Guild Wars 2

Narcemus.1348:

To be fair there were other airships and other people on the ship. That said, when going into the fight you have that huge concept art of Zhaitan being the size of a mountain, then you go to the Zhaitan in game and it was not at all what I expected…

Have you never paid attention to the damage output of your NPC companions? Abysmal does nothing to describe the problem. They die like mayflies, need to be revived mid-battle, and usually can’t hold their own against trash. Rytlock was totally underwhelming the first time (ok, second time, since the first was in the tutorial and he couldn’t be downed in that…) I fought beside him. I had to revive him five times because the TRIBUNE couldn’t fight off level 5 mobs. I think I wanted to vomit at his ineffectiveness. It really colored my preconceptions of him for the rest of the game. I blame ANet for that. It’s a game mechanic that keeps the player from relying on his NPCs to carry him through content, even though, he should be on par or only slightly better than those NPCs.

Anymras.5729:

I trimmed out some of the stuff, to get back on track. I have a couple questions.

Snipped a lot of your stuff because I’m not going to play psychologist for the player base. I’m only reporting what is done right now, and how the proposed change WON’T change that. People run in Zerker because they do. People who don’t are looked down upon because they are. Why? I don’t know. I’ve never been an elitist jackdaw. I won’t speculate on the state of mind of people I don’t even know. Sorry. As for your questions…

• How, exactly, would having each turret be assigned a particular stat that helps it improve diversity?

Running with Healing Turret (and why wouldn’t you?) that is buffed by +healing means that you’ll look for gear with +healing on it to maximize your healing turrets Overcharge, if nothing else. Personally, I like fire and forget turrets, where I just stay inside the AOE and use Overcharge to increase the pulse when I need more healing. Would be nicer if it worked more reliably.

Now, Rifle Turret benefits from Precision (let’s say), and Rocket Turret benefits off Power. Three turrets and a kit. 4 slots, plus the Elite, which won’t be a kit or a turret. So that’s what we have. Turrets benefit from Power, Precision and Healing, so you’ll be looking for Assassin’s, Berserker’s, Cleric’s and Magi’s armor and weapons to stack those stats. If you stack just Assassin’s or Berserker’s, you’re going to be gimping your healing turret. Too much Cleric’s and Magi’s and you’re going to be gimping one of the other ones. But all of the prefixes now have value, as opposed to being total vendor/salvage bait that they are now.

I mean, yes, obviously there’s “So now you have to have X gear to get X turret working properly, but then there’s X turret and X turret, and then the Healing Turret,” but if you actually look at the traitlines, then Rocket, Thumper and Healing Turret (as well as, potentially, Net Turret, according to the original post) would benefit disproportionately to begin with, due to having bonuses originating from the traitlines themselves if the user actually builds to pick up Turret traits.

Fortunately, that’s a non-issue. If you’re making a turret build, you’re going to stack for turrets and if the traits disproportionately favor particular turrets, then you’ll likely use those specific ones. The devs can adjust for that on the back end without affecting the illusion of choice.

• What is there to keep people from just, say, putting on Cleric’s gear, throwing a couple Vitality trinkets on and calling it a day, particularly at higher levels where you simply don’t want to build Exotics and Ascended items for the sake of having spares?

Nothing. Why? Is that a problem? People are throwing on Zerker gear and calling it a day now. How is that different? Look, the basic premise is that they probably won’t be selecting just one type of prefix to wear if they want to have a good selection of turrets. They’re not going to necessarily find the right stats on just one, so they’ll need two or three. It makes things valuable, and allows people to vary their builds. Will there be holdouts? Sure. Just like now, there are Engineers who are trying to make things work, even though the odds are against them. People are stubborn cusses. There will always be people who will buck the conventional wisdom of the day or run in ways that the game doesn’t optimize for, just to see if it can be done. The goal with this overhaul is just to vary the kinds of gear we use as Engineers because we’re trying to shake up the cookie cutters a little.

• Any solid disadvantages (such as: increased fragility, etcetera) that people would need to be aware of, or would the greatest disadvantage be “That turret doesn’t work as well as the others, because I’m not wearing the right gear?”

Just that, pretty much. From my own experience as a raider in other games, stripping out the theorycrafting and elitism, has been stack for the traits in a particular order until you’re satisfied with the results and then stack for the next one. With six armor slots and (at most) 2 weapons slots, a neck, 2 trinks and 2 rings, we’re looking at a total number of slots that can leave a lot of room for play. Now, imagine crafters all trying to make gear to sell or use, and not having the right stuff for X type right now, but they can cover it by making Y and Z types instead of other slots The fluidity of being able to shift one’s stats around from piece to piece without losing effectiveness and efficiency is invaluable to making a viable character. While I’m not saying that the stats are that tight right now that a single wrong piece of gear will get you killed, running in all Zerker with no thought of variation is getting pretty bland.

karlestroider.4519:

Kyrox Soulweaver, my charr necro ^^

Hello, Nightmare Fuel.

Tom Gore.4035:

Could you ever forgive her (either because her Villain Sueism or her ingame deeds) to confront the Elder Dragons with?

No. Not only can I not forgive her, I cannot forgive the devs for developing (if you can call it that) such a horrible character. She’s a pathetic psychopathic sociopath. There are no redeeming qualities to her, socially or otherwise. She’s a complete Mary Sue “mastermind” willing to slaughter her allies and enemies, claiming to have a plan and a desire not to be a puppet to external forces, and yet it is so completely clear that she isn’t the actual brains at the top that if she was any more stubborn about it, they should have just painted on her chest “I’M A DIVERSION FROM THE REAL VILLAIN!” If she NEVER makes an appearance in GW2 again, I’ll be happy, but given how my life works, I doubt I could be so lucky. She’s revolting. The person who submitted her as part of the Living Story should be fired. The person who APPROVED her should be shot.

EvilZombie.6801:

i dont want a sinper kit … i want a CANNON KIT !
long range + AOE why not

Why not, indeed. Oh, wait. We do. The Mortar and it’s broken, too. cry

Lina.9640:

Frankly, they should revamp the trait lines and separate it from attunements to concepts of the class that can be utilized in ALL attunements. No more X% bonus damage on Y attunement or any of that nonsense.

Force, Entropy, Plasma, etc, whatever.

Sounds fun. I can get behind this.

Adamantium.3682:

I didn’t quite get the whole idea of turrets using different stats only, you kind of lost me on that.

Drakkon.4782:

It leads to the same problem, total stat value or +stat buff, both lead to people just running zerker and we’re at the same place we’re at currently. There will be no differentiation in armor, no inclination to stack anything but power, precision and whatever.

Then I read this and you had me; hook, line, and sinker! I’m all in on this idea.

Diversity is good, mmkay?

Glad to see I’m not the only one who realized that his idea could be interpreted in a manner other than how he intended. Could be his poor wording, but I think that he just didn’t articulate his thoughts clearly enough.

I don’t like that option, either. It’s still lazy. It leads to the same problem, total stat value or +stat buff, both lead to people just running zerker and we’re at the same place we’re at currently. There will be no differentiation in armor, no inclination to stack anything but power, precision and whatever.

However, by assigning stats to particular turret types, the armor diversity goes up as players use different turrets for different scenarios. It promotes differentiation instead of conformity. Engineers are too cookie cutter as it stands. But, we’re an underplayed class, and the chances they’ll do anything to fix it is slim.

Also, VIVorcha, try to keep the personal attacks out of your comments. Insulting people on the forums won’t win you any friends. Engineers have enough problems without us sniping at one another and acting like forum trolls.

When I say the idea is lazy, I mean from a coding and from a playing perspective. It’s just boring. Yes, it might serve to buff Engineers, but it isn’t fun to play. It might be all we get, but is it going to improve the class? Probably not. Just clearing that up.

http://argos-soft.net/GW2ArmorGallery/index.php?weight=2&race=1&color=0&sex=0&armorSet=whipermi
http://argos-soft.net/GW2ArmorGallery/index.php?weight=2&race=1&color=0&sex=0&armorSet=highwaymani
http://argos-soft.net/GW2ArmorGallery/index.php?weight=2&race=1&color=0&sex=0&armorSet=jetami

Look at the rear shots. The tail clips through the armor. Worse, the textures appear stretched and lower res on a Charr because their not adjusted for the larger frame. All in all, the armor just looks bad compared to others. The Asura have the opposite problem, their textures look compressed and shrunken, which can look poor at lower resolutions on slower computers.

Using the high res texture pack doesn’t help because the problem with Charr isn’t the actual resolution, just the way it’s bloated around their bigger frame.

“Because they are so alike in voice and stature many believe that there ARE no Dwarven women. This has given rise to the belief that Dwarves apparently spring, fully formed, from the ground, which is, of course, ridiculous.”

“It’s the beards.”

Chaosky.5276:

Heat has to do water as much as plasma, it’s just that not as much is required. In fact, “cold plasma” is entirely possible – if you were to fill an electromagnetic container soley with, say, electrons, you’d need almost no heat to maintain the plasma state, as electromagnetic repulsion would prevent them from bonding with each other.

You confuse your own point. Heat has nothing to do with the states of matter, though it, along with pressure, can be used to determine what state of matter a given substance will take. But for our discussion, heat is irrelevant.

HOWEVER, were it relevant, lightning is several THOUSAND degrees in temperature, while the hottest non-plasma flame usually drops out around 850F degrees. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions and not the rule. That only serves to place Lightning in the Fire category, instead of Air.

As for the elements, that’s just a result of simple observation of solids, liquids, gases, and heat. About as basic as observations get. In the case of ether, the idea more closely resembles the dimension of space, the theory of which, from what I understand, actually did replace the concept of ether.

Stop confusing Heat and Plasma. Heat, aka Infrared, is only one small part of the EM Spectrum, and is NOT, itself, a measure of energy, but a type of energy. Plasma is, technically, the state of matter where it stops being regarded as Matter and starts being regarded as Energy.

Again, this does seem to prove that Lightning, clearly the charge particle form of energy, as belonging to Plasma (Fire) over Gaseous (Air).

OP seems to have a point, though I don’t know what would take it’s place, so lightning should stay put.

Donnach Donnchadha.7864:

Oh I thought you were alledging that pine was a hardwood despite its softness

The hardness of the actual wood is not something that determines whether it is a hardwood or a softwood. Balsa, one of the softest woods in the world, is actually a hardwood, while Yew, one of the hardest in the world, is a softwood.

Hardwood and Softwood describe only the type of leaves the tree that they come form has. Hardwoods have broad leaves, and Softwoods have needle-like leaves. And to be even more confusing, there are broad-leaved evergreens like Holly that are hardwoods, so terms like “evergreens” doesn’t define hardwood or softwood, either. Conifer and non-conifer are closer to discriminators.

Narcemus.1348:

Well at your last point, it is a duh. We’ve known for a while that the Pact would be making the decision, it’s just been arguing over what would be the smartest move for the Pact to make. What would give them more manpower and political leverage in order to achieve their goal of destroying the Elder Dragons.

And honestly, the Pact having it as a “homeland” from which they could stage and mount attacks against the other Elder Dragons would be a good thing. Before everyone starts complaining about logistics of such an act, remember that they have a lot of land they won’t be directly using and administrating land use fees will generate a lot of revenue that can be used to build Asura Gates that can be focused on other locations near the Dragons, so as outposts and staging fortifications are built, they can be used to rapidly send troops to reinforce those locations at a moment’s notice, getting materials and soldiers anywhere they’re needed quickly.

On another point, humanity did not hand off Orr to the Undead. One human used a spell and conquered the area and then a dragon conquered it from him. Saying that humanity doesn’t deserve Orr after the conquering is complete is like saying the charr didn’t deserve to re-take ascalon after it was under human control for over a millennium. And before you state that the charr deserve Ascalon because THEY reclaimed it, remember that the only reason the charr reclaimed it was their reliance on demons. The charr had help just as much as humanity did.

Not exactly true. Orr was decimated by a madman who used a spell he knew little about to unleash powers he couldn’t control to destroy and enemy he couldn’t overcome. It destroyed his own kingdom and sank it into the sea. We’re unclear on the exact time that Zhaitan took over Orr, though we are clear on the fact that he did and raised his undead army from the many drowned victims he found laying about. The exact nature of the transition of possession from one to the other is unclear, but that it happened is not in doubt.

Now, the point about the Humans deserving to re-conquer Orr isn’t at issue. But they have to try first. The argument you present isn’t one where they are an army conquering a foreign land to reclaim a birthright, so much as your argument asks that they simply be handed the keys to the kingdom back without putting forth even a minimum amount of effort to liberate it from the undead. At least the Charr bled and died to retake Ascalon. Where are the dead Seraph? Where are the broken human war machines? Who but the Pact has bled and died for Orr’s salvation? Can you answer me those questions?

Ralkuth.1456:

To be honest, there will not be a significant revamp of all skills and utilities happening in a short period. The fact is that it is a design issue, with 1 utility granting 5 unique skills and a class with only 1 primary weapon set in compensation, resulting in a perpetual need to use kits to retain average control/damage capabilities.
Realistically I will not wait for a huge fix, and just be content with 1 spec that is viable in a unique way and fits us in the meta, as in “We definitely need an Engi in our team”. Sadly it’s come down to kits, and I’m sorry for you.
To quote Blinx who said something somewhere, Viable > Variety, and he would rather have a single competitive spec than multiple not-so-good ones.

Agreed. I sometimes regret that my main is my Engineer and the first one I force leveled to 80 (by doing every zone to 100% I could do and then going back and doing personal stories). I haven’t even done most of the dungeons because he’s so broken at this level that it’s hard to play. I love Flamethrower and it rocks in PvE, but it could be better and he still dies a lot. I’m not having the kind of fun I did when he was younger. The endgame mechanics suck. It makes me a sad Charr.

VIVorcha.7853:

Drakkon.4782:

VIVorcha.7853:

How about no, and Anet just makes them all scale with every stat.

How about yes, and your counter is a horrible idea that is so unbalanced they won’t consider it for more than a millisecond.
OP, I, for one, like the idea of needing to spec gear that buffs the turrets I use, so long as they don’t bury the stat I should be stacking somewhere I can’t find it. Right now, there is no reason not to spec Zerker, so anything that makes other gear more useful and/or gets people to start playing the game in different ways is good. Engineer is just as good a place to start as any, and turrets need some love.

Right. My suggestion is so unbalanced that they implemented it with every other aspect of the game.
If you really don’t think turrets scaling with stats is balanced, you really have not thought it through at all.

Actually, you’re right. Your idea isn’t unbalanced, just lazy. Scaling the turrets with whatever J. Random Stat people want to use is incredibly lazy and boring. Since that basically means that every turret will have the same adds to it for a given level of armor (since they all have the same value of stats, regardless of bonus type), then there would again be no need to different types of armor and ANet should just remove all the armor variants from the game in favor of the simplified “X Level Armor with Y Look”. Who cares what your stats are, so long as your armor level matches your character level and it’s name is in Orange or Purple. That’s all that matters.

sigh Talk about dumbing down the game.

Donnach Donnchadha.7864:

Drakkon.4782:

So a Hardwood is a non-conifer broad-leafed tree, and a Softwood is anything else (confier or needle-leafed).

Fyi, Pine is a Softwood tree (needle-leafed evergreen.)

That’s what I said, yes.

“Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees (more strictly speaking non-monocot angiosperm trees). It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.

Hardwood contrasts with softwood (which is from Gymnosperm trees). Hardwoods are not necessarily harder than softwoods. In both groups there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness, with the range in density in hardwoods completely including that of softwoods; some hardwoods (e.g. balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while yew is an example of a hard softwood.

Hardwood should not be confused with the term ‘heartwood’ (which can be from hardwood or softwood)."

- Excerpted from Wikipedia for convenience.

So a Hardwood is a non-conifer broad-leafed tree, and a Softwood is anything else (confier or needle-leafed).

An Elder Dragon we can kill with a random 5-man group… Yep, seems legit.

Narcemus.1348:

I have to say that we cannot just assume the state of the other races’ origins as being “native to Tyria” until told otherwise. I mean based off of that logic humans may very well be native to Tyria. The only source that states humans were brought to Tyria by the gods was an old orrian scroll, and human history also stated that the gods created tyria, and created magic. Human history is fallible at best and at it’s worst it is completely wrong. For all we know someone wrote that humanity was brought to Tyria by the gods in order to make humanity seem more important. Remember, history never lies, historians though…

Well, that and the time that the story guys and devs said that they weren’t native, but other than that we have no proof that humans aren’t from Tyria.

So we’re agreed that we have no evidence as to the native-ness of the races of Tyria and the only one we can state as definitely not from Tyria is the Humans.

All I will say is whether native to the planet or not, all races are in some way shape or form invaders. Something always owned the lands before they evolved into what they are, and they pushed out that something or moved away into an area where they could push out the natives. When we come to Orr specifically, there is only evidence of 1 of the past races living in that region, and it was the Forgotten (who themselves may have been brought into Tyria through the Mists, based on ancient history) and they spent their lives worshiping the gods and Glint and seem to have handed the land down to the gods, and the gods handed the land off to humanity before they left. IMO, the other races have no extra claim just based on the fact that they “may” have been native to the planet.

By your logic, the last owners of Orr were the Undead, and since they’re still there, they have a greater claim to the land than anyone. Fabulous. The original owners were the Forgotten, supposedly, but I can’t remember, and their claim appears to have been abdicated in favor of others, which cannot be confirmed, so that’s in doubt, too.

At this point, there doesn’t appear to be ANYONE who has a legitimate claim to the land, so as the Pact has technical possession of the land, I guess they’re the ones who will decide what to do with it.

Shiren.9532:

Tequatl is being failed primarily because individual players have little control over the rest of the people “contributing”. The actual challenge is organisation and co-ordination of large numbers, not so much skill.

The “fix”: Anyone AFK when Teq is starting is shunted to the Overflow, preferably a new one. Everyone in existing Overflows is given the option, until full, of going to the main zone, unless they’re also Akitten which case they, too, will be shunted to the new Overflow. Everyone from existing Overflows not shunted to the new one for AFKers and not put into the active main zone will be given the option of going to the first Overflow with active players. They will backfill until all Overflows are filled with active players and all AFKers are sequestered in their own AFKer Overflow. We can call the AFKer Overflow “HFIL”.

Because the devs don’t know what Hard Wood and Soft Wood actually mean.

He’s not the Elder Dragon that we Deserve, but he is the Elder Dragon that we Need.

Gandarel.5091:

Drakkon, if they weren’t from tyria, why does that mean they have no claim? Orr was an unclaimed land when they arrived (or Forgotten land that they offered for humans, thus giving the rights to them).
Why would any race that’s from tyria but never ever stepped to Orr could claim it more than humans who actually built it and were brought there by gods?
Neither were from Orr, not charrs, not asuras, not humans. But, there was an altar to Glint, probably built by the forgotten, allies to human gods. They gave the land to the humans.
Paperwork done, human land.

I’m unconvinced that the Ancient Astronauts (whom you refer to as Gods, but which we have not fully explored their divine natures) have agency to present claim to the Humans. They aren’t from Tyria, either. They are just as transplanted as the Humans. Once again, we’re rejecting the invader claim on behalf of the Charr, we’re going to have to reject it on behalf of the Humans, who, legitimately, invaded Tyria from an entirely other world, not just another continent.

I didn’t say that the other races had direct claim, only more sufficient claim than any Human. Nothing you have presented here actually overrules that observation, either. The Forgotten being allies of Glint lends credibility to the claim, but does not sufficiently solidify it, as you believe. It is inappropriate to draw conclusions regarding definitive claims to Orr, particularly by aliens who are not even from this world. They have come here by means other than their own, and are not sufficient to present a claim of their own to any lands. Perhaps if their so called Gods could produce a statement that legitimizes their claim on the continent, then we might consider their claim…

Deacon.9725:

So at last we get you to acknowledge the entirety of your issue with this display: You don’t like the way the Engineer plays on a fundamental level.

I, personally, don’t like the way people play the Engineer. They aren’t play8ing it properly, and that causes the perpetuation of the problems that the Engineer faces.

Well, again, I find it incredibly disingenuous to say that the profession is BROKEN as a fact, and that it’s our fault because we simply don’t agree with you. I think what would be much more honest and correct would be this phrase: "the communities (sic) refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of playing within the confines of the profession build further reduces those odds of me getting what I want in this profession. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly the profession I want it to be it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community. "

That isn’t what he said, at all. What he said is that the class IS Broken and that because people are opting to play it in workaround builds rather than forcing ANet to address the problem is, pretending that the problems don’t exist because they have a cobbled-together solution instead of an actual fix, means that we’re a Kludged class, and we need to be looked at before the whole thing falls apart and takes part of the game with it. You are actually a prime example of players doing it wrong and defending how they do it.

There. Now it actually makes sense, and fully exposes the argument as a personal opinion rather than a misguided attempt to make your own ideas dogmatically “the only right way.”

His ideas are the right way. Kits are utilities that replace weapons. No other class has to suffer through that. Your choice of weapons is immaterial because they aren’t factored in regardless. That means that Engineers have to have superior traits to make up for it, and we don’t. We need buffs to our utilities, and we don’t have them. The class is, in fact, broken, and we need to recognize that fact before we can get ANet to fix it. Turrets are horrible, though they can be made to work if you place them at extreme range to the fighting. Flamethrower is fine, but very few play it right. Bombs and Grenades are situational, at best. We have no 100% uptime utility, weapons, or traits that make us stand out. And worse, we aren’t very solo-friendly, so there’s that, too.

Granted, I think that there is a lot of validity to expressing your opinions on what could shift within the profession to make your playtime more enjoyable. Under that guise, making a strong case for a beefier toolbet skill would be incredibly valid and intriguing in the debate. I would be interested to see you tackle that in an honest opinion setting.

We’re our own worst enemies. So long as we ignore the problems with our class and pretend that everything is fine, ANet will keep ignoring us as well. They’re doing it with the Elementalist, the Charr, the Mesmer, and they’re doing it with Engineers, too.

VIVorcha.7853:

How about no, and Anet just makes them all scale with every stat.

How about yes, and your counter is a horrible idea that is so unbalanced they won’t consider it for more than a millisecond.

OP, I, for one, like the idea of needing to spec gear that buffs the turrets I use, so long as they don’t bury the stat I should be stacking somewhere I can’t find it. Right now, there is no reason not to spec Zerker, so anything that makes other gear more useful and/or gets people to start playing the game in different ways is good. Engineer is just as good a place to start as any, and turrets need some love.

I wasn’t aware that GW2 was supposed to be an Augmented Reality game. I thought I bought a video game and that it would contain the things relevant to it’s play and story in the game. I didn’t realize I would need to have library card, newspaper subscriptions and be a member of the Smithsonian to get the whole story.

On the other hand, she’s just a poorly written Mary Sue villain, possibly a self-insert by one of the devs, so it isn’t like I care about her, either. But if that’s how they handle the lore, I’m very disappoint.

Tupi.2967:

Zaithan is dead but somehow Tequatl got stronger. Bubbles? Zaithan released magic post death?

All things decay after they die. In fact, most things decay after they are created. This is called Entropy. The natural process by which all things migrate towards stable forms. Elder Dragons, being highly organized and specifically structured entities, would possess very little Entropy and therefore would be most susceptible to decay once whatever processes created them and sustained them were ended. They are in an artificial state of non-decay while alive, which would only serve to hasten their decay after they died.

It is only right that those closest to them should be exposed to their decaying waste products (magical leakage) and be affected first. Teq the Funless is probably the first of his lieutenants to be altered, evolved into something greater. One has to wonder, however, if it wasn’t too great a leap forward. He appears to be more unbeatable than his master ever was. Only a few massive groups have persevered against him, whereas his master was destroyed by a handful of poorly organized and bickering individuals.

Narcemus.1348:

On a side note, when you think about it, is it really that viable for a world to have so many sapient races? I have to believe that the humans may not be the only race that are not native to Tyria. No race has had their history delved into as far as humanity has, so there is no way to tell if any of them or native or not. Just because we assume they are doesn’t make it the truth.

It’s more to the point that Humanity is the one race we have explicitly been told is NOT native to Tyria. They are the one race who cannot lay claim to ANY part of the world because they aren’t from it. Until such time as we discover that the other races have no erstwhile claim to the world, either, being from another world and having been transported through the Mists by some unknown agency, we must assume they are from Tyria and have greater claim to any part of it than the Humans.

The Charr claim to be natives to Tyria, and probably are, having not been dependent and magic or Gods until the Flame Legion took control, and having had no greater capacity or mythology regarding coming to or being from another world. Given the quantity of animalistic sapient races on Tyria, they are almost certainly natives.

The Asura originated deep inside the world, and with their gate technology, it isn’t certain they aren’t from another place, either. Evolution in islolation certainly has produced a race with strange qualities, but I am uncertain why they ever evolved eyes. Most cave dwelling species that never see light (which would have to be artificially generated in non-volcanic areas) de-evolve their eyes and heighten their other senses instead. But the Asura have eyes. Really, really big ones. It is possible, and even probable, that they did not originate here.

The Norn are wanderers by nature. They set up few towns, and even fewer cities. They are conversant with the Mists, and their spirits are among the few “normal” animals on the planet. Of all the races, they are the ones most likely to have immigrated from Earth. They may actually be Earth Humans from an elder age who disappeared into the Mists to follow their spirits and ended up on Tyria. What a grand adventure that would be, and what a story to found a legend. But the lack of such a legend indicates that it isn’t likely…

The Sylvari are almost certainly from Tyria, having recently emerged from a long incubation in the Dreaming. However, they could equally be considered to be from the Mists, so they could be just as unlikely to be natives. There isn’t enough known about them to say one way or the other.

zallis.2138:

daros.3407:

Even 100 chcest would not be enough as reward, becouse they contain mostly green and some karma. It is absolutely nothing.

don’t you think being rewarded for failure is kind of weird?

Success is boring. Failure teaches. If you succeed all the time you’ll never know how to do anything. You’ll only know what you did works. You won’t have learned anything. In failure, we learn what doesn’t work. Failing is the beginning of investigation. Investigation leads to understanding. It is from understanding what we’re doing that advancement and progress can be made. Failure should always be rewarded. Success is just… success. Yea, you did it. Have a cookie.

root.9415:

PLEASE

It has now gotten to the point where few players are crafting ascended weapons because they actually want one, we are crafting them because our inventories are plagued with materials for which there is nothing else to do.

It doesn’t even matter if it’s vendoring them for 1 copper each, at least it’ll be better than rightclick->destroy

Other solution: Remove the arbitrary 250 stack cap. It was useful at the start to get people to craft and use the items they got, but now it’s just hindering gameplay because there is no where to stack all that crap in our inventories. If it’s a mat we should be able to deposit, then the bank shouldn’t have a stack cap, at the very least. Otherwise, we shouldn’t be devoting more than one slot in our inventories to any single stackable item.

Chaosky.5276:

ImProVocateur.5189:

Goo for poison.

Short of a black hole, I don’t think liquid plasma is really a thing.

Also, fire represents energy in general, while the other elements represent specific states of matter (levels of energy (and a lack of energy in the case of ice)), and as plasma is a state of matter close to that of gas (air), I’d say lightning’s domain of Air is justified.

Earth > Solid
Water > Liquid
Air > Gas
Fire > Plasma

The four states of matter represented perfectly. You’re just reaching there. Sorry.

I find it interesting that the ancients seemed to have known a lot more about “advanced” science than we credit them. The four elements are very much in tune with the four states of matter, which are pretty elemental. And, while not ancient, per se, the notion of “ether” is coming back with the omnipresent “Dark Matter”. Everything old is new again.

Xhyros.1340:

Turrets are for pvp (rifle and healing work for pve though). Flamethrower auto sucks. It’s horrible. Don’t use it, ever. Grenades don’t do damage till level 60. Don’t autoattack with flamethrower. Bomb autos are strong if you like being all in your face, just make sure to use explosives III so they can hit. Stop using flamethrower autos, it may look cool, but it is not good for dealing damage. Rocket boots are like, awesome mobility. Make sure you have swiftness when using them for a further jump. I can tell you’re using flamethrower autos. What did I say about flamethrower autos?

I don’t know. I stopped listening after you said its auto sucked. Flamethrower Auto is godly, if you use it right. You probably aren’t.

I run my main as a Flamegineer with turrets in PVE. The problem here is too many people trying to square peg when the hole is round. It’s a total L2P issue. Turrets don’t target bosses. But then as a Flamegineer, I’m not targeting the boss, either. Why? Flamethrower is a condition build. You light things up and keep them lit until they die. This just in: Fire still hot! Burn it up! But you only need one fire source on a boss, and none if it’s immune to Burning. Know your place and your targets.

Boss encounters, like Teq the Funless, are group efforts. Not everyone should be focused on the boss. In fact, in any boss encounter, if it has been properly constructed, you only need about half the people on the boss, and the rest need to be working mop-up of the adds. That’s where a full 90 degree front cone AOE is awesome. If they can work on the stupidity of the “MISS! MISS! MISS!” problem when moving, we’re in business. Otherwise, just stand in one place and rotate. Damage stacks fast. Burning does the rest. Burn down adds quickly and keep them off the guys killing the boss.

A note on turrets: They are great, if you can keep the mobs from destroying them. It isn’t hard. My turrets have stood for an entire Teq encounter, which is impressive, since most of the players didn’t. I put them down, move away from them so I don’t bring AOE down on them, and let them do their thing. A healing turret overlapping two of the cannons, and if the idiots manning the cannons are even half awake, they should be standing in the effect to get the heal. The rest is just aggro management, which is hard, but with so many people out there, it can be done.

Support builds and classes, like the Engineer, need to know where they are best. Engineers, Guardians, Necros, etc, all belong on the adds, not the boss. Thieves, Warriors, Mesmers, Elementalists… They fight the boss directly.

Understand your class and you’ll do a lot more good in a boss battle than you are now.

On the Human “right” to claim Orr: Humans are not native to Tyria. They have no claim on any lands. Their noble houses and bloodlines are not native to this world, and therefore have no claim to the lands because they are outsiders and invaders. I don’t care if they claim a bunch of Ancient Astronauts told them they could do it, the races that exist on Tyria have claim to the land before they ever will. The Centaurs have more claim to Orr than Humans.

Discuss.

Ben K.6238:

As a GW1 player, I couldn’t wait to see humans wiped off most of Tyria. Some people actually liked Rurik?

I cheered for the Searing! When I finished the quest on each of my Ascalonian alts, I sat back and relished the misery. Humans weren’t even from Tyria. They had no claim to the land. And they stole it from the Charr and then dared to call the Charr invaders. OHN. Humans invaded Tyria long before the Charr ever brought down the Searing.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Queen Jennah has simply discovered that shoes are overrated, and lives her life barefoot. Think of how much money she has saved the kingdom, not having to buy her shoes for every occasion! ;-)

Imelda Marcos does not approve of this message!

Seriously though, there are at least a handful of us devs who practice a barefoot lifestyle. I’m sure some people will always think it’s “weird”, but at least around the studio, it’s become just another facet in a diverse workplace.

I got the door for a co-worker who was locked out once while barefoot. I was tending a problem with one of my toes at the time and she was very upset by my lack of shoes. This whole exchange was surreal because my cube mate was a Korean gentleman who often wore Crocs and took them off during work hours. No one complained at him. I need to work for ANet.

urzen.7096:

This. Timers are not fun. Only death should be the end. We should be able to keep fighting Tequila until we are all dead, give up, or rally for the win.

The only timer should be a 15/10/5/whatever minute timer on no one attacking Teq. If he isn’t attacked for 15/10/5/whatever minutes, then he should despawn. Otherwise, he should be up until he’s killed.

King xiuras.3615:

This is my char, a warrior named Khalar Bladestorm

Similar color scheme to my Guardian. What dyes are you using so I know what to look for. I like your darker greys and the deep red.

Life is based on particular processes of the universe. Some of those dependent processes include Thermodynamics. One of the LAWS of Thermodynamics is that energy can be neither created, nor destroyed. All that Zhaitan was therefore cannot have vanished or been destroyed with his death. But all of it does not require to have been sent into one vessel.

An amazing property of energy is that it can be diverted, reflected, and split into numerous segments, each of which can be reflected or diverted and split again. Thus Zhaitan’s energy need not have remained intact, or even remained as potent as it once was. Simply stated, the power of the Elder Dragon can be diminished as it is shared across his minions, and they, too, can be vanquished, or have their power reduced to the point of near harmlessness. This process occurs in-game already, in reverse, in the aspect of the Elder Dragons consuming magic, concentrating it within themselves. It only makes sense that they would undergo a reverse process after they died.

So the pattern is set: Kill the Elder Dragon, Kill his empowered Lieutenants, Kill his Sub-Commanders, leave his rank and file be. By the time his power is distributed across all of the mundane undead that could possibly exist, it will be so diluted that they will be barely more potent than they are now, and we will see little difference, save they will be mindless still, and easily corralled. Pen them up, contain them, and cleanse Orr.

Mission Accomplished.

Honestly, I don’t care about killing him so long as I get my 9 achievements for the meta and my wings. But it is annoying that they’re making events that can’t be beaten by the general populous. I know that we’re supposed to learn the mechanics, but honestly, the events aren’t going to be learned by PUGs. Stuff like this should be reserved for instanced events, not open world zerging.

My only 80 is a strictly support character, so I can’t DPS on the boss. I’m best used killing adds at the cannons, so I do. But not many people are DPSing the boss, so it’s annoying (either that or they’re complete failures at the game, which may be, but requires another week of failing before we can draw that conclusion… conclusive…ly…).

Ryza Shadowstalker

Bathos.6341:

I have a female charr mesmer, tripple rare, one of the least played classes, in the least played race, and the less played gender for that race too! There is a lack of good charr friendly light armour. I recomend keeping the starter mesmer mask, and getting fanged dread. That actually fits char very well indeed.

I have one, as well. My only female Charr, but I do have a female-form Sylvari (since Sylvari don’t actually have genders and don’t reproduce that way…). Female Char Mesmer. I plan to keep the mask, though if I get one of the blindfolds, I might be tempted. Her colors are pink and purple and white. She looks very regal. No pix, yet.

Looks like the natural armor coloration peeking through the dye at a distance and when you go looking for it. I don’t see it as pronounced as you obviously do, so I’m not sure if that’s it. It could also be residual separation of the colors in the purple glow when you’re at a distance because of all the blue. The blue bleeds out of the purple and all you’re left seeing is the red, maybe.

Rednik.3809:

Kryta, Jennah, orrians… But why not LA?
What is LA emissary will come to Pact and say “we will give you money, transport, resources – anything. And you will give us… yes, Orr. Yes, we will continue to cleanse it. Yes, we will keep order, grant colonization rights to everyone who want to come, grant protection of human temples/shrines/etc from any marauders and let temples to be rebuild, bla-bla-bla. We will create New Orr, we need citizens and everyone is welcome here as long as they are abiding state laws”

Why not LA? Seems legit. As businesspeople primarily, they are in the best position to administrate a successful new territory. Orr doesn’t need a new king/queen or royalty. They need people who can set up a functional government that can efficiently bring the land back to usability and sustainability. LA has shown they can do that. Certainly better than Kryta would be able to in any case. And they have the navy in place to get there. The Lionsguard already protect most of that area to boot. It wouldn’t take much for them to step in and assume defensive and admininstrative roles in Orr.

IceBlink.4317:

Narcemus.1348:

A note on Mesmers. The game designers stated around the time of the release of the mesmer that the clones and illusions were at least intended to be a visual manifestation of what was happening in GW1. In other words, these clones/illusions may have still existed, it was just assumed in GW1 that they were in the mind of the enemy and were not visible to anyone else.

I’m still trying to get around how a mesmer convinces a wooden door it is being attacked by a figment of its imagination.

Ah, reminds me of my old Malkavian days…

Red Tree.1936:

A good start would be trying to explain it to them directly. There are a lot of forum threads about it, but given the few members of ANet staff who look at forums along with the very very low traffic of the charr forum subsection in general, it’s about as effective as walking into your closet and muttering “I’m angry”.

Daniel Dociu, art director, was the one who stated on that panel that charr are being neglected, and will continue to be, because there are a fewer number of them being played (even if only by a couple percent behind the sylvari) than other races. His contact information is on his personal website. Perhaps he’s the first person we should ask?

The Charr are being played by 13% of the playerbase. The race with the largest playerbase is roughly 10% more. Given the tiny margin between races, I still cannot fathom how they can legitimately justify saying that not enough people play Charr to care about the problems. The argument is sheer stupidity.

PlayerX.5307:

I am sure they will fix it in time. They have so much more on their plate than Charrs clipping problems.

They’ve stated that, at this time, the Charr armor issues aren’t even on the plate. They’re sitting back on the buffet in a small chaffing dish behind the kippered herring.

Eddie Royale.9605:

The chainmail bikini was only an exaggerated example seeing how it’s a common “Women’s” armor choice in most games, and I admit that it was a bad choice of an example. My bad. I feel as though I’m doing a horrible job of explaining what I mean, so sorry about that.

The problem with “feminine” armor for Charr is cultural. What is “feminine” to Charr? They don’t strike me as a race that sees any value whatsoever in “dainty”. Strength, prowess, and power mean things to them. How do you make that “feminine”?

The “Chainmail Bikini” is appropriate to the discussion, though, because it exemplifies everything wrong with how we treat women and the female image in general. It also exemplifies what is wrong with the concept of feminine armor for Charr. The “chainmail bikini” is not practical, not protective, and not attractive. Charr would seek to minimize their exposure, both visually and defensively. Skimpy clothing, low cut necklines, silky veils… None of these things say dominant military. I can’t see any Charr reaction to them except negative. And that’s the problem with trying to push our concepts of sexy on another culture, even a fictional one, where the basic premises are at odds with our own preconceptions. Not only will they look wrong on a Charr, but they will feel wrong.

I might go so far as to call them game breaking, because just seeing one would destroy any sense of immersion in the game world. Yes, we accept the “fun” things in the game because they’re fun and it is a game, but when you design things for the world that are supposed to be a part of it, and they aren’t, it causes a disjunction in perception. It throws you out of your game state and makes it hard to get back into it.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Technically they are the same thing, though in practice someone who says ‘djinn’ is likely to picture something entirely different than someone who says ‘genie’. (thank you, Disney!) Zommoros is a djinn, but some people call him genie because Tyria has a similar cultural disconnect to Elona as Europe and the Middle East/Anet decided the Mystic Forge worked more like a “genie” than a “djinn” and reflected that in-game.

Poof! What do you need? Poof! What do you need? Poof! What do you need?

Narcemus.1348:

I would agree that the Pact may put a price tag on Orr. But we do have to wonder what the full backing of the kingdom of Kryta would be worth to the Pact. I mean so far Kryta has given a few soldier here and there, but with the centaurs pushed back into the furthest portions of their lands they can likely give some of their manpower and technology (especially if watchknights become once more viable). And the nation would most definitely be indebted to them.

Now we’re negotiating. So nice to finally see someone who isn’t being all unrealistically racial. I agree that we rarely consider the financial burden of war (Anyone in the US who isn’t paying attention to world events, take notice), but wars are expensive. The reason that medieval kings would go to war was to force their barons, dukes, and earls to pay them war taxes to get money. War gets them land, land equals more money from the newly acquired lords. Vicious cycle.

At least here on Tyria, we have more noble reasons to go to war, such as fighting legitimate evils. But that still requires money, and that money has to come from somewhere. The Charr are the exception, because they are more of a militaristic command economy. The Tribune says do this, and they do it. If they ever get another Khan-Ur, then they will be a truly formidable force to be reckoned with. His(Her) word would be law to the Charr, and every Legion would jump at his(her) command.

Still, if we assume that Trahearne is going to consider Orr for the humans, then he’s going to need to have some sort of support and/or compensation from them. If they can’t/won’t do that, I don’t see why he would turn it over to them. He isn’t human and he certainly doesn’t care much for the history of the place outside of a scholarly manner. It doesn’t make sense to me to hear people say he’d just hand it over. No one just hands stuff over.

“Are you a Hyperbola, because I can see us getting close without limits.”