Showing Posts For Labjax.2465:

HoT Vs EotN Expansions

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

This is by far the most buggiest and content light expansion I have ever played in any MMO to date. I started in EQ/UO btw so that’s a pretty impressive feat. Only a few weeks later after HoT launch, I don’t want to log in and play no more; it’s the same old grind doing the same old things. Well played anet, well played. /standingovation

It’s probably just because I’ve been reading the forums too much, but I’m beginning to feel the same way. I don’t regret buying it, but I do feel like I’m already running out of interesting things to do. And it’s not like I don’t have stuff I can do… it’s just something about the design is boring me.

If I had to put my finger on it, off the cuff, I’d say the main thing bothering me is 1) how long it takes to do meta events and 2) the wait in-between. When I go farm SW, there’s a rhythm to it I can get into and the wait in-between is virtually nothing, especially if you watch LFG. With this stuff, it’s like… ok, I did the two hour long meta, now I wait twenty to thirty minutes to start again, so I can spend another two hours before we even see the bosses.

I have stamina, but not that much stamina. It’s exhausting, frankly.

Or words to that effect.

It doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't.

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Look at Raids – where if you mess up you fail and have to restart. Now your rewards are actually on the line – I’m looking forward to see how the community approaches this.

Well most people are gonna do Raids with an organized guild group, I can tell you that. There will no doubt be some pug raids and their toxicity levels will range from welcoming and patient to frustrated and hateful. A lot of it depends on who is running the thing. In open world, you can’t shut out the ones who constantly put people down and say that [insert thing group is struggling with] is going to fail and is too hard. In a raid, you can and there’s pretty strong motivation to do so.

Dungeons are a bit different because the skill ceiling isn’t that high and they’re short enough that you kinda just want to power through it as quick as you can, even if it means dealing with some whining. Raids are long enough (or at least will be, in theory) that you aren’t really going to “power through it” unless you’ve got an organized, skilled group who knows the fights well.

Or words to that effect.

Possible Legendary Armor!

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

36 people in every region combined 3 years after release is not exactly a lot. I suppose this number will grow, but it seems that right now only the most hardcore that have worked on AP since the very beginning have a prayer. The average player will never see these.

Impossible was an exaggeration of course, but it is pretty crazy how few people have these and how hard they are to get in comparison to the supposed “legendaries”.

FWIW, my theory is that they’ve kept it this way to retain the players who are competing for achievement point leaderboards, some of whom invest a lot of time (and probably money) into the game. In other words, it is most likely a source of revenue that they see no point in disrupting.

Or words to that effect.

Johanson VS Smith: The Precursor Challenge!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I agree with Wanze: the OP has missed the entire point of the legendary crafting journey.

Did someone say… JOURNEY?!?

Or words to that effect.

It doesn't make any sense. It just doesn't.

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

- In what scenario, real life even, can a good outcome result from creating scarcity where there is abundance, gutting the way of earning fast income, everything in an over-inflated economic situations based on the premise of “We will give other, better ways” knowing that nothing could be controlled in the last 3 years.

It keeps people farming until the end of time.

Scarcity in general is because they don’t want to repeat the Bloodstone situation with every single item. Sometimes they take it a little too far. It isn’t an exact science.

Imagine this extreme scenario: Every material you can ever want or need drops like Bloodstone Dust and doesn’t even sell for 2 copper a piece on the trading post because there is such an abundance of it. In fact, there are no buy orders because everyone has more than they ever need, with ease.

Now consider, within this scenario, items such as Black Lion weapons. These weapons don’t require dropped materials, so their value is going to go up with the scarcity of them, regardless of the abundance of crafting materials.

So now you’ve got a situation where it’s nearly impossible to make gold off of dropped materials, in any sort of realistic speed, to obtain rare items such as the BL weapons. Or even items such as the cultural armor set, which have a set price that is independent of how easy it is to make money in the economy.

Everybody becomes noticeably poorer in pure numbers of coin, but the cost of the aforementioned items stays the same. It wouldn’t be a pretty scenario on the whole, let’s put it that way.

The point of what I’m saying is, there is a rhyme and reason to it all, even though it isn’t always evident or even beneficial to individuals in the short term.

Or words to that effect.

Suggestion - Raid Model Size Change

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Maybe it’s an Alice in Wonderland raid. :P

Or words to that effect.

The problem with Hero Points

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I had a thought a day or two ago that they should make the daily reward for beating these HPs into an “all the time” reward. As in, if you tag and help out, you can do them over and over.

This would give them more of a repeatable incentive and if farm groups got going on them, you’d practically have people begging in map chat for those who don’t have the HP yet, so there’s someone to activate it.

I realize it would not be a perfect solution. You would still have the issue of not being able to solo most of them and in theory you could end up with people standing around the same HP all day instead of going to different ones.

But the potential is there for improvements that will last the test of time and still maintain HPs as memorable content.

Or words to that effect.

HoT Vs EotN Expansions

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

forum page bug. >.>

Or words to that effect.

HoT Vs EotN Expansions

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

My feelings too. I would say that some degree of armor class theme is still reasonable (an elementalist in full plate “light” armor would be kind of odd), but limiting styles based on class is just closed-minded.

Yeah, I’m definitely ok with some class style. I just don’t like it when it overshadows sub-styles within the theme. For instance, plate almost invariably is going to (and does) have a more weighted look to the fabric, like parts of it are smelted steel. Cloth almost always has a wispier style, like the fabric is lightly woven together. Leather almost always has a thick look to it.

Those aspects I’m completely ok with. It’s more…. everything else. Like the fact that heavy and light have almost zero plain pant designs and medium has almost nothing but trenchcoats. I mean, for one thing, the fact that heavy and light share the butt cape obsession can barely even be called class distinction, since they both have that same problem. :P

Or words to that effect.

Apply SW and Dry Top XP to HoT Mastery

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

And what is wrong with vanilla gw2 being for casual players? I guess I just don’t get why people believe that great rewards shouldn’t come at a cost…

Two things come to mind.

1) The people who actually feel as you describe probably feel that way because they see the rewards as the toys that you play with, rather than seeing the obtaining of those toys as the “play” experience.

2) I’m pretty sure there’s a sizable chunk who complain about the sort of things in this thread, but are fine with things coming at a cost. They just have very particular feelings about what those costs should look like.

I’ll give you an example that pertains to me, one of a setup I like and one that I don’t like:

I like that when leveling in this game, you can play virtually any kind of content to level up. I tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of player and get burned out fast, so being able to switch up content types to avoid burnout is awesome.

I don’t like that when I’m working on Maguuma masteries, I need to do content limited to four maps and I don’t like that when I’m working on Tyria masteries, I need to do pre-HoT content. It puts me in an awkward situation where (keeping in mind the above about burnout) I’ve ended up sort of switching back and forth leveling Maguuma and Tyria masteries, so that I don’t end up burned out on either kind of content.

Hope that makes things more clear.

Or words to that effect.

Apply SW and Dry Top XP to HoT Mastery

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Also… as I said, for three years everyone has had nauseatingly easy content spoon fed to them. They’ve become accustomed to it. Now god forbid they hit difficulties and hurdles and want to implode over it. Welcome to real MMO gaming. Put your big kid undies on and go out and “work” for things…

I guess you missed the part about a game feeling like actual work if the person doesn’t enjoy the challenge. “Big kid undies” type statements make zero sense when you keep that in mind. It is the sort of catchphrase people say when someone can’t handle actual work in real life. It makes no sense in the context of recreation.

You are preaching at people to enjoy things in the way that you enjoy them. It’s sort of like coming to a sports game and telling the fans of the losing team to “get over it and root for the other team.”

No. They obviously want to root for the team they want to root for. That’s where the enjoyment is and they get it when their team wins, not by switching their loyalties when their team is losing. Well right now, in a sense, the “casual” team is losing and you are asking them to come join your side. That’s not the side where their loyalties lie.

Maybe try putting on your big kid undies and get over the fact that people are different.

Or words to that effect.

Apply SW and Dry Top XP to HoT Mastery

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

People need to quit their excuses and get to doing some actual work for once in their gaming lives.

You know what one of my favorite things in the world is: Acting. You know what another of my favorite things in the world is: Writing.

I love these so much that I would do them for free, to a limited degree. In a very limited context, I would pay someone to let me act (e.g. doing a workshop) but only at a low cost and then I’m doing it for the training, not for the performance itself.

Why in Mordremoth’s name would I want to pay someone to let me work in a video game? I love games because they are games. I know, weird, right. When you take the game out of a game, it becomes “meaningless series of tasks that are likely to cause an existential crisis and add no substance to your life.”

Games are not made for work. If they were, they’d be what we call “jobs.” Except they’d be incredibly idiotic jobs because you pay to do them.

Don’t confuse work and challenge. When you bang your head against the wall trying to beat your high score in Tetris, it’s not for the work. It’s for the challenge. Challenge happens to be something that includes work, but if you don’t enjoy the challenge, then all you notice is the work.

That is what you are missing in your “people need to work” attitude. It is likely that you enjoy the work in some way because of the challenge involved. Video games are actually chock full of things that could be considered work, but they are not because they are enjoyable to do.

So what you’re really saying is, “People should have the same experience that I do. An experience of enjoyment from putting in the hours.” Which completely fails to understand that all people are not the same as you.

Or words to that effect.

HoT Vs EotN Expansions

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Concerning armor numbers, I am every bit a Fashion Wars 2 enthusiast as anyone, but one should keep in mind that many of the easy-to-acquire skins in the core game are largely reskins of each other. At least in style if not in detail.

As much as I love new armor skins, I would rather 2 with some thought put into them than 10 that look like copies of the existing skins.

That said, it constantly frustrates me that they are stuck on things like trenchcoats for medium armor and buttcapes for both light and heavy. It’s such a common theme, even in new skins, that I have to believe they’re got a rulebook pinned on the wall somewhere telling them to stick to the theme. I’ve heard all the stuff about models and races and whatnot, but there is no “technical constraints” excuse for having a handful of skins that break the theme while most of them stick to it, i.e. if some can break the theme, they all can.

I get the argument for wanting to keep armor classes in line with a particular artistic feel and I get that there’s a portion of the playerbase (a portion I vehemently disagree with) who thinks armor class themes, and even profession armor themes, are something important. I feel very differently. Personalizing a character’s look to fit with my perception of the profession and armor class is very important to me.

Or words to that effect.

Apply SW and Dry Top XP to HoT Mastery

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

On the flip side, I rather like the fact that I can work on Tyria masteries in SW. If they were going to change it at all, it should be to make mastery XP gain universal across all maps, not changing SW and Dry Top to Maguuma XP.

Or words to that effect.

19 days!!

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Maybe it’s because Anet is managing to flawlessly add items to the gemstore while game breaking bugs are ignored and many of the hyped features of the expansion are flat out not in the game?

I don’t remember where I read it, but I’m pretty sure the gem store team is separate from the rest of the team. Like they work with them obviously, but they are kind of on their own development track.

Or words to that effect.

Theory on why Mastries are 'Grindy"

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Masteries are less of a way to progress and mostly there to disguise the otherwise lack of content.
Without them – a 4 map expansion would be done in a week, two or maybe three if you’re super casual.

This isn’t being totally fair though. The same could be said of increased level caps in other games that have expansions… that the level cap increase is there to disguise the lack of content. Masteries are as much content as a level cap increase, if not more so.

The main issue (imo) is that too many low level masteries are too vital to the jungle and put unnecessary pressure on people who have few hours to play.

In games with level cap increase, the mob level of new zones increases slowly, so it is more like leveling up again. In HoT, it is like being tossed a rough equivalent of “level up again,” but with little to no ramping up of needed masteries for different zones.

The end result is that you can navigate any of the four zones with little more than gliding and the rest is “no need for masteries,” interspersed with random situations where you need a mastery that is anywhere from 1 to 6 on the chain. It has a kind of freedom to it, which is cool in its own right, but it’s also messy and (sadly) goes against the sort of streamlining they tried to do with the NPE.

With 20/20 hindsight vision, I think a much smarter design choice would have been to set up masteries so that it’s more like a level cap increase; if you really want to go into the next zone before you’re ready, you can, but it’s going to be infinitely harder to do. This also might have controlled the flow of players better. As it is, we have players scattered across four different maps doing four different hours long metas, none of which are easy to do without being a little organized.

They would have been trading off the freedom for people to go where they want when they want, in exchange for a potentially smoother entry experience into HoT content. Maybe they had that talk and decided the freedom was more worth it. Who knows.

Or words to that effect.

Exalted Mastery disappointment?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Let’s face it: The descriptions were written to sound cool, not be accurate. Here are some honest descriptions:

Blazing Speed Mushrooms – Go 7% faster than swiftness some of the time. If you drop all movement speed buffs and walk around as slow as molasses, this will feel pretty fast on the occasion that you find one!

Exalted Acceptance (and other similar ones) – You can now buy stuff from vendors you would have had access to immediately in the pre-mastery game!

Nuhoch Wallows – It’s like Skritt tunnels, but you pay in XP so you don’t have to roll a die on whether they’ll be open to use!

Nuhoch Hunting – You now have a chance to loot another kind of bag. I know I know, your inventory was feeling lonely. This will help solve the problem.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

No it doesn’t make a thread of helpful responses, this is all a waste of time. If someone genuinely has no idea their profession has CC, they can go to the wiki for a comprehensive list instead of this jumble of repeats and ad hoc posts.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect
Click on an effect and it will list every single skill in the game that causes it.

Several people have already found this thread helpful and that’s just counting the ones who posted to say so. I don’t know what version of reality you’re living in bro, but it’s clearly another dimension.

Taunt is listed under hard. Fear is a hard CC because it interrupts.

Soft = "Mechanically, they are not actual control effects (i.e. they don’t interrupt when they are applied, and traits that trigger on “disable” will not trigger on them)"

Yeah, this makes sense.

From the way it’s listed in the wiki all condi CCs are soft CCs. Taunt is included under hard CC now (before launch it was a condition like fear and benefited from condi duration). Therefore Taunt should be put under hard CC and fear soft.

Edit: tested taunt and it clearly works like fear. It’s a strong DoT therefore it’s a soft CC. Tested it by using beastly warden on champion arrowhead HP. I’m not aware if it still benefits from condi duration…

PS: fear and taunt might look like hard CC because both remove a huge chunk of the breakbar the method of differentiating them is by looking at the rate of depletion Soft CCs have a constant rate while hard CCs start fast then slow down.

From the little testing I’ve done, I’m pretty sure Taunt did an immediate chunk. Which ability did you use to taunt? I was using Rev’s taunt.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Ya I read that, but you left out so many and such obvious ones that your list was completely pointless. Nearly every response in this entire thread is people listing CCs you missed, which makes for a fun discussion. /eyeroll

People know what abilities provide CC.

It makes for a thread full of helpful responses, is what it makes for. Your negativity is noted, but ultimately serves no purpose other than to give me something to get annoyed at and something to distract me from updating this thread.

Next time you get the urge to make such a response in this thread, write down some “skills that people know already,” in detail, with good formatting, and maybe you’ll feel a little better about yourself. And hey, if you post it, you’ll even be contributing something.

Thanks.

So if I am reading this correctly

Hard CC Direct Break Bar damage
Daze, Float, Knockback, Knockdown, Launch , Pull, Sink, Stun

Soft CC damage over time to break bar
Blind, Chilled, Crippled, Fear, Immobile, Slow, Taunt, Weakness

I am guessing as a thief daredevil I would use the combo below on the blue break bar?

Distracting Dagger
Impairing Daggers
Steal – if you have the right setup
fist furry – palm strike
impact strike – uppercut
stealth ability 1
4-3-2-4-3-2

1 Knockdown from stealth 2 sec
2 Weakness – 2 sec
3 Cripple – 6 sec
4 Blind – 5 sec

Distracting dagger = Daze 1/4 sec
fist furry -> palm strike = Stun 2 Sec
Imparing Daggers = Slow 4 sec, Immobilize 2 sec

Elite
Impact Strike – Daze 2 sec
—-> Uppercut – Launch 2 sec

I can’t comment intelligently on the details of the combos without looking into it more, but it looks like the right idea. Also, I’m going to have to re-check Taunt. Someone was saying it’s hard CC and the one time I tested it closely, it did seem that way, but I’m not 100% sure on that one.

I’m thinking about putting suggested Combos in the OP, but I will probably be relying heavily on the input of other players if I do that. I’m jack of all trades, but master of none when it comes to a lot of the classes, so sometimes I miss the finer details.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Focus Water skill 4 is a Knockback

Since when ?

Hmm, maybe that’s Warhorn. Probably an error on my part.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Can you address the phase after the mob is stunned and regenerates its break bar and immune to consume break-bar?

rhodoc, are you referring to this

So CC makes the breakbar regenerate faster after you have broken it?

or something else?

Axial: From my testing, I’m seeing no such indication. CC simply has no impact on the brown, or “broken” breakbar.

Or words to that effect.

Remove Charged Quartz Crystal gating

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

The whole discussion about how much gold you can farm in an hour is kinda silly. Much of it hinges on materials that are scarce and they are scarce in large part because not enough people are farming them.

Ergo, if you preach the ease of farming Whizbangs and everybody actually listens, everyone’s gold per hour profit plummets because the market gets flooded with Whizbangs. There’s a limited number of people who can benefit greatly from the same gold farming method.

It’s the same deal with TP flippers, which is why you don’t see flippers giving detailed guides on what their most profitable markets are. For one, because the market changes so much and two, because then they’d lose their profit from it due to overcrowding. Farming gold efficiently means you’ve either got to latch onto hot markets as they come up (which requires some awareness) or somehow find a niche market that stays pretty stable over time, even when farmed.

A good rule of thumb is, pay attention and keep your discoveries to yourself (and maybe a few friends). As socially cool as it is to share details, it will hurt your profits. Or I guess if you want scarcity to go away for an item and/or want to stick it to the scrooges of the game, then share stuff with everybody.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Currently fear and taunt are soft CCs.

Can you give an example of when Fear is acting like a soft CC? I went out and did some testing just now to be sure and it seems to be hard CC.

Taunt – thanks for the reminder, I added that one.

Or words to that effect.

HoT in review by Woodenpotatoes

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

What Goes Around

Anet is great at having visions and making things from those visions, but they don’t seem to be that great at sticking to a vision in the long-term.

Nailed it, and an excellent post overall.

I think a lot of what we see is a consequence of “iterating”, which is a development model that supersedes any single game element, or even the grand vision of the game itself. It’s a core philosophy of ArenaNet that is both a blessing and a curse for the company, the game, and the players.

The very nature of an iterative approach eschews long-term stability in favor of short-term agility. If an idea works, they run with it. If it doesn’t, they may commit to another pass to fix it, but they might just as well drop it altogether for something entirely different — and hopefully (but not necessarily) better.

Inevitably, what results is a patchwork of different ideas, each chosen for its own merits, that reflects a process of experimentation and evolution more than a faithful execution of a single coherent plan.

The Living World exemplifies this, both in terms of its delivery, which has changed with each season, and its narrative, which has become increasingly subordinate to the mechanics of the game.

They had to change course with the Living World, because they are still recovering from the lavishly disastrous decision to literally throw away tons of Season One content and leave players both old and new with little more than old memories and smoldering ruins to show for it all. In this case, iterating was necessary to save the game from an ignominious end, and that ability to abandon a bad strategy even after going all-in illustrates the strength of the iterative model.

The weaknesses appear in cases like Heart of Thorns which, though enjoyable in itself (my opinion) is somewhat unceremoniously grafted onto the core game in a way that has left a large percentage of players cold on a wide range of fronts. There are a lot of new directions encompassed in the expansion, but it’s a jarring arrival for the community overall and alienates enough paying customers to become a costly Faustian bargain if left as is.

The day can be saved, however, with a relatively modest pass or two to address some of the more glaring issues players have raised, but action must come quickly enough to smooth things over before attrition becomes critical.

Season Three of the Living World appears to embody a grand design that ran out of time. It does seem story hooks were created to allow for a more thematic introduction to elite specializations, but what materialized was effectively “here you go: get to work and start doing hero challenges.”

Many other threads are left dangling, but those may well be dealt with as Season Three continues.

The overall effect of the iterative model is something of a roller coaster ride for both developers and players, with highs and lows at every turn, and that’s not always an easy thing to deal with. But there is a silver lining.

With each iteration, ArenaNet does learn important lessons, does apply them to future endeavors, and they do seem to be getting better at it. As the process matures, the net result may well end up being better than any single grand vision could yield.

Or it may end up being a big, untenable mess.

Here’s hoping elegance eventually arises from the turbulence.

Well said and fair points about iteration.

Or words to that effect.

HoT in review by Woodenpotatoes

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Labjax, you make some fantastic points, and I love that Mona Lisa analogy!

Thank you.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

You missed like 95% of the CC in the game, OP.

Labjax

The following is a quick breakdown by class to show you some of your options (I want to make this comprehensive at some point, but I’m going to skim for now)

And yes, I’m gonna try to get this updated with everything eventually.

Anyway,

Thank you to all the people adding class info. Takes some of the load off of me. I do intend to get it all in there. Once I add enough, I’ll have to change this to “comprehensive” instead of “quick and dirty.” :P

Ok, let me get this straight.

When the mobs are immune to CC, use them.

When the mobs are not immune to CC, don’t use them. (Mainly use skill 1, then?…if your characters’ other skills all have some kind of debilitating effect?)

Lol. So confusing for us know-nothings.

Sort of. Lemme try to break it down a bit more:

If you’re up against mobs who don’t have breakbars at all, or very few of them do (for example, many of the mordrem mobs in the HoT story missions) then it’s advisable to use CC as you normally would… to Stun, Knockback, Knockdown mobs, etc. as you deem necessary.

In many group events in open world, however (in HoT maps), you are going to run into numerous mobs who have a breakbar, who you get a distinct advantage against by breaking that bar. For instance, breaking the bar of a Champion usually makes it a lot easier to survive against, due to the period of them being stunned and/or slower.

Try thinking of it like this: When mobs are immune to CC and they have an exposed breakbar up, each CC ability you use on them (particularly hard CC) is going toward a pool that, if added up to enough, will actually CC them in some way.

When you are in a situation with a lot of breakbars around, its advisable to save your CC for contributing to breaking those bars. But this is partly a matter of making a judgment call. Sometimes when I’m doing events in Auric Basin, I’ll pop some CC on Snipers to make it easier for me to kill them before they move (and I mean the ones who don’t have a breakbar at all).

Probably the one situation where you should save your CC for the breakbar, without question, is when you are up against a Legendary mob. From what I’ve seen, they are pretty much all way easier to kill when their bar gets broken. And their bar turns blue for brief periods of time, so it’s best to have your CC off cooldown and ready to go for those moments.

You don’t need to mash only 1 in-between, unless that’s your only way to avoid using hard CC abilities.

Hope that helps some.

Or words to that effect.

HoT in review by Woodenpotatoes

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

My over feeling about the expansion is how I feel about just about everything as a whole that arenanet does. They come up with a GREAT idea, they start working on it, then realize “OH kitten, this is gonna be so much work, and we are so under staffed cuz our business model doesn’t make kitten for money, and its all on me and my meager pay check that barely feeds my family and i gotta make this deadline. I guess I’ll cheese kitten this kitten, make it look pretty and cool to disguise the fact that theres no real depth and the underlying mechanics and engine are shoddily build and held together by bandaids.”

Anet does try to do a lot, that is for sure.

However (puts on critic hat) they also waste a lot of time on unnecessary things. It’s the Harry Potter movies syndrome, where there are all these cool details that they have time for, but that they ignore because they see a butterfly and go off in some other direction that they thought would be cool in the moment.

Anet is great at having visions and making things from those visions, but they don’t seem to be that great at sticking to a vision in the long-term. I don’t know if it’s because of staffing, because of money, because of players, because of workplace politics, or a variety of other possible causes… but whatever the case, when Anet revamps a system they go all out and they make it super new in the process. Except they make it so new that it barely fits into the existing structure of the game.

I would argue that Anet’s Achilles Heel is feature creep. They have big ideas and even bigger expectations from players, but they can’t possibly fulfill all of those ideas. And I don’t think it’s just being under staffed as you said. I think it’s more a matter of losing themselves in those ideas to the point that they forget they need to integrate every new feature into the game in a way that is both meaningful and doesn’t disrupt the existing design.

With unlimited time and resources, their game would have every cool feature ever asked for… but it would also be a hodgepodge with very little in the way of centralized design.

In a macabre twist of fate, one of the few centralized design trademarks this game has is the endless grinding for items that have virtually no impact on gameplay. And a lot of people despise it. Probably because, in a contradictory twist of fate, one of the few centralized design trademarks of this game is that most of the content is soloable, with limited investment in skillful gameplay, and a general sense that most of the game is made for whimsically whittling away free time more than it’s made for any sort of competitive seriousness.

These two are at war with each other because anything that vaguely resembles a “grind” is against the whimsical whittling design. There is little whimsical about farming 1,000 Doohickeys to make a Doodad.

With HoT, the design philosophy appears to be leaning in the direction of abandoning whimsical whittling entirely. Which, if true, is probably motivated by monetary concerns more than anything. It’s just weird to me to see a game that seems like Red one minute and Blue the next.

Meanwhile, the playerbase seems to regularly fragment on this contradiction. The one side begging for whimsical whittling and the other begging for more Doodads to make, even if it requires farming 20,000 Doohickeys. Anet cannot fulfill both of these desires at the same time in every kind of content and retain their sanity as human beings.

They also cannot make the game perfect and, in my unprofessional opinion, should take better care in the future to reel in their enthusiasm a decibel or two. Sometimes the best ideas are also the simplest. And sometimes the most fun ideas are not ideas that require years of development, but simply require careful consideration of each detail.

It is easy to run away with ambition and forget that the goal is to make a game that’s fun and will last the test of time. GW2’s history is littered with cool features and temporary implementations that simply didn’t last the test of time. Which is not a shameful thing, but it is something to learn from.

When I play this game, I can’t help but feel at times that I’m a guinea pig for someone’s artistic experiments. I’d rather be a participant in Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, if you get my meaning. Not really into being the guy who bought his paintings when he was moderately good at it.

It just kills me that this game has so many half-finished ideas with so much potential and the bloatedness seems to increase over time, instead of many of those half-finished ideas reaching their full potential.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Yes, very useful thread. Thank you.
Can I ask – for eles, is there no hard cc on any other weapon but staff or focus?

Updraft on Air dagger 5 launches foes
Earthquake on Earth dagger 4 should knockdown
Warhorn Tidal Surge knocks back I think

I imagine it will become quite a comprehensive list if the OP does decide to update for every skill/weapon

:O ninja’d. Thanks Randulf. Appreciate it. And yes, I’m gonna try to get this updated with everything eventually.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

When the break bar is broken, you should focus on dps, rather than cc

Yes, the priority after breaking the bar is generally damage.

Guardian can summon hammer which has decent hard CC. I had to use it on the final boss when the rift bugged and wouldn’t remove his breakbar.

My warrior mains mace and shield. That gives access to 3 interrupts, enough to break most breakbars on unscaled up mobs.
Dps is poor, but very useful in support like this.

Useful thread

Cool, thanks for that. I’ll add it to the list.

Add weakness.

Forget that one. I’ll add it when I edit.

Yes, very useful thread. Thank you.
Can I ask – for eles, is there no hard cc on any other weapon but staff or focus?

There is probably something on another weapon. I will take a look later and get back to you. The list I made is sort of an overview for now. Doesn’t have every hard CC listed.

Or words to that effect.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Breakbars

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Lots of mobs in the HoT zones have a blue bar under their name. This is called a Breakbar, or Defiance Bar. It makes the mob immune to Crowd Control effects.

The usefulness of breaking a breakbar should not be underestimated! For some mobs, breaking their bar can stun them or prevent a devastating attack.

There are two types of Breakbars to look for:

Type 1: It’s always Blue, unless broken (in which case, it will be a brownish color while it regenerates).

Type 2: It turns Blue during a particular phase and you have limited time to break it before it disappears. (This type is typically found on Legendary mobs and breaking the bar will stun the mob and/or prevent a devastating attack.)

Crowd Control (CC) comes in two classifications: Hard CC and Soft CC.

Hard CC includes: Pull, Knockback, Knockdown, Stun, Daze, and Fear

Soft CC includes: Cripple, Chill, Slow, Immobilize, Blind, Weakness, and Taunt

It’s simplest to think of a Breakbar like a Health bar. It has a set amount of Hitpoints and CC reduces those Hitpoints. Hard CC does instant damage to the “Health bar” and Soft CC does damage over time. The longer the duration, the higher the damage. However! Keep in mind that for some mobs, Soft CC only reduces the regeneration of a Breakbar, but does not do damage.

For mobs whose Breakbar is exposed for only seconds at a time, you NEED to have Hard CC on hand.

The following is a quick breakdown by class to show you some of your options (I want to make this comprehensive at some point, but I’m going to skim for now):

Guardian:

Greatsword, the second half of skill 5 is a Pull
Hammer skill 4 is a Knockback
Bane Signet active ability is a 3 second Knockdown
With the Dragonhunter trait Piercing Light, all traps do a 1 second Daze when triggered

Revenant:

Hammer skill 5 is a 2 second AoE Knockdown
Staff, the second half of skill 2 is a 1/2 second AoE Daze
Staff skill 5 is a charging AoE Knockback
Sword off-hand skill 5 is a Pull
Axe off-hand skill 5 is a pull
Shiro Stance Jade Winds is a 3 second Stun
Ventari Stance skill 5 is an AoE Knockback

Warrior:

Hammer burst skill is a 1-2 second Stun, depending on burst level
Hammer 4 skill is a Knockback
Hammer 5 skill is a 2 second Knockdown
Bull’s Charge is a 2 second Knockdown
Kick is a Knockback
Stomp is a Knockback

Engineer:

Rifle 4 skill is a Knockback
Bomb Kit’s Big Ol’ Bomb is a Knockback
Tool Kit skill 5 is a Pull
Flamethrower skill 3 is a Knockback
Hammer skill 5 is a pulsing AoE Stun (can be combo’d with skill 3 on a stationary target to get Dazing Strike, which hits for a few 1 second Dazes)

Ranger:

Greatsword skill 5 is a 1/2 second Daze (or Stun, if you hit from behind)
Longbow skill 4 is a Knockback (if you don’t know this already, you’re probably a Ranger)
Shortbow skill 5 is a 1 second Daze (or Stun, if you hit from behind)
Marksmanship trait Moment of Clarity doubles the duration of your Dazes/Stuns

Thief:

Staff auto is a 2 second Knockdown IF you are stealthed when you use it
Pistol skill 4 is a 1/4 second Daze (basically it’s an interrupt – not that great for breaking bars)
Daredevil, the second half of Fist Flurry is a 2 second Stun
Daredevil Impact Strike is a 2 second Daze, followed by a Knockback

Elementalist:

Staff Air skill 3 is a Knockback
Staff Air skill 5 is an AoE Stun (sort of – they have to enter or exit the field to trigger the effect)
Focus Air skill 5 is a 2 second Knockdown
Focus Water skill 4 is a Knockback
Tornado has a Knockback effect

Mesmer:

Shatter skill Diversion is a 1 second Daze
Greatsword skill 5 is a Knockback
Sword off-hand, the second part of skill 4 is a 1 second Daze
Focus skill 4 is an AoE Pull (if you don’t know this, you’re probably any other class)
Pistol skill 5 is a 2 second Daze/Stun with bounces
Mantra of Distraction is a 1 second AoE Daze
Signet of Domination active ability is a 3 second Stun
Signet of Humility active is a freakin Moa Bird transform (it reduces Defiance bar by some amount on mobs who have one)

Necromancer:

Death Shroud skill 3 is a Fear
Reaper’s Shroud skill 5 is a 1.5 second Stun (on a field duration, so more than 1.5 if the mob stays still… I think.. I’m not a doctor or a lawyer)
Reaper’s Shroud, the second part of skill 3 is an AoE Fear
Greatsword skill 5 is an AoE Pull
Necromancer is incredibly fun to play with a Greatsword. Just sayin’

Or words to that effect.

(edited by Labjax.2465)

[Suggestion] HP reward all the time

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

My suggestion is basically this: Take the daily reward that people get for killing a HP and make it into an “all the time” reward, i.e. no daily restriction on it.

I’m honestly trying and failing to see the harm in this idea. The only “con” I can think of is:

People can farm a HP repeatedly, leading to ignoring of other content. BUT

HPs are not repeatable by character, so this well would run dry very fast. You can only do it as many times as there is someone who hasn’t done it yet. So say you had a group who wanted to farm the rewards, you’d actually wind up with a situation where for those who needs HPs still, getting a group for them would be incredibly easy because there’d be those who really want people who don’t have it yet.

Am I missing something huge here or is this brilliant?

Or words to that effect.

Small Guilds, stop complaining about GHls

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

The issue is pretty straight forward, you jerk. We had loads of stuff we worked towards before the expansion came out. Then the expansion hits and we lose… What did we lose again? Oh, right. EVERYTHING. All of that time and effort, for nothing at all.

Well people did ask in quite a lot of detail for guild halls. There was even a CDI.

But Anet seems to have something of a habit of giving people what they ask for… with a twist. Like the M. Night Shyamalan of MMO devs. They could have mostly left the guild design alone and added guild halls. Instead, they added guild halls and revamped the whole system, even “correcting”/clarifying their stance on guild sizes in the process.

I should say though, some of the time they have plain listened and done a really good job. Or done a really good job without needing to listen at all. It’s just every so often, they go a little crazy with their tweaking and don’t consult anyone outside of their team until the system is too far developed to change. And as we’ve learned from the past, their policy is to be pretty close-mouthed while in the development. The problem is, during that process they often seem to lose touch with the playerbase. The remnants of trying to listen are there, but the isolation of the development has iterated them into something that only vaguely resembles what was asked for.

Or words to that effect.

Request Mob Nerf: Mordrem Sniper

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

My only complaint about the Mordrem Snipers is that they always shout “I’ll pin them down, you take them out!” And then the sniper takes me out while the other mordrem are keeping me occupied.

Unless this is intentional, and they engage in psychological warfare while they fight.

This made me grin like an idiot.

Or words to that effect.

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Paywalls

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Don’t worry, in a few months all the really disgruntled people will have left and all that will remain is shiny-faced newcomers and star-spangled vets, who love love love the game no matter what (until a new set of changes happens that upsets some of them and the cycle continues).

Or words to that effect.

My gf met Santa and his Anet Elves!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Haha, that’s awesome.

Or words to that effect.

Hesitant to Write, but Healthy Topic: Gliders

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

In Verdant Brink, I think there are some issues of events not being telegraphed well enough. It’s a large map with a lot of ups and downs, and it’s not always clear where to go to find people.

This may, in some instances, create the sense that everyone is gliding around and ignoring events. But my guess would be that it’s more likely people are gliding around lost or ending up in an isolated area that is across the map from the rest of the players.

Tangled Depths has similar issues because the map is a giant maze, even with Nuhoch Wallows and Updraft. (I’ll fully admit my navigational skills are mediocre, but even after traversing that zone the whole way over several times, it’s still 90% mystery to me.)

In theory, gliding would mean people help each other out with events more because flight is faster than running. But due to the complex map design, that’s not really the case.

Even Auric Basin, which is probably the easiest to navigate of the 3 I’ve named, is largely easy to navigate because there isn’t a lot of room for gliding in the first place. The first wp in the zone leads into gliding if you go off the edge and then that’s about it. In the future, more small hills, more fair-sized cliffs, and less extreme dropoffs would make a big difference, I think.

Gliding is a pleasure and both VB and TD capture the atmosphere of free-falling, punctuated by a fancy parachute, but now that those zones are in place and the experience is there for people to have, I think it’s time to make navigation the priority for future zones.

Or words to that effect.

Request Mob Nerf: Mordrem Sniper

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Snipers as they are now are not exactly hard. Just punishing. If you make one mistake, you might be downed already. Especially if there is more than one.

When there’s a lot of them, and tormentors too, they tend to cover the floor such that it’s near impossible to melee clusters of mobs without getting downed. Mix in mushrooms and rolling devils, and it’s insanity.

Again, not hard exactly. Just unforgiving of mistakes. Mobs in SW were/are every bit as punishing in their own way, but difference is that SW has lots of open space and when you are defending, there are multiple ways to hold off mobs from a distance (arrow carts, oil, etc.). In contrast, many areas in the jungle are densely packed with little-to-no advantage to be had from elevation. Although you can glide, most kinds of elevation in the jungle are either a path that is chock full of mobs the whole way, or a 1k+ feet drop up or down.

Perhaps something to consider for future jungle zones: Try to make areas where elevation can be used to give you a strategic advantage against mobs. Snipers, for example, would be a lot less effective if you could use a special mushroom to leap onto an area that is too high to reach with a regular jump, but no so high that the two of you are out of range (their ground attack’s effectiveness would suffer).

Like the jump mushrooms, but with something like 1/10th of the height. Even cooler would be if you could program the AI to run onto these jump pads to try to chase you.

That said, my recommendation for the current zones is: Find a way to “soft nerf” some of these mobs. For example, you could add a mastery line that gives you certain protective/strategic bonuses against the mobs. Kinda like Nuhoch Stealth Detection, but more defensive. Think the flavor/style of WvW bonuses. Reduced damage by %, increased damage, maybe even a reflect on an ICD.

These would only apply in the maguuma zones and would give the sense that the more time you spend there, the easier it is to survive.

Or words to that effect.

Hearts and Minds (spoilers) - advice?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

What happened to the way they did story quests in LS2, each quest had multiple stoppage points which you could resume from, in the fights you came back at the point at which you died.

The lack of save points is probably due to this being the final stage. It’s intended as a gauntlet. When the bugs are gone, it should be more tolerable.

And hey, at least it’s better than the Zhaitan “fight.”

There are multiple natural stoppage points that could act as ‘save’ points. When you find trahearne, and after each of the companion fights.

I have to wonder if the story designers primarily have experience in single-player. Cause in single-player, the checkpoints within a mission would be fine, as you can usually save liberally during a mission in single-player games and even when you can’t, the only thing that can potentially lose you progress is if your game crashes.

But in an online game, there is also connectivity to consider. The game requires a persistent connection, which not only means solid internet, but also no patches coming in and forcing you to restart.

Or words to that effect.

Swiftness is NOT a boon for everyone!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

The ability to right-click a buff to get rid of it would not be amiss, I think. Preferably with a UI lock, so you can enable or disable the right-click. We wouldn’t want people who love their buffs accidentally getting rid of them. But giving the option to those who want to escape the clutches of swiftness would be a nice QOL tweak.

Or words to that effect.

Remove Charged Quartz Crystal gating

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

It’s an economic control mechanic more than anything.

The degree to which the devs take this game’s economy seriously is, at times, both a blessing and the most obnoxious thing imaginable.

Or words to that effect.

This is why I love the community in this game

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

GW2 community is a good example of the concept that if 20% of the people are happy to help 80% of the time, you’re going to end up with a lot more friendly of a community than if 80% are grudingly helpful 20% of the time.

The ease with which people can be helpful means that when you run into that 1 in 5 person who is ready to bend over backwards for you, there is virtually no barrier to them doing it. And due to many GW2 setups involving a lot of people, your odds of running into somebody awesome are pretty good.

GW2, I’ve noticed, has a lot of people who play on auto-pilot (particularly in the world event environment). They follow the tag, don’t pay a lot of attention to mechanics, and almost never rez unless 3 or 4 others are already doing it. Which makes for an interesting environment because it means that – for example – all it takes is a handful of people working on rezzes and suddenly a LOT are following suit.

Or words to that effect.

[Video Editing] Disappearing on conversion

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Hmm, must have been some weird compression error. I tried doing it again. This time, the file came out larger, but with no blank video.

Or words to that effect.

Can you get more Tyria mastery points by...

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

In theory, it works. The 10, 20, and 30 story step achieves for each race give a point. However, from what I am told, the point gain is bugged for those. I only have them because I did them prior to HoT.

Or words to that effect.

Small Guilds, stop complaining about GHls

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I’m trying to make sense of the OP. Failing desperately.

Guild Halls are for big guilds? Says who. You, the Prophet of Jesus?

Give me a break. Guild Halls are a feature for guilds to have a “home” and have some neat little “homey” perks that they can use. I don’t understand why size should have anything to do with it. If your guild is past Anet’s (silly) designated size of what they consider a “group” or “party,” then the Guild Hall world should be your oyster, not your living hell.

Not every feature in a game has to be a massive timesink and resource sink! Some developers get this. Others, apparently, do not. And players, especially… a lot of them… do not get it at all. Whatsoever. This is how the mind of many players works, “If it works for me, then it’s fine as is and should never, ever change. If it doesn’t work for me, then it should change NOW. NOW NOW NOW.”

The evidence of this is in just about every forum thread ever made on a game forum and the selfishness is staggering. For every moment there’s a guy saying “It’s fine as is because it works for me,” that same guy is later saying on another issue “it’s not fine for me, so it MUST change.”

These forums would be a lot more productive in their discussions if even half the people acknowledged their selfish wants and lobbied for compromise.

Or words to that effect.

[Video Editing] Disappearing on conversion

in Players Helping Players

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Seems like the best place to ask this. Figured some people who make videos for GW2 might have an idea of what’s going on here.

In the past couple days, I’ve edited quite a bit of footage in Windows Live Movie Maker, of GW2. It’s somewhere around 18 minutes in total now. When I was finished editing, I chose to save the movie for high-def (it saves in WMV format).

It took a while cause it’s a lot of footage. When I checked the footage using Windows Media Player, I found that from around 12-16 min mark, the audio was there but the video part was not showing up. It shows up just fine in WLMM. All I can think is that the compression messed it up somehow. As it is, the compressed file came out as 1.5 GB, which isn’t exactly small.

Has anyone else encountered this issue or have any idea how to fix it? Internet searches are finding me nothing.

Or words to that effect.

Time-gated items to start working no now...

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Crafting items and materials should never be timegated. Period. End of story.

It does occur to me that it would be nice if timegated materials could build up. As in, every day you log in gives you a “charge” for the time-gated material. If you make one of the material each day, then you won’t notice the difference. If you log in, but don’t make the material, then it gets saved for another day.

To avoid it undermining itself entirely, it would only work for recipes that you have unlocked and it would have to have a cap on how high it could stack. Something like 10-30.

The general idea would be that if you are active, but for some reason don’t have time to track down the materials and craft every day, you can play catch up later.

Or words to that effect.

Unrealistic Legendary Collections

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

700 gold is $45 dollars. Ask your parents for a precursor under the tree this year.

Lmao… here’s your Christmas present Johnny. If you save up 3 or 4 more Christmas and Birthday presents, we’ll buy you the materials to turn it into a legendary.

Or words to that effect.

Collections Disengage Players from Tyria

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I like this thread. Gives me ideas.

With what you’ve said in mind, here’s some rough concepting for a kind of collection that I would like to see (item names and locations used are for illustration purposes only):

Forlorn Shovel Collection (reward is forlorn shovel “it sparkles with the weight of aged abandonment”). Components:

Broken Shovel
Glob of Discarded Ectoplasm
Krait Tears
Asuran All-Purpose Adhesive

Now for the meatier part (the retrieving the items):

In addition to the existing UI for looking at what you need, there would be an NPC you go and talk to. This NPC not only gives you hints for where to find the items (the same hints that the UI does) but he will even send you an NPC mail with information, if you choose “Can I get that in writing?”

Further, add a new feature where you can mail specific collection items to specific NPCs. This idea might sound odd at first, but you already receive mail from NPCs for specific events. Theoretically, if the framework is there for receiving mail from NPCs, it might be there for sending mail to them.

The point of this would be, if you are out in the middle of nowhere working on your collection, you don’t have to go allllll the way back to the NPC to turn in the item. Turning in the item would be a special aspect of this kind of collection. Owning the item would unlock it in the collection as normal, but instead of selling to a generic merchant, you give it to the NPC, who (major brainstorming incoming) gives you a Badge of Collection. Badges of Collection can be used to buy a consumable item called a Metal Detector (with some GW2-ized version of that name). Metal Detector acts like the SW shovels, except instead of seeking out Bandit Chests, it seeks out collection items in your area. Which brings me to…

The items for this collection would all be retrievable from the ground/terrain. You wouldn’t need the Metal Detector, but it would help you locate the items without a guide.

Broken Shovel – at one of the farms in Queensdale
Glob of Discarded Ectoplasm – you find in one of the dead ends in the jump puzzle in LA
Krait Tears – one of those rotted structures that hangs over water
Asuran All-Purpose Adhesive – found in one of the crafting areas in Rata Sum

When the collection is finished (for this type of collection) you get an item like “Proof of Forlorn Retrieval,” which you can then either mail or hand over to the NPC in person. The NPC then gives you back the Forlorn Shovel, with some fun exposition about the effort it took or the properties of the item.

These would not replace the other kind of collection and you would not be forced to do them in the immersive way if you didn’t want to, but the option would be there and the focus of the collection would be purely on exploration and retrieval. No RNG and no change in acquisition throughout the collection.

Or words to that effect.

Suggestion for Anet involving Mentor tags

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I’ve yet to encounter a situation where it felt like an issue, but maybe I just play with nicer people by chance.

Problem with what you’re proposing is, anything that’s a barrier to tagging up just puts a strain on QOL. Mentor tags are great as they are now, for the purpose of mentoring or leading.

You have to be really careful of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. Stifling a few obnoxious people is not worth destroying QOL for all the people with good intentions, imo. Look at the new time-out feature on events. That’s exactly the sort of thing you get when you prioritize punishment of unwanted behavior over encouragement of good behavior.

A solution may exist, somewhere, somehow, but I don’t believe it’s buried in punishment or restriction.

Or words to that effect.

Do you regret pre-purchasing HoT?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

No regrets. If I hadn’t, I’d probably be sitting here wondering if I should have.

Or words to that effect.