Guild Wars 2

Saelune.5316:

This was part of my logic for voting for Evon. Kiel is a soldier, not a politician. Evon would happily be a council member, he ISNT a soldier. Kiel is gonna be quite bored sitting at her desk while her former comrades get to fight. Its my only solace in having my candidate lose…

An industrialist does not a good politician make, either.

Anyway, if Kiel’s so bored on the council, there is always the possibility that she drops off later.

And do you think that Evon Gnashblade will suck up his defeat and go back to his daily business, or possibly plan the next, bigger coup to get a slice of power-cake?

Either way, we will get more story chapters, and either vote outcome erally could have gone either way.

People have been making a good case against laurels.

I think the result was, buying it with guild commendation or WvW tokens is cheaper. Use your laurels for T6 mats and turn them into gold, or have some fun with them getting the minis, dye kits or whatever else you’re into.

Vol.5241:

They didn’t add Pristine relics because it’s not something people would have stacks of. those that do run fractals every single day since November and are probably in the top 5%

That is your argument? “what people have stacks of”?

People do have stacks of

• anything that ends in -token or -scrap

People don’t have stacks of

• laurels
• Shards of Zhaitan

Just sayin’.

I don’t know why they went for the grid layout instead of a list; probably continuing the trend of large UI elements (see also new achievement list).

I think that fractal pristine relics just ended up not fitting into the grid, but that will bite them in the behinds when new currencies emerge (or have we lost any hope for new permanent dungeons?)

A list would have been better as it could have hosted temporary currencies as well, such as vote tokens, kite fortunes, fortune scraps, zhaitaffy, and all the previous ones. Even weapon tickets are a form of currency.

The layout seems very limiting and the selection arbitrary.

mtpelion.4562:

That whole “fabric inside out” line is just your standard Asuran hyperbole. Their egos are so large, they can’t conceive of a problem they created being of less significance than the problems created by others.

“I wonder what kinds of things would happen if you mixed the Mists with chaos energy…”

“It matters, but we all pretty much know exactly what happened at the Mouth of Torment.
Nobody knows what happened at Thaumanova…yet.”

“To shed some light on my bias, our team brainstormed up a bunch of fractals for you guys to pick from and then we settled on the best two. I got pretty excited about Thaumanova, given what we intend for it to entail so I’m Kiel supporter all the way.”

~ AnthonyOrdon

Lucky.9421:

Do you think we will see a new map?

Do you think we will see new enemies?

For me, these questions are secondary to:

• Do I think we will see an interesting story play out?
• Do I think there will be interesting group mechanics?
• Do I think the fractal will require or reward teamplay?

My priorities, in order,

1. Interesting stuff happening
2. Interesting back story / lore explained
3. Interesting teamplay mechanics that don’t get boring immediately
   (some of the existing fractals have this and others don’t.)
4. Stuff to do other than fighting
   (buttons to press, a healthy mix of my own skills and environmental elements)
5. Diversity in different paths
   (again, some of the existing fractals are better at this than others)
6. Thorough testing / no bugs
7. Pleasant visuals
8. New achievements
9. New textures and models
10. New types of rewards
11. New types of enemies

(You can see why your suggestive questions probably won’t work on me.)

So, why none of us have the faintest clue about how the reactor fractal will look and feel, let alone how the Abaddon fractal would have looked and felt, it is my opinion, based on my own assumptions (obvisouly), that some of these points will be covered better by one fractal than the other:

1. pro Thaumanova
   (I find reality bending more interesting than gods. It’s a personal thing.)
2. equal
3. pro Thaumanova
4. pro Thaumanova
   (for these two, assessment based on existing math element / logical puzzles / abundance of experimental environmental weapons in Asuran events, and the Aetherblade mid-boss fight.)
5. no idea
6. equal chance
7. pro Abaddon
   (Maybe? Remains to be seen. “New” does not equal “prettier”.)
8. equal chance
9. pro Abaddon
10. equal chance
11. pro Abaddon

For me, it was an obvious choice. Sorry that we all can’t have the fractal you preferred. I would have taken both if I could have, but we had to pick, and I made my choice after careful deliberation based on my own priorities.

Edit: I forgot to add “humour” to the list of things I enjoy in fractals, and again, I think Thaumanova has the edge here.

First of all, choosing your class.

There’s no “right” or “wrong” profession for any race.

• Charr warrior: obvious. (Most likely legion: Blood Legion.)
• Charr guardian: some people think that this combination doesn’t make any sense, since modern Charr (Flame Ledion aside) are pretty much done with religion. ANet have stated though that guardians “run” on their faith, and that this does not have to equal faith in a god/gods; it can also be faith in your warband. (Most likely legion: any.)
• Charr elementalist: they still exist outside of the Flame Legion. Magic is useful. Charr utilize it. In NPCs, these are rarer. (Most likely legion: Blood or Ash.)
• Charr engineers: since Charr are so much into their cogs and sprockets, one of the more mainstream choices. (Most likely legion: Iron Legion.)
• Charr thief: I’ve seen a few, and don’t see it clash with anything. The entire ash legion is devoted to sneaky intel. (Most likely legion: Ash Legion.)
• Charr ranger: Rox, one of the most prominent Charr NPCs, is a ranger. Charr are depicted training pets like devourers. (Most likely legion: any.)
• The two classes that I’m not seeing amongst Charr that often are probably necromancer (which strikes me as weird as they’ve lived with and fought against Ascalonian ghosts for so long now; I think it would be logical for some Charr to explore this further) and mesmer (even though that would fit in well with an Ash Legion background).

So if you would like to play an engineer, go right ahead, but if you find out that another class is more fun to play for you at this point, that choice will be totally valid, too.

As for the names, yes, last names are commonly compounds of a word that a Charr picks for their personality and a word that they have in common with the rest of their warband.

However, if you play through your personal story, you will soon see why that really isn’t as relevant as you might think right now. Some Charr go by a nickname only (this includes NPCs: “Ajax”, “Thraex the Vicious”).

Examples for names:

• My Charr elementalist is called Zeera Cinderwind (formerly of Warband Cinder)
• Boyfriend’s Charr ranger is called Maru Boxhide (he is a fan of Maru the cat; not sure he had a specific warband in mind).

The recipe requires a level 400 artificer. It requires 5 Orichalcum Ingots, 1 Master Tuning Crystal, 1 Charged Lodestone, and 75 Watchwork Sprockets.

Does anybody here think that this is woth it? Any single one person at all?

So more “hot air” and less “balloon”, then.

Evans.6347:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

The problem with the radiant set is that it doesn’t really go with anything else in game. At least I haven’t seen anyone with a set that included radiant parts and looked… good.

As for the hellfire set, I just can’t get excited over more flaming armour parts in addition to the ones already in game. I do feel someone at ANet’s has a bit of a fire fetish.

I disagree.

Admittedly the best effort that I’ve seen so far.

I still think the glowy things stand out way too much (which, in my opinion, still looks… stupid).
And then the whole thing about the majority of classes wearing medium or light armour, and the things can’t be died, etc. etc.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

My questions to other players: What do you think of this situation?

I think that it was handled poorly.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

What do you think Arenanet should do about it?

For the future, I would prefer something like this.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Crown Pavillion seemed very exciting to me as a new end-goal for this game. One that would be driven by skill and not by mindless farming. I’m not super hardcore, so I’ll probably not be able to complete it under a month, nor would I want to. I want to take my time and appreciate it, and learn and improve at my own pace. And I’m sure there are many others like me. Slowly mastering the combat through fun and diversified content is far more interesting than spending that very time farming rares by auto-attacking world bosses, or farming materials by aoeing mindless mob waves. It’s also a reward akittens own, as I would feel I have further mastered this game, and have an acchievement and a mini-pet to show it off. Still good for those who like to rush out content, but certainly that’s not the way many others have most fun.

I absolutely agree.

I have no hope right now to be one of the elite 5% of the player base who can beat this content in four weeks, and I’m not sure why I would even put myself through this.

So I created this in the suggestions subforum: Permanent solo arena with gradient difficulty

Araziel.7201:

Mounts that are cosmetic have zero effect on the game.

My FPS during group events says otherwise.

Some players want more challenging content – I get this. Some players don’t feel they’re good enough and want to learn, or to test out builds – wonderful.

How about am instanced solo arena where you can go through various levels of increasing difficulty boss fights?

(Sort of what fractals are for dungeons / parties of 5.)

• It should be permanent, so people have the time to learn.
• It should be free, so people have the chance to repeat it over and over and improve their own gameplay.
• It should be private so people can go through there without an entire queue of other players watching them fail miserably. Or maybe people in your party could watch you, but if you wanted privacy, you could go in without a party.
• Levels should be character-based / soulbound,
• If you wanted to attach special rewards, achievements or titles to some of the difficulty levels, go right ahead. (Although I personally don’t think it necessary.)

I think there is a market for this. I would definitely go for this myself, to see how far I can push myself. It would also add a bit of end-game for those who so desperatly want it (if I understand the term end-game right).

It is sort of close to what I imagine the Queen’s gauntlet to be like, just permanent, not time-gated, without mockery from the spectator ranks, and possibly infinite levels for people who like to push themselves further and further.

So this content is temporary AND difficult, again.

Do ANet never look at my Venn diagrams I post on here?

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/84325/Untitled-2.png

:’-(

According to Dulfy’s preview, unless I’ve missed something, we only get to accompany dignitaries TO the balloons… not ride the balloons ourselves. I might be wrong.

The problem with the radiant set is that it doesn’t really go with anything else in game. At least I haven’t seen anyone with a set that included radiant parts and looked… good.

As for the hellfire set, I just can’t get excited over more flaming armour parts in addition to the ones already in game. I do feel someone at ANet’s has a bit of a fire fetish.

Knight.6914:

Anyone willing to help at EU?

Look two posts up?

Villious.8530:

Probably one of the drawbacks of pumping out content at such a high rate.

Flame & Frost had it, both for turning in Audio logs and for turning in mementos.

Why they didn’t just re-use the code already in the game is… well… a complete mystery to me.

I would love to see it painted and wielded

But I’d hurry. A new chapter, with new gem store items, is scheduled to start… tomorrow.

Onshidesigns.1069:

First F-U

Stay classy, man.

Within a map (i.e. all the way up to the “portal” that connects a map with the next one) I don’t see why it couldn’t be just… a balloon ride?

• The balloon would follow a fixed path over areas that you can also walk through, so you wouldn’t be able to jump out and on top of things that you’re not supposed to walk on.
• The engine already supports this: a balloon ride is not different from character movement under water.
• The balloon wouldn’t go up very high (i.e. would stay closer to the ground than the steam ogre platform or that weather-based jumping puzzle) so you can enjoy the sights from up there in real time, no cinematics needed
• And once you hit the border of the map, boom, loading screen (same as always) and the loading screen could even take you directly to Divinity’s reach.

And voila, enjoy the sights.

What I’m saying is: there’s no technical reason or limitation that I can see that would force balloon ride to be lame.

With the addition of Braham’s armour to the gem store, I’ve heard several people ask about Braham’s mace and shield to be made available again for a short time. Now people are trying to complete their sets.

I dislike the idea of mounts in general, as I don’t think we need more clutter in GW2, and boss fights already make me drop to 5 fps, and minis are bad enough.

That being said, if they were so impractical that people would actually use them in moderation, I’d be up for it. As I explained here: Sauntering into the Sunset

In that case, I think some mounts could be fun, like

• a golem for my Asura (more of a transform, really)
• an incredibly slow Dolyak

Both of these would also work for racial mounts. That being said, I’m not a fan of racial limitations in general. My human loves Dolyaks more than any norn would.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Players should be able to complete all PvE dailies in the same zone.

Says who?

Where does that expectation come from? Has anyone at ANet ever even mentioned something along those lines? Or are you simply annoyed that you don’t get points for 3-4 separate daily categories with a single kill?

I don’t see your point at all.

If I can combine two dailies into one, I generally will (i.e. if the dailies are “aquatic slayer” and “krytan killer” I’ll probably go after some barracudas in Kryta) but I see these overlaps as happy accidents. It is pretty clear to me that the dailies were not meant to concentrate the entire population in one place, or else they would have implemented the rotation that way.

To answer the initial question,

yes, I am somewhat impressed when I see people wielding legendary weapons, because I assume that they have put a lot of effort into getting them. Do I admire them for it? Not really. Being impressed and admiring someone is not the same.

To explain this a little further, am I impressed with what top athletes do with their bodies, or some classically trained musicians? Absolutely. Would I trade my own life for theirs? Doing exactly one thing with my life, to the extreme? Nah. I’m happy doing one thousand things and not shining brightly at any one of them, but it does allow me to do many, many things instead of just few things, and make many more experiences.

I am impressed, but I don’t envy them. And I definitely don’t think they’re better at life, or in general, better people, so I don’t admire them either.

I feel the same about legendaries. Good on you if you have them, and I like to look at you wielding your weapon, and I think to myself, crab, you must have put in so many hours for this. Do I think you’re the better player, or in any other way more awesome, no, not really. Would I trade places with you? If I really wanted a legendary so badly, I’d put in the effort and get one. So, no.

Faowri.4159:

Considering cross-region play was a promise made before release (“play with whoever you want no matter where they’re from!” etc.), I like to hope they’ll revisit it at some point. I was really disappointed when this promise was broken.

As someone with gaming friends all over the world, I strongly agree with this.

Right now, I can’t play with half the people from my old guild because they’re on EU servers and I’m on NA servers. If I switch to EU, I lose access to all my friends from the other guild (all of who migrated to NA servers) as well as any friends I’ve made since. And they’re in the same position.

As it stands, the worldwide GW2 community is divided into two separate realms that can never interact with each other, ever.

It sucks, and I wish it’d go away.

Is there any NPC out there that you’re not fed up with? There must be!

My favourite:
___________________________________

I really, really love the Asura researcher at the reactor entrance: “When the reactor blew, the world was turned inside out. Some things will never be the same…”

To me, wonderful voice acting. Such emotion, such regret. No matter how often I hear him say it, it never gets boring.

I wish he had a name. And a back story. Is that remorse? Maybe he even was with the Inquest at the time?
Hm, maybe when (if) the reactor fractal comes. (One can dream )
___________________________________

What is your favourite?

IC discussion, because I found this bit quite interesting to read:

sariaru.2378:

2. The point of the vote is to make a trade agreement with the Zephyrites. Trade agreement. Trade. This is clearly Evon’s forte, and as such he is the logical option.

Except that we all know that Gnashblade will screw over the Zephyrites at the first opportunity, endangering any diplomatic progress made up to that point.

Honesty, reliability and trust are the basis of a solid, longstanding cooperation.

We’re not voting on who will be the mediator in the trade negotiations with the Zephyrites: we’re voting on a permanent seat of the council of Lion’s Arch. Dishonest people don’t belong in positions of political power.
_______________

I agree that Ellen Kiel was doing a decent job in the Lionguard, and maybe better than she would on the Captin’s council (although none of us know that yet) but she already gave that up when she was appointed captain of an airship. It doesn’t look like she will, or can, go back on duty.

And the last thing I’m going to say is this: I absolutely trust Magnus the Bloodyhanded’s judgement. He wants Kiel on the job? He probably has good reasons. A vote for Kiel is a vote for Magnus.

You’re disheartened because you think that I should vote for Gnashblade because you want the Abaddon fractal? Erhm… okay.

I vote for Kiel for anumber of reasons, and none of them have anything to do with her being human, pretty (which is in the eye of the beholder, really), or female.

One of these reasons is that I am genuinely more interested in Thaumanova. Not that I need to justify this.

And players who don’t even play fractals have every right to vote for their own reasons.

Nobody owes you a vote for your candidate that you chose because of your reasons. If we did, it wouldn’t be a vote.

panzer.6034:

Raine.1394:

Frankly, I don’t know how to better state it, so I will attempt it once more. If you can watch the dev livestream for the current content and not understand that it is an extended platformer, you are unfamiliar with gaming genre. That’s it, pure and simple. Living story content should not be defined by a niche element which some players will love and some will hate. This is an MMO with a diverse player base. You want the core game to appeal across that wide diversity and the living story to be told in the broadest possible way. This should be straightforward stuff for any experienced gamer.

Sure there is platforming in the current update, but your original claim was that voting was “gated”, which is completely absurd. You don’t even have to hit the space bar to JUMP ONCE, to get to the voting! You don’t have to enter any instanced mini game or do anything that any player with enough skill to aim a simple AOE can’t accomplish.

You might as well claim that everything in Lion’s Arch is gated content because you have to figure out how to aim your character into walking toward an asura gate to get there. You’re essentially saying that something is gated from people who cannot perform the most rudimentary function of character control and pushing a key to activate an AOE, and if that is the case for some players, then they have bigger issues because the rest of the game is basically unplayable to them.

That’s not entirely true. The new movement skills (all of them based on the SAB jumping mushrooms) cause massive lag issues for some players, while the rest of the game is super duper playable for them. For reference, look at any threads (and youtube videos…) posted by players at the beginning of the Bazaar update dealing with lag: just some eight pages in google

However, all the voting, mini-game access, story instances, etc. etc. can easily be reached from the upper waypoint which you only have to reach ONCE – be it using the lightning pull skill, a mesmer portal between the two waypoints, or a one-time VPN connection.

So, no, I don’t see this content as platforming-gated at all, however I do think that ANet messed up big time with the implementation of the new extended jumping mechanics and that created some pretty big problems for a lot of players (including 99% of the Oceanic community).

I love the SAB with all my heart, but the jumping mushrooms skill lag can go burn in a fire.

I’ve edited the post with some links to threads asking about specific songs, for ease of access.

Captain Bren. “We’re about to be overrun.” No, we aren’t. “They come from the shadows.” You don’t say?

I can say one thing for Captain Bren: he makes me appreciate Trahearne

Esplen.3940:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Please correct me if I’m wrong!
But I think that this is how it works:

Every weapons skill, one 1-hand or 2-hand weapons, has cooldown. Every weapon skill only uses the sigil of the weapon that was used. Every weapon skill uses one sigil. If there were two sigils on your two-handed weapon, you’d be using 2 sigils for each one of your 5 skills.

What does add up is the additional “+ stats” enchantments I think, which would give two-handed weapons an edge. But: two-handed weapons deal greater base damage than one-handed ones. Now you say, “yes, but if you have TWO of them, the damage adds up!” … but it doesn’t, as long as you can’t fire your two weapons at the same time.

Is this correct?

Both your sigils apply to all skills, if you have two weapons.

I did not know that! In that case… yeah. I’m with you, OP.

• Spear and harpoon is the same
• Speargun and harpoon gun is the same

People mix up speargun with harpoon all the time. (Me included!)

So it’s not really a typo, but honestly I don’t know why synonyms were introduced to the game at all, and then also used inconsistently. I wish they’d just keep “spear” and “harpoon gun” and chuck the other two out, and no player would ever be confused, and everybody would be happy.

Please correct me if I’m wrong!
But I think that this is how it works:

Every weapons skill, one 1-hand or 2-hand weapons, has cooldown. Every weapon skill only uses the sigil of the weapon that was used. Every weapon skill uses one sigil. If there were two sigils on your two-handed weapon, you’d be using 2 sigils for each one of your 5 skills.

What does add up is the additional “+ stats” enchantments I think, which would give two-handed weapons an edge. But: two-handed weapons deal greater base damage than one-handed ones. Now you say, “yes, but if you have TWO of them, the damage adds up!” … but it doesn’t, as long as you can’t fire your two weapons at the same time.

Is this correct?

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

The Bee Queen Dog would like to have a word with you.

<3

I, and everyone I know in-game, loved the SAB and can’t wait for it to return.

BEEDOG!

I created a banking character a few months ago; not because I’d maxed out bank slots, moreso so I had quicker access to the TP and banks by parking a character directly in a trade center. (For reference, Rata Sum’s where it’s at!)

I have her a normal character name, and then also started playing her -_- She’s currently a level 34 mesmer who’s ALSO a banker…

In one way, I am kinda sad. At the beginning of this, I half expected Gnashblade to win, and then I could have sulked and rebelled. Now, in a way, I feel robbed.

But still, go #TeamKiel.

nekodoken.5329:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Good break-down.
I wrote something similar… ish, here

Good breakdown, EnemyCrusher.

pixelpumpkin, I read your link. It seems to me that Living Story has begun to address the issues you spelled out. But people who enjoy LS will continue to enjoy; neutral and rational players will appreciate the improvements; but some people just can’t be satisfied. (Pessimist moment: I don’t think ANet can get shut up 90% critics no matter what they do… Pessimist moment over!)

Yes, I agree with basically all you said. I really think that ANet has been trying out new concepts and mechanisms with each and every release, and generally been moving into the right direction.

The mini-game achievements are a good example of this: where in the past you had to steal 100 crabs, or win 20 games of Dragonball, and then win only ones in Sanctum Sprint… now with Aspect Arena and Southsun Survivor, there are a few achievements that encourage you to try out game mechanism (like headshots or carrying a crystal home) but in general, you get the achievements for just playing the games.

The problem is that the final chapter of the personal story & Zhaitan’s death either hav occurred, are occurring, or will occur in a character’s personal timeline.

Right now, Orr is so vague that it serves as both pre- and post-Zhaitan Orr.

A dedicated post-Zhaitan Orr would have to be unaccessible to characters who haven’t completed their personal story yet – thus dividing the player base. (I’m not personally that bothered, but many players already seem to feel that Orr is too abandoned to do many of the dynamic events.)

And if there was a post-Zhaitan Orr that was slowly healing, should it be easier or harder to adventure on that map? Logic says that it should have fewer risen in it, but that would potentially be robbing more advanced characters of endgame.

So, all sorts of problems.

I would love to see Orr heal, but I don’t know how to achieve this without losing the last illusion of timeline coherence.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Oh, I also love the version at the end. Can’t wait to hear the full song.

n/m, I found it. Beautiful.

Any thoughts on covering the Zephyrite song?

Nice. Very, very, very nice.

Is it available for download anywhere? Suddenly thinking about starting a collection of awesome covers and mixes.

Oh, I also love the version at the end. Can’t wait to hear the full song.

applauds

I don’t want to be greedy, but I love some of the nwe music tracks so much…

… were you thinking of releasing any of these on Soundcloud for us hoarders?

• Southsun Survival
• Zephyrite Song – instrumental
• Swamp Fractal Music
• Instrumental version of Fear Not This Night
• Ebonhawke – Last Stand Shelter’s theme

Good break-down.
I wrote something similar… ish, here

.

I think calling a source not proper enough is inconsequential if not followed up by delivering a properer source.

Jubilee accepted.

Headshots are easy.

1. Right when the event starts, dive for an arrow by the fire. If you get one, pres #4. It’ll aim automatically. There’s enough targets there. You will probably get credit for 1 kill and won’t even know who you were aiming at.

2. Right after that, head to the nearest camp, salvage salvage salvage, and as soon as you pick up an arrow, #4 in the general direction of people. If they’re busy salvaging themselves, they won’t even notice.

But there’s no reason to rush headshots; if you’re going for 2500 points, you’ll get plenty of easy head shots in.

As for points per game, salvage as much as possible in a busy spot, and try to be the first player to die (from weapons, traps, hunger…) right after the end of the grace period (“Now let’s see some bodies drop!”). Collect all blue gloy things. Place traps with #1 skill in front of (not on top of) alive players for 2 points per successful trap.

Seera.5916:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

The dailies cycle through Krytan, Ascalonian, Maguuman and shiverpeaks events (as as the respective “kills” and “veterans” daily achievements); no country gets a special treatment here.

Orr is not part of the rotation for the simple reason that this would alienate new players with characters below level 70. Orr is the only country without a starter zone.
This way, every player can do every daily if they so choose.

A new player can’t do dungeons yet as they probably won’t reach the proper level but they have Dungeon Completion from time to time.

Hmm. Good point.