Guild Wars 2

Winning has nothing to do with being good in Season 1 or the current League. Winning in Season 1 was a numbers game, not a skill game.

The winners of Season 1 didn’t “work for their win” they recruited their was to a win. Individually they aren’t more skilled than their opponents, they ounumbered their opponents. Dispel any illusion you have that winning the weekly PPT in WvW is primarily about anything other than coverage, skill is a small blip in what is ultimately decided by population and time zones. Once you’ve done that you might be open to the idea that rewarding anyone for the PPT of their server is unfair to people who’s only fault is to be on a less populated server. Individual rewards should be based on individual merit, not the server you transfer to. Anyone who completes the WvW meta should receive the same reward. Players on a T1 server who do the minimal amount of effort to complete the meta are no more deserving of rewards than players on a T2 or T5 server. To do it any other way rewards server selection and not WvW participation, skill or achievement.

The current League system isn’t any better. Implementing a system which can be easily manipulated to predict match ups and score outcomes is horribly flawed. JQ and TC might improve their individual placement at the end of the League but all three T1 servers lose when it comes to gameplay. I think a 2v1 is a fine thing to have in WvW but when it’s a League long prolonged effort to manipulate the score, it becomes unfun for JQ and TC who no longer have a challenging opponent and it’s unfun for BG who can’t possibly compete against two servers of similar strength to their own who are not fighting each other and primarily focusing BG. When the WvW team has designed a system that encourages this, they are designing a system which encourages or rewards players for making the game less competitive or fun. It’s even worse when you look at the position of SoS.

No system should encourage a server to “throw” a match or intentionally under-perform to manipulate their overall score and future match ups resulting in a higher final placement. The fact that the league’s scoring system allows and encoruages this is highly problematic. SoS simply shouldn’t have an incentive to throw a match to be rewarded with a higher placement.

Honestly I don’t think WvW should have real individual rewards for League/Season placement. It’s perfectly fine to give players a reward for completion of the meta achievement, but WvW isn’t a balanced competitive format and it never will be. The only rewards for placement in the league/season should be “prestige” and temporary finishers until the end of the next league/season. The current league system shouldn’t be used again due to how easy it is to manipulate outcomes (regardless of how players are rewarded) and T1 servers shouldn’t be in the same league as any other servers until the population gap is made smaller (if ever).

EotM epitomises the design flaws in WvW in general.

Karma Training (only attacking undefended structures and never defending structures) is most highly rewarded by the game. Commanders want enemies to take structures from them because that allows the commander to take it back for another reward. Defending doesn’t give you as much karma or gold, it often isn’t measured well (only if you repair a structure or get kill credit for an enemy attacking that structure) and you can often actively defend and even save a structure without ever getting credit for it (having full AC mastery and firing a superior AC on a gate an enemy zerg is attacking can often stop their entire zerg in its tracks, but if none of them die you won’t get defend credit). Defending that structure hurts your server’s karma train because they gain nothing from a defended structure other than PPT which offers no personal rewards.

This is especially evident in EotM because general zerg organisation is lower and defending structures is much easier. Keep lords in EotM, combined with the regional buff/debuffs give quite a boost to defending players. Even with smaller numbers, an organised team defending a keep has a much higher chance of success due to the increased danger/durability of the lords. The red keep lord does a lot of area damage and the green keep lord can live for a very long time. If you have active defenders either “open field” fighting the enemy zerg or a few people building and manning arrow carts, it can be very easy to wipe enemy zergs inside your own keeps (compared to the much less durable keep lords on the normal maps). Despite how easy it is to do this, it’s far more rewarding to ignore your keep and instead chase enemy keeps that are undefended.

IMO three things need to happen to turn this situation around (both in EotM and normal WvW).

1. The incentive for defending needs to be increased and more inclusive ways of recognising defence need to be implemented. The rewards imbalance between a karma train and intelligent defence is always going to be a dominating problem unless it’s addressed.
2. The game needs to implement reasons to split up instead of zerging together. This is a big problem for all of GW2 but especially in WvW. There is something to be said about large scale fights, but the zerg meta is harmful to so many kinds of gameplay. Less is more. Numbers gives too many advantages.
   • Defending becomes near impossible because you can intelligently defend and simply lose to sheer numbers.
   • Zergs aren’t challenged by defence because they have huge amounts of supply (meaning mistakes aren’t punished as heavily) and in many cases can simply auto-attack a door down.
   • NPC allies are useless.
   • Open field combat is not an option for defenders because safety in numbers guarantees victory for the zerg.
3. Depending on how effective the first two points are, defending needs to become “easier”. Currently if the enemy zerg has enough players, the only viable defence is for the defending side to have equivalent numbers. A prolonged war of attrition will almost always favour the side with greater numbers. This encourages players to group together to win, it also discourages players from defending because it’s too easy to make defence ultimately futile.

Assuming the final track of the regional rewards gives you a skin item and not an actual exotic weapon… you can simply right click on them and select “send to vault” or w/e it is. It will destroy the item but it will unlock the skin on your account. The down side is you lose the ability to apply it “for free” but if you are playing any reasonable amount of PvP you have transmutation charges coming out of your ears.

As far as the final reward being a piece of armour instead of the whole set, that’s a poor tool tip and it’s a known issue, it will be fixed. I agree it’s a bit surprising to see people get to the end of a track and get gloves or a helmet but after only two tiers in they can get a greatsword (which is more than 300 tokens) but honestly, that’s a problem with how generous the tiered weapon boxes are as opposed to how poorly rewarding the final tier in the track is.

He’s talking about before the current system. Back when PvE and sPvP items were separate and there was no wardrobe.

Zepidel.5349:

Games should not be balanced from experiences in low level play. Competitive games are balanced at the highest level of play, in GW2’s case look at ToL. How many duo zerker thieves are running around, how many thieves are 1 shotting people?

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

How many noobs are getting picked off, off point?

There could be a endless river of noob blood spilt in -9001 MRR STPvP, with 1000 QQ threads made, and nothing will change.

Low level play is very important for the health of the sPvP population and the format in general. You can’t neglect issues in low level play because if those players aren’t enjoying sPvP they aren’t going to make it to high level play. If low level play is problematic, players won’t be around long enough to learn to play. What’s worse, the more foreign the low level play meta looks to high level meta, the harder it’s going to be to transition and the more bad habits people will have to unlearn to move up. It’s one of the big reasons why 8v8 hot joins is a terrible idea – they don’t in any way reflect how sPvP is designed and learning builds or general team work in an 8v8 is a joke because you are constantly zerged by numbers either for or against you.

On your way to that single piece of armour you will acquire several weapons. Many of those weapons cost 300+ tokens. Running all paths of most dungeons (which can take a long time depending on your party) in a single day will usually only net you 190ish tokens. Any more tokens beyond that are much harder to acquire due to daily lock outs (something the sPvP reward tracks don’t have unless you hotjoin only and the skill difference between hotjoin and arenas is almost non-existent if your rating is low enough).

As someone who does both sPvP and PvE it’s far easier for me to acquire many dungeon sets via sPvP than it would be to do so via PvE. One of the big draws for sPvP is I will be acquiring several transmutation charges along the way. Honestly, when I look at end game gearing and cosmetic acquisition, there is a huge incentive to choose sPvP over other areas of the game right now because the rewards are so generous, especially for players with lots of alts.

It’s just a case of patience I believe. The tribal set was an outlier (why on earth would anyone salvage their only copy of it? What would you purchase with those salvaged materials that would be of any value?) and I guess it didn’t fit into their current rewards model.

I genuinely believe this set will be obtainable in PvE somehow in the future. I am surprised it wasn’t placed in the regional reward tracks, but I expect that by the end of this year, the tribal armour will be attainable again in some form regardless of posts like this one.

There were several posts leading into the removal of glory that dissected sPvP rewards and which ones were high value low effort targets (Dwayna bows, dungeon weapons), which were unique to sPvP (Dark Moon Shield, Tribal armour, guild armour pieces, parts of the Rubric and Commando sets) etc. I wouldn’t say this was common knowledge, but anyone who was paying attention should have known about this set and had a chance to obtain it prior to the glory removal.

I suspect for now it’s a bonus luxury for players that had it prior to the removal and in the not so distant future it will be just another common set.

That’s because the time and effort to acquire the dungeon weapons via sPvP tracks is way easier than the PvE equivalent for many dungeons. If you want a full set or Arah weapons it’s far easier and faster to just join sPvP and face opponents of similar skill level to your own to get these weapons than it is to learn the dungeons and deal with the daily grinds.

The regional reward tracks look so bad because the dungeon reward tracks are far too generous.

Chrispy.5641:

The Problem with Konig is that he also left out half the story in order to make his point. You can’t talk about what a person does now and what a person did 5+ years ago without atleast acknowledging this fact :::

Time passes in this game/story, and that time changes a person.

If Logan was a person with a certain sense of humor several years ago, he might not be anymore.

And If you take a moment to read through some recent (which is relative, its still almost a year old) dialogue between Logan and Anise in Scarlet’s Playhouse, Logan still seems way too hung up on protecting his queen to do anything else or trust anyone else with protecting the queen, like he was the year before, and like he was several years before that. It seems like he is infact, not that open to changing himself for good or bad.

Logan hasn’t changed at all and it’s a flaw in the writing imo.

It’s not that Logan has lost his sense of humour or things that make him interesting, it’s that Logan’s recent appearances have been with the Queen. Look through Logan’s history and the times when he’s the least interesting as a character are when he’s with the Queen. ArenaNet may have done the impossible and conceived the only love story that is actually not better than Twilight.

Players didn’t buy the romance from the beginning. The discussions around Edge of Destiny often focused on how unbelievable the love interest was and to this day people still think Logan is brainwashed by mesmer magic because to many people that’s the most believable scenario (despite being told otherwise).

Logan’s character is handled all wrong. They portray him as the white knight that protects the queen, but this queen doesn’t need protection. She’s one of the most powerful mesmers in Tyria (isn’t the royal line stronger than usual?) and she has her own personal guard – the Shining Blade (led by Anise, someone the writers take every opportunity to demonstrate is good at stuff). If Logan wanted to protect the queen that bad, why not become one of the Shining Blade instead?

That leaves us with the things that Logan actually is, the good stories that either aren’t being told or compete with the romance I doubt many people like. Captain of the Seraph. We see this a bit in the Personal Story and as long as it doesn’t intersect with the queen it’s actually fairly enjoyable. As Konig pointed out, he even has a sense of humour (one of the only DE members to make me laugh). Captain of the Seraph should be a man of the people, they should represent the struggle of the Krytans and the fight to survive, not always pining after or trying to protect the queen.

Logan is also the GW2 legacy of Gwen and Keiran – two Ascalonian heroes and iconic of GW1. We won’t see the humans retake Ascalon but why they don’t utilise Logan in Ebonhawke is beyond me. How awesome would it be to see Logan “finding himself” and reflecting on his family’s legacy at Gwen’s grave leading him to his personal quest to take up that fight? It would be a nice throwback to GW1 lore and embrace a part of Logan’s identity that is actually interesting.

On top of all that, as a member of Destiny’s Edge he’s probably Tyria’s most accomplish human hero. We don’t need a repeat of Kralkatorrik. How much cooler would it be if Logan went into the Crystal Desert and his new love interest was an Elonian warrior? Instead of “needing” protection, they could be equals and fight together.

Jennah and Logan is a terrible “star crossed lovers” story. They don’t make each other better, the relationship makes Logan worse (a huge red flag for ending a relationship). Jennah doesn’t need him and her political position would actually lead to some far more interesting match-making elsewhere. I actually really like the idea of Caudecus, it’s certainly not romantic but real monarchy’s often aren’t. I don’t think we need a royal wedding (unless it was a political marriage of convenience it wouldn’t make sense – Jennah and Logan are very separate right now) but I would love to see this royal romance with Logan end and see Tyria utilise the politics plot a bit more with Jennah and her would be king. As long as the tengu are invited to the wedding, I’m sure they’d love to celebrate the marriage of a female human mesmer leader, it’s not like they have had bad experiences with one or the past or that they are the kind of race that remembers things like that.

I don’t see why we can’t just salvage them. Is it really that big of a deal for players to turn 42,000 karma into 0-3 ectos? Are Melandru runes so precious they are worth more than 42,000 karma?

What is this restriction protecting? I was buying exotics off of the TP a while ago for cheaper than the gold price + badges from the merchant in WvW. You get dungeon weapons from a handful of matches in sPvP. The restriction may make sense for low level gear, but level 80 exotics should all be salvageable.

Could it just be a side effect of their original decision (which was overturned) to removed ranks from the game?

They were likely working on the current system for a long time and in that time they had planned to get rid of ranks. It was during the development of the new system that they decided to keep ranks but maybe it was too late to keep them in the score board. Someone had already changed it and while ranks were kept around, their inclusion in the game isn’t part of the team’s vision for the game so no effort was made to find a place for them.

I agree there are benefits to “hiding” ranks but I suspect the original reason (which could still be supported by arguments favouring “hidden” ranks) is that it’s simply a side effect of planning the removal of ranks.

At the end of the reward track you get a single piece of armor, not the whole set.

So yes, if you complete the HotW reward track you will be able to choose the chest piece. Also note that you will acquire several weapons along the way.

I’m already seeing a lot of talk about match fixing and throwing the week so that servers can manipulate who they are fighting the next week and hopefully maintain/disrupt a rotation of scores to create favourable match ups for your own server and unfavourable match ups for other servers.

I’ve seen people talk about intentionally aiming for third place (and targeting specific servers while ignoring others to manipulate the league score) rather than playing to win.

I am fine with a 2v1, that’s players still trying to outdo another server. A league (and rewards) system which encourages players to throw matches or not fight for the best placement they can get that week, that’s not OK.

No server should get better rewards than another at the end of the league – your server’s placement is an arbitrary measurement of WvW population and coverage combined with how well you did the maths and threw matches to get a better score. Why does someone who did the exact same meta (arguably more difficult the lower your server places because you can’t rely on zergs) get less tickets than someone who did the same meta with the luxury of being on a higher placing server? This kind of rewards incentive doesn’t encourage players to play competitively in WvW, it just rewards them for tranfering to stacked servers, throwing matches to get to the top of a lower league and match mixing during the league if they think it will give them a better score in the end.

WvW has never been a serious or balanced competition. Individual fights have had meaning (fighting over a sentry, supply camp, tower or keep) but winning the week is rarely competitive, never mind winning the league.

The current system is too easy to abuse and the rewards give too much incentive to abuse it.

I disagree. League of Legends is probably the most played game on earth right now and it has a incredibly “toxic” community. GW2’s PvP problems are specific to the content, not the rewards or the community.

Larynx.2453:

Shiren.9532:

Larynx.2453:

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

This is a wording bug not a content issue. The design behind the dungeon tracks was that players would need to run the track multiple times to get the entire set of weapons and armor.

19 – weapons
18 – pieces of armor (6 light, 6 medium, and 6 heavy)

Upon completing a track you will get 3 weapons and 1 piece of armor all your choice including stat combo. Upon running the track multiple times you are able to either save tokens for legendary or use tokens to speed the process up of getting the full weapons/armor set you are working towards.

The fact the text says “set” is a mistake that we are going to update soon. Any other questions just let me know.

Is it intended to take anywhere from 40-70 hours to get a full set of the armor, especially when comparing it with the relative ease of acquiring it in PvE?

Assuming 10-20 minute runs, it takes only about 5-6 hours in PvE to acquire the set using the daily reward bonus.

The majority of players have never completed all four Arah paths let alone done so in 10-20 minutes. That’s crazy hyperbole. There is a handful of groups who run fine tuned speed clears of dungeons that can complete some paths in a short amount of time, but they would make up less than 1% of the total GW2 population. No-one is acquiring sets of Arah in 5-6 hours of PvE, certainly not their first set (you also downplay how significant the daily time gate on dungeons is, especially noteworthy when sPvP only has a time gate on hot-joins). Acquiring Arah armour in PvE (outside of buying runs) requires some player ability (it is arguably the most difficult dungeon in the game). Acquiring Arah armour in sPvP simply requires turning up, you don’t even have to win.

Arah armour is one of the most elite armour sets in the game (one of the few that used to represent player skill) and players are able to farm it while losing, the current system is actually quite generous all things considered.

Everything I said still applies. I don’t see how the prestige of one armor set negates the reality of the discrepancy. There’s more than one dungeon set.

I myself already have the full Arah set, it’s certainly not as hard as you make it seem. The point is that the current system makes PvE the only means of actually acquiring the skins in any reasonable time.

sPvP is not supposed to compete with PvE in terms of farming or the ability to obtain things. That is by design, not an unfortunate oversite. You aren’t supposed to go to sPvP as the preferred method of acquiring equipment. The time it takes to progress these tracks is already faster for weapons (seriously, a weapon of your choice for a single tier is much faster than acquiring a 2 handed weapon in PvE – and that’s if you ignore the time gate on PvE dungeons) a full armour set upon completion would make dungeon rewards a joke.

I want the current system to stay. Your equipment still accurately lists what it is and it even makes lore sense that the new item is just transmuted to look like another item, it’s not actually that other item.

A level 3 blue sword is currently recognised as that sword, regardless of what you transmute on top of it. The game still lists the transmutation for you or anyone that wants to know what appearance it has.

I really like that the true name of an item is used (it’s worth noting that the current system still lists the transmutation used), it’s like recording the history of my equipment and what I did to earn it. This will be nice for players that purchased weapons or armour with dungeon tokens as opposed to those who use the more easily obtained crafted ones. It’s also nice for player that have legitimate high-end skins as opposed to four or more transmuted ones across their account.

Einlanzer.1627:

Shiren.9532:

I actually really like the new system. The item’s true name is shown and the transmute is listed in the description. It reminds where I got my items from and it preserves the integrity of items like Infinite Light or Dwayna’s Longbow. I really want the current system to stay.

Sorry, but this makes zero sense. The name of any item in the game is descriptive of the visual appearance of the item, not of its stats. Now, when you have have a Berserker’s Spineguard equipped and you apply the Quaggan backpack skin to it, instead of being called a Quaggan Backpack like it should be, it’s still called a Berserker’s Spineguard, which is dumb.

It worked correctly before. The original item’s name should be preserved where the skin name is currently. Literally nobody in the thread on this topic in the General forum approves of the new system.

It does make sense. Someone with a Molten Sword does not have Infinite Light, even fi they transmute on it. It’s a Molten Sword with the same skin as Infinite Light and the current system accurately states that. Transmuting an appearance doesn’t create that weapon, it just makes it look like that weapon and that’s exactly what the current system indicates, it’s still a Molten Sword.

Prior to this update my warrior had several Molten weapons with berserker stats. I transmuted Shaman’s Norn weapons on top of them and it changed the weapon’s name to “Shaman’s Norn Greatsword” etc despite them being neither a norn weapon nor a Shaman’s weapon.

You might think losing the original item’s name means little but for a person who spent 800+ gold acquiring Infinite Light, this is a big deal. Their Infinite Light was earned.Players acquired the same skin in sPvP before the new system with a small fraction of the effort. Other players will transmute that weapon onto multiple swords across their account, but only one of them will be Infinite Light, the others are just transmuted to look like it. They can apply that skin to as many items as they want but under the current system not one of them will be Infinite Light.

The current system most accurately represents equipment. It states what the core item is (which with the new system is the actual item – unlike stones/crystals the new system doesn’t consume two items, only one item and that item is the one is the one that has the dominant name) and it states on the same tool-tip which transmutation it is currently using.

The current system makes perfect sense.

I actually really like the new system. The item’s true name is shown and the transmute is listed in the description. It reminds where I got my items from and it preserves the integrity of items like Infinite Light or Dwayna’s Longbow. I really want the current system to stay.

EverythingEnds.4261:

I think, It rly depends.
Of course, being impolite to new players isn’t good thing, however, new players also have to realize some things.

First of all, if you are new, it might not be a good idea to directly jump into competitive game modes like teamQ.

In addition, you should use your common sense.
Even if it’s pvp, the game mode is called “Conquest”. So capturing points might actually be usefull. That multiple players of one team on a node, without eny enmies might not be the best for the team is also common sense.

PvE players are jumping into teamQ because the devs are herding them there. The fastest way to progress your reward track is through ranked matches an in particular, teamQ. The reason the PvE players are in sPvP at all is to get their hands on some loot. This is what happens when you use rewards as the incentive to do content rather than fun. It’s even worse now that there is at least one unique sPvP skin that PvE players are working hard to acquire. You have players playing content they don’t really want to play because the reward is something hey want to obtain. If there is a faster/easier method to obtain it, they will do so regardless of the consequences, that’s why you see PvE players messing up teamQ games without any care about winning or getting better – they know they are going to progress towards their goal regardless of what they do.

Larynx.2453:

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Hey everyone,

This is a wording bug not a content issue. The design behind the dungeon tracks was that players would need to run the track multiple times to get the entire set of weapons and armor.

19 – weapons
18 – pieces of armor (6 light, 6 medium, and 6 heavy)

Upon completing a track you will get 3 weapons and 1 piece of armor all your choice including stat combo. Upon running the track multiple times you are able to either save tokens for legendary or use tokens to speed the process up of getting the full weapons/armor set you are working towards.

The fact the text says “set” is a mistake that we are going to update soon. Any other questions just let me know.

Is it intended to take anywhere from 40-70 hours to get a full set of the armor, especially when comparing it with the relative ease of acquiring it in PvE?

Assuming 10-20 minute runs, it takes only about 5-6 hours in PvE to acquire the set using the daily reward bonus.

The majority of players have never completed all four Arah paths let alone done so in 10-20 minutes. That’s crazy hyperbole. There is a handful of groups who run fine tuned speed clears of dungeons that can complete some paths in a short amount of time, but they would make up less than 1% of the total GW2 population. No-one is acquiring sets of Arah in 5-6 hours of PvE, certainly not their first set (you also downplay how significant the daily time gate on dungeons is, especially noteworthy when sPvP only has a time gate on hot-joins). Acquiring Arah armour in PvE (outside of buying runs) requires some player ability (it is arguably the most difficult dungeon in the game). Acquiring Arah armour in sPvP simply requires turning up, you don’t even have to win.

Arah armour is one of the most elite armour sets in the game (one of the few that used to represent player skill) and players are able to farm it while losing, the current system is actually quite generous all things considered.

Maybe it’s because I play a charr ranger, but I never found the sword to be graceful. It’s one of the most movement restrctive weapons in the game.

I don’t think it’s gone from the game, just off the plates of the profession balance team. I think they were overwhelmed with balancing the game as it currently is, underwater combat (and the challenge of making it fun) was unnecessary extra work given how unpopular it was in sPvP. It’s not a problem in PvE (personally I think it’s an asset) so it will stay (they can’t remove it from the open world anyway). The question is, how common will it be in any new content? I was disappointed that Southsun Cove had so little underwater content. It seems to be off the table for sPvP but with an underwater dragon, a possibly future-playable race based underwater (largos) it seems probable that GW2 will always have a place for underwater content.

For the record, I’d like to see underwater content added back to hot-join (or at least custom arenas) and Heart of the Mists. Players will often use Heart of the Mists to test out build stats and performance in a controlled environment and often that testing is done for PvE reasons. Even if no PvP match has underwater combat, it would be nice if the testing areas remained for PvE players to test with.

I wanted to take a moment to thank the developers for making the decision(s) to make Tyria much friendlier to alts. I’ve been around since GW1 and I’ve followed the discussions about why certain systems were character-specific “progression” as opposed to account-wide. Notably I recall the dye debate during the beta weekends, more recently the debate over Wxp or the ongoing debate over ascended. As an avid player of alts (an altaholic if you will), a trait first nurtured in how alt-friendly GW1 was designed, I was always on the side of account-unlocks and throughout my time in GW2 I have felt pressure and restrictions to change or avoid that style of playing.

This most recent patch has shown me that across the company you guys have made a conscious and robust effort to redesign systems (I’m sure this wasn’t easy) and even make generous decisions (retroactively unlocking dyes for the account, permanently unlocking gem store skins with a single purchase) to accommodate the best interests of the players. You didn’t just do this with one or two systems, you did a sweeping change across many areas of the game and I can tell you that I personally have felt and greatly appreciate how big an impact this has made on my experience in the game.

Off the top of my head here are the systems changed to be account wide in this last patch:

• Dyes
• The Wardrobe and skin unlocks (legendaries, expensive high end skins, gem store skins, Living Story Skins)
• sPvP reward track unlocks (unlike explorable mode, the reward tracks are unlocked for the entire account)
• Wxp
• Ascended and Legendary items (easing pressure on spending choices).
• Merging of PvP and PvE reward tracks.

Since the patch I have felt more freedom than ever in the game.
Freedom to:

• Experiment with as many dye colours as I want on any character I choose.
• Consume those too-valuable-to-use Living Story skins I wasn’t sure about and increasing the depth of my aesthetic customisation option.
• Play any character I want in WvW without feeling like I am “progressing” the wrong one or I’m less effective than another character because of a lower rank.
• Invest valuable currencies (laurels, guild commendations, pristine fractal relics etc) into ascended items knowing that I can swap them between my characters if I want to try new builds or play one more heavily than the other.
• Play in sPvP without halting my aesthetic progression in PvE.

The impact this patch has had on me (a patch that added very little “new” content) and how I am able to play and enjoy the game is considerable. So often I am critical of this game and will give negative feedback but I truly believe this Feature Pack represents a significant positive shift in how GW2 is designed and I really want to highlight how supportive I am of this new direction (thank you CDIs?). To see such a positive shift in the game from all the different teams is very encouraging. Thank you.

So how has the Feature Pack changed GW2 for other players? Have you guys lost an evening to the wardrobe experimenting with your character’s look? Spent an hour or more perfecting your look with dye combinations? Post screen shots of them if you want to show off your results. Or have you played a character you wouldn’t play as much without Wxp or access to account wide ascended items?

I thought it was weird they used a charge system and could have easily made sub-80 items consume 1 charge and level 80 items consume 2 or three charges (and adjust the conversion of transmutation stones accordingly) but they make more money this way. Honestly, GW2 leveling is so far, it’s a waste to transmute anything before reaching level 80 (even more so now that it costs the same).

An entire armour set for completing a single track? I think your expectations are a little high. If the tracks gave out complete sets, sPvP would be the go to place to obtain armour, and that’s not right. If anything is wrong it’s the wording.

Serophous.9085:

Shiren.9532:

You can’t this armour in PvE (unless you unlocked it in the wardrobe). Mirta is likely confusing Primitive Armour with Tribal Armour (that’s the name the wardrobe gives this set). Here is a screen shot of the two armours. The left most is the armour in Sparkfly Fen, the second is the wardrobe version of Primitive Armour and the right is the wardrobe version of the Tribal Armour.

we know you cant get it in pve, but are wonder if it was retired in spvp

Someone in this thread was checking the karma vendors and I was just letting them know I had done so recently.

You’re best (only?) bet for getting it in sPvP would likely be one of the regional reward tracks. Currently it’s Kryta, but if I had to pick one for this armour skin I would guess Maguuma or Orr. Maybe wait until someone has unlocked all the regional tracks and see if it’s in one of those?

You can’t this armour in PvE (unless you unlocked it in the wardrobe). Mirta is likely confusing Primitive Armour with Tribal Armour (that’s the name the wardrobe gives this set). Here is a screen shot of the two armours. The left most is the armour in Sparkfly Fen, the second is the wardrobe version of Primitive Armour and the right is the wardrobe version of the Tribal Armour. I went throught Orr, Fireheart Rise, Iron Marches and Timerline falls just after the update to unlock all the karma sets in those areas (I did Malchor’s Leap and Cursed Shore, I didn’t check Straights of Devistation) and they all offered the same sets they offered before the patch.

The regional reward tracks haven’t been fully documented yet. It’s easily possible this armour is in one of them. I know it’s still in the game because it’s unlocked in my wardrobe.

The Kryta Region track’s final box says it contains unique skins. Are these just Krytan/Aureate/Seraph weapons or did they add something else to this track? Has anyone gotten one yet and can confirm what’s inside of it?

I had banker golems on all of my character that I never used (many of them were over a year old) and a recent patch seems to have deleted them. What happened?

Running rangers in a five man group won’t change perceptions. Rangers are already viewed as excellent roamers, it’s when they try to participate in large scale fights (what WvW is primarily about) that the class really begins to struggle.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

Lol, in the sense of “why on earth would you want to experience a world war?”

He doesn’t, he wants to white knight in as many threads as possible without engaging in discussions in good faith.

I think I read in an interview that China will be on the same page as everyone else, they won’t have to endure Scarlet and her lore wrecking ball. Lucky them.

Think of it this way, the events of the three Guild Wars 2 novels take place before the game launched. Each of those books has given the game historical context today. Some of them have created locations in the world today (Killean’s grave) some have left behind landmarks (Cobiah’s plaques and statues etc), some established key plot points (the human and charr state of diplomacy) and others have laid the foundation for modern cities (I haven’t finished reading Sea of Sorrows – I got bored – but appearently it’s about the founding of Lion’s Arch as we knew it). Guild Wars 2 never let you play through these events but their consequences are very real to Tyria and the stories being told today.

Outside of the books several events took place before the game launched, Thaumanova exploded, the Vigil was founded and countless other stories. The destruction of Lion’s Arch is going to be a historical event for Chinese players, no different from the rest of Tyria’s history. The only part that seems awkward to me is the Personal Story instances in Lion’s Arch. Some of them will look weird in Lion’s Arch post-destruction.

Atlas.9704:

Though I still agree that the two week release schedule is utter Dolyak spit and they should extend some releases out longer. I wish they weren’t so hard headed/determined/whatever about it.

It was depressing to see Kristen Bornemann’s (Guild Wars 2 Development Director) write such an optimistic presentation on the two week release schedule for GW2 at the GDC. It seems like the higher ups are so focused and obsessed on what an achievement it is to release content every two weeks (which it is, I don’t want to distract from my point by giving the idea that the release schedule doesn’t require good work – it does) that they are losing sight of the context in which the content is experienced. People moaned about permanent content all year long, Colin told us we were heard and still the bulk of content released since then has been temporary. Players complain about achievement point grinds but they keep on coming. Players complain that content required them to play on ArenaNet’s timetable and not their own but you wouldn’t even know they read that from the way they continue to praise their release schedule without even recognising that the final product is different from a traditionally developed and released piece of content (I do believe the quality of content has suffered in their two week pipe line).

Very few content updates in that two week schedule had the quality of a more traditional MMO content release (whether it be an expansion or a content update which most MMOs experience). The two week format still has a quality vs quantity issue imo and that’s before you get to the temporary content issues.

I like the idea of ongoing updates to the game, but I don’t believe the Living World release schedule, poor story and gameplay are up to par. I certainly don’t miss the Living Story, designing a game with “keeping players around” as the sole focus is a recipe for bad decisions. That the kind of thinking that creates gear treadmills and fun killing grinds. I understand the desire to keep players playing for as long as possible. I understand they want to keep players around every two weeks but more is at stake than that. I’ll end with a quote from Colin himself.

But what if your business model isn’t one based on a subscription, and your content-design motivations aren’t driven by creating mechanics to keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun? – Colin Johanson

panzer.6034:

Kurrilino.2706:

I can see the older generation being incredible unhappy with laser, phasers, airships
cyberpunk in our beloved fantasy games.
Maybe it has something to do with younger generations losing they eye for the beauty and being entertained by brute force.

I doubt it’s a “kids these days” issue at all (though that’s a trendy cliche that is ubiquitous anywhere someone doesn’t like something on internet). And “brute force”? How is using a laser more brute force than smashing someone with a mace? Flying in airship as opposed to riding a horse?

I’m in my mid 30s and i grew up with He-man, who was a fantasy barbarian-type in a world with high magic sorcery and spaceships with lasers. Kids today have no clue who He-man is/was. There’s also Thundercats, which did much the same for my generation.

If you’re looking at a decade earlier, people growing up in the 70s lived in an era where sci-fi and fantasy were constantly mixed in novels and media. Gary Gygax, one of the creators of D&D in the 70s, ran games where fighters, rogues and wizards got teleported to spaceships and the wild west. Hell, the magic system of that game was based on novel set in the distant future of earth.

The issue with accepting technology as part of fantasy has nothing to do with generations and certainly nothing to do with “brute force” (I’m not even sure how that fits into this in the first place anyway). Some folks just can’t get out of the artificially narrow concept that “fantasy” must be equivalent to “medieval ONLY fantasy”.

Maybe it’s not a case of they “can’t” and more a case of they “don’t want to”. I was unhappy with the tech advancements of engineers and charr siege engines over the last 250 years (anyone else remember the concern over the engineer reveal and the LED lights on the mines?) but I can accept it becoming a part or Tyria today. It’s not a coincidence that the asura are my least favourite race or that despite my main being a charr and my ability to appreciate the design of the city, the Black Citadel is my least liked racial city.

I like my fantasy to lean on the side of fantasy and not sci-fi (otherwise I would read sci-fi or play a sci-fi game). Magic seems less cool when the Living Story writers say in an interview Scarlet can do pretty much anything (cross any class boundaries) via her engineering genius. It felt less cool to be a mesmer. The necromancer’s ability to revive the dead or the elementalist’s ability to control the elements, these things become less fantastical to me when an engineer’s device can do the same thing. Technology is so impersonal, there is something beautiful about magic, about bloodline ties to it (like the human royal line and Jennah accessing something an ordinary person couldn’t) and that’s just not there with technology. Magic is ancient and rich, it’s about personal limitations, rituals, gods and totems. Magic is rich with stories (not just from today, but going back to ancient times – in Tyria, whether it be the bloodstones, the gift of magic or the Elder Dragons). Technology is so boring. It’s modern and new, it’s argued to be limitless, it doesn’t seem to have boundaries (or follow rules) and it overshadows magic.

I don’t mind technology being a part of Tyria (it always has been, it’s just more advanced now) but I feel like technology is taking over (especially in the Living Story). I think engineers should be able to use technology to compete with traditional magic, but not to emulate or improve upon it. That makes magic seem pointless. I like the Zephyrite ships (powered by an advanced understanding of wind magic and access to dragon magic) and I think they are a lot more interesting than Pact air ships (because technology – how boring is that?). There is poetry to a Zephyrite ship (an elegant combination of architecture and precise mastery of air magic, but it goes back to Glint), Pact ships just feel like they work because technology said so. People make fun of magic in stories because it’s used to explain the unexplainable, that role in GW2 has been given to technology. Magic in Tyria has limitations, it has origins and sources, it has an identity, technology crosses and goes beyond these boundaries.

More permanent content, not less.

The Personal Story is better than the Living Story because I can start playing today and experience it all. The players in China who will be starting their journey into GW2 soon will know all about the three Orders, the Pact and the defeat of Zhaitan. To them, Scarlet is history. That will be the same for anyone who picks up Guild Wars 2 in the future.

The Living World is challenged when it comes to changing events because it could break the Personal Story but in most cases I think people overstate the limitations.

• Characters from the Personal Story can die. If the Personal Story is understood to be past events, players can play through it with the knowledge that the open world and the Living Story take place after the final step.

• Personal Story instances should use historical maps. I’m guessing it’s a technical limitation, but the destruction of Lion’s Arch conflicts with instances that take place there. If the instances use older versions of the maps, this wouldn’t be a problem. Anything instanced should be fine if they can use historical maps.

The only issue with the Personal Story as I see it is parts of the world that really need to change dramatically to move forward. Aside from the destruction of Lion’s Arch (which was unnecessary imo – I don’t think the story earned that conclusion) which is likely to be rebuilt, the only area in the game I see this being a problem for is Orr. The Personal Story doesn’t prevent this map from changing but it does kind of limit what can be done (because the open world events and locations are such an important part of Personal Story). I think Orr does need to remain a constant battle between the undead and the Pact but I think it would be OK to see some areas where fortifications become more stable, maybe even some of the corruption is cleansed and life begins to return to parts of Orr. We didn’t explore all of Orr, so if they wanted to show elements of the cleansing of Orr they could open up parts of Orr that are currently unexplored and pretend as though they have been cleansed. Just write something about how the fight against the undead continues in other parts of Orr and cleansing the corruption is taking longer there (which is believable because Tequatl got stronger, so Zhaitan’s defeat doesn’t mean the threat is over). They could even argue that the way in which Zhaitan was defeated resulted in an uncontrolled release of his power resulting in Orr becoming much harder to cleanse, this lesson could be applied to future Elder Dragons and a different approach to those stories.

Almost every map is stuck in time (including changes from the Living Story), that’s not a problem specific to personal story, it’s a problem when it comes to trying to make world changing events but not having the resources or thoroughness to change the whole world in response. So much of the zones around Lion’s Arch refer to it as a trading hub and several hearts, NPC dialogues and events are built on the premise that the roads to Lion’s Arch are full of traders and travellers on their way to Lion’s Arch. Currently this stuff doesn’t make sense.

Finally I would argue that the Living Story doesn’t even come close to replacing the Personal Story. It’s filler content. If I believed the Living Story of last year was the future of story telling in GW2 I would probably quit right now.

It would be awesome if Claw Island was opened up as an explorable area.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The datamined ending takes place in the Breachmaker and in Dead End right afterward. You may think that it would have made a more compelling ending, however, that_shaman says what he found was in fact, far cheesier. Since we only have his word to go for it, I wouldn’t doubt it.

Why must someone die? Honestly, I’m sick and tired of all the characters-I-could-care-about dying before I get that chance, and so many have that now I honestly couldn’t give a kitten about GW2 NPCs. Having played the personal story in full thrice, covering each major story decision sans the Ogre racial sympathy, I have seen an overabundance of allied NPC slaughter and I couldn’t give a kitten about any newer ones because “oh, they’re just going to die once I start trying to like them and before I actually can.”

Furthermore, I have read, watched, and played MANY dramatic and compelling stories that didn’t have a single allied death. A friend’s death is not a requirement for character motivation or sorrow.

What about believably selling a war of attrition against primordial forces and supposedly endless armies? There are two things in particular about Zhaitan (and Jormage and Kralkatorrik) that made the dragon more horrifying and formidable. Every soldier that falls to Zhaitan causes his army to grow bigger. The second is that a fallen ally that then is corrupted fights its former allies. Those are huge components to the dragon’s identity and powers and big pieces of why this fight is so hard for the people of Tyria. You can’t tell that story if you aren’t willing to break a few eggs. It would feel like a children’s cartoon if no-one died (or the only deaths were off-screen or nameless NPCs). The writers would also be underutilising their story potential if they didn’t leverage the fact that fallen allies become new foes, from a tactics point of view it heightens the blow of failure, and from a morale point of view it is horrifying to fight your former comrades.

Compare that to Scarlet who apparently outsmarted all of Tyria for over a year and levelled Tyria’s biggest city, all while failing to kill anyone remotely important (the one notable NPC “she killed” was introduced in a patch shortly before his death and had almost no role to play in Tyria – he was created to die). I think the Personal Story struggled to have lots of emotional weight to its deaths, but it did strongly reinforce the idea that this is a world of conflict, death is real and these NPCs aren’t invincible. In some ways it’s believable that as characters we don’t break down every time an NPC dies, the role of a hero would expose them to lots of death, after a while you become desensitized. I don’t need death as much as it occurred in the Personal Story, but someone who was supposed to be as dangerous as Scarlet really should have wracked up a body count.

For the record, the leaked fake ending was posted and it didn’t seem that cheesy to me (I actually prefer it) but I am fairly confident it was red herring. I believe it was discussed as a possible ending but the writers never would have chosen that path, they favor these characters too much.

I’m glad this exact thread keeps popping up. I marvel at how stubborn they have been about this weapon. It’s the only top tier DPS weapon the class has for the current PvE meta yet it’s probably one of the least enjoyed weapons in the game.

The problematic functionality has almost no value in PvE yet it remains to be one of the greatest sources of contention in the game.

Why don’t they just remove the leap functionality and turn it into a trait? PvE rangers are happy to have their high DPS weapon without the control issues (forced leaps and restrictions on when you can walk or dodge doesn’t make the ranger a class that enjoys the freedom of movement, it makes the ranger feel trapped by movement). Both camps can be happy, we just need to have the current functionality sectioned off to a low tiered trait.

Prysin.8542:

a lot of the ranger hate comes from older days where rangers, indeed, were more or less useless in zergs, but brokenly strong in 1v1 (back around march/april 2013 when BM was so OP it would lay waste to anything 1v1).
However, since they nerfed pets, then nerfed quickness, then nerfed some other stuff, and some more stuff, and even more stuff. The buffs we got (important ones at that) kinda drowned in a sea of negativity fueled by the Q_Q from this forum. Rangers started to show signs of not being brokenly OP in 1v1 roaming, infact, for a long while, we were mid tier at roaming, because we lacked damage, but most importantly, we lacked some functional utility.
However, times change, and those who say “anything a ranger can do, profession X can do better” are partially right, yet they are also full of fecal matter.
You see, many professions ALONE can do one or two things the ranger can do, better, except when the ranger actually traits and builds for something, in which case it more often then not, far surpasses the other professions even if both professions spec for the same function (go figure how we are worse then them). A ranger does not do ONE thing, or TWO things or THREE things, it does MANY things all at once.

Take a warrior, your typical zerg warrior provides;
AOE condi cleanse (if using warhorn)
AOE heal (if using traited shouts)
AOE CC (stun/daze/knockdown/knockback. All of which is negated by stability)
AOE Fury
AOE Vigor
AOE Revive (can be used once every 240 seconds)
Multiple Blast Finishers

your typical guardian provides:
AOE Protection
AOE Stability
AOE Might
AOE Retaliation
AOE Aegis
AOE Healing
Piercing Immobilize
Mass condi cleanse

Your typical Ele provides:
AOE damage (From staff/scepter/conjures)
AOE Stability (if traited to apply on earth swap)
AOE Fury
Fire fields
Ice field
Water fields
AOE Condition cleanse (on water swap/when applying regeneration, if traited)
AOE regeneration (passive, when in water attune)
Multiple Blast finishers (however, they are on long cooldowns/channeling times)

Your typical necro gives:
AOE Protection (spectral wall)
AOE Fear (Spectral wall, marks/wells)
AOE Chill
AOE Bleed
Mass condition cleanse
Mass boon strip

So, what does the ranger do in ONE build?
AOE Protection
AOE Might
AOE Fury
AOE Swiftness
AOE Vigor
AOE Immob
AOE Revive (twice every 180 seconds)
AOE Regeneration (passive, spirit)
Mass condition cleanse
Water Field
Fire Field (if using torch)

Pet utilities (depending on choice):
AOE Immob
AOE Chill
AOE Cripple
AOE Fury
AOE Protection
AOE Might
AOE Condition Cleanse
AOE Healing + regeneration
AOE Fear

The whole “anyone can do it better then rangers” are so kitten outdated that it is not even funny anymore, and i dare say that those who preach that rangers are useless falls into the category of people who believe the holocaust never happened either.

Yes rangers are not the go-to for every function in game, but we can do the majority of what you want/need, in ONE build. However, it takes skill, a word that seems totally foreign for anyone who frequent these forums. Because the lack of skill, or rather the large “L2P” issue displayed here, are just astounding.

As a ranger main since the first BWE and a player with every other class at 80 (for some reason I have two 80 rangers) it is my personal opinion that this comment is misleading. You are accurate in listing what classes have access to but I believe you weigh the ranger’s contributions higher than they functionally are. For starters, a good chunk of your list comes from pet F2 skills which can be unreliable (the AI, positioning, the inability to build for it, the risk of losing the pet to activate them mid zerg compared to a guardian simply shouting) and is limited to two F2 skills at any point in time. The most impressive ranger boons I can think of in WvW are traite shouts (swiftness and regen) and fury from warhorn and moa. Spirits are a joke in WvW. We do have the best water field in the game but it’s also our personal heal, if you pimp it out like a ele pimps out their water fields you’re going to end up taking a dirt nap pretty quick.

I have moderate success on my ranger in sPvP, I have run most dungeons on my ranger (I retired it because of how poorly designed and balanced the PvE ranger is in group play compared to more diverse classes) and I spend hours in WvW several days a week. Rangers have earned their status as worst profession in WvW when it comes to large scale combat. There are ways to build around it and contribute meaningfully, but most competitive groups will take any other class over a ranger any day. We are the lost kid to be picked for dodge ball and it’s not a misguided notion, it’s a real problem.

Why not just do away with stat cominations all together? Create armour with three sockets, one primary and two secondary. Replace stat combinations with runestones or gems. Each stat has two gems, a primary and a secondary gem. Socketing any gem of a specific type prevents others of that type being used.

Essentially the same system as now but instead of creating recipes and dozens of acquisition methods (as well as unfairly forcing players who want specific combinations to participate in inflated markets – zealots, sentinals etc) all you have to do is create two gems of every stat and players can customise it themselves.

The system we have now is needlessly restrictive.

BobbyStein.2315:

What are your top three requests?

Jumping on the bandwagon a bit late here but:

1. Less focus on the B-iconics and more focus on the diverse roles performed by a number of heroes across Tyria. I think a core cast is unnecessary and restricts stories in Tyria. They come at an opportunity loss of other characters in Tyria (it’s a big world) and other stories I’d like to see told. I could enjoy them more if they had been more prominent individuals (to explain why they pop up all the time and justify why they are the focus of the story). As they are I think they weaken stories by making it about themselves instead of the world around them. If I go to Brisban I want to meet with sylvari, asura or Seraph dealing with the conflict there, not Marjory and the cast (even if she has a sister there). I don’t need them as middle men to connect me to every story, I reserve that suspension of disbelief for myself – not NPCs, I actually enjoy engaging directly with relevant NPCs, not surrogate characters doing it for me. Side bonus, if you dislike any of the five characters tough luck, they are always around. If the cast is bringing in new people and letting old ones go as the story evolves and it makes most sense to involve people, people you like or dislike will come and go.

2. More attention paid to portraying the villains in the story. I don’t need them to be as prominent as the allies but I don’t want to be told on the forums the Flame Legion in the Molten Alliance were a small group. I don’t want to be told they can’t return to their main factions because they are no longer accepted. I want to see that stuff in the game. I don’t want nameless henchmen, I want soldiers who are believable members of Tyria. Characters I can understand their motivations, where they come from, why they do what they do. I want leaders who can believably lead them and can sell the big plot developments. If you’re going to establish two distinct personalities for villainous factions (the dredge and the Flame Legion) and then have a plot point that arguably has them acting out of character (or at least has us questioning it based on previously established identities) I want to see how that took place. Which Flame Legion members led them to go out on their own, who convinced his followers to work for Scarlet, who convinced them to ally with the dredge (I want to see Scarlet be diplomatic for that matter). I believe Winds of Change did a good job of portraying a convincing leader, a believable set of events and sympathetic villains. It’s not perfect, but it was better than season one imo.

3. I want darker stories. This might seem weird after Lion’s Arch was destroyed (isn’t that dark enough?) but I feel like the morality of GW2 is laid on a bit thick. The heroes always seem to be justified in everything they do, they don’t get themselves dirty (compare that to the protagonists from True Detective). I don’t need Tyria to be Law and Order SVU dark (or True Detective dark) but I’d like to see the heroes have some real flaws without going full villain (like Evon appears to be doing). Have Jennah cave into political pressure and abandon Ebonhawke to settle the charr treaty – peace with charr traded for civil unrest with the Ascalonian immigrants, maybe have Anise try to frame Caudecus in a desperate attempt to save Jennah after he outsmarts both of them. Have Marjory work with some really shady CIs to solve a case, have her do the wrong thing for the greater good. Please make Canache’s “found Ventari” act be just that – an act. Stop clearly defining the lines of morality in the story and using the NPCs as becons of light and justice. Maybe the Black Market bandits had their families thrown out of Divinity’s Reach after the Crown Pavillion was built in their slum home. Maybe the Queen didn’t pay them their full wage to construct the pavillion because the war on the centaurs stretched the royal coffers too thin, so the bandits turned to crime? Find a middle ground between Nightmare sylvari and the Dreamers. A lot of Cadeyrn and Canache’s questions and issues with sylvari society are reasonable, they just seemed to go from “I have a reasonable question” to “I’m a crazy terrorist who does bad”.

Will the current PvP exclusive skins be obtainable in some other way?

Currently sPvP already has several exclusive skins.

The Dark Moon Shield
PvP Masquerade (tribal version)
Guild Armours (all of them are slightly unique from their doppleganger skins, ranging from a size adjustment to “tabard” tails on the leggings or altered shoulderpads).
Rubric, Commando and something else are only partially available in PvE and only as one time only Personal Story rewards.

Will we still be able to obtain these skins in PvP? Will there be a PvE method? I’m especially interested in the Dark Moon Shield as it’s already a PvP exclusive skin.

Shriketalon.1937:

Tom Gore.4035:

True, but if we are talking about storytelling “plotholes”, what could be more immersion-breaking than lifting the player on a pedestal, with 2 million other players? That would be one helluva crowded pedestal. This is a problem with MMOs and while I agree with you that ANet dug this “personal story” hole for themselves, I think it’s good that they are now steering a bit off that course – or at least I hope so. In my opinion, in MMOs the players should always be just that – a side character who helps the heroes get the job done. Otherwise it makes absolutely no sense having 2 million “main characters” in the story.

Hmm, perhaps there is a compromise to be made. I think you make a very fair point, but there is still something to be said for letting the player feel like a mover and shaker of the world.

If they focused less on a single group of characters such as the current Scooby Gang and let the player meet and interact with many heroes in many smaller stories, they could combine it with a few Personal Story missions that allow the main characters to get their time in the spotlight. A journey home would be an excellent start, returning the player to their city of origin as a triumphant hero, and all the horrible guilt-tripped jobs that entails. Likewise, more Order storylines would be an interesting way to delve into new tales. The Living Story could spend its time allowing Tyria to grow and thrive, and a few segments of Personal Story per year could let the player keep center stage in their own saga.

I like this point. While the individual characters were enjoyable at times, I think putting them on a pedestal and constantly having them involved weakened the story. Instead of explaining where the Orders were, the Pact, the racial armies, even the role of the Lionguard in the final battle, the story focused on a single group of characters. These characters were put on a pedestal at the expense of the other heroes of Tyria and it created plot holes while at the same time weakening the role of the player character. A large cast of smaller characters is better than a small cast of recurring characters for a world as big as Tyria (this is an MMO, not a novel, a TV series, a movie or even a single player game).

I understand the concern of having millions of protagonists treated as the hero (I feel it myself when credited with stomping Scarlet) but at the end of the day I don’t log into Tyria to be Marjory, Kasmeer, Braham, Rox or Taimi’s sidekick. I don’t want to follow them around Tyria, I don’t want to engage with the story via them. I support NPCs having stories, but there is a time and a place for every NPC (Tyria is a big place and I’ve worked with a lot of different people, it’s not all about these five characters). I don’t want to log into Tyria and do Kiel’s work for her, I don’t want to ignore all the connections I’ve made (all my friends and allies from the Personal Story) and I don’t want to ignore all the other potential stories out there, lots of characters and stories to experience. I love Tyria as a realistic world, where lots of different people are important rather than a small group of them.

I would love to see the focus return to the player as the primary character and a diverse cast of secondary characters that are most relevant to the plot. You don’t have to waste time shoehorning in the same five characters, your story is stronger when the people most relevant to it are the central focus (think the Captain’s Council and the Lionguard instead of the new Scooby Gang) and the player can feel more involved in the story instead of tagging along with the Scooby Gang.

People talk about breaking immersion, I personally find a story in Tyria that thinks Kasmeer was the best mesmer for the Tower of Nightmares (Jennah, Anise and the clockwork mesmers must have been recovering from the Jubilee to ignore that invisible force field in their back yard), that Marjory was the only one able to put two and two together, that the Captain’s Council were bad at their jobs, that Rox being present for Tequatl means anything, all these things break my immersion and shrink the story. I use suspension of disbelief when it comes to my characters involved in everything – there’s no way around it, I play the game so I’m involved, suspension of disbelief shouldn’t be used for NPC involvement.

Shriketalon.1937:

If they focused less on a single group of characters such as the current Scooby Gang and let the player meet and interact with many heroes in many smaller stories, they could combine it with a few Personal Story missions that allow the main characters to get their time in the spotlight.

Mungrul.9358:

The major mechanical problem with Rangers is that if the pet gets hit, both it and the owner slow to combat speed.

THIS IS NOT TRUE.

A pet will not put the ranger in combat if it is hit. It will put the ranger in combat if the pet hits something. A pet on passive will not do this, a pet that is commanded to heel as soon as it is hit will not do this.

Pet’s also don’t aggro mobs unless they attack them. There was a patch about a year ago that made it so that any pet or minion cannot aggro mobs the party hasn’t already aggroed (commanding the pet to attack something is the exception).

Guys, please learn how to play the basics of the class if you’re going to post in these threads. You are demonstrating that one of the big reasons players dislike the ranger is that players are ignorant and are creating myths that hurt the image of the class.

If I had to guess why informed players don’t like the ranger as much as other classes I would say it’s because the class has no outright broken or insanely powerful skill that groups absolutely love in PvE. Fiery Great Sword is hella broken and the current meta revolves around abusing the unintentional design of Fiery Rush. Frost Bow is one of the best skills at destroying objects (burrows, CoF crystal etc) and Persisting Flames makes elementalists one of the easiest classes to stack Might and Fury with.

Warriors have some of the easiest to use melee weapons that do high raw damage. They have ways to automatically stack Might, easy access to group Fury and banners are huge buffs to the entire party for the price of a single utility skill (the raw stat bonuses from banners is crazy high).

Rangers have Spotter which takes up space in a densely packed trait line of mediocre but desired traits and Frost Spirit, a kittenty functioning imitation of a DPS banner. Their primary DPS melee weapon is probably the most controversial in the game with it’s useless in PvE leap functionality which many rangers flat out do not enjoy playing with. To be optimal DPS on a ranger you have to use a poorly designed weapon. Pets offer very little in terms of positive gameplay for rangers or their parties, they don’t have many interesting or useful skills in PvE, their primary contribution is to do the DPS they steal from the ranger in the first place and their don’t over much build diversity or support for the ranger and their party. Blame it on player skill all you like, I genuinely believe ranger issues in PvE are design issues, every class has it’s fair share of below average players, I’ve personally seen more bad warriors and elementalists than I have bad rangers. Even if they can hold their own in an end game group, rangers are fighting against the class design to do so.

Lux.7169:

khani.4786:

After working my tail off since pre-launch to be able to make two legendaries myself I’m pretty disgusted at them just giving away a legendary weapon.

I bet everyone over rank 50 has pvp’d more than youv’e pve’d and we have almost nothing to show for our efforts in this game.

Anet finally shows a shed of love to less than .1% of the pvp community with a decent reward and people are already whining about it?

Classy.

There is no PvE or WvW equivalent of this. Players who are in the top 0.1% of PvE or WvW in terms of skill have no “tournament” to give them a legendary. I agree this isn’t as simple as turning up on tournament day and winning a a few matches in a few hours to walk away with a legendary, but if you believe that an sPvP player is being rewarded for a year or more of perfecting their sPvP game you should be able to see that the exact same is true for WvW and PvE players. There are PvE players that have mastered their class and their part of the game but there is no way for them to turn up one weekend and walk away with a legendary.

You talk about lack of a decent reward but sPvP has had access to most skins in the game (a gap that got wider as back items were added but no PvP equivalent method was implemented to access them) and did so without ever having to enter the cash shop to buy transmutation stones. Anyone over rank 50 should have easy access to the vast majority of skins in the game, all they need to do is walk to their locker and withdraw the skins, so your claim that they are have almost nothing to show for that time is very much hyperbole. PvP cosmetic progression does miss out on a lot of things but in many ways cosmetics were handed to PvP players on a silver platter, it’s not appreciated as much because it’s too easy, that’s also not accounting for instant access to all PvP runes, sigils, amulets and jewels for free. Compare the prestige of Dwayna’s Longbow in PvP to PvE or the ease of swapping stats and looks in PvP compared to time and investment that goes into acquiring skins, armour stats, transmutation crystals and runes in PvE.

I’m glad PvP has access to legendaries. I don’t like that the status of a legendary doesn’t even attempt to mimic mastery of the game (and it hasn’t since they were able to be sold, it was arguable whether or not this was the case before they could be sold given how grindy they are, despite that this new implementation doesn’t move towards fixing that) nor do I like that this implementation is solely for a handful of PvP players while all the other PvP players are out of luck (it’s possible bad luck/off day or a bad meta could result in less skilled people acquiring them).

At the end of the day this is only five legendaries and a handful of precursors, I wouldn’t mind betting that Deadeye and Subject 7 handed out more legendaries/precursors than this tournament will.

I don’t think arguing against something like this will achieve anything when the devs are so desperate to get players to jump into sPvP.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Y’know, the aftermath dialogue kind of hints that Scarlet was not corrupted.

What happened to Scarlet’s body? Shouldn’t this be an easy question to answer – do an autopsy on Scarlet’s body to see if there is any sign of dragon corruption?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In the instance, it’s talked about Scarlet redirecting the ley lines to multiple dragons. Not just one.

So it may be that she was out to empower multiple dragons – perhaps for the same reason she let Thaumanova blow up. She wanted to watch what happened, and learn from it.

Nothing on the console or monitor in the Breachmaker indicated something went wrong. It’s said that the drill was designed to continue it’s actions even if Scarlet dies. I never got the impression that the drill’s purpose was thwarted or disrupted in any way. Whatever the drill did was exactly what it was supposed to do. It seemed to only send a surge towards one dragon, not multiple ones. Unless she had plans to fly off to another location and start drilling again (I know there is a theory based on the other maps in the control room) it seems her goal in Lion’s Arch was Maguuma Falls dragon and that dragon alone.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

My personal theory on this unanswered question
I think Scarlet was strengthening the Elder Dragons for unknown reasons and began with Mordremoth because it was asleep still. And she would have the answer to solve the crises she made, thus Tyria will “need” her. And to be clear – I don’t think Scarlet’s trying to be a good guy here, but trying to force the world to accept her as being as great as she thinks she is.

Does Scarlet seem like the kind of person to care about how the world views her to get what she wants? I got the impression she wanted to rule, but not through any democracy or meritocracy, Scarlet viewed her own abilities as self evident regardless of how others perceived her. The note to Caithe is an outlier and her feeling of being “challenged” by the Queen’s comments about humanity show some signs of competitiveness but someone who was as “diplomatic” as she was (she is aware enough of different factions and how to form alliances that she forged several unlikely ones) she should know her method of demonstrating her abilities was going to paint her as nothing but a villain. To me, the idea that she would create a crisis just to solve it to impress others, that just paints Scarlet as crazy. Scarlet had contempt of the world as it is, I don’t think she wanted acceptance of any kind.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Firstly, Omadd got Scarlet (aka Ceara) into the colleges for the asura to study her, and even kept working with her after she was a member of the Inquest and a known criminal of Rata Sum (breaking into the archives and being exiled from Rata Sum and all that jazz). It may be possible that he was Inquest and that he lied about the purpose of the machine.

Why Scarlet? Why not use the machine on someone else if he is Inquest? Is it a coincidence that the path Scarlet went down was entirely foreshadowed by Ceara and not dictated by Omadd? All the knowledge Scarlet used to achieve her goal, that was knowledge that Ceara obtained on her own, working with blacksmiths, weapons experts, hylek etc. Obviously the Inquest would make use of Scarlet’s tool box of skills regardless of whether they chose what was in it or not, but it’s a bit convenient that all the skills Scarlet uses happen to be skills that Ceara, with her own free will, obtained.

I viewed Omadd’s decision to work with Scaret despite the loose morality of the situation to be in character for the asura. It’s very common for asura to go beyond the boundaries of normal morality even if they are not inquest. They view people as disposable and they themselves get lost in an inflated perceived value of their own pursuits. If the research is important enough it trumps morality. Even the PC puts the world at risk when dealing with the infinity ball. Scarlet was a useful research partner (there are a few examples of asura viewing sylvari as good assistants etc) and disposable if he needed a test subject.

lordkrall.7241:

Riss.1536:

And what about celestial ? MF dissapeared and critital take a lot harder hit than on zerker gear…

And it will get a +6% increase of all other stats to compensate.
That is more than enough.

You’re not helping when you post things like that. That figure means nothing to people and your conclusion shows nothing supporting it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/210s12/effects_of_ferocity_on_celestial_gear/

That thread on reddit does the calculations on what celestial is expected to look like after this change. Crit damage takes a big hit but with the boost in power, precision and condition damage, but the effective power of celestial gear actually gets slightly buffed (before you factor in the benefits of the bonus defensive stats).

If you properly utilised the stats on celestial gear (which is the whole point of the set – it’s a hybrid stat) you are likely walking away from this with better armour than before the change.

I understand the desire for an option to abandon berserker gear – for some people, the reason for berserker wasn’t only that it was BiS but because it was BiS and ahead of the pack by a significant margin. This change reduces how much better the gear is, for some of the people who bought it, the added effort of playing with berserker gear (which will be different based on content, player skill and party skill – a lot of times it’s less effort) required a strong incentive to push them over the line to make that decision to abandon more defensive options. Regardless of whether or not BiS is still berserker (it is because there is no alternative and the content didn’t change) the line has changed. For some people, that line matters. They might prefer a celestial or knights build now because berserker isn’t as “OP” as it once was.

I doubt you will get it. Unlike magic find, berserker will still exist after this patch. Berserker is also still BiS so it’s role hasn’t changed. There may be some builds which might trade individual slots for other options, but overall it’s a very different situation from eliminating a stat.

You can express sympathy for Scarlet while at the same time staying true to the ferocious personality trait. Just write it in a way which disapproves of the attitudes of the other characters. Instead of joining on the band wagon making light of Scarlet’s death you could scold them for being so taking pleasure in the death of someone who fell victim to a dragon and lost control of her mind.

I don’t need a really complicated system but I certainly agree that the current dialogue options and the forced relationship in the game doesn’t closely resemble how I feel.

Nope, she broke up with him and chased after a merchant or something. You were able to see her in Craigstead after Flame and Frost.

E is like a bad mystery from Lost. It’s so vague with so few clues that it’s pointless speculating about the identity. There is no way to intelligently guess or even rule out people for E’s identity. I think they want you to guess who it is and theorycraft or whatnot but they haven’t built much in the world to get you to care about it. Everything that was wrong with the slow reveal of Scarlet’s plot is being repeated with the non-reveal of E’s identity.