Guild Wars 2

John Corpening.9847:

Would you keep rank acquisition the same as it is now?

If not, what would you do to improve rank acquisition?

Slightly.

I would keep rank acquisition. It adds a sense of overall progression and gives the player a clear indicator of experience. Yes, it can be farmed. Yes, people have gamed the system. But it’s still nice to keep around for everyone else who isn’t using gimmicks rather than tossing it aside.

I would, however, make two changes.

1) Give it bonuses. Use the achievement system to add bonuses to glory to help people leapfrog upwards via skillful play. Completing PvP achievements will award bonus glory, and therefore add more rank to your total. This will allow you to reward certain actions in different ways, which can range from “play 100 games as a guardian” to “kill an opponent carrying the orb in spirit watch 20 times”. Once again, you’ll need to work out the farming related kinks, but these will help add a touch of spice, just like the achievements in Team Fortress 2.

2) Give it a sense of immediate satisfaction. As a filthy, loathsome casual, I find I simply don’t care when I rank up. Going from rabbit to deer felt somewhat special, but going from rank 10 to rank 11 was completely meaningless because it gave me nothing. All I could do was spend a little more glory on RNG based rewards from a vendor that were inferior to the stuff I got from achievement chests. Each rank increase should provide a feeling of satisfaction, not just every tenth.

Filthy, loathsome PvP casual reporting in.

My feedback from the bottom of the barrel is thus: it’s nice to give existing PvPers stuff, but there’s zero reason for me to care about this update. You give PvPers gold, and that’s good, but it’s probably not going to be competitive with the best gold gains in PvE. You give them access to PvE skins, but I already have access to those skins in PvE. And you take away prestigious elements like the finishers and haven’t shown anything in particular replacing them. As a filthy casual, I really don’t see any incentive to give PvP another go and get that sweet, sweet reward.

May I offer a constructive suggestion or two?

1) You have class specific skins. Embellish them.

Players love those thief hoods and necromancer facepaints, and top tier players wear them all the time. Take those items and run with them. Add unlocks for each profession that provide prestigious versions of each set (normal thief hood, thief hood with pattern, thief hood with metal outline and cooler pattern, etc) which are unlocked through the class specific victory achievements. Suddenly, really good players can show off how awesome they are with a specific class.

2) You have a back item slot. Give it some love.

The back slot is currently poorly represented in item diversity, doing little besides acting as a participation prize for Living Story content. But if you had billowing scarves and dazzling adornments as prizes for certain PvP achievement tiers, it would help round it out. Oh, and speaking of flourish…

3) Capes.

For the love of Melandru’s magnificent melons, make cape physics work and PvP will flourish. You want people to look cool? Capes are cool. You want people to want to climb higher in the ladder? Rank based capes will make them climb. You want people to care about prestige? CAPES!!!!!!
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I recognize that this update will help existing PvPers, but if you want new blood from loathsome casuals, you need to give us some meat, something that makes us hungry. I get that there are long term plans, but sometimes simple and cheap shinies can really help out in the short term. Slower or more monotonous access to existing PvE stuff isn’t going to give people like me a reason to give PvP another go. And while the elites may think that is fine…it’s the filthy, loathsome casuals who provide a sufficient playerbase to create more elites for a healthy game. The elites certainly need their due support, but throw a bone to the bottom of the barrel.

I think you misunderstand two things about the complaints.

1) The issues with Scarlet often revolve around her obscene levels of power and control over other races. So far, three of the most xenophobic and hostile factions in all of Tyria have bent over backwards to fulfill her will, without any explanation as to why. The Flame Legion are misogynistic, xenophobic, and highly pyromaniacal, and yet the Living Story expects us to believe they dropped everything and bowed down to a foreign and highly flammable girl. The Dredge would die before they allowed themselves to be enslaved again, but they were somehow bullied or coerced into serving a single sylvari. The Krait never, ever, ever negotiate with outsiders…unless it’s Scarlet, in which case they’re sitting down at the conference table.

To use the Joker analogy, imagine that one writer decided that the Joker was suddenly in command of the League of Shadows, formed an alliance between the Sinestro Core and all of Lexcorp while calling the shots for both, and then got Apokalypse to combine tech with Thanagar in order to give him more minions. That would not be “good characterization”. That would be absurd.

Until the writers justify why anyone listens to a single psychopathic sylvari, the last eleven months of kooky alliances make Scarlet appear absurdly overpowered and completely unsuited for her “ultimate mastermind of all evil factions” role.

Speaking of pacing…

2) It’s not that Scarlet has no plan. It is that the story has failed to demonstrated one.

We have fought her for eleven months. Tell me, where do you think we are in the story? Is she about to unveil her ultimate plan, or is she starting to begin her actual goal? Are we winning the fight due to our efforts to destroy her facilities, or are we losing the war as her influence expands? Are we one month away from the grand climax, or will it take six?

We don’t know. That’s because the story has not revealed anything concrete about her methods or her ultimate goal. We are fighting her because she is the only thing on television right now, and we can’t change the channel. We could be two episodes in to a full twenty-four long season, or one episode away from the finale. But we can’t tell, because absolutely nothing has been done to convey what is going on or why we should care. That is why people say she has no purpose. No purpose has been conveyed, and after eleven months of fighting Scarlet Briar, “she might totally have a master plan that we will learn one day” isn’t giving people a reason to give a cute-baby-feline about the story.

The Joker works well because he thrives on chaos using methods that oppose the Batman. His tools of the trade are cheap (gasoline and spare parts), his minions are disposable psychopaths (Harley aside), and his primary weapon is his insane unpredictability. The “crazy lunatic” villain is not a Leader of Men or supreme savant of all technology. He is chaos incarnate, and that means very few people willingly serve him except out of pure greed or their own lunacy.

If you like Scarlet, you are entitled to that opinion. In turn, those who have legitimate complaints are well entitled to their opinions on the matter.

Nike.2631:

I’m still against hard limits on post length- I’d maybe shoot for a friendlier tone in the opening guidance instructing participants to try and “condense your thoughts and distil your essays to the extent that you are able”.

A very fair point. Hard limitations would be awkward to enforce and would present a rather negative tone from the getgo. Encouraging the use of spoiler text blocks and a TL:DR paragraph might be the best bet.

We all need to be concise.

Brevity is the soul of wit. Many of the posters in the Living World thread, myself included, wanted to use it as a soapbox for their enormous essay about expanding the world. This produced pages and pages and pages of long text blocks, many of which said the same general things. This makes it very difficult to read, let alone form a discussion. It might help to enforce a simple standard. If your post is more than a midsized paragraph or two long, it needs to be a spoiler quote block OR a link to another thread that lays out your essay in full.

I’m equally guilty of contributing to the problem, but if we’re going to have a really good conversation, we can’t be giving speeches over one another’s heads.

shimmerless.4560:

This is a really interesting post and it’s a discussion I wish more Mesmers would try to engage in. My take is that you’re coming at it from the wrong angle.

Shatters are a phenomenally well-executed game mechanic. There isn’t a day that doesn’t pass where I don’t marvel at whoever came up with them and their relationship to our class. The more illusions a Mes has out, the higher his defense (if only from simple body-blocking but also from traits and offensive pressure). When he chooses to shatter these, he risks both a cooldown and his first line of defense; the more illusions the higher the damage and the stronger the effect, but also the greater the risk if it fails. This is perfect competitive game design.

You make a very good point about the wrong angle. I get grumpy towards shatters because they’re the thing occupying those delightful skill slots without customization, but the mechanic itself is certainly well developed. The idea of building and breaking a persistent resource is an excellent mechanic and should definitely remain a strong archetype. But it could still use more skillbar customization.

The idea about invulnerable illusions, though….that’s interesting. Mighty interesting indeed. This would solve a lot of problems dealing with PvE bosses (Tequatl’s AoEs and other mass blaster boss attacks) and WvW zergs alike without introducing massive levels of imbalance.

Effect-on-death traits could be split between bonuses to blowing up/overproducing illusions, with one or two changing to “every time someone strikes a clone, they get a stack of X”. They’d have to avoid too many of those, obviously, but it would be really nice for a big WvW zerg to take it in the face when they lather down the AoE just like retaliation rather than shutting down the illusion mechanic.

I agree with you, I think Carighan’s got an interesting idea. Will need to ponder it further.

Xaylin.1860:

I do not think that shatter Mesmers should receive a special treatment just because shatters are part of the class mechanic. I see no reason for it being the meta. It is like wanting pet Rangers to be meta. There should be many different builds for each class in a meta. Not only builds which rely on class mechanics.

One thing I need to get off my chest.

I agree with you, but I would take it a step further. Shatters already get too much special treatment, but not in a way that’s actually helping them.

Every single Mesmer in the game is required to run Mind Wrack, Cry, Diversion, and Distortion. These are shatter skills, and according to the summary of builds Jon posted, that’s four skills designed for one archetype among many that every single mesmer is required to take. This is poor design.

Why is the phantasm playstyle so passive on the offense? Because there’s no room to put in any skills that manipulate your phantasms in an active, skillful manner. Without any real estate to slot those skills, it will always be fire-and-forget passive play.

Why is it difficult to turn deception and effect-on-clone-death into strong and viable archetypes? Because Mesmers cannot make their illusions move like real people, and the “punishment” concept for guessing wrong and destroying illusions doesn’t exist outside of traits.

Why is it hard making interrupt archetypes and signet mesmers and mantra masters competitive? Because every single Mesmer in the game is required to take clones AND phantasms AND the exact same four shatter skills, but we only have enough traits to go around to make one or two mechanics function on a competitive level.

And it’s not like shatters themselves aren’t hurt by this. They can’t decide to substitute Panic instead of Cry of Frustration to mix a fear effect with their diversion daze for heavy interruption, or add Mirage Cloak to their metamagic bar to shatter for stealth. Four skills are expected to account for every single situation in the game, and if you don’t have a use for them, too bad. It’s the equivalent of giving all Rangers a bear pet everywhere they go. Sure, the bear might be slightly useful every once in a while, but that doesn’t mean that the pidgeonholed class mechanic is helping them flesh out multiple builds and make those styles of play compelling and competitive.

For more Mesmer archetypes to become viable and for current archetypes to expand outward to allow more build and stat combinations, one must consider giving Mesmers the ability to control and customize their class mechanic skills.

shimmerless.4560:

It’s a non-sequitur of a question. Staff is competitive, by the way, but it’s kept in line by a few factors (some of which, like WoC, are almost certainly by design because of our class mechanic):

It is a direct sequitur. You’re earlier statement was declaring that condition damage on the autoattack is not fine and that Mesmer clones inflicting conditions are a “balance nightmare”. But the staff has a condition damage autoattack and clones who inflict conditions. If you’re saying that it is a competitive weapon, but not an overpowered one, that says something extremely relevant about condition autoattacks and clones that can do something useful on the battlefield.

Now, I agree with you that the “defender” part shouldn’t come down to what stats the player equipped, and that the weapon itself should require skill. Simply slapping conditions onto everything and calling it a day won’t do that. What the weapon probably needs is to find a way for the clones to help party members or reduce enemy damage in some clever way. Barring that, some excellent Mesmery debuffs on the scepter would be excellent.

But what I am stressing is that condition autoattacks and clones-that-do-things shouldn’t be taken off the table. If you’re okay with the staff and think it’s in line because of its various features, then the hypothetical scepter can also be equally in line while still fulfilling the role of a good condition weapon.

shimmerless.4560:

Condi autos aren’t fine, and Mes clones are what’d make it a balance nightmare, never mind push it “overboard”. This whole thing with conditions and DoTs needs a serious rework (along with a pass on this game’s tremendous amount of AoE) and I’d much rather they wouldn’t toss the scepter into the muck ahead of time.

Serious, non-confrontational question.

Do you consider the Staff to be overboard? It does exactly what you describe. The autoattack inflicts conditions and the clones inflict the exact same DoT list. Is the staff currently overpowered in PvP, dominating WvW, or completely outclassing other weapons in PvE? Does the mesmer Staff define the competitive metagame in any way, shape, or form?

I understand the resistance to making a dull, spammy weapon. But that doesn’t mean that a condition weapon cannot have a condition autoattack (because that’s the damage type they’re supposed to deal out) or have clones that do something significant. It can have strings attached to reward tactical play and the other weapon skills can be the more significant portion of the weapon’s smiting potential, but it should still be doing everything it can to be a “tricksy defender” weapon.

Tobias Valin.5893:

Here’s where I think we disagree, if only in technicality. I think that Guild Wars 2 is, or should be, strictly about the dragons. Once they are defeated it seems more prudent to begin Guild Wars 3 and go into other lore content. If we take 1 year for each dragon that means we’ll finish them in 2018, assuming Mordremoth is a real dragon. That’s 6 years-4 months of life, compared to GW1’s lifespan being 6 years-10 months. That’s pretty consistent.

While I’m hesitant to recommend this from a lore standpoint, you have a rather valid point. Technology is going to progress in the next half-decade quite a bit, so it’s possible that reinvigorating the game would take more effort. Personally, I would prefer for the events to happen in this game, since things like a Mursaat invasion or Palawa’s attack would transpire within our character’s lifetimes. The 250 year jump between GW1 and GW2 allowed a mechanical leap forward to take place at the same time, but it would be rather weird if all our characters retired immediately after the dragons were defeated and new heroes had to rise five years later. Maybe they just got amnesia.

Regardless of personal preferences, I think your observation is quite wise. We’d just have to see what the best course proves to be sometime in the future.

Conncept.7638:

Not bad, still don’t understand why the pact has to go. Can’t the majority of the pact leader vs non-pact leader be solved in two different sets of dialogue?

I’ve touched on this a bit in the first page’s dialogue, but there’s two things to expand upon.

To directly answer your question, no, it can’t be solved just with dialogue. At the end of the Personal Story, your character is the Marshal of the Pact, second in command to Trahearne. T-dog’s entire position of authority is based on his knowledge of Orr, and with Zhaitan dead, that becomes irrelevant. That means that leadership of the Pact is naturally going to fall to the most competent and qualified individual on the planet: you. Unless we get a Trahearne 2.0 figure for every single campaign (unlikely given the reception of the salad bowl in question), the Pact will be lead by the player.

That cannot be represented properly in game. Military leaders give the orders. It’s sort of in the job description. But the Living Story cannot represent one player being able to command NPCs and tell them what to do, while simultaneously account for a different player giving them a different set of orders. Likewise, it’s going to feel very fake if the NPCs are basically telling the player what to order them to do and giving you the choice of “Yes, do that” or “Certainly, proceed immediately”. If they do manage to achieve any sense of authority, mind you, it’s going to be difficult to mesh that experience with a player who never completed the story. There are circumstances where it is possible, but the overall arc will not feel authentic.

More importantly, the Story must establish the dragons as a credible threat.

Not the dragonspawn, mind you, they’re doing fine. But the dragons themselves aren’t delivering. We’ve only seen one dragon in the entire game, and Zhaitan’s final battle was as exciting as shooting an enormous fish in a pool-sized barrel. The “Elder Dragon” basically flew out of the sky, scratched the paint on our ship, then was megalasered and metamagical harpooned repeatedly until it fell over and died while screaming for its mother to make the bad men go away. We didn’t slay a dragon. We euthanized a sick puppy that just happened to be large and infectious.

That’s not the developers’ fault since the mission had to be rushed for release, but it needs to be addressed. The measure of a hero is defined by their villains, and our main villains simply don’t measure up. The dragons don’t have personality or motivations to fall back on in order to be interesting. They are forces of nature, the apocalypse manifested in wing and talon form. Sheer power is their entire identity; we are fighting living hurricanes, walking volcanoes, scaled tsunamis with appetites to match. If they don’t rock our socks off, they are nothing.

The Personal Story ends with the Pact as the largest, most technologically advanced fighting force in Tyria, fully prepared to go invade another ‘spawn territory and carry out the same Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’am dragonslaying as before. From a storytelling perspective, we are too strong and our opponents too weak for a good epic. Zhaitan needs to be redone to prove that the Elder Dragons are Ragnarok Incarnate, and that means he needs to pulverize the opponents that come to fight him. For the story to work, for our characters to be heroes and for our villains to be the engines of the End Times they are meant to be….the Pact’s gotta take one for the team and get owned.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So a fun question to ask to help direct the conversation a bit: What aspects of your favorite television shows would you think would be cool to see reflected in a game medium?

It’s a quote from a ways back, but it’s the best way to frame my response. I hope you don’t mind.

A good show must find a balance between building lore, establishing characters, indulging in instant gratification, and setting up long term investment. In many ways, a television show is an apt comparison to MMOs. They require an initial hook to get the player interested combined with long term reasons to get committed to regular viewing. In addition, they cater to many different individual’s personal tastes; viewers will get attached to certain characters, become invested in the plot, or simply enjoy the wit and banter to bring them back again and again. At the moment, however, the Living Story feels like a poor spinoff due to the overemphasis on the Saga of Scarlet. In order to achieve a solid viewing audience, the Living Story needs to find balance.

I have a thread over yonder where I go into more details, but here is a simple example of a Living Story arrangement designed to appeal to a wide audience. The idea is to reserve long term campaigns that take months of content for the most important things going on in Tyria (which are dragons, not redheaded Sylvari reverse engineering bloodstones). These fit into the January-to-May block very easily, since there are no holidays during that time frame. Meanwhile, the rest of the year is devoted to creature features, lore delves, one shot stories, and the introduction of new races in order to indulge a diverse audience. The combination of hardcore campaigns and whimsical/wonderful oneshots should satisfy the audience and keep them entertained for years to come.

If it is not to presumptuous, here is a hypothetical TV Guide To Tyria to demonstrate what the Living Story could be.

Alrighty, ready to go.

The idea here is that one year leads to another in a general sense, but it uses self contained stories to form the foundation. That way, they can form the framework for something bigger, while still standing strong on their own. In theory, of course. For a touch of variety, creature features (one month monster focused stories), holidays, and the oddball joke episode are thrown in the mix.

The one big potential problem is the predictability of the campaigns. If it becomes rather dull to gather together and slay the beast in about the same time frame each year, it could turn monotonous by the time we take on Bubbles. At the moment, the hypotheticals attempt to solve that with some hooks to throw in the middle of the stories, but one could also delay the battle with the Deep Sea Dragon and interject something else if it grows too predictable. That’s a conundrum for another day.

After the dragons are dead, the next few months are spent on a Reclamation, transforming the areas currently occupied by dragonspawn to mark the dawn of a new day. Meanwhile, it introduces several story threads to act as major plot points for the future. All things sailing smoothly, this should mean that the fifth anniversary of the game is poised to reinvigorate itself and introduce several new campaign themes across every corner of Tyria.

Here’s the big old block. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading through the long haul.

Sorry about the long time in between responses. Been busy. Also, thank you to everyone for the kind words. It’s an honor and a pleasure to see an idea well received.

Back to the OP and discussion of his idea, I think part of the problem with the story, at least with its known end, is the fact that we have a known end. We know that once we kill all 6 dragons its game-over. Nothing left to fight so no more game to play; bring on Guild Wars 3.
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Anyway, that’s 3 years worth of story and only 1 dragon dead. Do that with every dragon and you could triple the lifespan of the game.

While the pacing is understandable, I would put forth a different perspective: there are way too many good stories to tell to spend three years per dragon. Guild Wars 1 was released in 2005. If it takes us around a decade to kill off the dragons, we’re looking at more time between the finale of the dragon wars and now than the entire lifespan of Arenanet’s first game. In that game, we saved the world four times over, and only three of those incidents were our fault. If we spend the next ten years fighting dragons, it’s going to get dull, fast.

Meanwhile, there is so much other cool stuff to do. You mentioned Palawa Joko, but consider the following. Palawa won’t fight us with the dragons still around. He’s a master of the Long Game and has used the “get mortal heroes to kill the bigger fish” strategy before. We’re not going to be able to fight a war with him going around the Dragonbrand, and he’s quite content to sit back and let us handle the dragon crisis while he picks his dessicated toenails. That’s how he rolls.

There are plenty of other similiar beasties waiting in the wings. The Mursaat vanished from this plane of existence because of the dragons, and when all the wyrms die, they’ll want their stuff back. Cantha is likely to be a xenophobic tyranny bent on eradication of all impure life, which means plenty of fun times. That’s not even considering a Riftwar in the Mists between the gods and Dhuum, or any other supernatural phenomena.

Once the dragons die, the real game begins. It’s not game over. It’s the beginning of Chapter 2.

Tobias Valin.5893:

One thing that is important, that bears repeating again and again until the devs acknowledge it, is that the content must be replayable, without having to reroll.

This is an excellent point. While I am not entirely sure about the method (NinjaChris has a good point about the problems with splitting servers between two different zones), it would be ideal to have a way to replay every aspect of the story. A Historian NPC, some sort of Chronicle in the home instance, or another generic menu device might work decently. The good news is that this problem would loom its head in the years to come, thus leaving plenty of time to solve it.

NinjaChris.9340:

2. Looking at Your 2014 for GW2 I’m concerned about its second half. The Off-Season is basically just like the Living Story now, but it still contains important to me lore elements, like The Wizards Tower, The Tengu, The Origin of the Asura, and the Vaettir.
I’m not concerned with running out of lore, but by giving each of those elements only a month or so to develop, you don’t have enough time for build up and for them to have any impact, which makes interesting lore basically into filler content.

Two quick answers to that, followed by a longer one.

For scheduling, the nice thing about the holiday season is that it does have room for shifting things around. The schedule can fit in everything from a quick two week block to two entire months (the Gauntlet starts in early August, Halloween is late October, so the four updates in between can be one story or many) to accommodate a tale without interruption.

The Off-Season stories aren’t meant to act as the be-all, end-all compilation of lore. For example, the Ruins of Rata Pten is meant to act as a teaser to the Asuran origin rather than the entire story. Some sidestories would be self contained, while others would point towards the upcoming campaign and help form a broad foundation.
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It seems to work much better when it’s all laid out. Tell you what. Originally I cut the plan down a bit to fit a single year (which is why it’s a little bit disoriented, I wanted to hit a bit of everything for the different races rather than exclusively singling out a region), but the further years in my plan were a bit better organized (I have too much time on my hands). It’ll take a short amount of time to throw them up into a presentable format, but they’re already written out.

Be right back.

Solving town clothing is pretty simple.

1) Everyone wears town clothes in minigames.

2) Release more minigames.

3) Minigames include town clothes as part of their rewards. Town clothes can also be crafted, purchased from karma vendors, earned as story rewards, purchased directly in cities, or discovered from mini dungeons/jumping puzzles, etc.

4) Headgear now has three different options: Display headgear armor, display town clothes headgear, or hide headgear. Want to look cool? Kill Tequatl. Want to look awesome? Kill Tequatl at night while wearing sunglasses.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Shriketalon.1937:

Pyroatheist.9031:

The scepter autoattack SHOULD have a unique aspect that the clones can inherit.

The scepter autoattack SHOULD NOT have a condition.

Forcing hybridization on our weapons when we only have one ranged main hand choice is bad design. If we had a condition onslaught whip and a direct damage mainhand pistol, then sure, go nuts. But we don’t, and thus we can’t afford to pidgeonhole the scepter with a stat split.

All that’s only true is hybridization truly is weaker. That’s a big claim, and I challenge you to support it.

Clarification: hybrids are not weaker. They are more demanding.

To run a successful hybrid build, the player must fulfill both high condition damage and high direct damage stats. That usually means running rampager armor, possibly with a minor mix of berzerker or celestial statistics to round things out, since that is how you achieve power, precision, and condition damage in a single package. Meanwhile, Anet says they want to make the scepter a “tricksy defender”, possibly with team support involved. Does that honestly sound like an all offense rampager weapon? If the weapon deals pure condition damage, it opens up more stat spreads. It will allow the mesmer to choose durability or healing power without sacrificing skill potency, or mix in precision to maximize sharper images synergy.

When Pyro describes the unskilled nature of play as a result of condition damage spam, I would assert that has more to do with the balance of the autoattack’s power as compared to the power of the rest of the weapon skills. If the autoattack is the best DPS on the weapon, the result will be spammy play regardless of whether it’s direct or condition damage based. But if the autoattack is less potent than the powerful weapon skill and requires some tactical bonuses to be fulfilled, the weapon can be more skillful without shirking it’s role as a condition damage device.

Hybrids are fine, if you have plenty of weapon choices. But we don’t, and that means our “tricksy defender” weapon which also happens to be our only ranged mainhand shouldn’t be forced into hybridization.

Edit: Rampager. Not rabid. Bah.

Pyroatheist.9031:

The scepter autoattack SHOULD have a unique aspect that the clones can inherit.

The scepter autoattack SHOULD NOT have a condition.

If I may protest…

If the scepter is going to be a condition weapon, it must deal condition damage for the Mesmer’s autoattack. Giving a condition damage weapon a direct damage autoattack is flawed design, since it splits your damage stats. If the direct damage and condition damage are approximately equivalent, it forces the player to use hybrid stats, thus taxing their attribute points and reducing stat diversity. If one is more potent than the other, the vestigial condition/direct damage is just a liability, not an asset.

The spammy part of gameplay you mention only occurs if the autoattack vastly exceeds the rest of the weapon skills. I fully agree with you that such a style is simply boring and lacks skill, and the clones shouldn’t be simple condition spammers. But it won’t become skillful by declaring condition damage on the autoattack an invalid design, just further hamper the weapon from fulfilling a clear and distinct job.

The autoattack could have trigger effects (inflicts a damaging condition if the enemy is attacking, or a debuff if it is not), an emphasis on deception (if the enemy is targeting you, you gain protection and regeneration during the channeling, but if it is targeting someone else you inflict confusion), or sacrifice damage for pure control (confuse→weaken→blind for the autoattack chain). But it should NOT stop fulfilling its tactical purpose. If the scepter is a condition damage weapon, it needs to deal condition based damage. And it it’s going to deal direct damage, then confusion and torment would have to be taken away, which would be a shame.

Forcing hybridization on our weapons when we only have one ranged main hand choice is bad design. If we had a condition onslaught whip and a direct damage mainhand pistol, then sure, go nuts. But we don’t, and thus we can’t afford to pidgeonhole the scepter with a stat split.

One more thing.

JonPeters.5630:

I would really like to design a chain of auto attacks here that end with something good, and then allow the clones generated from scepter to also do that thing.

Hmm….what if some of these powers were simply rearranged?

1) Ether Bolt: Confuse the foe. No longer a projectile, hits just like the necro scepter.
Ether Blast: Confuse the foe some more.
Ether Prism: Block attacks while tormenting your foe.
2) Soothing Images: Create a burst of calming mirages that cripples and weakens foes and creates a clone.
3) Confusing Images: lower the direct damage and increase the confusion duration.

Scepter clones fake the Ether Bolt animation, including the blocking, and weaken anyone who hits them.

This would create a “tricksy defender” weapon of choice. It piles on enough condition to be extremely problematic and keeps the Mesmer alive in a way that isn’t just a poor gal’s Blurred Frenzy. It combines soft control with hefty punishment to hurt anyone who tries to hurt your friends. Finally, the clones actually do something, but they aren’t raw condition spammers.

Please note: I’m not good at balance, but I like thinking outside boxes. Some of this may be really, really foolish.

JonPeters.5630:

Overall I think this a good small step for a profession that has a lot of roles it can fill fairly uniquely. I think this might give us 3 strong mesmer build archetypes.

1) Shatter
2) Phantasm
3) Mantra

I think right behind those are the interrupt shutdown mesmer and the signet mesmer, so future suggestions towards those are appreciated as well.

1) Interruption is problematic due to two main things: Defiant in PvE and the five-second-recharge time for interrupted skills. Make Confounding Suggestions increase the recharge time of any skill you interrupt dramatically alongside the minor daze duration boost. Make them feel it when a Mesmer shuts them down. Also, have it shred several Defiant stacks per every interrupt you spend.

2) For the Signet Mesmer to be viable, signets have to stop relying on stat buffs. Mesmer utilities are godlike in power and control, and they need to have more elements like Plague Signet or Signet of Inspiration that provide more options, rather than just boost stats.

Signet of Domination: when you successfully interrupt a skill or strip a defiant stack with one of your abilities, that ability recharges faster. Activated ability is fine.
Signet of Inspiration: along with the random bonus, improves boon duration. The active ability is wonderful as it is.
Signet of Midnight: every X seconds, transfers a condition from yourself to one of your clones. Activate to gain stealth.
Signet of Illusions: your illusions cannot take more than 20% of their health in damage from a single hit. Recharge all your illusion summoning skills on activation.

Also, you should really, really, really consider allowing Signet of Inspiration to default to granting swiftness outside of combat. The random boon thing is cool in battle, but there is only one thing we want outside of combat, and that is a good dose of GO FAST. You don’t seem to mind permanent swiftness on other classes, so it’s only fair that everyone gets their own helping of GO FAST to make it even.

3) Balance must address the simple fact that Mantras don’t have a reason for the charge mechanism. The old “these skills are instant cast, so they have to pay a cost” line from when they were revealed in beta doesn’t hold up. Guardians don’t need to charge up their shouts to gain instant cast stability or condition removal, and I don’t see the Elementalists paying a cost to activate their arcane abilities either.

Likewise, Mantras don’t have a specific tactical niche. Two of them are now support powers, albeit with a terrible radius vastly outclassed by the support powers of other classes, and two of them are single target damage/control attacks. Mantras don’t have a “thing”.

If you want mantras to be the source of Mesmer support, it’s simple. Make dazing the foe into a Manipulation and make Mantras a pulse ability that buffs all allies nearby the Mesmer or her clones. That will give it a cool illusionist tweak that solves the radius problem, and it will make the charge mechanic the source of the Mantra’s cool powers, rather than a royal pain in the posterior. In other words…

Psychic Distraction: daze the foe. Manipulation. Give them a pinch when they least expect it.
Mantra of Concentration: the unwavering focus of one mind can cast aside distractions for the many. Grants stability with each pulse.
Mantra of Resolve: the practiced mind can overcome any pain. Cures a condition with each pulse.
Mantra of Persistence: enhance your allies with illusionary potency, making them more than real. Grants might and protection with each pulse.
Mantra of Celerity: the speed of thought enhances foot and fang alike. Grants fury and swiftness with each pulse.

Consider it bardic music buffs or psychic empowerment, either way, that’s your mesmer support style.

4) Can you take the Blurred Frenzy skill, give it Mai Trin’s fencing animation, and rename it Flourish? I know that has nothing to do with balance, but I can’t help feel foolish when my elegant and mystical mesmer flails her sword around like a feather duster. We are mesmers. “Frenzying” is for peasants.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Ok, how about this. I’m unclear why this is a problem. Does that explain my position a bit better?

May I give it a bit of a go?

While I can’t say I’m outraged or raising torches about the male/female ratio in the Living Story, I have noticed a trend which is beginning to fray on my nerves. Basically, the LS consistently portrays female heroes as skilled, capable, and varied, while painting male heroes as inept, flawed, or reliant on their superior female counterparts.

The women are a diverse lot, but they all have something that makes them shine. Rox is a skilled soldier with an good sense of tactics and planning. Kiel is a capable protector with a strong moral code, but enough flexibility to be wily and adaptable. Marjory is a sly detective solving puzzles and gathering clues, despite not having a full gang riding around in a mystery machine. Kasmeer is dainty, to be sure, but she is still a fantastically powerful mesmer, as demonstrated by her recent disenchanting. Speaking of mesmers, Countess Anise is twelve steps ahead of anyone attempting to hurt the Queen, performing the job of protecting her majesty perfectly. Magister Tassi (who may not count, being a holiday character, just like Moto likely doesn’t count) is a superb historian and makes a mighty potent frosting glaze. We also have Caithe, who showed up just to get caught by a certain someone to show how big and mean the new baddie really was. And finally, of course, Scarlet is currently the god emperor of evil, at least according to the last ten months we’ve been fighting her.

Lots of women doing lots of cool things. Moving on…

Lord Faren is a walking joke. He exists to be a buffoon, get in trouble, and look foolish until we rescue him. That’s okay, because he’s lovable, like a dumb puppy who runs into walls a lot. Braham has large muscles and less brain, though he has a good heart. His character arc has consisted of running after his stolen girlfriend, getting rejected, and taking his place as Rox’s flunkie. They now roam together, and he is the brawn to her brain, relying on her superior expertise to direct his meaty self.

Subdirector Noll is a petty and unlikeable middle manager who needs Kiel to sort out a bad situation. Canach is the other side of the coin in the aforementioned southsun scenario, and while he may have had a cause to his extremism, he’s caught by Kiel and shown up by her simultaneously as she solves the contract problem without bloodshed.

Speaking of contracts, Evon Gnashblade showed up without anything remotely resembling Kiel’s screentime, ran against her in an election while twirling his evil mustache, and lost. And finally, Logan Thackery showed up for the singular purpose of being shows as completely inept as the queen’s protector and verbally slapped down by Countess Anise for not being as calm, capable, and in control as she proved to be.

While I know some of that is deliberately phrasing things in a bad light, I invite you to consider to questions. First of all, can you name a prominent male character in the Living Story who is skilled, capable, and does not get shown up by a superior female? I’m not saying every single one needs to be a strong, independent male who don’t need no gal….but still.

And secondly, if the genders were reversed, do you think the Living Story’s portrayal of women would be acceptable? If Lana Thackery was called out by Count Anthony for being so blinded by her love for the King of Kryta that she couldn’t do her job? If Caneche the guerrilla fighter rampaged around Southsun Cove proving Subcontractor Gnilie a fool, only to have the rogue-with-a-heart-of-gold Captain Kieth show up and upstage both of these two ladies with his scoundrel smile? If the large-but-dumb Brahma chased after her boyfriend only to have him dump her immediately, at which point she latched onto Rawx the soldier and followed him around obediently? And finally, if Lady Farrah was constantly preening about the story acting like a complete ditz, serving only as a joke or a damsel in distress? If these were the only representations of the entire female gender, would this be alright? Methinks not.

The statement earlier in the thread is absolutely true that the goal should be for good characters in well written stories. I would assert, however, that the current writing is doing a lackluster job depicting the male characters, concentrating far too much on making one gender look good by highlighting the other’s failures and flaws.

If they really wanted to bring the master of the mind/illusionist feel, they should make phantasms change aesthetics based on the target.

It would be really easy. Every enemy has a type (bandit, nightmare court, griffin, elemental), and the tonic system is already well designed to allow plenty of transformations. The Mesmer could cast a phantasm (for example, one that inflicts a second of fear every eight seconds for interrupt spam, or one that constantly creates smaller versions of itself the longer it is alive to swarm the foe) that changes its shape based on the target.

So you point at a bandit, yell “You are covered in bees!”, and lo, the Phantom Pain appears as a swarm of stinging insects, making him scream “Ahhh, I’m covered in bees!”. But when you face a skale, it appears a large drake out to eat it. Fight a griffin, and it looks like a lightning elemental. Fight a nightmare courtier, and it looks like a giant phosphorescent fireball. Every enemy has a weakness and everything fears something else. Get a simple tonic script to read the enemy type and shapechange into a preset form, and you have an illusionist who can bring the enemy’s nightmares to life with a flick of the wrist.

Sorann Peace.9056:

There’s a problem with your suggestion, OP. The personal story and living world directly conflict, not just storywise but mechanics wise as well. The personal story requires the world to not change. The Living World makes it change.

A fair point, and you present a nifty idea. One second, though.

Tobias Valin.5893:

Also, your suggested structure of dragon-slaying content, if strictly adhered to, would only permit 5 more years of guaranteed game longevity. Kralkatorrik in 2014, then in no particular order Primordus, Jormag, Bubbles & Mordremoth, 2015 thru 2018. After that there are no more dragons to kill. What then?

Since these two things are somewhat related, best to respond to both at once.

The Living World does make things change, but it has to be approached in a reasonable manner. It would be rather difficult for Arenanet to create several new explorable zones, then remake them immediately following the campaign in order to account for the dragon’s death. On the other hand, as Sorann points out, they do need to change sometime, and Tobias is correct, we will run out of dragons eventually.

Ideally, I’d see it going something like this.

2014: Kralkatorric gets killed.
2015: Jormag is put on ice.
2016: Primordius is extinguished.
2017: The Deep Sea Dragon is killed with an aquatic related turn of phrase.

Up until this point, all the dragon related lands would be kept as-is. It will break some immersion for Orr to stay full of Risen in all that time, but it allows them to remain open as high-end content and avoid excessive developer workload.

After the last dragon falls, the lands could be restored via a Reclamation. The last of the Risen are purged from Orr, the crystal desert is cleansed and the brand removed, the Depths of Tyria are freed from Destroyers, and the Norn homelands break free of all Icebrood. From that point on, anyone doing the personal story can use Sorann’s idea and replay a single server running the warzone instance.

Meanwhile, the world turns and new threats emerge. The Mursaat have been lurking outside our dimension ever since they abandoned their allies to draconic doom. When the threat of dragons is eliminated, the Unseen shall return. Palawa Joko may have helped us once, but he’s played the long game many times before. As a master of logistical strategy, he’s bound to strike when we’re at our weakest to continue his conquest of the world. The mysteries of the Mists will likely reveal new threats, including the fate of the human gods and the forces of Dhuum or Menzies that stalk the cosmic plane. And finally, the xenophobic and zealous Canthans may decide to purify the world through flame, especially considering one of their favorite advisor’s origins. After all, if Glint as a dragon minion…where do you think Kuunavang came from?

The human-centric threats alone could last us well into the game’s first decade. That doesn’t even include the baggage brought by other races, nor the territory to the distant north and west of the continent. As the stories continue, the smaller tales outside the campaigns can present recurring villains and plot hooks to build the lore endlessly outwards. The Living Story could keep progressing for as long as they want the game to continue, all the way until they announce Guild Wars 3: Quaggan In Space.

The forum doesn’t like 5000+ character posts, so I’ll need to split responses. ’Tis irksome.

Fallout.1798:

Very interesting ideas, but I have to disagree with the idea of destroying the Pact. Its true that the Living story conflicts with the Personal story, but that is mostly because it would be confusing for players who see the Pact in the Living story, while in their personal story they haven’t gotten that far. However this seems often to be mainly because players who have been level 80 for a long time have NOT ADVANCED IT ANYMORE. I see often player screenshots of people in PvE maps (such as lions arch), they are level 80, and guess how far they are in their personal story? Often I see not even up to the level 40 story missions (seriously, the personal story missions offer good exp for leveling up to 80).

While I can respect that you like the Pact, may I attempt to change your mind? Consider the following…

1) Removing the Pact caters to both the people who do and don’t play the Personal Story. You are quite correct, some people will never bother with it, and that should be perfectly acceptable. By removing the Pact from play, there’s nothing preventing the game from telling a good story about the war with a full sense of immersion. If you haven’t become the Marshal, you can still answer the call for heroes to join your race’s force in the grand alliance against Ye Olde Elder Menace. Likewise, if you are the Dragonslayer fresh from the Battle for Orr, this can be acknowledged in the text based dialogue you describe. Everyone wins.

2) The absence of the Pact means more politicking and interspecies tension. The Races of Tyria are not supposed to see eye to eye; the Asura experimented on the Sylvari, the Charr and Humans have barely managed to stop warring against one another, and the Norn do not care, for they are Norn. This doesn’t translate well to the in-game story right now, since the Pact has everyone working together hand in hand. No one questions a massive apolitical army amassing without any diplomacy or leadership right outside one of the major cities, simply because “they say they’re the good guys”. Alas, verisimilitude, I knew it, Horatio…

If the burden of slaying dragons is left up to the species themselves, it will bring the squabbling, in-fighting, and discontent that accompany making monumental decisions. It will mean arguments over whether to sacrifice more Norn lives to go fight Primordius, despite Jormag being right on their doorstep, or letting more Asuran outposts be overrun with destroyers to bolster the alliance attack on Kralkatorric. This is grade A, freshly cut, unfiltered storytelling goodness.

3) New wars mean new ways to wage war. The Pact Attack was based around the three orders, and therefore it fought like an amalgamation of their talents. There was a lot of magitech military hardware, a few ancient artifacts, and a whole lot of sheer manpower. This is a perfectly acceptable way to wage a war, but it’s not the only one. Different races will confront the dragons in different ways, with plenty of awesome potential for each force in Tyria to show their stuff.

Imagine, if you will, how the Charr, Norn, Asura, Sylvari, Humans, Tengu, Largos, and Kodan each wage war. Rather than doing the Pact thing over and over again with the same airships and same harpoons, each race could get its chance to shine in one of the wars. Picture the Charr military machine rolling out every tank, every artillery, every metallic behemoth in their kitten nal, backed by human troops bolstering their army with divine artifacts and ancient rites. Think of the battle with the Icebrood, skirmishing through the shiverpeaks alongside shapeshifting ambush squads, or brawling in a massive fight where a shaman-summoned, forty-foot Spirit of All That Is Bear grapples with a Claw of Jormag and tears out its icy throat. Envision holding the line alongside tengu summoning Star Celestials, buying time for the asura to plug in a certain famous golem into an ancient abode, transforming an entire cubic city into the almighty Sparklemus Prime!

The Pact had its turn. Let’s let the other forces of Tyria flex their muscles and show us what makes them amazing.

Greetings and salutations.

I come to you today with a comment about the Living Story’s direction, though I know those are in abundance these days. What I’d like to do is hopefully a bit different. I would like to describe what the game would need to do in order to smoothly transition back to the war against the dragons. At present, that is impossible due to an incompatibility between players starting the Personal Story and those who have finished it, and conundrum which can be solved in a single sentence.

To make the Living Story flourish, the Pact must be destroyed.

…Bit of an attention getter, I hope. Allow me to spell on the argument; why the personal story has impersonal problems, what the living story is currently doing wrong, how to fix the two to the benefit of both, and what the results could be for an entire year’s worth of content. I can be a bit overly verbose, so I’ve condensed them into four JPG files for easier reading. Feel free to skip through it if it drags on, but please scroll through the NextYear file to consider what the Living Story could become.

Here we go. The Time Capsule method.

Edit: I’ve been adding to this post slowly throughout the thread, including several new campaign possibilities. For the sake of organization, I’ve added them on to this post. If this is your first time reading this, please beware, the last three images will get extremely verbose. Bring a glass of tea.

Velimere.7685:

Being able to move during the cast of Mind Stab and increasing its God-awful radius would be nice…

Actually, rearranging the greatsword’s skillset would be a very nice addition. The main problem with the weapon is that it used to fill a role that it no longer suits. Way back in the day, it was a single target long ranged weapon using Phase Retreat to gain distance and strike one enemy, with a single target daze, snare, and push to keep them at bay. Phase retreat got moved to the staff and the greatsword starting filling the AoE gap. A really nice greatsword setup would be something like…

Spatial Surge: arcs to three targets, no longer requires targeting the farthest foe, even damage regardless of distance to target. Exactly the same damage ratio, massive quality of life improvement.

Mirror Blade: rather than a bounce, flies outward the full distance and back, striking all enemies in its path and creating the clone at the farthest point. Gain might for each foe struck when you “catch” the blade. With an arc like Path of Scars, it will serve as a very reliable AoE attack for tagging mobs.

Phantasmal Berserker: moves to slot 3, no other changes.

Illusionary Wave: moves to slot 4, no other changes.

Mind Stab: long casting time, root. Slam your blade into the ground to create a series of etheral sword stabs over time in a large area effect, just like an elementalist casting Meteor Storm.

This would make it a beautiful AoE weapon for laying on the pain, rather than awkwardly trying to fulfill the role despite contradictions.

One other quality of life thing.

Signet of Inspiration: Out of combat, this skill will default to providing Swiftness every time.

Mesmers are fantastic with utility, offer a fun mixture of different playstykitten ast some very fine weaponry with only a few rusty skills, and look ten thousand times more stylish than any other belle at the ball.

The one major complaint I would voice is that the class mechanic feels a bit inflexible. Depending on how far outside of the SPvP bubble you go, the illusion mechanic becomes less and less viable. Conjuring fragile NPCs doesn’t do much good in a WvW zerg where they get blown to bits before accomplishing anything. If world bosses follow the example of Tequatl, illusions are going to become a liability rather than an asset in that content (unless iWarden will keep bugging out and appearing in thin air, bless its spin-to-win heart). And finally, shatters just don’t do well in a setting that stresses sustained DPS instead of bursts, but we’re still being forced to bring the exact same skills on the F1-4 keys no matter what build we run.

The Mesmer is doing pretty well, but I wouldn’t say no to some illusion adjustments that make them more flexible to cope with different types of content or a way to pick what skills occupy my class mechanic tab.

LeifChappelle.4069:

From a design standpoint, we want the Living World updates to change and have an impact on the world. Earlier in the year, Colin gave the example of blowing up a dungeon and replacing it. This is very much that example in action. Because the explorable paths of Twilight Arbor were very similar from a content perspective, we made the decision to create a new path to revitalize one of the existing ones. Forward Up was one of the least played dungeon paths in the game, and was the best candidate for doing something like this.

While the explanation is appreciated, the revelation is worrisome.

There are a number of potential problems raised by this strategy that people have been going over. It creates a zero-sum game where we don’t gain anything, thus creating the possibility of having exactly the same amount of dungeon content two years from now as we did at launch. It takes a zone of natural beauty and arboreal horror and injects it full of gears and clockwork. It removes the focus on the Nightmare Court and shines yet another spotlight on Scarlet and her band of sky-pirating, gear-grinding, holographic-erotica-loving Aetherblades. Your explanation raises one big, massive question in particular…

Is this going to be the modus operandi for the majority of upcoming dungeon revamps, or can we expect new permanent content that does not replace existing material and the refining of old material to meet current standards of quality?

Extremely worrisome. My main concerns with the update would be threefold.

1) Are we ever going to get permanent additions to the game rather than zero sum replacements? If this trend continues, are we looking at the exact same number of dungeons paths a year from now without any expanded scope whatsoever?

There are 25 explorable paths in the game right now. Two years from now, are we going to still have exactly 25 paths, just with some new replacements gutting previous content? “Just as much dungeon content as release” seems like a rather poor goal to set in stone.

2) What current content is considered worthwhile and what is deemed suitable for the axe? If they are removing prior content to make way for Living Story material, what bar is being set for paths and adventures considered important enough to keep? TAkittenmay not have been the most fun in the world, but what about it makes it okay to eliminate completely? Will purging be a common means of fixing other flawed paths? Is Scarlet going to kick out Inquest in the Crucible or punt the dredge out of their home because they want to make another Aetherblade retreat?

3) Why does Anet consider the Living Story to be so much more important than everything else in the game that they are willing to axe content to help Scarlet look special? We’ve been fighting her minions for months now, and with the exception of Southsun, absolutely nothing has been embellished outside of festivals and Scarlet’s plot. Nothing has been done to expand or embellish the centaurs, krait, jotun, harpies, Inquest, Nightmare Court, bandits/White Mantle, Sons of Svanir, or Elder Dragons. Not to mention gods, bloodstones, mist portals, wizard towers, tengu, kodan, largos, quaggan, skritt, ogres, grawl, hylek, or Palawa Joko.

Are we seriously being told that Scarlet is so important that she needs to replace existing content, and may continue to gut dungeons in the future to keep making her look special?

Lucky.9421:

I think Aetherblades/Asura are more magitek.

Steam creatures are steampunk

Watchwork creatures are clockwork/clockpunk

Charr are dieselpunk

These are 4 distinct motiffs.

If I may build off your quote, I believe this indicates the current problem.

All of these motifs may be distinct, but they still fit into an overall umbrella of “Gears and Gizmos”. With the exception of the karka, we have been fighting Gears and Gizmos opponents throughout the living story for months and months now, with minor motif changes to introduce new foes. This is producing a great deal of fatigue in some people who would like to see more mystical, martial, or monstrous opponents for a change.

For a parallel, imagine if we spent the last eight months fighting Fire themed opponents. First the Destroyers popped up and rampaged everywhere. Then the Flame Legion created a ritual of ascension that turned them into fiery cat people. After that, Djinn of fire and light invaded a major city. Finally, Great Solar Beasts descended from the sky to burn Tyria to ashes. Throughout these stories, snippets of conversation indicated that a mighty Infernomancer was behind the incident, a laughing maniac intent on some grand plan of chaos and flame.

At a certain point, most people would step back and ask “Can we fight something that doesn’t involve fire? Please?”

So too, this thread’s complaint. Steampunk is certainly a worthwhile addition to the magical, magitechnical, and technological wonders of Tyria, but it is currently oversaturating the Living Story. We’ve been neck deep in Gears and Gizmo monsters for months now, and some people are sick and tired of beating up on glorified toasters all the time. Likewise, they would like to see the more mystical elements of Tyria get some time in the spotlight. Rather than have the humans obsessing over their new clockpunk creations, it would be nice to have some ritualism and pursuit of lost divinity. Instead of Norn acting like grunts to fight the Molten Alliance without any mention of the Spirits of the Wild, it would be nice if their shapeshifting and spirit medium aspects were more emphasized in the story.

This doesn’t mean that steampunk needs to go away or that it is somehow inappropriate for the setting, but it needs to be one aspect among many. The Living Story should strike a balance between the different magical and technological aspects of the world and give different cultural nuances a chance to shine.

Another approach to boosting Mantras would be to have them trade some effects with Manipulations. Think about it this way…

Mantra of Pain is a single enemy damage spike.
Mantra of Distraction is a single enemy daze.
Mantra of Resolve is now an AoE cleanse.
Mantra of Concentration is an AoE stability buff.

Arcane Thievery is a single enemy boon/condition swap.
Blink is a teleport.
Mimic is a slightly buggy buff that absorbs a projectile and grants brief immunity to further projectiles.
Illusion of Life is a ground targeting AoE temporary revive.

…..That’s a really, really weird setup. Control and Support abilities are thrown into these two practically at random, with no set function for the mechanics themselves. Mantras are supportive abilities, except when they are single target enemy powers. Manipulations are direct control spells, except when they are actually AoE support buffs.

The developers said they are looking for ways for the Mesmer to support allies more. What if Mantras traded away some of their control powers to Manipulations and gained the latter’s support abilities instead? Something like this…

~~~Manipulations~~~
Blink and Arcane Thievery don’t change at all. Lovely skills.
Tease: gain distortion.
Psychic Distraction: daze target foe. Recharge faster on successful interrupt.

Mimic upgrades its immunity thing, which is what people actually lose it for, and dazing moves over to Manipulations to make them the dedicated “Control spell right this moment, thank you” utilities. Meanwhile…

~~~Mantras~~~
Split mantra charges into three parts. Some skills have multiple steps in their charge bar, such as throwing bombs in the Super Adventure Box. Give Mantras three steps, each of which provides a single charge for the power. That way, you can charge them briefly for a quick fix or for a long time to get a stack.

Mantra of Concentration: grant stability to nearby allies.
Mantra of Resolve: cleanse two conditions from yourself and nearby allies.
Mantra of Celerity: you and nearby allies gain swiftness and vigor.
Mantra of Recall: create a blast finisher at your location.
Mantra of Recovery: heal yourself and nearby allies.

Harmonious Mantras: moved to Inspiration, replacing one of its poorly thought out shatter grandmasters. New effect: “The supportive abilities of Mantras apply to allies near yourself or your illusions. The effects do not stack.”

The only thing lost so far is a revival utility. Somewhere in there, I would suggest replacing a lackluster utility (Phantasmal Disenchanter, for example, loses a lot of purpose if Mantras become a better ally/self condition cleanse) with the following power…

Illusion of Weakness: Revive and stealth a downed ally, and create a clone with that ally’s appearance at their location. This clone fakes being downed, and explodes violently if defeated.

That should cover just about everything.

Nretep.2564:

Right now mantras are indeed precasted skills with a high (well, medium now) casttime. But their actual purpose is that you can use the charges any time, while reviving, while dodging, while attacking with other skills and even while charging other mantras. You simply don’t use mantras as you use other skills.

And therein lies the problem with mantras: this ability is not unique or well supported.

Many utilities are already instant cast. Cantrips, Meditations, and Shouts are all instant without interrupting other abilities, and most stunbreakers are instant or nearly instant abilities, etc. None of these abilities have to pay anything in return to get this instant activation, but the Mesmer is expected to invest enormous amounts of time to let their utilities activate. Why should other classes get this power for free when Mesmers are required to drastically slow down their combat pace just to get their utilities to work?

It also doesn’t help that the traits for mantra are all over the place. Harmonious Mantras should not be a grandmaster trait in a line that has no other mantra support, Dueling shouldn’t be paying you with passive bonuses to not activate utilities (that’s what signets are for), and there isn’t a single trait out there cutting down the mantra cast time.

For the instant cast feature to actually be useful, the Mantras would all have to bring something unique to the table that greatly benefits from brief, instant bursts. If Mantra of Resolve gave you Power Flux “gain distortion” and Mantra of Pain’s Power Spike provided “briefly immobilize your target and inflict several seconds of torment”, they might be worth it. Both of those abilities would benefit tremendously from properly timed spikes to control the battlefield. But instead, you have redundant condition cleansing that competes with the sheer might of Null Field and the lower recharge and low cast time of Phantasmal Disenchanter, and a basic damage spam that simply cannot compare itself to the godlike utilities Mesmers can bring to the table. Finally, Power Break has to compare itself against all other stunbreakers, and dazing must face the rather erratic nature of interruption in this game as well as the clunky Defiant mechanic in PvE play.

That’s why mantras aren’t used very much: they are a mechanic looking for a reason to exist. Arenanet latched onto the charge up mechanism as a way to power up awesome and mighty spells, but forgot to check that the spells are awesome and mighty in relation to the game mechanics and other utilities. Inflicting an instant daze isn’t amazing. Breaking stun shouldn’t require several seconds of charging up. Dealing spam damage is not special, and curing conditions is one of the most basic jobs of utility skills. Mantras bring too many restrictions to the table to be worth their incredibly basic abilities, especially in comparison to the other incredible utilities Mesmers have to offer AND the utilities of other professions that steal the instant-cast-during-other-skills power for free.

If they want Mantras to be viable, they need to rethink the chargeup mechanic. Back in the day, it was there to justify the instant cast abilities you get from the Mantra. Over time, more and more skills have become instant cast already (guardians sure as fluffy baby felines don’t need to charge up their meditations, for example). Mantras would excel if they overhauled how they accumulated charges. The simplest way, for example…

“Mantra skills are utilities with a unique recharge mechanism. Every fifteen seconds, the mantra skill will automatically gain one charge, up to a maximum of three.” Simple and elegant utilities with extremely useful functions. The recharge mechanism allows you to store them until you need them for spiking or spacing them out, making them tactically unique among utilities.

Change Restorative Mantras to heal in the area of your target (self for Concentration and Resolve, enemy for Pain and Distraction) and change Harmonious Mantras to something a bit more relevant to the Domination line, since most mantra buffs are in Dueling with a touch in Inspiration. Oh, and consider changing Mantra of Pain to “cripple and torment your foe”. Not saying it is necessary, but it would be a tad bit more mind-gamey than “do damage”.

BobbyStein.2315:

I can’t comment on what Ree and Jeff are working on, but I can say that I’m ultimately responsible for the quality of the Living World story. I don’t imagine we’ll please everyone with our new direction, but that’s true of any story. That stated, I encourage people to leave their feedback. Just please be respectful.

Respectful constructive criticism attempt coming up!

I would describe Scarlet as well acted, poorly written. She herself is doing just fine. The voice actress is clearly having a blast and pulling off a nice maniacal villain, which meshes very well with her twisted choice of minions. It’s the exposition surrounding her, however, which doesn’t fit well.

You can’t impress people by injecting fake accomplishments into the world, it simply doesn’t fit and comes across as contrived. If the villain is extremely well known and amazing, they would have shown up on our radar far beforehand. More importantly, if you break the established norms of the world to try to demonstrate how super-special-awesome the character is, it feels forced rather than epic.

Let me give you an example. Say I showed you this character: Gragnack the Skulldecimator. Gragnack was an orphan charr who was raised by Norn and found to be an awesome warrior and mystic. He studied with the shamans of the great Spirits of the Wild and was requested by all four to become the new havroun, but rejected them all. Instead, he traveled across all of Tyria, defeating one of every powerful species he could find, and now invokes an occult power mightier than any known shaman’s strength that lets him bend all animals to his will.

Does this character sound amazing and impressive? Almost certainly not, because his power level and plausibility are completely insane. It takes everything we currently know about the Norn and the Spirits and turns it on its head for the sake of making one character sound super-special-awesome. If there were a charr shaman, we would know about it. If there was a charr shaman powerful enough to be havroun, he would have made a huge blip on the cultural radar. But when taken to the level of Best Shaman Ever!!!!, the character breaks straight out of the “rather implausible” and straight into the “bullskritt” category.

So, three points.

1) Fake accomplishments have no teeth. I don’t care if you tell me a brand new character just introduced beat up Jormag with nothing but a rusty can opener and a doylak skull, it still sounds like something you made up to make that character look cool. Because you did. Breaking the suspension of disbelief kills any possible appreciation for the new character.

2) You don’t need the character’s power level to be over 9000. The attack on the city was magnificent, but hearing Vorpp gush about the accomplishments of this super-special-awesome new prodigy was physically painful. If you had simply said “she was a sylvari accepted into the College of Synergetics who studied under -InsertPortalSpecialistNameHere-, then murdered her master and krewe and stole all their research”, it would have sounded perfect. Plausible but noteworthy, with a touch of cruel and villainous.

3) Show, don’t tell. Build, don’t force. If you want us to fear and respect the villain, have them do villainous deeds that instill fear and respect. If you want that villain to be grand and magnificent, build them up over time and use a series of events to instill a sense of grandiosity. Introducing a new character and telling us that they are important and amazing doesn’t work because it doesn’t feel real. If you show us the character being amazing and demonstrate how they interact and impact the world, it creates the persona of a grand nemesis organically.

Extremely well written analysis, Proxy. Kudos.

Pretty much full agreement for everything you’ve said. Defiant must die for PvE to thrive, and the more variation and improvement the better.

If I may expand on two things in this thread, I definitely agree about the added variation in creatures, and there’s a way to manage it that already exists within the game: the Tar Elemental. This brilliantly designed blob has a nifty feature that causes it to pulse AoE damage when affected by burning. The exact same tech could be applied to many different mobs. A skittish creature might be extremely vulnerable to fear (enhanced duration) but gain evasion while fleeing, thus causing fear to be a powerful way to shut down single targets in the fight. A massive machine might be unshakable, but forced movement effects break off parts and reduce its armor. A high toughness/low vitality character could be virtually immune to direct damage, but shares the pain of its conditions with its foes. Emergent mechanics that use the core conditions and effects and expands upon them will allow endless enemy variety without sacrificing the elegant simplicity of the current system.

As for interruption and the possibility of stunlocking, that is also pretty easily dealt with by improving how bosses activate their attacks. For instance…

-During pulse attacks, each pulse would have to be interrupted individually.
-Interrupting a homing projectile attack could cause it to misfire and hit a random location.
-A charge up move would be cut off by interruption, making the attack weaker.
-Frustration could build in certain monsters the longer they went without hurting anyone (kiting or interruption). After a certain amount of stacks, they become Enraged for a short time, moving and attacking faster with immunity to control conditions.
-Interrupting certain moves may cause them to hurt friend and foe alike when they fire.
-Some monsters may be made of multiple body parts rendered as individual creatures (multiheaded hydra, for instance). Control effects only apply to the individual part.

Etc. There are plenty of clever ways to ensure that stunlocking is impossible without rendering control completely pointless. The more intelligent the foe’s design, the more interesting the fights will become.

Make Signet of Inspiration default to reapplying swiftness outside of combat, and applying its standard random boons while in combat.

Because there’s simply no need for fury when you’re not fighting.

DaMunky.6302:

Having literally JUST played that mission for the first time, infamous cannon fight and all, I think I finally understand it.

The final showdown with Zhaitan ISN’T a fight. People all get disappointed because they’re expecting to fight him, but think about it: when was Zhaitan ever a fighter? All along, he was a chessmaster, using a large and varied stable of minions to put pressure on the heroes. Once you defeat all the pieces, he’s nothing but a helpless King. He can move one space per turn and he loses automatically the second you corner him.

This is an excellent point, but it’s also the reason this ending fails.

Simply put, the further the Personal Story goes, the less it is about the player. In the beginning, the dialogue is all personal, with each line delivered like a member of the player’s race. When they join the orders, this personalization goes away, and suddenly they are a generic member of that faction. When they join the pact, even that goes away, and they’re just another mook.

The problem with the final fight is that you, the player, do nothing significant. You spend half the dungeon trying to get into the air to join a battle that is already in progress. You fight a few champions, just like several other airships seen in the distance. You secure one troop movement path in one section, which has no further impact on the battle. And finally, you watch as the new Pact airship slays the dragon. Remove the player from this battle, and the outcome would be exactly the same.

Likewise, Destiny’s Edge was completely useless. Logan cut a rope. Zojja took over firing the cannon from someone perfectly qualified to do the job. No one else accomplished anything, rendering every personal story dungeon pretty much a grand waste of time. In the end, a bunch of NPCs killed a really big NPC, and you got to watch. The culmination of the Personal Story is the great lesson “You are irrelevant to this story.”

In a way, it makes sense. As you said, the dragons rely on corruption and the war against them was a battle of attrition. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that it is a pathetic excuse for a Personal Story finale. And I agree with you, if the next battle is anything like this I will likewise be extremely irritated.

A most excellent post, Pyro. Well thought out, well executed, and expertly illustrating the conundrums of this update. Kudos.

Carighan.6758:

In other words, I’d prefer they’d go back and take a very macro look at clone-generation vs shatter-usage as a whole, especially for non-shatter builds (class mechanic and all that, it should be quite useful for a pure Phantasm build, too).

And this, I agree with completely.

We’ve seen the results of Arenanet attempting to create build diversity relying completely on the trait system. While the Mesmer community has certainly managed to craft some amazing creations, the balance implications have been severe: reactionary measures that go after builds dubbed “overpowered” with a sledgehammer. As long as things remain business as usual, we’re going to see similar approaches to balance like this most recent patch and the glamour/confusion update.

We would be much better served by taking a step back and asking some deeper questions.

Why can’t we decide which types of illusions we summon? Do we really benefit from everyone taking 1+ clone creators and exactly 1 phantasm per weapon set? Why do some clones deal damage, while others are worthless unless shattered? Do we really need so many phantasms that simply do basic damage, and if so, are weapon skills the best source for them? Has anyone considered a single unified illusion mechanic (where all clones deal an effect just like a staff clone and traits beef it up), or thought of allowing a wider variety of illusions such as phantom terrain or personal facades? Is the Walk-Up-And-Snuggle method for delivering shatters viable in all forms of content? And if not, why can’t we modify it? In addition, is the emphasis on illusions and shattering taking too many resources away from aspects such as glamors and mantras, thereby hindering some of the traditional Mesmer concepts?

And most importantly, why can’t we change our shatter bar? The idea that Mind Wrack is going to be useful for every single mesmer in every single build in every single form of content would be like giving Rangers the Animal Companion mechanic, but their only choice of pets were different species of Bears. For the love of Lyssa, if they’re trying to create build diversity, why can’t we decide what form of metamagic manipulates our illusions?

We’ve seen what happens when they try to create build diversity purely through the trait system. We’ve seen how much damage can be done when a sledgehammer is taken to our abilities in order to balance the complicated and convoluted interplay of different mechanics. Perhaps it’s time for the designers to step back and considering how well some of the core Mesmer mechanics are currently functioning.

Do not forget that antagonists stretch beyond the racial enemies.

Thus, future stories might include the Nightmare Court/Svanir, but are just as likely to feature centaurs, krait, harpies, ettin/giants, Jotun, or ghosts. Likewise, more friendly stories might delve into the kodan, tengu, largos, or minor species lifestyles.

So many possibilities.

I definitely agree that it should be on skills, not traits. Not entirely sure about Scepter and Torch getting it (I’d prefer confusion on the scepter clones, personally), but it’s worth a thought.

Regardless, the game NEEDS the following skill somewhere, somehow…

Wastrel’s Worry: inflict Torment on the foe, and create an AoE bubble beneath them that pops after two seconds, stunning the target.

One way or another, the spells’ gonna getcha. That’s the Mesmer way, layering punishment that provides rock-or-hard-place choices to the opponent.

A better way to handle the weapons would be to use the fused gauntlet system.

In other words, award a token that acts as both a vendor summon and a currency. You obtain the Scintillating Mist Essence. Double click the SME and a pool of shimmering magic appears. Interact with the pool, and it displays a list of weapons (and perhaps other items, such as amulets, dyes, etc), which each cost a Scintillating Mist Essence to obtain. Reach into the pool of raw mist and pull out your chosen fractal weapon. Simple, clean, and deliciously thematic.

The exact way to obtain this Scintillating Mist would be up to Anet: random chance as it is now, purchased via some amount of pristine relics, a mystic forge recipe of normal relics + pristine relics + globs/shards/whatever. An achievement reward system might work very nicely (when you reach fractal level 30 and 50, you automatically gain one of these essences) to supplement random chance.

ArtanisKain.8579:

Now if there were some running around in Elona, then that definitely makes the difference.

There were/are. Lions could be found in Kourna and Vabbi in the Nightfall campaign, and could be tamed as pets by rangers in GW1.

:)

Phantasms: previously, the phantasm mechanic would check for evades or obstructions on cast, create an NPC which could be destroyed that attacks after a short delay, thus executing an effect which the player could dodge or block. We have determined that this was unfair, as players were still being hit by phantasms.

The new functionality is as follows: the player must cast the skill to summon the phantasm, which will fail if the path is obstructed, the attack is evaded, or if the target is nonsentient or looking away from the mesmer. This casting effect is accompanied by a chant, similar to mantras, which will play every single time to signal your intentions. This will create an illusionary NPC who will attack the target, but only after bowing gracefully to show the proper courtesy.

In unrelated news, Hundred Blades and Heartseeker have had their attack speed increased by 25%.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Good feedback would be telling us about the things you didn’t like about it, and the things you did like about it. A nebulous statement of “It sucks” isn’t constructive. If you want to actually see change, you need to give clear feedback so we as developers can talk with each other about things we could change for next time. Whether its an activity, a dungeon, a boss, etc, giving us feedback about why something didn’t sit well with you is far more valuable than just telling us something didn’t sit well with you.

A fair point. If you would like constructive criticism…

1) The game could use a Team Mode and Solo Mode. The current gameplay is extremely difficult for a new player to learn, and extremely frustrating when they end up on the bottom of the scoreboard again and again. This turns people away from the match and lets good players dominate all too easily.

A three sided fight would be perfect for learning the game, since around 9 to 12 people could easily fit into a single arena for a good bought. Teams would provide players with a clear set of instructions (observe the guy doing well, emulate the guy doing well) while letting them win without being the best on the field. It would encourage players who don’t have the crab to grab items and thus learn their effects (if your team has the crab, it’s a great time to gear up). Finally, it would bring a little more tossing into crab tossing to make the name of the game make sense. Meanwhile, Solo Mode can be your hardcore setting, a game element for kings of the crab toss to test their mettle.

2) The game needs a better recovery mechanism. Players run around with close to zero health far too much in the game, with a lucky Southsun Punch drop as their only means of recovery. A channeled “Catch Your Breath” skill that prevents movement and takes time would be perfect for those moments when the crab is on the opposite side of the field and you need to recover.

3) Karka need to be reexamined. It would be far better to have them roll from one end of the arena to the other than the current semi-random mode. Likewise, karka hatchlings should either be removed or spawn in a far more structured manner. It is far too easy for one crab holder to never encounter hatchlings, then the next guy picks up the crab and gets “surprise lovin’” from seven at once. The current implementation is far too haphazard, and not in a fun way, creating a clustercluck of crustaceans which randomly pitch the match in someone’s favor without rhyme or reason.

4) Movement skills should be smaller bursts. The current dash is far too easy, allowing players to create too much distance, dodge about for a short time, then open up again if no one has prepared any elaborate defenses. Smaller bursts of speed on several skills would be more interesting and open up more tactics. Things will improve dramatically if the bulk of the game is decided in a serious of hectic skirmishes in close quarters, rather than headlong invulnerable rushes winning the game.

Godmoney.2048:

When I see a thread where the first or 2nd paragraph are “OMG, mesmer so badly designed” I undervalue anything else you say because I know that this is simply, factually, not true.

Fair enough, fair enough. The “Everything is bad and it should feel bad” point of view doesn’t help discussion either, since the Mesmer has presented some really interesting ways to play the game.

As for suggestions, that gets tricky. In the very distant future, I would like to see experiments to find a good way to customize the F1-4 keys. It might take the form of a pool of Metamagic skills to be slotted in as the mesmer wishes, a series of Masks that each define a different playstyle, weapon specific abilities with their own animations, or any other form. But that’s getting into rather vague territory.

For now, I’d be rather interested in an attempt to make all clones do something special by default. As it is now, certain clones are useful out of the box (staff’s DoT/boon bounce, sword vulnerability/boon removal, trident bleed) and some become useful with traits (GS+Sharper Images). Way back in beta, other clones dealt direct damage, but it was removed to make shatters more appealing. It would be interesting to see it return with GS clones doing direct damage and scepter clones inflicting confusion. This could be an interesting way to provide different ways to pressure the opponent and form a good foundation for future weapons adding different effects. There are plenty more bits of polish, but I’ll spare you the ramble.

Godmoney.2048:

With over (let me check real fast) 1,301 hours on the mesmer I can say that mesmer is fine and if anything is on the strong side of the table.

My only conclusion to take from whiners is that they simply don’t have the time put into the game to really understand the class. There’s really no other logical explanation.

And there’s the attitude I mentioned. Good times.

One moment, need to compare it with your following statement…

It’s not that they’re aren’t valid points to be made here but I can say all of this about any class. Almost every class has broken weapons, traits etc.

Coming in here and acting like Mesmer is somehow broken by pragraph 2 will just get a TLDNR from me because I know that mesmer is balanced against good players and OP against new/bad players.

See, here’s the problem.

The Mesmer is very strong, but also very rough around certain edges that never received any polish. It’s not the only class with this situation; the Guardian is strong but its ranged weaponry is rather poor, the Elementalist is mighty but its trait lines are extremely onesided, etc. In the distant future and expansions to weapons and utilities, it’s possible a lot of these problems will be solved.

Unfortunately, the Mesmer forum has some difficulty discussing potential improvements because it gets caught between two polarized points of view. On the one hand, newer players encountering the lower level of the class think it’s fundamentally broken (because without traits, the mesmer has serious issues). On the other hand, people who have found a niche tend to be dismissive and use the exact implication you just made, “L2P newb”. Neither is helping.

I understand you are content with the current meta, but may I request you ponder the future for a moment with me? Two years from now, would you be content to have the Mesmer’s class mechanic exactly as it is now, with no improvement or expansion, or would you prefer to see it embellished with greater customization?

Because that is the TL:DR of my ramble: parts of the class are excellent, but improving some of it would be better for all.

I think a great deal of the problem comes from the developers designing themselves into corners. It was particularly amusing to have them take the nerfbat to a subset of Mesmer builds via the confusion nerf, while simultaneously hearing the recent fansite interview where they mentioned “we’re trying to increase build diversity for the Mesmer”.

That’s what happens when you give a profession a complex class mechanic and no direct customization.

The Mesmer suffers because it doesn’t have the freedom to decide what is on its F1-4 keys or what illusions it wants to bring to the table. The developers grapple with build diversity because they want shattering to be the primary class mechanic that all mesmers should find useful, but also want to include phantasm builds and condition-on-death builds and supportive illusion mojo despite the fact that those blatantly contradict the clone burst design.

The Mesmer community prides itself on its complex class and crafty builds to achieve powerful effects, but we also need to recognize that the convoluted class design is also the source of many of our miseries. Somewhere out there, an Arenanet developer is trying to balance the entire profession on the maximum damage dealt out by Mind Wrack. Yet at the same time, he’s trying to create different builds that offer non-burst options via any means he can. Yet while he does so, he has to ensure that these builds never exceed shatter (because that would contradict the class mechanic), never fall too far behind shatter (because then they’re gimmicks), and still make just enough use out of shatter to make it helpful (because otherwise it erodes at the justification for making shatter the main mechanic). But to do so, he has to constantly use class calculus, because every little adjustment made to one part of the Mesmer ripples outward to influence all the interconnected parts.

This is illogical, inane, and ultimately self-defeating.

Things would be infinitely cleaner and clear cut if players could simply customize their class mechanic. If a condition damage Mesmer could simply plug in the Migraine condition damage shatter when they like, the condition-on-clone-death Mesmer could swap in an AI toggle with a special effect (aka “while this skill is in effect, your illusions will circle strafe at range and inflict X condition when killed”, for example), and the phantasm style Mesmer could bring special abilities that directly improve persistent illusions, everyone will have the freedom to decide what kind of Mesmer they want to be.

Sure, customization like that would become complicated, but it would be complex in isolation. An overpowered build can be nerfed with surgical precision by adjusting its individual elements cleanly and carefully, as opposed to the current Balance-By-Chainsaw method that must be used to reign in any of the complex and interwoven builds. Meanwhile, the players get the quality of life improvements they deserve, and everyone gets the freedom to customize their toys according to their needs rather than fighting against the grain to achieve what they want. Everyone goes home happy.

It won’t happen anytime soon, but Mesmers deserve the same amount of class mechanic customization and quality of life improvement lavished on classes like the Ranger and Engineer. We’re a powerful profession and a kitten fun one, but we should be able to decide what kind of magical masterminds we would like to be with our own skill selection on our own terms. The result will be good for everyone, developers and players alike.

nethykins.7986:

3 – I’m aware than these changes will pretty much be out the the grasp of ANet’s limitations, more on tech limitations than effort and time required. I know you hinted at new things being added, but I’d really, really (can’t stress “Really” enough) like to hear your ideas on the dungeons as they stand now and what you would do to change them.

Hmm. A conundrum.

Please note, I am not an expert on dungeons, having not yet finished the last few parts of my Dungeon Master title (although after nine months, I finally managed to set foot in Crucible! Huzzah!). Ergo, please do not consider this an erudite opinion in any way. But judging from the content I have played and the various forums I have read, the following thoughts come to mind.

1) Fractals and Molten have demonstrated some improvement on the dungeon front, especially in regards to trash content versus steady progression. The best way to design fun encounters with normal enemies is to make each creature bring something unique to the table and allow different combinations to create different fights. The smarter the standard enemies become, the more tactics and control skills become vital for victory, and that’s a good thing. Give monsters a lot more small skills and a few big effects, combine them in interesting ways with enough incidents to be substantial without overstaying its welcome, and the normal fights will be keen and engaging.

2) To balance the need for challenge and accessibility, dungeons need more modes. Right now, explorable is supposed to be the elite content, yet it’s farmed in twelve minute speedruns for cash thousands of times per day. Add too much difficulty, however, and the farmers leave and the newbies complain. To meet different needs, the dungeons should expand outwards rather than try to suit everyone’s needs.

Personally, I’d go with something like this…

-Story Mode scales to the number of players participating, allowing solo or five man. Also, it should provide some tokens the first time the character completes it, just to ensure people actually care.

-Explorable Mode should be split into two forms: mission and free roaming. Mission should be as it is now, without the random bits. In contrast, Free Roam would provide open exploration of the entire dungeon, facing random encounters and many different bosses scattered throughout each area. Anet can choose which of these modes would be considered the reasonably difficult and which would be given mind-breaking hardcore status, and balance appropriately.

-Challenge Mode should reinvent the GW1 missions of old in a dungeon form. Each dungeon could be given several different challenges which rotate each week to provide a different overall objective. Some could be simple (speed run time, highest damage spike against end boss, highest number of foes killed in the least amount of time), while others could fit the dungeon’s individual character. Award prizes for the weekly winners of each server in terms of loot, and provide a unique title for the highest scores of all time that they must defend from challengers (if someone else beats the high score, the previous holder’s title is removed).

3) Defiant must die. Simply put, this condition it an abysmal way to make bosses more difficult. Not only does it allow players to grief one another (if someone specs for control they can foiled simply by someone else activating a CC skill at the wrong time), but it represents a refusal to let certain playstyles work rather than meeting players halfway and making bosses actually deal with CC in interesting ways. Molten Facility proved that boss fighting can and will improve in the coming days, and I look forward to additional improvements along those lines. But to actually make the support/control/damage concept worth two dubloons, the game needs to make bosses actually work with the skills and abilities players bring to the table, and Defiant simply does not do that.

There may be a way to use some of the current engineering and an existing creature’s odd mechanics to do just that, but it would take a little more analysis than I can do off the top of my head right now. Might make an interesting new project…

Shaeyl.7064:

Anet should hire Shriketalon.

Probably not a good idea, actually.

Every good thing in this world is about 5% good concept and 95% skillful implementation. Anyone can dream, but the ability to manifest that dream in this reality we all share varies greatly between craftsman. To be a worthwhile teammember, I would have to actually provide tangible talent capable of rendering a vision within the medium via technical or artistic ability. So unless Arenanet is in dire need of a geologist with a background in technical writing and geotechnical data analysis (…..unlikely), I doubt I would actually contribute much.

But I sincerely thank you for the compliment.

The main problem with finals is that they interfere with the important things in life, such as forum threads on the internets. Anyway…

kittenune Fujibayashi.4813:

Most of this seems like a decent idea, but I’m not too sure about the weekly chest. It sounds to me like that’ll just end up with everyone zerging the bosses on Saturday and nobody doing them at all by the time Wednesday rolls around.

I understand the concern, but let me elaborate on that matter.

The main reason to shift to a weekly basis is to account for failure. If world bosses in the future do become difficult and people do die horribly in a screaming mess as they should, there is going to be trouble with a daily reward. If people only have one chance to kill the Claw of Jormag in a single evening and their server failures, the loss is going to seriously rustle their jimmies and make them rather spiteful towards one another. This will likely become toxic quite quickly, leading people to hate the clueless noobs foiling their farming when they cannot pull together.

Contrast that with a weekly attitude. If something terrible happens Wednesday evening against the Claw, it isn’t the end of the world. Try again Thursday or Friday before the Saturday reset. When people are less stressed about a single loss, they are far more likely to band together and focus on why they failed and how they can improve rather than devolving into ranting and blame. The more relaxed schedule will also allow guilds to schedule certain boss raid nights or for servers to organize training against some of the more fiendish creatures.

Weeklies may not seem as immediately rewarding, but they allow for more calm and relaxation to combine with extreme difficulty and frantic destruction for a better balanced boss beverage.

LokiAlpha.8164:

Well, let me just explain something, I’ve been playing since launch. I was actually level 80 within the first week of the game’s release. I fought a lot of bosses before people knew the mechanics, or had good gear. These world boss fights were epic, and amazing, and there were only a handful of people doing them at the time. We died. A lot. We struggled to down the boss in any reasonable time(45+ minute boss fights on Jormag). So, why is it, that all of a sudden the boss fights are boring?
…
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In my opinion, ANet does not need to waste resources on a one-time bang of fun, and instead needs to continue to focus on 5-man content.

For starters, because balance changes have ensured that you are NOT fighting the same bosses as before. The Fire Elemental at launch held a double major in Flambe and Murder due to its knockdown+boil attacks and elemental spawns, but the nerfbat it took a few months later reduced it drastically. And secondly, boss fights because boring once people learned to glitch or zerg them to victory. Shatterer cannot fight people standing by his right shoulder. The Maw shaman is incapable of hurting a zerg using ranged attacks. The majority of the other bosses simply cannot kill players who know what they are doing.

But they could and they should. You are entitled to your opinion that they should be ignored because future bosses might be farmed, but I would remind you that the primary source of gold in this game comes from five man content being tilled regularly. Just as dungeons should be improved, so too should Anet find ways on making world bosses magnificent.

The two battlefields are sides of the same coin. For dungeons to be improved, they must be more difficult, engaging, and varied. For world bosses to be improved, the exact same thing must follow. There is no need to declare that one must be abandoned to focus on the other, for the entire game can flourish in all its aspects with enough tender love and care. Speaking of…

Zhaneel.9208:

I just read Shriketalon’s post. Lots of interesting ideas there and it makes a great deal of sense. Though I’m not sure I agree that the Norn only marry someone who has achieved an equal amount of glory as themselves. I think he was referring more to the happy union between Gwen and Keiran, who are incidentally not Norn themselves.

If I may direct you to Bear Club for Women/Men and the Prenuptial Disagreement quest that follows it, in which the mighty Norn Olaf Olafson decides that your female hero is clearly the ideal mother of his future Norn babies / the valiant Olrun Olafdottir deems your male hero an ideal companion to rub her bunion-ridden feet…
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.
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Olaf Olafson
We are alike you and I. Our tales are legend across the land. We are both fierce warriors, born leaders…and lonely heroes seeking love. We are destined to be family, you and I. I see many large, strapping, and unruly boys to continue the Olaf tradition in our future!

It is Norn custom that marriage can only happen between those of equal reputation. All your hard work has paid off! Now we can be wed, raise a dozen half-Norn children, and live in the mountains. I have a strong cottage in the hills. Actually, it isn’t much of a cottage…more of a cave. But it is a good cave! A good cave in dire need of cleaning. You’re not afraid of spiders, are you? Dire spiders?

After we are wed, we shall hunt the leviathan together as equals. I suppose if we waited too long, you’d run off and smite the creature yourself, you thrill seeker! I can’t let you go off and hog all the glory, lest you leave my side and marry someone of even greater fame.

Post Quest——

What? You… you have defeated the leviathan? My wife’s murderer? This cannot be! An outrage! That task was ours! Because of your insatiable blood thirst, your reputation eclipses mine. Now I am doomed to a life of shame…and loneliness! I cannot be seen with you, much less marry you. Leave my sight so I may wallow in misery. And to think I wanted you to mother many, many, many children…

The circumstances need to be put into a little bit of perspective. To quote Olaf Olafson from Guild Wars 1…

Among our people, it is a great honor for an individual to stand above all others, to be recognized as the best at their life’s calling. But it is perhaps a greater honor to find the person who is your equal: the one who matches your every move, who you can never overshadow, and who you would never want to. To join with the one worthy of sharing in our hunt is a rare and blessed occasion, and we have gathered here today to witness such a union.

Norn only marry equals. This cannot be overstressed. While there may be plenty of baby making going on between all sorts across the Shiverpeaks, Norn marriages are more of a rarity.

Braham is seventeen. The present day is 1326 AE. Braham’s father died in 1316 and was considered a legendary hero at the time, and the birth must have been around 1308-1309 (depending on the months). Destiny’s Edge was founded in 1319 and fought against Kralk in 1320. Using this timekeeping, there is a simple conjecture.

Eir did not raise Braham because she was unequal to Borje the Sun Chaser at the time of their union.

Borje clearly thought the world of her and believed she was capable of great things, but she was not a legendary hero when their son was born. Norn tradition would therefore disagree with a renowned hero becoming partnered with a lesser individual, and thus the two of them did not raise Braham together. Borje took the boy, since he believed that Eir would be free to forge her own legend, a hope which was fulfilled by the founding of Destiny’s Edge.

I would advise against projecting human values directly on to Eir and finding her at fault for not being a “proper” mother figure for Braham. In the context of her people, Eir’s choice was the lonely yet appropriate one according to the standards of Norn culture and tradition. We may not like it, and she probably does not like it either, but that is their way, misguided though it may seem.

Context is everything.

pmnt.4067:

Just came to say that the Behemoth in the infographic looks like a Haunter

Hmm. Yes. Well.

Let’s just say that what I lack in artistic talent and basic integrity, I make up for in clipart thievery and “borrowed” sprite photoshopping. Dragon Quest, Might and Magic, Megaman, DnD monster manuals, prior Guild Wars concept art, and miscellaneous images from Google searches may also be victims in this incident.