Guild Wars 2

It’s worth doing it via the story step method, because that unlocks masteries for you and lets you train gliding. But another way in is to go to a Lost Precipice guild hall (you must be in a guild that owns it) and run up the stairs to the south most waypoint and step out through the portal. You’ll be in the nw corner of the map; the Shipwreck WP to the far east will be unlocked so you can wp over to the zone start (without gliding, you have no other way to leave the guild hall ledge).

Or you can use a teleport to a friend who is in VB.

But, again, you really ought to do that story step. You’re going to need gliding, along with bouncing mushrooms and preferably gliding 2 (updrafts) to properly navigate the VB map.

It worked for me. I was waiting for the raptor race to start and realized I hadn’t dyed my mount. So I tossed a few hues on it in quick succession while mounted in the starting box. No dismounting involved and each hue showed up on it once applied.

However, I do not recall checking if I could dye my own gear while mounted (though I did have to click from the gear panel over to the mount one) since once I had an outfit dyed and armor stats chosen on initial entry I didn’t try tweaking any of that given the short time available.

I did see all the default dye beige in the dye slots in the moment before selecting the mount dye panel, though. But hmm … I’m not sure if there was any way to see my standing figure while mounted, which could make applying dyes difficult.

You get to the branch by running into the northmost updraft when the phase starts, that lofts you enough to land on it.

However, I just did H&M with a friend last night. I’d swear nothing ever hit me, and I used the branch for two of the three air phases, and still did not get the achieve. I’m going to have to resort to going with a group that lets me deliberately die before the rocks fly so I can sit in the peanut gallery safe from rocks.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

I found out about this test on wiki, what I didn’t know is that it would last an entire 2 hours long. At 7 pm to my great surprise I got an error message which booted me out.
I then decided to do my daily got back out intending to go back on my desert character
only to realize the desert was gone along with my character and my 9 gold some of which was won I agree, however it was won with my money and ecto invested.

Thank you Anet for not letting us know it was ending at 4 pm PDT without prior warning. IF there is more testing before the 22nd I’ll make sure to stay out of it.

Don’t worry about “lost” money and ecto. That all came from your cloned account used for the demo and is not gone from your real characters.

Me, I had a lot of fun. Though my two demo slots were still stuffed with my final tests from the PvP weekend, a Weaver and a Renegade. I elected to stick with the Weaver and dive right in. Sadly his gear had been reset to Celestial so I had to spend a bit of time redoing the stats and choosing traits, then I did the story to get the raptor so I could do some of the requested jump/dismount/etc tests requested on the stream. That all took a full hour, and by the time I got into the main map no one was doing any coordinated stress tests, at least not when I asked in Map.

Oh well, I did a couple of events and a raptor race and nearly got the big chest atop the pyramid (Weaver is decent in a fight but once I hit an unfortunate knockback chain I was wrecked). Then I tried to satisfy the sous chef and apparently he was so displeased with my service he had me kicked out of Amnoon >.> (aka stress test ended on the dot).

I did not find any bugs to report.

And for the motion sickness people: with my camera settings the camera worked well — I did note there was a zoom out/in when mounting/dismounting, but hadn’t noticed it without looking for it since I’m so far zoomed out when running around that the auto-zoom isn’t that big a chunk of my viewing distance. The raptor’s slide-stop and heavy turns didn’t alter my camera motion at all. I noted that in the live stream today they said they had put in a number of things to toggle to help with camera settings; I do not know if that was referring to the existing revamped camera or is something new to the expansion.

They showed it in the stream, there is a choice to click on the UI summon, also you can set a hotkey for each if you wish. I think you have to actively dismount one before summoning another rather than getting force-dismounted by choosing another.

The stream was full of solid answers both from a user and a programmer viewpoint.

Ravij, I’m very sorry about your house I can’t even imagine. I’m glad you’re alive, too.

It starts in about 30 minutes. It will likely be over well before the stress test begins.

My question on mounts right now is how we will control them. I mean keybind wise. In the preview weekend with raptors there were hotkeys settable both for toggling the mount on and off and for summoning the raptor in particular, but no other mounts had a summon key. Perhaps due to no other mounts existing in the preview.

My keyboard real estate is almost completely filled since I loathe having to hit key combos in timed situations. I’d like to start figuring out how to smoothly transition from mount to mount

As far as I recall, HoT did not have early access for launch either. There’s no pressing need for it, in my opinion (and I am a prepurchaser). They’re doing today’s stress test to help prepare for the server load and they now have megaserver tech to spin up as many maps as needed, so they don’t have to let people in in waves.

It’s been posted there and other places many times. I deeply hope it’s a QoL change coming with PoF. I’d clear up soooo many bank slots.

I’ve used real cash to get most of the skins I have waiting to deploy. I would like full value for my money, which means not destroying things that count as transmutation charges, albeit restricted to just one skin. I see no harm in letting us turn an unlocked, bound skin into a fungible charge that could later be used for that very skin if desired.

If there was a UI set of slots to put consumables in that I could click or hot key, I’d more likely remember to nosh the nummies. As it is, it’s a lot of bother to remember to open my inventory, find the food/utility/boost of my choice, and use them.

Besides, one really truly doesn’t need them in PvE open world. Except XP boosts while trying to level masteries, those are wonderful and I do tend to pop those. However I have max masteries right now so I only need the boost when a new mastery line arrives.

Why hello, PoF.

Hmm. At this point it sounds like something’s wrong in your client. You may want to run a -repair (see Support page for instructions on how) and/or submit a ticket to Support.

You don’t actually have to log into game and check the store to find out what’s available. Astral Projections runs a sticky at the top of this forum and amazingly reliably updates it soon after anything changes in the store, usually within 30 minutes after store reset (which is at 9 am Pacific; for me, it’s noon).

Every sale lasts at least 24 hours as a rule. So as long as you have at least a smart phone or tablet that can reach the internet and open the forums, you can check the sticky to see if you have something you truly want to log in for later in the 24 hour period when it’s convenient.

I’m sorry you missed the key/chest package. Hopefully the above advice will mean you never miss anything else in the store purely due to not knowing it’s there.

I would move the folder back where it was, then transfer its contents to a new folder. Then periodically do that to avoid it happening again.

I keep a separate, manually created GW2Screenies file with sub folders sorted by date, eg 2015Aug, 2016June, etc. That way as long as I know approximately when some game event occurred, I can go back to find my pics of it even years later. Every 1-3 months I go to the User>Documents>GW2>Screens folder and use file manager to move the contents to the appropriately dated folder. This has prevented me from the “Full” message for five years now, it might work for you (Bonus — if you ever have need to reinstall the game, you have a separate location preserving your memories. I’m still not sure what happened to 7 years of WoW pics I had, as I thought I’d saved them separately as well, but perhaps they were inside the WoW folder I deleted when I quit the game — so keep your screenshots in a folder that is not inside your GW2 overall folder! I have mine in my “Games” directory, along with ESOScreens and the like).

Oh dear, thanks for the warning.

For those doing the design contest, perhaps don’t use the -whole- template space for the axe head, not if you want to see people using your weapons in the game

DirtyDan.4759:

Alin.2468:

Let’s see if I get this right… Guild Wars 2 players are wanted to get into game on 31 August 2017 and use demo accounts, spend hours in Path of Fire, just tot test PoF product.

Will I get payed? Will I get any rewards? Will I get anything for my time spent on testing your product or content?

From what I understand I get nothing from testing other virtual content. The demo account will be erased, and I won’t get any reward or attention from my time spent there, in that expansion. Why should I do that?! There is no fun in wasting valuable time that will be erased and forgotten later. Every second of life counts.

I am sorry, but like Benjamin Franklin said: “Time is money”. I shall not help you with my time unless you pay me.

I am speechless…………..

I’m not. Assuming the post is serious, anyway.

What you get is another peek into a new map, more chances to practice using the raptor, and apparently even another shot at testing elite specs. Most of all you get to know that thanks to you doing nothing more strenuous than logging into the game and running around a bit, you helped make sure that when the expansion arrives it doesn’t crash the game for everyone for long periods of time.

This includes you. If you’re this upset about being invited to purely optionally spend your time having fun deliberately attempting to overload the server, I daren’t predict your response if you start playing once it “counts” only to find your connection failing so much you can’t play.

Or do you think they can magically ensure server stability under the load of millions of people surging in to the new content without first having a large scale stress test, possible only with the aid of massive numbers of players?

It doesn’t really matter, though. You’re not interested in this ‘waste of your time’ so, um, I’m sure the stress test won’t notice one player’s abstention. Enjoy your time doing real, lasting things. With pixels.

When naming elves (eg in WoW or LotRO) I generally went looking for an extensive English→Elvish dictionary. Then I’d select some words that seemed to fit and find the Elvish variant that was easiest to spell and pronounce (I never use special characters in names, too hard to type later). Eg my blood elf mage’s last name became di Anar, ie “of the sun.”

For Sylvari I prefer to use Arthurian name generators, proc enough names to get my mind thinking in those syllables, then mash some syllables together to make a custom name I like. I tried finding Celtic/Gaelic plant names but hoo boy are those taken!

The names in the OP are all just fine for sylvari imo, but if you want more melodic ones then I’d say use the Arthurian generator of your choice (I like http://philriley.tripod.com/otngarthur.html but am currently trying to load it to verify it still works and am just getting a spinny circle) and keep in mind Edgar Allen Poe’s essay advice on using lots of l’s, m’s, and n’s.

As it happens, they will have a Guild Chat on mounts tomorrow per the Mounts Week schedule.

August 31: Mounts on Guild Chat

That should be over before the stress test begins. And in the stress test, motion sickness sufferers may be able to play with camera settings some more to see if they can find a bearable camera.

They do and they don’t. If your character name is still taken, probably they haven’t deleted it yet. A lot of people reported being unable to use their demo name on a live character during the week afterwards, only to have it free up shortly before the second demo.

I’d expect them to delete before tomorrow’s test, but I am not 100% sure they will. They let us reuse the same characters in the vanilla and HoT beta stresses.

I’m linking this to as many folks as I can (not too many, I have like … two … circles of GW2 friends). I’m happy to make a minion reaper to help out. So glad this starts in the middle of some very free time for me!

Aerial combat is also available in Lake Doric if you take a ley line from the pier to attack a jade cannon. Not more generally, though.

Oakheart can also be used in the guild halls if a player buys the nodes from the vendor in DM, and placed anywhere the decorator desires.

I agree it would be nice to proliferate these further, but ANet’s design decision to make PoF navigable without owning HoT means they would have to add them for flavor without making them the best way of doing some PoF travel. Anywhere they exist there would have to be an equally good or better PoF method to get where they take you, or suddenly players have to buy HoT to be effective.

That would be pretty tricky to design and might not satisfy anyone. HoT owners “pfft this is a useless thermal tube.” PoF only owners “Hey, wtf, how come there’s this cool thermal tube I can’t use?”

I think one time I saw South finish first, and that was a run where all the lanes were doing well. My jaw dropped.

Part of it is the first event with getting parts up the bouncing mushrooms while dealing with Chak usually seems to go down to the wire even with coordinated groups clearing chak while a few people ferry the parts. And overall the distance to travel seems a little longer.

I don’t know how it could be equalized, though, since as others have said it does vary quite a bit with squad effectiveness.

You know you can just hit the Escape key to cancel the cinematic, right?

edit: Moyayuki is more correct than me on this. I knew there was a fast way to cancel it, I do it without paying much attention to the mechanics. Yep, it’s a Skip button like in dungeon and story dialogues.

What isn’t wasted is doing achieves. A good number of them will grant mastery points (not mastery skill, which is a separate thing, the points are what you spend once you’ve xp’d up the tier). Matter of fact, at HoT launch I somehow had exactly the number of MP needed to unlock every core mastery, just from old achievements. All I had to do was spend time in the core maps getting xp. (Since yes, you do have to gain the xp in the relevant maps in order to move the xp bar for the mastery you’re working on there).

So check the wiki for which achieves give mastery points and work on those. Then once you have a mastery-granting expansion, you’ll be ready to skill up the core ones. Since PoF is supposed to be independently playable from HoT, it stands to reason that it will offer its own unlock of the system.

Ah, rechecking your initial post, let me give you a step by step so you can understand the above replies and information:

1 – Unlock mastery via the initial entry story to the expansion
2 – Select a mastery track to work on by clicking to the left of the track (in HoT, it’s a no brainer, you start with Gliding and in fact that is the default track; you cannot select a track until you have completed the earlier ones in that mastery, so no hopping straight to ley gliding from basic gliding)
3 – Gain XP in that expansion’s map(s). Simultaneously gather mastery points in the map, you’re going to need most all of what’s available.
4 – When the XP bar is full, return to the Mastery Panel (icon at the far right of the xp bar is a shortcut). Look to the right of it and click there to spend the points to actually learn that mastery.
5 – select your next track to work on.

So you see, mastery points and mastery xp are two different things, you must gain the xp to be allowed to spend the points.

XP will sometimes overflow to the next track the game thinks you’ll be working on, if you don’t spend the points as soon as you can. It’s best to monitor and choose, so pay heed when your xp bar is nearly full.

Thanks for taking the time to write in as objective a fashion as can be done. -And- to format it so nicely, that’s appreciated! Other posters have given meaty replies so I’ll just note one tiny thing, you probably didn’t have a “dev” per se (you might have, I dunno, could have been Josh Foreman or suchlike). All the employees of ANet (and possibly their immediate family members? I’m not sure on that part) get to be members of the ANet guild and when repping it they get the logo on their name. The accounts are regular, without any special dev powers. Could have been a coder, a community manager, a custodian … So you certainly had someone connected to ANet, just might not have been a dev.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Donari.5237:

I hope it can be impossible to complete. My first sylvari had a Hunt to find “the most beautiful place in the world.” (This was how I had her explore everywhere and be my second of my only two alts to get world completion — back when WvW was involved, too!).

This of course gave her an ever shifting goal, seeing as how the same place will look different at different times, beauty is subjective, and she could get fascinated by a shell on a beach as easily as by a panoramic vista. But as she went, she fed all that she saw to the Dream — it was the journey that mattered, when it came down to it, not the conclusion.

Sorry, but you really can’t use your RPing as an example for actual Lore.

I’m not. It’s the other way around, as my first sentence indicates — I’m hoping the lore turns out to be such that my RP can be canon. It’s a background I set up for one of my first early access characters and as such I didn’t know enough about sylvari to design one well, but enough RP hinged on that background that I can’t retcon it to fit.

So I hope Hunts can be impossible to complete, as I said. If they can’t, her whole arc of years is invalid.

I had to leave midway through due to another obligation but those pets ruled. Especially Crystal’s. Shepherds best dogs.

I suggest you remove your first line so this doesn’t get flagged as a petition post.

That said, hmm. I don’t know how hard/easy it would be for them to implement but I note one thing the community likely does not want back and that’s having everyone in the map killed if the event fails, even if they were just exploring. That part would have to go, especially if the best trigger method (imo) is a guild event spawn which would mean a large group was ready. Grief city! They’d also need to rework it a bit so one or two players couldn’t intentionally cause a fail like happened far too often in the event. Maybe allow platform hopping so long as no one platform has more than x living players on it at once?

Anyway I loooooved Marionette and if it could be brought back on the same scale I’d definitely do it just for fun. So long as it isn’t wrecking other players’ fun.

Compass.9621:

Just wondering, may i know the restrictions or prohibitions on other countries that are not listed but have active GW2 players?

You mean the laws that prevent the contest from being valid there? You might need to do some legal research locally to figure that out.

Or if you mean “can anyone from an unlisted country enter?” the answer is no, in what you quoted it says valid only in the listed places.

I asked about this in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Linguistic-Drift/first#post6703295 — didn’t get much discussion, so I’m glad someone else felt the same as me.

Starting in about 40 minutes, the 5th anniversary live stream will be at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/

I have no idea what will be in it, what spoilers may happen, how fun (or lame, here’s hoping not) it will be. I’m just relaying for those who didn’t notice the blog post.

I don’t precisely agree with your sentiment — on top of getting to design a (small) piece of the game there’s a whole slew of physical and digital prizes, not just the glider, so it’s not “nothing.” And normally my opinion is that prizes are as prizes are, either they tempt one to enter or they don’t and participation in any contest is voluntary.

However, I do have to agree that offering as a prize to a few lucky (and talented) winners something that anyone can hop into the gem store and buy at this very moment seems a little less, ah, motivating. I’m sure they can’t change the rules at this point but in the future I’d hope they’d consider offering winners a choice of any glider, including BL RNG ones, to more fully motivate. Sure there will be a few folks that already have all the gliders, so those few would need to be content with the other offerings or just the thrill of the competition itself (yes, that’s a thing, not everyone stretches themselves creatively only when chasing filthy lucre). But overall it would be a more exciting prize.

There are regular HP runs going on right now. I’ve chosen my alts most likely to first learn the elites and I’m joining the trains pretty much whenever I feel like doing one. Some commanders do it just to be nice, some ask for specified tips. It’s a nice bit of community as the squad jokes and banters and helps each other get to the various HP.

That’s very clever. I might start that incremental buy order thing. Because the time I tried to just save up, I made it over 700 gold and caved.

Also yes, I do love that “what did I get” moment. I just try to only buy keys when they are on sale and/or they have gotten new shinies in them. Now and then I find the time for a key run, too.

Thanks. I used up my remaining gems on it — nothing spectacular, as expected. My one and only 4th slot item from the batch was a communal bonfire, which will be nice for 60 minutes one time … no glider. At least I previously got the pretty white bird.

One day I’ll get a permanent hair stylist. Or invisible shoes to sell to fund a hair stylist. /dreams

What is the normal price for a bundle of 25? The wiki seems to be pulling from the game itself as it currently has the sale prices up. I -think- it’s more than the 1575 we’re seeing but I seriously don’t recall the amount since numbers seldom stick in my head for long.

Randulf.7614:

Could you link said vid please?

I googled it and found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeswQEZffvs (official video from ANet)

You don’t lose them if you swap between the two HoT halls (though all the decorations go back to storage) so it seems unlikely you would lose them swapping to a new hall. At least it seems unlikely to be designed that way, bugs happen … I would suggest guild leaders take screenshots of their hall status before making the switch, just in case.

WAR said “so in other words they can upgrade Queen’s Jubilee and Dragon Bash? events but yet”

WARIORSCHARGEING.2637:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

WARIORSCHARGEING.2637:

so in other words they can upgrade Queen’s Jubilee and Dragon Bash? events but yet

There’s no comparison. Updating QJ/DB is a matter of adjusting mobs to meet the new player builds;

not sure what QJ/DB is I do not use the games terms words at all.

Na was just shortening the two events you mentioned.

I don’t exactly have a main. My Daredevil is my first made and most RPd and he gets first viewing of any new story content. My Reaper is my survive-most-anything who I use for HoT map stuff and for helping other players with story instances. My Chronomancer is my Agony Resist geared fractals main. I’ve got at least 20 80s, all but the newest two fully elited (and the newest two were made for PoF and are saving HP for that). I’m working a number of alts through HoT HP they don’t yet have so as to bank more for PoF elites as I intend to try one of each.

Which will turn into my main for wandering the PoF maps? Well, I’d never have predicted Reaper would be my number one go-to even though I loved it in beta. So I have no idea what will feel the most solid in the desert.

I hope it can be impossible to complete. My first sylvari had a Hunt to find “the most beautiful place in the world.” (This was how I had her explore everywhere and be my second of my only two alts to get world completion — back when WvW was involved, too!).

This of course gave her an ever shifting goal, seeing as how the same place will look different at different times, beauty is subjective, and she could get fascinated by a shell on a beach as easily as by a panoramic vista. But as she went, she fed all that she saw to the Dream — it was the journey that mattered, when it came down to it, not the conclusion.

I agree that I run out of space in the title now and then, especially when “tagging” the title to indicate it’s a suggestion or such. Sadly I don’t know that they can change it, since they can’t do much with the forum code thanks to the contractor that developed it being long gone. They’re limping along with what they have since doing it again from scratch while preserving five-plus years of forum discussions would be a huge undertaking.

Even better, make it freely switchable. I like the fire-and-forget of having one active a long time on an alt.

AncientYs.8613:

VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618:

Hi, can we have the title ‘Mulch Maker’ added to the game? For, i don’t know, killing 10 000 undead or something like that? Or doing Tequatl 35 times?

It is funny and stupid and I would love to be a mulch maker.

wth is even a “mulch maker” ? it sounds very archaic..

Something that makes mulch? Mulch is plenty modern, it’s the wood chips and shreds you put around bush and tree trunks to slowly decay and feed them. There have to be machines dedicated to producing mulch …

Do you want a lore appropriate name? Then, since he’s old in appearance, pick a name that sounds old fashioned to modern players. I’m pretty sure he’s human and not norn, so also check if you have him street rat, noble, or commoner.

Sample ideas: Noble — Jeremis Von Brooks. Commoner — Jeremy Olding. Street Rat — Long Kill Jimmy. (Just random ideas. Some editing applied to keep them to 19 characters or less. Sorry if you want a joke name … when I do those I twist them enough to sound “real” so could change your original name to, hmm, Altman Fjistkoff? I’m not brainstorming names based on a dye scheme, that’s too subject to change and it’s not like his parents knew decades ago what he’d be wearing today).

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

The game opened on august 25th, for the pre-orders (28th for the rest of the world), not august 24th. So, they’re a day early.

Leap Day is why. We were a day “early” last year, too. In 2020 the earliest account birthdays will be Aug 23, since it seems to be decided by number of hours per year rather than by calendar day.

I’m also very pleased (and very torn) by the choices. At least having had a year to subconsciously consider it I was able to select my second backpack pretty fast. The weapons, though, I want all three blades ><

And note: we get a title with the achieve: “Relentless.” That’s on several of my alts now because it suits them.

Thank you, ANet!

I managed to decide I like the blades the most even though all the skins are lovely. Problem: There are three blades. And I use all three types quite frequently across my alts. Sword and dagger might be most used (I foresee my Weaver using that) but that GS is soooo nice. So even having narrowed it down that much, I still have paralysis of choice!

Sword is super nice though and used by tons of professions so I think that will be one of the two. Then it’s hair pulling time on dagger vs GS. Whyyyy ANet whyyyyyyyy!

I always go through the story solo first (and on a squishy Daredevil who often loses armor pieces in the fights thanks to dirt naps, because tradition, traDiTION!). I also do it under time pressure because episodes usually drop around noon my time and by five pm I have to be getting ready to head out on errands with my husband. Under these constraints, to the best of my recollection I have gotten every LS3 chapter done immediately upon release. Just one run through, no dilly dallying for achievements (though I do take time to listen to all the dialogue and take a lot of screen shots, and if map exploration is part of advancing the story I do that too). I fervently want to avoid spoilers, thus my need to get it done asap the first time.

So yeah, as Stitch said there’s plenty of time between now and PoF launch to work through the story, assuming you can play more than one hour a week. If you’re on NA and tend to play in the afternoons eastern time, please add me as a friend and PM me on forums if you don’t see me in game to ask for help. I’m looking for projects in between running many alts through HP chains! (Note: this offer does not apply 1st week of September when I will be hosting my mom during her move to my area. Computer time will still happen, but less of it).

While I think this would be cool (especially if the HoT legendary effects don’t get truncated compared to vanilla ones as they do during normal running), I predict PvP Thieves reaaaaalllly not wanting a big glowing line pointing out where they went. Especially on skills that bounce them between two points. Big neon sign saying “drop aoe HERE” is probably a nope for them.

Per the news section the bundle is back. Time to consider bundle vs a few individual pieces. I’d love to know if the Exuberant kit will be in the 5th bday presents.

Which we’ll be getting while the bundle is still active, it seems, so I shall wait two more days to decide!

Endless Soul.5178:

Players demanded raids, now we have raids.
Players demanded DPS meters, now we have DPS meters.
Players demanded mounts, now we have mounts.
and so on, and so on.

I’m seeing this a lot on the mounts issue. I’ve known for years they were working on mounts (I thought it was for a later base game release, not an expansion) thanks to a friend who got a tour of ANet HQ and saw them being worked on. I was sworn to silence and I stuck to that. But this isn’t a sudden caving, this was a long term design plan that they stayed very silent on through all the Mount Thread debates.

Also they didn’t design DPS meters other than the raid training golems that only work in a dedicated instance with others who choose to participate, third party people figured out ways to implement the meters without violating the ToS in terms of game software manipulation. While I loathe DPS meters and the pressure they bring and the elitism they facilitate, I see the need for them in a raid context where every iota matters to success. Should there be raids? Well, raiding seems to make a fair number of players happy and invested in the game, so while I dislike some of the implementation (lots of flavor lore dialogue and story inside raids, legendary armor only available via raids) I don’t think raids as a whole have damaged the game.

OP: addons aren’t really permissible, as I understand it what you are seeing is external programs that overlay but do not modify the game itself. I considered looking into some of the Overwulf applications but read that they could cause some nasty glitches and decided to forego the experiment. I’ve done just fine sans mods (whereas I find ESO nearly unplayable without my QoL mods). I just hop to an external timer or the wiki when I need extra info. So don’t give up on the game, the existence of pseudo mods isn’t going to impact you.