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I was playing around with the T3 FT buff under firearms where you gain 200 toughness and 15 secs of might every 3 seconds, i found that it capped itself at 20seconds. It wouldn’t go above this number, despite it saying that its supposed to get 15 seconds of might. Is this a glitch? meant for? Am i just not understanding something?
Might stacks in intensity only, not duration. So after the first 15 seconds, one of those stacks of might ends, but is promptly replaced by another so the number of stacks stays the same. Three seconds later, this happens again, and again another three seconds after that, ensuring that you never see more than about 5 stacks of might. This assumes that you have nothing that increases the duration a stack of might will last, like the increased boon duration that you get with trait points or runes.
(edited by Gurt.9368)
Your view isn’t based on lore or any discernible fact. The human gods didn’t tell the humans to take Ascalon from the charr. Humans did that on their own.
Most of what you said is pretty right on the money except this. GW1 lore states in many places and in no uncertain terms that the human gods lead man to Ascalon. It also states that men could speak with the gods and the descriptions of the monk class describe them as not using holy magic, but actually speaking with and asking favors of the gods. So if men in GW1 say that “the gods told us too,” I’m inclined to believe.
On an unrelated note, I’d like to say a few things related to the topic at hand. First of all, Adelbern was not some madman made king and the reasons he refused to go to Kryta run much deeper than wanting a crown on his brow. Adelbern was made a king because of his heroic actions during the Guild Wars, specifically against Kryta. He had seen friends give their lives to protect the people of Ascalon from Krytan rule and now his own son is planning on abandoning their fight in their darkest hour with some of the king’s much needed men to defect to a nation that may still harbor ill will toward your subjects. It would have been jarring for a character with King Adelbern’s background to go along with Prince Rurik’s plan. What Rurik did would be like buggering off to France from Great Britain because the war with the Spanish was going poorly, and he took solders with him at that!
Second, I don’t think that unleashing the foefire fits Adelbern’s character after we see the growth and regret at the end of the Prophecies quest line, unless the unleashing was some sort of an accident or mistake. He may have been a cold man at times, but everything he did was to protect his people and his country.
Finally, what upsets me the most isn’t that the charr took Ascalon, but that the charr are supposed to be seen as the victims in everything that’s happened. There aree several places where in game dialogue tells the player that the searing was 200 years ago and to “get over it” but we’re supposed to feel bad for the charr who lost a fraction of their homelands over 1000 years ago? No, you can’t have it both ways, either humans are justified in wanting to take back Ascalon or the charr just wanted to take land they no longer have a claim to. Let’s not forget that the charr took the land from the forgotten, whom the dragons placed there to shepherd it and ensure it would develop.
I think it’d be neat to pool everyones’ thoughts on new profession ideas. It’s inevitable that Anet will add new professions to increase the longevity of their game as expansions are released. As such, I invite everyone to post one or two general concepts (class mechanic, armor class, general theme) for a profession they’d like to see in a future expansion. Remember, anything you post needs to be unique enough that it couldn’t be handled by a simple trait change or mechanic tweak in an existing class. I’ll start.
Coercer
Armor: Light
Class Mechanic: Dominate
Target enemy is forced to fight for you as a pet for some amount of time.
The Coercer’s weapon skills would focus on long-range conditions (especially weakness) and crowd control, giving his charmed ally an edge in combat. Utilities would include escapes and self boons to improve otherwise dismal survivability. The idea is that you have a powerful (but expendable) ally with you most of the time, who could break charm and attack the caster should the caster stop paying attention to the battle.
Before the ranger was unveiled, I had hoped that their class mechanic would be preparations and the pet would either be rolled into a new beast-master class or included as part of a heal or utility skill.
I really miss my preparations.
Because Ascalon and Kryta are traditionally enemies, not allies. You are again presuming that humanity was in some way unified, when that simply wasn’t the case before. Why would Kryta care about Ascalon at all when Ascalon was never theirs to begin with?
Because judging by the racial appearance of the people, I’d estimate that about 75% to 90% of modern day Krytans are of Ascalonian descent.
They look like it, so it must be like that.
Let´s see:
Situation in GW1 was that human nations had prettymuch been fighting eachother for a goodwhile, or more precisely guild had been. There was no love spared between Kryta and Ascalon.
Ascalonians who came to Kryta were refugees and there wasn´t too many of them, deducing from the size of the settlement they had, and from how it exapanded.
First generation after their arrival there propably wasn´t too much of realtionships between Krytans and Ascalonians, just look at any of the modern conflicts and the refugees they leave or former adversaries (Usa vs indians?)
Kryta at the time Ascalonians arrived was faring well, had strong population and despite civilwar that soon erupted still remained on better grounds than Ascalon.
Refugees after the initial wave that Rurik lead would´ve propably been sacrce since the way was dangerous, and big part of the population willing to leave had already done so.So how exactly did that smallish group of refugees take over a nation?
Beats me, but from the way things appear they somehow did.
Why would you conclude that, Gurt? I mean, Krytans in GW1 didn’t look significantly different from Ascalonians.
Except they kind of did. Ascalonians are clearly meant to be based on Europeans both in natural complexions and architecture while Krytans were obviously based on Incas.
Because Ascalon and Kryta are traditionally enemies, not allies. You are again presuming that humanity was in some way unified, when that simply wasn’t the case before. Why would Kryta care about Ascalon at all when Ascalon was never theirs to begin with?
Because judging by the racial appearance of the people, I’d estimate that about 75% to 90% of modern day Krytans are of Ascalonian descent.
Im going to go with model limitation there. Ive seen NPCs in Divinity’s Reach talk about their Canthan heritage and they looked Ascalonian. The reality is that for the bulk of Krytans, the fall of Ascalon and the Searing happened a very, very long time ago. 200 years is a long time for people. Its also a battle clearly long since lost.
True most humans dont like or trust charr much. Thats why in Divinity’s Reach youll often see people bad mouth the charr. Its the same the other way. There is alot of establish racial hatred and bias. But for the bulk of humanity it isnt worth dying for at this point.
It wouldn’t have been too hard to select a different, darker skin tone if Anet wanted Kryta to be home to more Krytans. The most likely scenario is that Anet wanted Kryta to fit the typical fantasy Europe trope and made it fit, skin color and all. Even so, until a dev says otherwise, what is depicted in the game is the way it is intended, and the game depicts that the majority population of Kryta is Ascalonian descent.
Because Ascalon and Kryta are traditionally enemies, not allies. You are again presuming that humanity was in some way unified, when that simply wasn’t the case before. Why would Kryta care about Ascalon at all when Ascalon was never theirs to begin with?
Because judging by the racial appearance of the people, I’d estimate that about 75% to 90% of modern day Krytans are of Ascalonian descent.
Hey Gurt, are you an American?
Do you hate the British for all the horrific atrocities they commited? How about the Native Americans? Look at all the people they scalped, settlements they burned and destroyed.
How about the Mexicans? We were at war with them even more recently. Can you believe we have normal diplomatic talks with them after they tried to wipe out the Alamo?
Oh? You don’t? Because all that happened a long time ago? It happened more recently than the Searing and all that though!
Two hundred and fifty years is longer than the United States of American has even existed man. It’s a very, very, very long time. The events of GW1 at this point in Tyria are probably as much myth as historical fact. You expecting people to still be mad about the charr’s actions, even expecting an accurate idea of what kind of person Adlebern was, is totally unrealistic and silly.
This is one of the reasons why it’s so weird that the charr cared so much about taking back their homeland. Sure, the charr may have taken it back 250 years ago, but the humans held on to it for about 1200 years. If 1200 years is a reasonable time frame to act on taking back your land for the charr, then 250 should be more than reasonable for humans.
Lutinz.6915Gwen’s hate and rage made a hell of a lot of sense if you understood what she had been through. The charr that held her were brutal in an extreme fashion. The only reason she escaped was because they threw her in a pit with a beast they expected to rip her apart for their entertainment and she managed to kill it and escape into the ruins.
Gwen’s hate made alot of sense. It was probably one of the things that contibuted to her surviving her ordial. For that reason I wasnt really weirded out. If anything I think Arenanet handled Gwen’s story and her coming to terms with her past brilliantly.
This. It doesn’t make much sense for Gwen to come to terms with who she is and realize that not all charr are the same and then go set herself up as some brutal charr killing machine after Guild Wars ends. Gwen’s story is about letting go of what you want and doing what’s best for everyone, so why wouldn’t she have push for peace talks with the new charr leadership; the one she helped create?
If you ask me the whole charr-human story would have been much better with Adelbern dying in the field, Duke Barradin becoming King Barradin, Gwen pushing the new King for peace talks, and humans and charr entering into a peace treaty some 10 to 20 years after the events of GW:EN. Then you can make the charr more sympathetic by giving the players more insight into their actions; an example: charr ate human prisoners because the strictly carnivorous charr were starving to death from overpopulation, they ate their own prisoners too.
The charr believe that powerful creatures exist, but they do not recognise them as gods. They believe that ‘god’ is a fallacious concept, and that such a creature cannot exist. To them, any creature calling itself a god is merely a pretender, out to fool and manipulate. They might be powerful, but still a pretender.
The charr believe that deities simply do not exist. Omnipotent, and/or omniscient, and/or omnipresent creatures of worship? Nuh-uh. You won’t get a charr admitting to even the possibility of such a thing. They’d smack that down. They’d want proof of your so called god, and then they’d challenge that proof with every scientific method at their disposal. And every military method, if need be.
Here’s the thing though, those powerful creatures would be considered gods. In Guild Wars the term “god” only implies that the creature is powerful. Don’t confuse the terms “god” and “God.” Most cultures in the past had deities that were nowhere near omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient. The norse gods were mortal, and could be killed in battle. Zeus wouldn’t have gotten away with cheating on Athena so many times if she had been omniscient. Various tales of Greek, Roman, and Norse gods playing tricks on each other, overcoming and challenging one another, and in some cases being killed all exist. It’s really only the god of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam; God (or Allah as the case may be); that is said to be omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
Knowing this, the charr have no reason to claim that the human gods don’t exist because being a god only implies having more power than a mere mortal should. The charr have had firsthand experiences with the human gods and should have no issue in recognizing them as gods. The charr just refuse to worship anything.
You think Adelbern redeemed himself by fighting the Titans – an existential threat to his kingdom? Well, I disagree – even Pawala Joko fought against the Margonites, and he’s a psychotic lich. But even if Adelbern redeemed himself there, he re-condemned himself when, rather than surrender or retreat, he committed genocide himself with the Foefire, killing his entire kingdom and binding their tortured spirits to the land to continue his war for eternity. Adelbern is just as bad as Joko, and Rytlock was right to realize that there’s no negotiating or reasoning with such madness.
Here’s the thing though, the Foefire didn’t happen as part of the Guild Wars story, it happened as part of the Guild Wars 2 story. Adelbern’s actions in Guild Wars paint a picture of a man struggling with his pride, slowly overcoming his personal demons and learning to cope with all that has happened and all that he’s lost. Everything he does is to protect the future of Ascalon and becoming refugees in Kryta was not in the best interest of Ascalon surviving. For a time, it even looked as though Ascalon would survive with the defeat of the titans.
Then we get to Guild Wars 2 and see that not only did Adelbern ultimately fail in his attempt to save Ascalon from destruction, in his final moments he betrayed his loyal subjects and condemned them all to an eternity of restless vengeance. While the Foefire certainly strikes me as something Adelbern could be capable of, it’s a lot like hearing that that one old friend from high school who used to smoke pot but quit was recently picked up in a cocaine bust. It’s believable, but goes against what you were led to believe the character of the person was.
All in all, I think that Anet could have done a much better job of making the charr sympathetic (without being so pushy about it) while not demonizing and kittenizing the characters we came to know and love in Guild Wars.
(edited by Gurt.9368)
Tesler.5783And yes, ranger’s theme IS ranged combat as it clearly states in the profession description, so while they are not exclusively ranged in practice, ranged combat is a part of their theme far more than any other profession’s, which is clearly why the most sniper-like weapon went to the ranger.
The ranger’s theme is and should be a versatile warrior that relies on aid from nature to fight, anything else is secondary. In many games they are the class best able to use a bow, but this is largely due to the versatility of the class and the lack of other classes having viable bow options more than anything else (a warrior should be a better swordsman than a ranger and an archer should be a better bowman than a ranger, most games just don’t have an archer class).
Before anyone gets all “but it has ‘range’ in the name!” on me, allow me to give you a language lesson. The word “ranger” can be traced back to 12th century Middle English, it’s definition was “one who protects, patrols, or frequently travels a range (large tract of land, often suitable for grazing animals).” It was this definition that is used for various military and police groups; and these groups that inspired the Lord of the Rings rangers, which inspired the DnD rangers, the rangers that all fantasy games are based on.
Same thing happened to me, although I did cheese it a little. After 5 hours of tries, I had a mesmer buddy port me with the bomb from the broken bridge to the end. Blew open the chest and couldn’t interact with it.
Sporadicus.1028The primary context is giving YOU a fixed benefit. Most of the elixirs do that. The tossed effect is a secondary context. It’s a random buff that’s designed to help your fellow players in some minor way.
The tossed effect (and all belt skills for that matter) should never be balanced as a secondary effect to a primary skill. The intent of the belt skills is to give us extra utilities because we give up a utility slot for any kit we want to equip, our ability to weapon swap, and any other class mechanic. The belt is intended to be extra utilities and should be treated (and balanced) as such. Perhaps the belt skills as a whole should be weaker than slot skills, but they should never be purposefully weak because the slot skill they come with is strong.
A tossed elixir doesn’t even guarantee that you’ll help an ally. Imagine that you notice someone is down and being shot at by the boss from range. As a good player you realize that you “have a skill for that” (that should be the engineer motto by the way) and toss your Elixir U to give your ally a reprieve from the boss’s attacks while you run over to help him. Whoops, too bad! The Elixir U decided to give you the veil that doesn’t block projectiles and your ally goes defeated. As a player, you made a good play, but the game decided that your skill wasn’t valid in that instance. This is terrible design because it leaves the player frustrated, not to mention small things like this can be the difference between winning and losing the boss fight.
Most all elixirs suffer from some form of this problem, some even in multiple ways. Ever noticed an ally dodge twice with low health and still be focused by a veteran, elite, or champion and tossed him an Elixir H that gave regeneration? Ever purposefully drank an Elixir H early for either protection or regeneration only to receive swiftness? Ever been fleeing from a champion and chugged Elixir H for swiftness or protection only to get regeneration? Ever thrown down Elixir U for a combo field to rack up stacks of confusion or blindness on a melee elite or champ only to see Wall of Reflection? Ever seen an ally about to be sent sailing by an AoE and tossed out an Elixir S to give him stability only to see him go flying? Either me, my friends, or my guildies have all been in these situations before in either PvE or PvP. And these are just off the top of my head.
Sporadicus.1028We’re unique in that we can transfer a little bit of our benefits (elixirs) to others without losing the ability to benefit from them.
This is outright wrong, any class that has an AoE can benefit from the AoE by standing in it. Not to mention that this is basically what the guardian class mechanic is.
Sporadicus.1028In that way, I think that Elixirs (both in tossed and consumed forms) have been created just right.
They haven’t. In a skill based game, any play that could result in a benefit for your team should result in a benefit for your team, provided it is not counter-played by an opposing team. I’m not saying that elixirs should lose all randomness (I wouldn’t be opposed to this however), what I am saying is that all elixirs should have a clear situation to be used in despite their randomness. The Elixir U slot skill is a good example of this: you don’t use it while you’re being focused or when you know the mob can attack everyone at once; by following this simple rule, you mitigate the risk regardless of the specifics of the penalty.
(edited by Gurt.9368)
I tend to partially agree.
While I think that the toolbelt is an interesting class mechanic, I fear that it’s hamstringing the engineer due to balance concerns. With a potential 6 utilities and 2 heals there’s not much room for error between OP and balanced from a developer’s point of view, and yet to us the skills feel UP because we only actually make 3 choices. For example, if I were to choose Rocket Boots because of Rocket Kick, I’m stuck with a fairly bad escape skill that I wouldn’t want to take over something like Elixir S. Additionally, most skills feel like they are deliberately balanced around making either the belt skill good and the slot skill bad or vice versa, which is quite simply a lazy design choice that saps the fun out of skill selection and character building.
The important thing here is that you want to make sure all your moves are exactly on the second marks or else the condition duration is worthless(this is true only for poison/burn/bleed). This is very bad for our pistol 1’s bleed as you need a full 50% increase in bleed duration to get it to another second.
Unless I’m missing something in the mechanics, mathematically you’d need a 100% duration increase to get a bleed of 1 second to last for 2 seconds. 50% increase applied to a base 1 second comes out to 1.5 seconds.
Blast finisher on the healing turret is super useful, plus who the hell uses any of the other turrets? they’re terrible.
“Terrible” doesn’t mean “not fun.”
Sylvari should use organic turrets.
Their rifle would shoot spiky seed pods.
Their rocket launcher would shoot a spiked torpedo like projectile.
I’m not sure how you would make a fire breathing plant though, but let the Devs rise to that challenge!
I don’t think coming up with a plant that shoots fire would be too hard.
http://www.pophate.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/il_430xN.158401314.jpg
The Charr however, design their technology specifically to give the “if I show you this, you know it’s going to hurt you painfully” image.
Sharp metal blades, straight, rigid lines.In my opinion, the default model is what a human would use if they knew what had to be created, but had to improvise with limited materials.
Sortof like making Cannons with mediavel armor making techniques.
Default class aesthetic has been confirmed to be charr designs. The bronze and iron everywhere fit with their building designs too.
A human’s turrets would be more ornate with silver and/or gold. Just look at the Krytan and Lionguard weapons.
wait what. You cared when rytlock insulted Aldebern? I didnt give even a single kitten.
1. Disowns prince who is trying to save ascalonian people
In the time peroid that GW1 is set in to openly question the King’s authority was considered the highest form of insult and in many cases regarded as treason. In most cases such actions were dealt with by immediate execution. This actually went double for those related to the Crown in some way, as the threat of insighting a coup was very real. Rurik, in the presence of the King’s personal guard and rank and file solders called the King a fool and outright stated that staying and fighting would be condemning all Ascalonians to their deaths. The fact that Adelbern didn’t have his son killed right then and there (or a few minutes later when Rurik leaves with Ascalon’s new most treasured resource, people) shows how much he cared for Rurik. Furthermore, the King in the final quest is very obviously upset about his actions and wishes that things hadn’t turned out the way they did.
2. Later im pretty sure he blames you for sons death
Pure unsubstantiated conjecture. He’s bitter that things happened the way they did, but his final dialouge implies he blames himself, not the PC for Rurik’s death.
3. whines at you for vanishing when he’s fighting the titans
Your character deserted the Ascalonian army when you left with Rurik and went off to become a big kittened hero. Of course he’s frusterated that the main story wasn’t saving Ascalon.
4. brings 4 soldiers and himself to fight entire charr army in a tiny 4 man zone and the titans are there too, and you cant let him die! ;__;
When the King dies, Ascalon dies with it. Adelbern did nothing he deserved to die for. He was dealt a bad had and forced to play it the best he could knowing that the fate of an entire nation was on the table. Ultimately, he tried to hold on to too much and he paid for it dearly, but can you really fault him for trying to protect the nation he grew up in? Let’s also not forget the fate of Gwen, she refuses to talk about her time spent in charr captivity and has some severe mental instabilities; these are traits that are quite common to victims of the highest degree of unsolicited forced sexual encounters. Gwen was a child when she was captured. You can do the math on that implication.
5. kills all the ascalonians who survived the first fiery holocaust in another fiery holocaust, trapping their spirits for eternity
This doesn’t happen until Guild Wars 2, where for some reason the writers felt the need to go back and make some of the humans who made questionable choices in the past objectively evil.
Had Adelbern been intended as a bad man in GW1 we wouldn’t have had to protect him in those final quests and his final speech would have much more condemning.
It seems to me that the humans had every intent of wiping out the entire Charr race if they had the chance and the Charr were aware of this and weren’t going to stop until they felt safe. Look at it from a non human perspective. What does the Norn, Sylvari or Asura think of that war? Two races fighting to the death, both performing horrible atrocities, the searing, the foefire and the sinking of Orr, just to gain an upperhand and neither willing to stop until something worse came around. It became a racial issue, an old hate, and neither side was innocent.
But everything we know and have seen imply that’s wrong. In GW1 the war was brought to the humans by the charr. The humans had built a a few cities and a gigantic wall to protect the majority of the countryside from raids. The Great Northern Wall wouldn’t have been constructed had the humans been actively trying to wipe out all the charr, it would have been too large an investment both in cost and construction time. The Wall itself was not built until 898 AE, and it’s position is a good indicator of what the humans at that time felt was necessary to protect from the charr. We’ve seen in GW:EN how much land the charr occupy north of the wall, if the charr control everything from the wall north, the Kingdom of Ascalon seems insignificant (being only a quarter of the size). If everything touched by the searing was firmly human controlled (which cannot be the case due to the existence of the Wall) then the charr lands are about the same size as the human lands, if they don’t spread any further east than shown on the map (not likely).
Do remember that in GW1 we really mainly only get one side of the story (the human one) and we mainly see a charr society under the yoke of a pretty brutal theocracy. Also we need to realise much of current Charr society was shaped by the humans in the first place. The whole reason they looked to the Titans as gods was because they got driven out by the humans.
See, I have a few small problems with this. First of all, before GW:EN it was implied that the charr worshiped the titans because the charr worshiped fire. What would have been wrong with the titans being false gods that the charr so readily accepted because they already worshiped flame and fire? Why do humans need to be the catalyst for every evil action the charr take? When does something they charr did in the past become the fault of the charr and cease to be the fault of humans?
Now, I do realize that all actions have repercussions and that neither the charr nor the humans live in a vacuum, the actions of one race will affect the other. However, making everything that the charr did a direct result of human action is bad writing. Next we’ll be told that charr only ate their prisoners because a charr escapee told horror stories to other charr about humans eating the flesh of other charr prisoners.
Also Adelbern was a stubborn and bitter man back in GW1 when he continually refused add from Kryta even when his people desperately needed it. Instead he ended up cursing almost every human in Ascalon to an eternity of endless hate and conflict.
Here’s the thing, there’s a bit of a disconnect between the lore concerning humans and charr right around the area of GW:EN. The actions of King Adelbern in Prophecies paint the picture of a war-hardened, stubborn old man who would give all (and ultimately did) for his country. Adelbern was not some ruler who sent soldiers to needless deaths, he himself fought on the front-lines with his men to save the only thing he had left: the tattered remains of a once great kingdom. While the Foefire does strike me as something the king in one of his fits of anger would do had he been alone, the King Adelbern I knew wouldn’t have done something like that so lightly, nor would he have condemned his loyal subjects.
Arenanet has writen the story so we hear it from both sides. From the Charr side the humans and their heros are bad guys. In both cases youll find alot of historical inaccuracies. This goes on to much of the lore in game. Orr is full of revelations. All races present history in a very bias way. Humanity is very guilty of this.
Haven’t spent time in Orr, so I can’t really add anything here.
As for the threat of the Dragons, when it comes to Charr/Human relations it is very real for the main parties still fighting. The Dragonbrand passes right past Ebonhawke. For the Ebon Vanguard and the Charr the threat of the dragons is very real and very close to home. For the rest of humanity the Charr invasion of Ascalon is old history. Its a battle long since lost. The fact that Ebonhawke has stood till the Charr have negociated peace is one hell of a testiment to those who defended it.
This has been something that’s always bothered me. It’s been 250 years since the fall of Ascalon, so we’re supposed to not care anymore. The human kingdom of Ascalon was established in 100 BE, after the charr had been pushed out, the Great Northern Wall didn’t fall until 1072 AE; that’s 1172 years of human settlement. Why do humans in game claim the Searing was ancient history and imply that those mad about it have something wrong with them, when the charr have an entire genocide campaign justified to claim lands they hadn’t seen in over a millennium?
Oh great, I just deleted everything before I posted…here we go again. From scatch.
The main difference is the person that’s telling the story. Here you’re looking at it from the charr’s point of view, not the humans. Anet’s tried to make the lore reflect a real-world course of action, and so the charr paint themselves as the heroes. Is there any society that would willingly paint themselves the villains? Aside from that, the affects of the Foefire are much the same as the searing. The entire sieging force of the charr were incinerated. The effects were also longer-standing. You can see how Ascalon has healed from the Searing, and after the initial devastation the land wasn’t much more dangerous than it had been before. However, with the Foefire, after the attacking charr were killed, the ghosts have killed more from then up till now. The death toll on the charr’s end, due to the human’s Foefire, probably exceeds the death toll from the Searing by a good amount by now. Also, it’s a part of their everyday life. They probably all know someone who was killed by the ghosts, so it’s not surprising that they talk about it a lot.
As for Rytlock, I agree that he could’ve handled the situation in the Ascalon Catacombs differently, but that would’ve been a break in his character. He’s a confrontational type, and it’s by Adelbern’s actions that many of the soldiers under him have been killed. As for fighting on the side of the King, it has been mentioned in the books that the ghosts see all the living as invaders, aka Charr. Given that, no truce would have been possible. And even though it’s a character that says that, the actions of the ghosts when confronted with the living throughout the books consists of “It’s the Charr! Attack!”
And for Loyalty? Wouldn’t he be showing Loyalty by trying to take out the threat to his people in the best way he knows how? He doesn’t trust the promises of living humans, so why would he try to strike a deal with a dead one?
Rurik is called a tyrant? Where? I don’t remember that one…
Bonfaz Burntfur is revered as a great hero because he was a great leader in the fight against the humans. Just because a charr was from the flame legion doesn’t meant that when they split, all the heroes before then were erased. There are still some, even shortly before the foefire (whatever that warband was that witnessed it, don’t have my book at the moment) who are hailed as heroes because of what they did for the Charr as a whole.
Hope I was clear on what I’m trying to say for the most part. Cheers!
I can certainly see your point about hearing about the charr from the charr point of view and getting a very biased opinion of them, but it feels to me like the charr point of view is considered to be the “correct” point of view. To me it’s almost akin to telling me that there’s a correct set of political views to have. Almost like someone forcing their political or religious views on others. This is especially prevalent in human quests where we’re told to drum up support for the human-charr peace treaty. Perhaps I only grudgingly accept the treaty because of the threat of dragons? The charr view of the treaty seems to be one of grudging acceptance due to dragons while the official human one is more about needing it to survive or not being able to ever defeat the charr.
In AC Adelbern mistakes Rytlock, a living charr, for his own son; at the very least this would imply that Adelbern has some sense of self and can distinguish that not all beings are either charr or traitors. If Solothin had been given to a human to take the role of the prince maybe the curse could have been lifted, undone by the same person who cast it. It certainly would have made for more interesting writing in my opinion.
Rurik is called a tyrant by a charr who stands near the Stormcaller in Black Citadel when spoken to. This is an otherwise very knowledgeable (if biased) charr that gives an extremely unflattering account of the events of Nolani Academy.
Finally, I’m not frustrated because the charr are biased towards charr, but more because of the slander of old, beloved, well-written characters. These are some of the only accounts that some players will ever see of Prince Rurik and King Adelbern, two very well-written characters from GW1. Furthermore, building up old foes that you’ve defeated is common practice in history: the stronger the foes you’ve defeated, the stronger you must be to have beaten them.
What you are suggesting would make Engineer identical to Elementalist, since Ele’s attunements (our kits) are located above the skill bar and ultility skills are in their normal location, and with Engineer that is reversed. So that ain’t gonna happen.
I do like the idea of having dedicated pool of tool belt skills though, but I don’t think ANet will consider doing it, since they probably don’t want to reduce a class mehcanic to simply some additional utility skills. Guardian has something like that, and I agree with its critics that its kind of dull that way.
I think simple reworking of some kits and skills, both utility and toolbelt, is the best solution.
When I say “throw the kit skills up there” I’m referring to adding the kits to a pool of belt skills that we choose to slot.
While I can certainly understand the argument that simply having more utilities as a class mechanic could be considered by some to be dull, I would have to respectfully disagree. Being able to effectively slot 6 or 7 utilities (with the belt skills being weaker than slot skills, for balance) would add much more customization and depth to the build you choose to use and in my opinion wouldn’t really take anything from what we have now. As it stands now I’m forced to take a toss elixir skill that I may not like if I want to take an elixir, while if they were to make the change I suggested I could take all elixirs on my bar and nothing but weapon kits in my toolbelts. This would also fix a problem that I never see anyone bring up: using kits lowers the number of utilities you can actually use.
In my opinion, the toolbelt is a fundamentally flawed mechanic and the engineer would be better off with a new (but similar) class mechanic. Getting two utilities for the price of one sounds nice on paper, but doesn’t allow for any of the engineer utilities to be as strong or meaningful as the utilities that other classes enjoy. Because balance is an imperfect process there will always be cases where the toolbelt skill is much better than the slot skill. All too often I feel like I’m choosing my utilities based on the half of the skill that’s good and just ignoring the other half. This is not a fun system.
I’d much prefer we simply had a pool of abilities that were dedicated belt skills that we could pick and choose and have everything balanced accordingly. Could even throw all of the kits up there so they acted and felt more like real weapons (and could be balanced accordingly) instead of taking up a utility skill. Does anyone else feel this way?
1) Switch to bomb kit.
2) Run away from foe.
3) Spam skills while running.
4) Cue Benny Hill.
I’d like to start off by saying that as a whole I love the GW2 lore. Almost all of the background material comes together in a nice fulfilling way with references to GW1 that drum up mild feelings of nostalgia. For this, I cannot give more praise to Anet. All of that said, I have some pretty serious issues with parts of the charr lore.
Now, I know that charr needed to be the bad guys in GW1 and that any bad guy is going to be fairly demonized by both the story and those who associate with the story. Because of this, and my love of the first games story and lore, I have a very strong anti-charr bias. I try to remember my bias when I see things that annoy me and let things slide but there are some things that just don’t mesh.
First and foremost, the one thing that annoys me the most: the change in how we, the players, are supposed to view the charr. The first big thing that happens in GW1 is the searing, an event where the charr rain the equivalent of a nuclear holocaust down upon the entirety of the human kingdom of Ascolon. The searing killed an untold number of innocents and many went mad from the trauma of it all. We then learn through quests and other lore that the charr continue their assault both South into Orr and West to Kryta with the purpose of wiping mankind off the face of Tyria in a massive genocide campaign. In GW2 we are told that the charr are simply taking back land they had settled and been pushed off of by humans. Despite a land dispute hardly justifying attempted genocide, I could live with the charr having taken the land and being completely and totally unapologetic about the means by which they took the land if that was all it was, but it isn’t. The way the char intro and other pieces present the lore makes it seem as though I’m supposed to support the charr and their methods, and that I’m a kitten if I think that the charr are kittens or use some very kitten-y tactics. The constant whining about the whole foefire situation doesn’t help my opinion of them either. I’d personally like the charr much more if I could just call them kittens and be done with it.
Second, Rytlock is an insufferable kitten. I seriously hate this guy. I was on the fence for a while, despite not liking the charr race as a whole, I thought Pyre Fierceshot was a pretty cool guy and I wanted to like Rytlock too. But insulting Adelbern the way he did in Ascolon Catacombs was simply crossing the line. Our first time seeing evidence that the vengeful spirits may know something other that hate, and a possible chance to lift the curse and Rytlock decides to goad the King into attacking. While Adelbern is anything but reasonable, he more than redeems himself in GW1 when you stand with him in battle against the titans. Not to mention he has nothing but regret for his actions concerning his son, whom the good King mistook Rytlock for at first. It would have been very possible to use a ruse to calm the spirits at the very least, if outright negotiations weren’t possible (I’m inclined to disbelieve Rytlock on this point). Had I, as a human, personally been present in that fight knowing what I know about the searing and foefire and seeing Adelbern’s reaction to Rurik’s sword, I would have fought on the side of the king. No doubt about it. Finally, at least one aspect of Rytlock’s character doesn’t make sense: out of everyone in DE Rytlock should be most understanding of holding loyalty to one’s ruler and people above all else.
Third, Rurik was not under any definition of the word a tyrant. While I won’t try and say that the charr should love and adore (or simply not demonize) Rurik, he never ruled over any people and everything he did was to safeguard a people he loved and cared about. Nothing about that says “TYRANT.” It would be so much more believable (and accurate) for the charr to call him a brutal warlord who took no prisoners, or for them to claim he was a brilliant tactician and expert fighter who was ultimately scared away by the might of the charr war machine. Furthermore, Bonfaz Burntfur was Flame Legion, why do the charr, a group who is distrukittenl of magic because of bad ties in the past, revere him as some kind of great hero? If anything they should be glad that Rurik killed him because of the blow it dealt to the Flame Legion.
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