Showing Posts For Iason Evan.3806:

Addressing Pet AI

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

The new pets look awesome. They really do. I like the skills, the animations, all of it. The issue I see is that if the Ranger Pet AI isn’t improved upon -as it quite frankly should have been addressed in 2012- I fear that these new pets will be the same as the old pets. There are areas of the game specifically where pets are a detriment to a team. The floor in the Mai Trin Fractal immediately springs to mind. There are no enemies to damage and yet my pet will 100% die in there because there was no forethought in the design of that Fractal for pets to become immune to damage for the duration of Horrik’s cannons. There are many other examples of this. I used that one because it’s the most glaring to me. So raids and HoT have totally addressed this and you’ll just leave the “old” game as is?

I’d really like to know if pet AI is being addressed and if Rangers will finally be getting the pet control they deserve. You are releasing “difficult content” in the form of raids. It’d be nice to play this new Elite Spec and have better pet controls and not have my pet be a liability but an asset.

You have made minor improvements to pets, but they are far from fixed. Please let us know whether or not we are getting pet fixes for AI or these new pets will die in the exact same spots as the old pets and I find that to be frustrating indeed.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

NEW PETS!!!

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

So the pet AI is getting fixed? If not, my Wyvern will die just as easily as any other pet in the Mai Trin Fractal when the whole floor is a death trap and the same will happen in other events that have similar mechanics. These pets look amazing. It all really amounts to nothing though if the AI that should have been addressed in 2012 isn’t ever improved upon.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Are you pro or anti Sylvari in HoT?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

If their names are red sure. I kill Charr, humans, undead all the time if their names are red. If their names are green and you still hold something against them, well, that’s your own personal issue.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Is f2p causing community toxicity?

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

People were displaying that kind of rude behavior well before f2p. Stinks it happened, but let’s blame the individual, not the entirety of a subset of a community.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

500 Cooking = Consets?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Level 500 Cooking should be called, “Cuisine” and all the stuff you make should be exceedingly fancy. You’d be required to wear thick-rimmed glasses whilst eating it and it would all be artisanal and you’d tell everybody how much you’d been enjoying it even before they knew about it.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Tribal armor set

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Just make a PvP track for it. Most people will stop at the shoulder piece.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Returning player..Elementalist or Thief?

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

You’ll have way more build diversity with Elementalist. If you are a completionist and plan on spending quite a long time with a single class, I think the variety will be a big factor later on in keeping you engaged. Thief is a blast, but I think build options will go a long way in your enjoyment.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

What makes u not buy HOT?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Im waiting for reviews of this one and also to hear what people are doing in game after it’s been out for a month or so. I will be very curious as to the replay value of HoT. Only waiting for a month or so will let me know if it’s worth it’s almost full game price tag. If it turns out it’s fairly short on content, I will wait to get it until the next expansion because HoT will be thrown in for free and it will also have all of it’s Living Story content finished and I can play the whole thing then. That’s really how an x-pac should be released: As a finished product.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

RNG as a concept: Discuss

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Serious question for the players.

Players: Do you like RNG stacked on top of RNG? What is the context? Halloween last year. We got Trick or Treat Bags that had an RNG chance at a lottery ticket that gave you a separate RNG Lottery odds chance at getting a weapon skin. 2nd Example: Black Lion Keys that you purchase or get very rarely as a drop give you a chance at a ticket or a scrap that you could combine with 9 other scraps to get a weapon. Is that the type of RNG you want to see employed in this game? Do you enjoy RNG that gives you a chance for another chance or would you rather it be a single chance?

What I personally am seeing from this is not design that challenges existing norms in the MMO space. I see the design of RNG as towing the line and even dipping below the lines of quality of the standard of the MMO space into mobile quality style RNG.

Here’s an article that sheds some light on some of the tactics that mobile devs employ to sqeeze as much water from the whale rock as they possibly can and it’s super gross and I feel like ArenaNet has gravitated more to this style of RNG than away from it in recent years.

http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

A message for Anet

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Ranger Elite spec can’t be bad because they already gave us the elite ranger spec. Dragon Hunter with Longbow and traps and no pet.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

RNG as a concept: Discuss

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Regarding the black lion chest I completely agree with the statement there is terrible price/reward ratio, but I think the nerf to key farming is a good thing. Now they can seriously buff the drops from the chest to make them good. (For example 2-3 scraps from every chest and the rest random)
Regarding the rest of the post, I agree with some, but not all. Cool thing would be that specific items would drop more on specific places. Flame skin like Volcanus could drop as low chance drop from CoF. Low chance, but much higher than other skins. For example there is 0,1% to drop random exotic, but 1%chance to drop Volcanus.

On the other hand there will be a lot of people who are happy with the system as it is, because they can do whatever they want and have a chance to get the stuff as opposite to system where specific stuff has chance to drop on specific places.

The issue for me is that the rewards in the chests haven’t scaled well with the inflation. When 5 keys cost me 25-35 gold, I was fine with what was in them. They rewards haven’t gotten much better and the keys cost way more in terms of gold. Buying gems with gold and with real money were both supposed to be what ArenaNet intended so scale the rewards to match the cost.*

If I am gonna buy gems with money I sure as heck am not going to gamble on BL chests when I can just get gold with my gems and buy the weapons skins since they are the only thing of any worth in the chests anyways.

As far as drops go, I just got back into playing the game after a 7 month absence where I was just getting my login reward off of my two accounts. The RNG in PvP is awful. I can be running 300% magic find and I get blues and greens. In the last 3 days in PvP I have gotten 3 golds. That is nowhere near what I have gotten in PvE and I have spent less than 25% of my time in the last 3 days doing PvE. The RNG needs to be better for PvP. The people who could care less about rewards in PvP won’t mind and those of us that play PvP and PvE will really appreciate it.

I am also so incredibly tired of the arbitrary gold sinks. Stop belittling our intelligence by saying that reward vendors like the one in the Mrrdremoth Invasion Event are Reward Vendors. They are gold sinks. To me, the RNG goes hand in hand with how you are using your words to describe what we are doing. *

My advice to ArenaNet: Be honest in describing events, rewards, and odds of winning. Make the game more fun by making it more rewarding, and stop layering RNG on top of RNG.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

The Positive Feedback Thread

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Your core game is dope(that means really awesome)! Your permanent content is great! Armor sets we get to earn in game are gorgeous! More of those please! Characters have great animations! The world is beautiful! When BL Keys cost 25-35 gold for 5 of them, that was a fantastic value! Would be great if the items contained in the BL Chests matched how much gold they cost now!

Thanks for your awesome game!

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Patch Today: Key Farming Impacted

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

According to ArenaNet we are the best community in gaming. Why then do they keep reducing reward levels and at the same time the gold:gem ratio keeps climbing? Is that how you treat people you think are the best? If I am having someone over to dinner that I really enjoy as a person I don’t keep making worse meals or do my best Monte Hall impression and RNG the best food behind 1 of 3 doors.

ArenaNet’s words need to start matching their actions and they won’t until we as “the best community in gaming” start demanding a better rewards system and less gambling by not buying anything with real money.

I expect better.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Achievements leader boards. So many 90%.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

It’s the way leaderboards work. In a golf tournament if you have 10 people tied at 4th place, the next person isn’t in 5th place. They are in 15th place. Because there are so many people tied in spots, it creates this disparity.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Thunderclap = 3 different skills now!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

I think every skill in the game should be called Thunderclap. It sounds super fresh.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Super Adventure Box [merged]

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

The lack of permanence to content ArenaNet makes is really discouraging.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Just went 1 for 23 tries on mystic clovers

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

The root cause of this isn’t the forge. It’s that ArenaNet’s real life economy is tied to the in-game economy. Make the RNG poor and it flushes that gold out of the economy faster leaving players with less gold to convert to gems and maybe a better RNG chance for you to pull your wallet out and just buy the gems with real money instead.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Merchant QoL Suggestion

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

I have a suggestion that all merchants allow players to sell to them directly from their storage. The ecto-gambling-skritt in LA has access to player storage. So if players are allowed to gamble away their ectos and gold from their storage without having to use a bank access express, why not allow players to sell items that are in their storage as well?

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Patch Today: Key Farming Impacted

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Instead of players aiming for rewards(black lion key drops)that give a mere chance at something cool, shouldn’t we be aiming our sights higher? Like, asking for drops that are rewards in and of themselves? Why should I want to have a better RNG chance of getting something that also has RNG involved in it? That’s super gross.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Fix Black Lion Chests / BL Tickets

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

When the Black Lion Ticket is the best drop out of those(with a reasonable chance of dropping)why buy BL Keys? Just buy the weapon skins straight off the auction house.

If you want to change how ArenaNet implements their cash shop stuff, you have to speak with your wallet by not spending any money.

My beef with the gem shop is that 2 years ago things were reasonably priced. I could get 5 keys for like 25-35 gold. That seemed reasonable. The prices aren’t reasonable anymore. The items in the chest were worth it for fake, in-game currency. For real money though? No thanks.

If they want me to start spending real money again, give me new content to go along with the cash shop that was implemented to subsidize content. Now that they are charging money up front for content, why would I spend more money on the cash shop for things that aren’t worth real money? Especially when it’s not a guarantee that I can get the item I want.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

HoT's plot 'selling points' make no sense

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Konig. I appreciate your knowledge of the lore. I really do. How many times do ArenaNet have to miss the mark with story beats and lore though before you realize it will always be a convoluted mess of contradictions and retcons? You seem just as surprised that ArenaNet botched this as some of those Veteran Pact officers are that the Sylvari are being corrupted.

I get your frustration because I share it. If the entirety of the story arc for GW2 had been written before the game came out then there should be certain things that are set in stone so that things don’t get rewritten to contradict previous story beats. These types of contradictions have happened so many times throughout the years that it’s just par for the course.

I feel like there wasn’t a beginning and an end for the overall story of GW2 laid out before the game shipped. It’s too bad. You can’t tell a good story without a beginning and end.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

GW2 "Spinoff" Rumor? Primarily Underwater?

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Holy mackerel these jokes are floundering!

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

I would have thought that after three years, Arena Net would already have a good idea of what players find fun.

It comes down to a few things…

Engaging content is one thing. Being rewarded for that content is another. Lets take the Halloween maze zerg for an example. Last years zerg was much better than the previous years. The reason for this is that it was rewarding. The year before provided very little in the way of mob drops.

When you look at the recent in game invasion event, it feels lack lustre due to the lack of rewards and kill acknowledgement. No Experience from kills or drops from the mobs.

I cannot help but think this is because of the recent free to play and influx of new players. – With the amount of kills that happen during an invasion, this would add up to a big amount of experience and level new players at a pace which would be undesirable.

And then you look at the first year Halloween Event when we fought The Mad King himself and got gem shop stuff and unique weapon skins and realize they will never make content as rewarding as that ever again and it’s depressing.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Foes ability activation bar

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

When I see well-reasoned and logical threads such as this I get all excited and then remember that all of this stuff has been ignored for years. We got the first person camera though! Combat effects just need to have an option to be turned off. If they won’t allow for that then a combat bar is a good idea. They seem so tied to not cluttering the screen up, it’s funny that their visual clutter in the form of skill effects never gets addressed. This and Ranger Pet fixes to AI and what commands we can use for them are two of my biggest issues along with Profession bugs that have been in the game since launch.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

snip

(Haven’t read all of it though)

So,on the one hand you want AI, on the other you want events to be removed from the map as it’s too hard?
The events have always been around and I have no idea whether or not it’s easy to remove them – but they never bothered me. More mobs to kill = more loot.

Also, this event was only 3-4 days in low level maps, have you been around during the marionette event? It took us quite a while to coordinate that – more than 4 days (there were no megaservers around back then which made it a bit harder).

In the end, I think the only thing that went wrong with this event was the waiting time between the events – and the rewards.

But one thing I forgot from season 1, which was the reason I always quit an event early, was the constant bickering.

Nope. I wanted the new AI tech from HoT to be employed for the Mordrem. I wanted them to remove events that are normally in the map so that they don’t overlap or better yet, make the usual events react to the Mordrem attacks as well so that those NPCs aren’t just doing their own thing and ignoring the Mordrem. It felt tacked on. I get your “more loot” comment, but more of nothing is still nothing :P

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

(edited by Iason Evan.3806)

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Constructive content feedback:

  • You guys have access to new AI tech. I’ve heard you guys talk about it. Why wasn’t it employed? Everyone getting a taste of the new AI could have been a huge deal in terms of pushing those sitting on the fence about whether or not to buy HoT(like me). Sadly, this event(for reasons that should be obvious)didn’t do anything to make me think the game was taking a step forward.
  • The new events were happening on top of old events. The new events felt tacked on because those bandits acted like nothing was happening around them. Events endemic to zones should be removed temporarily or better yet, the NPCs from the permanent events should turn “green” and help the players. That would be a cool thing.
  • You guys talk about iteration and yet this event feels like it’s the first time you’ve done one of these. Content should be hard to exploit. It took all of 5 minutes for vets to figure out how they were going to get the most reward out of this and the rewards were still meager.
  • None of these Mordrem were anything we haven’t seen in the live game before. Why weren’t there new HoT Mordrem there if it was an invasion from deep within Mordremoth territory?
  • There should have been a boss fight at the end of each of these events where we fought a different Mordremoth Lieutenant in each map. Each map boss would have had different mechanics.
  • I know this won’t get answered here, but someone needs to take a good hard look at the design doc for this event. Did the goals get met for it?

As a side note I’d like to reiterate that a box that has a choice of one of the rewards from that vendor should be mailed to all players regardless of participation. I know I have expressed my opinion on this event multiple times this weekend but I can’t express enough how bummed I was that the first content in GW2 in 8+ months fell so woefully short of the quality I have come to expect from your truly talented team. You can do better on a consistent basis!

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

I see a couple of valid questions:

  • Will blooms be useful in the future?
  • Will the items currently on offer be returning?

I will ask about those tomorrow — it’s the weekend here in Bellevue — and will answer as soon as I know more. I’m sorry that I cannot give that information today, but I truly do not know the answers to those two questions.

A note, please: The moderators continue to report comments to me with questions about their value. I think I covered this, but as a reminder: Someone commenting “I don’t like this” or “I did it and I quit” or “I had lag and it’s your fault” isn’t helpful. Why? Not because that person is being “negative” or because we’re in denial about what they believe is a network issue, but because they are not offering any points of action, any suggestions, anything that helps us with the objective of this thread.

Commenting "Rewards would be improved if you [offered this] or “I’d like to see this event again if you [did that]” is the sort of info we’d very much like to see. Why? Because we want constructive ideas that help us make future events that are fun, meaningful, rewarding, and involving.

There are many, many helpful ideas in this thread, both large and small, new and old. Thank you to those who are contributing in a constructive way.

TL:DR Don’t read feedback in this thread. Read feedback in a thread about an event that was similar to this one, but that the community liked. Build on something that was a well-liked event. Does that make sense? Like, this event should have built better ideas on top of events that people liked like the Aetherblade Invasions. Instead, this event was a husk of that event. The Aetherblade Invasion Event should have been the baseline for this event and this event would have just been better because you took feedback for that event that happened in Season 1 and you just made it better by iteration. There wasn’t any iteration in this event. It feels like it was slapped together and that’s as diplomatic as I can be about it.

In terms of constructive feedback, I feel like someone could say this event felt hollow compared to Living World Events that have happened in the past that were similar in design. What do I mean by that?

Let’s look at the Aetherblade incursions that happened in season 1

  • The enemies in that event dropped loot, gave karma, and XP was granted for kills. This event had none of that.
  • Champions dropped Champ bags in that event(which is actually a nerf to Magic Find, but this event is even a nerf to that!). <—-That last sentence is a perfect example of rewards going in the wrong direction.
  • The Reward vendors in past events I have appreciated didn’t charge any gold for what I collected for them. When vendors collect gold on top of a currency it doesn’t feel like a reward. It feels like a vendor that is gating a purchase and a gold sink.

ArenaNet, you are double dipping on the gold sinks. I get a gold sink for selling stuff on the TP, I get a gold sink for converting gold to gems, I get a gold sink during an event I can’t even earn any gold from!!!!!!????

  • If you think that’s fun for players to go around killing stuff for 30 minutes getting nothing the whole time they are doing so and then you head to a vendor that is supposed to be rewarding you and is instead an arbitrary gold sink, then I don’t know what to say. I shouldn’t even have to suggest this. It should just be a silent agreement between player and developer that this is not fun under any circumstances. Period. Full Stop.

These design decisions are disconcerting from a player’s standpoint because it makes you wonder if loot trending toward digression is a design goal. So is it? It makes me ask, “Why do we have magic find in the game?” Seriously, I’d rather we just got rid of it and the essences so I didn’t have to click on them anymore and then we could all stop pretending that it’s even a valuable mechanic in the game.

  • Why did I waste my Celebration Booster on this event when it had zero effect on anything I did except in opening up an inventory slot for me that got filled with exactly nothing from this event.
  • This event negated the use of Magic Find Boosters, Bonfires of any kind. Magic Find Food(including the Omnomberry Bar Trays that the “Best Community in Gaming” generously supplied people with prior to knowing that it would have zero effect and would be a waste. Hero Banners and other banners went totally wasted. At this point I can’t believe I am even typing this. How does this stuff even get overlooked. How can you treat the best MMO community this way? It’s pure negligence.

*I am ticked about this event because it’s an event that is so similar to ones you have done in the past and yet it misses every mark that those events nailed. Heck, you could have looked at feedback from those past events that people thought were good ideas and built on that. Instead you designed a shell of an event and are asking us for feedback

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

(edited by Iason Evan.3806)

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Hello,

I asked the head of the GW2 Design Team about whether we would be making changes and rerunning it, extending it, or repeating it as it currently is designed. At this time, we are not going to extend the event, nor do we have plans at this time to repeat it, either amended or in its current form.

The Mordrem Invasion event will run through its allotted time. It ends at 9:00 AM tomorrow, Monday. As explained in my earlier thread, no changes will be made to the event beyond the fixes that were made on Thursday and, of course, the distribution of earned rewards for those who were impacted by that bug. (The bug ran from 9:00 AM until about 4:00 PM Pacific time. If you earned blooms during that period but did not receive them or received fewer than the intended amount, they will be sent to you via in-game mail. NPCs will remain in place — particularly in the Priory.

I hope this info is helpful to you. And thanks to those of you who provided constructive suggestions about the event — your thoughts are very appreciated. What’s constructive: “Rewards might be [this]” or “I like the rewards in [that] and suggest you adopt that system for this sort of event.” What’s not constructive: “Rewards are bad” (with absolutely no suggestions for how they might be improved).

I think you guys get it, and I understand that some of you are pretty “hot under the collar” about the event. But please try to give us ideas we can work with — that’s to everyone’s benefit.

As far as Rewards go, I think the community deserves to be sent a box with their choice of one of the “concessions” from the event vendor whether they participated or not. Respectfully, this event was handled poorly from every possible facet from the content itself, to rewards, to communication prior to the event even starting. Stuff that was explained about the event in the blogpost didn’t even come to fruition—i.e. staff playing in this event/guild recruitment didn’t happen because the event was bad/starting time stated as 9AM PST and actually didn’t even start til 930AM—. All the way around this event was botched. I think it would be fair for the community to get a little gift in the form of a choice of rewards from the event vendor sans any cost to them.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

The other depressing part about this is that there seems to be nothing ArenaNet is planning to do to rectify how awful the experience has been for players. Being head and shoulders above the competition means bending over backwards to provide the best game play experience for your players. There hasn’t been a hint of communication on this.

People that want this thing to go for 2 more weeks are part and parcel with the problem. Adding more time to this event does not fix the flaws in the event. I would want to have two more weeks in this event if the entire reward structure was revamped, if the encounters were made vastly better, if we got to see some of the new AI tech they have been puffing their chest out about and any of the content actually hinted at the fact these were new enemy designs from HoT. They aren’t though.

This event is an unmitigated debacle from a game play, communication, and design standpoint.

It doesn’t fix all the flaws but it still fixes some important ones like how expensive the prizes are relative to the time one has to farm the events. In two weeks suddenly the shoulders and potions look achievable in a reasonable time.

As for the other flaw (no loot drops from mobs or karma, coins, and experience from the events) it’s a simple enough fix.

That doesn’t address the issue with the game play though. People generally agree this event isn’t any fun. So asking for two more weeks of this is an awful idea. “Hey I want these items badly enough I am gonna do the awful busy work involved and play X amount of hours of this poorly implemented content” is not a solution. This doesn’t challenge ArenaNet to do a better job. All it does is let them know that you are invested enough time and money-wise in Tyria to spend a ton of time doing whatever it is they put in the game. That is a sad situation indeed.

As the lifeblood of this game and paying customers, we should respectfully request they do a better job and they should respectfully treat their customers better by releasing top-tier content like they say they do. They are always telling me how great their game is. Lately, it is my opinion that their actions are not matching their words. Quality is very spotty and it’s becoming the norm, not the occasional hiccup.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

You guys and gals are well aware of what players like and what they don’t. There is no conceivable way someone looked at this stuff internally and were like, “Yeah! They’ll really dig that! Ship it!”

How about some honesty and give us reasons why this went out in this sorry state instead. How about delivering the quality stuff you are capable of. I personally am so tired of the hit or miss content in this game. For every Battle for LA there is a Mordrem Invasion. For every loot filled Pavilion 1.0 there is a Halloween Year #2. For every Year #1 Halloween there is a Christmas Year #2 where something doesn’t work for the entirety of the event.

You guys are creating a habit of spotty content instead of a habit of consistent quality.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

WTB Mordrem Bloom items for Gems.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Alright, at least you weren’t completely serious.

As far as rewards go, I would never have asked for gem purchasable rewards provided they were new items. That totally devalues the item, IMO. However, these are old items that have been in the game for years that are being rereleased to people who missed them. However, the window to get them is tiny and the effort is huge. In addition, I read your post, it was totally well thought out. I agree, this event was awful that it asked us to grind (hours upon hours) for no loot, no reward save for older items repackaged for sale. This whole thing was flubbed.

I agree that this wasn’t the quality content that anyone was hoping to see. It was supposed to rev us up for HoT but instead it actually made me a little uneasy. My biggest hope is that this was a quickly thrown together idea to fill the gap between now and HoT and it didn’t receive the full attention that HoT got.

I was only asking that items, that were once on sale in the first place, be purchasable again. (maybe with an exception for that kitten selfless potion).

i hear ya man and i share your frustration. we can only hope they really listen to what we are saying to them and do a better job. when arenanet is on their game there isn’t anyone better in the mmo industry. after 8+months of waiting for new content though, this release sadly misses the mark by a wide margin.

i hate to put on my tinfoil hat but i am almost of the mind that they were using this as a test for stuff in HoT. there is no way a producer vetted this content and saw it as even marginally acceptable. if it were me, i’d have a checklist and this event wouldn’t have crossed off any of the requirements except for “Is it an event?”. The rest would be something like this:

  • Is the event engaging to play through?
  • Are the rewards good?
  • Are there achievements to be had"
  • Do the achievements feel like their own reward?
  • Is this an event you would replay multiple times even after getting all the achievements? Why?
  • Did we mask the fact that we are using this as a test for future content enough or is it pretty obvious?

The last one wouldn’t be on my checklist, but I can’t help but thinking it. Cheers to you!

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

WTB Mordrem Bloom items for Gems.

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

apparently arenanet’s design is working as intended just by reading the title. well played, arenanet. well played. once you’ve hooked the mobile market you need do nothing more than rope in players who just want to stand around in town wearing stuff they bought in the gem shop.

mission accomplished.

Actually, one more thing. I really can’t even understand the mind set of someone like this. Do you suppose that ANet deviously plots a nefarious scheme all day that has hooked the minds of the noobs of guild wars 2? Seriously, like who do you hate more, people who spend their money to support the game you play, the company who makes that game, or the “mobile market”? Man, I just… how do you get like that? You’re so distrustful. Mayhaps I’m reading into this so much, but your comment just seems so out of place. So … irrational.

just a bit of sarcasm. i was the one that started the feedback thread. my criticisms of said event were very fair and constructive.

when people actively ask for stuff to just be sold for real money as opposed to asking for a better effort from arenanet in their design process…that’s when i am gonna leave a little snark. we as players should get a better effort from arenanet in the quality department, don’t you think? players shouldn’t feel that the content is so grindy that they need to ask for the “rewards” for gems instead of asking arenanet to do a better job.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

WTB Mordrem Bloom items for Gems.

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

apparently arenanet’s design is working as intended just by reading the title. well played, arenanet. well played. once you’ve hooked the mobile market you need do nothing more than rope in players who just want to stand around in town wearing stuff they bought in the gem shop.

mission accomplished.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

As a suggestion for rewards I’d like to look at well-loved rewards in events as compared with this event.

1.) 1st Halloween Event. Rewards included gem shop items and exclusive skins as drops. No gold sink involved.

2.) First Pavilion Event. Offered difficult solo content and big group content with tons of rewards in the form of crafting materials and copious amounts of gold. Achievements were available as well as a mini pet and title.

This event: Gold sink. The skins were a nice inclusion but at cost to the player making them NOT rewards. It’s a vendor that you are allowed to purchase stuff from after you have jumped through a series of hoops. No AP, no karma, no loot, no XP. No guild recruiting support to speak of from arenanet as was previously announced.

We have gone from the first event in game in GW2 being the Halloween event offering gem shop items as drops to this. I hope the disparity in terms of quality is painfully obvious.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Update: 11 September 12:30 PM

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Ideas for improvement:

  • XP, Loot, Karma, Event Reward Tokens, and Gold dropping from individual enemies that are tied to the event.
  • The Event vendor should not charge gold for rewards. When they do, it can’t be considered a reward. On top of that, with no gold dropping from the enemies in said event, the vendor is relegated to being a gold sink.
  • The zones being used during an event should have dynamic events endemic to the zones cancelled during the special event so that they aren’t overlapping. It’s haphazard and makes the special events feel tacked on.
  • Rewards should be plentiful. This is the first content you have given us in 8+ months. To have it be less rewarding than the content that has been in the game for 3 years doesn’t inspire desire to participate in the new events.
  • The new AI for Heart of Thorns should be employed in the enemy design of the Mordrem spawning in the new event. You say we can’t have old events like SAB back because it doesn’t work with the new server tech and yet you fail to deploy the new tech in a new event? That’s a head scratcher at the very least.
  • There should be new loot to go along with returning loot. There are vets that have all those rewards. To go without any new playable content in this game for 8+ months and then get what is supposed to be new content and have the rewards be old rewards doesn’t inspire desire to return.
  • A boss encounter should have been included. New creature designs from HoT should have been included.
  • Champion Bags from slaying Champions should have been included.
  • A title could have been included.
  • Achievement points could have been rewarded.
Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

On top of the terrible design there has been zero acknowledgement that our concerns are even being taken into account. I am not talking about disagreeing with what the majority of players are saying in this thread. Youc an disagree and think the design is 100% working as intended and that it’s a good event. I am talking about simply acknowledging how a lot of posters in this thread feel about the event. It’s salt in the would for lack of a better term.

A simple, “We hear your concerns, while nothing may change about this event and we may not even share your feelings about it, we understand this wasn’t to the liking of a majority of players in this thread.”

You know who else does a poor job of communicating that they hear my concerns?

Comcast

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

The other depressing part about this is that there seems to be nothing ArenaNet is planning to do to rectify how awful the experience has been for players. Being head and shoulders above the competition means bending over backwards to provide the best game play experience for your players. There hasn’t been a hint of communication on this.

People that want this thing to go for 2 more weeks are part and parcel with the problem. Adding more time to this event does not fix the flaws in the event. I would want to have two more weeks in this event if the entire reward structure was revamped, if the encounters were made vastly better, if we got to see some of the new AI tech they have been puffing their chest out about and any of the content actually hinted at the fact these were new enemy designs from HoT. They aren’t though.

This event is an unmitigated debacle from a game play, communication, and design standpoint.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

This is the worst PVE event ever for GW2

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

the vetting process for what makes its way into the live game needs a serious looking at.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

First and foremost, release an official statement on your official forums!
Second, extend the event for a week.
Third, scrap the gold required for rewards.
And lastly give more blooms, as new players are not going to want to grind, grind, grind!

+1 especially on the gold requirement. Problem with it, especially at its current cost is the gold will simply be deleted from the game. All those hard won drops and vendoring will go poof and not into the hands of another player on the TP where it can actually circulate.

It’s better in the long run for that gold to be removed.

I wouldn’t even agree with you even if we were earning gold in this event which we aren’t. Even with the terrible Pavilion 2.0 Event where we had to use currency+gold to get so called rewards from the vendor, at least that event gave you drops. If you find this rewarding in any way shape or form, enjoy it. This is a bad event for new players as they have a lack of gold and they are getting no karma, no drops, no gold, and no xp to boot and it’s bad for vets because many of us have some/most/all of the items from the reward vendor.

Please explain why you think a reward vendor for an event specifically aimed at new players needs a gold sink. (ArenaNet’s own recommended level is to be at least level 18). New players don’t have the gold to blow on this event. If I were new I’d rather go play where I was getting XP/Karma/Gold/Drops.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

They’ve stated that the rewards are bugged. Be patient.

Youa re right and wrong. The part that is bugged is players being rewarded with blooms at the end of the event. The part that is working as intended is the Mordrem not dropping anything. No karma, no gold, not loot, no champ boxes for champ kills. That’s all 100% working as intended.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Also, from a veteran player standpoint, I love the fact we can get items that were discontinued. I really do. I would however liked new rewards that I could earn because I have all the stuff from that vendor.

Hey, I get that you guys wanted to add a new event in for the new players. It’s great that you did. I just think this was a really poor way to do it is all for all involved. The loot should be really lucrative. Someone at a meeting really should have been like, “Hey all! This is our first content in 8 months. Let’s make it really rewarding!.”

Increase the loot before the event is over! I know you can do it! You have the new server tech! Use it to make this an amazing event that is rewarding!

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

tl;dr version:

  1. Loot (known bug, will be fixed)
  2. Didn’t start on time as stated?

And the Priory needs funding for their research. Nobody appreciates academia in its time. ;__;

Wrong. The loot not dropping off of individual mobs is not what was broken. Getting blooms at the end was. The mobs are not intended to drop loot when you kill them. That is working as intended. I did not mention the blooms not dropping at the end of the event because I knew it was a bug.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Mordrem Invasion Feedback [merged]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Here is some constructive feedback to help you all with future events. I hope it helps!

1.) Enemies don’t drop loot or gold. That isn’t enticing. Killing stuff for a half hour and not having anything to show for it is disgruntling and unrewarding. If players have to be in the map for the entirety of the event and they disconnect or have to lave that means they get nothing. That is an ill-advised design choice in my opinion.

2.) This relates to #1, but what use are Magic Find Food, Banners, Boosters, camp fires if we aren’t getting loot in the first actual content put in this game in 8+ months?

3.) The Mordrem Bloom Reward Vendor is not only charging the blooms for their wares, but gold as well. As no players can get any gold for the event they just spent a half hour doing, you have turned the rewards(Once again)into a gold sink. After getting no drops from kills in said event, this feels really underwhelming. Not only can I not disconnect or leave the map, but I have to spend my own gold on “rewards”? Really?

4.) This event doesn’t show off any of the “new tech” that is supposed to be in Heart of Thorns. While I like this style of fast zerg, it was much more rewarding in the Aetherblade version of this event where(even though Magic Find didn’t affect it)Champs at least dropped Champ Boxes.

5.) The announcement page for this event said it started at 9 AM server time. Standing around for a half hour hoping it would start any moment wasn’t the way I wanted to start off my time in game.

May I ask the reasoning behind not dropping any gold or loot during this event so at least the players could cover a portion of what the “Reward Vendor” is collecting with what they just did? That’s a serious question as it may help me to get over how annoyed I am by this being the first content in 8 months and it falls so woefully short of the quality I have come to expect from all you talented people at ArenaNet.

Can my player character become one of these vendors please? They seem to be cashing in rather lucratively. We save Tyria and they charge us money to get “rewarded”.

I hope you can understand my frustration.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

(edited by Moderator)

Tempest Makes Fresh Air Useless!

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

The old trait system allowed for way more variety. Most people had an issue with the way ArenaNet reworked how you acquired traits in the old system, not how the traits themselves worked. This new system is very limiting. I would like this new system if there were like 50 professions to play. They made stat building simplistic like a moba but forgot that mobas have like 50-100 different characters.

They also forgot skill splits. In PvE, it is my opinion that in the open world you should feel OP. Save the difficult content for raid instances and the abandoned(an 100% uncommunicated reasons as to why)dungeons. That way, balance for Conquest/WvW/Stronghold don’t affect PvE and vice/versa.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

A plea from an old AP hunter.

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

It’s just like every feature or content addition they implement in the game. They put in a fairly robust system(Guild Missions, Mini Dungeons, Dungeons etc.)and then they abandon it. Heck, shouldn’t they have added new account bound weapons for achievements? They built in a system for doing so, but what’s the point if you don’t add to it? There are guild bounties that are flat out broken and have been for a long time and they have done zero to address it. Gem Shop stuff gets a lot of love though. I am all for spending money in the gem shop if the developers prove to me that they are adding content to the game. They are adding an expansion, but the gem shop ain’t subsidizing it. You have to pay for it separately and you can bet there will be gem shop stuff you can get week #1 of release. Heck, I’d hazard an outlandish assumption that you will see more gem shop outfits than you will see armor sets you can earn by playing the expansion itself. Double dipping at its finest.

TL;DR I wouldn’t hold your breath thinking AP will be a steady stream when they are working on an x-pac, but the gem shop will always have a steady stream of content. Isn’t the gem shop stuff supposed to subsidize a steady stream of content?

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Very confused on the cost of guilds halls

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first

This is the link to the CDI for guild halls. Chris Whiteside(he left ArenaNet, but awesome dude)started this. The community and Chris came to the consensus that we wanted scaling for guild size. But you know what? I’m willing to bet you a million dapper llama monocles that we won’t hear a peep about it until we see what it costs at launch. I am also willing to wager that it won’t have scale-ability. A ten person guild has just as much right to build a guild hall for their guild as a 100-person guild and it shouldnt cost exactly the same amount of materials. 10 people should have to pay 10g each for an upgrade whilst the 100 person guild pays 1g each just by virtue of being in a larger group.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/18

Here’s a quote by Chris: “All good points and this one is very valid:
‘I think, for smaller guilds, the basic bonuses should be obtainable easily. Examples like a guild armorer merchant or something. But the bigger, longer, and higher stuff should stay the bigger and longer. Yes, big guilds will reach it faster than smaller guilds, but that’s the nature of the beast. Bigger guilds are going to get to the bigger and better stuff sooner.’
This is also a very acute point:
‘As for guild alliance halls. They could work, and would be neat. The only issue would be, what happens if the alliance breaks apart? who gets the hall?’
Initial thoughts are that members of the Alliance would each get an instance of the shared guild hall. And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-: "

Chris

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

WoodenPotatoes Hardcore Guild Wars 2 Rules

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

I just poured battery acid into my ocular cavities after gouging out my own eyes with a rusty spoon to wash away the pain that post caused me.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Professions as Content[Suggestion]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

Horrible idea.

MMOs that put the majority of their content targeted at rerolling rather than expanding existing characters are shooting themselves in the foot. It’s a cheaper way to add content because you’re not actually adding content, and you’re just forcing people to roll alts.

Thing is, people that like rolling alts will roll alts anyway but people that don’t will leave your game because you don’t care about the characters they have grown attached to

The same argument applies for adding races. They’re easier to add to the game, but they add less overall value to it. Giving existing characters more options is always a better route than just forcing people to roll new characters just to experience the next new thing.

I’d prefer they go the current route and keep caring about adding value to existing characters that people have invested time and effort in to first. Honestly I think the revenant itself was wasted development space they could have used to introduce its mechanics in specializations for the existing classes in stead.

The other reason I’d like to see this is because new professions would be new permanent content. They added 3 new, permanent maps in 3 years. That’s awful. When world exploring is your favorite thing in an MMO and the MMO you like the most is unwilling to add new maps in a significant way, the next best thing I could think of is adding new professions to explore old maps with. That way, at least the new profession is something to get excited about.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Professions as Content[Suggestion]

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

What if GW2 did what Marvel Heroes does and offered a new profession every month or two as content? With the new trait system being so much simpler they could totally do it. Marvel has a similar trait system(very simple)but because they have so many heroes(50 playable heroes)the variety is there to keep it exciting. They release a new hero every month. It keeps going back through old content fun because the content is the heroes. They also add new content as well though with a great rotation of events.

For PvP, if they felt balance was an issue later on down the road when they have a lot of professions in the game they could do a rotation of professions that were allowed each week in PvP. Because armor skins are separated into 3 groups and not profession specific, they could really make it work and it would keep old content fresh as you are playing through it in new ways.

What are your guys’ thoughts about this?

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

Can beta server run early without staff?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

You are doing them 2 favors:

1.) Testing their game.

2.) You gave them money for a product you know little to nothing about.

You’d think they’d at least have the decency to have EU servers operating at peak EU hours. Oh well. I remember a time when game companies would let you do actual beta tests(and this is what this is)for free because you were helping them in immeasurable ways. Now you pay to do it.

Preorders are another thing. Preorders made sense before digital distribution. You had to ensure that a retailer had a hard copy of a disc or cartridge game at their place of business so you would get to play it when it came out. There were finite copies. With digital it’s an infinite supply. Why do people pre-order? Oh yeah because game companies act like they are doing you a favor by “allowing” you to pay to test their game. It’s a crock of Dolyak feces.

Um… Sorry, but no.

No one is forcing you to beta test or pre-order anything.

Pre-ordering has nothing to do with making sure you have a copy. Pre-ordering is a revenue generating venue for the company. It is for their benefit, not yours.

Pre-ordering in this case also gives them a cache of people to draw on that fits well into the number of people that they would like to have testing at once.

Again, no-one is forcing you to do anything and it is a crazy claim saying that they are doing you a “favor” by “allowing” us to beta test. There is no truth to that at all.

Go back and re-read my post. I am saying the players are doing ArenaNet 2 favors. You are disagreeing with me because you misunderstand what I am saying but we actually agree.

Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall