Guild Wars 2

Countess Aire.9410:

This episode is the worst of any so far. Forced to play as a thief. I detest the class and being forced to play as one is no fun. I am physically handicapped. So trying to finish this LS is not fun or entertaining. To be totally honest it is painful and frustrating. There is no individual enjoyment. Please do not force a class down my throat. This is a F- as far as my personal enjoyment goes. Hopefully it will get better after the holiday break. Not counting on it, but hoping.

And I am the opposite; I like being forced to use something different if it’s fun to play and in this case – it is.
What exactly is the problem you have with Caithe’s abilities?

Keep in mind this post is about three new Living Story instances and nothing else.

I enjoyed this update quite a lot. To the point, even, that I’d rather get more Caithe’s backstory than continue the living one, but I guess there’s just gonna be one more instance showing her past, so I’m hoping it will be the best of them all.

I like young Falaoin’s voice acting. Caithe has been my favorite in terms of VA out of all Destiny’s Edge and she doesn’t disappoint here. I think Trahearne could still sound better, it’s not horrible, however. I always thought Marjory sounds too, from the lack of a better word, poetic, but here she’s alright. I’d like her to stay that way.

Now, to be more specific about instances:
The Newly Awakened
One thing I didn’t like was that all male secondborn sounded like Canach, who himself sounds quite grumpy and his voice in no way suited a sylvari that just awakened. Other than that, everything was very well done. Seeing Ceara brought a smile to my face, which doesn’t happen very often in this game.

Meeting the Asura
Ever since I played the Whispers Personal Story instance involving avoiding (I think) Seraph guards that had these rings representing their area of vision, I hoped for more of that, but better designed, because the original one was quite horrible if I remember correctly.

Starting from the good stuff:
- the introduction of stealth mechanics were well done. There’s even a failsafe when you try to take out the first guard from the front. Good job;
- being able to either stealth the instance or norn it;
- dying means resetting the current scenario instead of just randomly respawning somewhere near and THANK GRENTH for that. I actually failed my first attempt at getting to open the door to the boss area and I thought I was going to have to just kill enemies and try to stealth it next time I play it, but (luckily?) I got killed in the process and was very happy I could try stealthy approach again;
- brilliant Vorpp’s voice acting. I want him more. Much more.
<edit>
- I think there’s something preventing guards from turning around to look at you if you’re very close to finishing the knockout and that’s a very useful thing.
</edit>

Now the bad stuff:
- the golems’ AoE detection sometimes randomly decides it’s bigger than it looks, resulting in unfair detection of the player;
- Caithe knowing how to use asuran consoles. Any explanation on that? I don’t think they would design them the way so that every skritt is able to disable their defenses;
- having to learn all new skillset at once. Part of the instance should focus on slowly getting to know each skill, just like you introduce us to stealth mechanics. I think you placed the two guards at the beginning specifically to make us comfortable with the skills, but not only did it not work in my opinion, considering how small the area is and how many skills are leaps of some kind, leading to player’s fall, but also made the whole infiltration look a bit stupid;
- Falaoin’s “Wait, what?” sounded a bit out of place. Can’t exactly explain why;
- Everything exploded… What the hell was up with that?

Not sure how I feel about Taimi voicing golem messages. I’m assuming you just can’t/don’t want to reach the guy that voiced all other messages and that’s fine by me. It kinda reminds me of turrets from Portal. Also, Trahearne voicing an asura is much better this time. The guy at the Pact base sounds quite funny.

No Refuge
Good:
- this may sound silly, but: the fact you didn’t screw up the ambience by putting random enemies on the way. You could have made Giant Beetles and hyleks aggressive by default, yet you didn’t and I hope it was a conscious decision. It happened many many times in Personal and Living Story (best example being A Light in the Darkness);
- the bossfight is very good. The fact that you can reflect his projectiles makes the fight feel very dynamic, even though the projectiles themselves only deal something around 100 damage each and most of the time don’t do anything to the boss, because he’s invulnerable at that time;
- Falaoin’s “There she goes again!”. I like it because it shows Falaoin’s getting tired of chasing Wynn around;

Bad:
- Rox voicing Nekhii Burnthide. I’m not a fan of Rox at all and I think she doesn’t sound good as a centaur either. Can’t really think of a solution other than having the character be male;
<edit2>
- The elite skill is overpowered against the boss, or anyone basically, but I have a feeling it’s supposed to be this way, just in case someone has trouble beating these instances.
</edit2>

Remember that I pointed out only the things I felt were important to note, so if something’s not here, then it was most likely well done or I just forgot about it.

Cheers

It would be great if we could see both Order Price and Instant Buy Price when browsing the TP. It would remove many unnecessary loadings of the window in the middle.

http://i.imgur.com/417u85W.png

Ideally there would be two “Buy” buttons next to each price, so we could quickly buy, say, a whole armor set while leveling. Also the prices themselves would update dynamically, but I assume it would be too much on the bandwidth side or something.

VodCom.6924:

It featured a HUGE drawback however : the boss could miserably fail because 5 weak players can get grouped on the same platform and make an entire lane fail their platform phase. And trust me failing an entire megaboss/your lane because of 5-10 weak players and bad luck is an infuriating experience.

I’d say split players into 20 or 30 groups, so you can afford a few groups failing as long as the rest is doing their job well.

I’ll list songs from GW1 and GW2 that I use, but I have to ask first: does Ambient playlist randomize properly for you? For me it’s the only playlist that doesn’t (except MainMenu and BossBattle of course, those never randomized).

Alright, I’m not going to link every single song, but if you YT search “Guild Wars <insert title>”, you should find all of them.

Ambient:
The Walls of Ebonhawke
A Land Divided
Closer to the Stars
Tascas Demise
The Tengu Wall
Kournan Caravan
On Harpies Wings
Resplendent Makuun
The Barricades
The Grand Cataract
01 Ice Cave Confrontation
Autumn in Ascalon
Mhenlos Theme
Ballad of Ice and Snow
Gwens Theme
Eye of The Storm
Prince Ruriks Theme
The Elementalist
Sands of Kryta
Emperor Kisus Theme
Memories of Ascalon
Ashford Abbey
Aidans Theme
Ventaris Legacy
Hall of Heroes
The Rift

Underwater:
Black Sails At Dawn
Descent Into Madness
Across The Sea Of Sorrows
The Five True Gods
The Forgotten God
Tortured Souls
Turais Legacy
Web Of Terror
Cynns Theme
Eves Theme
Age of the Dragon
Shing Jea Monastery
Luxon Theme
Kaineng City
Harvest Festival
Coastline
The Doomlore Flame
Echovald Forest
Assassins Theme
Ritualists Theme
Crystal Oasis
Zen Daijun
Plagued Land
Witmans Folly
Tascas Demise
Ascension
The Bone Palace
Wilderness of Bahdza
Droknars Forge

1. Permanent Golems and Suits for asuras. Make them completely worthless for PvE and maybe block their usage in other areas, I don’t care. I am asura, I want my freaking golem.

2. An animation for jumping out of the golem suit. It’s in the game already, but only one (or more) NPC have it.

Draknar.5748:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Telemin.7380:

As much as I want harder content, I do not want it at the expense of other content. If I had a say, id say for a new hard boss and leave this one as is.

This. We do not want Shatterer to become a ghost town like what happened with Tequatl.

Ghost town? Huh? So many people want to do Tequatl you have to get into the map 45min early just to get it done…

I get into an organized Tequatl world 15mins before the start using LFG tool. Lots of people taxi others to fill the available slots.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Do you guys think that there’s a middle ground between ultra hard and easy?

For example, I think we could clean up some of the issues with the Shatterer and just make it a more engaging experience. So rather than spending the entire fight hiding under his right paw he could, say, turn his head and attack that area? :] It doesn’t have to be hard, just a little more involved.

We tried to put in a few changes here and there when we added the new world boss timers. Reactions varied.

I’m pretty late to Tequatl’s party, because I started doing it just about two weeks ago, but every time I can get into an organized world, so as of right now, it’s really easier than harder. Can’t comment on Triple Wurm, as I’ve never done it.

About The Shatterer:
I’d like to see more artillery in this battle, but not just mortars. Trebuchets, cannons, arrow carts.

I often worry that siege weapons can be just as boring as standing in the safe corner pressing the same attack.

It’s all a matter of implementation, I think.

Now, I don’t play WvW, so I’m not sure about the attack ranges of certain siege weapons, but here’s how they could be placed:
Depending on whether or not the Vigil would like to place their artillery on the Branded area, we could get some trebutchets on The Northern Wall or on the sides.
My WvW experience was very minimal, but it was long enough to know how awesome those trebuchets look when they fire. Anyway, those should be very important in terms of damage dealt to The Shatterer.

Cannons and arrow carts could serve as a defence for trebuchets, so not that many players have to be around them.

Ballistas could be used for destroying some kind of unique monsters than can be only damaged by ballistas’ projectiles, because, I don’t know, only those can penetrate their Heroic Armor +5 or something. These monsters would have to be destroyed before they reach the target (what target, I don’t know). Many mobs could be around those special monsters, so 5 or 10 player squads would be needed here.

Catapults, don’t know, maybe they could serve as a damage bonus to The Shatterer by shooting some kind of a special projectile that makes The Shatterer more vulnerable for a few seconds.

Siege Golems could be the main melee force against The Shatterer. This make more sense than a hundred players sitting next to the dragon’s leg. The cool thing about The Shatterer’s visuals is that he shoots lightning everywhere, but I don’t think it currently does any damage. Well in this case it would, and only the siege golems would be resistant to it.

There could be some events involving preparing all those weapons, of course.

Please don’t jump on me, these are just ten minutes thoughts.

I’d like to see you, Anthony, making a new thread for The Shatterer redesign, in which you clearly state how much work ArenaNet is able to put into it, so people can adjust their ideas and make them possible to create.

One final thing: please don’t force yourself into putting a Living Story context into redesigning the fight. You want to make your game better, that’s the only reason you need.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4231745792/h96E9FCA0/

Eroiqua.5891:

That’s the first thing I thought as I read through the comments…how many of the elitists “l2p”-ers are on classes with access to vigor. Reminds me of the Mai Trin buff…“just block or reflect, noob”. Uh, yeah, I’m a Necro…

I’m a necro too, so what? You have Death Shroud. Make a good use of it.

He sounds similar to Tybalt, but I’m not sure if it’s the same voice actor. It would explain his great voice acting, however.

I entered the portal at Shuttered Gate with just the first level of backpiece. Other portals need those buff things from three legendary bosses I think.

Here’s what I’ve had for a desktop background for a very long time. My friend in the background got here by accident, but it looks so great.

It’s not that you don’t like listening to music during combat. You just don’t like the current combat music. Find some tracks from other games that fit combat and put them in a playlist. I recommend Guild Wars 1’s music.
http://gyazo.com/b38d6b642b8c5a4d634a34a7ae53690c
Search for those on YT and see if you like it.

Can’t decide which is the best, so here are three characters:

szygum.2607:

Zylonite.5913:

…It better be a freaking huge dragon 5 times the size of Zhaitan with 20 times the health of Tequatl.

….and the event better not be have an overflow…

or what?

Or he’ll stop playing. Oh no.

I’d rather have no boss at all, but a good, believable story conclusion.

I don’t know if it would be a good idea to reward those who participated, but a simple 10 seconds delay before you can enter after an event ended would solve the problem.

Gnat.9405:

Inb4 Marjory is an illusion

Scarlet and LezBeFriends duo are illusions created by the Queen. It’s obvious.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I’m not really into that whole Evon vs Kiel thing, but this trailer is pretty cool.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cutthroat_Politics

He lost. He may still be angry at her. He warned her about the attack and may think that she didn’t do anything about it (‘may’, because I actually have no idea what he knows) and now he blames her for what happened.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I still find it hilarious some people actually believe the outcome would have been different if Evon was elected.

It’s not about what would happen. Remember that he blames her, not me. It just fits the trailer, that’s why I have put the last sentence here.

Many people didn’t like recent trailers for Living Story because of the same female voice, so I made a trailer with Evon’s voice. I got the idea from people from this reddit thread.

Yes, I know it makes Kiel look responsible for everything what happened, remember it’s Evon’s point of view, not mine or yours.

I made a trailer for the previous/upcoming patch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZULePYpGdQ
How would you compare it to trailers made by ArenaNet?

NSKaneda.1026:

I’d love golem elites to be like necro minions – once summoned remain in game till destroyed. After all there’s all kinds of golemancers out there and it’d be pretty lousy one to make his creation last so short…

I was asking for this since Beta. Still no luck.

Got only two screenshots:

Honestly, I love those lasers, and I play mostly solo. I think they should go even further and increase the amount of lasers, many of them can just shoot at random locations. I think Wildstar does something like this in some locations.

If zergs don’t suffer from them, well, they should. Make the explosion twice as big, activating twice as fast, and hitting twice as hard. Zergs would probably not even notice the tiny laser with all those effects they throw everywhere.

Race: Charr
Sex: Male
Class: Engineer

Problems with a utility skill Hidden Pistol and its tool belt Hidden Pistols:
1. Pistols you hold during the animation are not the ones you use, but rather two Legionnaire Sidearms. This might be done on purpose, but if I happen to hold two pistols when I use this skill, I think you should let me use those pistols.
2. The pistols aim at the sky during the animation.
3. If I, for some weird reason, happen not to hold any weapons, both skills do not create the smoke. This isn’t really important but it’s still something that probably doesn’t work as intended.

Can’t change the past and Escape from L.A. will stay the way it is, but let’s say there’s a similar event in the future LS.

What do you think about removing the bags from enemies (maybe remove all the loot?) and reward a player with one bag for saving a refugee, which would mean either coming to refugees and setting them free so they can run or killing the enemies that are in refugees’ way.
I guess that rewarding a player for simply setting them free would not be a good idea as most people would just run to every NPC, set them free and run to the next one, hoping that others would escort them. Maybe in some circumstances it would be a good thing to do.

To make it work, there should be many more indicators for players, like “Get the hell outta here, we don’t need you!” when a player comes to an event which already has more players that are needed, and “We could use some help at <insert place>!”. But that’s another topic.

Do you think this would diminish the zerg mentality a little bit? How would you improve the idea?

It’s a track that was released with the previous update. I think they didn’t put it on soundcloud.
I summon you, developers. Make it happen!

How could I not hear that during ToN update. Thanks!
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I played GW1. The second I was a GW2 trailer with an asura jumping out of the golem, I instantly wanted to buy it. Sadly you don’t have that cool animation when jumping out of the golem and the golem itself lives only 60 seconds (seriously, why didn’t they put a permanent one in the gem store, make it 2000 gems, I don’t care. It could have no attacks or attacks would not deal damage, just give me anything).

OH MY GAWD ARENANET YOU FOREC ME TO ACTUALLY MOVE MY kitten
P2W

Geez people. Maybe they didn’t do the right thing, but they removed the crafting stations from one freaking place out of how many? Seven? You act as if the apocalypse started.

Rata Sum has the stations very close to the bank and Trading Post. Stop crying and go there.

Sirendor.1394:

Ah.. just saw a screenshot with some 5-6 commanders at the same place, with a megablob. Thanks for letting me know, now I don’t have to waste time on it cause I know I won’t like it. :P

Actually went back to count them, guess… 11 commanders.

http://gyazo.com/1ec62c1ad66dbc6374246f3f6152d768.png

Nobody forces you to follow the zerg.

Quaggan’s Tonic walking animation is too kitten fast.

wookiee.4631:

Also I like the cinematic, didn’t look bad to me. I just wish it had more dramatic music. All in all, great so far. I hope the next release is even better.

It’s weird they didn’t give LA any special track for battles, but oh well.
Here’s the solution: https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/sets/guild-wars-2-the-origins-of
First song for fights outside of LA. The second for fights inside.

Malediktus.9250:

The cutscene was very low quality imho, probably because it was prerendered (why even do this in 2014?)

It all depends on one’s level of expectations. I myself, if the cutscene looks good, don’t care how it’s done technically.

Xista.7391:

Cutscene was epic. The destruction of LA looks awesome.
Then it was all…

zerg, zerg, zerg, zerg, zerg, zerg

I can’t really see any other way for an event of this scale. I guess it’s more about a cinematic feeling than a challenge in this patch.

It is, as I said, first impressions. And the first impression is that I have fun. Zergy or not.

http://i.imgur.com/dhMeAzK.gif
For the cutscene and the ambient.

I hope to see cutscenes like this in every update from now.

This might be the first update that will actually change the world for more than a week, and that’s why people are so exited about it.
The problem is, while the last patch was very well done story-wise, Escape From LA will probably be more cinematic and not instanced, thus there’s a bigger possibility of Anet screwing it up.
Let us hope.
It’s all we have left.

You can hear it in the story mode of the final dungeon.

0:41 – 0:50
1:10 – 1:25
1:34 – 1:40
4:37 – 4:39

Can we expect animations like these in the future living story? It obviously won’t fix problems LS has, but this is something that lets me (and others I guess) see the true face of characters. How they move, look/speak to others etc. One minute of this kind of animation gives the feeling of a living world much better than one hour of a typical NPC conversation.

Btw. what is the golem at 1:53 doing? Will my golem be able to do something like this?

sub·jec·tive
adj.
1.
a. Proceeding from or taking place in a person’s mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision.
b. Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.

As a MM Cleric I found them easy, but tier 3 is too much for my minions. I’ll try zerker warrior next time.

Now that’s how the camera should work! It’s getting better.

Btw. Master of Peace looks as creepy as Forgal with his crazy eyes.

I don’t understand. We shouldn’t vote for a fractal we want to see because Anet can screw it up? Is this your point?

What do you expect from people playing only for moar cash, uninterested in any lore.

Aycee.1670:

Found it funny. Ellen represents the Role Model of how we all should be, defending the weak, protecting her city, serving the people, the hero basically. Evon represents the Politicians who buy their power or even the business man who pays to get what he wants. Just like modern day politics!

PS: Ellen will be getting all my support, I’ll be farming in my sleep for Support Tokens.

Votes for a person who offers reduced waypoint cost.
Tells that the opponent buys his power.

darkace.8925:

- keep paying Evon taxes every time you sell something on the Trading Post

So you mean voting for Kiel will remove taxes on TP? I guess it won’t, so what’s the point of this point?

You get something FOR FREE and you’re STILL complaining? Sweet jesus mother of god, people these days.
As Lord Trejgon said, destroy or collect them, it’s always better to have anything than nothing.
I guess you also don’t like 1g from these chests, feel free to send it to me.

SynfulChaot.3169:

You’re right. It won’t take Evon out or remove the RNG boxes. But it will make our opinion of the practice very clear to ANet. Which we should all do.

They already know what we think about RNG.

Well, it just looks like most people support her because of WP prices, just like most people support Evon because of Abaddon fractal.

When both aren’t trustworthy, trust a charr.
Proof: Ghosts of Ascalon.

Rouven.7409:

We need balance, someone from A-net should step up and show their badge for Kiel!

That won’t work. Colin will just fire that person.

Azjenco.9425:

I sort of wish the content were separate from the NPCs we’re voting for. I really want to see the Fall of Abaddon, but I like Kiel and dislike Evon. But I find myself in the tough spot of voting for a person just to see an event that really intrigues me. Evon doesn’t stand for my interests, while the game mechanic does, and now he has my vote. It just doesn’t feel right.

This about further Living Story. Would it really be interesting if that so-called hero won?