Guild Wars 2

Miku.6297:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Again, you’re misunderstanding. When someone is proud of their accomplishment, they like to share their happiness with others. That’s why there’s an age old tradition of parents (usually fathers) handing out cigars to everyone in sight when they learn they have a new child. They don’t have a baby to pass out cigars.

They are celebrating the moment, I completely understand, what you are missing is the “enjoy showing off”. Are the fathers happy and sharing the moment , or are they enjoying showing off?

I’m not saying i have a problem with it, or don’t understand the various reasons why it’s done. I’m simply saying showing off isn’t a good motivating factor. Please keep in mind the post I responded to specificely stated they enjoyed “showing off at the moment”.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

And again, you’ve confused the moment with the journey and the future. They aren’t making the legendary for the moment — they are making it because they want to; they are simply sharing the moment of triumph.
So, once again, if that doesn’t make sense to you, just ignore it.

And again, you’ve assumed something incorrect. I said making one for that moment isn’t the best idea. If showing the item off is the main reason a person is making it, that might not be the best reason. That is actually a motivating factor for some people, I simply don’t agree with it

As a father myself, I ask why can’t it be both? You can take it as showing off, or you can take it as wanting to share their happiness with others and have other people happy for them. I didn’t have my daughter just for bragging, but you better believe I “bragged” (shared my enthusiastic happiness) to anyone around when she was born. We are empathic creatures, we like sharing AND receiving praise.

I see “Save Yourselves” kind of like the wounded guy that stays behind clutching a grenade to slow down pursuit and sacrifice himself for the team. The noble sacrifice move.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Unlike real food, magic doesn’t hold nutrients to extract. Magic doesn’t change when it leaves the Elder Dragons during hibernation – just when they create corruption.

No extraction, no devalue.

No devalue, can be re-consumed without loss.

Now, corrupted magic might be another matter entirely, but we do not know if they “re-consume corruption”. However, given Taimi’s recent Episode 2 “reveal” about magic and the Elder Dragons’ draconic energies, I don’t think that it fundamentally changes when used to corrupt things either.

If it doesn’t contain nutrients how do they survive?

The specifics of the how is pretty unknowable, it is magic after all. Elder Dragons don’t have to follow the same rules of biology as normal animals, they are an embodiment of magic.

Tekey.7946:

castlemanic.3198:

GW2 has no need for mounts because it was designed without mounts in mind. WoW has so many of them because not only has that game been out since 2004, but it’s also constantly expanded it’s mount collection for people to use. It’s a flawed argument. Also, ArenaNet run on a cash shop and buyable expansion revenue instead of a subscription model, which means they don’t have the resources that WoW does to dedicate solely to the creation of mounts and the addition of mounts in the game. Mounts don’t have value in GW2 because it was expressly designed without mounts in mind, so adding them would be useless.

Unless you’re talking about mounts that would have no in game benefit, in which case they already exist.

New maps like Bitterfrost Frontier, Lake Doric and Ember Bay rely on just a few waypoints. They’re completely different to the vanilla maps (and how they were designed without having mounts in mind). Right now, we’re using thermo-tubes and leylines to move around quickly. The game changed a lot, a few years ago we didn’t have raids in GW2, now we’ve got them. It’s never too late to introduce something new: remember, the last expansion gave us the ability to glide almost everywhere (in PVE). I don’t know if they already knew that when they started developing vanilla GW2.

Games without subscription can earn a lot of money, too. Most of the times there are whales who spend hundreds or thousands of dollars (e.g. converting gems to gold to buy legendary weapons). And regular players who buy a 25$ gem card each month to buy the new outfit/glider/skin/harvest tool. Especially casual players who don’t have enough gold to convert them to gems will do that.

Considering that there is a significant amount of MMORPG players who like to have and collect mounts, introducing them wouldn’t be useless but a new selling point referring to the new expansion/and game overall.

As long as we are not including flying mounts, I wouldn’t see a big problem introducing them at this point. Flying mounts would absolutely break all current map design.

Eirian Direstorm.9748:

I would buy it in a decent sale. I never played and have wanted to give it a try, but it is pricey. Is there a Mac version though?

No, but you can use PlayOnMac to play. Works fine for me.

GW2 does not have solid class roles (for the most part). Coming from WoW, that took me a little while to wrap my head around. For example, when you ask if you should be supporting, tanking (a concept that only loosely exists in GW2), dps, etc – the answer is mostly on what or how you want to play it. Which traits and skills you decide to run (along with gear) would be determined by what you want to do. So if a support role sounds good to you, you set up your mesmer for that. If DPS is what you want, you set up for that, etc.

This will be true for the vast majority of the game. There is some specific content that favors specific builds for certain classes, but even then people find ways to make all sorts of combinations work.

I have been loving the quality and variety of LS3 so far. Taking the time to keep Ep 5 to the same standard of quality sounds good to me.

Feanor.2358:

I can agree with that, although she has always been something of an enigma. Plus there was “Meeting of Ministers”.

For me at least, there are 2 questions that need to be answered for these things to make sense.
1) Is she capable of pulling off such a feat?
2) Is she motivated to pull off such a feat?

For the Meeting of Ministers, for me anyway, question #1 was answered as a solid yes. Question #2 though is what is still lacking.

Feanor.2358:

Moonyeti.3296:

That is exactly my issue with all of these theories. The purpose of the deception would only be to be a deception as a misleading plot point. That would be 100% self referential, pointless, and very lame.

I can see a purpose for Jennah. Playing both sides of the board for her own gain, much like Palpatine in Star Wars. Yeah, she’s already a queen, but it doesn’t mean she has absolute power.

Even with her, there has been no indication that she is power thirsty to any real degree. It would be a plot twist for no sake other than “Aha! bet you didn’t see THAT coming!” If they started foreshadowing it first, ok, but I have seen nothing of anything indicating a move like that. We would need a look into her motivations for such a move.

Ardid.7203:

Are we speaking of the spiral in the last chapter of HoT? I don’t remember any other spining room…

The round room in the basement with the faces in the wall.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Ithilwen.1529:

I agree, the old LA was the better city. I don’t see a logical way to bring it back, except perhaps through Chronomancy.

Maybe there could be a fractal in old LA, defeat the Marionette or some such thing.

In fact, why does a fractal have to be a dungeon? It could just as well be a way to revisit pre-searing Ascalon or old LA. Maybe they could even sell a gem store pass…

As someone who missed LS1, I’m all for seeing more of it come back in fractals. That would be nice, city or not.

Outside of that, no, I very much doubt it will ever re-exist. Unless we go to Draenor in the past have our own version of a time travel expansion.

Oh please no. That was the final straw that finally drove me away from WoW for good. Once the writers go there it just screams “We don’t care about our game anymore” to me.

Feanor.2358:

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Most of the time though im confident the story goes a general direction ive paid attention to, my suspicion, Lazarus “is” an ally, but decieved both us and the mantle to amass followers.

Who?

Gleam, the son of Glint, who basically gave the master of peace the Egg, who was protected by the dragon cult of dwarves branded traitors to their own (Which is why we find the clawmarks in the mursaat room of Ember Bay).

Why would Gleam care about the Mantle, though? Sure, Lazarus didn’t hesitate to kill some of them. Sure, he might have the “mursaat loyalist” fraction of the Mantle relocated and having nothing to do with the attack on DR. But still, why? Gleam has no use of the White Mantle. If anything, he’d be interested in Bloodstone’s power, and he already got it. Why keep the masquerade, what purpose does that serve?

That is exactly my issue with all of these theories. The purpose of the deception would only be to be a deception as a misleading plot point. That would be 100% self referential, pointless, and very lame.

castlemanic.3198:

Moonyeti.3296:

I would argue that they have already introduced survival mechanics in a way that fits GW2’s flavor when they had you make the bitterfrost potion to survive the cold. I could see something along those lines being tied to a mastery. I do agree that the game mechanics of most open world survival games has no place in GW2 (which is really hunger bars, temperature bars and the like – watching a meter slowly deplete until you use resource to top up the bar) but the concept if done correctly could work fine.

The potion was specific to a story step, so it’s not a good example. It’s not used anywhere else and wears off after 24 hours. once it wears off, you can still go into the cave that you fight the icebrood in. Same thing for the disguise you wear in episode two, again it’s specific to a story instance and not needed for the map itself.

Koda’s flame is a better example, but even then you didn’t really need the mastery, you just needed to pick up a torch to avoid getting frozen. You couldn’t fight without the mastery, which is probably the whole point of it, but atleast you’d be protected from being frozen by enemy attacks in bitterfrost.

There simply isn’t a good example of ‘survival’ mechanics akin to what you are talking about, Moonyeti. And there isn’t any example at all for what the OP is talking about.

The potion has to be made to go back in that area after 24 hours, even after the story step. I went back after the story to map a few more POI’s so I learned that one the hard way But in any case, it was just an example of the type of mechanics that could be used for survival-ish features. GW2 would have a bad time if it actually implemented proper survival mechanics, as survival games are about limited resources and competition between players, which is exactly the opposite of how GW2 was designed. Having mechanics with a narrative veneer of survival is as close as this game will get without changing the core philosophy. A long winded way of saying I agree with you, GW2 isn’t a survival game. However, there are ways where they can put in the illusion of survival like systems via masteries.

I would argue that they have already introduced survival mechanics in a way that fits GW2’s flavor when they had you make the bitterfrost potion to survive the cold. I could see something along those lines being tied to a mastery. I do agree that the game mechanics of most open world survival games has no place in GW2 (which is really hunger bars, temperature bars and the like – watching a meter slowly deplete until you use resource to top up the bar) but the concept if done correctly could work fine.

DavyMcB.1603:

lol thx for the input. I guess I am hitting against the forth wall here. Although, in my opinion, they could just go with 1 year in tyria equals 4,380 days. Just says the planet spins faster or something. Or they can say 1 day in tyria takes 12 cycles. It would also be ok.

I mean we already have an imaginary world. That same world where 12 day/night cycles equating 1 day wouldnt be too far fetched.

Yeah, I am not a fan of the maps frozen in time thing personally, but it is what it is. I think it would have been better to have them design the maps from a neutral state, and have the bigger visuals tied to where you are in the story.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

insaneseagull.7063:

Moonyeti.3296:

Xenorak.2154:

I think if they think about bringing back Cantha, they should think about making the Tengu a playable race.

No need for Canthat for that. And it wouldn’t even fit anymore. The Tengu city is just outside LA now. They just need to open the doors for us.

This. All they need (or at least would be preferable) is a Tengu tie in somehow with the story. Maybe the tengus city will get attacked by one of the dragons and they come to us for help or w/e.

That was intended to be part of the game, but cut before the day one release. It’s fairly unlikely that it is going to happen now, especially with the backlog of gear work required to make all the existing stuff fit on the Tengu…

Oh, I agree that it is not likely to have Tengu added any time soon if ever. I was just pointing out that IF they were to add them, Cantha wouldn’t have to be any part of that, and the domain of the 4 winds would be where they go. But I could see introducing them again, not as a playable race, but something like the exalted. A new faction to work with, they invite us into their city for whatever reason. We get to see a new map, more Tengu, just not playable, for all the design reasons why that would be unlikely.

It is 100% mechanics vs lore thing. In the same way that maps are not really frozen in time in lore, that is just the mechanic of playing the game during the map’s most exciting point in time. You could spend 1000 years in lake doric, and it is always going to look like the very moment DR was attacked. In this scenario, you can have any number of ‘days’ pass and it will always be the day of the attack. But lore wise we have had years pass at roughly the same rate as in the real world.

Xenorak.2154:

I think if they think about bringing back Cantha, they should think about making the Tengu a playable race.

No need for Canthat for that. And it wouldn’t even fit anymore. The Tengu city is just outside LA now. They just need to open the doors for us.

TheJokester.4672:

Well then if there is no hope what do I do with my account? could I just say anet take it until your next game and I get it free? because honestly this game has potential and the absolute only reason I even touch it now is the hope of a new race to be somewhat soon and for it to be Tengu because I’m biased. Given the same time frame that I’ve owned this game to the original guildwars I’ve put in less than half the hours I did with gw1 I had near 7k total hours in 5 years of gw1 and not even 2.5k yet I think in gw2. and nope I’ve been back playing around for about 2 or 3 weeks now and I’m at 2468 hours.

Edit: My bad not just a race but maybe a glimmer of light to Cantha. Factions was my favorite campaign favorite class was Dervish. Kinda really sucked when I got all these scythes all these elite armor; obsidian even, and then dervish doesn’t exist in gw2.

Hey Anet, I played your game for two and a half thousand hours, but I want something you don’t have in the game. If I stop now, since I only played for two and a half thousand hours, how about you give me the next game for free?

Sure, doesn’t sound the least bit unreasonable to me.

cyn.2157:

Yeah there were some collection achievements (a-la the coins in silverwastes/etc.) that required using the aspect movement skills to reach – either those achievements would need to be retired, they would need to be moved to reduce their ease of achieving w/ gliding, gliding would need to be disabled, or just leave ‘em in as-is because at this point it’s behind us (sure I suffered through, but I’m tired of ANet removing achievements).

Wouldn’t be that different from dry top. We couldn’t glide there originally and all those collector achievements there are still in game and a lot easier with gliding. Not that I wouldn’t want them to tweak it for gliding if they could, but there has been a precedent for this.

Bruno.3812:

Moonyeti.3296:

Bruno.3812:

Ehmry Bay is one of the NA servers. Perhaps your confusing it with the map Ember Bay?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World

It mentions in that link that that server was named after someone at Anet, not the game map.

I’m not the OP. He deleted his post.

Ah, sorry. That’s what was so confusing about the question.

Bruno.3812:

Ehmry Bay is one of the NA servers. Perhaps your confusing it with the map Ember Bay?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World

It mentions in that link that that server was named after someone at Anet, not the game map.

Ardid.7203:

Best idea so far, Moonyeti.

There are a lot of these dialogs that could be put in movement, and even DURING combat. Think on the magnificent jewel that are dialogues in the Uncharted series. A lot of them aren’t “lets stop and talk”, but intertwined with the action. That change alone could erase so much wrong in the GW2 storytelling style.

During combat as well, yes. There needs to be more of a break in the wall between ‘talk time’ and ‘play game time’ in general I feel. Though with that said I think they need to keep in mind what type of conversation is going on with what action. Talking and walking, lay on the heavy, deep conversation topics. In combat or other high action times, don’t be dumping plot critical exposition that may be way too easy to miss with all the action.

They can also start giving us little things to do if we are supposed to wait for a bit of longer conversations. Something like this: Say the next chapter starts with us getting a call to meet Taimi in her lab, she has some new info to tell us. We go there, load into the instance and see the green star over Taimi’s head. When we get close we see she is finishing up working on something in the lab, and the conversation triggers. “Commander, good to see you! I have some good news, I just need to finish this or it will spoil.” You then offer to help, while she then goes on to explain the long detailed discovery she made. The help can just be simple, press the action key to pick up boxes and put them down in a marked area for example. It would just give people something easy to do while listening that would also not be so distracting as to not pay attention. It could even be optional, so if you don’t help, she finishes herself when she is done talking and you move on to the action part. Giving idle hands something to do would take some of the pain of waiting away for the more impatient players.

I think the key would be to have a lot of little tricks like this to use, and don’t rely on any one of them too much that it becomes a gimmick. Also to use each trick in an appropriate spot, or they could end up making things worse, not better. (Don’t put critical dialog in during combat in a jumping puzzle for an extreme example).

Djinn.9245:

mauried.5608:

The real problem with this story is that it requires an ability to mash keyboard buttons really quickly, and / or the ability to move your mouse around really quickly.
If you cant do this, it doesnt matter what in game skills you have, as you wont win.
Not everyone has mega fantastic hand dexterity to keep up with the speed of the fight, especially older gamers like me who dont have full use of my fingers.

I’m not going to respond to the INCREDIBLY insensitive person above. But I will say that it isn’t even necessary to be disabled to be unable to mash buttons as quickly as the best player. What it comes down to is that there is no skill where everyone inherently has the same capacity or we would all be Olympic athletes.

Anet apparently only wants those with inherently very high skill (I don’t play a lot but it was easy for me), or those with enough time to dedicate to a lot of practice (get gud) to be able to complete their story lines. I am neither so I am SOL.

I am not high skilled, but I have been through these stories a few times now. Sometimes by sheer brute force, but I am confident I can at least get them done. I understand the pain. If you happen to be on NA servers I will gladly offer my help if you can find me online. Sometimes just having another person to share the load makes it more fun. I agree that for story mode stuff, the barrier to completion should be pretty minimal, save the more challenging stuff for the optional content, raids, dungeons, challenge motes, etc.

Danikat.8537:

It would only be quicker than making a new map because the design work is done. They know what the end product should be (although they would have to agree on which makes to combine and how to change the shape).

Even taking this into consideration this is rarely the case, as you have to do new design work anyway to fit the new map. And it is almost always easier to design this sort of thing from scratch than it is to take an existing design and try to refit it to a new map, while keeping the original design constraints and intentions intact. I would imagine it is actually easier to create a new map then modify an old one (modifications of this extent at any rate)

MrAtlantis.2740:

I realize this thread was discussed 4 years ago, but I’m rather surprised no one mentioned Eir Stegalkin’s relationship with Borje the Sunchaser (unless that relationship was written into GW2 after this discussion took place ( I only recently started playing GW2)), since one of the key points of this discussion is that Norn’s pick their mates based on each other’s social status (their legend) is pretty much universally established here. In Borje’s wiki, it says he is the husband of Eir Stegalkin and father of Braham, and that he “was once a legendary hero”. Since Eir Stegalkin was also a legendary hero, that only increases the likelihood that Norns pick their mates based on social status. But when it comes to children, however, the story of Braham obviously makes that discussion evermore vague. How did Borje have possession of Braham as a baby and Eir not have much involvement in his life? Did he like, take Braham from Eir after labor so that she would not have to raise Braham while continuing her heroic path? If Norns are so bent on keeping each other’s social statues equal while in a relationship, then Borje would not have just simply settled down in Cragstead with Braham, and let himself die without telling Eir just so she could become a hero. Was Eir not a hero at the time they met, and that’s why Borje wanted Eir to focus on her building her heroic path? Very puzzling!

I’m terrible at Socratic discussions but I love them so I just wanted to add Eir’s and Borje’s backround as another example for these discussions.

Eir and Borje decided collectively to go separate ways. Her calling was to fight the dragon threat but Borje knew she would never be able to do that while her focus was split between her mission and raising Braham. So they decided he would raise Braham and she would go fight. It was all a mutual decision, and a tough one. Borje not wanting Eir to know about his death was so that she could stick to the original plan without being distracted by news of his death.

Blek Lynx.8695:

I respect this game and its rules, but tell me, what is the point of the game, if instead of achievements and rewards you are given a disconect? A couple of times I endure but when it became farther it’s already started to enrage.

It’s always frustrating to get disconnected when doing something. But it isn’t like the game gave you a disconnect as an intended punishment, it just happens sometimes.

Not multi account, but similar… I play GW1 a bit still, whenever I switch back, there is a 100% chance I will try to dodge roll or jump only to remember that those doesn’t exist in that game. Muscle memory takes over every time.

Adry.7512:

Could it be possible? Don’t get me wrong I loooooove the fact that every map has its own little world and dynamic events and things to do and megaserver, so I would never suggest an open world. But what about a rework? Instead of a map being rectangular or square, why not make the shapes more realistic?? maybe combine a map or two?? All I want is a bit of a rework on maps. Shouldn’t be too hard to do at all, it’s just moving things around a bit on existing content, and adding a few details.

I honestly can’t think of many changes they could do to the game that would be more work intensive than that. Definitely would not be easy.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

The Storyline goes in this order:
Personal Story -> Season 1 -> Season 2 -> Heart of Thorns -> Season 3

Season 1 Story is NOT replayable so if you want to know what happened you should check out my video called GW2 Season 1 Movie from start to finish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joLmVI5URak

Be adviced Popcorn is a must the movie is 3hours and 20min long. =)
Enjoy!

It’s a great movie! I played LS1, but I watched the whole thing anyway as a good refresher.

The only thing I liked about the old way was that it was skippable, for when you are doing the same thing for the umpteenth time (dungeons are the prime example). The new way feels much more like a normal conversation.

The new way can work much better if the devs always keep the limitations in mind when making new content. The biggest problem being unskippable dialog, do not throw a spotlight on that problem by having us stand around talking for a few minutes, then move in silence toward our next objective for two minutes. Have the dialog play out while the characters are walking somewhere, people that don’t care “skip” it by ignoring the chit chat and just running to the destination, people that want to listen stop and talk, then go, or go but listen on the way. Everyone wins.

Unfortunately a lot of the time they do just that – stand around and talk, THEN travel in silence when the talking is finished. Just being aware of the issue I think a lot of the frustration can be minimized by good encounter design.

The only thing I liked about the old way was that it was skippable, for when you are doing the same thing for the umpteenth time (dungeons are the prime example). The new way feels much more like a normal conversation.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

voidvector.2780:

I see why that would be cumbersome.

If ArenaNet retrofits base story missions to be replayable on the same character, then I think it might be worthwhile. But currently forcing people to create alts for progression is quite costly.

Thank you for your inputs.

But, isn’t it just 5 characters total? Which isn’t costly to paid account owners; 5 slots are given. Three of the 5 must each choose a different Order, and 1 of the 5 must level to 80, or near 80 to complete the Personal Story.

5 characters total, yep. 1 at level 80, 2 at level 60, 2 at level 20 can get them all.

Endless Soul.5178:

Moonyeti.3296:

As someone that started playing a necromancer lately I have a bit of feedback here. Please understand I am not excusing any AFK farming or whatnot that is actually going on, just pointing this out: I sometimes go AFK as I do with any of my characters for a few minutes to do something, and when I return this character is more likely than any of my others to have a message telling me I was reported for being a farmer. So it seems like people see a necro with a gaggle of minions AFK and immediately assume something nefarious is up. Not accusing anyone in this thread of doing the same, I just want to point out that some of the reports are based on false assumptions. Now this could be because necros are the primary offender and as such are more suspect, but still.

One necromancer being afk for a couple minutes somewhere in the open world isn’t a problem. It’s where necromancers/rangers are standing around in the same spot for days, weeks, months on end, is where the concern is.

Not sure if you know but just in case you don’t, if you would like to avoid getting nasty messages, when you’re about to be afk, open guild panel, click Go to Guild Hall. You’ll be transported there, safe from harm. Then, when you’re doing being afk, click Leave Guild Hall, you’ll be transported to the spot you left.

Thanks for the info, never thought about using the guild hall. I’m not terribly offended by the messages, I understand the frustration, and I have only gotten a few. It was more the surprise of getting any. I have played for years with other characters and don’t remember getting a single one that whole time about being AFK, and my habits are the same in that regard from character to character.

If that doesn’t work try the support panel in game. It has a button to report bugs there as well.

My take:

Living World: Current season has been going along nicely, with new maps and updates happening fairly regularly. Fun stuff, in my opinion.

PvP: This season is a disaster. The rewards are iffy at best, it seems pretty dead to me. I am not a dedicated PvPer though, so someone else can likely answer this one better.

WvW: Same old same old. If you liked it before you probably still will, but it is stale and they haven’t done much with WvW at all. I still have fun in WvW but I don’t spend a lot of time in there these days because it’s the same.

TexZero.7910:

Tyger.1637:

TexZero.7910:

What twitch reflexes?

Well for me; I can’t get past the corridor between checkpoints 2 & 3(?) where there’s 2 monkeys and the first abyss where you have to dodge some obstacles at the very narrow edges.

I simply don’t have the reflexes to make the jumps, dodge the obstacles, and make the stops where one more step drops you into the darkness.

Literally none of what you’re saying requires any sort of twitch reflexes. All you have to do is press your spacebar (or whatever you’ve bound jump to) and the directional key. There’s nothing twitchy about that.

If you can’t do that, fine. But don’t make up an excuse blaming age, twitches etc.. when really it’s just the inability to learn from mistakes.

You are really underselling it. You could say the same thing for Super Meat Boy, any of the Super Mario Brothers games, etc. The control scheme is a jump button and d-pad, that doesn’t stop it from requiring very exacting precision and timing on jumps, good spatial sense, etc. Yes, practice makes perfect, but certain physical handicaps can certainly make that quite a barrier.

As someone that started playing a necromancer lately I have a bit of feedback here. Please understand I am not excusing any AFK farming or whatnot that is actually going on, just pointing this out: I sometimes go AFK as I do with any of my characters for a few minutes to do something, and when I return this character is more likely than any of my others to have a message telling me I was reported for being a farmer. So it seems like people see a necro with a gaggle of minions AFK and immediately assume something nefarious is up. Not accusing anyone in this thread of doing the same, I just want to point out that some of the reports are based on false assumptions. Now this could be because necros are the primary offender and as such are more suspect, but still.

castlemanic.3198:

Carighan.6758:

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

Not really. If you go straight from a level-appropriate map to a starter map, the starter mobs are definitely clearly tuned to be very easy. Still capable of killing a brand new player who, say, tries to skip instead of killing but doesn’t know where to go and pulls a train into a dead end (um, hypothetically. Not that this has ever happened to me. Ahem.) But compared to even a mid-level mob they have low health and low damage.

I quote myself: “might need a bit more numerical balancing, granted”

Alright?

I think Sister Saxifrage has a point. A starter map is tuned to be easy so that players have a challenge when they are a lower level without requiring a level 80 set up. A level 80 character has three spec lines (possibly an elite spec), all of their utilities, every weapon slot unlocked AND an elite skill. A level 1 character has their autoattack and a heal. There isn’t really a possible way of scaling mobs in a level 1-15 zone to provide challenge to a level 80 without murdering a level 1 character. Not with the current scale down system anyway. “Numerical balance” also can’t accommodate AI behaviour, skills, anything that would really give a level 80 challenge without providing a significant challenge to a level 1-15 character. Unless level 1 characters gain immediate access to all skills, weapon slots and specialisation lines, it’s not going to work. Scaledown systems also don’t accommodate for player skill.

So basically, no, creating a level 80 zone is NOT the same as creating a level 1-15 zone, no matter the numerical balance. There are too many differences between a level 80 character and a level 1 character to efficiently give challenge to both without making it too easy for 80 or too hard for level 1-15. So as a whole it’s just easier to make a level 80 zone, considering every character at level 80 will have the same availability of skills and specs, than a level 1-15 zone that has to have a tremendous amount of consideration go into balancing numbers between level appropriate characters and characters that are over-leveled and over-skilled for the area.

I saw this first hand recently. I rolled a new character, I wanted to try a necromancer as I hadn’t played one yet. Started out level one and went on the first few missions, then remembered all the level up tomes sitting in the bank so I popped a bunch and shot up to level 60. I was still wearing the level 1 gear, but now I have all the skills of a level 60. The starter content is not balanced for a necromancer running with 4 minion skills, I could barely do any damage before the minions destroyed everything. Now by the numbers I was downscaled to level 1, still had level 1 gear on so that wasn’t tweaking the numbers in my favor. Access to skills that would not otherwise be available at that level, even downscaled made it beyond trivial. Now I understand the starter zones are not exactly challenging at any time. but it points out nicely the headaches of zone balancing at the extreme edge of the scales.

Yeah, I guess that does still leave the question of if we are in the chosen order or not, as it doesn’t technically get addressed. But I agree that the pact probably superseded the membership of the order, and if we are out of the pact we are out of the order as well. I’d like to see a little dialog or something to clarify that in one of the next releases, just a throwaway line or two somewhere would be fine.

castlemanic.3198:

Moonyeti.3296:

Why not? I may not be taking an as active role, but everyone addresses me as if I am in the pact / in my chosen order. I didn’t see any mention that we retired or quit or whatever. The pact and the orders are currently recovering and not as active, but I never left.

Considering this dialogue:

<Character name>: General Soulkeeper, this is quite a surprise. What brings you to Rata Novus?
General Almorra Soulkeeper: You do, Commander. I’ve come here to offer you a new position within the Pact.
General Almorra Soulkeeper: The Marshal rank is…uh…vacant. And we want you to fill it.
<Character name>: This is an honor.
General Almorra Soulkeeper: I’m glad you view it in that light. The Pact is hanging on by a thread.
<Character name>: I see…
General Almorra Soulkeeper: I can tell you’re having your doubts, so let me just be up front about the role.
General Almorra Soulkeeper: Certain Pact elements feel like Marshal Trahearne’s mistake was going out into the field and getting himself killed.
General Almorra Soulkeeper: The new marshal would be planted safely in an office in Lion’s Arch. Still leading the troops, but out of harm’s way.
<Character name>: As flattered as I am by your offer, I’m going to have to respectfully decline, General.
<Character name>: After our Mordremoth battle, I believe I, Rytlock, and the others would be more effective operating as our own guild.
General Almorra Soulkeeper: I understand the decision on your early retirement, although I’m disappointed. I still believe in the Pact’s goal.
<Character name>: I do too, and I’ll always be ready to lend a hand. It’ll just be outside the system.

It seems pretty clear that the commander won’t have anything directly to do with the Pact. They will help out, but as noted, “outside the system”.

Now, to be fair, that is specifically to do with the Pact and not the orders, but I’ve always made the assumption that, since our promotion to Commander, we’ve been promoted out of our order and into the Pact. I could be wrong, which I totally accept, but considering the dialogue it seems clear to me that we fall outside the jurisdiction of both our order and the Pact.

See, I took that as refusing a promotion, not turning down a job offer. We are in the Pact, rank commander. She is offering a promotion, to Marshall. We don’t want to have a job stuck behind a desk so we refuse the promotion. But I didn’t remember seeing the bit where we also quit either, not sure how I missed that. I always pay close attention to the dialog and run around and talk to people to see if I can get a little extra out of them before leaving any instance I am in, and that isn’t exactly a subtle or trivial point that is easy to miss. Thanks for the info!

I wouldn’t be against it available all the time, but in my opinion people get so excited over it because of its limited availability. If it was available all the time most people would quickly get bored of it and it would go largely untouched, except by the most dedicated SAB fans. Which again is fine with me, no harm there even if it isn’t used by many, but I just don’t think it would make a big difference to most people in the long run.

Rauderi.8706:

Susy.7529:

Am I the only one who hope that it’ll be released before the end of SAB?

There’s “hope,” and there’s pragmatism.
Festival content is there to pad out things while the dev teams get their stuff together. It’s reasonable to assume that SAB will “give us something to do” until the next Current Events segment is ready. Though, that might be something that comes up in a week or two to precede the next Living Story episode.
I wouldn’t expect it less than 3 months from the previous release, though, which is why I would predict a May release.

Also usually easier to maintain things if you don’t make too many changes to the server at the same time. It makes sense that they would wait from a pragmatic standpoint.

castlemanic.3198:

I’d suggest putting this in the main GW2 discussions sub-forum to place it with the best audience who might give you feedback on the matter.

That said, lore wise, I don’t think you’re part of the Pact OR any of the orders. At best you might have ties with the Pact and your chosen order, but I don’t think you’re officially part of any organisation at the moment (aside from Dragon’s Watch, but that’s a guild), so it wouldn’t really make sense unless they’d have you rejoin an order. If they do, then this is a perfectly reasonable suggestion and I’m all for it.

Why not? I may not be taking an as active role, but everyone addresses me as if I am in the pact / in my chosen order. I didn’t see any mention that we retired or quit or whatever. The pact and the orders are currently recovering and not as active, but I never left.

You can’t do adventure or environmental? (the digging ones) in infantile, but you can do all the others.

Depending on your time zone and when you leave work, you may still have time. Reset isn’t for awhile yet.

Pifil.5193:

Doubt that, it could easily break with fundamental changes to physics or movement in the engine but every release? That would imply that every map breaks with every content patch. If that’s the case then there’s something fundamentally wrong with their code or systems.

Off the top of my head I can think of a few things about SAB that is different from other maps that might be what could cause the issues:

1- Unlike normal maps, where you zone in and the map loads, SAB has that map screen. It also has the mini ‘level select’ level where you pick the zone and difficulty.
2- The UI while in SAB is different. There must be unique code for that tied to SAB.
3- You essentially play a custom transformed class while in SAB. Again custom code to set this up compared to normal maps.

And that doesn’t even mention how SAB was modified from the original LW1 type format where it was originally introduced.

Amaimon.7823:

Djahlat.9610:

Amaimon.7823:

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

Amaimon: really? Palawa Joko can deadlock Kralk? Dude’s been hitting the gym since the days when my GW1 character busted him out of a wooden statue head.

I don’t think deadlocking means what you think it means.. or if it does, I don’t think you know the size difference between joko and kralka

I think he knows precisely what it means given the satirical tone of his comment fam

On a serious note, though, I don’t know exactly how they are stalemate, but I can consider that Joko’s immortal army just keeps getting back up until the bodies are damages to a point of no repair, and kralkatorrik has an infinite supply of literally every living creature.. so they just pump out minions until one is exhausted

Makes sense, they would be engaged in a war of attrition against each other. And with Kralk potentially still recovering from Snaff, that could put the two armies on a more even footing potentially.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Out of curiosity, what major MMOs have “remastered” without releasing a new sequel of the game? I’m not sure how I would even research the question, so I’m relying on other posters anecdotes.

My guess is that this is something that no game company has ever done.

As someone else mentioned, Anarchy Online did essentially this. I thought Runescape did as well but admittedly I am not that familiar with that title. So, although it is something that has been done before, both of these titles are very old, and I imagine got a lot more bang for their buck in updating the client then GW2 would.

SakuraJD.4720:

I kinda had a crazy idea a while back for Condi damage but in a Burst fashion:

Condition Detonation.
in instances where you perhaps know the enemy is going to cleanse all the conditions on him, you use a skill that forces the game to immediately apply all remaining ticks of damage, possibly at reduced damage, maybe not… but apply all of it in one cluster of damage. the enemy would be rid of all its conditions, but they would do instant damage. sorta like epidemic, but an implosion of sorts.

Edit: or, perhaps even a skill that causes all conditions for a short time to apply their damage directly, but at only 75% effectiveness? sorta like those skills that make someones attacks unblockable for 5 seconds, basically turns your conditions uncleansable(because they do all damage in 1 tick) for several seconds.

Second Edit: or maybe tone it down a bit and make it a trait that focuses on just one condition, like making all your poisons do instant damage instead of DoT.

I like this idea, as long as there is a tradeoff in damage when triggering them early. 50-75% or whatever like you mentioned (whatever works through testing). Without the damage falloff I don’t think it would work, as there would be little incentive not to always just insta trigger the condition damage.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_season_2

That is a good ’cliff’s notes’ version of the Zephyrite involvement after the bazaar.