Guild Wars 2

Rainin.9812:

I agree somewhat with what you are saying. I think there are already a lot of built in challenges that not everyone can complete (legendaries, ascended gear, fractal rewards, etc).

I guess I was more arguing this point about the achievements that used to be available for only a limited time (which is still going to be a problem with holiday event releases). For example, I am a player that likes completing all content made available (which includes all the achievements). When the first Halloween event was released a big piece of the achievements was the Tower of Madness JP. After trying it multiple times and completing all the other achievements I went full force at it. I spent about 22 hours (spread out over a few days) trying to complete it and only got as far as 75% up. That JP is no longer available, the reward at the top isn’t either and probably never will be again.

This is where our points differ. I would be okay with super hard achievements if the opportunity to achieve them was not placed within a limited time. Some people may not be able to complete something in a given amount of time, but still want to try and put the effort toward doing it.. Why punish those people?

I would be okay with the extra hard challenges being placed within this new system where you can try to achieve them as long as you want. I guess my point was coming more from how previous releases were and for holiday content that isn’t always available. But still I don’t think that mass majority of players should have to beat their heads against walls for hours and hours just because they like completing things in their entirety.

This is a big part of why the LS achievements are permanent now, because this was pretty widespread feedback, and I happen to agree with it. If the base content is accessible and “built to win” then by all means give everyone as much time as they want to try and complete the hard and optional stuff.

Asking them to somehow retcon in every achievement, or to make festival achievements permanent is a little unreasonable. Some of those were literally “You showed up during this time on this day” and it wouldn’t make sense to go back and give that out.

Festivals are the same way, I don’t see the value or logic in having wintersday achievements available in august. Festivals go on for long stretches of time, and if you don’t get those achievements you can always try again later. Certain things should definitely be amended, like the pumpkin carving achievement being removed from halloween for no apparent reason (but leaving the pumpkins all over the world) but others reference content that had problems that caused them to change it. Re-adding content that was broken, that they changed because it was broken, so you can get the achievements for doing the old and broken content isn’t a good move, nor would it be a good move to remove those achievement for players that chose to suffer through bad content for them.

I think anet heard the community and made the right move with the new LS achievement setup. They made achievements something that took effort, but they let you have as much time as you want to try and obtain them, and I don’t think they’d change back to the older systems after so much time and effort to build a better achievement system.

I don’t really need to explain this.

Fiontar.4695:

Apparently he can pay to do so. First game I’m aware of that makes you pay them money if you take time away from the otherwise free game play. Seems more likely to drive players from the game than provide any meaningful revenue, but they must think most people still playing are just the kind of cool-aid drinking people who will pay for “free” content they missed.

It’s content that’s designed to play at release.

It’s free content.

Most games with a similar model either let you play the base game for free and pay for the content expansions no matter what. DCUO, LOTRO, and pretty much every single “free with premium content avaliable” MMO do the exact same thing, only they don’t ever give you the ability to get it for free, ever, or play it without buying it by joining a party with someone.

Also, the only part of the content behind the unlock wall is instances, compared to similar games where literally all of the conent from the release is included in the ‘pay us or don’t play it’ model.

It’s not about “drinking the kool-aid” It’s about the fact that pushing content every 2 weeks and giving it away as a free update costs money, and expecting everyone to want to purchase the same microtransactions to pay for that can’t pay the bills as well as asking people the consider microtransactions for the stuff they enjoy.

Some people would never buy minis or skins, but they’d buy story content they missed, or vice versa, and asking them to farm some gold or fork over $2.50USD if they really want the rewards from content they missed when it was free is pretty reasonable.

Do you complain that coffee isn’t free every day because one day a year a shop runs a free coffee promotion? No, you show up at the shop for the free coffee, or you pay for it if you really want it that badly when it isn’t free. This is substantially less costly and easier to get for free, and substantially more expensive to make.

Sebulon.7683:

Well the other living story items are on the laurel merchant, no matter how hard they were to obtain. :S So I wish there was a way to obtain this item too, it doesn’t have to be easy I just want a way to be able to obtain it.

Not all of them though, only the ones that were “guaranteed drops” for their cycles. Most of them were the meta rewards, which were designed so that pretty much everyone had them, or the zeph items that were priced in the zephyrite clearing house model that ensured they were easy to get. The laurel mthod is good for this as those items are now significantly harder to obtain than they were when they were intended as trophies of simply being there as events unfolded. Essentially, they’re antiques and demand a premium from players that want those relics of a bygone era.

The selfless potion was on a separate reward tier, like several of the more rare LS items, which was an item which was purposely made more difficult to get in order to make it more rare.

It’s true that moving forward the LS rewards are more or less permanent additions to the game, so it might feel appropriate to give everyone some kind of access to the whole pool of past rewards as well, but they need to match the requirements in time/effort of their original acquisition. Simple gem store purchases aren’t the right way to go, but adding them to the reward vendor of similar content in the future wouldn’t feel all that out of place.

It feels like there’s an expected timetable internally, that we have to kill mord at the end of the season, and thus have to shoehorn X arc in to Y number of episodes. Why?
It’s not as if an elder dragon is a problem we should expect to solve that rapidly, and there are lingering handing threads all over the world that can be resolved.

Mord tendrils are comitting the same sin as scarlet did in LS1, they’re devices that move the plot forward in a manner that actively prevents telling a satisfying narrative, despite that narrative including interesting characters and side plots.

I think the biconics can be valuable allies, but to date they haven’t been given time to stretch their legs. If we had the opportunity to just spend an episode with each, with minor cameo appearances by others, we could develop them more as friends while also placing our characters more central to the story by filling in for qualities they don’t possess in each case. If we’re going to counterpoint taimi’s intelligence with our strength, we should be the focal point of defending something she’s doing, not one in a group. If we’re going to counterpoint brahams bullheaded nature, we should be the one constantly standing between braham and doing something dumb, not a bystander while someone else does that.

If we got to spend more time developing more personal relationships with these characters they would read a lot better when they were together, and it would make a lot more sense when they defer to us in those situations, because we’ve proven to each on an individual level that we’re qualified for the job, and that we have personal stakes in their individual welfare.

Sure, we’ve done that in the past, but it simply wasn’t enough. If the biconics were handled more like the iconics, where they rarely all arrive on scene at one time but rather work toward common purpose offscreen while we spend time with them as individuals they’d show off why they’re worthy of carrying that plot burden a lot better.

The mission’s we’ve had have been “meet this guy” and afterward we’re all now best friends rather than seend personal arcs that take us from stranger, to acquaintance, to friend.

It’s not the biconic’s fault, it’s the fact they don’t get enough screen time alone from their mutually complementing hive to shine as individuals.

The biggest sin, really, was that the biconics became an adventuring party so easily, without our involvement, and then suddenly decided that we’re in charge. If we’d been more central to forming those relationships (like the rox/braham relationship which we well established through multiple LS1 episodes which REQUIRED our input) then they’d be a lot more believable.

I generally agree with a lot of your points, and this, like the others is at the very least an entertaining read.

However

I don’t think to problem is with the biconics themselves, or their role in the story, it’s with the pacing. This could partially be explained by player reaction to LS1, which was paced so slowly that there was no relevant narrative, but it’s as if we’ve swung the other direction, with so much information happenning each release that the biconics seem artificially important not because of their position in the world or their abilities, but because they make such huge leaps in such short amounts of time.

LS201 was masterfully paced. We met someone, we did a mission which showed a curious disruption in “business as usual” and got some dialogue roughly relating to the story. Then we set off on a complete arc against a minor villain that advancesd a single primary plot thread while hinting at a second, more far-off thread. In mechanics we got a new zone with new events as the bulk of the content.

LS202 went nuts with the pacing, accelerating the plot forward four beats extremely rapidly. Prosperity was destroyed, AND we found the leyline hub (instantly), AND we opened Omadd’s machine. Those are three significant events that could have been their own episodes and been quite fun, whilst building on the new open world content and giving the biconics and our B-roll characters like the residents of prosperity, and the zephyrites, and our new centaur friends time to develop a little. In stead we had to simply accept that taimi located the hub, figured out its defenses, and during that time prosperity was decimated and contact was made with an indigenous population without incident. Then we go off to do two missions with the exact same premise and plot utility, to illustrate that mordremoth’s destroying stuff, of the two, the fort salma mission was the only necessary one for the narrative, while the other mission was pure filler with zero plot utility. Thus, prosperity felt shallow, the zephyrites fell off the story without ceremony, and the centaurs were… well they’re just there as if we’ve been used to them for years.

Fast forward again to LS203 – The plot accelerates even more ludicrously. We have to convince people to attend our summit, which is a great premise for the episode (if we assume the previous plot beats were executed well) but to do so we end up on a laundry list of fetch quests which are again, half filler. The entire norn and asura sequences were unnecessary, and added little to the storytelling. They could have been just as easily done offscreen, or better yet handled well in their own episodes with some unique content. The Charr section had the whole crown and ghost banishing business, which should have been a significant undertaking cut down in size and scope in order to accomodate the filler. I understand nobody feels like they want to do five episodes of convincing people to come to a summit, but I think this was a perfect opportunity to write fully fleshed out race-centric episodes that would have been fun mini-narratives that still felt tied to the main narrative. We could have uncovered and dealt with an icebrood attack on hoelbrak and culminated it in a rousing feat hall declaration of intent. We could have helped the asura uncover some lost research from newly uncovered tunnels at mount maelstrom. These would have been fun episodes that advanced side lore, developed characters, and didn’t feel like rushed filler while still remaining relevant to the plot. In stead we got one such story which was rushed and felt incomplete in order to accomodate two other even more rushed and incomplete stories.

sorudo.9054:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Lytalm.5673:

Please, don’t give me this “1%” argument. I’m pretty sure we can make harder content which is OPTIONNAL whitout being accessible to only the top tier extra skilled player. If I remember correctly, GW1 had pretty difficult content that demanded for coordination, knowing what is going on and preparation. Aka Hard Mode. There was achievements for doing so. No, not everybody was able to do it, but most succeeded and loved it, even if it was a pain in the kitten sometimes.

GW1 hard mode was actually pretty easy. I did all of the hard mode content with heroes. GW2 dungeons seem harder to me than GW1 hard mode, but maybe that’s just a playstyle thing.

that’s because in GW1 dungeons don’t have massive amounts of overpowered enemies, it’s made to balance the open areas with dungeons.
in GW2 you have easier then normal mode in the open world while harder then hard mode in dungeons, you’re also not able to adjust your build like in GW1 to the dungeon.
then again, in GW1 with the right team builds you can take down practically everything, a freedom you just don’t have in GW2.

Actually, the trait system revamp was done specifically to allow them to design encounters and new traits to allow us to adapt builds to content like GW1. Excited to see how far they push it.

Arghore.8340:

At some points i can see why Anet at times just does what pleases them, regardless of the lashes (because no matter what they do there are always lashes to be had so it seems).

You can’t design by comittee, or you end up with purely metrics driven entertainment without a soul. As a designer or artist you have to keep your audience in mind, but you shouldn’t let your audience dictate the end result. if they did, you’d both suffer. You’d end up with a product that you aren’t proud of, that feels unoriginal and forced, and the audience ends up with a product with little metal, emotional, or mechanical challenge that get lambasted as being predictable and derivative.

I think Anet does a good job of searching out community feedback and using it as an important part of their decision making while still retaining firm control of their vision of what GW2 should be. You’re absolutely right, you can’t please everyone nor should you try to. You should try to make the best thing possible, and sometimes your audience does have insights that you agree with (like the story presentation overhaul of the LS from lost shores until now) but ultimately the best designers use feedback as a tool, not an instruction manual.

GuzziHero.2467:

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Shows how closely I pay attention to the LS that I didn’t know Taimi was disabled until I read it here on the forums. But while we are being offended, Marjory’s stereotypical Southern accent and persona seems pretty offensive.

She sounds more like an offcast from Di_ck Tracy to me. More 1920’s Chicago-esque private detective style. Goes with her investigation style too.

Basically, a totally out-of-place anachronism.

To be fair, i don’t think we can apply temporal expectations to GW2, considering asura regularly use laser guns and charr have a fully industrialized civilization. Remember that important characters are supposed to be uncommon individuals, and whatever else there is to say about the biconics, they are certainly uncommon.

I agree that thieves desparately need a proper dodge-based condition clear in the acrobatics line, and that pain response is too situational to be useful. I use a D/D evasion build, and in theory it should be either a high skillcap/high reward single target melee build, or a high sustain low DPS condition build. It would be totally reasonable to make the trait only clear the conditions that fleet of foot does not, and adding torment/freezing removal to fleet of foot (since it’s supposed to remove movement restricting conditions, and is a master trait) thus requiring the thief to take both if he wants full coverage.

my current version of the build, using the new critical strikes trait is a high sustain, hybrid damage build that lacks any sort of meaningful condition reoval, making the dagger auto endurance and deathblossom evade wastes of time. Ideally, if I built for all-evade-tank like I have i’d end up with the same low dps, but I’d be a much more effective bunker as long as I timed my evades properly.

Also traps. The 2 charges idea is one I’ve seen before and it’s still a good one, but another good idea is a traps trait that gives the target a debuff which grants the thief bonus damage/condition damage against that target for a few seconds after they trigger it, maybe call it “opportunity damage” This would allow thieves to make effective trap-based ambush or harassment builds by traiting around them, and open a mechanic for future traits (e.g. when you deal opportunity damage you also apply a bleed or something)

At the very least an “opportunity damage” type system would make traps viable options compared to the other utilities even if you don’t trait around them, and unlike vulnerability it could be a highly effective short term debuff because it only buffs the thief’s damage, rather than his whole team.

Atherakhia.4086:

Tman.6349:

Warriors can perma-regen. Mesmers can create an army of clones. Rangers can always have an pet active. Nerf it all.

Since you’re placing pets on the same tier as stealth, can we trade?

I’d take it for certain thief builds XD Gimme a warthog and you’ve got a deal!

LexiHamster.1609:

So I’m a level 80 Engineer, and the final portion of the battle with Aerin is frustrating me. I do very little damage to him before either being knocked off the platforms or having to jump off in order to heal myself, as he does way more damage to me than I to him. So a ten minutes battle may only get him down to 50% health, and if I die in the meantime I have to start the fight over.

Am I doing something wrong here? Or missing a shortcut?

You’re forgetting to move out of circles and move so that his grenades don’t constantly hit you with all of them. It’s pretty easy to not get knocked off. Also, if you need to retreat just back up off the platform to the ledge/rock behind it. He doesn’t throw bombs back there, and you can get back to the platform without using crystals or going below.

You can avoid the majority of his damage by just staying on the move, where usually only one grenade (or none if you’re good at baiting/juking projectile attacks) will hit you, and staying out of the big orange circles.
There’s also a secret stash of instant-respawn blue crystals you can steal from the inquest you can access as soon as the sun crystals start spawning (you have to do this for one of the achievements) if you have problems staying on the platform. You can get that and drop it next to the platform and you’ll always have a fresh blue crystal to instantly jump back up every time you fall off without relying on crystal respawn timers or walking across the room to get back up the ramp.

Good luck!

Eleri Tezhme.3048:

If post episode you go into Ascalon and there actually are no ghosts, and the hearts and NPCs and such have been updated to reflect that fact, I’ll be seriously impressed.

If they do it like Orr, and the only parts of the area that are free of the curse are instanced story, and the open world Ascalon still has ghosts and people going along as if nothing has changed, then bleh.

True Living Story makes real changes to the world, even if that means new players experience something completely different than old players.

They did an okay job of it in kessex I think, and it would be a lot less weird to have ghosts in the charr PS and none in the open world than the other way around.

Sagat.3285:

It seems the problem comes down the weapon set. It’s true that D/P uses stealth for it’s for it’s damage with or without SA and the initiative cost to HS through BP with no guarantee of your enemy being in range becomes annoying and most likely leading to gap close with Shadow Shot or using it to remain in stealth to survive.

Reducing or removing initiative gain while getting in stealth will affect x/D specs since CnD is predictable and heavy costing which comes down to another problem : not everyone should have to go Trickery to make for it thus justifying the initiative gain entering or staying in stealth. Glass thief has to be possible with a ideal sustain system for a medium armor class but judging the lack of AoE damage on the sets stealth seems to make up for it or forcing you to have SB for retreat in case of danger.

The dark field idea on BP can only work with a high DPS combo finisher projectile but Shadow Shot doesn’t serve that role. Another idea could be making one source of damage more rewarding then the other which should be basic : AA and the others skills. Having no CD on weapon skills is unique to us but has biased effect.

Keep in mind that the “tank” thief should still be possible as it is on any class.

This is why I reccommend changing black powder to a projectile block/dark field rather than pulsing blind. it means you can effectively use it against intelligent opponents that would walk out of it, you can add blinds to your HS for excellent finishing potential, use it to support allies and cover stomps better, get enhanced sustain from headshot or daggerstorm, and get much better mileage out of it in its intended role as a damage mitigating defensive field rather then just using it for stealths and stupid people.

Combine this with better damage on D/P 3 and you’d have a set that could be built a lot more glassy and trait either evasion or stealth and still have good sustain, and have a nice bag of support and chasing ability.

Shinjo.6092:

Removing the smoke field in d/p will essentially turn d/p into a weak melee version of p/p. you lose your main source of damage because you can’t stealth for backstabs, and you have no evades on that weapon set. So basically the only thing you can do is gap close and maybe hope that your opponent is stupid enough to stand in black powder while you try to auto attack them to death. Is this what you guys are proposing?

Expecting every thief set to be a full burst DPS set is critically flawed thinking. D/D is that set. D/P is, looking purely at the skills, a harassment and survivability spec built for chasing and finishing targets. It’s got two gap closers, a spammable interrupt, and what should be a powerful defensive field that is in reality a really horrible defensive field.

We’re suggesting making that defensive field in to something worth a kitten so that P/D actually has a unique purpose that doesn’t rely on abuse of unintuitive and broken crap like “look at the floor and hit 5>2 to stealth, then make sure not to use your two gap closers and in stead run to your target to backstab”

The change that I proposed gives D/P the ability to actually effectively fulfill its role as the king of all stompers. in fact, adding more damage to D/P 3 would be a great idea to go along with said change, making it a more effective DPS source to get the target in to the sweet spot for heartseekers.

Does that make more sense?

+1 for more human beards

Kleopas Hark.4076:

It would be interesting if rytlock attempts to lift the curse, but fails because he isn’t an heir to Doric. This in turn could cause tensions if he has to go to Queen Jenna for aid and thus basically bumping into Logan.

We all know how much Rytlock looks down at Logan because of the Snaff incident. Going as far as to openly mock Logan for being weak. Fancy the tables being turned and he is now the one crawling back to Logan for aid.

They made up during CoF story mode and are better friends than ever before as of the current timeline.

Here’s the cutscene/story version without the gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS3MTBPLh4o

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Lévis.5489:

Anet writers ignoring their own game’s lore again. You need Sohothin, Magdaer and a descendant of Doric to break the curse.

That was based on a legend that is yet to be proven. According to Charr’s account of the Foefire, King Al struck the ground in desperation to kill Charrs and cursed them in the process. Thus, Rytlock thinks it would be the same way, striking the ground, to release the curse…maybe.

I would like to see Rytlock summons the Prince instead…it would be very interesting seeing the ghostly Prince confronting his ghostly dad.

In an epic quest in which he suicidally runs in to large packs of enemies in a mad rush for an alternate weapon that… makes it drizzle a little.

Side note:
A ghostly stormcaller that the costantly reliving rurik blows every hour would be hilarious. Add some charr nearby with earmuffs and umbrellas who constantly complain about all the racket, and an event that makes it stop raining for a little bit.

Aethelbert.1497:

shinreigari.7318:

FrostSpectre.4198:

I’m guessing every new Charr player after this update might have new story beginning…

If the ghosts are removed that is…

That’s exactly why i doubt the ghosts will ever be removed.

Too many story lines, dialogues, heart quests and whatnot mentioning ghosts. It would require a huge effort to rewrite all of these.

That’s exactly why I doubt they will destroy LA for good.
Too many storylines, dialogues, vistas, not to mention NPCs. It would require a huge effort to rewrite all of those.

… OH WAIT. They did.
See my point?
Above that, old LA still works when you run through your personal story there. Which is, canonically, 2 years ago.

Actually, the personal story instances use new LA now. This is due to some issues they’re still trying to rework for replaying instances that take place in world zones, as currently the game just clones the existing map for them. This is also why prosperity is covered in vines for the LS2-1 episode now, despite having been vine-free at release.

Also, the main reason they did what they did to Kessex was so that the zone had a unique identity. They were’nt happy with kessex as before the tower it was basically just queensdale 2.0, and kind of boring.

Now the remnants of the tower and toxic alliance give that zone a unique identity, which was intended. It’s probably the only place that will experience a permanent reminder of LS1 in the world, as they’ll eventually rebuild or clean up LA.

Zhaneel.9208:

The trailer looks interesting! I’m not sure what freeing the Ghosts of Ascalon will do, other than directly benefit the charr since they have control over the majority of the lands.

I’m not sure how Rytlock could accomplish this without the help of a human leader of some sort, like Queen Jenna. To the Ascalonians, the Charr are their ancient enemies. Even if he gives back the sword, would that really be enough to appease them? How can the ascalonians approve of the charr occupying their territory? Maybe the Pale Tree will provide more insight into this.

The ghosts don’t fight the Charr because they hate them consciously. They fight them because they are stuck in time, and think they are still fighting the Charr/Ascalon war. This is why they think all non-ghosts are enemy invading Charr. This curse is what keeps the ghosts bound to ascalon, rather than freeing them to move on.

Character development is central to the act of storytelling.

They’re supposed to be kitten so that they can grow through their experiences, since the story is about them as much as it is about us or the world.

History is incorrect! Doric was a Charr!

I heard mass effect also invented dialogue, space ships, and doin’ it.

citypigeon.6358:

Don’t kill off Trahearne, he’s cute. And he has potential.

Also it would create a total mess of the personal story. Not everyone has actually finished it by now, and those people maybe playing the living story instead.

The living story is after the personal story in the official timeline. Unless you make an effort to “fast forward” you won’t get to the LS until you finish it.

If the rightful human heir to ascalon recognizes rytlock as the rightful king, this might be enough to kickstart that magic as well. This would explain why he hadn’t done it sooner, because Kryta has been working with the Black Citadel on that peace process for a long time, and the true rightful heir of ascalon could have been any number of people in ebohhawk or DR, since humans currently recognize a krytan, rather than an ascalonian, as queen.

Thus, you’d have to figure out who the ascalonian human heir was, and if they were like “Hey, this guy is king now” that might be enough.

minbariguy.7504:

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

I think too many people don’t understand my goal:
I DONT want them to change ALL achievements, I just want 1 (or more if they want to) achievement that is really difficult even for the hardcore players.
Everyone else just gets everything how it is.
TY

Edit: and around 15% of the players are with me

Ah, there we go. I wasn’t sure what to think of this thread until that was clarified for me. Now that it is…basically, I’m with you.

I’m a terrible player. Not very skilled at all. Probably couldn’t do many of the achievements even as they are now, to be honest (but I haven’t really tried, either; just not my thing). If you were saying that all achievements should be cranked up to a level that you would find challenging, I’d give that a big “NO” vote.

But yes, I agree that there should be time and resources enough to throw the occasional uber-challenge out there for the people who like that sort of thing. Like, all three of you (I kid, I kid!).

I do think that ANet has to be mindful of the kind of rewards they give out for really difficult achievements, though. It should be something nice that players can display to show that they’ve done it, but not something " argh, so freaking cool!!!" that the majority of players who can’t perform at that level are destined never to have. That only creates resentment and more resistance to the idea of elite and challenging content. For example, I thought the Liadri mini was fine. When I see it, I know someone beat her, but I’m not sitting there seething that resources were used to create something so desirable that I’ll never have.

OP, maybe you can start a new thread somewhere with suggestions about what kinds of things make content difficult for you. Someone mentioned that it isn’t just a question of bosses with more DPS and a bigger health pool, but rather a question of interesting and different mechanics that challenge the player. Give ANet some ideas of the kinds of mechanics you would find both challenging and fun.

Good luck!

Honestly, I’d be happy with titles for achievements like this, and a hefty chunk of AP. Titles are quick and easy to implement (It’s another string entry in a database) and AP rewards are things all players will eventually have access to on a long enough timeline anyway.

Though, a shinier version of a story related skin might be a nice nod as well. Like, say for this one it could have been your choice of a shiny polished version of the new weapon skins or something.

Ronin.7381:

Ronin.7381:

For Eir’s part, I’m thinking they’re hinting that Jormag might be next. That Braham may be the one to break the tooth at the Finale or early in Season 3 if not in the coming episodes.

Bah! That’s right, Eir took Alderburn’s Magdaer sword. Hence her presence in the episode. Though they show a hint of what looks like Frostgorge Sound in the upper North West Corner, if I’m not mistaken. Maybe she hid it away for safe keeping or it was stolen, I wonder – unless if Eir is actively patrolling those parts, we find her, bring her back to Hoelbrak, and she reunites with Braham.

I thought she went home after the Zhaitan fight? Last I remember seeing her she was hanging out in heolbrak trying to deal with the refugee problem. Did she go off on an adventure after? I assumed she’d be there carving statues and whining about her old lady problems.

Donari.5237:

I want more Lord Faren. I had such hopes for him in the beginning, and we have indeed gotten more of him in the LS than any other starter buddy.

Beyond him, I’d love to have all 5 racial starter buddies showing up. Maybe only in the PS parts of the LS, since character creation choices determine just who you have (hmmm, guess Human Street Rats would have to see Riot Alice, and she IS in Dry Top).

They also brought back my BFF Riot Alice (from the human streetrat story) for a cameo in Prosperity. She’s a crafty one, as she seems to have fled prosperity like a sane person and not been killed by vines.

I’d like to see those funny talking pact engineers (the Charr and Asura) from the PS make another appearance.

Arghore.8340:

@PopeUrban, we do not know that for a fact, the Human’s attribute the ‘Necro’ powers to Grenth, as they are related to the underworld. Aka. they come with the office. But we do not know for sure that even though Grenth sits in the office, technically the powers come from a magical plain that still sees Dhuum as it’s representative.

Some of this can be deducted from the Lore of Dhuum, who is said to grow stronger with every death…

So, I were to say, there is the chair that rules over the underworld and the powers that come with it, and there is the representative that is ‘supposed’ to sit on it, and the one that is ‘currently’ (or at least during the time of the gods) sitting on it, and exercises the powers that come with the chair. Like I said earlier, this is a definition question and not one that can be solved by clashing opinions.

In regards to Malchor btw. If Dwayna was Grenths mother, then do you think what I’m thinking ?

That’s just it, we’re not certain the powers originate from the underworld, only that they answer to the sphere of death. The underworld isn’t the be all end all afterlife, but rather a plane that the gods of death chose to send some souls to. Necromancers can assemble minions and use corpses from any living thing, yet all living things don’t end up in the underworld. Humans, by and large, end up there, but some get to go to the hall of heroes. All the other races of tyra (that existed in canon at the time the zone was created) had no presence there. No dwarf spirits, or forgotten, or Charr, etc.

I contest that necromantic powers and thus “power over death” doesn’t originate from the underworld, but rather the underworld was a plane created with those powers.

At the very least, without any mechanical changes, it would be nice to see the steal cooldown while you have an item. We’re pretty good at “feeling” the cooldown, but it’s still long enough that it’s hard to get an exact sense of when steal will be ready again.

Atherakhia.4086:

There’s nothing inherently wrong with stealth in this game. The issue is how often Thieves can stealth and the mechanics behind obtaining stealth. There’s also a lack of counters to stealth.

Take dagger off-hand for example. Nothing wrong with it overall (hitting walls and timing cnd to the fraction of a second withstanding). Most don’t complain about it and it’s more of a skill based weapon overall. Contrast this to Pistol offhand with its leap finisher and pulsing blind field and all the problems it creates.

On top of this you have the initiative system that is supposed to be a limiting factor but regens so quickly that most thieves can get by ignoring the mechanic entirely and just spamming a button until it eventually works.

IMO…

Remove the bulk of initiative regen traits.
Change Pistol 5 by either (these aren’t necessarily ideal options)
-Make it a dark field instead of smoke.
-Make smoke leap finishers blind or weakness.
-Swap Dark and Smoke leap finishers.

With these changes stealth use would be far more tolerable imo but would also leave the Thief fairly weak or, worse still, simply push everyone into the ‘no stealth’ sword+whatever sets which are already dominating the game (which are very powerful largely because initiative regen is so high). Chances are the Thief would need to be compensated. How? I honestly don’t know…

Traps and venoms that don’t suck, and maybe traits that can do auto-venoms/traps for more build diversity?

Honestly, I feel like this is one of the better answers, limiting our ability to combo-stealth and replacing it with something more survivable. Without combo stealths, the stealth builds are still quite viable as a stealth defense. I generally use P/D or D/D stealth builds if I’m playing stealth, and find that I never feel pressured to slot smoke fields for survivability.

Currently I’m playing evasion/malice D/D and I use shadow refuge more often for the dark field than the stealth. If I get teamed up with a well necro I’m practially invincible as I combo a ton of heals with deathblossom, dancing dagger and shortbow auto Initiative and the thief’s several sources of stacking on hit heals make them really great at using dark fields for sustain, and giving them more dark fields on shorter cooldowns would provide an interesting option.

It also might be a good idea to rework black powder shot from a pulsing blind field to a single shot blind+projectile blocking dark field. This would make it synergise much better with more primary weapons while limiting spammability of stealth on D/P, yet still allowing D/P to be viable as a hit and run set, while not allowing it to spam stealth more effectively than the more risky and balanced D/D stealth specs.

Basically, if BPS worked this way you could:

Sustain better in P/P by unloading through it.
Make D/P less reliant on stealth.
Use it exactly the same to cover yourself with S/P
Have a powerful support tool for group fights on all */P builds

Assassin X.8573:

PopeUrban.2578:

You’re still not getting it though, in the example of dhuum, he’s not a “god” any more,

---

In truth, the six humans gods as we know them could have all come from very different places, races, and planes, and in effect have been the earliest known example of an adventuring party. We can’t know the specifics because they either aren’t comprehensible to humans, or humans have been made to believe that they are not. We don’t know what they look like, or if they even have corporeal appearances as all renderings of them are of humanized aspects and interpretations.

1st point. Dhuum is very much still a god. Unlike the father of Balthazar and Menzies who is presumed to have been killed by Balthazar. Balthazar ended the existence of the previous god, therefore that god no longer exists and is therefore no longer a god. Grenth did not kill Dhuum. He only overthrew Dhuum and imprisoned Dhuum within the Underworld. That is like saying my $1.00 bill is no longer a $1.00 bill because i have placed it inside of my wallet. its still a $1.00 as it exists inside or outside of a wallet.

2nd point. Avatars of the gods were made present as of nightfall in gw1. Avatars are defined as “incarnate in human form”. Wether or not the humans percieve them that way or if that is how the gods chose to represent themselves to humans does not matter. The representation in human form (i choose to think the latter) shows us what they look like.

You obviously didn’t read what you quoted. Dhuum didn’t retain his office, or the powers he held after being deposed. It wasn’t that they just imprisoned a fully-functional old crual god of death in the underworld. They replaced him, stripped him of “godly” title and powers, and THEN locked him in the underworld because he’s still a crafty and dangerous dude.

To use your analogy, they didn’t put the dollar bill in the wallet. They undid the entire dying process of the dollar and THEN put it in the wallet. It stopped being a dollar before it got in there.

As to your second point, Avatars of the gods are human interpretations, like the various human paintings and statues of them. The gods do not literally enter a dervish and become flesh. They empower the dervish as their champion. Human avatar forms look the way they do because they are humans In fact GW2’s entire Malchor’s leap lorescape makes sure the reinforce that fact: Malchor went INSANE because he say what dwayna looked like, but despite his best efforts couldn’t translate what he saw in to a sculpture. He killed himself.

It’s possible he’s pulling an aragorn here.
Just use the ghost army on promise you’ll free them after.
Of course, i’m not sure the ascalon ghost army is lucid enough to understand their situation. They always seem to be stuck in time, unable to understand that the living aren’t their ancient Charr enemies.

He obviously wouldn’t be doing it just to be a cool guy, should be interesting to see what leads up to this.

I was happy to see they were okay. They’re more adorable than a puppy explosion in a teddy bear factory. Why all the hate? Their only crime is being quaggans in loooooooove.

Lupini.6938:

Sidebar: IMHO, bringing the ADA into this conversation is a bit over the top.

Respectfully, I don’t think the aspect mechanics are as popular with the game population as they are with this forum population.

Outside of this forum, I hear a lot of less than stellar comments about the use of aspects. The players weren’t actually polled on increasing the use of aspects. To me it appears this mechanic was added to the general environment dependent on comments here in the forums. Most people come here to praise, and a very small percentage of the player population even bother with these forums. The rest of the time people just live with what they don’t like, because, yes, we ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND that the game can’t cater to everyone. We’re used to just living quietly with our difficulties and seeing those as additional challenges.

A few more seconds on the aspects…honestly, can those of you that say these jumps are relatively easy would have even noticed if the crystals lasted 20 instead of 15? If the jumps are already simple, then those folks shouldn’t even care if a few more seconds are added. It won’t affect your play at all.

Also respectfully, The only place I’ve heard complaints abut them is on the forums. In mapchat and /say people either seem to be enjoying themselves or laughing at themselves for missing a jump.

The aspects already last twice as long as it takes to complete the basic navigation jumps though, and even my most jumping-inept guildmates have managed to get everywhere but the achievement-related “this is supposed to be hard” areas without much trouble.

It’s really anet’s call here, but my personal feeling is that it’s already really, really easy to use them for basic zone navigation.

I agree. If it’s possible to treat them as bundles it would feel a lot more intuitive for combat.

It would also open up that 5th slot for more aspect abilities.

Crossaber.8934:

warrior shout is about offensive support.

I rather see an elite shout that falls into the same direction. I think an elite shout “Charge!” that grant nearby allies quickness for 4 sec, swiftness for 20 sec, 90sec CD would be neat.

Charge might be a neat addition, but it’s kind of boring mechanically as an elite to “just hand out some buffs”

GW2’s elites tend to be big and flashy and have unique effects for their class (daggerstorm, mortar, Tornado, etc.), or unique buffs based closely on class mechanics (Renewed Focus, Rampage as one, Flesh golem, etc.) so I’m not sure just yelling to give some boons feel remarkably “elite” compared to the other shouts. That’s why most of them are shapeshifts or big, flashy channels, or enhance/alter that class’ unique mechanic.

For instance, look at the elite banner. It’s visually distinctive, but also has a very powerful and unique effect. It’s an AoE soft-rez. If it just handed out buffs like the other banners I don’t think it would feel quite as “elite”

For a warrior elite shout to really feel elite, It’s either got to bring something unique to the table, or do something very closely tied to the warrior’s unique mechanics (adrenaline)

Because shouts are support skills, the second option (do something with adrenaline) won’t really fly. Now that i think about it, that’s another reason why IWAY wouldn’t fly in GW2, it’s a selfish shout and GW2 uses shouts in a purely supportive manner.

Fun idea:

“I meant to do that!” 120s cooldown
Gain 50% of your base health, allies within range laugh. If your health was below 50%, refill their endurance and grant them Vigor. If your health was above 50%, their next two attacks are unblockable and they gain fury. Intonation of the shout changes depending on health level when used.

Imperios.2543:

PopeUrban.2578:

with the exception of one: Humans.

What about Bubbles and Zhaitan?

Those dragons are out there, but in terms of the current state of events, the humans aren’t really in constant or implied long term aggression with either. They’re at war with Centaurs.

Zhaitan – Everybody’s dragon (handled by the pact)
Mordremoth – The Sylvari’s Dragon (In progress)
Kralkatorrik – The Charr’s Dragon (In Progress)
Jormag – The Norn’s Dragon (In Progress)
Primordius – The Asura’s Dragon (Barely in progress)
Bubbles – No strong racial enmity (But is likely very active against the NPC largos)

The problem here is that this would make bubbles the dragon with strong racial enmity against humans, but humans lack advanced magic or technology that would enable them to take center stage in an assault on it. Human military action is largely achieved through mass regiments rather than the advanced magic, natural ability, or technology the others enjoy.

However, in order for humans to field mass regiments against bubbles, it would have to wage a largely ground based assault (unlikely) or require the help of other races to outfit its forces with weapons and equipment to fight it underwater (which wouldn’t really be a human-centric story fight at that point, but another pact-like alliance.)

That said, given its location there’s potential for bubbles to, say, flood all of kryta and prompt an intervention of the gods or a sudden industrial wartime revolution among humans, but it seems far more natural to assume bubbles is the “closer” dragon that would see a shattered pact finally reassambled after these other race-centric stories are concluded, thus giving a full-circle style ending to the whole six dragons story arc, likely with the inclusion of largos or tengu as a playable race (largos because water, or tengu because their sanctuary became flooded, forcing them in to the world with everyone else)

The assumption here might be, simply, they felt that all of guild wars 1 and the rising of orr/the lore and focus surrounding the human mythology during the zhaitan story was enough to cover humans fairly.

Or we get five more “pact beats up dragon” arcs, which I agree would get kinda tedious after a while.

Also keep in mind, regarding the pact, The Aetherblades are slowly nibbling away at the pact’s store of airships, and mordy’s tentacles/the killing of trahearne may be enough to destabalize the organization in to an unworkable ideal should we find that making magic laser gates with signs on the that say “WE FIGHT DRAGONS” was a critical mistake, and that by centralizing resources we made them too vulnerable to concentrated attack from dragons that saw zhaitan fall and know what they’re up against.

In this manner, the pact may still exist as an idea, but not as a fighting force, leaving the orders to operate mostly separately/inefficiently again with perhaps a small “pact council” to coordinate their efforts that doesn’t always see eye to eye and experiences significant political infighting without strong central leadership.

Another entertaining and well formatted diatribe. I’d particularly like to echo the sentiments about the pact, and offer a point toward its legitimacy:

There are six dragons and five races of tyria. The pact killed one. The new one is somehow distinctly related to the sylvari, and each race seems to have its own “pet dragon” in kind with the exception of one: Humans.

Also, Mordy’s gonna kill someone important, and traherne being that mark could easily start a freefall of pact dissolution.

I think that’s why the end rewards for the LS steps are so large compared to the PS steps. In both instances you only get the reward once, but in the PS steps the end rewards are lessened because they expect you to be looting and gaining XP.

In addition, I’d imagine they don’t award XP both because the LS assumes you are level 80, but also because they’d prefer you to get involved in the open world for XP and karma, to ensure players have good mechanical reasons to interact with each other and populate maps and events.

As precedent, just look at GW1, which the new LS format is designed after.

In GW1, you leveled to max and had the best stats about 1/10 through the game. Arenanet designed the entire game around playing at max level, and used the leveling process as a training tool, rather than the intended scope of your adventure like a lot of other games do. This is why it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see them raise the level cap, leveling isn’t the core experience in this game. It’s purposely quick and easy to level because the game isn’t about leveling, it’s about learning your character, becoming a legendary hero that helped slay zhaitan, then playing that legendary hero through all sorts of legendary hero style adventures.

That’s why they changed traits and such as well. It made it harder to level, but it encouraged and taught good long term habits (like paying attention to the stats on your gear, because they matter at low levels without traits, or really carefully considering your traits because they cost gold/unique feats to acquire) Those changes were made to make leveling better for new players, because the game is designed with the assumption that long term players aren’t leveling.

This is a better design because you don’t eventually find yourself in a situation like everquest or WoW wherin you’ve made the progression gap so wide between the new player and the current content that nobody can ever play with their friends, and end up having to have out high level characters. When you’re done “training” by leveling, you have access to all of the post release content at once with the new system, eventually you end up with more level 80 zones than lowbie zones because the game is designed around being able to continue to play and experience new things at 80, rather than finishing a character and starting a new one.

It’s also why downscaling works the way it does, because they purposely added more leveling content than one character would need, and they’d originally intended the open world to be the endgame, so that going to a L15 zone you’d never seen when you hit 80 would feel just like going to that zone at L15.

There’s already TONS of leveling content in the game, enough so that three different characters can have completely unique leveling experiences. If you need to level a fourth alt, well, it’s a fourth alt, how many alts did you expect to be able to make before you started repeating things?

GW2 doesn’t WANT you to play things at low level, it wants you to use leveling as a training mission. The new zones, events, and instances are permanent specifically so that they could move them higher up the difficulty curve, and thus have a better endgame, because the leveling experience is already really large in scope, but the endgame was virtually nonexistant before they started the living story.

The upleveling system of the last season, as others have noted, existed because the content was temporary and they wanted it to be inclusive. This is also why festival content will continue to uplevels lowbies, as well as other limited time engagements like super adventure box (which doesn’t really use your level or stats anyway)

Arghore.8340:

B. Dhuum was ‘thus’ never de-throned, in a sense that Dhuum no longer had Godlike power. No, all that happened was that Grenth TOOK his throne, and Dhuum could no longer sit on it. He (Grenth) is mentioned as the ‘god’ of the underworld, but if you look at the lore that constitutes more as ‘The ruler over the underworld’. In lore he was favoured over Dhuum for his more relaxed rules regarding death and entry of mortals into the underworld (largely by ecto farmers I would add for a casual )

You’re still not getting it though, in the example of dhuum, he’s not a “god” any more, as that position is an honorific title which carries with it certain priveledges of office.

Think of the title of “god” being like a throne, and the powers associated with it being like symbols of office. There are only six thrones, but from time to time the symbols of office have changed hands (water aspect being a good example)

The example of kormir and much of the history of the gods indicates that being a member of a certain race isn’t a qualifier for being a god. Dhuum isn’t still a god, he’s just whatever he was before he became one, or would have been had he not been imbued with that office at the time of his creation/ascension/birth.

Not only that, we only have most of the history of these beings from the perspective of humans, who were coerced in to worshipping them. We don’t have any really objective perspectives about whatever societies or cultures they may have come from, and it’s entirely possible that they weren’t all from the same culture, or even the same plane in the mists.

The oldest accounts tell us they travelled to tyria as a group through the mists, and the mists is essentially the “outer outer space” of the GW2 cosmos, the place and stuff between all of the planes/dimensions of reality, that is the basic building material for all of them. They were never said to be formed of the mists themselves but to have traveled through them, which means, logically, they came from somewhere else.

In truth, the six humans gods as we know them could have all come from very different places, races, and planes, and in effect have been the earliest known example of an adventuring party. We can’t know the specifics because they either aren’t comprehensible to humans, or humans have been made to believe that they are not. We don’t know what they look like, or if they even have corporeal appearances as all renderings of them are of humanized aspects and interpretations.

Liewec.2896:

“I Will Avenge You!”
Gain Might, Fury and Quickness for a short time, duration increased for each nearby defeated ally.
Shout
Radius: 900
Duration: 5 seconds, + 3 seconds for each dead ally
Might Stacks: 6
Cooldown: 60 Seconds
Max Targets: 5

its a classic for anyone who played the original GW, this version is more zerker and less defensive, Might fury and quickness are a lethal combo, hence the short duration :-3

It was a classic huge kitten problem for GW1 keep in mind. GW2’s design doedn’t have any mechanics that reward/use corpses, as in GW2 being dead is basically universally bad. There’s really nothing useful about having dead allies, wheras in GW1 dead allies, and rezzing dead allies were much more involved mechanics upon which party compositions and skill selections depended for all types of play. basically, being dead was a WAY bigger deal, and every character could actually find ways to benefit from corpses if they wanted, so IWAY made a lot more sense as a general concept, even though they never really pulled off that concept in a totally balanced manner.

I don’t think there’s any way to add IWAY to GW2 without it completely screwing up the game, or having it be completely useless.

Not to mention the whole “this defense system has a greater percent chance of killing us than not, but I did it anyway, I kinda lied about the percentages” bit in the same episode.

It’s pretty consistant with Taimi’s character. She believes that her plans will always work, and that she could really just take whatever happenned in the machine… because she’s Taimi! One thing she’s never really exhibited is a rational fear of anything, and as soon as we saw it I KNEW she’d be going for it if nobody stopped her.

Iavra.8510:

Just change it to grant 3 (number subject to change) boons at random. Nerfs the skill and fits nicely in the chaotic and random theme of the mesmer

/edit: Exclude stability from the random pool.

TBH wouthout the stability it’s really, really weak compared to other PvP steals (which were normalized a long time ago specifically because they were too random and often too weak)

What about:

“Victory is Ours!” | 0 s Activation | 30 s Recharge | Slot Elite | Type Shout
“Allies affected by this shout also shout “victory is ours!” and deal X damage to enemies nearby, and gain Y health the next time they defeat an enemy”
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 600
Duration: 10s

So, you use it, and if you’re doing it right your buddies lay a cascading spike of damage and healing, echoing back “VICTORY IS OURS!” The fun part is you’d only hear the whole group pull it off if victory IS truly yours.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Okay, for the love of, please read the lore if you’re going to say there are seven human gods.

There are actually EIGHT, Human Gods, including Menzies the Mad.

Abbadon, Dhuum, Menzies

There’s also Abbadon’s Predecessor, whom we do not know the name of, thus there are Nine, and the Arachnid God that came before them, thus that makes TEN.

The number of gods makes “very” little difference in the retrospect of things so the “seven dragons/seven gods” theory is bunk, sorry.

I’m not trying to crush speculation so much as put it in perspective, if you really want to speculate, stop using the six (and more) gods as a means to point out a link between two convinces.

Before you ask where I got that information:

There is a predecessor to Abbadon, the Realm of Torment “was” theirs, we do not know their name though but its possible they were a human god as well.

And before that predecessor there was an Arachnid, like an insect god, that ruled over that domain (implied to be Arachnia).

Either way, there’s too many variables to definitely say that the six gods and six dragons are the only connection.

False. There are six. Menzies was not a god, as “god” is a position, not a race. In fact, menzies waged war against Balthazar specifically because he was not a god and wanted to become one, by getting rid of the current god. The reverse is true of Dhuum. Dhuum was a god, and Grenth was not, until Grenth usurped Dhuum.

Also, there are not seven possible gods either. Balthazar is seen carrying the head of his father (Whom we assume this to have filled the position of god before balthazar killed him) and Menzies was his half brother which indicates at least two other of their race (the mothers of Balthazar and menzies)

Also note that being born to that race isn’t actually necessary to become a god, as evidenced by kormir (a human) ascending to godhood by taking the power of Abbaddon. In fact, all the evidence we have points to pretty much all of the gods having probably been lesser beings before they became gods.

The term “god” as we use when discussing the human gods indicates six powers or energies which have changed ownership multiple times throughout history, and will continue to do so, and as far as we know could be transferable to almost any being. The human gods are simply the current rulers of the dominions of various powerful magical energies, and those energies, raw forces of magic, are without a mind or voice of their own.

So, basically, they’re not “gods” but simply so powerful that (some) humans worship them as such, much the same as the Charr once worshiped the titans.

sazberryftw.3809:

a pielord.3127:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality

Yeah, why did they ever add this in the first place? They never used it. So bizarre.

But anyway +1 to this thread. Also +1 to how much I giggled at some of the posts.

All these people were murdered on the Zephyrite ship!
Hey sugar~

It got “iterated out” basically.

They wanted it to be a much more important part of the character, for instance opening dialogue options or special vendors (and it did in some places) but they likely decided that it was too much work/balancing to make it as meaningful/fair as they wanted, or that it felt more like a ‘stat to track’ that took away a percieved element of player choice (e.g. if you know you want you character to be charming, you’d always feel like you had to take the charming option or lose the “charming” options.)

I’ll admit I did this a lot, every time I had an alignment altering option I always checked my character sheet and too the one that kept my balance at scoundrel, despite not really getting anything meaningful for being a scoundrel.

Honestly, I don’t want them to just off the guy, but I do think he needs to go. He’s just got too much baggage that has already been handled. There aren’t many interesting conflicts left for him to have.

What would he do in the world that would be interesting any more? Follow us around with a handful of other people after being leader of the pact? We’d be back to square 1. Rebuild a newly destroyed pact? Already seen that one. Cleanse Mordremoth’s corruption too? Seems a bit contrived.

I’d actually rather like to see him sacrifice himself in a very noble and heroic manner. As a character his tale is told, but it hasn’t had a satisfying ending. he sat in a base while Zhaitan was killed, and spends his days doing background coordination for the pact. He’s stuck in limbo. The best, most noble ending for his story is to die valiantly in battle, saving our player character from a horrible fate, and thus completing his transformation from reluctant scholar to legendary hero that gave up everything to save tyria from the dragons.

This would be a natural end, would redeem him in the eyes of the player base, and would most importantly open up a lot of new storytelling opportunities for the pact itself, whether someone with a new story to tell ascended to lead it, or if it were to fracture apart again, or whatever.