Guild Wars 2

Brutalistik.6473:

Moshari.8570:

What about the Charr that was waiting for her shop to be built? Did she make it?

Probably at the refugee

She is a refuge. I saw her in the Gendarran Fields camp in a tent.

When I started playing, I planned to gear my characters according to class specialization. Finding Givers armor would work well for how I pictured my Guardian. Berserker would work well on my Pirate thief (That and they are suppose to have a thing for Rubies).

Some of these new bosses are more complex than throwing all DPS tanks at them.
When the Condition Reflect was on the Assault Knights, we did far less damage, than when it was under Condition Crash.
The 5 bosses on the Marionette, the Jungle Worm, and Tequatl.

Berserker is going to become more of a strategic choice than default for many players because the game is moving away from strict DPS in new content. It’s just sad that people have given in to pressure when gearing up.
It just gives the devs something to aim for when creating content or nerfing"balancing" the game.

Ever since release, most of my guild has experienced random crashes as well. My husband uses a different comp than mine and he has issues at well that have only turned up since the “Escape from Lion’s Arch” LS, but for the most part all but 3 people in a 25+ member guild can play this game.

The conversation Marjory’s sister comes in and spews some pointless banter,and then mentions her deployment to the Brisban Wildlands
What made this interesting was people have already speculated about Fort Vandal and what is being defended by lvl 80 Champs
It connects an area of known map to the unknown in this game that is pretty plot specific to the LS.

Did anyone else have this “Ah HA!” moment when catching this?

The trinity is really confining now.
That said, playing a game for what it is, rather than what you are used to or prefer is a challenge.
GW1 had problems for my main because I chose to roll a Mesmer. It has no place in conventional MMOs as it dealt a lot of indirect damage and backline support.
GW2 allows me to be more diversity with my mezzing: tank, support, and/or solo.
Even though GW1 had more skills, I have more choice in what I can build for.

Where GW2 combat could be vastly improved is with better AI for profession support (pets, minions, summons). Making these classes more viable within the scope of DPS or Support, and hybrids that should have the ability to contribute both. There also needs to be some work on how conditions work in PvE. They should be as punishing in PvE as they are in PvP. With so many enemies having immunity, DPS is the primary goal.

Had a Mender heading right into the fray again last night. Took care of it quickly. As more joined the battled, they neglected to rid themselves of mobs of the Aethers and Watchwork enemies they pulled.

The menders are still on the other side of the Piazza. Someone was possibly trying to aggro them over to the Knight battle Yak’s Bend, but it died in the process.
It’s still possible for it to be healed, just less likely.

“Woman: I don’t like what’s happening in my guild. So much drama!
Man: What is your guild called
Woman: The Traveling Thespians. "

A point of reference.
For married folks, it’s a cute idea, but I can easily see it leading to unnecessary drama. Simply the conversation here about who characters can marry opens a headache that ANet shouldn’t have to worry about.
Want to “Marry” another character?
Create a guild with just you and your significant other(s)/family (Rp stuff).
Do vows, exchange rings, whatever.

Making marriage an in-game feature is window dressing for players that lack the creativity to do something themselves.

I found one user during the “Escape From Lion’s Arch” event consistently hiding out in a nook during by the ramp going from Trader’s Forum to the Grand Piazza.
Considering we would get kicked every hour, finding her there event after event means she was running back in and getting credit awarded for at least 3 events every hour.

That was a pretty obvious one, but it is difficult to tell now if AFK or Leeching unless they are gone long enough to be kicked, and return again to the same spot.

I did this with my Guardian Charr, and clumsily at that:
“Retreat” for a speed boost. Started the stomp and failed the dodge.
Since I got knocked into the left corner, I walked right back and got the stomp in.
My husband was glad because for the better part of an hour or so, he heard the cutscene over and over.
The window to pull this one off is small and with a larger character, mobility is really important to be successful…But it can be done.

It’s true one Guardian can take them all out with a GS. It’s just a pain to not be in the actual fight. Do you get credit if you only nullify Menders for an entire battle?

My main is a Mesmer, and ever since Tequatl, I have had a kitten of a time trying to create useful builds for any class that isn’t DPS heavy.
A lot of skills apply conditions as a secondary afterthought. Forget survivability, forget creativity in a build. I either do support, DPS or don’t bother.
Clones and Phantasms die immediately, so no extra damage from that route.
Can’t interrupt on these bosses, how awesome would it be if we could.
Spam 1, Time Warp and Null Field, thanks.

While the battle organization is understandable, these bosses actually reflecting all conditions makes it very clear to me, that aspect of combat needs to be reworked.
Conditions either need to viable, or need to be converted into some sort of equivalent damage.
That would be a nice signet to have…
We have also been told to change gear, which is insane. Most people aren’t going to be able to have several sets of gear available at the drop of a hat, nor be able to afford to.

The choice I, and most indirect damage players, have is how to come into these sorts of fights. Backline support is currently a thankless piece of work, melee is a joke, leaving ranged options pinging away, if you have that option at all.
Please ANet, don’t discourage the spamming of one sort to encourage spamming of another.

Here is one that I have been thinking about since the whole “Destiny’s Edge 2.0” theory has been making it’s rounds. People have said that the new generation of NPC heroes are coming together from different races like DE.
Was Ceara the last hero? The one who touched minds with a dragon and perishes because of it.

Scarlet’s final words to you can be taken both as a threat and a warning. The miasma was found to be dangerous, but not lethal. Scarlet was either going for Mordremoth as to be a Champion, or going to deal with him herself in the empty ruins of Lion’s Arch. She had everything she needed for both.
After we research more evidence left on the still intact Breachmaker we may find more answers, but Scarlet’s madness was a sad descent from her desire of having a free will of her own.

I was wondering why the Blue Knight was so hard to kill.
I love that Scarlet’s armies are able to heal each other as we do. Just another thing we have to watch in an already buggy battle.

After defeating Scarlet, you can explore a bit and the controls of the Breachmaker can be interacted with. I screencaped what I saw and the last one, The Marrionette Control Panel, was interesting because we finished the investigation thinking that Scarlet was tapping the energy of the ley lines, where here it is clearly saying that it could only disrupt them..
There is the map of all her probes there, like in her lair, and some other things that could be worth translating.

In Fable II, you have an opportunity in the end to let Lord Lucien monologue his plans.
It really gives you a choice of letting him go on and on, even repeating himself, however if you don’t end it, Reaver does, taking nothing from the story that you didn’t already know.

All that would have happened, if you think of the timeframe of the instance, is that the drill would have reached it’s target, and Scarlet would “Neener neener!” anyway. Anyone could see she was clearly buying time to actually see what she had done come to fruition.

I noticed something new this past evening, and I am pretty sure this wasn’t the case a few days back, but the miasma events moved around.
Noticeably, the Atherblade one. This made for some fun when it dropped right in the middle of the escort to evacuate the children, Mass chaos.
People calling for help, and as more showed up, the worse it got. Both events failed.

The next time in, me and my other party member came across the event in Western Ward. Successful event with only 5 of us.
That whole time, I barely saw people because we avoided the big zerg in favor of small ones and got the Triple Play.

My observation: ANet has made zerg farming less appealing.
Now if they dealt with AKFers hiding in the JP and sewers. That would be nice.

Blude.6812:

Couldn’t care less about the farming or zergs, AFKs in LA—now that is another matter altogether. Come on Anet—release those red lazers on them~!

I had one that found a nook to hide in right next to Trader’s Forum. AFK the whole time.
I use these sort of events to level characters I rarely play and got them to 80. I can actually do something with my guild and other friends. It wasn’t much in way of drops, so farming for gold was a little pointless.

You are leveled to 80 while inside, but your gear isn’t. I played with a level 21 character just fine by sticking to ranged and staying with the group.

Kal Spiro.9745:

There is only one reason to farm EfLA, and that is to make a lot of Spinal Backpacks.

Otherwise it’s just dependent on if you find it fun or not.

I took this as an opportunity to level one of my characters to 80.
I have more blades than I care for and destroyed a few thousand. Turning in Found Belongings for Tomes has me going from level 29 to 73. I have learned ow to play the class more effectively and can participate in almost all content, regardless of if I am leveled to 80 or not.
As far as making money, I’ve made less than I have with a few minutes crafting Masterwork items to sell at the TP.

Farming is one of those bad habits people have picked up playing MMOs.
Even if I am farming XP for a character, I have found more success in smaller groups because Champs don’t drop what I am looking for.

There are a lot of folks with different goals going in and one thing that I find helps is when there is a consensus of what the current run is going to be about.
We were able to do it on Yak’s Bend with some effort and only a few commanders.
Keeping our groups smaller to deal with scaling up events unnecessarily.

We got 1200 civilians out in another run. Most dispensed with the zerg and focused solely on finding civilians and keeping the escape routes clear. One commander on the map.

Most of the time, it’s still chaotic and when all else fails, Kill all the things. The only achievement I didn’t get was the “All Bets Are Off” with the Moas. One of them always seem to die no matter what.

SoPP.7034:

I was there right at the beginning and people caught on pretty quickly what was happening, then started hammering out the AP’s. This was the first couple of days.

By day 3 there were still people who would call out and rally people for events but you started to see the farmers/afkers.

By the 5 day mark, it was a solid farm event.

The Tower of Nightmares was the same, trying to get to the top was near impossible towards the end because of the fact there was no reason for others to return. Whats happening in LA now is the same concept, its just people farming instead.

Thats something that ANet really needs to consider.

I think ANet has done something about it.
Seeing this was in the planning for quite sometime, they have systematically been breaking zerg and botting behaviour.
By making events that require planning and organization to complete, seperating into smaller groups, and even introducing WvW mechanics to PvE with “Edge of the Mists”, it has made it possible to be effective in events like Tequatl, Marionette and Three Headed Wurm. There are a lot less events that require us just throwing bodies at them and DPSing to death.

Elrey.5472:

If she didn’t get it, we would get a wyld hunt… to hunt her down

Scarlet. Putting the “Wyld” in Wyld Hunts since a minute ago.

According to this on Reddit.
You weren’t the only one
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1z5y2g/mass_dc/

I don’t know if this is related, but since the last update, I have had one of 2 problems:
1) The screen freezes and only a shutdown of game via Task Manager is possible.
2) I lose connectivity with server when I change zones, or shortly after I change zones.

I changed graphic settings to deal with the issues I had with 1, and then I started to get issues with 2. It isn’t consistent, so it’s hard to pin down the cause.

Edit: added pic of error code:
Edit 2: The error also has shown on other computer, making this some issue with the network, connection or client.

I like the thieves and guard idea, kinda like a Jailbreak .

My take on it:
Like Jailbreak the Thieves have a set of non combat costume brawl skills to deceive guards (stealth, disguise, dash) and the Guards have a set of non-combat costume brawl skills (tag/capture, a Sanctuaty-like block/protect skill and dash).
The Base is set and and the Thieves must get to it to be safe. and Guards must capture Thieves.
Winning Criteria: After X minutes points are tallied on how many Thieves made it to base and how many Thieves were captured.

Her “Pine cones”seem to be made to look like flowering Heliconia plants. Also known as False Birds of Paradise. I would very much like to have a weapon based on ALL the torment she caused. It could be funny…

“You think Scarlet was crazy kitten!?! I put and end to that bad salad joke and made this warhorn from her pigtails. I’m the crazy one!”
-blows horn and summons a dozen mini Scarlets to break your shins…and Legendaries-

Leveling some of my lower level characters to 80, making $$$ and seeing how this plays out.
Back piece isn’t very appealing to me and the tonics are nice, but if I am getting new characters in the 80 club, I gotta get them better gear.

It could be only events you have participated in (based on the Living Story Achievement Completion), or based on when your character was created, giving each player unique content of available stories to tell.
The animations that require a player character, would have the owner of the item as focus, like a party leader.

Excellent idea.

I haven’t seen them, but I do miss their antics.

I should have applied for citizenship in Lion’s Arch. I am more likely to be saved that way.

I know that we are still in the infancy of this chapter, but we need to get some of this on lock.
Right now, we get in the city, fight some mobs, a Commander WP to another location and the zerg starts to scatter and dies off.
ANet has been specifically making releases that require more cooperation and coordination. The “Edge of the Mist” release was the final test run for us on this.

The zerg is not enough anymore and and we know it.

We have some time for coordination to get squads together, relay the plan of attack and strategy before going back in. We have the advantage of knowing this map better than any other we have had. Its rough after an entire day of playing and just becoming discouraged seeing players trying to keep up with all of this and just getting downed. We have figured out most of this and just need to apply it.
For folks not following a Commander’s squad for other goals (piles of rubble, map completion ) for goodness sake, can we party up!
Speed runs in dungeons are the thing these days, but these are relatively smaller mobs that we can handle.
Having skills and weapons that are able to help in group situations should go without saying.

This game is still fun for me, and the Living Story has been ramping up to be epic. The idea that we concoct a precision effort to drive Scarlet’s forces from OUR city is far more appealing than zergs at them to die scattered in the suburbs.

tl;dr We can do better. FOR LION’S ARCH!

I went down in the sewers briefly to see if the Whispers HQ was still down there. No NPCs around at all, but they were eerily quiet except for the ambient screams and cries for help.

Sometimes it really isn’t safe to rez.
During the Queens Gauntlet, there was a spot in the Destroyers arena that I just avoided. A lava boil on the terrain that was pretty large and dealt burning.
We had a downed player that I went to rez, but the boil was not only making my heal, and the player who joined to heal, pointless, it also was killing us too.
We had a lot of people trying to help like this, but it was a vicious cycle. It was easier to die and WP than to deal with that.
There have been more and more situations where I see difficulty with rezzing and will triage who I can and can’t help. People that lost track of where they were on the battlefield, or miss-stepped

Sometimes, you are out o’ luck, Son.

This game is still the best at encouraging players to help each other. It’s discouraging when we devolve into a zerg, mindlessly wiping mobs and forget to look back to help the others that made it possible.

I met that Asura at the same time the Quaggan was crying in the background. I shouldn’t feel that emotionally invested in the NPCs, but we have been around them for over a year. I kinda got used to them and now I feel I have take them and the work that went into them for granted.

The problem with dying with no one to rez is sometimes a matter of survival.
Often you get in LA with a zerg that splits, and splits again and again…
Staying with the group is a way to stay alive. It is funny that when I get downed, I have to check to see if I am within view of a zerg and how focused they are to decide if it’s easier to go to a WP.
I’ve also sometimes exclusively rez while playing my Mesmer, leaving clones and phantasams to do the damage, cover and distract while players get on their feet.
Not as much loot in the backline, but if the zerg survives, we all have a chance to survive.

When partying up with my husband to level our low level characters, we have been staying near the Canal entrance. There is usually always someone about. Just taking out respawns and rezing fallen players.
I understand this is cheap, but the nature of the zergs isn’t conductive to anything but level 80 players with the gear to survive massive amounts of vets, elites and Champs.

I have been looking for a lot of the memorable NPCs.
When I found the kids that played behind the bank at one of the refugee camps. I was all smiles and cheers. (we really need a /hug emote for times like this)
Moments later listening to the Quaggans comforting each other and the Asuran woman that lost her spouse, who had died in her arms then was taken away to a mass grave…

kitten you, ANet. I am emotionally invested.

Palador.2170:

I’m done with the threads and discussions on which ones of them are the good guys, and the bad guys, and why they’re all acting like this. It’s all just bad writing, and I should know better than to expect anything else from the Living Story.

In my opinion, Bad writing would be:
Taimi asks, " Scarlet! Stop killing people!" some sob story
Scarlet says, “Okay! ~<3” and we all get cake.

Evon and Keil have been written as flawed heroes. They were set up to fail from the start because this was going to be the outcome regardless of any actions (or inactions) they took.

Shiren.9532:

Evon hoping Kiel died and his political jab at Magnus the “Bloodyhanded” was in poor taste. It’s difficult to support a character (remember the election was close, a lot of players actually like Evon) when they say things like this. I didn’t like how much like politics the election was written (politics isn’t fun imo) and this showcased the worst of politics – point scoring at the expense of serious issues (it also doesn’t make sense when Evon has a better platform to score points from if he reminds people he warned of the attack first). I want more grey in the story’s moral shades but they seem to insist on either making characters white or black.

This is what fascinates me about politics. The Captian’s Council is elected, they don’t have to do anything to help anyone, just appeal to the black and white issues of the majority of the public.
Evon had the strong point of being a merchant, thus he could sell his ability to produce profits as his strength, even if his business ethic was ruthless.
Kiel’s background as inspector, placed her in high regard when security was involved, even though her actual track record should come into question. If she was GOOD at her job, the Constortium would not be in Lion’s Arch, Theo Ashford would have be alive, and Scarlet would be a bad salad joke.

Scarlet was meant to attack Lion’s Arch in both a storyline and game design, big caps and bullet point. Arguing about who is being a jerk about failing to do this is pointless.

I left my Ranger in Sharkmaw Caverns before the attack started.
Needless to say she was pretty upset when she got out.

Azarhiel.4579:

A small scale city can be built in 5-10 years…

Gathering materials during one year is enough to rebuild a wooden city, the reconstruction may take 2-3 years for a small town

I’m working with logic here, so bare with me.
The unique quality of Lion’s Arch was that it mostly wasn’t built the way a conventional city , like Divinity’s Reach was. It was a piecemeal of broken ships re-purposed to function as a normal city hub.
Further out in it’s suburbs, we can see the normal Krytan architecture.
There are few more examples of this nautical salvage style in Gendarran Fields.

If Lion’s Arch is razed to it’s borders, as Ascalon City was, it wouldn’t make much sense to do anything but salvage wood and mortar and build normal buildings from that, rather than build in a style that gave building inspectors no end of grief.
From a game design perspective, they could make the area like Fields of Ruin: A fortified city hub, under siege by Scarlet’s forces.

Lion’s Arch will no longer exist as we know it now.

And that is not a bad thing. It is those that have played from the beginning, something they can share fond memories of.

I picture Scarlet singing this, just cause.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6vqPUM_FE

I don’t think the landscape will be changed as much as it was before after the attack. The original flood was from continental upheaval with a restless dragon.
The problem for Lion’s Arch is that it was sprawling. The actual town didn’t extend further than the Asura gates, but there were facilities all over the map.
The Captain’s Council has proven that they were too complacent.
When it is rebuilt, it is going to be dense and have a lot of clutter removed if a new faction takes control.
I wonder about the Lionguard, since they are dealing with Kessex Hills and eventually all of this.

I think it’s just teased up like that to give her some height, but admittedly I thought ahoge at first as well.

I think I will miss the Lion Fountain the most.

If Scarlet is here just to watch the world burn, I am sure there are more than enough people here that want to throw her in the fire too.

Lion’s Arch going down is important because it allows the overall game to progress.
Changes will be made to the game, and can be made in it’s absence. It keeps players from becoming complacent and board with the same old thing. It brings new players that may see something in the new content they like.

I thought the Searing was devastating, and then my character made it to Kryta, and things felt better. Then 140 years late Lion’s Arch goes glub glub and it is abandoned for a while. Everyone went and did their own thing, while pirates built Lion’s Arch up again well past it’s previous incarnation.

Losing a hub like this, just makes the game a lot more interesting to see what rises up in it’s place.

Anymras.5729:

They’ll probably instance the whole thing anyway.

This is likely. All moved to Vigil’s Keep to regroup.

Just in case, I have a few characters that are staying, both level 80 and lower level alts.
Out of the way places, like the jumping puzzles and Lost Grotto, as well as locations where some NPCs are to see how they deal with the madness (and if they survive it).

My Norn is in the Tavern that overlooks Trader’s Forum. So many go there for the view, so =D

kta.6502:

For all those who think romance has no place in an RPG: I refer all of you to Final Fantasy and other JRPGs. Yes, a game can with romance can sell very well in the Western countries, if it is done right.

This is where I am torn. I don’t mind the implied idea of characters being romantically involved, but I abhor when it is shoehorned into places where I wish it weren’t.
In Guild Wars, the only major couple was Prince Rurik and Lady Althea, and that turned out really well for the story.
Truth is, Guild Wars 2 is following that same pattern.

I was watching a movie, I forget the name (edit: It was “Bodyguards vs Assassins”), in which a bunch of likable characters were going to stand up to the bad guys, all 12 of them, and defend their town.
Then one of them says he is going to marry the girl of his dreams in 2 days and they are all invited to the wedding. Everybody cheered, had drinks and went to bed…

Deathflags for everyone.

Everyone of the major players in the LS has at least one flag on them right now. Kasmeer currently has the most, in my opinion.

lakdav.3694:

You know what would be epic? A stand your ground defend event to keep the Forge being overwhelmed.

This.
In fact, since the area is going to be unsafe anyway. for this to be a Boss level event in the area. Successful defense will allow players to use the forge, and only this forge for crafting Legendary and Ascended items only.

Since the others are offshoots, with the main one under siege, it is likely they may not be able to maintain the ability to craft everything, but things like perquisites and other lower level items.

Maybe that is what the ley lines led to. The Mystic Forge. A powerful magic right in the city’s heart.
The key to Lion Arch’s destruction has been here all along
XD

There are also areas that are only available in your Personal Story. If you haven’t done them, you could have a completion for the map and still not 100%.

I had this issue and corrected it by emoting dance. Inconvenient in the middle of a fight. Later had issues with not being able to stand down in combat.

Having been on a map when Scarlet’s invasions had just started was an “enlightening” experience. I had the choice of joining the zerg to survive, or opting out and getting overrun by mobs.
This is how Dynamic Events work, with the failure to assists some situations has an effect how you will need to play in an area if a conflict isn’t dealt with.
In Bloodtide Coast, wurms randomly spawn outside of the main event throughout the area. Scarlet now appears and attacks wherever mass concentrations of players are in combat (World Boss Trains).