Guild Wars 2

Mine dropped from a smokescale. A veteran one, as a matter of fact, but I don’t know if that means anything. What is it for, anyway?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Exxcalibur.6203:

worst expac ever.

No, still see “Hellfire” for the original Diablo as much worse. Then there was “Lost Dungeons of Norrath” . . .

. . . I mean, six gods those were TERRIBLE.

Hellfire… Yeah. That was kind of a poop expansion, but keep in mind that Blizzard did not make it. That expansion was made by Sierra, a long dead development studio that had been struggling to make decent games for a long time before they finally bit the dust. Or were they bought out by EA? I don’t remember.

As far as LDoN, that really depends. LDoN dungeons were amazing to level in. I loved the procedural randomness to it, and it made leveling characters a lot faster, and finding groups for LDoNs were a lot easier to do. I will agree with you beyond that. The currency system they added to get the gear from it was very meh, and the raid content introduced in LDoN was extremely bad.

Kreejaffa.3682:

Kravick.4906:

It would also trivialize certain jumping puzzles.

In my opinion, mesmers already do that, but I sadly know they had said it is just not an option.

Some what, yes. But at least one mesmer still has to run the puzzle legitimately at least once. Gliders would allow anyone at any time to basically by pass most if not all of it.

PyrateSilly.4710:

They have already said that they cannot add gliding to the Tyria maps. It has to do with several things including the way the maps were made and it would also make some things that are supposed to be somewhat hard then really easy.

It would also trivialize certain jumping puzzles.

They went poof.

You do have to grind and grind and grind just to progress past several points of the story, however.

I’ve reached several hero points, only to find out I can’t actually get them for some reason. They’re covered in some kind of glowing vines that instantly kill you the minute you touch them. So how the hell are you supposed to even get these hero points?

Theres also one I found that literally spawns a champion that cannot be soloed because it has a five minute timer attached to it, and its in such a far, out of the way place that no one else is around to help kill the champion in the alotted time. This isn’t fun. This is frustrating, aggravating, and incredibly tedious.

Expansion is pretty bad. The actual expansion content itself is very minimal. This entire mastery system just gives the illusion of new content when in reality all they did was chop up old content and re-gate it behind this new convoluted system.

I have a few outfits for my charr that would look good without shoes. Especially on my mesmer.

Here you go. Yeah, its pretty awful. They cut the horns off, just like they did with the warrior’s class helmet.

I can’t really give you a side view because the preview window is so small it cuts off the front half of the hood, but heres a screenshot anyway.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Well, they did say that this was supposed to take the RNG out of it, so…

I have no idea what to say except…

Lame?

This is ANet we’re talking about. Did you honestly believe that they would do anything but RNG or time gate it?

Eremoo.2785:

honestly this is just a kittened way to gate your content

I agree. It really is.

dace.8019:

Oh yeah, it’s just Hero Challenges now. My bad.

So… I’m stuck then? Not able to finish my elite skills?

dace.8019:

Grind XP and do Hero Challenges.

But that doesn’t work. I’ve already done map completion, so all the hero challenges are already done. The XP bar is for mastery points now.

So now that the exp bar has been replaced by the mastery bar, how do you get hero points/spirit shards once you’ve done map completion? I still haven’t fully unlocked my elite specialization tree, but I’m not seeing how to get more points to further unlock it.

Bhawb.7408:

Except then people would wonder why we’re suddenly being followed by a Risen despite that being a massive break of lore, as well as visually weird when you go in and out of water a bunch having a Golem/Shark spawn/despawn constantly.

Lore went right out the window when they added those crazy kitten super saiyan hair styles to charr, the crazy colored eyes and hair dyes, wings, holographic laser swords, wings, and 8-bit nintendo weapons with 8-bit sound effects to the game. Did I say wings yet?

Embolism.8106:

Blast Finisher + Fire Field = AoE Fire Aura.

Actually, I think this is a great idea. It would put less emphasis on bringing only classes that can blast or create fire fields in dungeons, and put more emphasis on what a class brings based on what they can do for the group.

Of course this does nothing for the necromancer since it can’t do anything anyone wants.

I’m gonna laugh my kitten off when they introduce new mats which you can only harvest in HoT zones that you will need to level cook/JC past 400.

Signal fires? Torches? Rubble? Eh, what is this stuff?

No, this isn’t a sarcastic post. I don’t know anything about signal fires, torches, or rubble. What is this and how does it work?

It varies, honestly. Gem store I don’t really have a problem with, but weapon skins going straight to the BL key/chests system feels extremely unrewarding. Thats because I hate gambling, though. I’d rather just know what the cost of something is up front and buy it that way. I refuse to gamble for it. I tried it once, got absolutely nothing, and I felt awful that I had just thrown my money away like that. Never again. Ever.

On the other hand, being able to get ascended rings through achievements was pretty nice (sinister jewelry), and that certainly felt rewarding. So for me it really depends.

No thank you. I didn’t particularly like the one time events this game came out with.

LMAO. This is why no one takes GW2 esports seriously. The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, and they make up arbitrary rules for no reason. The government thing only applies to cash prizes, or high value physical real world items that can be taxed (Like cars, houses, etc.) Since GW2 doesn’t hand out cash prizes for tournaments, its a non-issue.

In other words. Tournament officials dropped the ball, and now they’re trying to come up with excuses to justify it. I am so glad I don’t follow this stuff any more, let alone try to get involved in it. I realized a while ago that GW2 esports was never going to be anything but a waste of time, and it seems like it still is.

Kaineng was… Yeah. It was a giant cluster kitten of a design. The first couple of zones were also loudly complained about. They weren’t fun to navigate and everything looked the same. Canthan starter island and the Luxon/Kurzick territories were beautiful, but man, that city scene was awful.

Its unlikely to return, and if it does, it won’t be how it used to be. The Asian market didn’t like Cantha very much because of how it mixed their cultures together. They’re very picky about how their cultures are represented in video games, so mixing any part of the Asian cultures into a unified representation of that region is a huge no no for them. Divinity’s Reach originally had a Canthan district (It was where the Pavilion is now) that ANet was forced to pull from the game. Someone at NCSoft didn’t like how it took elements of most of the major Asian cultures and mashed them together.

I just did this with a new account last week. The way it works is there is a 5 day waiting period before you can use the TP and send mail to other players no matter what. If you validate your account (connect it to SMS) at any time during this 5 day period, you still have to wait out the 5 day period. If you have not validated your account during that 5 day period, you will still still need to validate your account to use those services after the 5 day period to gain access to them.

Unfortunately, there is no way around the five day waiting period.

If you know someone, a trusted friend, then you can have them buy what you need off the TP and mail it to you, as you can always receive mail regardless of the 5 day waiting period.

Didn’t like this event. Felt rushed, and I also felt “rushed” to do the event because of how limited the rewards were. I don’t like limited time things like this.

Competent management at ANet.

Nike.2631:

There is no MMO universe where making non-human races look and act more human is a good thing. We get FAR too many watered down pseudo-humans as it is.

This. Archeage is probably the worst in this regard.

I was wondering where the heck that trait went. Banners really don’t feel like they’re worth using half the time without that trait.

Shiki.7148:

They had no animations for it, and apparently were too lazy to ever make one.

This. In beta, it was fully capable of being submerged. It still attacked and everything. It just kinda… floated there though in the default standing pose, frozen. It still moved around and followed you, though.

A few weeks after launch day and they made it unusable under water stating that they would fix it soon by adding a swimming animation and give us back our underwater golem. That animation never came.

myself.2143:

Also, the Charr neck and head area is so incredibly fat that there is no way that skinny little tail is preventing them from falling flat on their faces multiple times a day.

You’d be incredibly surprised how a simple long, thin pole can change the center of balance on a larger object. Physics really is the real worlds magic.

Kinda have to agree. I was waiting for the avian mini pack to show up. The Raven, Owl, and Hawk mini pets. I don’t even know why this mini pack is even temporary in the first place. It really just doesn’t make sense how they have this thing set up. Does ANet -not- want money?

Ice.5162:

@Ausfer

I might’ve used an exaggeration but those primates use their knuckles to move a lot of the times, so not entirely two-legged, but without getting into the semantics, I don’t mind the charr as they are but sometimes the hunch seems so severe I ask myself how do they not topple over, the overall balance feels like it could’ve been better, and I don’t know if it’s just me but when you do a /salute /yes or such emotes where they straighten their backs makes me wish that they would’ve at least put in an idle animation like that. (also the NPC talking animation WHY ARE THERE NO TALKING ANIMATIONS IN THE GAME)

The tail is a huge part of their balance. It sticks out behind them farther than they lean forward. It acts as a counter to the hunched over bit.

Tongku.5326:

Ashen.2907:

Your bias is showing. Both of your presented options state that the article was taken down to restrain honesty.

What about the possibility that the article was not, “really, really,” good? Perhaps it was taken down for being poorly written?

Who knows, perhaps it was taken down in response to an ANet request, but the article earned removal on its own merits (or lack of same). Being critical is not only appropriate but needed. Shoddy, “journalism,” however, doesn’t contribute to finding solutions to real problems.

Nope.

I have read it. It was well written, language used was appropriate etc. It also was based on prolonged facts, rather then assumptions making it more of an actual report piece vs. a commentary.

Even if it was a commentary, does A-Net have the right to force a well written one to be taken down ?

There is currently actually a lawsuit in progress in one of the high courts in our system dealing with gaming industry and their respective PR misrepresenting facts about their products as well as not disclosing paid for advertising practices. This lawsuit is pretty much an open and shut case and a forgone conclusion just naturally being stalled by gaming industry lawyers via appeals.

Once the verdict is reached it will have very wide effects on this type of behavior from the big gaming businesses as precedent will be set. There will be no more taking down such articles or at least, the entity forcing such a takedown will be held accountable for it and will have to pay appropriate damages, possibly make public apology statements etc. making it even worse for themselves in the long run.

Also, lets face it, this is the “interwebs” and I’m sure there are already archived copies of the article in question including on many public torrent sites far beyond reach of A-net for anyone to find.

I’m curious, which country is this legal case taking place in?

We have to many currencies as it is, though. Problem is, the more currencies you add, the more confused new players get. I coulda swore Extra Credits did a thing on this, but I can’t for the life of me remember which episode it was in. Regardless, token, , or currency bloat can be a big problem in MMOs.

lordkrall.7241:

Seeing as the people working for the site refuses to actually tell people what happened, I would say we most likely don’t have the full story. Even when outright asked if they where forced to take it down they simply spun it around and refused to answer.

Sounds like a PR thing then, but from who?

I think its mainly because Tybalt was so overwhelmingly popular as a character that the other two were forgotten. Forgal was cool too, don’t get me wrong, and I love his voice actor, but kitten . The writing and voice actor for Tybalt were some of the best I’ve ever seen and heard. To me Seiran, was meh and rather forgettable.

I do not use Reddit or Twitter. I will never use Reddit because I hate the website lay out. I will never use Twitter because I despise social media.

Please, for the love of god, barring bugs like you explained today, use your own websites for updates too. This has been a problem since this game launched, and it happens all to often that you guys communicate every where else BUT the very website you should be communicating from first.

CorrynnStarr.7942:

it is likely Anet threatened lawsuit if they didn’t remove for slander, but either option is possible and viable. Who Knows…. either way it makes them look bad….

And its well deserved. The ball has been majorly dropped by ANet and I’m glad someone had the balls to step up and call them on it. TTH gets a high five and a round of applause from me.

Hey, at least you guys have working doors. The other races don’t even have interactable doors.

Ticky.5831:

If you’re just comparing raw numbers you should be comparing the file sizes to see how much work is going into the expansion.

Heart of Thorns is almost 3 times the size of Guild wars Factions(sources, GW2 original game case, 25 GB, versus 35 gb Heart of thorns minimum requirements from FAQ, compared to Factions 3.6 gb from Steam store page, being generous because Factions CERTAINLY had a significant amount of assets carried over from prophecies). Now granted, that doesn’t tell the whole story, since of course specifically changes in balance and coding won’t have much of an impact on relative file sizes before and after the changes.

Now, I’m going to be honest, I haven’t played much GW1, I think I had a lvl 14 ranger on one account, which I lost the info for and got the Trilogy bundle which I have a lvl 7 character(so yeah, that’s not a significant amount of time), but just sheer number of skills doesn’t impress me. What is significant is the number of relevant skills, and my inclination is to believe that a significant number of those were no more relevant than the current ranger’s weak spirit skills.

File sizes are misleading, especially when it comes to audio. Audio tends to take more space than anything. If its just a bunch of voice acting confined to one or two additional zones, then thats not much content.

This isn’t just a ranger issue, unfortunately. Until the Reaper changes (whom they had to hire some completely new person just to look at), necromancers were in the same boat for just as long. The devs in GW2 have a LOOOONG history of this with multiple classes.

Really? Wow, the entire article just vanished. I guess it must have struck a nerve. A really big nerve.

Quarktastic.1027:

Kravick.4906:

Pyroen.2086:

I agree completely with signet passive in Shroud but itll never happen unless signet of undeath doesnt work in Shroud. because alot of people would hate that even though I would love it.

Its 2% LF every three seconds (roughly 300 DS hp if not wearing any vitality gear at level 80). DS degenerates faster than that, even with Vital Persistence active. Its like a worse regeneration boon but for LF only. Anyone that would complain about this would be doing so just for the sake of complaining. No one takes Signet of Undeath for the LF generation.

An interesting change if signet passives worked in shroud: Signet of undeath passive: Generate life force while in combat, if death (reaper’s) shroud is active, generate health instead.

Hmm, you know I hadn’t even considered that.

No one likes underwater combat in this game because its horribly, horribly unbalanced. Every single balance pass we’ve had in this game has completely ignored underwater skills. As a result, you have some classes that can basically blow through it without blinking, and other classes who are woefully underpowered.

Its been neglected so much that when ANet redid the trait system, they completely removed all the traits that affected underwater weapons and skills.

Currently, it has more to do with off hand mace bringing better utility in the form of, I think, 10 stacks of vuln on a relatively short cooldown. I can’t remember exactly how much vuln it does, since its been a really long time since I last played my warrior. It was a substantial amount and duration though, so much that it can basically be permanently applied by the warrior. The vuln stacks adds more damage across the whole group than anything axe offhand currently has to offer.

style.6173:

Sube Dai.8496:

Sorry I must have missed the bit with the facts and the evidence. All I hear is “waaa waaa I’m losing to condition builds”.

There are so many options for removal, on every class.

The problem is that you refuse to change your build.

Sigh. Another person who completely misses the point. Condi spam is skill-less. It is easy. Most of it is AOE in nature. Oh, and by the way, you can also spec defensively and still have a spike condi burst.

Condi is the easier way to play PvP and therefore the easiest way to gain MMR. There is no arguing that.

The same thing could be said about power builds, honestly. Its not like this game is hard. Most of every build is AOE in nature. I can’t really argue with you about the defensive part, though. That does tend to go hand in hand with conditions.

Sounds like its still pretty “meh” over all then. Shame. The idea behind S/S intrigues me, but it seems the implementation is still broken.

Pyroen.2086:

I agree completely with signet passive in Shroud but itll never happen unless signet of undeath doesnt work in Shroud. because alot of people would hate that even though I would love it.

Its 2% LF every three seconds (roughly 300 DS hp if not wearing any vitality gear at level 80). DS degenerates faster than that, even with Vital Persistence active. Its like a worse regeneration boon but for LF only. Anyone that would complain about this would be doing so just for the sake of complaining. No one takes Signet of Undeath for the LF generation.

Raziel.8072:

I would actually give up seeing utilities if signet passives would just work. The utility visibility is just a UI visual, signets not working in shroud breaks a whole build for 50% of your play time….

Kinda have to agree with this. Just having signets work in shroud would be enough for me. Maybe I’m just setting the bar low since to me it feels like Necromancers have been kept down for so long.