Guild Wars 2

Vyriis.6258:

Getting kinda tired of pointing this out to people. Rangers are people of the land. “Range” is not meant as in distance but rather range as in land. Rangers are people who watch over and protect land. Look at park and forest rangers in real life.

Even the official description from GW2 site states: “Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled survivalists with traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.” They are not your rifle toting hunters. They are the protectors and tenders of nature. Stop trying to put rifles in their hands; it’s never going to happen (or at least I hope not).

Rifles will happen eventually. Rangers may try to rely on the powers of earth, air, fire, water, and and fluffy bunnies, but there comes a point when they’ll want to say say “Eff this” and combine it all to summon Captain Hollowpoint through some jerk’s skull.

Until then, enjoy the nature themes.

It sounds as if we’ll have to dismount to interact with any NPCs, so I think it’s a good bet we’ll have to dismount to gather as well.

And honestly… if you walk your giant bunny/kangaroo rat up to a bunch of carrots, do you really think it’s going to leave them alone while you try to lean down and harvest them? Or is it going to eat them itself?

For some things, you’ll simply want to leave the mounts behind.

Gems are something they can’t revoke/take back after the fact if the credit transaction falls through somehow. So, they have to delay them for a few days, to make sure everything’s golden.

Rauderi.8706:

If I can Yoshi-bounce off my Springer to go into glider mode, that’d be kittening shweeeet.

I’m so glad I’m not the only one thinking that.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

So raids will be 16% harder… Ty for killing my motivation. Just made 6th viper set, so that when i do raid I would be fully geared nope.

But this is what people wanted, raids and all that comes with them. If you push your character to their limits and fine tune everything for maximum performance, then ANY change can “wreck” your build.

Everyone knows changes and balance adjustments are part of an MMO. Sooner or later, everyone gets hit. In normal PvE, players can take the hit and move on, slowly adjusting their gear as they play. But in raids?

This is the reality of being a “good” raider. This is what people asked for.

I find a necro with minions and the traits linked to them to be pretty good, even better as a Reaper (drop the weaker minions for “Rise!”).

There will be times when the pets will fail you, but those times are actually pretty few and far between. You can trait to gain some health every time they hit, and a bit of toughness for every minion you have. And if all that fails, you still have Death Shroud.

Chadramar.8156:

Ohoni.6057:

In WP’s stream, Bog Otter talked about how there was once a Spider Mount being tested, and it was dropped because of aracnophobia concerns.

Wow. As an arachnophobe who is really sick of devs throwing spiders into everything for the stupidly cheap creep factor, I do appreciate that considerate gesture even though I think the GW2 spiders thankfully aren’t particularly bad. Still wouldn’t want to skitter around on one.

Relevant comic:
http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/conspiracies-abound

If we DO need to grind out HP, there may be a small note in our favor. From the sounds of it, mounts from PoF will be usable in HoT zones. That may make it easier to take a character around and hit the solo HP spots in HoT, if they haven’t already.

Of course, you’ll have to get those masteries first, and the HoT zones are going to be a lot more empty than they are now.

When I purchased PoF, it gave me a code that I had to apply. And yes, I had already logged in. Still had to copy the code over and use it.

It may matter that I did it outside of being logged into the game, though.

If you’re really unsure, just get them a Visa gift card for the amount of whichever version you want to buy for them, and let them make the actual purchase.

Hannelore is right. LS1 was a mess, far worse than LS3 was in most respects. With that said, though, LS1 had Scarlet acting like an inconsistent idiot. LS3 has our character doing the same, which is worse. For every step forward, there’s been a step back.

I think that part of the reason they went with mounts is because their size gives them an excuse to take them away from us when need be. Entering a small cave or building? No mounts in that story instance. But if the abilities were in your character, then they can’t do that without it seeming … well, arbitrary and stupid.

Before this, I supported only one mount idea: A giant sloth that moved at walk speed.

However, these actually look good and they add something to the gameplay. They’re not just an overdone speed buff, and with everyone having access to the same ones, there’s only so much you can show off with them.

I do hope they make them unusable in the major core cities, and other important areas, but I’m sure they’re already considering that. I’m also hoping that they hide weapons and put you into non-combat mode while riding, so all the legendaries will be hidden/de-powered. If so, then the only way to show off all of your gear is to get OFF the mount, leaving the show-off players in the same state as current.

Ah, dang. I was hoping this was a new thing. Oh well. Thanks.

The plan was that if you wanted to change to a new guild hall, you’d have to claim it as usual. But then, all of your upgrades would transfer to the new hall automatically. That’s how it’s supposed to work between the two current halls, and there’s no reason to think they’re changing that with the third.

I’ve noticed that PoF comes with another level 80 boost, but it’s delivered in “a permanent, account wide bag slot”. Is that right? Bag, and not just inventory? As in, we can stick a 20 space bag in there, and everyone on the account can access it?

Ayrilana.1396:

Wooden Potatoes just said mounts will be in core Tyria.

Yay! I need the Jackal, because… big puppy!

Well, they’re Masteries. I’m sure that at some point, one of the levels of the mastery will give them the 25% speed boost. But that’s a side thing, they’re mostly about the other changes to movement.

Mounts are a mastery, I suspect it will be one Mastery line for each. But that means that, visuals aside, they work a lot like gliding does. And should be able to be turned off in areas, just like gliding’s “No Fly” areas.

Meh. Doctor Strange did it first.

::laughs::

But I’m looking forward to it. I have a charr engineer just about ready to go for the expansion, themed just for this.

MokahTGS.7850:

The real question I want answered is will be able to use the mounts in other areas of the game like they added gliding to everywhere.

I kind of want to know that myself. I mean, I doubt it, but I doubted gliding, too. And if they can disable gliding in areas, I’m sure they can do the same for mounts.

Well, no. It’s just that they don’t see “run/walk everywhere” as an original virtue of the game. They see exploration and growth as those virtues.

I think it’s safe to say that we WILL need the first one, the same way we needed gliding in HoT. Beyond that, it’s hard to say and I’m sure ANet won’t answer because spoilers.

Main discussion and Living Story are going to be quickly overwhelmed with PoF talk. Can we get a sub-forum for PoF going, please? Quickly?

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Yes. Because studies show that information extracted under torture is unreliable. The victims will say anything they think the torturer wants. When the blade members tell the truth, their captors will think they’re lying. Doesn’t that sound just like the kind of devious plan Anise would come up with?

I’m just kidding. I don’t think anet ever invisioned it to that depth. This whole deadly oath think just smacks of so much misinformation. Do the shining blade members actually say that Anise told them that would happen, or did they hear it from a friend of a friend? Did anyone ever come back after being tortured and reveal that they blabbed but didn’t die? Is there any evidence this thing has ever really been demonstrated?

There is another non-magical possibility – some kind of psychosomatic death. If blade members are so indoctrinated that they truly believe the oath will kill them, the belief itself might kill them if they start to blab.

That last one I might buy, maybe.

Also, I’ve pointed it out elsewhere, but did you notice that we never turned off the communicator with Taimi? The one that allows her to hear, see, and scan everything near us? Nor did she complain that she lost contact with us at any point, so it wasn’t blocked.

I hope they just toss in something where Taimi says “Well, with all the magic you’ve been exposed to, that oath didn’t really stick. At worst, it might give you an upset stomach. At best, you won’t even notice it.” Then they can just ignore it and move on.

Mounts are really just like gliding. If you don’t have the mastery, you can’t get to places that require it. It’s nothing new, it’s just being presented differently.

Aeolus.3615:

open beta whuut??? o_O

People will get a chance to sample part of the expansion next weekend, apparently. Most likely one new zone, with some auto-unlocked mount stuff I guess?

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Or they could have been told that but never actually put it to the test themselves.

Are you suggesting that the leaders of the Shining Blade have told the members that if they’re being tortured, to just blurt out the deepest secrets of the Shining Blade? Knowing that instead of dying like they expect to, they’ll actually get the words out?

No new race. No new class.

Confirmation on one new elite spec for each class, but no details or names yet.

Several quick vista-like views of a few new areas, including one of what will turn out to be a guild hall area. We’ll also get glimpses of an elite spec or two in action (not elementalist) and a couple of enemies.

A few mounts in use.

Brief mention of the upcoming features, including one that they won’t admit is being thrown in at the last minute and still very far from ready.

News on open beta “coming soon”.

And the opening of preorders, with two or three different packages.

I’m going to have to agree that the story was a mess. It was all over the place, with more plot threads than it needed or could handle. Rather than break it down chapter by chapter, I’ll just give some overall thoughts.

First, we could have had the two dragons not wake up at all. If Taimi had said “There’s a spike in the energy on Primordus”, that would have left us wondering if it was awake or not and we could have found out for ourselves. The spike would have been the cause of the new types of minions, but there would have been much less expectation of a Primordus fight.

Second was Jormag, Braham, and Rox. With Primordus spiking in power, we could have ASKED Braham to check and see if Jormag was stirring any, and Rox would have easily gone with him. Instead of Braham the Brat, we would have had him acting like an adult, and our character acting like the leader of a guild focused on taking out the Elder Dragons.

Third, the leaving of the Pact and joining of the Shining Blade. I’m putting them together because they’re both total rubbish and for some related reasons. With the Pact, we know that we work better as our own little group with the Commander in charge, but we also know we have allies in the Pact and will pass on to them any information we have that they need to know. We shouldn’t have tried to leave, just get ourselves set up as a special investigation and problem solving group that works on our own, but still linked to the Pact. Why we would NOT do this with the Pact, and then do it with the Shining Blade is something that makes no sense. Also, we only have the Countess’s word that we’re going to be considered ‘honorary’ members. That wasn’t in any part of the oath we were railroaded into, and we all know the Countess will do what she feels she has to do, including manipulating people.

The maps were hit and miss. I would love to praise Bloodstone Fen, but if you don’t have nearly mastered Gliding Mastery, you may as well not go there. Considering that some newer players may not play all of HoT before jumping in there, that’s really bad. In fact, a lot of the map problems are summed up as “too complex” and “full gliding is required, not a shortcut”. Also, the really high skill JPs need to stop. For some people, they discourage exploration because why bother if it’s just going to be a death trap? Aside from those issues, though, the maps were great.

The leather farm. Just… no. That was stupid.

Finally, the Masteries. The first one was good. The lava tubes were great! But the others were lacking. Badly. Any mastery, even a fun one like the Oakheart grapple, should be used in more than one zone. If it’s for just one zone, it should not be a mastery. I count the gliding skills here, too. Used in one zone, and the enemies were given ridiculous ranged attacks to counter them. They did see very small use in another zone, but honestly it wasn’t worth it.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to “tried too hard”. Tried too hard to make the zones complex. Tried too hard to make the JPs challenging. Tried too hard to have a new mastery in every release. Tried too hard to keep things happening all over the place. It all wound up overdone and under-focused. It has good parts, yes, but those bad parts need to be learned from and fixed.

I expect them to not really say anything about the elite specs, other than they’re coming.

By releasing information on them one at a time, one each week, that’s 9 weeks of hype while we wait for the expansion. It’s a good way to keep excitement going, without having to give out too much about the maps or plot.

Personally, I love the idea!

What’s really great is that it carries over to everyone on your account. When I took a second character there, it took me just a minute to open up most of the map for them.

I hope to see more of this in the expansion. Maybe have zones where there are waypoints scattered out there, but there are also these other teleport points so that you can get around easier for a price, and alts can have an easier time of it.

I went on Reddit and figured it out, but at first I thought they added a new mastery line.

I’m still not sure where they’re seeing a new “Insight” category in the Hero Panel, but maybe that will pop up when I get around to claiming one.

What are you guys talking about? I see no new masteries on my character.

They’ve been gone from the Targets I’ve checked as well for quite some time. (Omaha, Nebraska area.)

Wal Mart carries the $25 ones, and GameStop carries the $15 ones, so that’s where I’ve been getting them. Still, it’s potential money lost for ANet if a major retailer has stopped carrying GW2 gem cards (and likely will not sell the expansion as well). Maybe they want to have someone call around and look into this.

Rauderi.8706:

A few redditors have noted that it’s going to be really difficult for a Sylvari to keep the secret of the Shining Blade from the Dream. Mama Tree is going to know all of that stuff within a fortnight, and then the PC probably explodes in some horrific display.

Nope, there’s no magic for spilling secrets. They lied to you.

How do I know? Simple, you never remove or turn off the communicator to Taimi. She got to listen in to everything, as well as track you and pick up any other data that thing can collect. If blabbing their ‘secret’ where Taimi could hear didn’t kill them, then we’re not going to go all head-explodey if it slips into The Dream.

The new map is good, grinding out all the hearts for the story is blatant padding, though.

The plot has the PC acting wrong, WRONG, WRONG. What charr would take an oath that puts Kryta and a human group above their loyalty to their Warband and Legion?

There are other plot holes I’ve mentioned elsewhere.

I do like the buying of the extra WPs, though. They’re free once you have them, and you don’t have to visit them before gaining access, just buy them. Also makes it MUCH easier to uncover the map with a second character.

Please add your name to the list in the bug thread, so they can have an idea of how big of a problem this is.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Can-t-buy-home-node-from-Provisioner-Anlana/first#post6655267

Like a lot of people, I have some issues with the most recent LS chapter. But there were some things I enjoyed as well, and I don’t want them to get buried in negativity. After all, if we don’t point out the parts they got right, they’ll only hear the negative and have no idea what we want, just what we don’t. So, feel free to chime in with any parts of it you liked as well.

• Waypoints. Yes, I know there was only one. But… there wasn’t only one. There were five. The difference is that you had to pay to unlock the other four. It sounds bad, but the price wasn’t too expensive, and once you’re in the zone and able to use them, they’re free once unlocked. Also, you don’t have to go there to unlock them. By the time I was ready for the Balthazar part of the map, I was able to just unlock that WP and teleport there. That was kind of neat, and I hope to see more of that in the future. Just keep the prices of the unlocks reasonable.

• The Lazarus conclusion. Yes, I have some issues with how it was done, but I’m thrilled that it WAS done. When the earlier parts of the season made us think Lazarus was back, a lot of people were thrilled to get some possible closure on his story. And some of them were upset that this closure was pulled out from beneath them when it turned out to be an illusion. Now, suddenly, we get some closure after all with a fight over 200 years in the making.

• Taimi in the back seat. Finally, she’s no longer running ‘mission control’ for us. Yes, someone else does it, and they’re even more annoying than Taimi ever was, but it’s good to see her having to take a step back finally.

What I want to know is, why was this fight even a … well, a fight?

We’re playing The Commander, the person that went into Mordremoth’s mind/dream, and confronted him on his own terms. We went up against the Elder Dragon of Mind, and it pulled out of us our deepest fears and regrets. And we BEAT THEM.

This? A spell cast by someone that doesn’t really know us that well at all? We should have been able to walk up to “self doubt”, grab it by the head, and give a quick twist. THAT would have fit our history better, moved the story right along, and given everyone a reminder that The Commander has seen some kitten.

• Livia really sucks at her job, doesn’t she? She’s had a couple HUNDRED YEARS to track down those items, and she failed it completely. The White Mantle, on the other hand, managed it despite all their problems. Hell, even Caudecus did a better job of finding them than Livia did.

• Speaking of Livia’s stupidity, why did she decide that the basement of a temple of a rouge god, which has been in use by ANOTHER rogue god, was the right place to summon Lazarus? With only one person for back-up! She could have gotten him summoned in front of a firing squad armed with every horrifying toy the charr and asura could dream up, with full crews of mages ready to block his spells. But nope! She gave him a good chance of killing her and escaping, because she’s Livia. Livia the Idiot.

• Why would my character agree to hand over the aspect to Justicar Araya? She was acting oddly, and clearly hiding something. Why even bring that thing to Divinity’s Reach, when we know there’s still some White Mantle around in the shadows? And agreeing to take that oath? NO. That’s just stupid, and that’s as a human noble. When I run my charr through the story, there’s no way he’d even bother to consider listening to her. That item would be locked away in the Black Citadel until it can be destroyed. They can play their little game of secrets, that doesn’t mean I have to go along with it.

• But that’s okay, it’s not like we really took the oath properly, right? Because we never shut off the communicator with Taimi. She heard it all, and most likely even has a recording of it. Oops! But nobody died from breaking their oaths by speaking where Taimi could hear it, so there’s clearly no magic there to punish us if we do the same.

• Getting to the new zone made me happy. Having the story padded out by making it require doing all of the hearts in the zone did not. That’s just there to slow us down and make it take longer, pure and simple.

• Finally, it’s annoying that we have once again seen most of the LS3 mastery line go unused. Variation on the thermal fountains to launch us around? No. Using Koda’s flame to burn away corruption? No. Oakheart essences from the attempts to bring life back to Orr? No. And it’s clear that the overly expensive 6th power from that Mastery will never be used again, too.

Just to add in that yes, I do have all the other LS3 nodes unlocked as well. And the majority of the others, too.

It’s apparently a bug.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Can-t-buy-home-node-from-Provisioner-Anlana/first#post6655129

In Living Story 3 Chapter 6, other players are reporting that Provisioner Anlana sells a home instance node of Orrian oysters. However I and at least one other person in map chat are unable to see or purchase the node from her inventory.

To quote Reboot: “Warning, incoming game.”

ProtoGunner.4953:

I don’t like the Disney’esque childlike characters in LS3. They should stick to more mature content. If you played The Witcher you know what I mean. Even GW1 had more mature story although the voice acting (Shiro…) and movements of the NPCs in the cut scenes are beyond ridiculous.

Actually, I think the more lighthearted stuff with Taimi (and some others) is a good thing for maturity.

It’s very hard to do maturity all the time, especially in a video game. So, instead you do lighthearted stuff, and then drop unexpected serious moments as bombs. An example of that would be Futurama. Fans of the show may not remember what was going on when they first sat down to watch what appeared to be just another funny episode, but they remember the episode name of Jurassic Bark. Why? Because the emotional ending caught them entirely off guard.

Another example would be Full Metal Alchemist. Nina Tucker was a cute kid, with a big dog named Alexander. Alexander was always played for laughs, and paired with the cuteness of Nina, those two were one of the most lighthearted parts of the show. If you’ve watched the show, you know what happened and how that emotion bomb felt. If you’ve not watched the show… I’m not going to spoil it for you. But I think you get the point, right?

It’s hard to do serious all the time, and get a good emotional impact out of it. But keeping things lighthearted allows for better emotional bombs.

Taimi has a leg up on most other asura because she studied Scarlet’s tech, and Scarlet was an insane genius by most standards. (Or so we had to be told.)

Taimi’s been an easy go-to for plot exposition and information dumps, but that does need to come to an end. With Omadd’s machine gone and her secret lab outed, Taimi’s resources should be just about at their end. It’s time to get Scruffy 2.0 fully operational, and let someone else do the info dumps.

Squee.7829:

I feel like Rox has been an awfully underutilized asset to story telling so far. Up until now she’s managed to be not much more than just a silent tag along. I kind of hope this is just a set up for her to do something really important soon

If by “something important” you mean “get stuffed into a refrigerator by Braham”, then sure.

If the Engineer gets Longbow, they need a Boxing Glove Arrow. If they can’t have that, then they needn’t bother.

Jokes aside, anyone that played CoH can list off all the fun arrows they had access to. The best was an Oil Slick arrow that did an AoE slippery ground/knockdown effect. But if you hit that with fire, it lit and started doing fire damage to everything in the area. I’d love to see some skills interact like that in GW2, and an Engineer lobbing trick arrows would be a good place to start.

Tom.6478:

Kind of sounds like Fire and Air is the way to go….

Only if you have a high crit rate. Otherwise, they won’t go off often enough to make them worth slotting.

On power builds, I kind of like to go with Bloodlust. It takes some time to build, but it’s a nice bonus at the end. Just make sure to slot it on an underwater weapon as well, so you don’t lose the stacked bonus when you go into the water.

Ider.1276:

Well, you’re wrong. I got into WoW cause “Wow, you can play as a huge werewolf! Awesome!” And don’t start on pandas. Pandas are not cool. Werewolves are, as well as big samurai-birds. If Mists of Pandaria featured giant ninja were-grizzly bears as a playable race the sales would have just skyrocketed.
By the way, crocodiles are fine too. But dinosaurs would fit better. People love them, people want them.

The werewolves almost pulled me in, too. I had no real desire to play WoW before then, but… werewolves!

If GW2 hadn’t had charr, I doubt I would have given it a second look. Humans, elves, dwarves… yawn. But when you see something like a charr, wargen, or tengu on the screen, it catches people’s attention. That’s a good thing, and it does help to pull in some more players.