Guild Wars 2

1. Progression and implementation of the Living World content
2. Making open world exploration more attractive through the introduction of quests
3. (The lacking) epicness of Elite Skills

So, I noticed the golem AUX-1 in the camp south of Fort Salma. He talks about his mistress Kari. Other conversations lead me to believe this is not the Kari we already know (the little girl that keeps falling into a certain Destroyer cave in the east part of the map). So we now have two ‘Kari’ persons within the same map? Confusing :P

Also, in the aprox. 15 mins I was in that camp, the voiced conversations often played at the same time. Having voiced conversations doesn’t work so well if we can’t understand them properly because there are 3 persons/things (a Human, a golem and a Quaggan) talking at the same time. Any chance this can be fixed? The conversations are great by the way, only there is some inconsistency with the different conversations between Maddox and AUX-1 (in a period of 5 minutes apparently Maddox finds out Kari is missing, decides to organize a search party and gets word back from that search party that they can’t find Kari, all the while without any movement in the whole camp. Guess he’s got some mental power to communicate with his mind).

BTW, I love this secretly introduced content. Love Halloween events too, but so far I’ve spent more time in Kessex dealing with this than doing Halloween events.

‘There will also be # changes to some of the Ranger weapons.’

At first I figured they accidentally were holding shift and were actually telling us there would be 3 (three) changes, but even that didn’t make it. 1,5 is more like it (fixing a bug really doesn’t count as 1).

edit: the number 3 and word ‘changes’ apparently combine into the word kitten

Living Story is a great concept, but it should continue the story of the Dragons, not introduce new foes (there are already so many evil forces that we can deal with). Just a quick possible version:
 
Act 1) Destiny’s Edge wants to finish what they started (now that they’re happy together again) and go after that certain dragon they didn’t kill. Act 1 will deal with convincing everyone that dragon is the next one on the list.
Act 2) Focusses on the pact. Before the pact can move on there are several things that need taking care of. The Pact needs a new leader as Trahearne will stay in Orr (got kicked from his party for being a leecher). The three fractions in the pact each have their own objectives: clean out the risen (Vigil), find more info/artifacts (Priory) and find Zhaitan to check if he’s really dead (Whispers). Strechted out over multiple episodes featuring the different orders.
Act 3) Preparations for an excursion into the Crystal Desert. Convince Jennah to let Abonhawke be used as a staging ground. Collect supplies and escort them to Ebonhawke. More research in existing Branded areas.
Act 4) Introduction of the first map in the Crystal Desert. Finding a good place for an outpost and building it with materials that need to be brought there. Perhaps do something special with that, like needing the world to bring # amount of supply caravans before we get our waypoint there, some more escorts for defensive walls etc.
Act 5) Expansion into that area. Waypoints become available (just a few to keep the desert feeling like an empty place.
Act 6) Again focus on the different orders within the pact. Vigil goes cleaning out some more branded/new foes that are raiding supply caravans and are threatening the new outpost, Priory goes looking for ancient tombs/the body of Glint (we’ll be seeing some Zephyrites maybe?) and the Order of Whispers will be looking to contact their old buddy Palawa Joko to see how he’s surviving (more or less) the precence of Kralkatorrik.
 
And so on. A return visit to a partially healed Orr, a visit to the place Kralkatorrik was sleeping, seeking out the Hall of Monuments for answers to questions about the dragons (meanwhile setting up the story for defeating Jormag, to continue once we’re finished with Kralkatorrik, there is so much more that can be done within the existing lore. It’ll be years before we run out of content. Of course we can’t kill all the dragons, their needs to be some great evil left in the game, but it wouldn’t make sense not to go after Kralkatorrik and Jormag at least.

For it to work, I guess we’ll also have to make it restart the personal story. That would really make the item a character restart, just without the choice of profession. The only problem (despite technological problems at Anet’s side which I don’t know anything about) I see is existing racial armor. It could just become unusable, forcing players to use transmutation stones/crystals to keep their stats.

For the record: I would buy this item (if also restarting the personal story) even if previous choices like your biography and Order will never have any influence again.

On my male Norn Elementalist, the Devout Helm has some clipping issues with my head. See attachted screenshot.

My sylvari has some issues with his helmet:

- Male Sylvari Guardian with the Heritage Warhelm from the Hall of Monuments
- Hairstyle with the brown/glowing tips on the leafs.
- The result is weird red squares sticking out of the helmet when shown (see attachments)
- All looked normal when I created this character (6 months ago), the bug was introduced somewhere between 6 and 3 months ago.

I thought about it for a while, and at this moment it’s my opinion that an extra skill slot does not warrant the loss of utility coming from having two pets to swap between.

Swapping itself can be viewed at as a resurrect and a recall. Having two pets gives you the possibility to either specialize or split your assets. With two pets we also still have 2 different skills available.

Also, I’m not convinced having full control over all of the pet’s skills is desirable, I prefer letting them have some kind of independence. Of course, the AI controlling these skill could use an upgrade, but that accounts for the pet AI as a whole.

Having a working pet system will indeed not change anything on the topic of role inside a group (which is a completely different discussion). However, I feel the proposed changes will help Rangers keep their pets alive and active. This would make a lot more pets viable for instanced group content, and pets can bring a lot of utility to whatever role you are trying to fill.

(post 3/3)
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Closing

To finish this post, I’d like to quickly share which ideas I have dismissed from my list:

• Complete overhaul of the Ranger mechanics. Pets fit the Ranger and can be quite fun, they just need to work well enough.
• Introducing perma-stow with a stat bonus to the Ranger when the pet is stowed. Just ignoring your professions mechanic should not reward you with stats. With the suggested improvements, it shouldn’t be necessary either.
• Pet dodges when the player dodges. Would look weird and makes absolutely no sense to me.
• Reduce damage dealt by pet, increase damage done by Rangers. Will just make us even less interested in our mechanic.
• Make pets take less dmg from attacks and/or AoE in general. Overall damage really isn’t the issue and this solution would be OP in fighting everything that is not a champion or legendary (like) foe.
• Showing additional pet information in either the party screen or in a redesigned Pet Management screen. The party section might not be supported by the systems in place (pets must not show up in the party section of your teammates, just in yours) and would not really add anything, as the (de)buff icons can also be shown above the current bar. Other information it provides is also already at hand in the existing bar. A redesigned Pet Management screen will take too much space, and although it might give BMs a lot of extra info I think it will be too much for the casual players like myself. Also would duplicate information already at hand.
• I’ve not proposed an idea for making our F2 attacks land when we want to, because I think the current situation is something we can live with. If timing is crucial we will have to use our own skills and we can use our control skills to make it easier for the pet to hit. Now I don’t use these skills extensively, so I expect some of you will have other ideas on this matter. I guess a reduction in activating times would help, I just don’t know what it would do to the balance, nor do I have any data on the matter of missing attacks which is why I didn’t include it in the solutions above.
• Adding a ‘go there’ command (like Guard) to the basic controls. Although it would be nice to choose from where your ranged pet will be attacking or to be able to send your melee pet away if necessary, at this moment I prefer an evade. If there would be a fifth button available, this would definitely be up there with the other suggestions, but right now all buttons have a rather crucial function.

If you got this far, thanks for sticking with me! Please let me know if I’ve missed something crucial or if I’m talking complete BS in some way, I’d like to make my post in the Suggestions forums the best it can be. If we just keep asking for changes with detailed and well thought out suggestions we might just get it! (Yes, optimistic, I know)

(post 2/3)
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The Solutions

To solve our problems with the pet, apart from improving the AI, I propose the following changes (some might be stolen from other players, some things I’ve read might have stuck with me. Sorry!):

A) Combine F1, F3 and the guard/avoid modes into one single button (F1). Pressing F1 will change the pets status from guard to avoid and vice versa.

• While in guard mode, the pet will attack your target unless otherwise instructed.
• While in avoid mode, the pet will return to you and not gain new agro or trigger traps. When at your side, it will regen health at a decent rate (will have to be balanced out, but I guess 1/15th of max health per second would be a good place to start).
• Switching to guard mode will set your target as the pets target. To send the pet to a different target than the one it’s currently on, double tap F1 (cycling from guard to avoid back to guard).
• Both modes should activate immediately, cancelling all other actions.

B) Add a player-controlled evade on F3. This will function much like the dodge we players have, the difference being that an attacking pet will just perform a stationary evasive maneuver. Pets that are moving will also get the movement part of a dodge. Pets will have only 1 dodge ready, with a recharge timer (5 seconds recharge per dodge seems fair). Dodging will cancel the pets current action, so just dodging constantly will lower your pets dps significantly.

C) Increasing the information available. This can simply be done by showing effects right above the current bar. It might be useful to add the Paw symbol to the icons to make clear these effects belong to your pet and not yourself.

D) Bring resurrecting pets back, but instead of making it an interact (F) just change skill F2 or F3 to a ress when the pet is downed. A 5 second channel would be nice, ressed pets will ress at 25% health.

E) A permanent pet buff, to be applied in PvE only, that limits the amount of damage a pet can take from a single attack. Will also have to be carefully balanced, but 40% would be my guess to start with. Normal foes will never do such damage, so it will only affect battles versus champion and legendary (like) foes. Clearly the buff would have to be named ‘Natural Resistance’.

F) The much requested perma-stow. Would prevent a lot of frustrations. Make stowing and unstowing available while in combat, but put a 20s recharge on it to prevent it from being used as an evade. No button required, stowing will take a little more effort this way. The only argument I’ve heard against perma-stow is that players will just stow it and play without (which is kind of the point of a perma-stow), but in situations we would stow pets they are already being ignored.

Solutions A, B and C will provide a solution for problem 1. Solutions A and D will make calling your pet back a viable option (problem 1), as well as solve problem 2. Problem 3 will be adressed by solutions A to E, and solution F clearly solves problem 4.

Hi folks!

Just another one of those long posts with ideas that have probably been mentioned before, but I still wanted to get it out here, for all to comment and improve on, before I post this in the Suggestions part of the forums. These ideas are from my point of view, which is mainly PvE, some zerging in WvW and a total of one played PvP match since release, so all I mention about WvW and PvP is just what I’ve heard from others. Any numbers (health percentaged, recharge times) I give are just what I think would be fair, but are of course subject to balancing.

I’ve limited myself to the system itself, so no specific skill changes etc. Also, I’ve tried to keep Anet’s vision in mind, meaning two things:

- The pet will remain the Ranger’s unique ability, and Rangers will have to play with the pet to fulfill their highest potentials. This also means the pet AI can’t do too much on its own: it still has to be the player that makes the pet effective, not the other way around.
- The system will have to fit inside the boundaries already in place, meaning no more than four buttons may be used to control the pet (F1-F4).

The Issues

Looking at my own experiences and those of others (posted here on the forums) the problems I/we have with the pet system right now can be summarized as follows (don’t hesitate to reply if I forgot something crucial):

1) Control over the pet is lacking:

• Unresponsiveness to commands makes many commands activate too late resulting in either a loss of damage/utility or the pet’s death. A chill or immobilize has to be timed correctly, for example just when your foe enters your flame trap, or it is useless.
• The ‘return to me’ command (F3) I’ve found useful in only two cases: to get my ranged pet close to me so I can keep an eye on him and calling the pet back when it’s attacking something while I’m running away. Calling it back to prevent it from dying while waiting for a heal or swap to recharge either doesn’t work fast enough or doesn’t seem worth the loss of the damage the pet would deal before dying/healing/swapping. It is also completely useless while fighting in melee.
• Not knowing what buffs and conditions the pet has impacts the decisions we have to make. It is entirely possible to waste a heal on a pet that will still die from those stacks of poison and bleeding. It’s also possible to wate a pet swap because you think the pet is starting to get serious damage while it is actually just an AoE burn it picked up and isn’t even worth a heal. Wasting an F2 attack on a blind is also just a possibility. Right now there just isn’t enough information at hand to be able to control our pet as we should.

2) Pet swapping is mandatory. I use my two slots for pets that are useful in different situations, mainly one ranged and one melee pet. When fighting a champion a ranged pet is clearly the main choice, but being forced to send out my Snow Leopard because the Devourer is dying or already dead while knowing the Snow Leopard will not survive for even 5 secs doesn’t seem right.

3) Pets are unfit for challenging content. While content is evolving, requiring more active play from the players with each update (a very good thing btw!), pets are left behind. The dungeon in Flame and Frost, Canach with his mines, the Aetherblade Retreat, Queen’s Gauntlet, the Maw in Fractals and pretty much every champion or legendary boss out there: all examples of places where at one moment the pet loses any usefulness due to the fact it dies immediately from stuff the players can (and have to) evade. This makes Rangers a less viable option for this type of content (and by extend all new content I would love to see in the future) than other professions. This already starts to reflect on the Ranger profession as a whole as we see reports from Rangers being refused in PUGs (and even guild parties) every day.

4) Sometimes, pets are just not wanted. There are two cases which I’ve heard plenty of times:

• In a WvW-zerg the pet is just an easy mark for a rally, making Rangers not fit well in the more organized groups. Controlling your pet really won’t help much if 10 enemies target it to help their friends up, as it just can’t do anything against it. The alternative, just keeping it on passive at your side, really isn’t the way we want to or should have to play.
• In jumping puzzles, it just blocks the view, for the Ranger and for everyone else. Also, having to restow it every time I bump my toe on a rock gets annoying fast.

Pets are pretty useless indeed. In the end I managed to keep my devourer alive through part 1 by having it on passive and steering it a bit with my own movements. Used F2 with RaO and QZ to get some dmg to start with. After thakittens indeed just spamming shortbow while walking in circles to avoid AoE (find that ideal radius!), dodge whenever you need to and throwing all you have at her. Its tricky, requires luck and quite a few tries, but in end you will get it.
Also, make sure you prepare well. You might need to buy some new gear, use dmg boosting food, use those leftover boosters, work up your bloodlust stack before every try and get a boost from one of the emissaries.

As for the Candidate Trials specifically, Ranger really aint bad. With longbow you get a knockback and cripple and with Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain and Entangle you can bring a lot of control. Also, right now the Longbow is a real Vulnerability stacking machine, which is quite usefull as well.

Dagoh.3482:

I found it strange that after the big cannon was shot at Zhaitan and destroyed by him in the cutscene, there followed another cutscene where he was grabbed at the side of the airship and driven to the tower with only the 3 eyes left. My feeling was that there was something missing in this part, what were these cannons? Didn’t we need to charge those? Was this bugged? It brings up alot of questions. And then in the end while he’s at his tower he’s casting his spells etc. which all are targeted in an area, far away from your cannons, here I had also the idea that I missed the backstab spawns for a more dynamic fight. All by all, I (and the others I did the dungeon with) had all the idea that there was a bug in the end fight, since the easiest part of the dungeon is Zhaitan.

This about sums it up for me too. Any chance we can get confirmation on wheter the last fight is bugged? It would help putting my mind at ease.