Guild Wars 2

It’s pretty obvious that most of the convenience items are a terrible deal if you’re going to pay with gold for them. At 88¢, it’s a little pricy, but justifiably an “on a whim” decision. I’ve seen friends spend more on crane games at the supermarket, or soda, or gum. Would I consider it a great value for the money? No, but it’s hardly my business to tell other people how to spend their change.

Basically, it saves you 10 silver, two load screens, and a small-to-large amount of running, depending on your proximity to a waypoint. Even if it’s not worth it to most of us, I expect it is to someone, like most of the gem store items, and I’m okay with that dynamic.

I’m not sure how it’s not appearing for you, AncientYs, but today’s update added a single-use gemstore item that resets trait points.

Seeing as you can already do that at trainers for an essentially nominal fee, including both the trainer fee at waypoint fees to get there, this item is almost purely convenience, which makes it not that different from the Black Lion merchant, trading post, and bank items. I think it’s a silly thing to spend gems on, but if someone wants to use it, they’re welcome to it, and there’s nothing offensive to me in the idea of it.

As for whether resetting traits should be completely flexible and free (GW1) or not (GW2,) I think the system is generally fine as-is.There are days when I think I’d like to try respeccing to a Water-focused Elementalist instead of a fire one, I’ll admit, but the slight hassle involved gives a sense of permanence to my decisions and character concept; I find that commitment rewarding, and it means I don’t have to second guess myself as much.

“I’m fighting destroyers who are immune to burning! I guess I’d better respec.” <- This option sounds like it should make me happy, because I’d be more effective in combat, but I’d actually be less happy, because then I’d have to choose between being more effective with the hassle of having to respec temporarily, or the convenience of not respeccing and just being less powerful. As the game is, I just have to suck it up and fight with a (very minor) disadvantage; that ends up being more rewarding by creating drama. Choice isn’t always a good thing.

There is the occasional devastating hit that makes me pause and think “What, really?” o_o

But in my experience, that’s more the exception than the rule, or I wouldn’t notice those cases so acutely, and I’m left wondering how many of those weirdly-powerful hits are critical hits. Can enemies critical hit players? I’m really not sure.

At any rate, I’m pretty happy with how enemies in this game telegraph their attacks, and I usually feel I have enough warning to dodge most of the “charged attack” moves. The occasional exception sneaks in, but that just seems like a given for a video game, where ideal animation is at odds with ideal gameplay in practial terms.

That’s insane. At 7:40, I’m glad if we’re at/approaching the first battery phase. Way to go!

That’s fantastic, and really gets me excited for when/if they ever do any major underwater bosses. I know not everyone is crazy about the underwater mechanics, but scary things just look all the more menacing and sinister underwater.

How do we know it’s a choice between one reward or the other? Reading the release page, I got more the impression that they’d be earned different ways. Say, perhaps, one for a meta achievement and one for dungeon completion. Did they say it was one or the other someplace else? Am I misreading it?

Siphaed.9235:

P.S. Really wish there was an option to either save Lord Feren, or letting Scarlett cook him. If saved, he could have died tragically a bit later, but it would have added an additional NPC conversation between the player and Logan Thackery. It would have/could have also given potential moral harassment from Scarlett about how the player let him die (purposely via fire or accidently).

But…Faren! I would be incredibly, terribly sad if they killed off that idiot. <3

The problem with giving you the option is that then he couldn’t pop up again later for characters who let him die. If he got a cameo later, like the when he was on the beach or, indeed, captured by Scarlett, either he’d have to be magically alive again (for players who let him die) or situationally replaced by someone else, which isn’t practical.

I think A-kitteng [Edit: There it is! You know what I mean.] gets autocensored, which is a little silly, but it’s not hard to see why. ;P

To be honest, most of the failures I see are because the zerg doesn’t get critical mass, the zerg fails to stack on a commander for cleansing, the turrets get overwhelmed (too many AFK, not getting back in time after stun phase, too many pooled in one spot and calling up champions,) or the turrets don’t do their job bringing down the wall or cleansing themselves/the zerg.

Geeze, that was supposed to be a short list. Everytime I describe this fight, I suddenly remember that oh my goodness this is a complicated fight and there’s a lot to remember. That’s not me being sarcastic; there are really just a ton of moving parts that have to come together.

With those two issues, however, I don’t think there’s enough impact to disrupt a group that would otherwise win. The sunken treasure takes practically no time to grab once you’re down there, and I rarely see more than two, at most three, people goofing around by the tail. When you’re dealing with a centuria of characters, that distraction is pretty minimal. And, hopefully, they’re attacking fingers and participating at battery/stun phases anyway.

I’m totally with you on AFK being an issue, though, which is why most (but not all) of my Tequatl kills come from groups (guild or just a big, mutant PUG,) piling into a mostly-empty overflow, one that isn’t full of idlers. I don’t know what the best solution from a development perspective would be, but when gaming overflow is more ideal than even finding a low-population server to guest on, it’s a bit of an issue.

Regarding lag: Best I can say is to make sure your graphics settings are down low. Hopefully it’s not just a slow internet connection, since there’s not much you can do about that. I’ve had battles that were going well disconnect or crash on me, especially at the beginning of Boss Week, but most of the time, it’s been buttery smooth at full graphics settings. (On a good gaming machine, that is. I’d definitely tear down those settings on my laptop. That’s just the nature of high-intensity content like this.)

That can happen, and it’s horrible when it does. It’s a long, exhausting fight, the prep-work for it can take just as long or longer, and then there’s finding a group capable of taking Tequatl down in the first place. Hopefully you’ll have better luck in the future!

I seem to remember it happening once to me, and I just had to write it off as “Well, bad things happen.” It’s a little less soul-crushing if you’re in a guild (specialized or not) that you can count on to run the event with again.

Electro.4173:

A simple question with a simple answer like “Are these minipets permanent” is always more likely to get a reply. Its an easy reply that takes a minute to post and runs no risk of telling players more than the devs want to reveal (which is apparently something Anet is extremely careful about).

Quoted for truth. It takes two seconds to say “The pets will continue to drop. They are permanent” and there’s really no complex discussion to be had there. If a dev talks about Tequatl, however, there’s an endlessly complex amount of discussion as to who the target audience is, how it meets their needs, how much preparation should be expected on the part of the players, etc. Players can, and will, continue to debate it and possible adjustments all day long, and adding a dev to that discussion as a particpant won’t necessarily improve it.

If I were them, I’d be very careful about opening that can of worms on the forum. With minis, however, it’s a very simple “yes” or “no.”

Has it been considered that maybe the people behind Super Adventure Box just really, really like posting in the forum? More so than other teams, anyway. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, after all, and there are multiple teams of developers working on living story, so it’s not that surprising to see different parts of the game get different amounts of response on the forum.

I wouldn’t read anything into it.

Ouch. Near-misses are a tough thing to watch.

The fishheads are hilarious. There’s plenty of time to res yourself if you hit one, if one of the people standing nearby don’t get to you first, so they don’t do any permanent damage, but they do make you watch where you’re going, and a lot of people seem to have fun figuring out what they can get away with around them.

The nice thing about turret defense is that critical hits and condition damage all work as normal against the mobs. I’ve tried helping the zerg (in Celestial Gear) a few times with conjured weapons, but I found myself spending entirely too much time respawning to make much of a contribution.

You didn’t mention what weapons you use, but I’ve found staff to be very useful at turret defense. Fire magic is good for nuking a couple of mobs quickly (and they usually are packed together pretty closely,) water is good for healing yourself, other defenders, and the turret users. Earth is better-than-usual if you use Shockwave ⁵ and Unsteady Ground ⁴ on foes soon after they appear in order to slow them down while they’re still far from the turrets. That can be a bit dangerous, though, so you’ll want Arcane Shield at the least if you try it.

Much as I love Tybalt (and the Order of Whispers in general,) I think there are some good story sections in the Pact story arc. Demolitionist Tonn, the Mouth of Zhaitan, and “The Source of Orr” were all very satisfying and memorable, I thought, and those are just off the top of my head.

I know a lot of people don’t like Trahearne, but, honestly, I thought he was okay. (Or would be if he wasn’t a Necromancer using a greatsword. No idea what that’s about.) He’s not the most colorful character in the storyline, but I’d say he’s certainly on par with most, and better than some if you can get your head into his side of the story. I’d read a novel about him they did one.

Been at it ever since that patch launched, and it feels insanely satisfying to have finally taken him down. I don’t usually do much guild play, but for anyone wondering whether these “kill Tequatl” guilds are worthwhile, the answer is a resounding “OH MY GOODNESS, YES.” A well-organized guild can pack even a carefully-selected overflow with active, focused players, and seeing all those gold nameplates really gets you psyched for the battle.

It’s awesome to see so many players working together, even with all the frustrations Tequatl’s brought.

Hm? I still need “Power Play” to get the Sunless title?

BACK INTO THE FRAY~!