Guild Wars 2

Zintrothen.1056:

Druid nerfed.

That actually would be great. Just give eles or heralds grace of the land and nerf druid heal, so we could play ranger, not a staff healbot.

PopeUrban.2578:

Mordremoth wasn’t the most memorable villain in HoT. That honor goes to Faolain who had better dialogue, a more interesting plot thread, and more sensible interactions with the protagonists throughout the expansion.

I don’t really remember any good villains in GW2. Scarlet was obnoxious discount Harley Queen. Faolin’s whole personality is “was Caith’s girlfriend who turned evil”. Lazarus had a great potential but was ruined by Balthazar. Caudecus was okeyish, but not cunning enough.
So I prefer a good boss fight (or even a good boss design) over mediocre villain.

PopeUrban.2578:

How is it insulting? Its not as if the plot of a video game is somehow a personal attack.

Point is, dragons are boring villains. I really don’t want to have to sit through three more expansions of “Monster with similarly flavored model swaps of other mobs tried to kill world.”

It’s just a boring plot that needs to be wrapped up. It has already gone on too long. Hell have the new and less kitten villain kill them off and take their skittles powers, I don’t care.

Elder Dragons are bad villians, but great video game bosses. And GW2 is (surprise) a video game. Mordemoth (in both Dragon stand and personal story) is the best GW2 boss outside of raids. Zhaitan had a poor fight mechanic, but his design was great.
And building up a boss and killing him offscreen is an insult to players who wanted cool and epic boss fight. Even if GW2 was just an interactive film, killing two epic giants off screen would feel even more cheap than a movie with action scenes in complete darkness.

That guy that voiced male asura PC. He is awesome in 99% of the lines he says. Most of asuras are voiced very well (with exclusion of Zojja, some of here personal story lines hurt my ears).

PopeUrban.2578:

I want to see the dragon narrative resolved. You could have EASILY resolved it THIS season by using the silly machine to nuke two dragons, causing some genuinely interesting personal tension between DW and Braham, and leveraging Aurene as an expedient method (having absorbed a large portion of dragon energy) to help us take out Kralk, siege kralk’s power, then go offscreen to go take on bubbles herself.

Well, no. Killing two (or even 3, as you suggest) elder dragons off screen would be the worst and most insulting thing Anet could do to players at this point.
Elder Dragons were the main antagonists of GW2, and killing them off without player to witness and experience it is just lame and anticlimactic.
What we have now is rather bad either (2 dragons were put on the bus, and the players didn’t even see how they really looked). But at least they are put on the bus, not killed, and can potentially return in the future in full glory.

Ngeluz.4860:

I think IMO that the fact that Balthazar did not come to DR and the fact that he had Lyss Mirror to hide his identity are related somehow…maybe he is being help to recover his divinity, with conditions of not interfering with humanity?

Just having a good laugh imagining Lyssa saying : “Balthazar, I will help you restore your divinity. Just don’t not interfere with any humans. But you can totally blow their planet to pieces by killing two elder dragons at once though.”

Mounts can benefit this game only if they are implemented with mount specific combat. That may be interesting and have some potential. But to having mounts as fancy visual buffs to movespeed as they are in all generic MMOs after WoW I say “no thanks”. They do not benefit the gameplay in any way, and old maps will feel smaller than they really are because of the overpowered mount speed.
As for the flying mounts, we have gliders, that are much more fun to use than WoW-ish “floating baloon” mounts.

Nuhoch Wallows, Thermal Tubes, Skritt Tunnels, Ley-Lines, Oakheart Essences. New types of transportation were used to replace many waypoints. And that’s exactly what mounts would do. Claiming that we don’t need mounts is just as claiming that we don’t need the systems listed above because we could use more waypoints instead.

Well, no. Because mounts are just a +% of movespeed with none new interesting mechanics. Masteries and glider on the other hand give the player access to unique mechanics. Gliders and oakheart essence can take the player to places he could never access on foot and create combat situations like fight with Mordemoth. Mounts are just running with extra speed buff. Nothing new, nothing exiting, just a fancy model to stick between your legs. Unless, of course, these mounts come with some new mechanics, like mount combat or ability to jump across chasms.

Jokes aside, I would like to see councillor Phlunt and Canach in the team. They are both pure awesome. And Phlunt can overseer Taimi and smack her head every time she becomes too mary-sueish. Some norn character would be great too. Braham is not joining us (and thats for good), so we need someone to represent norn. Maybe someone blessed by a raven for a diversity of sorts, not a usual mountain of brainless muscles.

OriOri.8724:

I have yet to see a single argument that shows how adding a new race would make the game better in any way.

Its Fashion Wars 2, your style is the goal of the game. And your character’s race IS the most important part of how you look, with armor and weapons build on top of it. Why do you think everyone whine about mounts so much? Because theu want to run 25% faster? Of course no, lol, they just want to look great on top of that giant lizard or whatever.
Besides, as WoW showed, new races can be one of selling points of the expansion. I have a friend, who occasionally mensioned, that implementation of new playable race can be a selling point for him in GW2 expansion 2. Cause of all Tiria races he likes visually only asura and tengu, but got bored of asura after 4 characters.

Balthazar, of course. But on a one condition: no flaming dogs in our office.

Braham will not be our friend in the future, thats for sure. Just look at the minis in Draconis Mons: we have dragonwatch Kasmeer, Taimi, even Rox, but Braham’s mini is taged “lone wolf Braham”.

Braham will never forgive PC for letting Primordus live, and will carry on his Jormag-assasination plan at any cost. In the last LS episode, I guess, we will have a clash with Braham to stop elder dragon murder (and possibly killing/injuring Braham in prosess). Or at least it would be a logical thing to expect from the story.

But considering Ep5 writing I would not be surprised if PC just says something like: “Braham, N-teen years ago I spent a night with Eir… I am your real father!” And they will live happilly ever after, disreguarding the fact that PC is a female charr. But what a twist! What a reveal!

JTGuevara.9018:

This is one reason I’m not a fan of “plot twists” in entertainment. I was enjoying season 3 until this chapter when it just went for shock value. No suspense. No explanation. LIke it’s supposed to ‘impress me’. The sudden Balthazar twist just killed the Lazarus plot in its tracks. Nothing but a “Gotcha!” to the audience. His return was pretty underwhelming, imo. Of all the places to debut one of the human gods…an asura lab?!

I’m not even against Balthazar coming back, but….not like this….Ah well, what’s done is done. I wonder how the next chapter will attempt to explain this.

Not just Lazarus plot was killed. Almost all season 3 buildup was just obliterated by Ep5 (though the whole episode, not just Balthazar reveal). Lazarus plot, active Jormag and Primordus – Anet were building these things from season begining. And now they are just a mirage, poofed in smoke without any climax, as relevant to Tiria’s world as that flying mage’s tower in Kessex Hills.
I’m just depressed now. In 2 months we will have season finale, and in half a year a new expansion, and I want to care about the story and get hyped… but I can’t. Human gods, Balthazar, big stuff, I should be exited. But the buildup was so poor (and none-existent prior to Ep5) that I just couldn’t care even if I wanted to. No, buildup is a wrong word for that. Anti-buildup (or build-down maybe?) is a right one, cause Ep5 story twists destroyed all the plots that were carefully created during previous 4 episodes.

Walhalla.5473:

The ritual was mentioned by Bauer after “Lazarus” came there, so its safe to assume that the ritual idea came from Balthazar, disguised as Lazarus.

Once the ritual is complete, we can proceed with our leader’s virtuous pursuits!

It does make sense why he appeared as Lazarus before the White Mantle back then. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get near that Bloodstone.

Bauer didn’t directly mentioned who this leader was. It could be Xera.
As for Balthazar, he obviously had some of gods powers before absorbing Bloodstone. Otherwise how he would know about the secret White Mantle project? He is obviously non omniscent or mindreader (because there was no way we could trick such a being with our mirror trap). So, how exactly B. got to know about Lazarus reanimation project? Obvious and logical answer: plot hole. “I am a fan who tryes to patch the plot holes instead of payed story writers” answer: he had some god powers left, like teleportation or invisibility, and used them for reconnaissance. With these he could join the ritual without any disguise.
But, one more time, even if he impostered Lazarus before the ritual, why continue the sharade in Ep2 when he wanted to gain our trust and there was noone besides us in egg chamber?

Hesacon.8735:

Which assumes that we actually solved any problems here. If you look at the leaks for the next expansion you’d know that Kralkatorrik wakes up and is quite kittened, probably caused by the events of _this_ episode. You can call it dues ex machina, but really it’s making other problems worse.

Primordus wasn’t exactly putting up much of a fight in this episode. Neither he nor Jormag destroyed a city. Both Zhaitan and Mordremoth destroyed Lion’s Arch, among other things. These two were in serious need of coffee. Not exactly threatening other than a couple minions near their home base. Zhaitan and Mordremoth were running amuck all over Tyria before we even saw them.

Using Taimi’s machine was literally deus ex machina. It’s gone now. We also don’t have the foggiest idea what happened to Balthazar.

Let the story play out.

I doubt we will se Kralkatiric in expansion 2. As people noticed, amount of branded (purple) terrain on new maps is very low.
Considering “let the story play out”. For 4 episodes (8 month) the story was building up Lazarus, Primordus and Jormag. That trio was dormant for hundredes of years. They did almost nothing prior LS3, just were somewhere there. First 4 episodes made them “active”. And for what purpous? Just so in episode 5 they can be put down into pre LS3 state. That makes those 4 episodes totally pointless. At this point you can cross them out and the story will lose nothing: Lazarus will be dead/MiA, Primordus and Jormag are not a threat.
So, after such wonderfull letting the story play, how can I (or anyone) be sure that Balthazar is not such a pointless waste of time? A mere segway for us to Elona, were in chapter 1 of personal story he will be tossed into the mists by deus ex Taimi?

Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324:

Balthazar wanted the Bloodstone in the first place (he would have been immensely weak at the time), so he had to trick the White Mantle in order to gain their trust.

First, we don’t know if he used mursaat disguise before absorbing bloodstone. He didn’t need to wisper anyone anything, WM would carry on with ritual anyway and it would fail because of the aspect switch. Balthazar just needed to be near epicenter during the explosion, and thats not a hard thing even for weakened god.
Second thing, why continue the masquerade in Ep2? Noone exept PC and 2 exalted could see him there. He wanted our trust, and telling the truth then was the best way. He kitten it up, we started mistrusting him, and faultered his plans. Yey, great strategic planing from a god of war.

Hesacon.8735:

It’s dues ex machina if it ends now. But the story didn’t end now, there’s still more living story season 3 and a new expansion to go.

I think you don’t understand what deus ex machina is.

“The term has evolved to mean a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object.”

There were 2 active elder dragons, there was Taimi’s machine, 2 dragons were disabled. It doesn’t matter if in expansion 7 Primordus will wake up, cause we already had that abrupt resolution of “zomg we have to deal with two active elder dragons at once” LS3 plot. Primordus waking up will be new, separate plot.
So that was one of the most canonical deus ex machina after the greek dramaturgy. Because it had literally a god in a machine.

Pax.3548:

So, balthazar is in a very weakened state, and there are beings more powerful than mere mortals who would be interested in a weakened god, OF COURSE he would choose to move undercover, and what better cover than lazarus, who was known to be powerful, maybe one of the most powerful mortal beings in the world. The white mantle was trying to revive lazarus, that was a PERFECT chance to come into the world, impersonating someone powerful, worshipped by a strong organization and at the same time have access to one of the five bloodstones in which to regain some of his powers.

First thing, Lazarus was not powerfull before absorbing bloodstone. Mursaat were powerfull spellcasters, but as we seen in GW1, they can be easily killed by anyone who can counter their invisibility and spectral agony.

Second thing, when you disguise into someone, you find a balance between trying to appeal to the most powerfull force out there and being discovered. If you try to imposter as Osama bin Laden you get a bullet in a knee from the terrorists (who know that he is dead for sure) and then a shot to the head from a US sniper (just to be sure if you were Osama). And that is what exactly happened with Balthazar. Had he honestely showed his identity to us in Ep2 in Aurine’s chamber his plan would not be faulted and by this time he would drain two dragons dry and Tiria would be a pile of space litter. The same thing if he revealed his identity to Jennah or disguised as something not untrustworthy (seer, Gleam or Salzman from bookkeeping).

So, I was thinking about all that “Lazarus is Balthazar” thing, and made up my mind that story wise it would be better to have only one of them. Just crossing out any one of them would make the story plausable and logical. Just imagine:
1) There was no Lazarus. In Out of the Shadows Balthazar in all his glory appeared and burned the some White Mantle heretics. In Ep2 he returned to help protecting Aurene and forged a pact with PC. And in Ep5 he steals Taimi’s machine from a field test and reveals his motives. Baaam! Plot twist, real and shocking.
2) There is no Balthazar. Lazarus steals the machine for his power lust. No plot twist, not shocking, but lacks plotholes we have currently.

There is no logical reason for Balthazar to pretend Lazarus. At least I can think of just one: he was not choosing that disguise. How can it be? Well, maybe it was a cruel joke from Lyssa to turn him into human’s worst enemy (though it has some plot holes, cause Balthazar was not happy with us trying to lift his guise). And maybe during the bloodstone ritual Balthazar absorbed 4 Lazarus aspects and “melded” with him. And now there is an angry abated mursaat in the corner of his mind.

I just want something that makes some sence here, please, help me!

perilisk.1874:

While he is an arrogant prick (what does he think he is, a god or something?), we don’t really know enough about the situation to judge him as evil. The six gods have generally been characterized as broadly good, albeit not perfect if judged by human standards. The fact that he doesn’t feel the need to explain himself to or put up with interference from an inferior being doesn’t necessarily mean that he doesn’t have a legitimate need for power other than callous, destructive vanity. Who knows what other dangers are in the Mists, and how many worlds they threaten?

From Balthazar’s dialog it is clear that he cares only for restoring his power and taking his revenge. And that he doesn’t care of millions dying in process. That is like ideal stereotypical villan #3 (while stereotypical villan #1, you guessed it, wants to take over the world, and stereotypical villan #2 just wants to destroy all life cause he is evil).

Bunnytown.7801:

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All of the leaked maps are in a desert. The Kodan and Tengu, I assume, are not tied to Elona, so it makes it unlikely that they should be a playable race.

If tengu would be playable, they will start from Dominion of the winds, so that doesn’t really matter. As for the ties, there is example: the only ties between Revenants and Heart of Maguuma was Rythlock, gone missing in action in the mists.
But knowing my luck Anet just won’t bother adding a new playable race. And thats a pity, it would be “shut up and take my money” deal for me.

Kodan playable are not going to happen, because endless tonic just says “NO” to our expectations.
As for the tengu – they got a brand new model and animations in HoT, so maybe there still is a chance. But if they will not be announced playable in expansion 2, that will be the same “NO” as with the kodan.

Probably won’t happen based on recent leaked spoilers.

I’ve seen there only maps and e-spec art. Did I miss something?

Awesome Ep5 map was made by the same people who created boring Ember bay. The teams concist of living people, who learn on their mistakes. I think that Ep6 map will be definitely better than Bitterfrost.
From the story point I don’t really know. Ep5 just tossed a pile of kitten on the fan, and Ep6 team will have to deal with it. Judging by Ep5 storytelling, the living world climax will be disappointing and anticlimactic reguardless of what team handles it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Balthazar, in the end, isn’t a villain. He’s just apathetic, and that apathy risks our very lives. We fight against him not in a showdown of good versus evil (for once in this game), but in a plight for survival.

Thats semantics. With that kind of thinking elder dragons are not evil – they are just hungry and apathetic to us. Mursaat were not evil – they just wanted to survive and were apathetic to sacrificed humans. And Dhuum is not evil – he just wants his realm back and is apathetic to all mortals. And no evil really exists at all, because one’s sufferings benefit the other, who is just apathetic to them.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

For all we know Jormag is still active due to not having his actual weakness exploited.

Jormag’s primary ascept is frost with primaty weakness being fire. Frost is canceled with fire, fire canceled with frost. We don’t need to exploit his secondary aspect (presumably connection to the Mists), because Primordus is still alive and Jormag did not absorb his fire magic (canceling his fire weakness).
We saw it with Mordemoth, who absorbed death magic and gained immunity to his life aspect (so we had to hit his 2nd aspect, the mind).

Birdack.6714:

Well people, i need your opinion as i really cannot figure out if good things are coming or not. I’ve always been #1 guild wars 2 uptades supporter, but now i don’t know anymore… I mean, i’ve been waitin for 3 months just for a 1,30 hrs gameplay episode and this map?

What do you think you’ll be doin’ for the next 3 months , waiting for the next 1,30 hrs gameplay episode + farming map ?

I’m just collecting few more ideas about my time in gw2 in the future, as i don’t really fegure it out anymore…(

If you are interested just in story content, yes, you don’t have one for the next 2 months. I am interested in open world content, and that map has a lot more content for me. The quest chains, champions, secrets, archivements. I am okay with that quantity of content.

The Comfy Chair.7265:

Here’s my view on it – this is the beginning of a new story arc that’s going to be explored in the expansion. It’s going to open up a bunch of questions that simply wont be answered just yet. I’m interested to see how it all unravels, especially since it sounds like there’s a schism between the human gods.

It is a poor begining and a weak foundation. And the most fun thing, it would be way better if there was no Lazarus in the story. It would be a way better if in this episode Balthazar would just pop out of the mists to claim Taimi’s dragon killing machine.

The map is great. At last complexity and verticality returns, ever more glorious with that vine mastery. I hope that we will see those vines on some new maps as well, so much fun it is to use them. Best map in LS3

The story. Huge disappointment. In short: no logic, bad reveal, anticlimactic Primordus meeting, too fast pacing.

The Comfy Chair.7265:

Unless something else is hunting him. I doubt he’d be scared of humans. He also explicitly states that he doesn’t care about Tyria, so he’s only here for the free magic buffet courtesy of blowing up some dragons and a bloodstone. Note that he didn’t actively ‘reveal’ himself, he was forced out – and he made a beeline to Taimi’s device once he knew it could destroy two dragons.

Plus, he’s obviously extremely weak right now, since Majory isn’t splattered all over rata novus.

In short, I doubt he was masquerading as Lazarus for the benefit of hiding from us.

It is still stupid. He could disguise humself as a seer, or forgotten, or Gleam or anything but not the most untrustworthy race in Tiria. He could reveal his true self to Jennah, and gain full Krita support. Billions of options that would work better than the one we have.

And he absorbed the bloodstone, he is not that weak, he killed people by just moving a finger in Ep1. The only reason why Majory is still alive is a) she has plot armor; b) because ritual with the mirrors weakened Balthazar.

And after lazy writing of that “grand reveal” I am completely positive that Balthazar is just an Abaddon 2.0. Made a mess up there, was stripped of most of the powers by other gods, came down to feed. Just because lazy writing is lazy. To hell, they trashed one of elder dragons in most anti-climactic way this episode, why shoud I expect real effort now?

This map is the best thing in LS3. Beautifull, complex, with chain events, a lot of secrets. And it is just fun to traverse with new vine mastery and gliders. The first map out of 5 that is on the quality level I saw in HoT maps. I will surely return to play it for fun again and again, while I just don’t want to return to other LS3 maps for anything but farm.

All this grand reveal is just horrible, mostly because it makes no sence.
Why would Balthazar disguise as a mursaat? He could just pop in as a human god, and every human would react as Kasmeer initially did, kneeling in awe, and following his orders with little to no questions and great zeal.
What did he accomplish by imposting Lazarus? Human minority (part of white mantle, thats minority of a minority!) and suspition of every persone with half a brain. That exact suspition that lead us to breaking his disguise and stopping him from draining dry completely both elder dragons (which was his original plan, as we see now).
What the kitten, Anet? A week ago i wrote that after this reveal I will be either applauding or facepalming hard. Well, guess what, there is a red palm print on my face right now.

Xienzato.7214:

Why confused?
There are many reasons console gamers prefer console gaming to PC gaming despite them being technically inferior.
I have nothing against PC gaming, I just prefer having all my gaming on one platform as I just like it that way.
Obviously this is the price I have to pay for this commodity but that’s ok, it doesn’t hurt to ask and I got a lot of useful replies.

Thanks everyone

In that case only thing I can suggest you is creating a petition to port GW2 on consoles and start gathering votes. It worked for Dark Souls PC port. It will work for GW2, if Anet will see that there is a large playerbase on consoles who is willing to buy their game.
And yet I am (personaly) against any porting. Not because I have anything against consoles, I just don’t want Anet to split their resorses. More people working on the port → less people working on living world and expansion 2 → more content droughts → dead playerbase.

Squee.7829:

Lazarus was nowhere near Shiro or Malyx level enemies. He was a Mursaat. We mowed down Mursaat by the hundreds, and the only thing special about Lazarus was that he just happened to be somewhere else when we and the titans were murdering them. He just happened to use probably common Mursaat trick to keep himself alive in the form of “aspects” after he realized almost all of the other Mursaat weren’t as lucky.

Now, of course, he has all that bloodstone juju probably making him much more powerful than previous Mursaat, but overall, he was not a significant character in anything until now. He wasn’t in any of the main campaigns and was only present in a non essential side quest in GW1, EotN.

Yet he has a potential as an interesting character. Will he betray us? Is he really seeking redemption? What is he really up to? A lot of cool mind games can be played around that. And that is a rare thing in video games characters. When they started building Lazarus that way I really liked it and found it ingenious.

We will see everything tomorrow, but I personally think that trailer is misguiding us in some way. It has a feel of faul play in detective stories. Things just are pushed into our faces without any actual facts that can confirm these things.
But anyway it is a lose-lose situation for Anet, I don’t know why they did it. Lazarus was one of grand characters in GW, on par with Shiro or Malyx. If Lazarus is an imposter, they just flashed down the toilet an opportunity for a great villian/character for the sake of cheap plot twist.
And if after all that noise Lazarus is a mere himself, a lot of players would be disappointed when they realise all that buildup in cliffhanger and trailer was just a lie for the sake of hype generation.

Xienzato.7214:

Oh well, I am considering purchasing another gaming PC in the near future, so there is still hope for me

You can run GW2 on a 7-8 year old PC, judging by minimal system requirements. It is a 5 year old game. Nowardays almost anyone with a console has a PC for work/study/internet. And that PC most likely can run GW2, if it is a machine from this decade. That is why I am confused with this thread.

Xienzato.7214:

It won’t have any effect on the PC playerbase as consoles can have their own servers which is something other console MMOs are currently doing. Assuming the return in investment pays off (obviously), it actually benefits everyone, including PC players. More players = more money for Anet to invest back into the game = longer lifespan/more content etc.

And yet I don’t see any point of console porting. Players who wanted to play GW2 already own GW2 on PC, with better controls and performance. Of course, there is some minority who on principal don’t by the game if it is not on consoles, but that is a minority, and I don’t think they can justify spending money and human resorses on console ports.

What is the point of having GW2 on consoles? It will just split playerbase even more and give none benefits.

Jokes aside, they can make a fractal there. That would be the best usage of wizards tower and even can show us the story and past of that place.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Then there’s this image, which shows him before the PC and others.

Where does this screenshot come from? I rewatched trailer again and didn’t find anything alike. I am interested because on your screenshot Lazarus doesn’t have his mursaat wings.

Silas Eorth.7348:

Okay, Rytlock was called back to the Black Citadel. Right after we were briefly reunited with him after the Mordromoth campaign…. where he was largely absent because of being in the Mists…..

I’m just gonna leave this lil’ pic I made and say that we need more Rytlock. I hope you guys can feel me on this one.

At least your favourite character was not killed in the very begining of HoT by a vinetooth. And only to be replaced by angsty emo kid. Be thankfull for that.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But long ranged ones are much more uncommon (if even possible without devices such as the mursaat teleporters, asura gates, exalted teleporters, etc.). We’re not sure if Lazarus would be capable of long-range teleportation. Though given how much magic he has, I wouldn’t doubt it.

There are long range teleportations. In lake Doric we can see watchwork knights teleporting in and out to fight champion jades via mesmer magic. As we don’t see any watchknights stationed in Doric, it is logical to presume that they are teleported from Divinity Reach. So teleports without any kind of beacons over (minimum) several miles away are possible to powerful mesmers.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Except this trailer and the articles about the release clearly shows Lazarus as an enemy. So we know that whoever he is… he is no ally.

Well, in Ep.4 trailer there was a human noble with a passionate speech, and the trailer depicted him as a patriotic royalist. People even speculated on the forum that it is lord Faren’s new model or something like this.
Then Ep.4 releases, and we see that noble was pro White Mantle and that speech confronted queen Jennah’s decision to disband the parlament.
Why am I brinning that up? As you correctly said, there is no logical reason for anyone allied to us to disguise as a mursaat. But there is no logical reason for anyone who is our enemy to disguise as a our old enemy (mursaat). The logical solution would be that Lazarus is Lazarus, but the trailer pushes it in completely other direction. So either the trailer shows things from a wrong perspective (as an ep.4 trailer) to misleade us and build hype, or “Lasarus” reveal will by trully shocking. The question will it be shockingly good or shockingly bad.
I don’t really know how Anet will untie all this, but in a week I’ll be either facepalming hard, or applauding.

Justine.6351:

Every couple of months I sell 100-150g worth of leather I get from playing wvw to players with no patience. I have 5 characters in full ascended and have max all crafting, some even duplicates. I’m really not sure why leather is so expensive but it’s kind of nice for me to make some easy gold.

2 month of playing => leather worth 150g => 2.5 insignias. 2 months of playing = 2.5 insignias. Yeah. Just think about it. Its ridiculous.

Here’s a hint: they’ll adddress the issue eventually and the economy will rebalance.

That is the problem: we don’t know if they will fix it. They already tryed, that failed, and Anet stays silent since then. What I personally whant at that point is someone from Anet to show up and just say something on the topic. They are working to fix this kitten? Great. They don’t care about leather economy cause they don’t have spare resorses? Okay. They are happy with current state of the market? Just some communication, please.

Open world works fine, don’t mess with it, please, you will just break everything. We have casual-friendly core Tiria, we have challange-filled HoT maps. Works great for everyone.

Short answer: yes, youre in disadvantage, mostly in PvP and WvW (because of elite specs). Though you can enjoy most of PvE content (exept raids) without HoT. In PvE HoT gives some quality of life and build diversity, but core game is still playable and enjoyable.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

This reminds me of a thread where a guy complained that all his friends would try gw2 then quit. After a bit of discussion it turned out he was bad mouthing the game every time he gave advice and information, and then was surprised his friends formed a negative opinion of the game. This sounds like that sort of situation where someone asks about a feature and the adviser only gives information on one aspect and doesn’t give the alternatives, such as temple armor or dungeon armor. It assumes that the new person must craft and ignores that many people can get their exotics outside of crafting. Maybe next time you could discuss the alternatives to crafting and discuss how to get them to encourage your friends to play instead of only pointing out one way of acquisition (that you don’t like).

Is telling the truth “bad mouthing”?

My friend asks me: “hey, I want to burn people as condi engineer, its fun. And I heard they are really good!”
I tell him: “Yeah, they are one of the best. You’ll want viper armor, cause without 60% of condition duration from it you will lose a ton of damage. You can use cheap rampager, but the damage will be even worse, cause it has even less condi damage.”
After buying rampagers: “You know, this thing sucks. I spent 15 gold on this gear, but I kill enemies significantly worse than your condi ranger. I feel myself underpowered. What were you saying about viper stats?”
“It is craftable only. You’ll need around 90 cured hardened leather for a set.”
“I’ve got 5 so far, I’ll buy the rest. Wow, its 90 gold on the trading post just for one component. Is it hard and long to get it?”
“Well, for the last 2 months I was not farming it, just playing 1-2 hours a day and having fun, and got 30 cured h.leather.”
“Ok then, what about farm you mentioned?”
“There is a centaur farm. In a good group I usually get there 120 hides per hour.”
“Wow, thats more like it! I can get myself a good gear in less than an hour!”
“Well… 120 hides is like 4 cured leathers, if you are lucky with salvage rates.”
“I’m sorry, I know you like this game a lot, but this is too much for me. This is some kind of bullkitten I experienced in korean MMO’s. Let me know if anything changes.”

Ayrilana.1396:

Having patches require more gossamer wouldn’t provide much of a sink.

Not really. Because of the rarity of hardened leather noone crafts exotic now, so this sink would be minimal. And it will just bring more trouble, cause, as I said, building upon problem doesnot solve it. But if hardened leather in gossamer patces was nerfed to reasonable levels, people would start crafting exotics and sink gossamer into patches AND tailoring parts.

Ayrilana.1396:

Leather farm only “failed” because there are some players that didn’t understand its purpose and thought it should be another gold farm. Funny thing is that even if it caused hardened leather prices to fall 50%, it still wouldn’t be a good gold farm and thus deemed a “failure”.

Leather farm failed because people wanted T6 leather and farm was giving them T5 leather. Noone wanted to farm gold, we have silverwastes for this.

Ayrilana.1396:

Perhaps gossamer should be given more sinks then.

The gossamer will have sinks if leather in gossamer patches will be fixed. People at last will start crafting exotics and sink it all there.
You can’t solve this problem by building more and more on top of it. They already tryed with glorified leather farm and failed. The only solution is going down to foundation, the sorce, and cleaning the mess there.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

or Converters just like with the other Ascended mats, now that many have completed their Hall upgrades.

No, please, for the love of god, no more convertors. These things are just eating space in my alts bags and are mostly useless. At least in case of bloodstone dust, there are far mor efficient ways to convert it into gold.

ArchonWing.9480:

So our poor “new player” in 2 months will have gotten about 80-90 gold. Even if we want to go all out and spend about 200 gold on equipment (a one time purchase mind you), they would have to do the equivalent of 2 months worth of dailies.

Think of it as having to wait 2 months to craft something of basic necessity. Its not ascended (or legendary) gear, its exotic. It is heavily implied by Anet that exotic is normal (or “default”) lvl 80 gear, all HoT openworld content was balanced for it. Talking about balance: exotic weapons are much easily and cheaply crafted, and materials for a whole set can be easily gathered in several days by any player.

I guess the best solution for everyone would be giving HoT ascended vendor prices, so we could just vendor a whole stack for like 10s.