Guild Wars 2

CMM.6712:

Items that are gotten through gameplay and earning them as opposed to just farming some gold and buying them have been asked for and are welcomed, and I hope that doesn’t change.

Making them buyable for 10 gold and 1000 bandit crests (which they already are after you’ve gotten them once) means you can still get them via gameplay, just in the Silverwastes instead. Which would probably be more rewarding/fun than playing through already completed instances for one achievement, which depending on the achievement/instance, range from tedium to flat out frustration and/or just luck (Togonn Windmane from No Refuge….ugh.)

Again, I played through all the achievements already to get them. Twice. It wasn’t fun. I’d rather not force that on other players if all they want are the ascended trinkets and don’t care about the Luminescent gear.

Because…well…there is no good reason. Of course, this is why I’ll probably never make Immobulus.

Answer : No. Remember when they decided to leave out the Custom Exchange option?

Yeah, that was awful. Please don’t give them any more dumb ideas.

CMM.6712:

Nilkemia.8507:

I agree with the topic title. And no, I couldn’t care less about the Luminescent set. They should just have another way to get those ascended pieces.

No, there should not be another way. They should be earned by doing.

By doing those tedious, garbage achievements, I take it? I should point out that I did all that already. I still feel there should be an alternative for those that don’t want to suffer all that and just want those pieces.

Answer : Leave it alone.

I tried keyfarming a bit before the horribad NPE patch. It’s arguably one of the most boring things to do for me. If others enjoy/feel compelled enough to go through that over and over, then let them. They already nerfed it by making it require Lv10. Unless you have a solid suggestion for making Black Lion Keys easier to get otherwise, I see no reason to attempt changing this.

And, as ArenaNet themselves have stated, they don’t consider it an exploit, or they’d have just removed it by now.

I agree with the topic title. And no, I couldn’t care less about the Luminescent set. They should just have another way to get those ascended pieces.

Meh. They look cool, but unless I can actually fly with them or skin them to the gliders coming out later, I don’t care enough.

Also, it should’ve been dyeable. But that’s just me.

Characters can breathe fine underwater without one equipped (or can hold their breath indefinitely except when defeated), so it just feels tacked on and unnecessary. Even though I don’t mind underwater combat, the whole having to swap out my helmet for a breather every time get’s annoying.

They could just remove the breathers entirely and let us wear our full armor underwater, and nothing would be lost from it… (well, save for all the breather pieces).

If you like Dragon Ball, good for you.

Still, there is no reason why it should be required for me to get enough of the event dailies for that one laurel. Especially when it’s arguably even worse gameplay wise than regular SPvP, which is already only good for reward tracks and regular dailies anyways.

Kruhljak.2705:

No. They go, “You want the event daily? Play DB. We made it. You must play it, or you can just forget that nice Laurel. Too bad for you, eh?”

Prickly Pears are an uncommon harvest drop from Cactus. They don’t drop as often, but they still do. Admittedly though, it is annoying how the recipes from Dry Top merchants more often than not require Prickly Pears over Nopales.

Potential extra uses for Fractal Relics/Pristine Fractal Relics:

- Fractal weapons/weapon skins.

- Ascended Earrings (most expensive at 40 laurels and 50 ectoplasm, yet not as powerful as amulets/rings stat wise.)

- Ascended weapon/armor recipes.

That being said, it would also help if Fractals were actually fun and challenging in a good way instead of all the cheap gimmicks they usually throw at you.

I’ve tested this just now, and they still make the same gear…and are actually cheaper now too. Thanks for clearing this up.

It won’t appear in the crafting tabs for me to make, and I can’t use another recipe as I’ve already learned it. Same with the Giver’s Intricate Silk Inscription.

So….no one else is bothered by it? :/

I miss being able to explore Tyria and gather and beat up baddies while waiting on a queue to come up. Sure…they took longer, but at least I could do something while waiting. I don’t get why they felt the need to take away that freedom too when redesigning the queue system a while back.

And, they didn’t even add enough to the Heart of the Mists to compensate. Here are some other things they could’ve added…

- Guild Bank/Registrar

- Bring back the Mystic Forge

- Crafting stations

- Maybe a little arena of sorts where players could duel one another?

- Make the place bigger?

Hmm. Discuss?

I think “LFG abuse” might cover that.

In the opening poster’s defense, they probably had no way of knowing those were about the same thing just by reading the title. That, and the forum search function is unreliable at best.

Unfortunately, yes. I understand and agree with your sentiment.

Inb4 someone whines at you for pointing that out.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

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.

Agreed. Although, people had been pulling that theory even before the Invasive Weed came into existence. That’s how bad it was. They could’ve made the sylvari related to the druids, or evolved forms of mosshearts, or something else on their own entirely.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

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.

Again, agreed. Some of Cadeyrn’s issues with the tablet had some potential. Same with Gavin, (who only shows up in the White Stag storyline) who genuinely thought he was doing what was right and had a sense of honor. Aside from that, every other courtier we encounter is just evil.

And the memory seed flashblacks utterly ruin Caithe and Faolain. We could’ve seen Faolain have a nicer side to her but eventually darken over time due to her experiences. Instead, she’s already pretty much evil right from the start. Meanwhile, Caithe seems to have barely any personality herself. Why do these two love each other again?

Also, here’s a question: Why couldn’t Caithe have just killed Faolain, and then Cadeyrn and the others? She could’ve prevented the Nightmare Court from forming. Even if others eventually formed it anyway, the Court probably wouldn’t have been as big of a threat as it had gotten.

Ironically, her stealing the egg (which we still don’t know the reason for) is what led to us finding out the secret in the end. And, if Caithe is to be believed, the Pale Tree knew of these events already (or at least Wynne’s death). So…why didn’t she just tell us this?

Why didn’t Caithe warn Trahearne? I know you want to keep this secret, but I’m sure Trahearne won’t blab about it, and him knowing about this could’ve prevented the disaster, or at least made it not as bad…seriously, it like everything bad so far is happening because the main characters are either stupid or keeping secrets unnecessarily. It’s not good storytelling.

I’m glad Laranthir is ok…but how is he ok? How are any of the others with him ok? And the way they phrase “most of the sylvari have heard the call of the dragon and answered” seems to imply they willingly joined with him, though I doubt that’s the case.

I suppose it could be a matter of willpower as the Pale Tree said, but that also feels like a cop-out way to explain how some sylvari are just fine while others aren’t…I mean, the other sylvari on the ship were also going to fight Mordremoth, risking their lives as well. That takes willpower, no? I can see Ceara and Aerin getting taken over easily, but not people willing to go fight against the dragon directly.

Also, I really hope they don’t kill off/corrupt Carys. She doesn’t deserve to be in this mess at all.

Why is it that whenever people find a flaw in the bosses design and use it to defeat them faster, it’s called an exploit? You make it sound as bad as cheating/hacking when it isn’t.

:/

Armor damage has no real purpose aside from being an annoyance, and ought to be removed. Of course, they probably won’t do that…

It still troubles me that anyone tries defending this rubbish. The NPE was a failure on nearly every level.

Please no gender swap…that would just be annoying. The bobblehead thing and Super Adventure Box were nice, at least (or humorous for a while).

Wait…Trahearne got attacked too? I only saw Logan and Eir getting attacked mainly. Trahearne seemed to just vanish after the vines started wrecking the ships. I don’t think he turned rogue, otherwise Eir would’ve most likely gotten a nasty stab in the back from Caladbolg.

(Hysterical nitpicky typing activate!)

So? The Lost Bandit Chests in the Silverwastes don’t move, they’re buried in the ground until you dig them up! At least the one in the home instance doesn’t require a shovel, but that’s a minor advantage when doing events in the Silverwastes can get you shovels anyways.

And, even if they did move, it would be explained by the sandy area, the creatures moving them around inadvertently…why should it move in our home instance? Are the NPCs in there just thinking “Hey, you know what, let’s just move this chest around whenever the player comes in, and even stick it in walls or nearly out of the instance, just to mess with them, heheh.”

…That probably is the case…sneaky NPCs.

The method of presenting the story got better, sure. And the majority of the new content, maps, and other things to do gameplay wise, got better, save for the tedious/annoying achievements.

The story itself though, not so much. I honestly find characters from the Personal Story more memorable than the the majority of the ones brought up in the Living Story so far. And the cliffhangers and cheap twists near the end of Season 2 haven’t left a good impression either.

So, it’s kinda half and half, now that i mulled it over harder. Meh.

Well, at least we got Kasjory out of it. All hail Kasjory!

Yeah, what’s the point of having it move, or requiring a key for it? It’s in my home instance!

Would it not have been simpler to have it be in a nice fixed spot and be openable without a key? I mean…there’s really no point to do this over chests in the Silverwastes since this chest probably has to wait until reset to be reopened, while the ones out there have respawn rates. Meh.

Attachment: In the wall…why is it in the wall? o.O

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

She is an important part of the story wether you like it or not. That you weren’t here at the time is your own fault.

Yes, let’s just blame everyone else who joined the game after Season 1, or are just joining now. Sigh. Totally their fault. /sarcasm.

Failure. The story wasn’t that good. The new maps and the stuff they give is nice, though.

….Did you even watch the video I linked for the Opening Ceremony? She’s there. She’s named “Mysterious Stranger” at that point, but she’s in—-no, no, you’re clearly trolling now. Done. No more.

Extra post to prevent forum bugging out again.

Vayne.8563:

Because that wouldn’t cause your gaming company to go out of business. Some people have not a clue how businesses work. Not a clue.

You are seriously going to try defending the NPE garbage patch and whatever fool(s) implemented it? Stupidity has no limits, it seems…

Once, when I was running a fairly large store as part of a chain, a guy made a mistake that cost the company a couple of thousand dollars. It was an honest mistake, but yeah, it cost us. The district manager told me to fire him. A couple of weeks later, the DM sees him working and says to me, I told you to fire that guy. I told him, fire him? I just spent $2000 TRAINING him.

Nice story. But what does it have to do with the garbage NPE patch we’re discussing?

It’s not like he was ever going to make the same mistake again, so firing him would have been counter productive. By keeping the guy, he became not only a loyal employee but one of my key salespeople. That guy ended up being very loyal, because he knew I didn’t fire him when I could have.

Well, that scenario doesn’t seem to relate to this one at all. We know the NPE wasn’t an accident on their part, it was deliberate. And despite all the ways we’ve pointed out how it’s trash, all they seemed content to do was tweak a few things to try appeasing us, but left most of the new rubbish level-gating in effect.

This was clearly done by someone with influence in the company too, not some low level employee. Yet they seem to have not played their own game, otherwise they’d realize that there was no need for the NPE whatsoever. If people are being overwhelmed by the mechanics, you try to inform them better, not screw over parts of the game that were just fine and then top it with a compass and a dodging tutorial.

(Seriously, they think we don’t know how to use dodge?)

So, not only have they done something that hurts the game, they are continuing to do so despite how we’ve all pointed out how bad it is. Not an “honest mistake” at all. And I’ve yet to see anything good come out of it. People still ask the same questions they always do , and then some.

Firing people who do something that doesn’t work out, particularly something like this which was undoubtedly the work and decision of more than one person, most of these things are doing collaboratively, means firing more than one person. Who replaces those people? Who trains the people that replaces them? What makes you think the next people can do better? Do you know how long this would set back development?

You know what also doesn’t work? Keeping ruinous changes like the NPE in the game and thinking it’ll make things better somehow.

Calling for people to be fired when you don’t know anything about the internal workings of a company isn’t just irresponsible. It’s unwise.

Sitting idly by and letting them drive this game into the ground is even worse. So, is that all you’ve got? I doubt you know anything of ArenaNet’s inner workings either.

You cannot defend the New Player Experience, because almost nothing about it was a good change. It gave us barely anything and took away things that made leveling early on so fun, as well as mucking up the late game Personal Story. If it had been like this when I first started, I most likely wouldn’t have stuck around for as long as I have, nor would I have supported them as much as I had in the past.

BlueOcean.5380:

“Ruinous pile” is the best phrase I’ve seen on this forum to describe NPE.

Frankly if I were the CEO at NCsoft I’d be getting on the phone to find the person responsible, and canning the person who pulled this stunt

It reduced an elegant game to a genre dime-a-dozen FTP with childish “reward” window that looks cheap. Instead of coming into a game world of faraway fantasy, I’m bombarded with this psudo reward, feeling it’s like a “candy” treat to get me to even respond. Mmm, my goal in an RPG is to learn, to feel I’m challenged, to step into a world of wander. Not to be handed “candies”. In the starting days of GW2, under ANet’s vision, what I saw was a world of beauty and wonder. Now I feel I’m reading a cheap romance, starting on page one with some “enticement”. If I want dime store stuff, I’ll go to 100 other FTP games online.

On top of it, the rewards are full of items that are not salvageable, so players need to drag to destroy. So you give candy to players, then expect them to labor to get rid of it.

Ok… I’d be calling the QA dept. Shouldn’t the disposal of these items be a bit more interesting than that? Make the game a world people can sink into, not one of pop-ups?

Like, players may get a quest to turn in the reward to an army officer at his racial city and learn more about how his turning in his old sword can help younger recruits.

It was ANet’s goal to make this a world of living, breathing fantasy where people will always feel they are in-character. I see this NPE is full of “let’s get the player excited about pop up reward”, “let’s have them drag it to destroy it for our in-game economy.”

Meanwhile, ANet’s vision is utterly being torn apart.

Sigh. If you hope GW2 will become a unforgetable chapter in MMORPG history, as I felt it could be, then don’t do things like this to tear it down, to bring it down to the level of all the cheap FTP games out there.

I’m pretty furious right now. Yes, if I were the CEO I’d be canning people atm.

Whoever was in charge should’ve been told to go right back to the drawing board or just get fired for sheer stupidity. But of course, someone’s going to whine at me for that sentiment. Anyways, +50 for your post….if I could do that.

Feonix.4790:

Warning: incoming long post.

I’ve been ranting about how great Guild Wars 2 is at work for months now, and after the expansion was announced, I managed to convince several of my friends and co-workers to pick up the game.

Playing with new players used to be easy. It was a great way to show them the ropes, explaining things along the way while my character is leveled down to their content. Now, it’s a hassle, because I have no idea what the game has explained, what the game has explained poorly, and what the game hasn’t even tried to explain because it’s level-gated.

I.E. this situation: “What’s this?” “Oh, it’s a skill challenge. If you go up to this thing and complete a challenge, you get a skill point which you can spend to unlock new skills.” Then we go over to it and 3 people all tell me nothing happens when they click on it, because it turns out they haven’t unlocked skill points yet.

This happened over 20 times throughout the course of the night. Skill points. Rallying. Underwater combat. Even salvaging! It was honestly very frustrating for my friends who were told Guild Wars 2 was this rich, immersive experience, and now they feel like the game is treating them like an idiot because the game doesn’t think that they’ll “get it”.

Meanwhile, once they’ve unlocked something by leveling up enough, the game just says, “hey, you’ve unlocked this thing,” and that’s IT. Barely any explanation, and they’re left scratching their heads going “… okay?” When veteran players were traveling around learning new things it was very natural and very immersive. We saw a thing we didn’t understand, we investigated or learned through action. Now the game has a big pop-up that says “Hey, by the way, now all of a sudden when you die there’s this downed state and you can rally. Have fun!” and players are just left confused.

Now there are certain things that I do like about the NPE. I like that they’re getting loot every time they level up. That’s a nice touch that they seemed to appreciate. I like that it’s telling them they’re getting stat increases, or unlocking things like utility skill slots. But when you put huge parts of the game behind a level gate, it creates the illusion that there’s nothing going on in the game. No personal story until level 10 means that for the first few hours of the game players legitimately think the game has no story at all. Things I overheard with my new group: “Is this (renown hearts) all we do?” “What happened with that stuff from my intro?” No major game systems like traits or skill points creates the illusion that players have absolutely no choice over their abilities. “… So I have 3 abilities, is that it?” “When do I get to level up? (said by somebody at level 8)”

Meanwhile, my only response to these kinds of comments is “Keep playing! It gets better.” And it does, truthfully. But you have to hold a new player’s attention all the way until level 31 for them to unlock every major thing the game has to offer, and honestly that’s a long kitten time to try to convince a new player that your game is good. I am prodding my friends to keep playing until the game “gets great”, but I’m left wondering – why did this even need to happen? When I turned on Guild Wars 2 for the first time I thought it was great from moment 1. Now it’s a game that “gets better” after you play it for 10 hours.

Thanks for reading. I hope this feedback from my real-life experiences with new players helps to drive Guild Wars 2 to become an even better game. We’re going to have a LOT of new players with news of an expansion, and if we want to keep them, I think changes need to be made.

TL;DR: Brought some friends into the fold. The NPE doesn’t help to explain anything to them and only serves to frustrate them (and me) by gating major systems – including the kitten plot – behind a level wall, forcing them to play for many hours before the game actually becomes fun. It should just be fun right out of the gate, like it used to be.

This. So much this.

Well, clearly it’s my fault for caring about the lore regarding the sylvari too much. I’ll take this as a lesson to stop caring.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Welcome to NPE (New Player Experience). And if you hate it, know you’re not alone. There’s an army of us here.

Truer words have never been typed. The September 2014 “New Player Experience” feature patch was a ruinous pile of additional level gating and screwing up the late game Personal Story. Literally the only good thing that came out of it was the compass(which had its own problems in the beginning), and Trahearne’s speech in “A Light in the Darkness” being improved.

Everything else was just stupid. Newer players being overwhelmed? Then you do better to inform them, not level gate things that didn’t need to be level gated.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

If not, and the invasion events count as only one instance (her defeat at the end), then there are less times Scarlet uses her personal teleporter device than Kudu.

I don’t have to, or plan to count the invasions or any of the open world events she shows up in. The instances we encounter her in are more than enough.

Opening Ceremony (Queen’s Jubilee) : At least 5 times on screen. In her very first appearance, no less.

Video proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz1aheyh2Gs

Closing Ceremony : Twice on screen. Possibly a third for when you defeat the boss and she retreats into the Pavilion, but this video didn’t show if that was the case.

Video proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr6ojFQg0LI

Scarlet’s Playhouse : 4 times during the entire instance for each round against her and when she escapes.

Note: I’m not counting the extra teleports for when she tries to cook Faren since she’ll use it there indefinitely until you finish, but I will count the one where she leaves as you finish that.

Video proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0J3QrmAFiQ

Fractured: Once in the Thaumanova Reactor, after her monologue just before the boss fight.

Video proof pending.

The Nightmare Within: Twice. Once to get in just before the boss fight and monologue at you again, then again via a portal to leave.

Video proof pending.

Surprisingly she ditched it entirely for the Battle for Lion’s Arch while onboard the Breachmaker.

Well, that tally up aside, I’ve accepted that we’ll never find common ground regarding Scarlet’s worth (or lack of) to the story. She did have potential, but it was utterly wasted, and they still had plenty of other potential masterminds they could’ve used in her place for the alliances she ended up creating. Her only lasting impact at this point was waking Mordremoth up early, along with all those broken probes left all over Tyria.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to ever fully remove her taint on the story now. One hopes they’ll eventually find a way to bring back Season 1 for those who started playing after that, but I’m not holding high hopes on that either.

Koviko.3248:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Sylvari apparently don’t have hearts, so no, CPR wouldn’t work on them. It can work on a mordrem though!

That’s a good find. Yet another item to add to the list of why Sylvari and Mordrem are nothing alike.

And yet another reason the “Sylvari are Mordremoth’s minions” reveal was stupid. And they claim to have intended that from the beginning, eh?

I want Apatia, Tonn, and that mesmer back, please.

The New Player Experience patch was a ruinous pile of level gating and scrambling of the late Personal Story chapters. The compass part is seemingly the only good part — every other part could’ve been removed. Between this and the trait patch that they bungled, early leveling isn’t fun at all now.

PseudoNewb.5468:

The second half of season 2 started to go nowhere, fast, and now we know why. All of it is just set up for the HoT expansion pack instead of actually having its own independent story. The 2nd video at the end kinda annoyed me, because it reinforced the fact that the end of season 2, it’s payout, climax and conclusion, is to hype up the expansion pack.

This. The game itself basically ends on a giant cliffhanger. Wanna see what happens next? Buy the expansion!

They might as well have had the entirety of Season 2 as part of Heart of Thorns instead, since Season 1, even with all the problems it had, at least had a decent finale, while leaving the waking of the dragon for things to come. Now the core game feels incomplete.

Eh, not likely. To be able to do that effectively would require either one side pretty much controlling the entirety of the WvW maps, or all three sides coming to an agreement to take turns rotating on the maps for it.

And even if they managed to do all that, so what? The Gift of Exploration has only 3 things you can do with it:

- To combine with another Gift to make another gift for the legendary process,

- Or sell to a vendor for 6 silver and 40 copper,

- Or throw away.

There is still much much more to making a legendary weapon. Being able to get the Gift of Exploration faster won’t change the rest of that. So, splitting the map completions for Tyria/WvW would be a good solution. Both PvE’rs and WvW’ers would benefit.

A good solution to this would be to make WvW map completion separate from Tyria’s map completion, and split the two Gifts of Exploration between them. Give WvW map completion it’s own special icon too.

That way, PvE’rs wouldn’t have to play a mode they don’t like, and WvW’rs wouldn’t have to trudge through Tyria for a Gift of Exploration if they don’t like that.

But of course, ArenaNet won’t even bother with that.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

So why bring it up at all if they backpedaled and “fixed” it?

Because fixing something doesn’t change that they screwed up, nor does it mean I should ignore it afterwards.

And in both cases, demonstrably, you’d be wrong. It’s also worth noting it wasn’t the entire dredge or Flame Legion which dropped everything and joined up – just enough to become a threat.

Feel free to show evidence where the dredge were willing to work with others outside of the dredge that we help in Sorrows Embrace or the rebellion up in Frostgorge Sound, or the ones that were manipulated

Same with the Flame Legion regarding females, please.

Not quite true, but hey, why bother looking too hard at it? Mai Trin was leading them, and she was working for Scarlet directly until she got captured. After that, the next time we see them Scarlet is basically leading directly through threats of force. Given this happened shortly after we watch her pull off the bit with Twisted Watchwork? Believable.

“Do you like my Aetherblades? They work for me, you know. Because…they like living.”

And as for Mai Trin and/or the other higher ups, we never get any real glimpse to their motivations for working for her either. For the grunts though, it is basically “we’re scared of her.”

Which couldn’t have been used since “Mordremoth” hadn’t been officially revealed as an entity yet. But even better, doesn’t need to be that – she went into the machine and had a vision; we don’t know if our vision was the same.

So this vision also showed Caithe’s (utterly stupid) secret, and what our player characters did in their second story arcs? How convenient.

He also figured out how to mix corruptions but was stupid enough to experiment on himself. And he was annoying to deal with, especially with that personal teleporter he had so he could keep escaping points where he should have been nailed to the nearest wall with a spear through the head.

. . . something Scarlet did repeatedly. Which is why I say he is terrible.

It’s not stupid if he succeeded—something they don’t elaborate on later. He could’ve still had free will, or could’ve been being manipulated by the dragons at that, which could’ve explained why he didn’t just teleport out of there for that last fight too.

Scarlet also experimented on herself with Omadd’s mind-opening device too. And look how that turned out.

Oh, and Kudu only uses that personal teleporter a grand total of 3 times in the entire story, whereas Scarlet abused it like it was going out of style.

So she should be even more annoying to you by that logic.

Malyck’s Tree is still out in the wind, somewhere. It’s believed to be in the Magus Falls, but if that’s the case, the odds of them having avoided Mordremoth’s attention are very unlikely. A pity they never really followed up on that. Would’ve been way cooler if instead of Glint’s Egg, we got a vision of his Tree/sylvari fighting the Mordrem too, and our quest became helping them out.

The problem is that until the Pale Tree recovers (or another safeguard is found/created), no one outside of the player character is safe.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Dropped, since it was later said she studied them in sequence, not enrolling in each and doing them simultaneously.

They backpedaled a bit because even they realized how absurd that notion was.

And plotted to be a guinea pig for the machine we find later? Uncheck.

That was Omadd, not the Inquest. And as we’ve learned, she pretty much went along with it anyway, despite being warned by him on how dangerous it was.

Do you mean the Aetherblades, who pretty much have reasons to work together? Or the Molten Alliance, which was preying on their weakness and adding a dash of deceit? Or the Clockwork/Steam alliance which . . .

Oh, no, you probably mean Toxic Alliance. Which depends, since the only slice of potential motivation? Is of questionable value canonicity if you want to be persnickety.

The Flame Legion are a group of magic using charr who enslaved the others in the past, and also hate females (they’re apparently the reason we saw no female charr in the first Guild Wars). There was no reason for them to listen to a female sylvari. They’d try to burn her alive on sight.

Same with the dredge. Most of them are xenophobic, and after being manipulated by the Inquest, you’d think they’d be very very hesitant to even consider siding up with anyone else again—-let alone charr shamans who enslaved their own kind in the past.

It’s not even clear if these were the dredge we helped in Sorrow’s Embrace, or remnants of the ones we forced out of power, or just different ones entirely.

The Aetherblades are just pirates given Inquest tech to play with—which they really didn’t need to, since they were already dealing with the bandits and Nightmare Court as part of the Sinister Triad (which they could’ve just as easily used). And from what little we see of the Aetherblades, their motivation is basically summed up as “We’re scared of her”. Pitiful.

There was a Youtube video by someone theorizing that the Aetherblades were dead people resurrected by Scarlet via watchwork tech, which would explain plenty, but we never find out anything more about the Aetherblades, and eventually they go to the Edge of the Mists to never have any importance again.

And the Toxic Alliance…krait consider themselves superior to everyone else, and part of Cadeyrn’s disgruntlement leading to the Nightmare Court’s founding was that Niamh decided not to kill krait hatchlings they found, stating they had the right to grow, in the hope they might change their ways (highly unlikely, given what we know of the krait). Although, that probably doesn’t matter since Faolain’s in charge and Cadeyrn’s dead now…and they did dodge a bullet by saying in-game that it was a splinter faction of the Court.

Was she behind it, or merely present at the time and going “I told you so”? I still haven’t been able to get into the Fractal for that.

A little bit of both. She was apparently a “special consultant”, as two Inquest near the start refer to her. It’s not clear what she did for them there beyond that, but near the end she shows up and monologues about how they screwed it up and that her job here is done, implying she did have a hand in what happened.

You should start a list, because I’m fairly certain with what we can glean she has ways of knowing things now.

Well, even a “Mordremoth gave her mind reading powers/plot knowledge” might’ve sufficed.

. . . no. No, he was just terrible. A smug little snake in over his head and not realizing it at all.

He figured out how to control dragon minions, something the Inquest put to use later in Arah. He beat Scarlet to manipulating the dredge first, and unlike with her, we actually see how he managed to do it. And he at least wasn’t annoying to listen to.

If Kudu’s terrible, then Scarlet is trash. Oh wait…she already is.

Um, no. That’s just referencing Malyck’s tree.

And, if they really have been planning this dragon minion thing since 2007, not only did they do a crappy job of keeping it secret, since most people guessed/heard of the theory to begin with, they clearly didn’t try to address the inconsistencies that well either.

So, ironically, they’ve just made their own story writers look more incompetent/forgetful than if they had just said “most people liked this theory, so we just rolled with it.”

Answer: Bad writing. You don’t kill an elder dragon by waking it early and giving it a boost of power. You kill the thing in its sleep. Scarlet was an contrived lore breaking mess whose motivations were never really made clear beyond screwing with the rest of Tyria.