Guild Wars 2

A guild mate and I are potentially planning on a switch soon. We’ve been on SBI since launch. While it’s a good server in some regards, I am finding it to be lacking in some aspects right now. Please note that I have been active all season and this swap has nothing to do with our rankings. I may end up staying but I’d like to know what’s out there!
1. How is your WvW aspect of the server? As in: what sort of players do you have? Is it a constant karma train and farm or do folks stick around even when the server is losing? I’m interested to know how dedicated to a victory the server is. I enjoy WvW and I like playing with folks who stand tall for their server. It’s very disheartening to lose many of your World’s strength because they don’t think it will be an easy fight.
2. How is the PvE aspect of it? I have been guesting here and there recently and found LA in some other servers to be MUCH more engaging than LA in SBI. Now, maybe it’s coincidence. It leads me to believe that maybe there is more going on in other servers? What servers do frequent activities together (or have guilds that sponsor server wide runs for different things).
I have not altogether decided if I will make the switch or not yet but I’d at least love to have some information. Thanks in advance.

I fear you will be very alone in that. Most anyone that isn’t a brand new player isn’t out doing the open world stuff.

A guild mate and I are potentially planning on a switch soon. We’ve been on SBI since launch. While it’s a good server in some regards, I am finding it to be lacking in some aspects right now. Please note that I have been active all season and this swap has nothing to do with our rankings. I may end up staying but I’d like to know what’s out there!

1. How is your WvW aspect of the server? As in: what sort of players do you have? Is it a constant karma train and farm or do folks stick around even when the server is losing? I’m interested to know how dedicated to a victory the server is. I enjoy WvW and I like playing with folks who stand tall for their server. It’s very disheartening to lose many of your World’s strength because they don’t think it will be an easy fight.

2. How is the PvE aspect of it? I have been guesting here and there recently and found LA in some other servers to be MUCH more engaging than LA in SBI. Now, maybe it’s coincidence. It leads me to believe that maybe there is more going on in other servers? What servers do frequent activities together (or have guilds that sponsor server wide runs for different things).

I have not altogether decided if I will make the switch or not yet but I’d at least love to have some information. Thanks in advance.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Builds will rise and fall, but celestial gear will always be equally as bad no matter what your build. So the safest bet is to build a whole set of ascended celestial gear. Then no matter what happens to your build your gear will still be just as effective.

Or just as ineffective. That’s like saying your insurance policy is to destroy everything you own so you cannot ever possibly have it stolen.

I sincerely hope you are wrong. This is some very barebones, basic kitten. Dredge are more “earth” than fire. Krait are from the deep-sea and not “earthy” either. This seems like you’re trying to make things fit because you want them to.

That said, if you’re right, this game will prove to be very shallow in story.

1) Well, it shouldn’t encourage Agony hoarding. If you put +5 on your Ring, adding another +5 to than ring should make the ring a +6…and so on. No waste of AR infusions this way.

2) Meh. The gold reward now is better than it was before. I think it’s fine. You get a lot of rares/exotics as well as high tier mats and the chance at some unique skins. Like Barkas said, I don’t want this to turn into a farming hotbed…there is a nice FoTM community already.

3) Needs rework to be sure. Clowncar is too long still and the bomb dredge shouldn’t have such an unreal respawn rate. Maybe a few less adds at the switches as well. Otherwise, there are some unique/cool mechanics here at work (esp. with them immune to blinds). A tad shorter and less cheeserific, and this would be a great fractal.

4) Agreed with Barkas again. If you don’t have AR, don’t do high end fractals, unless you know the encounters well enough to dodge everything. OP, it’s like saying that you’re angry your Lv1 toon is getting 1 shotted in Orr. He’s not supposed to be there yet…get the gear, get the AR, then get yourself into some higher end fractals and enjoy

Except there is an open sky.

Dungeons? Why is seriously buying dungeon “seats” these days?

Yall may be missing the point. The worst thing about the dredge is the sound they make. Since there are so many of them, this sound is constantly echoed throughout the whole experience.

You know the sound I’m talking about. Cmon now.

Talcyndl.4761:

Thanks. So it’s basically a pure DPS game?

A new player and you already figured it out

While you’re getting your bearings in PvE you could do well with a knight’s set until you are comfortable throwing on some berserker.

Looking at these posts, I fear some folks may steer you very, very wrong. There is no healing class. I wish there was as I loved playing monk in GW1. You can certainly play a DPS class.

I’d say you can’t go wrong with a guardian. They have not received any “buffs” in a while from anet and they are still an amazing class.

-High dps? Check.
-Near unlimited damage mitigation? Check.
-Party wide mitigation? Yup…Check.
-Permanent prot uptime? Check.
-Reflects? Check.
-Might and fire fields? Check.
-High vigor through crit? Check.

Could go on. As long as you remember that your class job is to 1. Deal damage and 2. Bring utility that increases party damage, you’ll be fine with most classes.

Just don’t be like the poster above me talking about supportive staff guardians. The staff has its place in use but isn’t a weapon you want to play….support staff camp guardian = a guardian you don’t want on your team.

Tachii, my thoughts exactly. This has to be a troll. If not OP, I love fractals. I play this game for the fractals, the occasional dungeon, and WvW. Any update that takes away from the serious development of these aspects is not content I will care about. No I don’t mean stuffing living world assets into WvW or throwing 3 unbalanced fractals into the mix. Fractals are very fun (even with a mid level group) as long as folks know what they’re doing.

Haha yes. Edited for NA. And Robert, I’m already aware that there are guilds for about everything.

Curious though that the cat golems are there. There is another cat golem I know of.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/TOM-9

He is located in the Proxemics lab. It gets interesting because this lab used to run experiments on Skritt. Now long abandoned, the Skritt live there.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Proxemics_Lab_

Now this could be a coincidence but the two could be linked. Tom-9…Old Tom…The four cat Golems with the Raving Asura. I could see it being sort of a humorous little add in to the game to have Cat-Golems guarding rat creatures.

We know the lab is long abandoned so the time frame is already established. We know it happened in the past which could tie it to this fractal.

Is it likely? Nah haha…but maybe a small nod could be cool.

My two cents on fractals as a medium for story: They should be short stories. Nothing connecting. Nothing wide and sweeping. Little stories that can be semi solved with lore hunting but no grand tales there. It makes it more interesting to have these doomed sections of history where you will never quite know EVERYTHING. But a small measure of closure is nice.

I’m gonna preface this by laying out my ulterior motive up front:

I want people that I will actually play engaging content with in my Guild.

FRACTALS:
Now, this isn’t some recruitment spam however. I don’t enjoy pug play and would like to have a dedicated group of folks to run Fractals with.

So, if you’re a fractal player and are also tired of pugs, you’re who I’m looking for.

If you’re a new fractal player and have always been intimidated of fractals, I’m perfectly willing to slow down and teach the mechanics if you agree to stick with it. In fact, with the new fractals and instabilities it’s going to be an all around learning experience.

DUNGEONS:
If you haven’t been able to get DM, this group can help. This isn’t a title run offer though. I want folks that genuinely want a group to play the content with for whatever reason (fun, money, challenge, etc…). I’m absolutely not looking for folks that are just achievement hunting.

Same deal as with the fractals. I’d like to get some players who already run dungeons daily and have the experience. If you have had trouble with dungeons or groups running them, I’m very willing to teach if you agree to stick with it.

What Now?
-If you already know what’s up, but are disappointed by what the LFG tool has to offer, send me a PM.
-If you’re willing to learn, I’m willing to teach. Everyone starts somewhere. You’re better off learning from someone than hiding in PuGs hoping no one notices that you don’t know what you’re doing. No shame in a first time around.

In Game Name: Elijah Craige
Edit: NA

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You could pay $500 to max your character’s level, and still lose to an uplevel in WvW. So where exactly is the “P2W” part of this?

Maybe if he sat on his hands during the encounter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an 80 lose to an uplevel.

+1 OP. Have thought this for a while. You always have to remember which toon did which dungeon story.

knives.6345:

I run Hammer/Staff 0/0/30/20/20 AH on my Guard, guess I’ll never see 90% of people posting in this thread in-game. lol

No one has ever kicked me so far.

They don’t know what you are. You must either be very sneaky, or run with some very…puggy PuGs :P

Seriously though, if I have another Guard in my party, I try to watch for a couple of things like:

-Are they refusing to use their virtues?…Ever…?
-Do they camp 1 weapon for the entire fractal/dungeon? Is it staff? (not that the staff doesn’t have its uses)
-Are they throwing up spirit weapons?
-Do they insist on scepter near 100% uptime?
-Do they pop shouts to heal themselves with AH instead of when most beneficial?

Why do I notice this stuff? Well, I’m not someone who will kick out a player unless they’re a Class A goon but often these folks don’t know that they’re taking away from the team effort. Surprisingly, they usually listen and turn around to help out a lot more for the rest of the encounter.

tl;dr- keep an eye out on your team and offer advice politely on more effective play if they’re running some rubber duck builds

It’s folks like that… Not only completely ignorant of the current game mechanics, but also so filled with hate. It certainly has to come from lack of understanding. There’s no way someone can seriously sit at a 4k dps rotation with “34 siphon damage” and complain about players dealing damage.

It’s not necros, it’s ignorant players who love nothing more than remaining ignorant.

Fair point. Looked at the screen right off the bat. Figured there is no way a lv27 would not be aware of this mechanic yet.

Glitched.7456:

It’s so true, that since we’re not getting expansions, these Living World updates are our only form of new content, and yeah, they may be free, but no game should dump manure on their fans and say “Well hey if you don’t like the smell you can just stop playing now, we know you spent a lot of time leveling up those characters and decking them out in gear, but we’re doing something new and terrible with the game, where we literally pump manure into your computer, her name is Scarlet, and you will love her or you will leave, and we don’t really give a rat’s @$$, deal with it.”

Nah, you’re spot on. Saying, “It’s free. Deal with it” is unacceptable. Consumers who are buying that rhetoric are selling themselves short. Price doesn’t excuse poor quality.

WereDragon.6083:

I beg to differ, my PVT minion Master necro does around 4 to 5k in a full cycle of dagger hits and minion smacks. With no minions up I still hit about 2k and some change with a full dagger rotation. 460×460×1280

None of this is counting siphon damage which is about 34 a hit, per minion and dagger smack. It’s also not counting stat food or bloodlust buff on my dagger being stacked

On top of that having 29k HP and 1.9k toughness usually means i’m the last one up and i’ve finished several bosses by myself after the group died, unlike a full berserker who has a stiff fart blow their way to topple them

4-5k on a CYCLE is not impressive damage. 2k on a rotation? I’m not one to exclude classes from group play but before you knock a zerker, make sure you’re even playing in the same league of damage. Let’s not knock a player who’s dropping your entire two “rotations” worth of damage in a single hit.

Obvious troll is obvious. Dolphin segment screenshot.

Or you will destroy them and she will jaunt off talking about how it was “all a part of the plan.”

I did buy the game. I enjoy the content that’s in it. I don’t enjoy when the Living World content intrudes into the WvW I enjoy or the fractals I enjoyed. I consider dungeons and fractals to be the sole reason I play PvE…Not for rewards, not for leader-boards, but because I enjoy that content.

Like many others, I work. I did buy this game and I would pay for an addition to it if I wanted it. I don’t want these things they’re adding. I don’t want dungeon paths replaced with other ones. I don’t want cheesy bosses added to fractals to please open world players who won’t step foot into the fractal once this achievement window is over.

This isn’t an assault on you or anything. I just hope I can convey that these “free” updates shouldn’t just be cut a break because they are free. While many game companies don’t deliver this much content, a lot of them also work on patching bugs, fixing broken mechanics, etc… These are the things that EVERYONE would benefit from. These are the things that should be free and every two weeks. As far as story, you’re right! I got what I paid 40$ for…I got it and I don’t regret a penny of it. I just honestly feel that, bit by bit, half of the updates take a little bit of that worth away from my experience.

tl;dr- didn’t ask for free updates. LS doesn’t need to be in everything. Stop with scarlet. Start fixing bugs.

No matter where they come from, people hate bad stories.

I was upset when they put living story/world…w/e into the WvW. I think it’s a similar thing now. They would do well to draw a relatively hard line between their “living world” and fun content, with a dedicated playerbase.

If they’re gonna mess with fractals, fine; patch them, bug fix, balance, update loot tables and rewards, etc…. If they are going to add new fractals, they should keep a similar theme. Localized, “short story” type segments. Adding the living story into it is just a recipe for disaster. The idea of these “instabilities” is actually a cool one. Had it been tested out, it would be a good thing imo.

However, as it stands, I think they are spending too much time working this story angle into ALL aspects of the game. Some things, are best left as they are.

lazarus.1639:

I could not stand watching Scarlet screwing up Guild Wars 1 history and ruining its lore.
‘’I went back in time and caused Abbaddon’s Fall because meh, hehe haha’’ disappears

Also, i agree that the thaumanova fractal is an untested, bugged, utterly disappointing piece of… content.

So everyone is kitten ed now, no matter who voted who. Yay.

Just like real elections!

The Moot 2

BobbyStein.2315:

True.

Related to your comment, what reveals resonated with you?

Well, if the ending of that story segment with Dessa was intentional, then this means that there is a lot more to the fractals than we anticipated. Can we even be sure that Dessa is even from this time period? Not sure how much to say on this without big spoilers. Bobby, can you hint anything at this?

Pretty cool. Actually kind of sad in a way. It’s like Groundhog day.

I’m just most disappointed that the living story is so pervasive. They’re still working things out, got it. It takes a couple months to see player input make it into the game, got it.

I just don’t know why there’s a need to weave LS into fractals, WvW, etc… I’m a believer in the adage “do it right, or don’t do it at all.” I think many fractal players would have been happy with some bug fixes in fractals, some polishing of encounters, the update of the loot tables. Quality of life changes and bug fixes far trump a short story segment.

I don’t want to have to solo the boss or show off skills to anyone. I’d rather a team that melts mobs and can play competently. I don’t think you can assign a label like “elitist” to someone that wants to complete content quickly and efficiently.

While there’s no reason to be abrasive or rude, there’s also no reason a skilled player should carry 2-3 folks for an entire run. Cmon now…

Don’t forget guards who hog virtues’ passives.

RomaCentarii.4168:

foofad.5162:

You can maintain pretty decent damage numbers while still being sturdy by using Soldier rings and amulet, plus Berserker accessories. Soldier Backpiece too. Slot Exquisite Rubies in all of them. If you can get Ascended weapons, run Berserker Ascended – otherwise run Soldier or more Cleric. Slot damage-focused Sigils and Runes. Using Ruby Orbs in your armor wouldn’t be a horrible idea but there are other ways to get DPS and further your support goals with your runes. Might duration runes tend to have Power as their bonus stat, for example.

So I saw the same stuff you mentioned on https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Cleric-armor-worth-it …….
I think Im going to keep the clerics and take some ruby ruby accesories like you said any maybe go zerkers ring and soldier amulet…… keep myself beefy for dungeons but still be able to deal some damage……. hmmm I hope I can get my hands on those ruby orbs……… what do you guys think??

I think you’re missing the point. You don’t need to be “beefy”. It’s ok if you’re not gonna just right into zerk gear. The zerker trinkets are a good start. Maybe look into some Knight’s armor while you build comfort with the class. No need to throw on cleric gear though. The Healing Power will be wayyyy overkill for anything you’re trying to do.

When you say “deal some damage”, you must understand just how little it will be. The reverse would be the best option if you simply feel you MUST go with Healing Power. Take primary DPS gear and maybe some cleric stuff to keep yourself content.

Try without though. You will be surprised once the illusion shatters. You don’t need 3.5k Toughness and 1.8k HP or something crazy like that to handle anything in PvE so far.

TehPwnerer.7215:

Titanimite.2534:

TehPwnerer.7215:

Titanimite.2534:

Yep, which kitten es me of as I have spent time and money to level these characters up for more rewards per day which now is obsolete. Not to mention the new swarm of kittenty kitten pugs that will plague us all. I for sure will be doing alot more kicking of those kitten longbow + bear rangers

“Oh no other players will want to do FoTM now that it has better rewards! WHAT CASUALS!” Get off your high horse and stop being elitist.

I would if they would learn to play their kittening class and contribute to the group instead of running a class they hardly know with kitten gear. Don’t pretend you don’t know what we’re talking about.

I don’t pug just for that reason.

I actually don’t think it will be a huge problem. The higher we go into fractals, the less bads you run into. You get more failgroups at lvs 1-10 than in the 30s. I think this patch will create two classes of players:

1. The Living World carebears who will hunt story achievements, try fractals, fail, and not progress quickly enough to 30 to bother experienced players.

2. Good players who know their class but were never motivated by fractal rewards before. They will progress to 30 by the two weeks end and learn the fractals well.

Rym.1469:

Suprisingly, I liked Scarlet’s whispers in the corridors during Nightmare Tower instances. Sadly, I don’t like anything else about Scarlet. Good thing that she leaves for now

Agreed! They were actually…well…villainous. Some were downright menacing (like the one about remaking you in clockwork…after you were dead).

Meriem.3504:

Aly Cat.9415:

Meriem, it’s not our place to yell. We’re customers, not a parent reprimanding a child. Some would argue it’s not even respectful then, let alone when communicating with other adults. Also, I don’t know about you, but when someone yells at me, I tune them out no matter how valid their point might otherwise be.

Anyway, I agree we haven’t learned much about Scarlet but we have learned about the other characters so there has been progression of other subplots. Like, I’m curious to learn more about the tension between Logan, Anise and the queen. Plus I’m starting to enjoy new companions more and more. Marjory, Kasmeer, Rox and Braham have been a fun juxtaposition to Destiny’s Edge with their youthful energy and lack of baggage. I do hope that Scarlet’s arc will eventually reveal more about the other tree and how it relates to the dragons. Didn’t they start to reemerge around the same time as the sylvari’s birth?

There must be some connection.

It was an example, the whole yelling bit. That is why I said it was an example and not to be taken as a literal point of the situation,. As a customer I have been told X thing will be done X amount of times and it continues to not be. This has happen with other stuff IRL, not game related.

Some people required to be yelled at why others do not, it actually depends on the type of person, there is psychology behind it. Some you have to stern, some you just have to be friendly and let them know, some you have to express anger and sadly the worse of them all, some only learn the really hard way which various on the situation, ie continue to drive drunk until finally behind bars or badly hurt themselves in an accident.

Meriem is right. It’s exactly our place to yell. You’re a customer and a consumer and ultimately in control of the content you choose. Anet wants people logging on every day. If the story is keeping you from doing this, it isn’t in poor taste to give input on why. You paid for the game, they want you to log in daily and they want you to buy gems. It’s absolutely your place to give input about the product you purchased.

VOLKON.1290:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Sorry, I’m all for a system that supports all modes of play, but while it is possible to do well in other types of gear and to build characters around other modes of play DPS is still king.

Well, that’s love and all. While all the “kings” are waypointing back to the start of the tower the rest of us that actually use the full aspects of the combat system will be waiting for you at the top.

DPS was never king in GW2. Content was too simplified. Fortunately we’re seeing things refreshingly shift back to fight and content that is reinforcing combat the way it was intended in GW2.

Nope. The clerics are still lfging for a group to the “unsoloable” dungeon. Still, like most folks said. This tower is doable in any gear. A competent player in zerk gear who knows how to evade, mitigate, and sustain damage will plow through vets, elites, and deal with champs. Sometimes there is some luck involved with other people pulling mobs, etc… but hey that’s the nature of an open world tower like this.

Actually looks more like the Adam injector at the end of Bioshock.

tl;dr-zerker is perfectly fine here.

havellian.4073:

I rather them be in the gemstore than have some in-game method where I will have to grind endlessly just to look how I want. Also being able to buy piece by piece > 800g for a set of armor i only use 1 piece of (yes bought 3 sets of such already… and no, not with real money)

refer comment about cost of gold -> gems vs T3 armor

To all the people that keep saying things along these lines: the gem store is designed to make money… They don’t care how much “gold” it costs you to buy that armor. You want it to be less gems so you can buy it with gold? You don’t need to buy it. If you want it, you can farm for it or you can buy it with real money.

There are many set of armor that you can buy with in game currency. They didn’t introduce new armor into GW1 nearly as often as they are now. You have the OPTION to either buy it or farm for it…or you can leave it.

It’s not too bad imo. You just have to change up your utilities fairly often (at those air pumps). I ran it zerk guard and with a couple of people it’s not a very difficult fight. Just need to stay on your toes and watch for spawns.

I can see why folks are frustrated but I think it’s meant to push your reaction times. Anyways, some of the better content out there in LS. Good luck with it. Oh and OP, Anet doesn’t “hate glass” if the current meta game is any evidence to this.

Honestly if you’re dying a lot, you may be able to thank the staff camping guards and PVT range toons that take agro right to you but do nothing to help you kill.

Captain Swag.5893:

Syn Sity.5826:

Captain Swag.5893:

Saulius.8430:

ranged(sitting 900-1200 away) players don’t get aoe boons (most utilities and aoe combos have small effect radius), cannot effectively revive or be revived, does less damage in general (with few exceptions)

so why would one choose to play ranged in coordinated small group(dungeons)?

its hilarious when 4 players got banner buffs, fury, 25stacks of might, and there is that one ranger standing 1500 away w/o any buffs, and later complains why no one wants him

Bosses normally have these things called “mechanics” that require you to do something other than standing still, mashing one button. Maybe a dodge here, or a cleanse there. Many of these are easier to dodge when far away. (You shouldn’t need reminded of this, if you’re as all-knowing as you try to sound.)

As I said, tactics are fine, but tactics shouldn’t ruin it for the rest of the group.

Ok, do this. Go into AC, kill the first breeder and head to the queen. Kill all the low level spiders to spawn the queen, drag her into the LoS spot and then just stand there and mash one button. See how well that works for you. Seriously this is one of very few bosses that doesn’t use a particular attack when you are in melee range. Why in god’s name would you stand at range and force her to use her AoE field? When you are at Alphard in Arah path 2, do you insist that everyone ranges so that she uses her insta kill dagger storm? What kind of ridiculous gameplay would that be? In what other game do people go out of their way to get an enemy to use more attacks on them? In gaming, the goal should be to do things as efficiently as possible. In this particular boss, that means LoS’ing and meleeing to avoid the AoE field. To not do so would be approaching insanity, especially when you consider how much easier it is to stack boons and other offensive support when you are closer to the rest of your group.

And then every single “range” character dies, as most light/medium armor classes aren’t meant to take nonstop AoE to the face.

So it’s “roll a warrior or guardian or go home”, is it?
Again, learn what some exaggeration is. Not LITERALLY one button, nonstop. For God’s sake nobody is that stupid, and it’s a figure of speech.
The boss has mechanics for ranged characters, and melee characters, one way or another, someone is gonna get screwed, it just varies on which you want screwed more, and again, they’ve fixed things like this in the past for the several reasons mentioned.

Stop pretending.

Honestly man you must either not know the encounter well enough, or you have terrible pug luck. I can easily understand bag pug luck but it’s not a difficult fight. I do this all the time with my ZERK ele…rarely if ever do I even go down. This goes the same for most of the other pug players I find. In NO WAY does this method make the fight harder for “squishy ranged toons”.

It’s not an exploit, it’s a boss mechanic. If someone has a sniper rifle and a pistol, I’d rather close the gap and deal with the smaller caliber round. Same concept here. Learn the fight, group with people you know, and enjoy the dungeon.

Over the last few days, I’ve managed to read through every post here so far. A lot of interesting ideas and criticism, much of which is echoed very strongly by the majority of the posters here.

So, GW2 players (on this forum) really want to see the waiving of the “2 week release” policy in favor of a more “it’s ready when it’s ready” approach. Another strong point I saw was a push for the inclusion of an IN GAME lore vehicle. Players also want achievements to be either more meaningful, or at least less grind-y. Of course there is the issue of Scarlet Briar as well…

I’m going to go another direction with this. Many of you have hit great points and I won’t try to re-state them. I want to talk about the ToN LS patch and all the things it DID RIGHT!

I was poised, POISED to hate this LS patch before it even came out. I saw the purple nightmare vines and thought…“Oh no! Another alliance. When will Scarlet leave my game?” However, ToN surprised me in a few ways.
-The mini/instance intro to ToN and the characters: This was great. GW1 players will love this style of cinematic if it continues and expands past this little experiment. This was just enough exposition get me curious about ToN and Kessex hills. It introduces characters and what we’re doing there.
-The instance AND the NPCs in Kessex: This is huge! We might still hate Scarlet, sure…but there are now NPCs delivering Lore in game to those that care for this sort of thing. I think this is going to please a lot of players. Please expand on this. We get a nice setup for what we’re doing in Kessex from the little instance when you zone, and then the NPCs give more info about the Krait, the NC, Scarlet, etc… (it was cool finding out that this was just a splinter of the NC that would consider allying and not destroying the Krait)
-Story Pacing: I hope this is no coincidence; the pacing has slowed down considerably. I love that we’re going back to how F&F was handled. A slow story progression that can move forward every 2 weeks (or however long is needed for the content).

However I do hope that the grind aspect of LS can be reduced. It actually hurts the game in my opinion. So what if there “isn’t enough to do in LS”? There isn’t enough to do in PS either. The idea is that you progress the story and then can go back to dungeons, WvW, fractals, etc… Right now, a HUGE chunk of players are doing zerg trains to grind in LS content instead of fractals and dungeons.

I think enough players have hit the Scarlet point. Anet knows and hopefully they are wrapping that up. ToN is a step in the right direction though. Hopefully we can see more content develop along these lines.

Best.

Malediktus.9250:

It was too easy and short. Should have been a 5 man instance

No. The purpose was for some exposition. It’s not a dungeon, nor is it supposed to be difficult. It would also be ridiculously impractical to FORCE a 5 man for people entering the zone…remember, this triggers upon zone entry.

This was the perfect way to do this.

BlakThornArrow.2389:

I dont get this. Scarlet has been a major and decent villian ingame for a while now.
But most of the player base wants to see her get killed of or either just be ignored.
Sure i’d rather see an elder dragon awaken but if its going to be another shoot the canons at zaithan fight I prefer they wait until they are able to make it a decent encounter.

Scarlet on the other had gave us decent content with interesting enemies and more.
so whatsupp with this scarlet needs to die , its like trahearne all over again -_-

Copied from a post I made elsewhere (but I feel it’s relevant):

She is a fail because they did not develop her character. They instead threw her into our faces and said, “LOOK! She’s DANGEROUS!” IMO, the only chapter of the LS that impressed me in any way was F&F. Maybe it was a bit too drawn out (to be sure) with a lot of filler quests but it was interesting and mattered in the game’s lore. We HAD run into Flame Legion before. We HAD encountered the Dredge. Both of these groups had reason to ally. They were weak after their recent losses of leadership. The tenuous, necessity driven nature of their alliance even showed. This WAS already a cool story. Saying “Scarlet did it” only cheapened the whole affair.
Southsun was also a pretty long chain. The story with the settlers and the consortium was believable and potentially interesting. It actually showed that F&F affected the world. People were displaced and lost their homes! They needed a cheap place to live and a company tried to use this to further their ends! This is realistic stuff lol! The consortium were not evil but they certainly cut all the costs they could to make more money. Cannach wasn’t evil either but just furious with the Consortium. Everything he did, he did to harm them (and it ultimately put a lot of people in harm’s way). These stories were believable though.
You don’t need to tie all of this to one central, forced, kittenty villain. They did this…and people didn’t believe it. No one bought that Scarlet was behind all of the LS so far. So what did they do? They wrote a garbage post about how OP she was and how she learned everything ever and could do anything she wanted. That’s NOT how you write a villain. A villain develops and has a reason for everything they do. If you write it well and plan it out, you can drop little hints here and there so it will actually be something people are excited to hear about.

soakman.7539:

I’m so sick of the term “Mary Sue.” Labels like this really force people to ignore the details of a character and write them off as having no character.

Sure, she’s not a deep or even really that complex of a character, but at least she’s funny. At least she has character. I’m glad they gave us some details about her past at all, even if she is an unprecedented genius.

There are many characters in this game (and many more outside of it) that don’t even have a history. They are simply introduced to the story as a mechanic to keep the story moving and that’s it.

I’m not saying she couldn’t be MORE interesting, but I feel like this label is erasing what little we DO know about Scarlet because people who haven’t even tried to find out for themselves are just assuming it’s useless to experience/read up on her because they already “know” everything about her.

The label accurately describes her. She isn’t deep, she isn’t complex, and she’s not really funny either. What details they “gave” us, were given out of the game and as a backpedal to try to explain away the ridiculous character they gave us (and expected us the like and accept).

She is a fail because they did not develop her character. They instead threw her into our faces and said, “LOOK! She’s DANGEROUS!” IMO, the only chapter of the LS that impressed me in any way was F&F. Maybe it was a bit too drawn out (to be sure) with a lot of filler quests but it was interesting and mattered in the game’s lore. We HAD run into Flame Legion before. We HAD encountered the Dredge. Both of these groups had reason to ally. They were weak after their recent losses of leadership. The tenuous, necessity driven nature of their alliance even showed. This WAS already a cool story. Saying “Scarlet did it” only cheapened the whole affair.

Southsun was also a pretty long chain. The story with the settlers and the consortium was believable and potentially interesting. It actually showed that F&F affected the world. People were displaced and lost their homes! They needed a cheap place to live and a company tried to use this to further their ends! This is realistic stuff lol! The consortium were not evil but they certainly cut all the costs they could to make more money. Cannach wasn’t evil either but just furious with the Consortium. Everything he did, he did to harm them (and it ultimately put a lot of people in harm’s way). These stories were believable though.

You don’t need to tie all of this to one central, forced, kittenty villain. They did this…and people didn’t believe it. No one bought that Scarlet was behind all of the LS so far. So what did they do? They wrote a garbage post about how OP she was and how she learned everything ever and could do anything she wanted. That’s NOT how you write a villain. A villain develops and has a reason for everything they do. If you write it well and plan it out, you can drop little hints here and there so it will actually be something people are excited to hear about.

Of course it’s not her fault since she’s just a kitten character; it’s the writing.