Guild Wars 2

Vyrulisse.1246:

Love the map and the mechanics involved. The story this part was kinda flat. The Braham stuff was so silly and ridiculous. Either write our character as more than a doormat or give us some interaction to let us do it ourselves. It’s starting to get old that our character just takes these insults and stuff without defending themselves.

If you plan on having us “explode” in the future and give our character a chance to say our piece then that’s fine but it’s just annoying at this point to see it happening.

There is zero reason Braham should be so hostile toward us and it felt forced for “dramatic effect” or whatever. There was zero buildup to what happened and the response by our character was ridiculously lacking.

P-p-please Braham don’t hurt me -I’ll do better next time.

From the guy who literally went and killed Mordremoth. And saved Tarir. And so on and so forth.
I really love it how we let him say whatever and do whatever.
Commander doormat.

Rod.6581:

Tyloric.7520:

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Story is garbage, but all this cutesy stuff is really killing the release. Why the kitten do you need to put all this cutesy BS in the patches?! Ember Bay was one big joke all around, between skritts and frikkin clowns and OMG that stupid Aurene. Bloodstone Fen was much, much better. Atm the top 3 of your 3 releases is 1. Bloodstone Fen, 2. Bloodstone Fen, 3. Bloodstone Fen.

And why is Braham hating you? You literally killed the thing that killed his mom, and he was there too. You can crap out “explanations” but that doesn’t mean they stick. So much potential, all to waste.

That’s a lot of venom :O

The man is just being honest. I feel the same way.

Pretty much on point. You avenged his mother – yet there’s no sympathy, no thankfulness.

And if he lost his mother – shouldn’t he care more about not losing others? Would he not be more mature and less inclined to rush head on?
I mean – that’s basically what the pact did at the end of LS 2 and look how that ended up – it is literally what killed his mother – along with the pact.
And yet he seems to acknowledge none of this.

It’s funny that some people say he got “growth” and “development” when in the end he’s the same “Braham angry, Braham smash” character he was in HoT.
They just gave him a new Batman costume.

I had that too – it really ruins the flow of things.

I feel it is too “light hearted”. We could have had the same sequence done in a different theme.

Instead of “look I’m training this puppy” it would have been more like “look I’m fighting alongside this fearsome creature and through that we will create an unbreakable bond of trust and respect and become fierce allies”.

I fully agree we need to shape the way the small dragon sees the world if we are to have it fight on our side.
I disagree with the way it was handled.

It’s supposed to be a powerful being of great power – and it is portrayed in game like a puppy or some other cuddly creature.
That’s sad and immersion breaking for me.

I dislike the name.
I dislike the design.
It looks too cartoony and the name fits that look I guess but it’s not what I feel this should have been.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Baby_Dragon

I feel this was the superior design – it’s a small dragon that I can take seriously and actually believe is powerful and worth my allegiance.

I’d call it Aldragar or something. Or Aeseria.

They are like that because of PvP.

Take rampage on warrior for example. Great skill. Lasts 15 seconds and takes a LONG while to recharge.
Worthless in PvE – but if you make the cooldown lower or the duration longer it would be really really strong in PvP.

Mechanically:

The story is buggy in multiple points – also there are areas where it is not easily clear what you have to do to progress.
Bonus: Final instance has the ice pillars disappear so you can’t tell if they’re broken or not.
QA dropped the ball pretty hard – it was a frustrating experience fighting with the bugs.

Also – how come everything we do story-wise is the same – move – kill some mobs – move – kill some mobs – over and over in EVERY instance.
The gathering of stuff is good – but it takes up WAY too much inventory space for stuff that could have just been ticked on a list.

Thematically:
The new map looks amazing – both night and day – fair weather or storm – the visuals are TOP NOTCH.
But then everything is ruined since you set up this great notion of “this wilderness full of dangers in the frozen north” and fill it up with Tyria’s most inept race – the quaggans.
They’re surviving just fine and it is immersion breaking to no end. Everywhere I go – quaggan.
It completely ruins a great map for me – would have been 10/10 without the useless quaggans – in its current state I can’t give it more than a 6.5/10.

Not every map has to have comic relief cutsey races – please stop shoving them down our throats. A very vocal part of the player base loves them – I get that. But they don’t need to be in the most dangerous places on the map breaking immersion 24/7.

Story:
The story is pretty interesting – not a lot of twists or anything. Braham is insufferable (which I guess was what they were going for – they nailed it) but I hate that we can’t actually tell him off and just twiddle our metaphorical thumbs in front of him like a dazed schoolgirl.

Some “commander” we ended up being.

New map elements:
I like that you get the new map currency FASTER than in other maps.
The new mechanic with the torches is – meh. I wasn’t really interested and it didn’t feel integral to the map – just tacked on.

Overall – 5/10.

Acnologia.6934:

Wonderfull… just wonderfull. That istance is amazing. This mission is the truly incarnation of the gw2 community. Ready to aid the others. Generous with those who need. Friendly and joyfull ^^. Those trials are just a welcome to Aurene into our community. And i love it. Gg anet ;D

I honestly fully disliked it. And I use dislike because I didn’t want to use hate – but I feel i lean more towards that.
It’s really immersion breaking and really doesn’t fit the tone of what they’re setting up at all.
I find it hard to accept the fact that we’re facing daunting odds and a difficult fight ahead when I’m playing train the puppy with the world’s most anime dragon.
It doesn’t fit -at least for me.

I would honestly like to see less of this nonsense in the future.

I do agree the game needs more end-game content, more end-game skins to chase or things to do.
Even cool titles might be fun – players that have done a lot of the things in game right now still need something to pursue.

I was hoping the new legendary would be one – but turns out it’s a joke of a legendary. Would never make it.

That aside – I want to address all those saying “take a break” or “play less”.
It is NOT in Anets interest for highly invest players to play less or take a break – it is in Anet’s and the game’s interest that we keep playing and play a lot – and enjoy ourselves while we’re at it.

The “veteran” players are those that create a solid backbone to incorporate new players. They organize runs, they organize events, they build guilds and communities. They’re the ones that answer questions in map chat. They’re the ones that show off high-end stuff making new players go: “wow – I want to get that – I want to have what that guy has”.

Without them the game isn’t heading in a good direction.
People leave MMOs – that’s true – but the more leave the more things go south.

Honestly – the game is fine as is.

Elite skills are nothing to write home about but reducing CD would create a LOT of power creep.
And nerfing them to compensate would mean they would be as weak as a regular skill – so why call it elite?

I don’t see a good way to fix this without a complete overhaul – which they’ll never do.
Overhauling elite skills means they’d have to change the way classes balance against each other in PvP – where they’re already having issues and a very fragile balance has just been implemented.

It IS a waste of dev time.
They have already given you plenty of options:

1. Cleared instance.
2. NPC that catches you up and explains what happened in the raid.

The shield is one of the most horrid things I have ever seen. It is a waste of concept and execution.

That aside – the really really ruined my hopes with this – this shield means that the “joke legendaries” are not over and any future legendary can end up being ruined.

Ty for the immersion breaking and terrible shield Anet.

I have not seen one player complain about human heavy cultural T3 as a heavy armor design. Same with the Phalanx Heavy armor.

That aside – I’m not asking for a redesign – I’m asking for a “non-spiky” mode – that looks like the out of combat mode permanently. That they can do most certainly.

Also considering the medium and light versions are still ages away there could be reason to believe a redesign could be possible. I doubt they would have to scrap 100% of it.

Nefarius.9702:

As the topic title says, I think the accessibility to raids really is an issue.

You probably know it yourself if you’ve ever checked the lfg-tool for raids:
LFP experienced [insert class here] with X LI and TS³

Nearly any request looks similar to this, implying inexperienced raid players likely have no chance to join.

Also, these without wanting to use TS (I’m personally not too keen talking with foreign people about a certain game content) are somewhat excluded.

I myself did VG when the raids where somewhat new, it took me really long (several days) to find a group picking me up without “exp and li”, and even afterwards several of the groups I found didn’t succeed, because people were too inexperienced – a doom loop.

Sure, that’s not bad for gaining experience; but still – you gotta lie when you’re entering a group that requires more experience (and even they usually require a gear check of your LI).

Anyways, after what seemed like ages with different (inexperienced) groups and tries we managed to get the VG down.

That was pretty much my only goal yet, until the legendary armor was previewed.
It simply shouldn’t be that top tier content is limited to a small percentage of players.

And that really is the case – I’m in a large guild and roughly 5-10% are successfully, experienced raiders.

Other people (and I think that’s reflecting in the rest of the gw2 community) simply don’t get into raids – cause of the reasons mentioned above.

You’d have to join a somewhat professional raid guild to be really succesful.

Sure – some of the really ambitioned players will likely pop up now and prove me wrong, telling me their story of becoming a good raid player on their own, but that’s a minority.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m neither blaming the community (cause raids are challening) nor do I criticize the severity – All I would like is to make the start, the access easier for players new to raids – even without guild.
To allow a larger group access to a crucial (and now with the legendary armor even more) part of the game.

And here’s why you’re wrong.
The content is not limited – you can access it every time you want.
The ITEMS from raids are locked behind succeeding at raids – but even that isn’t truly a “limit” since you can easily buy a spot on teams that do clears for gold.

You can do literally anything else in the game, ( yes, including the TP) and get raid rewards by buying clears.
Is it the most cost-effective way? No it isn’t – but raid costs have gone down since a lot of players are now familiar with them.

This means there is no hard wall stopping you from getting your Legendary Armor. There’s a SOFT wall that is slowing you down – and that’s fine.
You should not get the armor at the same time or with the same expenses as the people that actually have the skill and dedication to raid.

Also – since when did you expect to be able to do something hard without trying to improve and finding people that are also good?
Most experienced raiders are in at least ONE raiding guild. Most raiding guilds offer not only guides but teaching runs and are willing to train a decent and willing player as part of a static group.

Yes – people of LFG won’t take you. But join a strong guild, ask for help and most likely you’ll get it.
My guild does training runs and teaches people. Others do as well.

To allow a larger group easier access to raid rewards would be foolhardy.
You already have access to them. You can go in – you can buy your ticket on a good team that can clear without you having to participate and there you go – raid rewards.

You want it both CHEAP and EASY – and that’s just not how it should be.

I agree – Most elements that appear when going into “combat mode” are bad. I hope there’s a “non-combat” permanent mode to keep the armor in.

I would hate to have those useless spikes all over my character. Not to mention the funny ears on the helm.

So before the negative posters in this thread go “oh it’s easy to criticize – how would you make legendary armor huh?”

Well I’d have made it like this:

http://imgur.com/a/Y4fwb
http://imgur.com/a/0uHl3

Either one of those – with the effects of:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infinite_Light

The effects would be plastered all over the armor. You would be able to dye the runes any color. You could toggle a command to have them “flow” all over the armor.

That’s what I’d have made.

Tsumiju.3071:

Harper.4173:

I have fun raiding. I enjoyed doing it before we had the armor. I’ll do it afterwards too.

You can get the armor without raiding – you can buy clears. It’s not that hard.

No you can’t – if raid parties won’t take a good player who doesn’t use the exact special snowflake meta build of the month then I doubt the chances of a low contribution character just there for rewards will get to go along either.

What part of PAID spot don’t you get?
They won’t take you to contribute – they’ll take you because you’ll be paying them a few hundred gold.
You can get it – you might not feel it’s worth the cost – but you can.

Or you can do this – find like minded friend and do Escort together with them. It will be slow but W3 Encounter 1 has no timer – so technically you don’t need meta builds or great plays. Slow and steady wins the race.

Zephyra.4709:

Appearance 4/10: It’s like I’m staring at an Adventure Quest monster or some kind of Transformer for the latter; something a pre-teen might find appealing due to the plethora of overly obnoxious spikes ANet seems to always enjoy plastering onto either the shoulders and/or chausses/tassets (especially the chausses because I feel like it’s presented as a mirror Mistward leg armor lazy feature). Generic western game armor design overall. There’s so many freelance artists out there who’s passion is creating absolutely epic, draw-dropping armor concepts with unique layers/embroidery yet this design feels like a cheap action figure out of a cereal packet. I would’ve suggested browsing the web a bit more and/or digging into some old-school games for more inspiration.

I had to quote this – it really really sums up the design really really well.

Electro.4173:

Harper.4173:

Hank.4839:

I love the idea of the animation. It’s sick. The design of the armor is.. terrible. Looks so cheap and gem store-y. If they just went with cleaner looks once.. I so miss GW1 armors.

Exactly this.
Not every armor has to be a spikefest.
Not every armor has to have unique “stuff” to make it super “rad”.

It’s okay for armor to be just that – ARMOR. It’s ok for it to be recognizable as armor.
Like I said before – Human cultural T3 armor is some of the best heavy armor in game – almost all human heavy players have used it extensively because it looks great – it feels great and is a well polished set that doesn’t scream “i’m 13 and I like SUPER EXTREME STUFF”.

Not everything has to be a big spikey detail-filled set, no.

But I’m not sure how you’d get a meaningful animated transformation on a more “basic” armor set. If the whole point is being minimalistic and realistic, then what kind of animations could you really have? For such animations to have a large visible impact, it almost seems like you need a lot of details and over-the-top modelling.

I agree and don’t agree with you. Animation can still be implemented without adding spikes and funny ears to things. The visor animation for example is fine.
So are some of the others.

Sthenith.5196:

If you talk to people ingame, and if you read comments carefully, you’ll notice that although some might like it, some don’t and some are in-between, the obvious and probably overlooked comment by Anet on this, is that a lot of players are disappointed because legendary armor is gated behind a facet of the game most don’t like : raiding.

It’s not really the “cost” that bothers people. It’s not even the “look” (that’s personal preferrence and can be hidden behind an outfit), it’s the fact Anet decided that raiding is the only way to get it.

Why would i go for something like a fractal backpack or mawdrey, when in less time and with less effort i can get an equal or better (stat-choice) backpack from a map like bloodstone fen? (i do have mawdrey cause that at least gave me different things to do)

Why would i go farm my kitten off and pay through the nose for an equipment that doesn’t give me anything better then i already have ? Is it to show people how much of a no-lifer i am that i pour countless hours, and probably cash, into something that i don’t even need, let alone like ?

I’m not a raider, never will be because i hate it as much as i hate it in any other mmo i’ve played over the years. To those that love raiding, gratz in getting an armor (if you can) you want, but most important, did you have fun getting forced into that gamemode for it ? Most of us aren’t to happy about that, even the hardcore ones.

p.s. : legendary weapons used to be “tha bomb”, now they’re just annoying with their effects. Guess Anet didn’t learn from that at all.
“ooh, look, legendary armor.”
“great, more lag, who gives a F.”

I have fun raiding. I enjoyed doing it before we had the armor. I’ll do it afterwards too.

You can get the armor without raiding – you can buy clears. It’s not that hard.

OriOri.8724:

Harper.4173:

Squee.7829:

What I get from the complaints is, this armor is good, but not quite good enough for the effort. Part of it has to do with small parts or details that just make it silly or over the top. And while most of these complaints are centered around the shoulders or helmet, both parts you can opt to hide, or just replace with another skin entirely, maybe a better option would have been to release multiple legendary armor skins for each armor class. This way people can have a wider base to mix and match with and still have armor that moves together. Instead of running around without shoulders and a helmet. Or watching your armor go into battle porcupine mode while your re-skinned shoulders just lie flat.

I personally don’t understand the “it’s no better than ascended armor, so why bother” complaint though, since I’m willing to bet half or more commentors have a legendary weapon or two.

I get that these complaints seem minor – but I would like to add a few things.
Yes I can hide the shoulders and helmet – the point is this: this is my legendary armor – I should not want to hide any of it.
I get that some people like that over-the-top stuff – but give us options. Give us the chance to choose between that over the top helmet and a less over the top one.

Those ears – and those spikes on the shoulders look ridiculous and honestly ruin things. Same thing on the knees.

You had a good thing going – stop where it’s good.

They will never get an armor skin that appeals to everyone in the game. This is just a fact that you will have to accept. It sucks that you don’t like this one but they wouldn’t be able to please everyone no matter how hard they tried. Just wait for them to make a new set, it shouldn’t take as long as the first one did once they finish it, because now they will know how much work it takes and be able to assign resources accordingly.

Harper.4173:

Exciton.8942:

It cannot be too perfect.
If legendary armor become the end-all armor, then fashion war loses one of its main drive to keep people playing.

This is wrong honestly. Very few people will actually have it.

It’s sad that 4 years after release the best heavy armor skin for humans is STILL Cultural T3 followed by the Phalanx Heavy Armor skin.

There is so much work and polish put into those sets – with a few effects they could easily be legendary tier.

This is all your personal opinion. Many like the armor, and consider it the best skin so far. You can’t speak for the entire game or its population like this.

All I’m saying is that they should deliver options – the option to not have the spikes and large ears on the helm should be there.

Legendary armor is not a gem-store outfit. It’s not some regular suit of armor in game either. It’s a very rare, very niche thing that people have to work for A LOT in order to get.

Anet should do their absolute best to ensure that people that do get that armor (who are very dedicated players) feel happy and content with it.

I never said rework it – I said give us a toned-down version as well – so maybe the part of the player base that doesn’t want to be a walking pin cushion has a chance to wear something cool.

Legendary armor should not be something I want to reskin.

Hank.4839:

I love the idea of the animation. It’s sick. The design of the armor is.. terrible. Looks so cheap and gem store-y. If they just went with cleaner looks once.. I so miss GW1 armors.

Exactly this.
Not every armor has to be a spikefest.
Not every armor has to have unique “stuff” to make it super “rad”.

It’s okay for armor to be just that – ARMOR. It’s ok for it to be recognizable as armor.
Like I said before – Human cultural T3 armor is some of the best heavy armor in game – almost all human heavy players have used it extensively because it looks great – it feels great and is a well polished set that doesn’t scream “i’m 13 and I like SUPER EXTREME STUFF”.

Exciton.8942:

It cannot be too perfect.
If legendary armor become the end-all armor, then fashion war loses one of its main drive to keep people playing.

This is wrong honestly. Very few people will actually have it.

It’s sad that 4 years after release the best heavy armor skin for humans is STILL Cultural T3 followed by the Phalanx Heavy Armor skin.

There is so much work and polish put into those sets – with a few effects they could easily be legendary tier.

Squee.7829:

What I get from the complaints is, this armor is good, but not quite good enough for the effort. Part of it has to do with small parts or details that just make it silly or over the top. And while most of these complaints are centered around the shoulders or helmet, both parts you can opt to hide, or just replace with another skin entirely, maybe a better option would have been to release multiple legendary armor skins for each armor class. This way people can have a wider base to mix and match with and still have armor that moves together. Instead of running around without shoulders and a helmet. Or watching your armor go into battle porcupine mode while your re-skinned shoulders just lie flat.

I personally don’t understand the “it’s no better than ascended armor, so why bother” complaint though, since I’m willing to bet half or more commentors have a legendary weapon or two.

I get that these complaints seem minor – but I would like to add a few things.
Yes I can hide the shoulders and helmet – the point is this: this is my legendary armor – I should not want to hide any of it.
I get that some people like that over-the-top stuff – but give us options. Give us the chance to choose between that over the top helmet and a less over the top one.

Those ears – and those spikes on the shoulders look ridiculous and honestly ruin things. Same thing on the knees.

You had a good thing going – stop where it’s good.

Rognik.2579:

Harper.4173:

I hope there’s a way to keep it from going into that “in combat” mode

There is. It’s called “don’t enter combat”. :p

But on a more serious note, it looks kind of cool, and yet kind of bulky. Is that just the heavy armor version, or are there different ones for light and medium? How are they going to look? Will they have a similar gimmick of in-combat and out-of-combat looks as well?

It looks fine in “normal mode” – I just don’t want that combat mode thing forced on me because it makes the helm look bad.
The ear things that pop out of the side ruin it.
The visor that closes and everything else is fine.
The only thing I really feel are bad about it are the really really over the top big spikes that come from the shoulders and knees and those ear-like things that pop out of the helm.
They take something cool and do too much and push it into “too much” territory.

You can get Legendary armor without “playing” raids once. You don’t have to participate – you can play the TP all you want, or cash to gems to gold all you want and buy runs for the LIs.

You have alternative ways of getting it.
They just aren’t cheap.

Paid spot is best spot!

This is a holiday – not raids. It’s here to be fun and farmable.

It looks acceptable – in the “normal mode” – once you go in combat and it does that transformation at least to me it goes into “full joke mode” and I honestly am disappointed.

I hope there’s a way to keep it from going into that “in combat” mode – because I feel the normal one is decent enough. If there isn’t – it’s a real shame – but I’ll just reskin over it and call it a day.

I am pretty sorry to say that the armor is disappointing to me – the “combat mode” look completely ruins it.
It could be salvaged ( and I hope this is the case) if one can choose between the “normal” mode ( the out of combat mode shown in the video) and the other “in combat mode” but honestly – if you can’t – then for me it’s a total loss.

It’s a shame too – was one of the few things I was really looking forward to in GW2 right now.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Harper.4173:

And if they are distinct then ONE has to be easier. And that will be the meta – and the rest won’t matter as far as PUGs are concerned at least.

That’s not how people behave. If there are 10 builds and one is far superior to the others, then of course it will become meta. But if one is 1% more efficient and the second is 20% more fun and the third is 30% easier to play, then the most skilled will gravitate towards the first, while others will gravitate towards the other two.

Meta isn’t defined to be the most efficient possible build; it’s just the most popular and there are oodles of reasons for builds to be popular. One current example are MM necros in fractals: this isn’t efficient, but it’s highly effective especially when PUGging. That’s why so many people want to run 4 necros + a druid: it gets the job done quickly enough However, people who know fractals better can and will run entirely different comps.

tl;dr diversity and metas are more complicated than someone stating that “this build is best”.

---

I don’t happen to agree with the OP’s thesis either: we don’t know that raid diversity is dead until we give people 2-3 weeks to figure out what works, what’s fun, and what’s efficient. It took a while to establish the current meta and it will take a while for people to adapt to the current game. Of course, in the early days, people are going to do what they think is easiest, which will probably be less diverse than what we saw last week.

You might think that – but if one is 30% easier then pretty much everyone will be doing that one.
Raid timers are short – 1-5-10% faster doesn’t matter unless you’re trying to do a speed clear video.
For the vast majority of players the EASIER method would be meta. Yes super high-end guilds might occasionally do something else – but it would be virtually irrelevant to the rest of the players.

Look at FOTM – look at T4’s daily necro only. Is it the fastest? No. But people run it – most people run it because it’s easy.

My point is your point and it is this – regardless of encounter design for one reason or another one way of doing that encounter will become “meta” and the few people that want to play differently aren’t worth (IMO) the development time to make different approaches to the same encounter.

Astralporing.1957:

DeceiverX.8361:

All the PvE players, screaming for roles, demanding that the berserker meta is the devil and support should be made viable

Erm, i’m afraid you are mixing different suggestions from different sources together. Raid crowd mostly (thought not all) did ask for required roles, to mirror their prior games raid experience, but Raiders are not “all the PvE players”. Most of the PvE crowd didn’t like dps meta not because they wanted other roles to be required, they just wanted them to be useful (so you could choose what to play). Creating obligatory support roles and dedicated healers was the exact opposite of that.

DeceiverX.8361:

There never was diversity, and there never will be. There will always be a mathematical optimum.

Sure. What is important however is how much that optimum is better than its contenders.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

And that’s not what I typed, nor implied. Professions should have their niches, strengths, and high points, but that doesn’t mean any of those should always be required. There should be more than one way to skin a Gorseval.

Exactly.
Unfortunately, Raids strongly promote optimizing DPS output over all other options.

afrocrusade.4253:

Running into a raid with 10 engineers should not work for obvious reasons.

And those “obvious” reasons are?

Harper.4173:

And that could certainly be made to happen – the thing is – even if there were 3, 5 or 10 ways to skin a Gorseval it would not matter.
They could not be the exact same way because then they would not be distinct.
And if they are distinct then ONE has to be easier. And that will be the meta – and the rest won’t matter as far as PUGs are concerned at least.

Yes, one should be easiest. One should be fastest. Those two however should never be the same. That way, there would be multiple meta options, depending on group goals. One option would be picked if the group would just want to complete the encounter as safely as possible, another if they wanted to do it fast, another if they were after certain achieve, and few others if the group wanted to mix those goals.

But you have that. Look at Gorseval.
You can no-updraft or updraft. And you could bring 4-4-2 or 7-2-1. Aren’t those options?

Agreed! Those weapons are the ones I’m thinking of!

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

afrocrusade.4253:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

-snip-

Things should all have their niches and high points, saying all classes should be capable of all of the same things is quite silly.

And that’s not what I typed, nor implied. Professions should have their niches, strengths, and high points, but that doesn’t mean any of those should always be required. There should be more than one way to skin a Gorseval.

~EW

And that could certainly be made to happen – the thing is – even if there were 3, 5 or 10 ways to skin a Gorseval it would not matter.
They could not be the exact same way because then they would not be distinct.
And if they are distinct then ONE has to be easier. And that will be the meta – and the rest won’t matter as far as PUGs are concerned at least.

So then – where is the diversity?
You can 6 man VG – so technically ANY comp can beat it most likely – but how many crazy comps have you seen at VG?
The theoretical possibility is there – and people just don’t care. They go with what works best.

Headpiece looks great – the rest of it is just decent.
Why can’t we mix and match this headpiece with our regular armor again?

I remember when Elite skills used to be the defining element in a build – of course this was back in GW1.

In GW2 they don’t feel “elite” at all – they’re just a skill slot with a restricted set of options. None of them feel particularly good, strong or things that I would care very much about.

Yes some of them are useful in different situations – but they are not game-changing.
The bigger problem I see is that they are not FUN. I do not look forward to using it – I never feel that “things are going bad better use my elite to turn things around” is something that happens.
Elite skills are somewhat decent gameplay-wise but they lack that “wow” factor – the way they are now I feel that they should be called “additional” or “auxiliary” or even “extra” skills – but not elite.

If I make the effect – I want to see it.
If others make it – I want to be able to choose if I see it or not. Simple as that.

There are many skills in this situation across all the professions. So yeah – it would be nice to see a change!

Anet doesn’t have to do anything about it.
Ping stacks!

Would be good – but I think they also wanted to cut down on the amount of options for balance issues.
Much easier to balance 2-3-4 good builds for each class then balance 10 good builds for each class.

Would it be possible to have a toggle for weapons that change their appearance depending on whether it is day or night in game?

It would be a good QOL thing and I doubt it would be too hard to do. I also believe it would improve all weapons in this category massively since currently you have no control over what skin is shown when.

Is there perhaps already a means to do this that I am unaware of?

What do you guys think – would this be a good idea? – I for one desperately want to use the AC GS skins but greatly dislike the night time versions.

FlOwMaKeRs.8623:

I have 4 months playing guild wars 2 and I think I can make an opinion of it.

I’ll be honest, I never had an experience in MMO like Guild Wars 2 (PVE Content – Living World), is just beautiful.

But there are other things that upset me a lot, including WvW & PVP. I will not talk about it, everyone knows whats poppin.

All I want to talk here is about the Specializations. In this game you’re forced to use 1 meta build in different modes, YOU don’t have the freedom to create your own BUILD, They’re gonna scold you if you don’t have that " Bored Meta Build " unlike the Guild Wars (Original & others MMO’s) you could run soooo many crazy build’s and be successful but in Guild Wars 2 you have (1 class = 1 build) and then a massive amount of useless traits and skills.

You can have 3 specializations available in your build and then only 5 skills on your bar, really? is that enough for you?.. is just boring to use the same 3 traitlines on a class and the same weapon for 4+ MONTHS. You can’t customize your primary weapon skills with your secondary, or vice versa. You can’t edit your traits and skills as you want. Everything is like in “automatic” just click here & click there, there you got, done.

I’m sorry, but I think this game is very simple to me.

Sadly the game wasn’t like this initially.
During its early times – in concepts and alphas the game had a much more complex attribute system. Even at launch the trait system allowed for more combinations.
The short of it is this – the more complicated building your character is the more bad players playing ineffective builds and generally being bad you’re going to have.

Anet wants people to enjoy the game easily – to pick it up and play it without needing to theorycraft ( or even think – in most cases) because that means MORE people can play it – and that means MORE money.

So the game was made easier and easier and easier until we have what we have now.

Obsidian.1328:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Well, there was a reason and they saw it as “good enough” – their ‘gods’ told them to. Without the titans (aka Abaddon’s forces) telling them to, they probably wouldn’t have – but at the same time they wouldn’t have had the Searing Cauldrons either.

Oh come now Konig, you know that’s not true. The Titans gave them the power to invade humanity, not the purpose. The Charr had a thousand-year score to settle with humanity ever since they took over the area that would become Ascalon. They sought out the Titans because humanity apparently had the Six on their side and they wanted their own advantage. They also didn’t distinguish between human kingdoms, so a beef with Ascalons was a beef with all of humanity.

Djahlat.9610:

Well, it wasn’t necessarily retconned, but we realized how biased lore was to make it human-centric. Now that the Priory got multiracial, things were bound to be rewritten because they were simply wrong.
The story of Ascalon follows: as a human in GW1, Charr are the invador against which we have to defend, while in fact the Charr were there first, and the humans are the actual conquerors.
Kinda like in the western world, most people think that the US is the primary responsible for the resolution of the WWII, while in fact it was the Russians that played the biggest part.

That’s not true either. The only way it could be is if the author specifically intended his in-game writings to be viewed as human-centric. And that’s simply not the case, there is zero evidence to support that premise. The lore of GW1, that we see in the game, is intended to be the actual lore of Tyria…not the historical perspective of humans living there.

The author who wrote all of Prophecies and most of Factions left ArenaNet shortly thereafter, and for Nightfall a whole new writing team led by Grubb and Soesbee took over the reigns. They are the ones who created the claim of human-centric historical bias in Tyria, using simple gaps and plot-holes in the basic story to prop up this claim.

Harper.4173:

It’s still a pretty sad deal.
I wish we had the GW1 lore/theme/atmosphere in this story.

Where were you 4 years ago? You struck on an important point there: theme/atmosphere. Like I mentioned above, you have to understand that the authorship of Guild Wars lore changed hands after Factions. There are many indications of this in the story itself, too exhaustive to list here, but suffice to say the new authors had their own ideas on what Tyria should be like. And ANet devs gave them a green light to do so.

Take the gods for instance. It’s no coincidence that they were effectively removed from the story(or world) at the end of Nightfall. The new writers already had plans to introduce new playable races into the game, and having the gods appearing to drastically favor humanity presented a problem to this. The gods were the top dogs of Tyria up until that point; they literally were the creators and keepers of all things magical related. To remedy this situation, they simply came up with a scenario that would 1) remove them from their influence in the world(end of Nightfall) and 2) create a valid historical premise in which they actually are not the apex beings of Tyria by severely downplaying their role in magic.

I could write for days about the drastic, unfortunate, and downright sad changes that the GW2 writing team brought to the Tyrian narrative…but I’m sure no one here wants me to start up again. ;-) Suffice to say while I intimately empathize with your opinion, there is really nothing that can be done about it at this point. GW2 lore is here to stay, whether we like it or not.

That is sad to hear. I didn’t know that the story authors had changed BUT I did feel a huge shift in the way the lore felt and was handled.
There’s even a bigger shift between GW1 and GW2.
Even Nightfall and EOTN had better atmosphere and a better feel to them. I actually felt like a hero in EOTN – in GW2 I’m just there.

The way they’re handling GW1 lore these days – I’d rather NOT get it. I’d rather have a good idea of what it might be inside my head instead of seeing it in-game and ruined.

I really really want capes too.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

No thanks, I would prefer it if anet just keeps developing GW2 for a long time. I don’t want to lose all my progress and start over. Maybe in 10 years when we’ve killed all the dragons and had a bunch of expansions, but not anytime soon.

Exactly this – GW2 graphics are good enough – we don’t need GW3 for a few years now.

It’s still a pretty sad deal.
I wish we had the GW1 lore/theme/atmosphere in this story.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Harper.4173:

The player base asked for Armor Suits to be removed from the Gem Store – but they asked that they be added as in-game obtainable rewards.
Anet removed them from the gem store and then proceeded TO NOT add in-game armor as rewards but keep making “outfits” and selling them on the gem store instead.

They did add armor as rewards (Carapace, Luminescent, two versions of the Glorious PVP armor, the chest and legs of Radiant/Hellfire, Bladed, Leystone, Ornate Guild, two versions of the Triumphant WvW armor, proper ways to get Tribal/Stalwart/Apostle armor, a bunch of individual armor pieces, and many back items. Plus the Envoy set, and presumably there’s at least the armor precursors and the actual legendary armor skins added onto that eventually) after making that announcement.

If you think they didn’t add enough, that’s one thing, and you’re not wrong. Anet’s always been a sort of monkey’s paw: they’ll give you what you want, but in a way that makes things worse somehow.

Sadly it it is not enough.
And not all the armor you mention there falls under the category I mentioned.

HoT Armor is not armor they gave us because of the community asking for it as in-game rewards – it is armor they HAD to deliver with the expansion.

Also carapace and luminescent are the same skin.
And what about Tribal/Stalwart/Apostle – these were IN the game before they took them out. That doesn’t count.

You can’t take stuff out of the game – put it back in and say you did something.

So honor the old lore by leaving it the way it was and construct new narratives that USE the old lore without changing it.

I’m not blaming the lore writers of GW1 – they did a good job. It’s the lore writers of GW2 that are making a muck of everything.

I’m not even sure ethnocentric is something real – but that’s not why I’m upset.
I’m upset that by retconning things you’re basically saying nothing is really relevant and that getting invested in the lore, the story and the world of Tyria is stupid. Because it will be changed in the future on a whim.

Also how am I biased ethnocentrically?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I was unaware that voluntarily leaving a post was considered termination.

Regardless, I’m not sure, nor have any evidence, that merely removing items from the Gem Store would change much. Especially, as there have been no Armor ‘suits’ in the Gem Store in ages, much less 35. If the OP is referring to Outfits, I don’t really consider those as an equivalent to Armor sets. Nor do I really understand what Legendaries have to do with Gem sales, other than, perhaps, boosting said Gem sales.

Remember, the playerbase asked that Armor sets be removed from the Gem Store long ago, and ArenaNet complied. Not only that, but the playerbase begged for another way to acquire Precursors; again (though with mis-steps at first) ArenaNet complied.

Even with ‘more money’, I don’t think we would see ‘in-game skin update’ faster for a long time, if ever. Stated repeatedly, full armor sets take an inordinate amount of time to develop.

If the Devs feel the OPs suggestions are sound, I’m sure we will see changes tout de suite. =)

In what universe do you think they wouldn’t have the decency to allow him to walk on his own? Do you honestly think they wouldn’t let it appear as voluntary?

The player base asked for Armor Suits to be removed from the Gem Store – but they asked that they be added as in-game obtainable rewards.
Anet removed them from the gem store and then proceeded TO NOT add in-game armor as rewards but keep making “outfits” and selling them on the gem store instead.

It’s not that the community didn’t want Armor Skins sold on the gem store but DO want outfits to be sold there.
It’s that the community wanted In-game cosmetic rewards and Anet decided to not do it.

I would in fact want MORE armor – even if it is on the gem store – since they seem to be doing such a poor job creating it.

I’m sure they’ve said armor takes a long time to develop – but they should hurry up and make some more.

Narcemus.1348:

I’m surprised that this discussion is happening now, so long after the creation of Guild Wars 2. I mean all of this information about the Seers and the Elder Dragons changed Guild Wars’ Lore years ago. Why is this piece of information suddenly such a huge problem?

1. Because I’ve recently seen it pop up again as a major thing in the current events thing.
2. Because the Mursaat thing just happened.
3. Because I’m sick and tired of having good, well-established lore trampled by a team of writers that is simply making a mess of things.