talks to other people and I love her hair. Really, I need that hairstyle.
It looks like we’ll be getting it tomorrow.
-Rox[Charr trying for Stone Warband] – I like Rox. Not sure why. Must be the eyes.
-Braham[Upstart Norn Hero] – I like Braham. He had a good introduction being the one who went out to save the villagers that no one else would.
-Ellen Kiel[Lionsguard Captain//Lion’s Arch Council Member] – Kiel is the source of stability in the story. It’s good to have someone to stand with. She’s the good, noble character who will likely be faced with impossible moral choices.
-Moto[Inventor of SAB] – No real opinion of him.
-Canach[Lone Guerrilla Terrorist] – My least favorite character. He was presented as a kitten in the story, then in game, he turned out to be an idiot. Hard to respect someone who acts tough but lacks the skills to back it up.
-Mai Trin[Aetherblade Captain] – Like Canach in that she’s too big for her britches. However, this is a perfect role for a villain sidekick, so it works.
-Evon Gnashblade[Owner of Black Lion Company] – I like Evon. I’m glad he didn’t win the election because he doesn’t belong there. He much more interesting as the cunning businessman.
-Marjory Delaqua[Old-School Necromancer Detective] – How can you miscast a character in a video game story? Anet found a way. She’s setup as a hard-boiled detective but has none of the traits of one. I find it strange that people complain about Scarlet’s Sueness when Marjory is already practically perfect in every way and placed in such an envious role. Doesn’t help that someone who works on the “mean” streets looks like she just walked out of a Paris fashion show…with her partner…
-Lady Kasmeer[Partner of Marjory and Noble] – That cut scene with Marjory ruined her for me. You have this gritty scene that ends with Kasmeer staring at you like a dufus. I’m not sure what the intent was, because that silly look on her face just ruined the whole moment.
-Faren[Faren] – Faren is great. He was part of my personal story, so I was glad to see him again. Never change, Faren.
-Scarlet Briar[Crazy Omnipotent-ish Mastermind] – I like Scarlet. She’s certainly not omnipotent, and it would be weird to have a major villain be a pushover. People seem to be projecting a lot on to her. However, she’s actually one of the best villains we’ve gotten. She’s entertaining and interacts directly with our characters. I much prefer her to the brooding, no personality beyond their role as something for you to hack away at villains that are common in so many games. If we’re going to have a mastermind, let’s have one with some flair. I actually look forward to seeing what she’ll do and say next.
The OP went on for a very long time to describe a very simple problem:
Scarlet has no apparent motivation or justification for her actions.
That’s a problem because it means she’s pretty boring – players don’t know why she’s doing what she’s doing, just that she is – so she is more like a natural disaster than a villain – a force of nature, not a person – and forces of nature are interesting only in their consequences. So we’ve gone from a boring Sylvari good guy dominating the game (Trahearne), to a boring Sylvari bad guy (Scarlet). I mean, Sylvari are my favourite race, but come on ArenaNet, this is getting predictable.
Supposedly she has some kind of philosophy, but it seems to be pretty inconsistent, and for the level of extreme violence and damage she’s causing, it seems fairly weak and inconsequential, and she acts in a very light-hearted way that really undermines the idea that she’s dedicated to a philosophy.
So there’s no emotional connection with her – you don’t hate her because she believes in evil, because what she believes in is pretty vague and middle-ground (“What turns a man’s heart to neutral?”), but this is inexplicably accompanied by her invading zones and having two giant, ultra-mobile armies to back her up (even though they seem to get little/nothing out of the deal).
Given that the failings are more or less identical to Trahearne, I kind of wonder if ArenaNet’s lead writers need sit down and think about what they’ve done for a while.
EDIT – The reason that “bad things happened to X” works well as a villain motivation is twofold – firstly it’s ultra-rare in real-life for someone to be evil unless they were mistreated severely OR were utterly spoiled/pampered to the point where they are disconnected from humanity as a whole – so it feels “correct”. Second-off, it’s easy to emotionally relate to – all of us have been through bad stuff, and almost all of us have rejected evil as an option for dealing with it – but probably considered it, if not seriously. So you can say “Well something like that happened to me but I didn’t invade a zone with clockwork men because of it!”
What we have here is the “I decided to be evil”, or so it seems, which is vanishingly rare in real life, and not very interesting or easy to relate to.
I will say one thing – it’s better than WoW. In WoW there is only one reason anyone ever turns evil:
MAGIC. Pretty much every single character in WoW who is evil, is evil because magic made him/her evil.
Hopefully we don’t see too much of that in GW2, but I am still kind of afraid, given Scarlet’s apparent desire to “burn the world” that we will find she is merely an agent for the Destroyers and has been “made evil” by them.
There’s some good analysis here. Scarlet is definitely lacking a clear motivation for her actions.
This “she doesn’t have any flaws” argument is frustrating to read because flaws don’t magically make a character well-written or not. It’s very literary criticism 101, and it’s completely irrelevant. This is especially true when villains are first introduced in genre’s such as this. They are made to be very powerful and often nearly unstoppable in order to press their threat to the heroes.
Scarlet’s flaw, however, is plainly obvious. It’s arrogance. She underestimates her opponents and is so far “gone” that she can’t understand them. It’s a common trope for this type of villain and not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, for a video game villain, Scarlet, so far, is a novelty that many here don’t seem appreciate.
I believe there remains a lot of potential in Scarlet. In the meantime, she’s an entertaining and flamboyant villain. So if even if the plot doesn’t make much sense, you can still enjoy the ride.