Guild Wars 2

Grimwolf.7163:

Shiren.9532:

It probably makes more sense for bursting to be a crit damage sigil.

That’s what I think; it’s probably +Critical Damage.
Unfortunately, it’d be kinda weak. Wouldn’t you need like an 84% crit chance just for it to break even with the sigil of +5% damage? Hopefully the amount is bugged as well, and it’s more like +10% Critical Damage.

I suspect it was originally a crit damage sigil but they changed their minds for some reason.

Assuming it was more than +5% damage (say 10% crit damage) it would be the optimum sigil for many builds. The easiest builds to play are reaching 100% crit chance, so a sigil that did +10% crit damage would essentially be a 10% damage increase. Crit damage is already broken in PvE, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed the sigil to prevent further breaking it.

They had to put something on the release page. With so much of the next release supposedly under wraps, the page would be almost barren without the birthday present details.

No-one has talked about Vorpp, the asuran dude in the Opening Ceremony. It’s Living Story tradition that you can spoil the important characters (looking at you Mai) by holding Alt and looking at the named NPCs.

He’s a new character isn’t he? None of the other races had a named NPC there unless we knew why they were there (like Rox). Vorpp has a role to play yet. Maybe he’s going to be the asuran Living Story protagonist (or the reason the robots went crazy in the first place).

We still don’t know who the returning character from Southsun will be (unless Kasmeer/Faren count).

hun assassian.6145:

The only problem is that arenanet said no new regions or dragons this year so we can only get living story on already existing maps

I bet the Living Story writers and Colin are really sad he said that. I guess the intention always was to manage expectations, so in a sense it’s working, but knowing that there will be no dragon or new zone this year is really putting a damper on the speculation on the secrets of the second half of this month.

Manuhell.2759:

Since we are talking about some event that:
1)Cannot invalidate personal stories (thus no “Queen Jennah or Countess Anise is actually evil” revelation)
2)Should be important from a political standpoint (i doubt there would be a speech from the queen herself otherwise)
i would assume that this is either related to Cantha, or with the Tengu.
Probably the latter. Maybe she’s about to announce an alliance with them. Something that would later make them as a playable race.

I think it’s been confirmed that the Living Story takes place after the Personal Story. They can do whatever they want to alter the world beyond the Personal Story. The Personal Story is past events which are preserved by instancing. It can’t be Cantha or Tengu because both of those would require a new zone and Colin said no to that this year. Unless they are going to leave us hanging for the rest of this year, the story will remain in the current world.

hun assassian.6145:

I think that she will call the charr ambassador (Rox) (that is why she is actually there in this story) to the stage which she is on to finally announce and finalize the peace treaty between charrs and humans but just before doing that the aetherblades are going to attack everyone and maybe take Queen Jennah or kill her and/or the same with rox and we will get a permanent dungeon for revenge or getting her back

That would be incredibly lame. One of the more obvious possibilities for this event is the treaty between the humans and the charr, but there’s no way Rox be the person used for this. Rytlock sent her in his place which implies whatever is happening here, it isn’t significant to the charr, otherwise a high ranking charr official would be involved (Rox is too far down the totem poll). It’s also incredibly arrogant for Jennah to use her Jubilee in her city to finalise a human/charr alliance (but that’s not out of character for her). Some kind of treaty would need to take place in more neutral territory.

Colin said no new zones this year and no Elder Dragon this year so it’s not the gate to the Crystal Desert. Best case scenario is something which makes big changes to the open world. Maybe it has something to do with why she is inviting all the races to the ceremony. It’s something which impacts on the entire world?

The Aetherblades are obviously going to be involved (they will likely interrupt the ceremony), but it seems weird that Jennah would make an announcement regarding them. I really can’t think of anything the writers have foreshadowed with the humans so far that fits here. Whatever Jennah says, it feels like it’s coming out of nowhere (and in a lame way, not the good way). The Living Story hasn’t really established any reason for us to think Jennah would have something to announce, or an idea of what she would announce. It feels like the Living Story is taking another leap without the laying the ground work to earn the landing.

Vol you clearly missed the point. Many players are better off deleting an experience scroll because they already have 8+ level 80 characters. They aren’t going to make any more characters, so an item which only works on characters below level 20 is just taking up space.

The thing I don’t like about the Infinity Ball theory is that 7 of my 8 characters didn’t invent it. I wouldn’t like such a central plot of the Living Story to be founded on such a specific Personal Story option. One of the problems with the Personal Story was a lot of the plot developments and characters that you came across later in the game were founded on story options that other players had made but you didn’t.

Flying mounts confirmed?

Yeah, the moment the Jubilee was anounced there was speculation about what the disaster would be. The fact that nothing was really detailed on the preview page is basically confirmation some big event is about to happen.

Diminishing returns in every part of the game except for one of the most easily repeatable and profitable ones. Makes sense.

mtpelion.4562:

What separates good players from bad players is good players find ways to win.

You found a way to win. Kudos.

Good is subjective. What you just described is build wars. Builds win over skill.

If two people are racing around a track and one uses a push bike and another users a motorbike, is the guy using the motorbike better than the guy on the push bike?

It’s the same as the Spider Queen in AC. You can pull her between the gate and the stairs and she won’t use her ranged attack. Her melee attack doesn’t do much damage and the whole party is stacked so they can easily res and buff each other. At this point the fight is essentially auto-attack to win. This same strategy is being used for most dungeon bosses in the game atm. Are these players better than a party that doesn’t exploit flaws in the game design to cheese the content? A party which fights the Spider Queen in the open and has to deal with all of her abilities has to use more skill that a party that simply auto-attacks her to death next to the stairs. Players have figuring out how to break the game by exploiting line of sight AI, ranged AI and the incredibly imbalance of melee crit damage. The fastest way to complete content is actually the easiest way, skill isn’t rewarded by GW2, exploits are.

I don’t have any problem with how the OP did this encounter. Good for them. As far as I can see, they managed all the mechanics of the fight, they just had an optimal method of doing so. Their accomplishment isn’t the same as someone who did it with a far less efficient strategy, but I wouldn’t say they cheated.

Plot Twist: the Watchknights in the Pavillion aren’t actually robots. They have a second mesmer illusion cast on them to hide the fact that they are really the former residents of the Canthan district and the refugees from the war with the centaurs. Jennah saw them as a financial burden on her empire so she set up the whole Pavilion to fool adventurers into culling off all the displaced people, solving her refugee problem while throwing a party in her own honour. The mysterious disappearances in Divinity’s Reach that Marjory was investigating are actually the work of the Shining Blade, gathering up all the displaced people and anyone who discovered Jennah’s sinister secret.

At the very least, the scrolls should turn into 20 skill points. Not as valuable as 20 levels, but at least players with no need to level up a new character will be able to use them.

Vol.5241:

stof.9341:

It’s not convenience until I can get one for all my alts without paying 800 gems each which would be insanely expensive.

I too would like something cheap and inexpensive but insanely useful.

Unfortunately that’s not how business works.

If you are one of those players ArenaNet loves above all others and you only have a single main, you have access to this very system. If you only ever play the one character, 100% use of these items is available for 800 gems. ArenaNet designs against alts.

Danikat.8537:

Cendomir.9351:

yes as soon as any of your characters reaches its first anniversary you get a present for that character from now on.

also, i hope that she announces something like “we’ve found a way into Elona” or “we’re going to take down an elder dragon”

That would be awesome. Announcing that following talks with the various emissaries all 5 races have agreed to expand on the Pact and go after another dragon.

I doubt that’s it though, I think they’re probably saving the other dragons (and definitely other continents) for an expansion pack.

From what I’ve read, they haven’t decided if they want to do expansions ever, but there is definitely a team of people working on content that can either be released in an expansion or as part of the Living Story.

I’m guessing the 10 days of sales will be for the infinite gathering tools, Braham and Rox’s weapons and maybe kites or mini pets. I doubt they will bring back the past RNG weapon sets (although it does appear they will now be attainable via the ticket method). The RNG skins were never sold in the store.

As someone who made all their characters on day one of the BWE I’m a little disappointed it’s just the one mini instead of a whole set. I suspect they won’t be worth much. I never liked the “character” birthday system. It added pressure to prevent you from deleting characters because they were worth something once a year. I guess it won’t matter if the mini is Jennah because once you have one, who cares?

Honestly, I think Jennah is a very underwhelming miniature to celebrate one year of GW2. It seems like she should have been specific to the content, not the anniversary celebration. As much as this month’s story is focused around the Queen’s Jubilee, to a lot of players it’s one year since we entered Tyria (again). Jennah is a poor representation of that to me.

OtakuDFifty.2965:

Andele.1306:

Its not convenience, it would be if it were as good as a mystic/master slavage kit/best one you can normally buy, just like the tools.

Just because it’s not a smart investment doesn’t mean it isn’t convenient.

How much gold is 800 gems? Like 35 gold? The money you would save with this, the convenience of waypointing and acquiring new kits, the bag slots to give you enough space to continue without it. If you instead spent 35 gold on bag slots or the raw materials this kit will turn items into (or spent more money and bought the personal merchant) wouldn’t that be more convenient than this?

Yeah I should probably jump in here. I personally think the skins are ugly and I have no desire to acquire them (I’m sure others love them though), but this system is much better than the RNG system used n the past. Players should be acquiring rewards from the content, not from RNG and silly grinds.

Across the board this update is a massive improvement. They’ve improved on almost every recurring element of the Living Story.

Null.9743:

Yeah I’m not sure where exactly but I saw either a forum or a news post from a Dev recently that said during testing, they allowed people to immobilise bosses and it made every single Gauntlet fight really easy.

It was removed not out of caution but because they actively saw it ruining the difficulty of fights.

If that’s the case they should remove crit damage and reflection because those mechanics ruin the difficulty of fights. Why do some professions get to fight with the full power of their toolboxes while others don’t?

quaniesan.8497:

Or maybe because most people are already at 80.
I’m already at 80 and with lots of objective to go for. Explain to me why I should roam around and kill grawls with you?
Whatever happned to expand the world? exactly, that’s because the world is expanding, you don’t see alot of people in one given area.

I think that’s one of the problems with the GW2 end game. It leaves out the open world with the exception of Orr/Southsun and the new champion rotations. You can explore the open world all day and you won’t make as much as someone who chain farmed in the Pavillion or ran champion routes in a zerg. When your goals are to acquire gear, lodestones, weapon skins or gold, there is no incentive to explore every nook and cranny of the open world. Karma is almost worthless, DEs are devoid of unique rewards, you can’t acquire unique items from unique locations, everything is just some silly RNG gamble which promotes efficiency over exploratory gameplay.

Broadicea.8294:

Projectile reflects and absorbs are available on: Guardian, Mesmer, Thief, Engineer, Ranger, Elementalist, and Warrior (though no one in their right mind would trait for it). Necro should be given one. An absorb would make the most sense, perhaps on Spectral Wall. Not everyone gets to reflect, but almost everyone has a way to nullify projectiles. Reflections aren’t “becoming” powerful, they already are. But there’s no reason they should be nerfed. Some classes have to have things that others don’t.

The problem is the reflection, not the absorption. Reflection uses the power level of the mob and not the player. It would be incredibly OP to give a class access to a skill with the power level of the average boss mob. Reflection essentially does this, then doubles it through crit damage. It’s why see you massive HP spikes when a crit damage mesmer uses feedback on a high DPS projectile from a boss.

They are “becoming” more powerful because despite their tendency to favour certain professions, more and more content is being designed to favour them. Reflection’s power level is proportional to the number of mobs which have skills to reflect. If the only reflectable attacks in the game were ordinary mob attacks, reflection wouldn’t be as powerful. Because it can be used to reflect incredibly powerful boss attacks, it’s one of the best DPS tools in the game.

Yes many classes have access to reflection but not all reflections are created equal. Feedback is far easier to use than Whirling Defense as an example. It is cast at the foe’s location so you can use it anywhere you are within range of the mob, is activated instantly, it only requires a single utility slot and it allows free movement of your character during its duration. Whirling Defense requires the ranger be at the desired location of the reflection, it requires you bring a main-hand weapon, forces axe as the off-hand weapon and most importantly it roots the ranger in place and it lasts 1 second less. The benefit is that it has a slightly lower cooldown.

When the optimal way to complete content is a mechanic which favours a couple of professions, there is a problem. Professions can be different, that’s fine. An example of this being done well is Spotter and Empower Allies. One allows the ranger to give a unique party precision buff, the other allows a warrior to give a unique party power buff. Neither of these skills will dramatically alter a fight the way Feedback does yet both of them allow the two classes to contribute in a unique way.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Navzar.2938:

I never tried farming it or anything. What exactly was wrong with subject 7?

An endure pain/frenzy warrior in full zerk exotics with burst spec traits could load up 4-5 gambits and kill subject 7 in 10 seconds, making 50 or 60 silver.

I was doing it easily with a rabid condition necro with minions. All I had to do was circle strafe the arena and auto-attack. I wasn’t at risk of dieing and I never lost. Just like dungeon encounters, there are always going to be ways to cheese content. I have to admit though, it’s sad to see reflect being OP again. Are we ever going to see a fix on that? It’s getting to the point where you really want a mesmer or a guardian whenever you fight a boss with a powerful projectile. If nothing else, it protects your party, but more importantly, it’s the most powerful spike skill in the game (people are using it for everything from Lupicus to Malrona to Gauntlet bosses).

The reflect mechanic is becoming more powerful than the dodge roll, yet unlike the dodge roll, it favours certain classes.

LadyJayito.5289:

Wow how did you do that deviller? I have a 63 Ranger and I can only get to Suriel the Blazing Light before I die miserably! Anyway, I am just going to spend every spare minute I have levelling from now on…

I don’t think that’s the situation the designers wanted to encourage. You’re supposed to feel like you can take your time levelling.

Randulf.7614:

Totally agree. My fav expereince in this update was seeing an aetherblade ship flying past a balloon as I watched from a hilltop. This is the rpg stuff I want to see more of in the game. That’s not putting down the rest of the content, but the mini games and rewards focus needs to shift back to world building and atmosphere for me.

Listening to the latest WoodenPotatoes video and reading the following debate about lore and story delivery in the game, one thing stood out to me. WoodenPotatoes said a lot of players miss things because there are no rewards for certain parts of the world. Karma is almost worthless, all dynamic events award the same thing and it’s more beneficial to chain farm champion to champion than it is the naturally explore the world and feel rewarded for it.

There is so much content in the open world yet the game does a very poor job of rewarding it.

I used the old contion BM build. 0/10/30/0/30 with the jaguar pet (I don’t think I had to swap it). The jaguar still hits hard and I can run circles around the arena with flame and viper trap with Signet of the Hunter.

Using that build I beat every person I came up against on the first try, until I ran out of tickets (I didn’t fight Liandri yet and I can’t be assed to farm tickets to do so for now). I was using the axe/torch and shortbow.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Shiren.9532:

The audience of the game isn’t you and your personal tastes. Some people might like to see something sexualised. Judging from all the human females running around in skimpy armour I’d say a large number of players care a great deal about that. Are they all people who should grow up because they want something from their fantasy MMO that’s different to what you want?

I don’t think the number of players running around in skimpy outfits, is a good excuse to justify objectification of women in games as a whole. MMO’s especially have a tendency for immature designs, that over-sexualize women. I personally don’t think that’s tasteful, or healthy.

There are plenty of girls who play GW2 and go for the “skimpy” outfits. I watched the GW2 stream where someone from ArenaNet was playing a human female ele and showing people how to get started in GW2. It stood out to me that she was very excited to buy a purple bag (her whole character was purple, hair, clothes, bag etc). As I watched her play, I was amazed at how I could see up the character’s skirt as she ran, it was designed to stand out (I’m not claiming that she chose that armour, obviously it’s every human female’s starter armour, I’m just pointing out that this kind of stuff exists already and it’s perfectly fine). The starter clothes are far more sexual than the robots, and unlike the robots they are actually supposed to represent humans (which the player controls if you want to view that as another way to make it wrong – males creating attractive female avatars subservient to their every key press – it’s not as sinister and some people in this thread would like us to believe).

Video games are always going to present idealised versions of people. The men will generally have trim, buff bodies and the women will be trim and curvy. I don’t really see why there is a problem with these as options, and I actually think it’s narrow minded to suggest it’s something which specifically targets females. Norn males will often go shirtless and have very masculine and muscular bodies. One of the key characters for this chapter (Braham) is even showing a nipple, and Logan is your stereotypical pretty-boy.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t objectify women, it goes to great lengths to do the opposite (to the point where I think the story is dumbed down to accommodate this agenda). There is an entire race which was designed to portray females as masculine to the point where maternal females aren’t the norm and the main physical difference between males and females are their tails (and neither asura nor charr females use the female armour models). The human kingdom is ruled by a Queen, not a King which is standard in the fantasy genre. She’s not as formidable as Olenna Tyrell from Game of Thrones, but she’s certainly not portrayed as weak. I suspect her character was designed to appeal to females more so than males. In many ways, her relationship with Logan is a stereotypical gender reversal (the queen is almost portrayed as asexual while Logan is painfully written as a clingy, love-sick puppy dog – another way the story goes out of its way to promote females at the expense of male characters). Several factions in Tyria are lead by a female (Order of Whispers, Vigil, Sylvari etc) to the point where I think the females are outweighing the males in the power/numbers ratio. Destiny’s Edge is made up of three females and two males, the Living Story so far has only one male protagonist (Braham) but four female protagonists (Rox, Kasmeer, Kiel, Marjory).

If you played GW2 and think that it teaches people to think of women as objects, you haven’t paid attention to anything past the character customisation screen. Some people seem to think that if something is sexual (especially if it’s the female form) it’s somehow degrading or morally objectionable. It’s not, it’s the context which matters most, and in the context of GW2, women are standing in a pretty good place. It’s the height of irony to me that this thread is so large during a month where the story focuses around the Jubilee of a female queen. The Watchknights, while clearly emphasising the female form, are not portrayed in a sleazy way. They aren’t sex bots, they are potent fighters. As far as it being unrealistic for them to be shaped the way they are, boob armour is unrealistic, magic is unrealistic, giant cat people are unrealistic, almost every greatsword skin in the game is unrealistic, most of the asuran combat animations are unrealistic. It’s a fantasy MMO. The fact that we get to see and experience things which aren’t in the real world is part of the fun.

There are two design decisions I don’t understand with this content.

Why doesn’t the gauntlet use the sPvP system? It’s supposed to be highly challenging content intended to get you to think about your build and craft up different ways to complete the content. That’s an incredibly unreasonable request for a lot of PvE players given the expense of acquiring different sets of armour. Some people don’t even have one exotic set, let alone multiple ones to try out different builds. Paying to retrait every time you think you want to experiment with a different build is a huge inconvenience. We have a system in the game which perfectly utilises free retraits and multiple gear choices without requiring players grind them out or get to level 80, why didn’t the Gauntlet use it?

The second is the tickets to enter. I have no idea why they exist – it’s just an added grind to gate you from accessing the content. Why doesn’t a “no reward” version of the Gauntlet exist where I don’t need a ticket to enter – but I don’t get a reward bag either? It’s pretty lame to play content without rewards (I guess the achievements are the only incentive at that point) but it’s even more lame to attempt the Gauntlet and find out you need to grind out more tickets to continue because they Gauntlet itself rarely awards them and you burn through them quickly. The tickets harm the experience more than they help it – if I want to try the Gauntlet, I don’t want to jump down and farm a bunch of tickets or spend a small fortune acquiring them. What’s worse is the tickets are soulbound, so if I play one character a lot but I want to go for the higher tier challenges on another, I can’t utilise all the entrance tickets in their inventory. I have no intention of doing the Gauntlet on my warrior but I’ve been playing him in a lot of dungeons since the patch, I have lots of tickets in my inventory that I simply can’t use and I now have to resentfully purchase tickets on my ranger while the ones of my other characters are collecting dust. It’s yet another incidental casualty in ArenaNet’s increasingly aggressive war on multiple character playing accounts, and most bizarrely, they patched it to work that way.

I dislike temporary content in general, but I think it crosses the line when they make some of the most difficult challenges part of temporary content. It’s why I hated the Mad King Clock Tower. I have no problem with the game having challenging and difficult content, I just think it should be around permanently. If you’re going to take content away after four weeks, make it simple. The challenging stuff should be permanent.

They work, crit damage is just better. Crit damage was poorly through out and results in breaking the game to the point where groups are killing bosses before they ever have to dodge. Crit damage builds also interact with the plethora of % damage increase traits, whereas afaik condition damage does not.

The combat system was designed around sPvP. In PvE is incredibly imbalanced to favour crit damage builds.

You guys aren’t talking about dungeon rewards, your selling a service. Hell, TP flippers make a lot more than you and they never leave Lion’s Arch, a kid working at McDonalds can make a lot more gold than that.

Dub.1273:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Technically, I’d make more money than all of those people if I was guaranteed to get 4 leechers every time I ran P4 :P

I’m pretty sure we’d even make more money if we were guaranteed to get 2 leechers. We even make more money now…

You make more than 30s a minute? Also consider that there is no DR for Orr/Pavilion or Gauntlet rewards.

You consider getting the Gift of Ascalon as the lofty goal to complete Sunrise? You can’t do one or two AC paths a day for less than a week?

I wish dungeon completion was weighted more heavily in Legendary completion because I find that to be by far the best part of the Legendary to acquire (I hate mind numbing grind).

My last pug was standing in the egg sacks that dropped for about an hour with me telling them they had to dodge them. After an hour (we lost a man, replaced another) they finally listened after I explained that you have to dodge the egg sacks. We defeated the boss. I didn’t care for the tokens or even completing it, I just wanted the pug to learn the dodge. They did by the end of it and it.

This is what happens when players cheese everything with trinity classes and reflects. People don’t know how to actually play the game when cheese mechanics don’t work any more.

Whatever you’re making running dungeons, the guy circle strafing Subject 7, the guy spamming AoE and looting mobs in the Pavillion and the guy racing to tag (that’s all it is, a race to tag, no challenge or skill) champions in Orr. All these guys are making more than you running dungeons.

Mystic.5934:

oh man, if he was offering lowering the TP tax instead of key price, things would of been so much different.

No they wouldn’t have. The writing team made it impossible for Evon to win. Anyone who did Candidate Trials saw how much an unlikable cartoon villain he was portrayed as. They tried really hard to make people dislike him.

Willisium.5081:

Buffy faced a similar situation when Warren was creating sex bots; they were disgusted by it, they stole the technology and used it to create Buffy-Bot, who served a similar function to the watch knights while Buffy was busy being dead again.

They weren’t outraged that someone would make a robot look beautiful, but they were massively outraged at one made simply to serve sexual whims and fantasies. Rightly so. Reconfigured to fight the good fight? not so much of an outrage.

I didn’t see it that way. I think the disgust was that the sex bot was created in Buffy’s image, and from an outside non-prudish perspective Spike did nothing wrong. Somewhere along the way they considered Spike to have crossed the line from fantasy (it’s OK to fantasise about someone, this is healthy and normal) and reality (creating a sex slave robot in her image, this is an extension of a fantasy). At no point did he violate consent or victimise anyone, so what is the harm of having a sex bot? Just because someone is more adventurous and creative with their sexual fantasies doesn’t mean they are doing something wrong. It’s a robot, like all other tools it’s meant to be used for a purpose. How is it different from your wife fantasising about Channing Tatum or your husband thinking of Julie Bowen?

There are entire (legal) industries built on satisfying people’s sexual whims and fantasies and a lot of times they involve real (consenting) adults.

I can understand the Scooby Gang being disgusted and upset about the Buffy bot on a personal level (they weren’t fond of Spike to begin with), but from an outside perspective there was nothing wrong about what he did. What crime did he commit? Owning a better blow up doll than the next guy?

As far as feminine warriors goes, why do people always use feminism to argue that you can’t be feminine and sexual and attractive and pretty while also being strong? Why does it always have to be a man with boobs? Maybe she can have a pretty face, even an aethletic (but not too muscular) figure, but god forbid she have a feminine personality or show any skin. I play a giant cat beast man, that’s certainly not realistic. Robots with heels? Run of the mill fantasy MMO stuff.

Why do the Watchknights have to be idealised symbols of woman power? Why can’t they just be the way they are? Why does everything have to be sanitised and politically correct according to a set agenda?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I think the design of the guards is pretty cool, and reminds me of the movie Metropolis. On the other hand, they are blatantly sexualized fem-bots, with pretty explicit nipples, and booty. And I think women are sexualized enough in video games. Maybe it is time this medium grew up.

The audience of the game isn’t you and your personal tastes. Some people might like to see something sexualised. Judging from all the human females running around in skimpy armour I’d say a large number of players care a great deal about that. Are they all people who should grow up because they want something from their fantasy MMO that’s different to what you want?

I enjoyed it, but I really wish the characters showed this kind of personality in the game more often. The Opening Ceremony was awesome and really did bring out the personalities of Rox and Braham as well as Logan and Anise. The short stories on the website have always been really good but the transition to the game wasn’t as much. I still felt that this month is a huge improvement and Rox and Braham are becoming stronger characters as a result.

Bas.7406:

Zindrix.1750:

Is this a joke thread? Ranger is a “top tier” dungeon profession? ROFL. This has to be sarcasm right?

I think it depends on your version of tier. If you are just calling for super speed runs than it’s always guardian/warrior/mesmer and then everyone else.

However in terms of ability to clear all dungeons and provide either high damage or high group support the Ranger is top tier.

Actually it’s the reverse of that. The build used doesn’t really work in pugs because it relies on heavy DPS to ensure mobs die before the spirits, pet and sword ranger reach their limitations. In highly organised groups with full glass set ups mobs will die before they are a problem. In your average pug with masterwork geared players, healing shout warriors and PTV staff eles, fights will go on a lot longer, spirits will die to AoE and the sword will give you a lot of trouble with dodges. I still haven’t seen the “top tier ranger build” used in a situation where the video showed the ranger doing anything other than auto-attack for 10-25 seconds against a boss that dies quickly. The same boss will take a pug 2+ minutes to take down.

The only real support the ranger is bringing with that build is Fury (it’s probably replacing a warrior, so not a big deal), Spotter and Frost Spirit.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

Bathos.6341:

Must say there’s something not right about Queen Jenna. She can afford to build this HUGE pavillion but not to hire more guards to protect her subjects from centaur raids outside the city walls, and she takes advantage of a massive disaster wiping out a section of the city to free up the space for it. Kind of makes you think About Emperor Nero building his huge palace in the ruins of the fire that destroyed part of Rome. And yet despite her blatant disregard for the commoners, Logan loves her. And despite her constantly shooting down every suggestion he makes to her, and the fact she has no problem with the Countess’s having programed his history with Rytlock into the watchnight to unsettle him so he’d be more likely to loose.
I can’t help but wonder in light of her being a mesmer, if Queen Jenna’s controlling Logan’s mind somehow.

Isn’t that a fact?

This was where Logan first met Queen Jennah and made a pledge to serve as her champion, being enthralled by her beauty. If ever Jennah was to find herself in danger, their magical bond would allow Jennah to call Logan to her aid.

I think the writers love that players speculate on that and they will never deny it, but they will never come true on it. They will never say she controlled him and they will never write a story utilising the control on him. They’re always going to write it off as “love sick” and let people speculate.

She’s not controlling him, but the writers enjoy it when people think she might be.

This question likely won’t be relevant in a few hours when diminishing returns is added to gauntlet rewards.

aspirine.6852:

For this warrior to faceroll her, there are many other warriors that cannot beat her. it’s not the class the person is good.

It’s both. The OP is known for soloing dungeons and dungeon bosses so this content was practically designed for him. Having said that, not all classes can do what he does here.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

Here’s one missed opportunity for the balloons and the escort events around them.

They could have given a little bit of backgrounds to the characters you were escorting.
Like while we wait between attacks, they could tell you why they were going to DR.

But i’m just nitpicking here.

I agree. I really hope the Living Story evolves this kind of thing. It was a giant leap from Holograms but it could be better. I’d like to see it get to the point where Living Story chapters might add chain events that branch across entire maps involving the main character like Rox and Braham. They could have done so much more with a chain event, some story and real characters during Flame and Frost. I’m sure it’s a lot more work and resources, but I’d really love to see this kind of thing to evolve into a more exciting and involved open world Living Story. Then again, a chain event would probably need to be specific to a certain map or two. Balloons work well across multiple maps which fills the goal of having Living Story content present in the entire open world (aside from Orr and Southsun).

Dahkeus.8243:

YES! I mean, GW2 has been doing so well in terms of portraying females as people rather than sex objects (well, at least compared to other MMOs), but really…

These things look straight out of Heavy Metal (not the music, but the semi-pornographic sci-fi/fantasy movie and magazone). I mean, did you really need to put nipples on these things?

Is it unbelievable that a creator in Tyria would create something like this? If GW2 was a sanitised feminist fantasy where nothing stepped out of bands of what was considered strictly politically correct according to a certain agenda it would be one of the most bland worlds to play in. This is an MMO, not a feminist fantasy.

They aren’t females… they are robots. I don’t think there are many people out there who think they are sexually attractive.

It probably makes more sense for bursting to be a crit damage sigil.

I think adding DEs to the open world is deffinitely improving the game in a way players care about, I think part of the reason you didn’t get much feedback about it is because 40 events across every map isn’t very focused. There is no problem to this in terms of gameplay (more events in the open world makes it feel alive and gives players something fun to do in the area) but it’s hard to feel the impact of an update which is very easy to miss. I don’t know all of the events in Caldeon Forest today. If you added more tomorrow, I wouldn’t know it was new (unless it was themed to the story like the balloons). That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate playing new events when I go through the world on other characters, I’m just rarely going to notice they are new.

One thing you can do to increase visibility would be to have new events as chains that actually change the world a bit more. Things which flow across the map, things which tell a story. Things which might add a structure that wasn’t there last month. A single event will always have value to players who want a deep and enriched world to explore, especially when levelling, but it’s going to be hard to get noticed.

Another problem with even good events added to the open world is the rewards are terrible. PvDoor in WvW is generally more profitable than DEs, so are dungeons and chain farming in Orr. Champion loot is a good step in the right direction but I’d like to see more done with karma. More karma vendors tied to event chains with unique loot. That way players have a reason to do specific events to access their loot. Maybe give them items that can only be purchased in limited quantities but have increased value. You could even throw in a random value to it (ugh RNG) where sometimes the karma vendor will sell you a special item that it doesn’t always sell. Karma is a relatively worthless currency and it’s the primary reward from events if you are level 80. Karma vendors can easily be tied to events and I’d love to see more uses for karma which help make exploring the world and unlocking different vendors a rewarding experience.

Even if you could keep the pet alive through micro, they offer very little of value as a mechanic. Most of the time it’s the occasional blast finisher or boon or CC, a lot of which is RNG. The extra effort put into the pet rarely makes you better as a class, it just keeps the pet alive (if that). Extra effort put into a mesmer or guardian can change fights (try Feedback on Kholer, Malrona, Lupicus, Searing Effigy etc). Even if there was a micro option to keep pets alive in dungeons, you’re working really for little reward. The pet mechanic is just bad in this game.

I suspect there are more people offended at the appearance of feminine robots than there are people perceive them in a way which the offended people suggest. Unless they have some story significance for their appearance, I suspect they are just consequences of a designer’s inspiration. Of all the possible sources of inspiration, I doubt it was ever intended to be disrespectful to women or suggestive of submissive women. I too wonder why they made the robots that way, but I don’t think it’s an issue.

In my opinion Effigy’s and Holograms weren’t very fun. They were kinda cool the first time, despite looking very out of place, but doing those achievements felt like a huge grind and pushed the novelty way beyond where it should have been left.

The balloons from this update are much better. They represent the story, they involve actual gameplay (dynamic events, and real ones with some story, I felt the Flame and Frost ones were very hit and miss) and they don’t look out of place. In my head now, I know that Queen Jennah invited representatives from all over Tyria to go to the Jubilee because I’ve seen them travelling there myself in the open world. I’ve also been introduced to the Honour Guard. I have no idea if they are going to be important, but I know who they are now and it’s because of the ballons. Can you say that about Effigys and Holograms? Another thing about it is the world really did feel like it was living. I was looking at the delegate I had to escort in Caledon expecting it to be a sylvari and it was a hylek, then I remembered, there are hylek in this area on the map. There was a disconnect with the Dragon Bash representatives and the ceremony that doesn’t exist in Queen’s Jubilee. It’s a huge improvement and one of the coolest things about it is that it helps tell the story through gameplay, something that has been a weak point in the game up until now.

This last patch was a home run. Solo queue is a lot more enjoyable than what we had before. Even better is that we can queue from anywhere in the world. I don’t have to sit in Heart of the Mists if I wanna try a tournament, I can go explore the world while I wait. The only way I would make it better is if it returned me to where I was before I entered instead of Heart of the Mists.

The PvP side of the game is becoming incredibly user friendly now. They are doing fantastic work.

I find it ironic that staves have less magical appearances than greatswords. I kinda liked this staff, but I would like more magical variety in their looks.

Razeor.6271:

You can win almost any kitten measuring contest and make legendary-wielders feel as common as dirt just by mentioning you have fractal personal level 80/having done volcanic shaman 79 multiple times.

Oh and btw I have fractal personal 80 and have done shaman 79 multiple times.

Honest question. Do you think anyone cares or is impressed that you have a fractal level of 80? Is that why you did it? The bragging rights?

Back to the OP. I guess if you want a challenge, Fractals at high levels requires more precision play than the rest of the game. If that’s what you want, go for it. Don’t expect any exciting rewards as a result.