I’m guessing you’ll use the shortbow about half the time on your thief. Its skill set is good on most occasions you can’t stay in melee. I’d say that the ranger is more tricky to work out since you could use a shortbow as your main weapon or largely ignore it. If you’re not using the shortbow on the ranger much now then you should at least try it out with some new builds before deciding on the shortbow legendary.
There seems to be two arguments here. (1) There’s too much to do each month and (2) anyone who logs on after a break can’t find anything new to do in game. Clearly they don’t go together. Missing content doesn’t matter as long as there is something to do when you log on. Having too much content doesn’t matter as long as you can have fun doing something when you log on.
- There are three end game Orrian zones. Players were never going to be split across all three completing the major events, particularly when two of those zones are below level 80.
- The designers struggle to make really good large scale events. It could be the best feature of the game but it hasn’t really happened.
- The designers struggle to balance rewards. With each patch the players migrate to the new most rewarding content and that isn’t Orr.
- Dailies, the living story, and other recent content entirely excludes Orr. This is presumably an intentional design decision.
- Players leave permanent endgame content to do the living story. This is how it should be so Orr needs to function despite that.
- Bots have farmed Orr in the past so Anet have altered the events to prevent their return but the new events are less popular.
Anyway fixing Cursed Shore starts with the balancing of rewards vs time across the whole game. Fractals, dungeons, world bosses, and open world events have never been balanced and are no closer than before to being balanced (the living story can be afford to be generous since it is temporary).
There is a big gulf in the skill level between an experienced player and a new player. New players find open world PvE challenging so it is pitched at the right level for them. That’s good because that’s the environment in which new players learn the game. Experienced players find open world PvE easy but it doesn’t matter since they can skip the open world and do PvP, WvW, dungeons, or anything else.
“Farming is intended. The solid hard undeniable proof is that legendaries exist in this game. "
Wrong! Players are not entitled to legendaries just for farming the game for long periods of time. I’ve no sympathy for players who decide they want the most unobtainable item in the game, just because it ridiculously hard to acquire, then justify a bad attitude to other players on their ‘need’ to farm for money.
You don’t need the achievements. You don’t need to play all day. To get the mini you only need to a few more battle zones than you need to get into the playhouse.
Even if you don’t get into the playhouse and don’t get the mini there’s always next month. If this update has filled all your gaming time with something to do then that’s great. Having gaming time in an MMO with nothing to do is the time you erase it from your hard drive.
I think people are letting the tail wag the dog. The game is supposed to have new content for when you log on. You should not be logging on because the game has new content. There is nothing in the living story chapters that you cannot afford to miss.
The question of difficulty isn’t really appropriate. New players find dungeons really hard especially if not given tactics and skips. Experienced players find dungeons easy since they know tried and tested tactics and the skips.
Mary Sue seems to be an overly used phrase on these boards. Why is everything thought to be a Mary Sue? Do the people who talk and read about it know exactly what it means?
I don’t have a problem with the Sylvari. They are not perfect just because they are well spoken. We do generally meet the pleasant, clean living Sylvari who are following their wyld hunts but we do know the hedonistic Sylvari are hidden away in the Nightmare Court. In the personal story all the major Sylvari characters have character flaws. Trahearne has this “I’m a scholar, not a general” thing that is really badly portrayed and you have little sympathy when he voices his self doubts. Sieran is a reckless scientist who could be seen as a good version of nasty Scarlet. Caithe, Tegwen & co are hardly perfect as well.
I have far more problems with the Asura. Whenever anything needs to be done in game some magi-tech from the Asura turns up, solves the problem, and then vanishes again. It’s all technobabble and lazy storytelling.
We really don’t know the motives for any of these groups. Scarlet may have traded weapons tech for mercenary support but it seems as if there’s more to it than that. We don’t really know how the Aetherblades are recruited, trained, funded, or otherwise resourced. Since they are called pirates when they don’t act like pirates they were presumably Lion’s Arch pirates who were tempted into airships but that doesn’t explain how there are so many Aetherblades. Since the Aetherblades are never successful at anything we never see what they would do if they ever succeeded. Mai Lin is the only named leader amongst Scarlet’s minions.
I’m finding a big disconnection between the Scarlet that’s described and the Scarlet we see in game. She’s the most brilliant inventor of weaponry ever with and she’s fighting us in her playhouse with cannonballs, gunpowder, and a blunderbuss.
There is no evidence of the Inquest capturing and experimenting upon Sylvari and it seems highly unlikely that they could create a new Sylvari otherwise.
The camps should stay clear for longer. At the moment the camps are attacked again either while the queen is being fought or just afterwards, messing up the queen fight and the armor vendors. Once that’s fixed, guilds can take a dozen people over to Southsun and get it all done. Three of the camps can be cleared with only a couple of people on each.
I think a lot of the criticism is valid, especially about this army turning up and standing around to be killed. The game mechanics are not supporting the story. Unfortunately as players we want the world to be populated with events (such as a big zone war in Fireheart Rise) but we individually don’t want the consequences of others having failed these events (such as not being able do CoF, personal story, hearts, etc after the zerg loses a zone war in Fireheart Rise). Overflows and guesting make it even more difficult to provide a consistent game world for a player based on the consequences of parallel events.
I sometimes think that some of the originality of the game design creates problems that the designers are only solving by trial and error. It generally seems to be slowly getting better so future events are likely to improve, I hope.
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I think the Joker comparison is fair and the Joker is a good villain. Heath Ledger played the Joker very well as he kept giving clues to the Joker’s character but then made it all a ruse, leaving you no closer to really knowing what he really wanted. I’m guessing that Scarlet will however need a proper history and hopefully we’ll uncover that in the story. Crazy isn’t good enough on its own.
It’s common game design to make bosses bigger than normal so that players can see them in a crowd and clearly see their animations. I certainly find it impossible to see the animations of the smaller guild mission targets once they are in a crowd. So I wouldn’t assume there is any lore behind the size of Scarlet or her minions.
The game designers must scratch their heads when they see this sort of thread. Are players really wanting a trivial challenge to be monotonously repeated again and again for days on end until they buy up every virtual reward in an online game, just so they can get bored and quit and make those virtual rewards entirely pointless?
Players complain. Players complain that there are too many games, too many festivals, too many jumping puzzles, too many dungeons, too much group content, too many zergs, too many instances, too many treasure hunts, too many cosmetic rewards, too many collectables, too many achievements, too much traveling, and too many players doing things at the same time. It seems to me that there is quite a lot of content, it’s all quite different, and you keep going back to the stuff you like most.
These zone war events do mark the first time that GW2 has put proper battlegrounds into open world zones. Yes, we’d like there to be mass combat tactics that promote individual skill and as soon as an MMO has them we might go there. I’m guessing we’ll be in GW2 for a while longer.
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“Tactics? The “tactics” are the same as CoF. Stack up and burst.”
You might not be able to remember the months after the game was released when everyone dodged around the room fighting the alpha’s, but I can. Until players were stopped from reviving mid combat, waypoint rushing was the way most PUGs did CoE. 2:3 and 1:4 became PUG knowledge only months after players needed to find some new tactics.
Without CoF, CoE is the easiest dungeon.
Actually without tactics CoE is one of the most difficult dungeons. Players can still die easily here from bad play (and bad group play) but good players can get through it quickly and safely. It has turned out to be one of the best dungeons in that respect.
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I also liked his knockdown attack that is probably a better version of headshot.
Scarlet’s age is not particularly relevant since the Sylvari are ‘born’ as functioning adults.
I would take her statement about the eternal alchemy as sign that she has some unique knowledge rather than her knowing everything. In particular, I’m guessing that she can see something fundamental in magic/science that allows seemingly different powers to be used together using common principles (that only she understands).
I wouldn’t be surprised if Scarlet has seen the nightmare but is not part of the nightmare court. As pure conjecture, could it be that Scarlet has seen some representation of Abaddon in the nightmare?
If you haven’t completed the personal story you shouldn’t see Trahearne walking into the middle of the living story as Pact Commander. That’s why Trahearne isn’t in the living story and probably never will be.
" It’s because of the pet skills activation times. If you press F2 while the pet is using a skill attack, it needs to finish that attack, before it can start doing the F2 attack. "
It’s not just that. The F2 commands are executed really badly, worse than for open world animals. For example when commanded to use fire breath on a target, a drake pet will walk up to where an enemy used to be, not turn to face them, and breathe into thin air. That’s if you are lucky, since the pet might do nothing, breathe fire without bothering to move, or wander about for a while then give up. Open world drakes do far better than that since they always move up to where you are now, turn to face you now, then attack you (after checking you are in range).
The main problem for me is that normal open world mobs have better attack AI than the pet. Nothing in the game has worse AI than the pet.
A common criticism of the personal story is the episodic nature. You do some class stuff, some racial stuff, some order stuff, some pact stuff, some risen stuff, some Trahearne stuff, some Zaitan stuff, and so on, with common connections rather than personalized direction. Different people to want different episodes to be longer or continued through the rest of the story.
The living story is probably never going to have any content that you are excluded from by race or profession. Therefore there will never be any content in the living stories specifically for asuras. I’m guessing that Rata Sum and the Grove are due for a visit by the living story and it will be open to everyone. If there’s more personal story in a future expansion it could be presented in an entirely new way so there’s little point speculating about it.
Let’s start with: nobody is entitled to a legendary weapon. Whatever you do in game, however much gold you earn, however many events you complete, however many hours you play, you are not entitled to a legendary weapon. Once that’s understood there’s no point complaining about how much time it takes for players (who feel entitled to a legendary) to collect the money and materials needed. Once you accept that legendary weapons are a bonus and not a day to day goal, you can find happier ways to spend your in game time.
I’m pretty sure this is all intended. If you want an explanation, perhaps the characters see through the illusion of the watchknight only when the creature has apparently taken enough wounds to die, but hasn’t. At this time the watchknight is revealed but still fighting in its role and the characters can finish it off knowing it is a watchknight.
“I love how people are saying try different tactics while completely ignoring that those tactics require specialized group compositions. "
No they don’t. I’m guessing that players have lost the common knowledge of how to do it properly because they’ve sat behind walls of reflection too often. I haven’t been on this path recently but even way back it used to look impossible, impossible until the group learned to dodge at the right time so that the nightmare tree couldn’t create any more spiders (with its attack that creates spiders when it hits).
“I cannot imagine this path to be working as intended. The boss is harder than all of Arah and high end fractals.”
All the bosses are hard when you use the wrong tactics!
If you are looking for heavy armored fighters with cruel weapons who can inflicts bleeds, weakness, cripple, knockdowns, and fear in their enemies – that’s already all in the warrior class. Nightmare court warriors already act like shadowknights.
I haven’t got to Liadri yet in the gauntlet. All the rumors about her one shot attacks, needing specific builds, etc have actually killed my motivation to get through the rest of the fights. That’s a shame, because I’ve enjoyed working out the rest.
The boon stripping on larcenous strike makes it a good counter to many builds.
Clearing the risen out from Orr isn’t going to be simple considering all the animals there seem to have been turned into risen and they are going to be lurking in every imaginable place, including off the coast. Even if the risen are cleared out and the source of Orr purifies the land and it becomes fertile with new life, there’s always the possibility that the human gods might return and reclaim Arah. Nobody will want to tell a god that they are no longer welcome.
“But no…this whole game revolves around some pointless economy.. to such a point no one can get anything easily anymore.”
Almost everything is easy to get. Players set their goal on the most difficult thing possible (just because it is rare and difficult) then complain how the game doesn’t give it to them easily.
Queen Jennah announces that she is the new Belcher’s Bluff champion. Anyone who can beat her can take her on at naked Sanctum Sprint.
Thieves are skirmish class, moving in and and of range. You can put a ranged build together for the warrior, elementalist, ranger, thief, but for all of them you’ll still be better getting safely into melee. A thief gets in and out of melee better than most. My comparison would be that a dual pistol thief will just seem rubbish compared to a longbow ranger. The thief shortbow is better than the ranger shortbow but if you didn’t like it on the ranger then you probably won’t like it on the thief either.
If you’re starting PvE then I’d recommend starting with the greatsword. It has a better animations than the sword, skill 1 has a free evade, 3 is a more useful leap than on the sword, 4 is a good block with a riposte+interrupt (better than an extra evade), and 5 is a useful daze/interrupt. I’d say this is a medium skill weapon. If you’re medium skilled you’ll get full use from the blocks, leap, and interrupt. If you’re high skilled you can manage without the utility on the greatsword and if you’re low skilled you won’t find the utility on the greatsword.
“Its been weeks and my friend has not been able to get in. Why is this the only MMO where ive encountered this problem?”
You haven’t seen many MMOs then. GW2 has guesting and before that had free server transfers. Server transfers with gems is better than server transfers for real world money. In the older MMOs you joined a server and your characters were stuck there forever essentially. There was no cross server communication in any way at all.
Some people also forget that when WoW was launched you had to join a queue to log on and that could take hours to clear.
sigh More people trying to turn anet into a bigger nanny than it already is. Joy.
Anet have actually created content that shouldn’t require any interference. All players are be able to share rewards for mobs, events, resource nodes, etc. It’s stupid players who have deliberately decided to kitten this up. The good game design ensures events can be completed even if some players want to prevent it for selfish gain. Nothing in the game design can ever stop crowds of idiots from talking trash when their stupidity causes themselves problems.
To be honest I feel like they’re skewing rewards in turn for one piece of content and then another, but they’re never finding any balance. That’s ok for temporary living story content but they ultimately need to find permanent balance in permanent content. Giving a rare item for this or a purse for that has just pushed obsessive players from this to that.
“When players who try and complete the Meta event the way it was intended are being verbally harassed with nasty comments and death threats from those that are in the Zerg.”
Well ignore them. The game mechanics intentionally allow no players to own open world events. Any player can join into an event or kill a mob and share the rewards. So do that. Let them throw a baby tantrum. They haven’t any grounds to report you. If they start properly griefing you, past the point when you can ignore them, you can report them.
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If you can play well you are viable in dungeons. Worry about the elite player speedrun builds later. If you take an elite zerker setup into dungeons with a poor group you will die fast unless you can play well.
It could be that when one dragon dies the rest become stronger, or more dragons are born.
It would be good but remember that the off hand weapon adds to stats and houses a sigil as well as giving skills.
Defensive thief skills tend to avoid damage entirely. This could be smokescreen, blind, daze/stuns/venoms, evades, cripples, etc. It’s possible to burn through your defensive skills and kill your enemies with a high damage build before much damage needs to be soaked with vitality and toughness.
When you move onto dungeons and other content this theory can break down. Playing a zerker thief in a slow killing group can leave you exposed.
“Is it ok to complete the events in cursed shore? With the amount of folks in the event farming, I am rather concerned about the economy going belly up. The immersion in the game also seems to break, adding to the unfun factor. Other events in the zone are ignored too with everyone focusing on the farm”
Cursed Shore should be a zone with some players coming back to repeatedly complete events for balanced end game rewards. Is all repeatable end game content a farm? I hope it isn’t seen that way. It does seems like the developers are still struggling to make the events themselves rewarding without players chasing gold and loot drops.
Am I right in thinking that Karma is a no longer a viable currency or reward for experienced GW2 players? There seems to be so much Karma in the game that new items can never now be sold with a Karma cost. Has the failure of this currency contributed to the merciless pursuit of gold and items by players, and the grinding of dailies and other content?
There is a balance issue coming across from PvP. Players will cure conditions applied to them so conditions are expected not to provide full effect. In PvE the mobs do not use cures and players expect conditions to have full effect, which might make them overpowered. Defiant and the condition limit are still clumsy ways of dealing with the problems.