Guild Wars 2

Heinel.6548:

It’s not just the confusion aspects, but I think butterflies are also used as an example for chaos theory, which also fit the theme of the mesmer. The butterflies are easy enough to get used to, if you want flashy without butterflies consider guardians, they have doves instead.

My main is a Guardian Very fun class. Doves fit with a holy warrior as they symbolize purity and peace, two things that any Guardian or true holy warrior should aim for. I do appreciate the very abstract connection between butterflies and chaos theory (I already used it in a prior remark though not for the same purpose ). I’m still very much against being forced into a “butterfly or get lost” class, and it is very much an ultimatum for anyone paying 60 dollars to play the game. No other AAA MMORPG offers anything like Mesmers and anyone, myself included, that loves illusion magic has no alternative. An option to switch between butterfly and sans-butterfly graphics would be fairly simple and desirable.

Apolesse.8902:

…
If you want something that is all about control and manipulation there are other classes available without all the frills and glitter. Play one of those instead. If the mesmer lost all it’s flash and frivolity then those of us wanting to play a class with that feel and look would no longer have one.

I think that Necros are morbid and depressing, even though I find the mechanics of them intriguing. . . I won’t go attacking their art direction, however. I found a class I liked everything about and play that one…

No one suggested abolishing the current graphic scheme. I simply want the option to enjoy one of the two unique classes that GW2 brings to the MMORPG world without random as hell, garish, purple/pink butterflies popping out of my spells. Also none of the other classes come close to the Mesmer for control, subtlety and imaginative tactics. Why force me to omit the Mesmer from my game time over such a small, albeit inflammatory, aspect of the class? That’s rather more silly than the butterflies themselves

That’s nice that you found yourself a niche class. With the impressive technology at Anet’s hands, it’s not a difficult task to simply remove the butterflies from the clone dispersion graphic and assign it when the option to remove them is checked. No need for you to be put out by it. Also there are 8 classes in this game, 5 races and a huge number of unique stories to play through. With the very limited end game we have at our disposal, it’s alts that are the most promising reason for continued play. Most people don’t attach themselves to a single character as you seem to have done.

P.S. Necros are a chipper lot who enjoy fancy dress parties and frilly implements in their drinks. It’s easy to misunderstand their life style

P.S.S. As with any project, attacking, suggesting or making critical (positive or negative) comments are the lifeblood of progress. There’s no reason to feel antagonized should you like something and someone else doesn’t. It’s a terrible tragedy when even one person tries to halt this process. This game wouldn’t exist without people proposing intriguing ideas and changes. As individuals can’t be expected, as a whole, to like the same things we must have compromise in order to please the majority. The compromises that can be completely ignored by those that wish to do so are the best. My compromise falls under this category

Again: If there’s a specific reason or bit of lore in regards to the utterly ridiculous pink and purple butterflies than I’d love to hear it. A bit of purpose or good sense would go a long way to making me accept the little buggers. So far I’ve become attached to the idea that they’re an ethereal meta-species of Lepidoptera that cause intelligent, purposeful hallucinations, some of which have terribly harmful psychosomatic effects.

@Ryuujin – Good answer The link to GW1 helps justify it’s current incarnation in GW2. Also, I enjoy the connection you made to the self defense mechanism used by so many different types of butterflies; used in a magical capacity it makes a good deal of sense that this ability would be imaginatively amplified.

I’d still prefer just a puff of smoke or the spell used to create the clones unraveling in a string of sigils or some other esoteric lettering system rather than a bunch of butterflies. Silliness is great, but it needs some worthwhile ground to stand on.

AnubisXy.5713:

I admit it, rolled this class for the purple/pink butterflies.

That said, I really do like the music notes you get underwater and wouldn’t mind seeing an option to replace the surface butterfly graphics with the musical notes if you prefer those.

That would make me so happy Music has long been associated with magic. Many games with bards utilize sound for debuffing, crowd control, etc… Often via hypnotic rythyms or sonic magic which manipulates the senses of the victim. At least that makes some kind of sense.

Unless Anet goes on record saying their magical hallucinogenic butterflies then I just can’t see what reason there is for putting them in game. Obviously people enjoy them aesthetically, but they are, seemingly, a completely random bit of imagery. By all means keep em as a default, but an option to disable them would make my Mesmer cease to feel like a major tool to me. I really hope they are, officially, hallucinogenic arcane butterflies. How cool would that be?

“ITT: we’re in the closet and are insecure.

Acquire top hat and trench coat.

Dye it purple

Become pimpin"

You make it sound as if I haven’t had other men’s tongues down my throat If anything I’ve completely skirted the potential homosexual symbolism that is people turning into clouds of purple / pink butterflies. It’s unlikely that has anything to do with the developer’s vision. I’d say grow up, but that’s terrible advice.

“I find it somewhat amusing that the op mentions wet dreams before anyone could bring Freud and sexual insecurity into the conversation.”

Freud was a quack and I’m a cuddle kitten, choose yer gender Being observant and having a flair for amusing imagery leads me down many literary paths. It’s cute that people over analyze posts made over the internet and always come to the same Freudian conclusion. Everyone is sexually kittened (except them) and that’s the only explanation. It’s rather reminiscent of the Forer effect. Give a large group of people the exact same horoscope, but told it’s uniquely tailored to them, and they’ll all think it’s highly accurate. Give a bunch of people the freedom of being anonymous observers and they think they’re psychologists.

While this is to be expected from the imagery of the subject matter, it’s got nothing to do with the subject itself. I think people just get overly excited regarding anything sexually reminiscent (which practically everything is for human beings), so it’s understandable that they want to veer off into the sordid and sensationalistic. Don’t. <3

What do hyper-ephemeral purple / pink butterflies have to do with anything? Why do my clones go from being ridiculously cool to worthy of the most indignant face palm moments in gaming history? Is this psychological warfare or trolling made into a class mechanic? Why can’t we turn them off? I like the purple spell effects, they look like a coke addled, manic-depressive clown’s idea of how arcane spell effects SHOULD look. Do they need to be degenerated into the despicable love child of Hello Kitty and a My Little Pony fetishist’s wet dream?

If there’s some lore reason for this utterly unfathomable effect then I’d love to hear it. If it’s just the developer’s way of laughing at us: could ya not?

Add a “turn superfluous ability graphics off” option, please! It might even help those rare, but vociferous few who have FPS issues.

I’m looking for links, anecdotes (things the developers have said), direct comparisons to obvious pre-existing imagery(gotten a good deal of that, for which I’m grateful <3), things that are official or are a truly strong / interesting possibility, rather than personal musings, poorly thought out ideas and feelings, or hearsay (again, if it’s interesting and hasn’t already been posted, than give me opinions and hearsay). Read what other people have said before posting, repetition is not helpful or in anyway desired by anyone except dementia patients. You are all unique individuals, but that doesn’t mean you ALL have something worth saying.

Especially the people obsessed with their sexuality.

Even more so those people who feel they have to be ostentatiously secure with their sexuality, as if you are special or enlightened for liking pink and purple butterflies. The probable reason you enjoy them is likely because they make you feel like you are secure with your sexuality or you’d have given a reason for liking them, rather than wasting space with talk of sex and how secure you are in regards to it.

If the bloody butterflies are just aesthetically pleasing to you personally, that’s neat. This isn’t the thread for posting “I lurv mah Mesmer and his butterflies” and other such uninteresting, irrelevant drivel. It’s a search for an answer. An answer that will allow myself, and anyone else who feel the urge to facepalm whenever they see their ridiculously cool looking character puff into a cloud of purple and pink butterflies, to love the little buggers as well.

Here’s hoping a barbershop gets added with new hair styles. I found the existing hair styles to be silly / ridiculous or overly effete for the majority of male styles.

“Here’s what I think we should (or not) be able to do:
- You should not be able to change Hair Color without a Gem Store Item.”

Terrible idea. Copper or silver per change only.

I am all for this. The quicker a bot is forced off line the less damage is done. Implement this immediately please. Also have only one captcha every 20-30 minutes is more than good enough.

As the search function doesn’t seem to work for these forums I can’t find out whether or not this is a repeat suggestion. Regardless it deserves some attention.

The camera distance in GW2 doesn’t zoom out far enough. Not nearly far enough. Give us a /command to set the camera out as far as we like, comparable to the one found in that Scottish MMORPG (sorry to those that don’t get this reference. Google Macbeth). It looks like this:

/console cameraDistanceMax 1

1-999 is an enormous range in that game which can make your character more or less the size of an ant (might be exaggerating).

It’s very useful, very convenient and a very good touch of customization that is always appreciated.

“…Simply put she sacrificed herself so your boat could leave the dock without being sunk before it got away from the shore….On a side note Sieran couldnt be turned into Risen. "
– Ooooh, thanks for the info! I compeltely forgot about Sylvari being unzombifiable As for her being a sacrifice: What’s she going to do alone and exhausted that’s going to have any effect worth mentioning? She was already in the battle alongside a regiment of trained soldiers and myself and it was still utterly hopeless. In my opinion her sacrifice was silly and it was actually the giant siege door that I have to thank for giving us time to escape.

“But I’m the Hero! I can easily hold off an entire invading army of undead! I mean…the enemies in that quest aren’t even all that difficult, and besides, I have plot armor, I could survive anything. At the very least I could’ve fought alongside Sieran or something.”
- Something similiar ran through my mind during the cinematic XD If I had at least offered to trade places with her or given some Norn sentiment about sacrifice and honour as my reason for readily accepting her sudden fit of idiocy, then it would have been a different story.

“Though I am still wondering why I didn’t just go light the beacons right away, ignoring the idiot commander who refused to do it”
-I know! From the beginning I was facepalming whenever he opened his mouth. How can anyone be that purposely ignorant and willfully bad at their job? Who cares if Lion’s Claw hasn’t lit the towers in a century, it’s what they’re there for! His mentality was just another Deus ex Machina for the zombies eating my leafy friend, unexplained and run with far after the intel we brought him was confirmed. He didn’t stop acting like that even after the zombies had over run the courtyard. It wasn’t until he’d taken a mortal wound that he gave an inch on the subject.

“@OP, at least it was still your story up to that point. Why couldn’t I throw Tree Boy at the Zombie hordes and saved Seiran??!!”
-Exactly! I had no connection to that guy! Sieran thought of him as a hero so obviously he was more powerful or experienced or whatever than she was. Let him act as a distraction instead! On the way back to the dock he was talking nonchalantly about how she made a noble sacrifice, no emotion, no sense of gratitude, just “Yep, had to happen, all over now, no way she survived that one, guffaw, chuckle, snort. Wanna be my friend?” -_- I already had a quirky, fun, silly Sylvari genius as my partner, why’d she have to die so I could get ANOTHER one?!

I think they tried to create an emotional experience where we lost a character we’d been connecting with in a horrible, memorable fashion. The story had too many corners cut, though, and it just felt like they couldn’t pull it off. Instead they removed Sieran’s brain and my character’s heart and Anet is now in negotiations with the Wizard of Oz. Who else would have use for such things?

Staff is the elementalist’s most powerful weapon. Fire attuned staff wielders are devastatingly powerful. Water attuned has some great healing, air great cc, earth fun defensive abilities and AoE bleeds. Staff is just fine imo. It’s the other weapons that could use some boosting.

I like how you had a blast from 1-80 and then, after getting bored at 80, didn’t think to focus on an alt. One of the reasons GW2 is so amazing is that the stories are quite varied. You aren’t going to play the same game that you did on your first character or any other alt. Learning a whole new class, playing through a new story, choosing different factions, etc… That’s where the major appeal is going to be outside of PvP and gearing up at 80.

Carrot on a stick methods of motivating players is one of the main signs, imo, that the MMORPG is crap. Unfortunately that’s worked for most MMOs so far and that’s a bloody shame.

AKA How I Learned to Hate my Character.

SPOILERS

I had a bit of an amusing thought while I was going through this very epic personal story arc. I went out onto this beach that was being overwhelmed by a swarm of undead in order to rescue a Lion’s Guard officer and escort her back to the fortress. Of course the only two ways to her are blocked with undead who have unlimited resources spawning on those chokepoints and Magister Sieran, my quirky, eccentric, walking house plant of a chum, is zerg rushed into oblivion and has to be left behind. The thought “Huh, I wonder if she’s supposed to stay dead.” ran through my mind, but I brushed it off. Surely there’d be a cinematic for that. -_-

The ending of this truly awesome quest arc is a cinematic of my character and Sieran having it out about how we’re totally screwed. In one ridiculous, fell non sequitur she comes to the conclusion that she has to stay behind, because every single soldier has conveniently been wonded, while the rest of us make our way to the dock. She says it like it’s the only logical option, though there’s no A+B=C involved. It’s just C!! C!!! WOOO LETS GO WITH C, FORGET REASON AND SANITY, I CHOOSE C! It’s complete crap! All that happens is she gets a giant, thick, made to withstand a siege, door shut with her purposely on the wrong side of it… As if 2 feet of iron hard, 20 foot tall, steel reinforced door is going to succumb to some undead with swords!

That’s not the sad bit though. Instead of being given the option to at least try and reason with her, think of an alternative plan or anything, it just shows my character walking away in slow mow, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck like he’s some action hero walking way from an explosions. What kind of colossal sociopath is this bugger? Who lets their close friend and partner just throw themselves at an army of zombies, dooming herself to become a zombie in turn and a powerful undead mage of a godlike evil dragon. There was even a Firstborn, an important / powerful hero of the Sylvari, just chilling there. No option to throw him to the wolves or to leave a contigent of Lion’s guardsmen to act as distraction (both of us have the ability to heal after all), though they’d pledged themselves to defend that island to the death, nor does she look at that giant big bugger off door and use her plant powers or her earth magic to reinforce it further. Standing in front of it and casting other spells at it, that’s the most satisfactory plan! Letting those soldiers die in our place could have opened up an excellent story arch with Sieran, blaming you for putting a dozen good soldiers to their death just to save our lives! A bit of tragedy resulting from a hard decision and you’ve got a far more satisfying outcome than “Hey, I’m going to sacrifice myself so you lot can escape” “OK”. There wasn’t even an attempt at a good bye, a thank you or a HELL NO followed by acquiescence to the inevitable.

If we could, maybe, get a bit more choice for our character’s reactions, rather than letting convenient story paths mold them for us, then this already great game would be amazing! Especially if it’s in regards to how we interact with the NPCs foisted on us. Getting to antagonize a companion NPC we really dislike would be fun and emotionally valuable

In short: My character’s now the ultimate sociopathic D-bag goober mongoloid kittenwad when he used to be a developing scholar, hero and legend. Bloody marvelous way to hurriedly write off a major character in my story line while tainting my Guardian.

Bedevere.9128:

…I can best make my case with an example. The level 54 rare gloves that my character is using have a defense bonus of 95, while the level 60 rare shield that I use only has a defense of 36! …

Gloves don’t give defense oriented abilities or attack stat. I agree that shields seem to have lack luster defense (though I assume Anet attributed them what they found to be the appropriate amount), but the example you gave was nonsensical.

While it is bad *ss that we get to shapeshift, the only form I’ve experienced so far is the werewolf and it has some issues. All of the cooldown abilities demand that you stand in one spot in order to complete them. This game specifically makes use of movement and has no taunts or dedicated tanks. This means that enemies are all over the place, bosses are switching targets, people are running for their lives and the werewolf Norn god of awesomeness is desperately trying to make the most of a very powerful ability with a very long cooldown…and failing.

The buff is very useful and can be used multiple times during the allotted time, but with everyone running around, rolling out of danger and needing to be resurrected, the group tends to be a bit split up and you can’t exactly run to the largest group and then pop it, what with them constantly moving away from you.

The leap, while very powerful, tends to fall short even if a target is fairly close, though this might be due to the enemy moving away from me while I stand still and wait for the ability to pop.

I assume this is relatively the same for all the forms. It’s rather disappointing as it is a really cool ability which adds a lot of flavour to a Norn as it isn’t class specific. Elite spells are very powerful and therefore very valuable. As it stands there isn’t much value for these forms unless they’re upgraded in order to keep up with the much vaunted and very fun mobility that GW2 has had it’s fighting system built around.

This is a fantastic game, easily the best MMO I’ve ever played and I have played many. Here’s hoping this suggestion is implemented as it will really bring to life this iconic aspect of Norn gameplay and culture.