Guild Wars 2

In case people are not aware, if you are on a European server you can attend community events hosted by the Aurora Glade community, to win mini Llama’s too. We host several events each year. Me, Daniel Frozenwind, Angry Bearded Hobo, Eexa, Hennu and many others, give out mini Llama’s during almost each event.

These events are always announced on these forums, and can be viewed on the AG calender, here: http://www.auroragla.de/

So if you’ve missed out, and/or are not active in pvp, this is also an opportunity to get one. Currently we’re exploring ways to also make our events accessible for American players, but I can’t make any promises about this yet.

Events that handed out the Mini LLama:

King and Queen’s Horrorween 2014
Winter Blunderland 2014
Angry Bearded Hobo’s Valentine Adventure 2015
Eexa’s Eeaster 2015

If reflects and blocks trivialize boss battles, then don’t add them to the game to begin with, one could say. But instead they introduce inconsistencies in the mechanics.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

I kinda understand what you mean with “non-linear” but I can’t imagine it.
Orpheal (I think) had a really awesome idea for an “infinite” dungeon.You’d complete one dungeon “floor” and proceed to the next, with slightly more difficult foes as you go (and obviously better rewards). From what I understood, the foes and dungeon mechanics would be randomised. You wouldn’t be able to repair armour in the dungeon, so parties would have to be self sufficient and prepared for anything. It would encourage competitive play- I could imagine this dungeon being part of the Adventure/Leaderboard feature in HoT.[

That is one way to do it. But more realistic would be the Zelda approach: Just have different routes and rooms to explore, and place the rewards and extra bosses randomly in different rooms.

So instead of going from A to B (A being the start, and B being the end of the dungeon), you travel from A to either B or C, then to D and E, and eventually to the end. (F).

The problem with dungeons is, you can skip over the majority of it without being punished for it. A lot of monsters are on a tight leash. If you tried to do this in any other MMO, you would get a huge mob chasing after you in mere seconds, and they would clubber you into a bloody pile of pulp. With the rubbish rewards, the only decent reward is at the end, so there is no reason not to skip over it. And since all the dungeons are basically just long corridors, with no reason to explore anything, that’s what you tend to do: Run to the end of the godawful boring mess.

But speed clearing is not very enjoyable in my opinion. You are not really experiencing the dungeon, or dungeon-crawling. I always thought that was the purpose of dungeons: To explore an underground maze, solve puzzles, navigate rooms, overcome obstacles, avoid traps, and defeat foes, while hunting for treasure. When you speed clear, you don’t do any of that.

But the real problem here, is that even if you play through the dungeon at a normal pace, you don’t do any of that either. This is because the dungeons are RUBBISH in GW2 . They are godawful, poorly designed, and rushed along with the rest of the game. GW2 was not finished when they released it, despite their sales pitch that “it’s done when it’s done”. That was a lie, they rushed it. And the poor state of the dungeons are a sign of that.

There is NOTHING in the dungeons that would make you want to explore at a normal pace, nor is there anything TO explore. So rushing through them is the only sensible thing to do. It is however frustrating, if you loose your way, or are the one that dies while the rest is more competent at skipping it. Sadly, the game encourages this behavior. I can’t fault speed clearers for skipping everything. They are saving themselves from a big boring waste of time, to get to the end reward as quick as possible. Smart people.

Its strange how Anet seems to follow a pattern of neglecting a particular class in their game for like several years. They did it with the mesmer in GW1, and now they do it with the necromancer in GW2.

The weird thing is, you do not have to be a brilliant game designer to fix the necromancer in GW2. All it took to fix the mesmer in GW1, was changing Panic. This instantly made it possible for the mesmer to be viable in dungeons, because now the mesmer finally had an aoe nuke skill. Yet it took them SIX YEARS to make that one change.

All they would need to do, is give the necromancer the old Spiteful spirit from GW1. While that would not solve ALL our problems, it would instantly put the necromancer in a good spot in PVE and in WvW.

Oh, and they would also need to take an interest in the class of course. Seriously Anet, you can’t overlook one class for over SIX YEARS and expect your players to stay.

I left the game because of this pile of Dolyak business. And I have been playing this franchise since GW1 launched.

IndigoSundown.5419:

At launch, dungeon rewards were spread fairly evenly through the dungeon. What happened? Players farmed the first boss over and over. As a result we got end chests. What happened? Players farmed the dungeon via skips and speed runs.

Assume that ANet were to suddenly get an inkling to actually work on dungeons again and decided to return to rewards spread throughout the path. There are two possibilities. No diminishing returns — players will return to farming the 1st boss. Keep the diminishing returns on the rewards, players will speed run and would skip from one reward point to the next. Very little would change.

The only way to prevent skipping is to remove mob leashes. There is no way to prevent players from finding the fastest way to do content. While it would be nice to see some attention given to dungeons, I’m not sure this suggestion is the best use of dev time.

Why not both? Add better rewards through out the dungeon, improve the dungeon experience in general (as in none-linear and making them fun to do), and make the end reward scale based on your participation during the dungeon.

McNinja.5417:

You can’t operate as a “tank” or “healer” without being chastised, especially in high level fractals, because you’re not really helping the group. A warrior can heal themselves about as well as any other class, although some classes may have more healing skills than others. A Necromancer can take a hit about as well as a guardian or warrior in a high-level fractal (30+). There’s no need for healers or tanks in this game, yet Cleric or Knight or Sentinel or Rabid armor still exists as if people use them all the time. Between self-heals and active defense like dodging, you don’t (or shouldn’t) really need help staying alive.

Yeah, I noticed this problem as well. While I’m generally not the sort of player that wants to dictate to other players how to play their character, I can tell when a player isn’t pulling his/her weight. I hate having a player along who is focused on healing (while I’m perfectly capable of healing myself), and then during an AC run notice that we do not have enough damage output to destroy the burrows.

McNinja.5417:

My point is that those stats (everything except power, precision, and ferocity) should either be invisible to players and the focus should be on players maximizing their damage output OR the game should be changed to allow those sorts of builds and attributes to be useful. The former is incredibly restricting and becomes a game of “I deal damage with a sword instead of a mace,” while the latter becomes “my character’s role in a group is vastly different than yours and I need you in my group just as much as you need me!”

This goes along with what I pointed out as well, if the stats serve no purpose, you might as well not have them at all. If it is only about dealing damage (which is the case right now) the combat is incredibly boring. The stats must all have a purpose.

McNinja.5417:

How can the latter option come to fruition? First, Arenanet has to decide whether or not the classes can be highly mobile and reply on active defense or if some should be more mobile than others, i.e. why a guardian is as mobile as a thief. A thief should have more endurance to dodge with while a guardian should be able to heal better and endure far more damage.

I’ve never understood why a heavy armor class that already has access to invulnerability, also has access to extra endurance, so they can also dodge more.

McNinja.5417:

I think in trying to upset the current state of MMORPGs, ANet went too far in the “it’s different!” direction and didn’t stop to think quite how things would end up. That is, we have a bunch of “different” classes/professions that all wind up fulfilling the same role in every group. At the most basic level, how is a thief different from a warrior or ranger? Because it can stealth? Because it can use daggers? In the end, it’s purpose in a group setting is the exact same as the ranger or warriors or elementalists – deal damage. I personally think that should change.

They basically stripped the traditional MMO of roles, and then ended up with nothing, because they didn’t add enough of their own. Removing roles is easy. But you need to replace it with something else, or else it’s just a game where you whack enemies till they stop moving. An MMO needs more strategy and depth in its combat system, but that requires a lot of thought. I get the impression that they just threw a lot of stuff at the wall, hoping that some of it would stick.

But there’s even more to it than that. The entire topic of combat in an MMO is a very complicated beast, from a game design point of view. I can’t cover everything that is wrong about GW2’s combat in merely one post. Nor do I know how to fix it. I don’t think there are miracle cures. But I think I know where they could start.

Positioning

Positioning seems to have little purpose in GW2. I don’t get the impression that flanking an enemy does a whole lot most of the time. It could be made more important.

Everyone also stacks on top of each other, both in dungeons and in WvW. This is because of the way boons work. What Anet could do, is add more abilities that encourage players to spread out more. This means giving monsters more aoe attacks, and maybe they should bring back the classic Spiteful Spirit (this would instantly give necromancers a purpose in dungeons, and encourage the idea of moving enemies into a position). Also, some aoe knockback attacks would also help.

Height differences could be given a purpose, by removing the godawful invulnerability mechanic, that makes monsters invincible when they can’t get to you.

Shorter more powerful abilities

I think enemies should hit harder, and defensive abilities should last shorter, but reduce more damage. There are too many boons right now that stay for too long. Players should be encouraged more to time their boons against specific attacks from monsters.

Control skills should be given a role in PVE combat

It seems like very little thought was put into control skills. Why would I want to fear an enemy away, when my goal is to kill that enemy? Wouldn’t that just annoy the heck out of my party? (short answer: YES) So about time they thought this through, and came up with a plan to make control skills a part of the combat. It’s not enough to merely include a mechanic in the game. You have to give it a purpose as well.

If control skills are interrupts, what do I need to interrupt? If bosses are the only monsters that have attacks that are truly devastating, then why make bosses immune to them? See, these things contradict each other. Whoever designed this did not think this through very well.

Any class can fulfill any role

This sounds great on paper, but we know this isn’t true. By removing roles, the game became focused on damage numbers, and specific skills. For example, you can deal a truckload of damage by reflecting the attacks of a boss, while also protecting your party against such attacks. This has made reflection a pretty powerful ability that lots of people want to bring into high end dungeons… yet not all classes have reflection….

That seems odd. Isn’t that odd? If you really want all classes to be able to fulfill any role, and you make the game so focused on damage and specific skills, then certainly the most powerful skills should be accessible to all classes?

IndigoSundown.5419:

The OP is guilty of an illogical assumption, that all gear prefixes ought to be equally relevant in all portions of the game and for all players.

I don’t think that is what the OP is saying at all. I think what he’s saying, is that all gear prefixes should have a purpose in the game. Not all portions. But at least ONE portion. If you have gear prefixes that are irrelevant, then why are they in the game at all? You might as well only have zerker gear, if the game only revolves around dealing damage…. which seems to be the case.

IndigoSundown.5419:

His thread is nothing but another demand for dedicated roles, something the game is not designed for, and which was advertised well before launch.

That’s an assumption that immediately seems flawed to me. I think what the OP is pointing out, is that without roles the game’s combat feels shallow and lacking. Many other MMO’s managed to make their combat engaging and tactical, either by giving the players roles, or in other ways. But GW2 only has damage, and that’s it. I think he’s right to demand more. Lets stop pretending that GW2’s combat is good. It’s not.

I love that I can dodge roll, and cast while moving. I love that there is a strong focus on action. But the combat as a whole lacks depth and strategy. It’s a game of whack-a-mole with fancy graphics right now, but it could be so much more.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Now, one thing I somewhat agree on – from your other post – is the need to differentiate how players approach encounters (something that the Trinity wouldn’t actually achieve since you’d still have to approach the encounter with a set group composition).

I don’t think having required, dedicated roles is the way to approach it though.

Well that is an interesting point, and I agree. I think there are multiple ways to tackle this issue, and dedicated roles is merely the most common way to do it (but definitely not the only way). I personally prefer new things, and I suspect that is one of the reasons why many of us wanted to play this game: To try something new.

So if we want to solve this issue, I think we need to look not only at other games that were successful (by implementing a trinity), but also at other ways in which more strategy could be added to the current combat system. The basic mechanics of GW2 seem alright, but a lot of the additional mechanics seem all over the place. I also notice that many of the game’s mechanics don’t have much of an effect on the game’s combat. There are a few that have a big impact (such as invulnerability, stability and reflection) and others that have a very minor effect. I also get the impression that the game allows the players to spam these abilities far too often, and thus the need for proper timing seems to go wasted.

For example, as a necromancer I have traited my wells so they grant protection to a limited number of allies. Now this is already a problem, because even on paper this sounds inferior to any skill that gives protection to ALL ALLIES. But never the less, there never seems to be any need in the game for the players to stand inside my well. Players don’t even seem to notice that they have protection on them. That is how little of a dent this ability seems to make on overall PVE combat (its effects are probably better felt in WvW in large scale battles). So yeah, its nice that my wells give protection, but no one cares. So how can we make people care?

Compare this to a game like Dungeons & Dragons online, where the entire party casts Protection from Acid on each other, right before fighting the giant acid breathing Black Dragon, and you can see a clear difference in the usefulness of certain mechanics. GW2 does not use its mechanics enough. They often feel like fluff, rather than that they have a purpose or a role.

smfc.4570:

There is one things tho, everyone can be a healer but there are no good healers, everyone can be a tank but there are no good tanks, every class is just average with some minor advantage on its specialization.

There’s more to it than that. You can be a healer, but there is nothing in the game that requires a dedicated healer. All damage can be overcome by self sustained healing. No one is dependent on their party members. Arguably it’s mostly the boon spamming from guardians and warriors that makes a big difference, plus perhaps reflection for some encounters. But other than that, it’s pretty much a free for all, with very little to challenge the players.

Tanking can be done by most classes, but tanking in the game is nearly impossible. First of all, you don’t need to tank, because defensive boons are spammed instantly across the whole party with very little cost. So it’s not just one player that is tanking. But even if one player wanted to be the tank, how would you keep aggro? The game’s dungeons have very few choke points, and aggro control is none existent. It’s a mess. So even if you wanted to tank, you couldn’t.

Aggro priorities are also a big mess. If I have a bunch of zerker gear melee party members in my party, that are obliterating a bunch of monsters. Guess who the monsters are most likely to attack? Me of course! The necromancer who maxed out her toughness. So even if you build defensively, the game punishes you for it. You’d think that it would make more sense for monsters to focus on squishy characters, or characters that are the biggest threat to them. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Frankly, the system is so nontransparent that players have no clue what is going on, and just focus on dealing damage. At least in GW1 you could kite, and pull, because the aggro system made sense, and you could reliably body block monsters.

smfc.4570:

Well i don’’t want to sound mean but what do you expect from company that has managed to break such epic game like Lineage 2 to the point that there are way way more players playing on private servers old chronicles of it than actual players on ncsofts server even bots included. Tell me that’’s not a good argument?

Lineage II is developed and published by NCSoft. Guild Wars 2 is developed by Arenanet and published by NCSoft. If the game is broken, it’s Arenanet’s fault, and not NCSoft’s fault.

Aidan Savage.2078:

I stopped reading fairly quickly when you assume other stats are irrelevant. GW2 is a game that does not have the “holy” trinity. It never will, the vast majority of players dont want it, and there’s plenty of other games out there to if YOU want the “holy” trinity.

That is a terrible argument, so let me wipe it off the board in one fell swoop. What the players want is irrelevant when the game’s class and combat system is clearly broken. What this game needs is a fix, regardless if what the player “think” they want. The OP is addressing the game’s problems, and comparing with MMO’s that did manage to make their combat and class system work. I think that is entirely valid. So stop getting all upset when someone mentions the word Trinity. You might as well use the word “roles”. It is the same thing really. The game needs different roles from just doing damage. The OP is correct that the current meta is incredibly boring, and the game encourages it.

Aidan Savage.2078:

GW2 is a game where those that want to be healers can be healers, while actually being able to do damage. It’s also a game where other classes DONT NEED A HEALER to survive.

Correction, it is a game where healers have no role at all. So no one plays a healer. Everyone plays a damage dealer, and that’s it.

Aidan Savage.2078:

It also has almost no need for a “tank and spank” build because active defenses (and boons) means each player is able to actively defend themselves.

Not just that. The game lacks proper aggro mechanics, and fails to challenge the players to a point where tanking and aggro management is required. That is why tank and spank doesn’t work in this game. The majority of defenses completely negate what ever offense the monsters might bring. So either the players have too much defense, or the monsters have little offense. Either way, there’s no tanking because the combat is a mess, and way too easy. The game does not challenge the players enough. There’s very little in the game that cannot be overcome by simply spamming attacks and dodging occasionally. The game fails to challenge the players to build around obstacles. In GW1 you adjusted the skills of your party according to the mission you were about to do. People would ask for specific skills on specific classes, in order to beat the odds. GW2 does not do that, which is why the combat is so boring.

Aidan Savage.2078:

There is no mentality of “great, we’re 4/5 for this dungeon, now we can sit here for 2 kittening hours waiting for a healer.” That kitten got old real fast in GW1. It’s why I MADE a monk in GW1. I got tired of waiting forever for a monk to come along. I dont want that again, and the vast majority of players dont want that again.

None of us enjoy that, but that is not what the OP is talking about. The OP wants more to the combat than just damage. Giving more roles to players, does not necessarily equal having to wait for a healer in an outpost. In fact, GW2 is already set up in such a way that anyone could easily switch to that role. The real problem, is that there is no role for healers in the current broken combat system.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Finally, if you think no class is able to bring things that other classes cant, I honestly dont think you do anything other than sit in LA chatting in /m. There is no need for a paradigm shift in classes in the way you desire, because in the end, you’re asking for another wowclone.

You assume he wants a wowclone, because you are unable to wrap your head around the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with GW2’s basic combat system, that could be fixed.

How about just having better rewards from doing the dungeon, rather than from completing it? Put the rewards randomly throughout the dungeon, and have enemies drop good loot, rather than useless junk.

I prefer ground targeted wells, so this is a change I would support. However, I do hope that with the new specialization they also fix our class as a whole, and not just add more things that are broken.

I love being able to conjure up armies of minions, or tanking enemies with life stealing. I love corrupting boons and using spiteful spirit to make mobs of enemies destroy themselves.

In GW2 however, no appeal.

GW1 is a great game, and in many ways it is far more challenging, and better balanced than GW2. It’s combat system has a lot more depth to it. Definitely don’t go outside any outpost without bringing a party of henchmen (or better yet, heroes).

If you are looking to fill your HOM, then you’d better make sure you like the game, because it is going to take you a long while.

Unlike in GW2, I would actually recommend playing a necromancer in GW1. They have great survivability, and can command armies of minions. Just be sure to change your skill bar quite often, depending on the mission. Save any builds you like as a template, so you can reload it onto your bar when ever you need it again.

And for the love of Grenth, don’t use pre-made builds from the internet. Just make your own builds. That is after all the fun of the game.

Necromancers should probably invest a lot in defense just to stay alive. They are a terrible class in their current state, and completely neglected by Anet. I stopped playing because of it.

If they do bring back FoW and UW, it would be an excellent opportunity to create massive open world raids, with dynamic events, and none linear exploration. They could be a type of dungeons that are closer in design to normal PVE explorables, and maybe they could even drop the party restrictions.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Actually we had height advantage and cheezed the hell of out of encounters lol – fun times. They got rightly shut down in due time of course because it really trivialized encounters.

Its weird how cheesing with height difference doesn’t seem to be such a problem in other MMO’s. In GW1, monsters tried to path to the player to the best of their capabilities, if you were on higher ground (their ai wasn’t all that impressive either). Sometimes they would fail to reach you, but this was never really an issue. In DDO there are dozens of encounters where you can shoot down at enemies, and only those with ranged attacks are able to defend themselves from it.

But this a matter of setting up proper encounters I guess. If you know a room in a dungeon has an obvious cheese spot, make sure the enemies have some ranged weapons.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Could have been handled a different way though, SE P3 involves killing a dredge machine. You can either take the no-risk but longer option of ranging it down from height or you could YOLO melee. After 3 years, I guess most players’ skills have progressed to the point of not dying like chumps despite not stacking and not having reflect skills. It helps when teammates switch to support util/elite skills instead of just DPS ones.

I never understood why both approaches would not be allowed. It leads to awkward situations as well, where one player might be in melee and the rest in ranged combat. So one of either things can happen at this point:

• The monster goes invulnerable, despite one player being in close combat with it. (I’ve seen this happen plenty of times)
• The monster can be harmed, despite players attacking it from a height that would normally turn it invulnerable.

And this is just extremely inconsistent and illogical. Neither of these two makes sense.

Khal Drogo.9631:

I haven’t played WoW before but you are telling me combat in WoW isnt pressing the same buttons over and over for each individual player even if it is using the trinity system instead of DPSing and self heals?

I don’t know, I haven’t played WoW either. But I know GW1 wasn’t like that, and DDO isn’t like that either.

For example, I am playing a Palemaster in DDO (a necromancer who can turn into undead forms), which means my character counts as an undead most of the time. So that means you play the game in a totally different way. I am only healed by negative energy, and light spells can instantly kill me if I’m not careful. I do however receive resistance to death spells.

Last night me and some friends ventured into a dungeon that featured a Beholder. Fighting beholders is always a tricky thing, because just like in classic D&D they dispel all magic in a cone in front of them, and they have eyes that shoot deadly spells in all directions. This means that you have to be really careful not to be targeted by the Beholder, and that it matters if you flank him (because each eye shoots different spells). So my Palemaster and her undead minion went up front, while the rest of the party tried to stay out of direct sight of the Beholder.

So that’s just one example of what combat can be like in an MMO that requires more than just mashing buttons. Positioning, buffing, flanking, height advantage, aggro control.

Khal Drogo.9631:

I actually find the combat system to be interesting, fast-paced and fluid (when it doesn’t lag – a technical issue), unlike NWO and ESO. In fact it is the one reason I prefer to play GW2 instead of the above-mentioned. I am glad you get to dodge and move around quickly and have not too many skills at the same time.

I do admire the game for its speed and mobility. I do agree here. But the combat itself feels lacking in depth.

Khal Drogo.9631:

If I were the devs, I would get creative and make dailies for clearing xyz dungeon with 5 necros for example or introduce random modifiers into dungeons to make things more interesting like a fighting game.

Randomized content in the dungeons would certainly be welcome. But I’m sick of dailies. They should just make all professions equally viable, and make sure the game is not unfairly biased against certain core game mechanics.

DarkSyze.8627:

There is couple of videos by Angry Joe calling Guild Wars 2 a “Spam game” and he also criticize the downstate, mobility, stealth and stacking in the game as being “horrible design”, “what was Arena net thinking of” and even say “how dull the combat system is” and “how there is practically no fun element in the game as long you stand in a circle and hit the same keys over and over” + other words i will not put here.. and made fun of it and laughed about it..

That is valid criticism. That’s exactly what the game is. I have noticed it too, which is why I stopped playing.

Angry Joe was very enthusiastic about GW2 when it came out, which I think we all were. But his enthusiasm waned, as did mine, as we figured that indeed the cake was hollow. It’s also important to realize that Angry Joe has to play a lot of different games, in order to review them. But he does put a lot of time and effort into the reviews. He doesn’t just skim over it, but really makes sure he plays it quite a bit.

SHM.7628:

^This exactly.

He was just nodding and uhumming disingenuously durring 90% of the interview.

I just think some tougher and more relevant questions could have been asked and answered.

You have to understand that the interview is mainly for Anet to get some exposure for HOT. So any critical questions Angry Joe manages to get in, are a bonus. As a games journalist, you have to walk a fine line between asking hard questions, and talking about what the developer wants to talk about. It is not an interrogation after all. The fact that Joe asked some difficult questions that no other reviewer dares to ask, earns him a lot of credit in my opinion. Its a shame that they weren’t willing to answer every question, but as an interviewer you can’t really force them to answer anyway if they are unwilling. It has to remain a friendly interview, because no company is waiting to do an interview with someone who is downright hostile to their game. I think Joe did a really good job, and his interview skills have clearly improved over the years.

runeblade.7514:

I don’t want dungeons to be explorable because it is a waste of dev time. Players will always look for the path of least resistance and none of the other parts of the dungeons will be explored for newer players because it is all about that loot. The exploration should be reserved for open world or for personal story. It should not be used in group content. I don’t want to be hurried around to get to the end because the pug just want that loot.

And this is where you are wrong. Plenty of other MMO’s simply place the loot in rooms all around the dungeon, thus encouraging other paths to be explored, and speed running to be discouraged. It’s that simple. Simply give players a reason to explore.

GW2’s main problem with dungeons, is that it is a long corridor where you go from A to B, encountering some bosses along the way, and a boss at the end. This does not encourage other roads to be explored, if there were other roads to speak of.

Many other MMO’s have already solved this issue. They feature none-linear dungeons where there are multiple objectives. See the example below.

Saint.5647:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

“No one uses CC in dungeons”

Cbomb.4310:

Gives Example

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

“I don’t like your example”

RIP in peace logic.

That is not what happened. I said CC is not useful in dungeons (because DPS is faster). He gave an example of Icebow, and I remarked that Icebow is simply used for the DPS, not for the CC. So that doesn’t count for a very good reason.

Cbomb.4310:

— Riiiight. You need to stop using absolutes in your arguments. You could say ‘most of the skins I like are in the gemstore’ for example, but saying ‘most skins are in the gem store’ is a ridiculous statement that dosnt even come close to being truthful.

You know that was exactly what I meant. Sheesh, don’t pick on the words so much. Are you here to discuss the reward system, or just to pick my sentences apart?

Cbomb.4310:

Plenty of things you get from drops are worth a decent amount of money. Usually from extracted crafting materials, runes/sigils, ectos, T3-6 mats, or just flat selling yellows/oranges. Cores/lodestones and their lesser cousins.

And yet, I do not feel rewarded when I receive a bunch of rare crafting materials that go straight into my bank, or straight onto the trading post. The game’s reward system lacks this magical sparkle that makes you go “wooow” whenever you open a treasure chest. It’s just not there.

Cbomb.4310:

And then theres those nice oranges weapons with their own unique skins that are worth more than average. Thats like.. most of what you get in this game as loot.

Salvage trash, or straight onto the trading post.

Cbomb.4310:

If you’re crafting ascended still, you still need that crafting material. If you’re trying for X special weapon either a MF wapon or a full legendary,

I’d rather make an appointment with a blind dentist than work on a legendary.

Cbomb.4310:

Will you get some awesome drop from a chest? Prolly not.

I think you mean, “guaranteed not”. And that’s my point. Many games DO have this feeling of excitement when you open a treasure chest. Even GW1 had it (slightly), and games like Diablo certainly have it. DDO has it too. In fact, every two quests there’s usually something in a treasure chest that I can use, and keep for myself.

Cbomb.4310:

If you and everyone did, it wouldnt BE an awesome drop. Thats how every game is. The only difference here, is we get all that other ‘fluff’ to help us on our way towards that next big weapon.

That’s a terrible argument. If that were true, then why do so many other games of the same genre succeed in making the player feel rewarded, when apparently according to you it can’t be done?

Cbomb.4310:

— Again, you’re flip flopping. Comparing open world to dungeons and back.

No, I’m discussing combat in general, and are covering both instances in PVE where combat is relevant. That is still perfectly on topic. Unless you do not know what flip flopping means.

Cbomb.4310:

Confusion/torment/fear are so clearly pvp condis as well. To make them useful you’d have to have mobs running around spamming abilities at nobody while simultaneously making it more difficult for everyone else to hit them.

Really? I can tell you spend a lot of time thinking that over.

Cbomb.4310:

Its ridiculous. They’re not bad condis, they’re just designed for pvp.

They shouldn’t be, and that’s not how they are intended. More than half the players play the game for its PVE.

Cbomb.4310:

For someone that supposedly loves the min/maxing you should actually be into this!

Its incredibly boring. This is not the sort of min maxing that I would get any enjoyment out of. It’s basically a matter of equipping armor with the the right runes and inscriptions, and picking a trait that affects your bleeding. There, done.

I like picking character enhancements from enhancement trees, tweaking the details to make my necro unique from any other necro with the same skill bar. But it feels like all I’m tweaking, is 4 skills. There is a profound lack of depth and enjoyment to GW2’s build variety. Plus a ton of traits don’t even work right, or are useless. And lets not forget that there are very few skills, and very few traits to choose from too. It is a very limited selection, plus we don’t have dual professions any more. So it’s a bare bone system that we’re left with. That is not enough to keep me interested.

Cbomb.4310:

AI definitely needs work in this game, but its a weird point for the guy advocating ‘no CC just 12345 everything’ who also needs to stand on a rock in order to kill skales and drakes.

I see you do not understand my point that using vantage points would actually add an extra dimension of strategy to the combat, rather than all the 12345 that we have now. It is like the game encourages players to go into melee range, and then roll their head across their keyboard. All it takes is to make monsters not go invulnerable, and I would already have a reason to carefully choose my attack position. Think of how much more fun it would be to wield a bow, if you actually got to use a height advantage!

Cbomb.4310:

Guessing you never saw the ceiling cat and face rooms hidden in CM

That was a bit of discarded content that is not intended to be accessible for regular players.

Cbomb.4310:

Guessing you never saw the hidden turkey room in AC

There is no reason to go to that room. Its an Easter egg, not an actual part of the dungeon that you are encouraged to explore.

Cbomb.4310:

Most dungeons have rooms with levers and mini events you have to go into, or rooms you dont even need to go into but can feel free to explore.

No, most of them don’t. Apart from AC, I don’t know that many dungeons in GW2 that feature levers at all.

Besides, a dead end with nothing in it is not an extra part of the dungeon you are free to explore. If it is, your standards for dungeon design are incredibly low.

Cbomb.4310:

The entirety of the map is actually very complex.

It would be, if the paths weren’t all blocked off. And because the paths are all blocked off, all you are left with is a long winding corridor that takes you from point A to point B, just like in the map that I linked.

Actual dungeons in other MMO’s feature different routes that you either must explore too (because of multiple objectives), or can explore (because of a bonus reward). But they are not simply dead ends with nothing in them. Most, if not all, dungeons in DDO branch off in countless paths, each with their own optional goals and bosses, traps, secrets, treasure chests etc. You wouldn’t even need to look far to see that I’m right. Just boot up DDO (it’s free) and dive into the first dungeon you encounter. Yes, even the level 1 dungeons in DDO feature more diversity than any of these high level dungeons in GW2. And I don’t mean to make this sound like an advertisement for another MMO, but the competition is a heck of a lot better. I only wish GW2 featured properly designed dungeons, instead of sloppy boring corridors.

Cbomb.4310:

But.. that conflicts with so much of what you say too. You want ‘more things to fiddle with’ on gear but when it comes to traits you want them to be less shallow? Its the same thing.

I don’t see how those two statements are in conflict with each other. Yes, I like tweaking my characters, and yes I feel the current trait system lacks depth. I don’t see the contradiction.

Cbomb.4310:

You min/max your character. If you’re as experienced as you think you are, you’d understand that it always comes down to that.

I never made any statements about how experienced I am, I’ll let other people do that for me. And I also don’t see why it would be relevant to the discussion.

Cbomb.4310:

— lol.. You’ve ranted about how something ‘has no uses’ but I mention 1 and how its had consistent uses in casual runs and even record runs and you rant about how its OP and for some reason dosnt count. Which is it, no uses or OP? Get out of here!

That was not what I said at all. I said Icebow is an OP skill that gets spammed around for the DPS, not because of the control functionality. Both with bosses in dungeons and in over world PVE, control skills are pretty useless. They are basically a slower way to kill a boss, when they should have a place in the combat system. Currently they don’t.

Cbomb.4310:

You also dropped talking about dungeons to slip in ‘open world’ content. Both very different environments. You’re kinda flip flopping…

I’ve been discussing PVE in general, which concerns both dungeons and open world. That’s not flip flopping, that’s on topic. If I start discussing pvp, then I would be flip flopping.

Just a reminder, I started this discussion with describing why I find PVE lacking. What disappoints me, and what I feel needs to be improved. I bought up the combat system in general, and that kind of touches on both open world AND dungeons.

Cbomb.4310:

If you were talking about open PvE this whole time, it also contradicts your issues with builds/gear as well since those things are hardly as important in the open

They should be!

Cbomb.4310:

— Interesting builds on foes? As far as I know, they dont have builds.

Then I rest my case on that subject. Because they should.

Cbomb.4310:

They’re monsters with their own scripted attacks. Interesting strats? I guess if you have a very dull idea of ‘interesting’ sure,

Wait, you’re saying that you’d find it more dull if monsters required a strategy? I don’t get that at all. I haven’t even proposed an example, yet you dismiss the concept of monsters requiring any strategy right out the door? Don’t you think you’re being a little bit close minded?

Cbomb.4310:

but my guess is that you have very mediocre > slow dungeon trains if you dont see value in most of the speed strats. You say you dont even glance on the screen so.. I think that alone speaks volumes about your expertise in this matter.

That’s not what I said. I said that you don’t need to look at the screen for most of the fights, and can randomly mash buttons to victory, especially in open world pve. Many MMO’s require the player to pay a little bit more attention than that, including GW1.

Cbomb.4310:

You can swap weapons? You’re often encouraged to.
GW1 also had a horrible time balancing all that, which I believe was one of your original uninformed points. Regardless, you’re encouraged to swap our utilities/weapons/traits based on encounters on a regular basis in good groups.
I dont understand the armor/accessories complaint either. Its about the same as every other RPG thats ever existed.

So you basically don’t understand my entire argument. What I mean is that there is extremely little to tweak about your character. In comparison to other MMO’s, the skill bar and trait system do very little to set your character apart from other characters of the same class. I like to have more numbers to fiddle around with. The system that is in place now is extremely simplified and shallow. It doesn’t allow for interesting combinations, like for example in GW1, or DDO.

Cbomb.4310:

Control skills are also far from pointless, they just require coordinated groups.

Against bosses perhaps. But in open world PVE, it is far more effective to just spam attacks on enemies. You don’t need to use control skills. Against bosses on the other hand, in the same time that you are coordinating control skills with your group, you could also be spamming DPS on the boss. The only difference is that the boss dies faster with the DPS approach, so that it is pretty much the default approach for almost any group. Again, no thought was put into how control skills and conditions fit into this system.

GW2’s combat is only good, due to the mobility of your character while casting spells, and the ability to roll around. But other than that, none of the foes you face in PVE have interesting builds, nor require interesting strategies. They don’t require you to adapt your build. You can pretty much just spam your attacks to victory, without even glancing on the screen, with most battles in the game.

Cbomb.4310:

Conditions like blind/vuln stacking/ and even padding with bleeds are useful.

Until you hit the condition cap, which in large scale battles is instant. Or unless you face enemies that have resistance to conditions, or are completely immune to them. Overall it doesn’t seem like the designers put a whole lot of thought into how these mechanics function in actual combat.

Cbomb.4310:

The invulnerable thing was added in later to counter exploits where people would stand on some rock somewhere to avoid attacks and auto a boss down. Bosses that somehow do the same thing to us would be.. interesting, but again, I think thats more a lack of AI and their fix is good enough for now[/b]

It’s not a fix, it’s a flaw.

And its not just bosses that turn invulnerable, its every enemy in the game. Why should some dumb low level Skale or Drake turn invulnerable because he can’t reach me? Just let that thing die, who cares? If I have a bow or a staff, I should simply be able to rain death and destruction on that thing. But I can’t. So I have to get on equal level with my foes, in order for my ranged weapon to work. That is dumb.

Cbomb.4310:

Point A to B is.. pretty much every dungeon in every MMO, I dont understand what you’re getting at. GW2 dungeons have things to explore, obstacles, traps, underwater sections, junctions.. I feel like you have a very narrow experience of them.

Real dungeons split into dozens of directions. They have other rooms to explore, with rewards at the end and secret rooms too. GW2 does not have any of that. I don’t know what game you have been playing, but GW2’s dungeons don’t have that at all.

Dungeon in GW2: https://amateurguildwars2.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/se-full-map.jpg

Dungeon in GW1: http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/4/4d/Sorrow%27s_Furnace_map_clean.jpg

Dungeon in DDO: https://warriorsofvalhalladdo.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/pit-map.jpg

Note that GW2 is a linear path from A to B. But most dungeons in GW1 or DDO are branching paths. That is what I’m getting at.

Cbomb.4310:

You dont equip them because you likely have your best rewards already equipped. The game is linear progression. Thats been known since its inception. The game is cosmetic. Things that have worth are worth something because they have a special skin or they’re a component to a larger effort for a special skin.

However, most skins are in the gem store. So again, what rewards are there to look forward to? Just chests filled with salvage trash.

Cbomb.4310:

icebow 5 to interrupt huge attack / frozen, thief spam 3-4, icebow 5 again interrupt huge attack / frozen. Its used very constantly as just 1 example.

That’s just Icebow spamming. Icebow has been overpowered since release. That is not a good example of clever use of control skills.

Cbomb.4310:

- If you mean build options that are considered ‘good’, most professions have plenty of trait options they can move around and still be competitive. Many have entirely separate builds even. Its more versatile than other MMOs out there. We can even change our traits/weapons between encounters. In HoT we’re getting specializations which one can only assume will deepen our choices.

That is not what I meant, I meant depth. I like tweaking my characters, switching out different weapon types, different accessories, armor, belts, rings, necklaces, trinkets. I like trying different abilities, skills, feats, enhancements, specializations. There’s very little in GW2 to tinker around with.

You basically have a skill bar, half of which is fixed (in contrast to GW1), one profession (in contrast to GW1), a few weapon sets, one armor set with 3 accessories, and a few traits. That is not enough for me. The armor and weapons do not allow for enough variety, in contrast to other MMO’s.

Cbomb.4310:

- Bad combat system.. ok. I think most people that play this game consider the combat system one of its greatest assets. Its action-oriented, not just standing still and hitting a rotation of 20 abilities at max range.

An action oriented combat system that is not well thought out, is still a bad combat system. You basically have a combat system where instead of standing still and whacking things, you are moving around and whacking things. I want more strategy out of my combat. I also can clearly see that a majority of the mechanics are not well thought out, and do not have a purpose. Conditions and control skills are pretty pointless in normal PVE (because it is so easy), and rendered useless against bosses (due to immunities and Defiant). That is inconsistent. You basically have a game that has a strong bias against the core game mechanics that a few classes are specialized in. That is terrible design. What makes it worse is the fact that positioning is discouraged, due to enemies turning invulnerable when you have a height advantage. This eliminates a huge potential for interesting combat, that even a game like GW1 (with no Z-axis) made use of.

Cbomb.4310:

-Not even sure what this means… game has lots of dungeons with story modes, multiple explore modes, many of which are filled with optional bosses/champions (even if some of’m are often skipped, they’re still there)

My standards for dungeons are higher. I want more than just a corridor where you walk from A to B, with one poorly designed boss at the end that has a ton of hit points (so it quickly outstays its welcome), and has no phases (so the fight becomes tedious fast). I like exploring. I like obstacles and traps. Heck, I even like swimming sections. And I like encountering a junction every now and then.

Cbomb.4310:

-I agree/disagree with the rewards thing. Theres obviously the good/rare rewards but they’re doused in a sea of salvage. However, without those said drops, we’d be left only getting those rare once in a blue moon drops like in other games. Most of the fancier skins you work for and use the MF, which honestly beats pure random chance.

How about getting rewards that you would consider equipping? In GW2 you can be 99% sure that you will not be equipping anything that drops from any chest. I do not feel excited when I open a boss chest, because there is nothing in there that I would want.

Cbomb.4310:

-In dungeons I dont mind it, its not a bad system

YES IT IS. A system that renders control skills useless, when it should be encouraging strategic use of control skills, is a bad system. Who bothers to use control skills on bosses in dungeons? Does anyone? I rest my case.

Anet is not just replacing the Defiant system because everyone is whining about it. They are also replacing it because it is objectively a system that doesn’t work well. They are fixing something that never really worked well.

Cbomb.4310:

Overall everything you posted is very very very uninformed nonsense. Either that or you’re trolling hard and I bit.

This always seems to be the first point that people on a forum jump to when ever they disagree, or do not understand someone’s points. I don’t get it, or I don’t agree, so this person must be trolling. I’m not trolling. I’m dead serious. I haven’t touched this game in over a month.

I’m wondering if dungeons will finally be added as part of Heart of Thorns. Yes, I realize the game has corridors right now that are called dungeons. But unless they contain an element of exploration, and branching paths, they cannot be truly called dungeons (at least not what one commonly considers a dungeon in an MMO).

Please do away with the idea of fixed paths, and just open up massive mazes with multiple objectives, traps, optional bosses and bonus rewards.

I hope time will be allocated for the game design team to actually address the issue of making a dungeon work with GW2’s combat system (or lack there of). That means thinking about building good encounters with the limited mechanics available, and creating challenging content that cannot simply be cheesed by stacking in a corner.

I want to spend between 30 mins and an hour exploring vast underground mazes together with my guildies. I want there to be reasons to explore every corner of a dungeon, and awesome rewards to look forward to. I want to see puzzles, levers, doors, elevators, platforming. Please do not neglect dungeons for Heart of Thorns, like with the game’s original release.

This is by far the best interview regarding Heart of Thorns. I also like how he addressed the complaints of the community regarding the necromancer; he was obviously well informed. I do not like the answers to it that he received though. It doesn’t sound like Anet takes the issues with the necromancer class as serious as I would have hoped. Heart of Thorns will need to be really good to win me over.

Currently my reasons for leaving the game are:

-The necromancer (my favorite class) is broken and neglected (Joe brought this up)
-Classes are completely unbalanced in PVE in general
-Control and support are undeveloped and neglected, in favor of DPS
-Stacking and zerker/DPS dominate the game (Glad Joe addressed this)
-Missing character development, very little depth in character builds
-Bad, over-simplified combat system, which also lacks depth
-The game has no actual dungeons, just long corridors where you don’t explore
-The game has no rewards, just merchant fodder. Nothing that you’d want to equip on your character, or would look forward to when you open a chest.
-The US/EU server split, means not being able to play with dozens of my GW1 friends.
-Defiant

If I had to come up with a quick improvement, I’d have different effects for bosses that are blinded, feared, knocked down, or pulled. Perhaps if you land enough knockdowns on the feet of Tequatl, it could cause it to collapse, allowing you to melee it’s head. Maybe if you land enough fears, it would recoil in fear, driving it back, and allowing the players to stop a devastating attack, or strike at a weak-spot underneath its belly.

This would be an extension of the break-bar principle, but without removing the core functionality of the individual CC-skills, and without lumping them together. The effect would still be pre-determined, but it would at least be a response to the skills being used.

No video compression.

PorceleinEve.2973:

Valid points but realistically they’re not gonna spend precious resources to change the combat system now. It’s something they should have done from the beginning they didn’t, so we get this middle ground solution. Might be interesting, we’ll know more after we see it in action a bit more.

And let us not forget the clusterkitten that follows combat overhowls… folks still remember the revamp in sw galaxies… i don’t think they’re gonna risk it.

Oh yes, the Star Wars Galaxies revamp was quite a mess. Which just shows why it is important to get the groundwork of a robust combat system right from the start. Once you start building the game, and discover the foundation is broken, it is quite difficult to fix it without collapsing the building on top.

I don’t think the situation is as hopeless however as it was with SW Galaxies. I believe Anet can add incremental changes to the combat systems to fix these glaring issues. First and fore most, I think they should look at the rock-paper-scissors idea of their main combat mechanics.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Am i reading a necro thread about cc being useless in new break bar mechanic?
Seriously. A necro??.

No, you are skipping over a thread and instantly replying, without reading that it really is about the break bar taking away the unique ability of every CC-skill. It makes every CC the same, thus rendering their functionality void in boss encounters. A fear is supposed to cause fear, just like a knock down is supposed to knock enemies down. With the break bar, both do the same, but neither have their original functionality.

Andred.1087:

I fail to see how the break bar does not qualify as taking existing game mechanics into account.

Knockdowns no longer knock a boss down. Fears do not fear a boss. etc. It removes their characteristic effects completely.

Andred.1087:

You speak as though CC is worthless in the face of defiance, when in fact it does have an affect.

An effect that works so poorly, that most sane people simply DPS the heck out of any boss, because in the time that it takes to remove those stacks of Defiant, the boss could be dead already. Yes, it is worthless as it is now.

Andred.1087:

And you acknowledge yourself that letting an entire mob of players endlessly stun-lock a boss is bad, but you have not offered any alternative solutions. You can’t make your entire post “devs did a bad job” without explaining how you would do it differently and why that’s any better.

Last time I checked, Anet did not hire me to design the new combat system for their revolutionairy new MMO. I am merely a player (and freelance game designer, but that is besides the point), pointing out that they neglected to make all of their combat mechanics a complete part of the combat experience.

Stun locking bosses is bad, but there are ways around that. The current system imposes restrictions on the use of control skills and condition skills against bosses, while imposing little to no draw backs to using direct damage (aka, DPS). You need not be a game designer to see that this is an unbalanced system. The combat should not single one game mechanic out as being the best, while neglecting the other two mechanics. Especially, when you consider that these three mechanics are spread unevenly across the classes, and that some classes excel at one of the three. There is no point to being specialized in an inferior mechanic. Unless the three are at equal footing, you will never have a balanced combat system.

My main problem with the break bar, is how it doesn’t really solve this issue of the boss fights neglecting game mechanics. It reminds me of the boss fights in Final Fantasy 7, where all of the magic system basically becomes useless once you get your first summon (and most bosses are immune to status effects, thus rendering the entire game mechanic obsolete). This is bad design. Boss fights should be magnified versions of regular combat, where game mechanics are stretched to their maximum potential, rather than made obsolete. As such, a boss should be designed around the game’s mechanics, and not the other way around. What the break bar does, is solve the problem of Defiance being invisible and not user friendly. But at the same time, it disables all the unique characteristics of all CC skills, as if they do not exist during boss fights. I understand that they are inconvenient with how diverse their behaviors are. But make them work for you, not against you. Make the boss fights work with them, not without them.

When I heard that Defiant was finally being addressed, I must admit I was relieved. But when I heard how it would be addressed, that initial enthusiasm quickly faded away.

So, how is the break-bar any different from Defiant? My biggest issue with Defiant has always been how it renders control skills completely useless, and basically removes their functionality. It makes all control skills do the same thing: remove 1 stack of defiance.

With the break-bar apparently there will be a difference between how much each control skill reduces the bar… but their mechanics are still rendered void, perhaps even more so than with Defiant.

If you design a game mechanic, then commit to it. If you are not willing to make the game mechanic part of the entire game, then why add it in the first place? What good are my necromancer’s fear-skills, if the break-bar removes the functionality of fear, and replaces it with a default behavior that is the same for all control skills? I understand that there are technical limitations with bosses such as Tequatl, who cannot flee simply because they are static. And I also understand that having over 60 players land control skills on a boss at the same time, causes some design problems. But you (the game designer) are designing for an MMO, and thus these large numbers of players are exactly what you are designing a combat system for. As such, bosses should take existing game mechanics into account, or the presence of such mechanics in the game is invalidated.

The break-bar mechanic sounds to me, like a doctor patching up a wound, when the patient really needs to be brought into surgery.

This confirms nothing about his current state, and only two things about his previous state:

He was good
He was a dragon

I disagree. I think it’s logical to assume that based on the quality of past episodes, we’ll probably be served another idiot-ball plot, where Caithe is trying to accomplish something that she just as easily could have told us about, thus preventing this huge chase. That is my expectation, and my expectations are turned way down.

That 1% increase, hilarious.

Balancing the necro feels kind of like trying to build a sand castle, grain by grain of sand.

Elbritil.3817:

I know it sounds stupid, but maybe the rework of this skill could bring a good support necro into PvE:

Forget it. It had that potential before the skill was implemented into the game, and the developers deliberately decided against it, in favor of making the skill absolutely rubbish.

Why, is beyond me. But they did it. And I doubt they’ll double back on it.

Writing a better Faolain and Caithe

It is my personal opinion that Faolain could have been written a lot better, if Caithe had been made the villain, rather than the victim. This is in my opinion one of the biggest flaws in the story. Faolain was already a black-hat villain, and much to our surprise, she is.

To turn things around would have taken some guts. Caithe has always been a bit of a doe-eyed bland character in my opinion, who is always on the side of good. If the main characters in a story are not allowed to do bad things every now and then, they become dull. Very dull. Its the Mary-Sue problem.

What I wanted to see, was for Caithe to do something that justified Faolain’s deeds and position. It would have strengthened Faolain’s character, and made her more sympathetic, and less black-hat. And it would have given Caithe a dark side, which ultimately would have benefited her character as well.

Now I’ll be going into a bit of spoiler stuff regarding this episode of the Living Story, so tags up:

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Which speculation is that, sorry?

As far as I know, none of the various theories about Coldhands’ identity have been disproven.

That would be the speculation that Coldhands is Benjen Stark. According to a note on a manuscript, by GRRM himself, this speculation is incorrect.

But I don’t want to derail this topic too much towards Game of Thrones.

BobbyStein.2315:

I plan to be a little more active on the forums and in the game after next week. We’re just a bit busy right now.

Are you folks mostly on NA or EU servers?

I’m on EU. Aurora Glade.

Also, I hope you (or any of the other writers) don’t take my criticism regarding the writing of the Sylvari too personal, even if I can be rather harsh in stating my disappointment. There’s plenty of stuff in the recent Living Story to like, and the team did an excellent job.

I just feel that the writing for the races of Tyria hasn’t exactly been top notch. It falls too easily into predictable fantasy cliches. I like sympathetic villains, not pure black hat villains. That doesn’t mean a fantasy setting can’t have any pure black hat villains. For example, I’m fine with the Elder Dragons being pure evil, just as much as I would be happy if the White Walkers in Game of Thrones are pure evil. Its perfectly fine to have the monsters just be stereotypical villains. But for actual characters, I want them to be sympathetic. Faolain is a walking stereotype. With her constant “dearheart” catchphrases, she is almost the very kind of villain that my own character (The Mad Queen) lampoons. There seems to be no reason what so ever why Caithe would want to keep this murdering, torturing, genocidal, irredeemable villain, alive. And it harms the plot, and the way I look at the Sylvari as a whole. Its badly written.

Also, I get the feeling that a lot of the edges have been brushed off of many of the races. Sylvari are either good, or Nightmare Court. And the Nightmare Court so far has been presented to us as just plain evil. They like cruelty and torture, and we haven’t been given anything to make them even slightly redeemable. And the other Sylvari seem just bland in comparison, as in: They seem mostly defined by the fact that they are not their evil counterparts.

Norn are now all boasting drunk comic relief characters, rather than the interesting nomadic, imposing, and powerful people that they were presented as in Eye of the North. Asura now seem to get along just fine with everyone. Charr even walk around as Lionguards in Lion’s Arch, and it seems as if almost every human that doesn’t live in Ebonhawk has forgotten completely about their history. Every race has their own capital, even though the Norn by their very nature shouldn’t have any capital what so ever, because they are nomadic and work alone. They don’t form armies, and they certainly don’t form capitals.

What happened?

On the Sylvari

I notice however a far bigger problem: The Sylvari just aren’t very well written to begin with. I saw a lot of early sketches of the Sylvari before release, which portrayed them as sort of eery fairy-like creature. And that take on them seemed far more intriguing. What we got however, was a very simplified race. One that is at its worst just pure black hat (nightmare court), and at its best just very bland and without any edge what so ever.

There was a real opportunity here for the writers, to delve into the Nightmare Court, and show us that things aren’t quite so black and white. That the Nightmare Court aren’t just evil, but a valid alternative philosophy. But the real disappointment comes from how they’ve done exactly the opposite. I think this also explains a lot of the disappointment regarding the idiot-ball plot with Caithe’s storyline. Its not just that Caithe is so willfully ignorant of reality to further the plot, but also that Faolain is so incredibly unrealistically black-hat. There seems no nuance, and it utterly ruins the race in my opinion.

I would have loved to see a clash of philosophies. One about conformity to the standard and loyalty to the Pale Tree, and one of freedom of expression, and exploration of truth rather than scripture. But it seems that the writers are afraid to write the Pale Tree as the villain, from the point of view of the Nightmare Court, and to have the players empathize with their side, rather than that of the other Sylvari. It is as if things have to be so utterly simplified, as a lot of poor fantasy writing tends to be, with very obvious and unrealistic stereotypes, where there is no nuance to the bad guys.

lordkrall.7241:

The fact that people have been very rather abusive to people that have stood by the theory would actually suggest that it was not as predictable as you want to claim. Why else would people tell those that suggested it that they were wrong all those times?

Abusive? I have seen nothing of the sort.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

EDIT: This reminds me, actually, of the various theories about ASOIAF. If you head into a forum, there are loads of people taking certain theories as a given, assuming they’re true. Some aren’t even questioned at this point. Yet, the majority of readers certainly won’t have guessed, because the majority don’t pore over it like the forumites do.

In Game of Thrones there are a lot of weird speculations about the plot. The thing with that book series though, is that everything eventually makes sense. And one of those very persistent speculations has recently been proven to be false (the Coldhands speculation).

George RR Martin is very subtle in dropping hints, and he also provides a lot of red herrings. Undoubtedly some people will have guessed some things correctly, and maybe some of that will be revealed soon. And it’s a good thing that he doesn’t alter the plot just because some people guessed it correctly.

With the Sylvari however, people were yelling it as soon as we went into the Mordremoth plot. They instantly guessed it. And a lot of lore fans still disagreed, because it simply did not make sense considering what we knew, and know today, about dragon minions. And that still holds true, it doesn’t make sense. But regardless, the writers should have reconsidered. It wasn’t a very good twist, and it didn’t have a very good basis either from a lore point of view.

It’s just terrible writing. I can’t really understand how the writing team went with the most predictable conclusion, and stuck with it. Whether they intended this to be the back story for the Sylvari from the start is a bit of a mood-point. But why did they stick with it? It’s a terrible none-twist.

I don’t really write grade-A literature myself, but when I come up with a twist in a story, and my readers guess it immediately, I change it. I don’t want my story twists to be that predictable.

A good twist has everyone go “Ah, it all makes sense now, the pieces of the puzzle are all falling into place”. -I did not have that reaction to this reveal. I just facepalmed, and shook my head. Bad writing, BAD!

lordkrall.7241:

Please, tell us where all these inconsistencies are. Just because someone doesn’t agree on something doesn’t mean it is incorrect or goes against established information.

They have told us that the Sylvari being minions was planned from the very start, and as such it is very unlikely that they didn’t also plan out the whole story around the fact that the end game so to speak would be this reveal.

Sure, you will probably claim that the writers simply lied about it being planned from the start, but the fact that people have been speculating about it since they would very much suggest that there have been hints all along. Even if you refuses to see them.

They have nothing in common with dragon minions.

It saddens me that it seems like Konig is better informed about GW lore than the current writers are. Saddens, -but doesn’t surprise me.

The lore inconsistencies are pretty obvious for anyone really into the lore. It also feels like they went with the most obvious and easy answer. I really wish they would have gone for a twist that in hind sight actually made sense, and actually managed to surprise us.

I can’t even be mad. I’m just disappointed.

This last episode is such a mixed bag. Nice callbacks to GW1, good boss battle, awesome ending cinematic… and then this nosedive in writing. Heck, nosedive doesn’t even do it justice. It’s more of a divecoaster.

Beautiful video Cornish Rose, my dear! How incredible that you recorded so much of the event.

Just a heads up, we will announce the raffle winners, the art contest winners, and the winning carol, later tonight. We have not forgotten. We just want to make sure all our festive golems have run their GET_SOME_REST_AND_ALCOHOL_PURGING protocol.

Hahaha, that picture is hilarious!

That is an amazing carol! Excellent writing! You even managed to work in the details of the event. What a joy to see so many Tyrians inspired by our event. I’m looking forward to seeing you all there, if you can make it.