Guild Wars 2

mercury ranique.2170:

I have to disagree with youbout the water comming from north brisbane. I surprised me as well cause that what I thoguht to take a look. I’ve too that portion of the kessex map and draw in the the direction the streams go. But please feel free to check for yourself.

It seems like the waters come from the same place the Clayent Falls in Queensdale come from, looking at that map.

Moxtidus.4576:

Halanna.3927:

In GW2, there are players. Just players. We don’t like to slap negative, degrading, nasty names on players here.

Dont get me wrong im not trying to offend anybody here.

But there are always good players and baddies.

Every single game on earth. Dont kid yourself.

Minecraft.

Seriously. Find me someone who is “plain bad” at Minecraft who will not pick up the game mechanics eventually.

I’ll go one further.

Find me someone who cannot lose at Tetris.

I go there regularly after remembering: “Aren’t there three Orichalcum nodes and two Ancient Wood nodes?” . . . and remembering I can generally hit them without much trouble from Karka.

Reef Riders? Can go die in a fire.

proxy.7963:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Anyway, I have yet to actually touch PvP in this game . . . mostly because I’m not compelled to beyond the limited experiences of WvW. It’s a wonderfully chaotic experience which is sure to make me rage quietly at how ineffective I am at keeping daggers out of my back.

Since we’re merrily romping around off-topic territory, being massively incompetent is probably one my favourite things about my limited hours in WvWvW. I doubt it makes me any friends, but sprinting around trying my darndest and getting bounced around by folks more skilled than I am is just part of the fun for me – it’s more a game of scrappy, desperate survival than anything glorious and heroic and I’m cool with that.

I tip my IBC Cream Soda (no alcohol on weekdays) to you on that one. I like to have fun and worrying about not being the best or even “any good” at PvP . . . isn’t fun for me.

So I just go “stuff it in a trebuchet and launch it, because I’m just going to show up and try to do something useful . . . and if I fail, try to not take everyone else down with me”.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

And now you going down to opinion. It’s you opinion that Trahearne is good enough to be the leader, but logically there are better choices.

The problem is that the “logical better choices” all can be discounted for various reasons. Naturally, this is because it’s made so Trahearne is the choice to lead. It gets into a wonderful circular path, the more I look at it. And yet, I still can’t see how he’s spectacularly unqualified compared to the player character or another order-neutral member. No matter who you stick there, it’s not going to work unless they’re specifically written for that role.

. . . which then is no better because then it gets into Mary Sue for real.

Not saying his knowledge about Orr isn’t a crucial factor for the operation, but that alone and him being a “nice guy” who listens to his advisers, does not make him a good choice.

I don’t think he’s a “nice guy” so much. Polite? Yes. Nice . . . I find a hard time characterizing any sylvari as “nice”. They feel off. They feel like it’s not entirely their feelings, more like what they’re expected to say.

I also think someone leading the orders who listens to them all and sifts for the pieces to use is perhaps very qualified to lead. Not from the front. (I attribute that to Trahearne’s inexperience, along with his fixation on “I must cleanse Orr” meaning he has to personally be putting himself at risk to do so.) Towards the end, he seems to get this and only puts himself in when it’s necessary. He has the good sense to stay out of Arah, after all.

And now if go back to my original point: Trahearne is the wrong choice for the position for obvious reasons, yet no one seems to notice that in universe, which I gave 2 possible explanations for:
1. He really isn’t competent, but he manages to hide that fact. This unfortunatly rather common in leading positions.
2. He suddenly really is a great leader out of nowhere, for no logical reason and therefore is badly written.

1. He’s not competent compared to, say, Forgal, Ogden, or Doenn . . . all three have considerably more experience with warfare in comparison. However, he seems competent enough to know when he needs to ask for advice. I think his big problem was a lack of confidence, which . . . was solved by what amounts to “his god” telling him “no, you can do this”.

And just because I said those three names? I don’t think they could lead. Forgal’s a little too reckless, Ogden’s a stone dwarf and probably not particularly interested, and Doenn’s dismissive of the other two orders’ potential at first.

2. I don’t see real evidence of him being a great leader in so far as actually making the plans. I see a lot . . . a lot of him adapting plans and using information he finds to piece together something. The best part of the assaults on Orr are carried out as individual plans by the orders and supporting crew (the split in the final chapter) or as a whole using different pieces of each order to reinforce each other (Straits of Devastation and the Temples).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Again, it’s a military operation. If you go by logic, you would want someone with military competence and experience to lead you, even if you are a scholar or an agent. Compare it like this. The USA get’s attacked by aliens. The US army, the CIA and the NASA want to strike back. Only one can be the leader of this military operation. Who would they choose, a guy who studied xeno-biology, a guy who is really good in sneaking behind enemy lines, or a veteran general who commaneded armies his whole life?
All of those skills are valuable, but only of them is capable of commanding the attack force, so you would choose him, by logic. The other ones can be his advisers sure, but they should not be the commanders, because they simply aren’t as good in the job as the actual general.

If it was the US armed forces? You’d probably have the Air Force actually first in line rather than the Army, and the commander-in-chief is still the same. Who would probably not be a military leader. This is why I hate real world analogies. They do not translate well 100% of the time.

If the mission was to be a long-term one? Two commanders who hold different times they’re in clear command. In matters of combat, one commander. In matters of peace and civil matters? Another commander. We could go on about this, but I don’t see a point to it and it’s hideously off topic.

On topic?

I maintain Trahearne can handle this leadership due to two reasons: the respect of the three orders who know he knows a lot about Orr and the Risen . . . and the fact he is willing to listen to their input. He doesn’t need to be all-knowing and a perfect military tactician.

Rukia.4802:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rukia.4802:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rukia.4802:

Let me take you back to GW1, where gear didn’t mean squat and skill mattered. The end.

Skill didn’t matter, skills mattered. As in, the eight slots on the bar and your Attribute setup. Get the right eight and the attributes to run them, you didn’t need to do more than stay awake and spam keys sometimes to just walk through PvE.

Even as a ranger, 90% of all four parts of the game were easy enough to blow through without resorting to broken skills like Ursan’s Blessing, Ebon Vanguard Supports, or Pain Inverter.

It was PvP that required actual skill. Well, either that or the latest build that the metagame served up as being inexplicably more useful to steamroll the unprepared people facing you.

I could miss a few days and it wouldn’t matter one bit. None of this laurel trash was in the game.

Zaishen Coins.

Are you trying to say envoy weapons had stats that were better than your current equipment because they didn’t. It was all truly optional grind with nothing more than an appearance change. There was nothing to keep up with.

No, I’m trying to say we had Laurels before GW2. It’s just that the build of the game didn’t permit them to give you a significant advantage. Well, aside from being able to get Zaishen Keys or other goodies easily, which could be transformed into liquid cash fairly easily.

Envoy Weapons were cool but oh my GOD were they overpriced.

Go play a GvG match with any meta build and play like a pro… so easy as long as you have the build and correct attributes right, right? Just spam 1234 like in GW2 right? lol.. try spamming your rupts on ranger and be useless 99% of the time.

Nope, but not understanding the meta is what got me relegated to “no thanks, Tobias, I think we’re good”. I didn’t really try the PvP all that much after being pretty much faceplanted repeatedly by teams which would focus on the ranger before the monk. Why? We went down easier.

I will agree they were insanely overpriced lol, well if you went down being the only one focused then your prot monk sucked, nothing easier than keeping a single target up which is why pressure should always be split with spikes in between.

See, I’m not a pro PvP player. I’m barely an amateur one, I watched enough and heard enough from some amateur/pro players to have seen trends but not how to either ride in front or take advantage of.

You are talking to a ranger who could never land D Shot. Savage Shot? I could land that on anything no problem (even Res Signets or the occasional Mesmer interrupt), but D Shot? Never. Would. Connect.

I have absolutely no idea why. It’s why I mainly stuck to PvE and occasionally dipped into the two Factions arenas (except Aspenwood. I hated Aspenwood) . . . and even then there was a wealth of gimmicky builds which were less about skill and more about employing a gimmick.

Anyway, I have yet to actually touch PvP in this game . . . mostly because I’m not compelled to beyond the limited experiences of WvW. It’s a wonderfully chaotic experience which is sure to make me rage quietly at how ineffective I am at keeping daggers out of my back.

KiLLiAN.5629:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You know they’re going to be labeled Kormir 3.0/Trahearne 1.5/Rurik X.5, right?

Come on, I think they read forums long enough to know not to ever design characters like Trahearne again (fingers crossed).

I’ve read the forums long enough to know it won’t matter how they do it, I’ll still be seeing it
:D

I always got the feeling the largos were being set up to be present for later use. We do have a deep sea dragon after all . . .

Rukia.4802:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rukia.4802:

Let me take you back to GW1, where gear didn’t mean squat and skill mattered. The end.

Skill didn’t matter, skills mattered. As in, the eight slots on the bar and your Attribute setup. Get the right eight and the attributes to run them, you didn’t need to do more than stay awake and spam keys sometimes to just walk through PvE.

Even as a ranger, 90% of all four parts of the game were easy enough to blow through without resorting to broken skills like Ursan’s Blessing, Ebon Vanguard Supports, or Pain Inverter.

It was PvP that required actual skill. Well, either that or the latest build that the metagame served up as being inexplicably more useful to steamroll the unprepared people facing you.

I could miss a few days and it wouldn’t matter one bit. None of this laurel trash was in the game.

Zaishen Coins.

Are you trying to say envoy weapons had stats that were better than your current equipment because they didn’t. It was all truly optional grind with nothing more than an appearance change. There was nothing to keep up with.

No, I’m trying to say we had Laurels before GW2. It’s just that the build of the game didn’t permit them to give you a significant advantage. Well, aside from being able to get Zaishen Keys or other goodies easily, which could be transformed into liquid cash fairly easily.

Envoy Weapons were cool but oh my GOD were they overpriced.

Go play a GvG match with any meta build and play like a pro… so easy as long as you have the build and correct attributes right, right? Just spam 1234 like in GW2 right? lol.. try spamming your rupts on ranger and be useless 99% of the time.

Nope, but not understanding the meta is what got me relegated to “no thanks, Tobias, I think we’re good”. I didn’t really try the PvP all that much after being pretty much faceplanted repeatedly by teams which would focus on the ranger before the monk. Why? We went down easier.

OrianZeta.1537:

Because he’s a nobody that hasn’t earned anything, yet is thrust into the spotlight where everyone rallies behind him, including the divided Orders, who treat the player with more hostility (as you make your choice of one, the others shun you).

Depends on your race. Some say “I’m disappointed but I can live with that”. Some get annoyed you didn’t see their way (usually the Priory). Strangely it feels the Order of Whispers is more forgiving if you walk away from them, since they probably will be helping you somewhere down the line anyway.

The Vigil? Oooooh boy do they remember the snub though.

Rukia.4802:

Let me take you back to GW1, where gear didn’t mean squat and skill mattered. The end.

Skill didn’t matter, skills mattered. As in, the eight slots on the bar and your Attribute setup. Get the right eight and the attributes to run them, you didn’t need to do more than stay awake and spam keys sometimes to just walk through PvE.

Even as a ranger, 90% of all four parts of the game were easy enough to blow through without resorting to broken skills like Ursan’s Blessing, Ebon Vanguard Supports, or Pain Inverter.

It was PvP that required actual skill. Well, either that or the latest build that the metagame served up as being inexplicably more useful to steamroll the unprepared people facing you.

I could miss a few days and it wouldn’t matter one bit. None of this laurel trash was in the game.

Zaishen Coins.

KiLLiAN.5629:

I’m currently waiting for Braham and Rox to show up, hopefully they will be memorable characters who will bring something interesting into the world of Tyria.

You know they’re going to be labeled Kormir 3.0/Trahearne 1.5/Rurik X.5, right?

CHIPS.6018:

-he is boring.
-he stole all my glory.

Hmmm. Right. All your glory.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

If tactical decisions were so easy to make, you’d just any everyday man and set him on the top of an army. He starts giving very simple orders (“go take that city”) and the soldiers figure the rest out.

Now you’re just being insulting to the army, and those who lead. Not to mention Commanders who actually can pull off hard decisions in WvW and have them not blow up in their faces.

Tactical decisions are never “simple”, except in a video game where it becomes simplified. These are not people dying, they are characters. They are green names on the screen, not actual people.

But it doesn’t work that way. Even seemingly simple operation need a whole lot of, information gathering, planning and some competent experienced people who know what they are doing. Trahearne is no such individual.

That’s your opinion about competency. Experience? Experience he possibly does not have, but then again . . . from a position of my own experience, you can get a lot of mileage from surrounding yourself with experienced people and listening to their advice.

Yet people insist that he makes all the tactical decisions and that’s why he is needed as the Marshal.

He makes the decisions because he is the last word to say “let’s do this plan then”. It’s his word that is “go”. That’s what I mean, and that’s usually what is meant when it’s said he makes the decision. He bears that responsibility.

To borrow a greater man’s phrase? “The buck stops there.”

Again, my argument is, if he is in fact that competent leader, then it proves how much of a badly written Mary-Sue he is. If he is not the one coming up with these plans, then he is at least more believable, but at the time he is useless, as he does nothing, yet get’s credited as very important. There is simply no reason in making him the leader of the pact, when his only 2 qualifications are, that he is not member of one of the orders and that he know his stuff about Orr. This should make him an adviser to the Pact real leader, not the leader itself.

Again. Competence in leadership is not being the genius, not being able to always make the right decisions. Competence in leadership is knowing when to listen to those who advise you, and when to tell them it’s time to listen. Not coming up with every plan, not knowing all the answers, and not putting all the pieces together doesn’t make Trahearne any less of a leader.

What makes him the leader are two qualities which are perhaps the most important. The willingness to commit to an action with all the forces necessary to carry it out, and the humility to carry responsibility for that decision. You may see that humility only during one part of the story.

The Pact is a military organization, needing a military leader. Is that the player? Not necessarily, but some one like Magnus the Bloody Handed for example could have worked. Zhaitan is a direct threat to his city, he is known to have taking action against the Risen (in EoD) and he is an experienced leader and sailor who also was never attached to any of the Orders.

You make a good point, though “need” is once again incorrect. You would like it to have a military leader. It’s possible the Vigil would also like it to be a military leader, but the Priory and the Order of Whispers wouldn’t have much place in such a hierarchy. They are not soldiers. They are scholars and sneaks.

We could keep naming who could lead, and I could point out it’s equally possible to put it on Rytlock Brimstone. . . or Logan Thackeray. Or Knut Whitebear. Or Countess Anise. You could come up with a case for any of them and have it sound legitimate. Heck, I bet if I really tried I could come up with reasoning that Kudu would be ideal to lead.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

I haven’t moved any goalposts, you just don’t understand what I was talking about, you just picked sentences out of their context, refusing to look at my argument, probably because you were so eager to disprove me that you didn’t think about what I actually wrote.

I feel this has been said about something else which has a lot of attention on these forums, but it’s probably nothing but deja vu.

Regardless, very well, totally misunderstood you but still willing to “play”.

I said, we can not know if Trahearne actually comes up with his plans himself or if he just steals them. Story wise it would only make sense if he takes other peoples work and claims it to be his own. If it is his work, than we have a bad case of character development, because he goes from scholar who never took command, not even fought in a war, to tactical genius in the matter of weeks.

There’s actually very little tactical genius in the plans, the plans as a whole are very simple and just happen to work because the player character is there to keep them on the rails. When the player is not there (say, you wind up with “Air Drop” instead of “Armor Guard”) things very quickly fall apart.

Far as I can tell, the Orders come up with the plans, present them to Trahearne, who then takes the information and plans into account before making a decision. Such as the three avenues you can take in Orr (by land, by sea, by air), and the options which lead to the Cathedral of Silence or that boatwreck elsewhere.

Please note, this is about on par with other tactical-level decisions in the real world. “Genius” and “failure” is generally separated by whether or not it works. If it works? Genius, inspired, wonderful. If it fails? Obviously not tactically sound. Something can be very simple in planning and work perfectly . . . and it can be planned down to the phase of the moon and fail spectacularly because something got missed.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The Consortium sigil looks like a deactivated golem. You see it all over Southsun Cove and anywhere else dealing with Consortium.

So I guessed wrong

. . . so whose sigil is that . . . ?

Pirlipat.2479:

Yep I recognised already that the “universe” is is revolving around the reward junkies who expect a cookie for every step they are doing. Guess what I would like it best if all that ascended stuff was taken out then everyone can do dailies to his hearts content.

It probably could have stood to be some other method separated and distinct from Daily Achievements / Monthly Achievements. On the other hand, I can guess they didn’t want to reinvent the same system if they could overlay on top of it.

. . . I want to see the Pact, Destiny’s Edge, and a place my character should care about put into actual . . . real . . . tangible-feeling danger. I want body counts which make my character cringe when the next elder dragon target decides Zhaitan was too much of a kitty-cat to make a proper thread “so let’s show you how it’s really done”.

I want to see Jormag air-bomb corruption over Hoelbrak, and the Sons of Svanir surge out of their caves having hidden a large force in there to attack with.

I want to see Primordius surface destroyers at the gates of Rata Sum. And I mean the asura gates; he still has the Central Transfer Chamber, right?

I want to see Kralkatorik and the Shatterer pull a pincer on Ebonhawke and bottle it up so they can do whatever they want with eastern Ascalon.

I want Destiny’s Edge to be put on the ropes, not having any substantial victories but being forced into a retreat over and over where the only victory they can count is “we’re all still alive”.

I want the Pact routed, I want their faith in Trahearne and each other tested so they wonder if this can really work against an enemy who knows what they can do after watching Zhaitan get schooled like a baby.

ThiBash.5634:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, it’s more than clear that you don’t understand the difference between “account bound” and “soul bound.”

It’s also clear that you don’t understand you can have a unique soul bound and a unique account bound item.

How about this then:
The unique aspect of items could use a mechanic that restricts players from buying more of the same item if they already have that item equipped, in their inventory, or in their bank.

Clear now?

. . . I kind of agree with Shootstoot’s point in this but this idea right here needs to be looked at closer.

quickthorn.4918:

I would get a better voice actor for Trahearne, feature him less often and make your character feel more like the hero, but not too early. You are built up way too fast in some stories, particularly Norn.

This is something I noticed, and it’s peculiar.

In the norn story, you’re the Slayer of Issormir before you actually really get started. I get that norn culture places huge emphasis on notable hunts and this is just a sort of rite of passage . . . but it still seems like that deed overshadows the rest of what you do for a while.

In the human story, you’re the Hero of Shaemoor. Of course, fighting that last battle got you knocked out and you spent some time recovering. So you’re known, respected by those who know you were there, but you’re not truly as awe-inspiring as a norn character is. It’s not until you get deeper into the chapters you start to garner attention.

Meanwhile, over in the charr who start with Blood Legion? You have to earn your stripes in a very real, very messy fashion. You don’t really become a hero of any worth until you finish that first personal story chapter. Sure, you’re notable but since your warband was pretty much destroyed you don’t have a place in the charr culture.

Sylvari don’t seem to have anything really interesting other than having Firstborn cluster around them offering advice and aid. It’s really weird people want to make them out to be Mary Sues when the player character sylvari seems to fade into the woodwork (pun intended) far too easily. They’re too community-focused to actually seem to hold “heroes” individually higher than others, I’d say.

. . . and moving down the ladder . . . asura. I hate the asura, so someone else can talk about that. I don’t like them, the bickering between them gets on my nerves, and the infallible genius acts make me want to punt them across the Sea of Sorrows.

Raynor.1973:

He’s the Kormir of GW2 for most players. The player(s) do all of the work, and this useless, boring NPC swoops in and takes all of the credit.

In Trahearne’s defense, though, he’s not nearly as bad as Kormir was. He actually helps out by doing a lot of the planning and logistics during the invasion of Orr, but needs the player character to do the legwork, as he pretty much sucks at that.

Kormir, on the other hand, invented the Thief profession.

I’m not going to get into the trouble with Kormir. However, Trahearne doesn’t take credit away from you for anything. If anything he downplays and shares out the glory to everyone working for the Pact’s victory.

Also, just about everyone you run into and help out thanks you and sings your praises rather than the Marshall’s. You even do get the Master of Whispers to thank you for making it possible, Destiny’s Edge throws respect your way, and if anything Trahearne turns around and tells you “okay, we’re done here, now while I still lead the Pact, it’s going to be a help to you when you need it”.

So, I’m not sure how he’s a glory hound if everyone under him knows you’re the one doing things, gives you credit for all the stuff you actually do, and just lets Trahearne lead. While Trahearne basically turns it back around to let his leadership follow your example.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

BuddhaKeks.4857:

@Tobias Trueflight: I was talking about the plans Trahearne comes up with, not the actual execution of those plans, as that would be impossible to take credit for.

Really?

I got a screenshot for that too.

Nice screen, but that has still nothing to do with what I’m talking about. Try again please.

Okay, since you keep moving the goalpost, explain what you want to prove? Because from your post I quoted, you said this:

“He does nothing but taking the credit of other peoples work. "

. . . which, you know, I showed you it wasn’t so. You wanted to change that to:

“@Tobias Trueflight: I was talking about the plans Trahearne comes up with, not the actual execution of those plans, as that would be impossible to take credit for.”

. . . so I bring up at least one instance where he doesn’t make the plan, he asks you to choose a course and he’ll follow your lead. Which, mind you, is not the first time he asks you to choose what you think is the most important plan (even if all three are followed in their own time).

So, let me propose you post a screenshot of him taking credit for a plan which wasn’t his. And if you use “naming Fort Trinity” after already excusing it, I won’t know what to say since you’ll have moved the goalposts yet again.

Pirlipat.2479:

Wasn’t that actually what they said they wanted to avoid? And didn’t they claim it to be the other way round. That subscription based game had to grab their people lure them into skinner-boxes to keep their subscriptions up?

Bring up a quote for that? If it’s the one I think you’re going to, I’m going to facedesk so hard . . .

And now they have to grab into the old “do your dailies” box from the normal MMOs out there?

Kindly visit this link here:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Zaishen_Challenge_Quest

How can you ever guarantie me I’m NOT loosing anything? What happens after this year when most of the people have ascended beside those who started to believe in that constant uhh it’s optional statement?

I don’t know what happens. Do you? I don’t think you do.

I can speculate. The people in a full six set of Ascended trinkets (since that’s all we have now to speculate from) will have a small edge on other people in such venues as WvW. In open world, it won’t matter. In Fractals it will make a ton more difference if they have Agony Resist rather than just Ascended. (This, I am finding out, is a different can of worms.)

Anyone who does not have it will look into what it takes to start filling their slots, and either decide to put the effort in or not. If not, then they won’t be losing access to anything they were already doing. They just won’t be “top geared”, and that’s their problem if that bothers them.

And btw I stopped doing those dailies and I decided not to chase that gear but tbh it feels like I put an expiry date on my account.

I stopped caring about the gear the minute I realized it didn’t make me any better a player and was pretty much only going to be half my ticket into Fractals 10+. I’d rather be trying to learn WvW and doing dungeons with the guild.

TwoBit.5903:

It feels like I’m doing data entry rather than playing a videogame.

This is why I avoided EvE Online for the longest amount of time. Well, that and it’s reputation.

For me, the aesthetic of the game has changed from cooperative MMO to cooperative loot treadmill. The game simply insists loot dangling tactics. Rewards are nice and all, but to be honest it’s hard for me to enjoy the game for the gameplay when the game itself does its best to assign value to every minutia of input.

I find the aesthetic of the game is more “semi steampunk fantasy” and “high fantasy” with a twist of strange artistic choices. Though I find it very stunningly beautiful in a lot of places, hauntingly beautiful in some . . .

. . . huh? Not what you meant? Oh you meant the design aesthetic.

Yeah, I don’t see how it’s that different than launch. To note, there was always a looming feeling of “what do you do once you hit 80?” going on, and the answers were generally “I dunno, what do you want to do?” from the developers. They left a lot of stuff you could do, but not that much you couldn’t already have been doing.

I mean, there was Arah. But wow, I’m almost glad I never wanted to go so now the rejection due to being a ranger isn’t crushing.

There really isn’t that much to do once you hit the cap. And it’s worth noting, in Prophecies . . . there wasn’t much to do either. Factions and Nightfall had Hard Mode available, and some challenging dungeons (though they didn’t call them that) you could do.

Anyway, I’m glad this game isn’t for me. I can enjoy it a lot more knowing that.

. . . and, unfortunately, I’m going to be trying for at least two Agony Resistance-imbued Infusions.

Sigh. I’ll be getting good at killing karka.

I’m guessing it’s a Consortium sigil then.

Nasir.2195:

What? No Aquaman jokes?

To quote someone else:

Linkara: What’s that? You want me to make jokes about how useless Aquaman is? Ha ha ha! —deep breath-- Aquaman is the king of Atlantis, whose domain pretty much encompasses the entirety of the oceans. He own seventy percent of the planet. He is super-strong, super-fast, and he can summon Cthulhu to eat your soul if he felt like it. The perception of Aquaman as useless, is based on the Superfriends cartoon series, where Aquaman’s superpower is that he owns a jet-ski. I don’t make fun of Aquaman.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Try doing The Shatterer with just 10 people. Much more fun.

It is considerably more fun. This no longer happens with the chest changes, though.

Also I understand the “Three-man Claw of Jormag fight” on one server was hilariously bad/good fun.

That’s not Penny Arcade. That’s Extra Credits, who are separate from Penny Arcade. Also your recommended videos are very useful.

Anyway.

RE: Defiant —

Defiant is probably one of the better depth-inducing mechanics but it’s also one of the more hated because people in large fights simply don’t play with it properly. However, I have been in groups which manage that Defiant counter for some really wonderful stun chains. It’s been glorious the one time it clicked and we pretty much could unload on the boss at the same time, leaving them open for more stuns/knockdowns.

It does not need to be changed, people need to understand it better. Or just not spam CC skills in the open-world champion fights.

RE: The Lovers —

I hated this fight. We could not keep them apart properly when I did the story, until we managed to stun-lock Vassar and manage to make it work. It also had the potential to be very interesting and it definitely changed up the flow.

Notably, there are other encounters where you have to think and actually figure out how to do it. I hate most of them because the gimmicks make it really hard to handle. The Infused Grawl Shaman was one most recently which I loathed due to the swarms of Lava Elementals making it impossible to dodge sometimes.

Sky.7610:

You have $1. You were happily able to buy an apple. I give a bonus to every person in the country $50,000 (example). Would that apple still cost $1? Probably not, but nothing were removed from you! So why is this not a punishment?
———————————————————————————
@everyone else, Yes, you running dungeons, events, w/e ruins my gaming experience! Sky orders you to stop this atrocious act!

Oh joy, the misunderstandings of economics and the mangling of analogies.

He has $1. He can buy an apple.

You give every person in the country a check for $50,000. You go to jail for bank fraud, because that’s more money than technically exists in the system worldwide. We all laugh and frame the checks with “VOID” stamped across them.

He has an apple and no longer has $1, just whatever it didn’t cost as change. You are in jail where there are no apples.

That’s punishment.

lekyii.9856:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

lekyii.9856:

DONT even try compare raiding with Group Events, theres no tactics no skill in group events its only zerg fest everywhere, not in a 1000 years you can compare raiding with group events.

Oh I dunno, it pretty much matches up the times I’d been party to Plane of Time raids.

i dunno what raids have you done, but staying in the same place for 5m and just tapping 1 is not raiding m8.

Plane of Time. That’s EverQuest: Planes of Power, for the record your honor, which was very much “a raid”. Before World of Warcraft, mind you. I haven’t touched WoW because I got my fill of “raids” in EQ1.

And that raid was often “stand here and drop Complete Heal on the main tank for as long as you can and call when your mana hits 20% so the next cleric can step in”.

Or, if I was on my ranger “keep shooting arrows, don’t draw aggro, and when we say so pop Trueshot Discipline and burn him down fast”.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

@Tobias Trueflight: I was talking about the plans Trahearne comes up with, not the actual execution of those plans, as that would be impossible to take credit for.

Really?

I got a screenshot for that too.

BunnytheSwordsman.4173:

If you like to be a Ranger, this game isn’t for you. XD

But still play a ranger, it builds character in other ways than levels. xD

I have not played a game in which rangers got proper respect, mostly due to being more than a little gimmicky and not the best at what they can do. However, they’re decent enough to be interesting to me.

lekyii.9856:

DONT even try compare raiding with Group Events, theres no tactics no skill in group events its only zerg fest everywhere, not in a 1000 years you can compare raiding with group events.

Oh I dunno, it pretty much matches up the times I’d been party to Plane of Time raids.

That’s not the Priory Emblem . . .

It almost looks like the Shining Blade but with a key instead. That’s intriguing.

And, heck, might as well go one extra . . .

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Does nothing, knows nothing, gets all the credit. (For the greater good, you know)

Oh really?

Screenshot ahoy.

Parthis.2091:

Purgatory.5296:

Will they agree that the “No Holy Trinity” combat system is a failure or at least needs some improvement?

Quoting this to echo it too. The removal of the trinity, or at the very least treat management tools is a major mistake IMHO. I don’t feel like I have a real role in this game and PvE is very shallow.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for the guild I lead; PvE is dull as no matter how you dress it up you win by “Dodging out of red circles” and dealing damage. Every member has at some point uttered “I miss being a healer” or “I miss being a tank” etc etc.

I pine for Monster Hunter and other Capcom games, where twitch reflexes and quick judgments made the game impossible for so many, and yet the people who could found it so very entertaining . . .

Specifically speaking, Monster Hunter . . . no trinity of tank/dps/healer, entirely skill-based combat, and absolutely niche games lots of people complained about endlessly.

Mostly about Plesioth but . . .

Hmm.

So, ArenaNet tries making things, people complain about it. “Why don’t you fix what you already have?”

ArenaNet decides to fix what they already have, people start crying “stagnation” and “the game must be dying if they’re not pushing”.

I want my 50 silver from all the people who told me I was too pessimistic expecting this.

Konrad.9587:

There should be more ways of earning laurels, or a way to earn more of them – with DR – but without the absurd ceiling of one per day and ten per month.

I’m going to say this should read differently:

There should be more ways of earning what you want to buy with Laurels which are not purely cosmetic than to get Laurels.

Which really only applies to Ascended necklaces.

Rieselle.5079:

Unfortunately ANet is not quite brave enough (unlike say, EVE) to flout expectations. So GW2 breaks new ground cautiously whilst remaining somewhat familiar.

EvE Online is such a wonderful little gem of a game. I’ll never play it but still I’m glad it exists.

Thrashbarg.9820:

If I want to play an RPG style game, online, with my friends around the country I have to choose one from a list of basically identical titles and jump on a gear treadmill. I’d hoped to avoid that with this game, but instead of simply saying “this game isn’t for you” to all the people complaining it wasn’t the same as every other MMO, they added a nice long grindy treadmill straight out of “The Idiot’s Guide to MMO Design”.

Well if you wanted, and your friends wanted, you can go get MapTools, buy some D&D books or Pathfinder, and get to work.

. . . what? It’s valid to all his points. It’s not intentionally grindy like an MMO, it’s personal, it’s RPG like, and it’s not made with the Idiot’s Guide to MMO Design.

(It’s probably made from the Idiot’s Guide to D&D but that’s beside the point.)

Vayne.8563:

Kromica.2831:

Its not for you if you bought it based on what was said in the manifesto.

I bought it based on what was said in the manifesto and I’m happy with the product. Everyone likes to pick on the manifesto but plenty of people think the game got fairly close to what they said they wanted to do. If you didn’t, shrugs. Doesn’t change the game for anyone else.

I may be the only person who saw the Manifesto and said “it’s not going to happen exactly like that. I mean, even Richard Garriott didn’t get far with Ultima Online”. I knew there were several things they were describing which was going to hit technical limitations, and what to expect the compromises to be.

I knew we weren’t going to get “permanent, lasting changes” because it was counter to something else where they had said they don’t really like the idea of locking players out of participating in something fun just because they showed up late to the party. (I think I ran across that during GW1’s run.)

I knew the game was still going to have its share of button-mashy combat or “hit the big bag of HP until it drops”. You’re not going to get rid of that without pretty much screwing over the rest of the design. Especially where the Dynamic Events are meant to offer participation awards so people can get credit for being there even if they’re not the top damagers. You can see this during things like champion events in low level zones where they spawn and get dropped before more people can join in.

Heck, the Shadow Behemoth and Frozen Maw? You’d be lucky to get any credit on pre-events, and if you weren’t on top of targeting you could lose credit on the actual group event boss. Imagine if that was the same all the way to the Claw of Jormag . . . how frustrating.

I may be the only person who knew the manifesto wasn’t word-for-word design document to be held as law, and saw it as what they were aiming for.

Pirlipat.2479:

Tobias Trueflight.8350

Granted, if people would get over Ascended gear as a “necessity” then this wouldn’t be discussed to death like it is every few days.

Well but that’s a bit like putting a huge bright sign in your garden, saying “Please ignore this sign.”

. . . which I had someone do similar of. But that’s a story for another time, probably over drinks and fries.

Anyway, yes, the problem still lies in player perceptions of what they “have” to do. Note, before Laurels there was still discussion of having to do it. And I know I caught a couple people complaining in Lion’s Arch about “now they give out the Karma Jugs for dailies” back in October. Because, somehow, it would flood the world with exotic-wearing scrubs.

And people saying “oh now I have to do my Dailies or I’ll never get a Legendary” while forgetting they had to anyway . . . and when asked, they don’t have the Precursor yet. Which is probably the biggest step you need I think.

critickitten.1498:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

What happens when a smart, cunning, skilled player can basically walk all over your game? What positive effects . . . as a whole, does that have if they learn early on all they need to do is stand where something can’t hit them and hit the monsters back?

When a game is properly designed, this doesn’t happen. And if every monster had a ranged attack, this would literally never happen.

When a game is properly designed? I have not seen many games where the developers anticipated everything possible a player could do.

Mind you, while your quick proposal is a fix, it runs into other problems from the top of my head. That a monster meant to have brute strength but short range now has longer range than it should. Broken monster now needs redesign . . . we start approaching a point where there’s not much difference between attack sets.

I prefer having distinct monsters who don’t have access to ranged attacks. I would like intelligent mobs like Flame Legion to have the option to switch to bows or rifles or something. I don’t know if this code is possible.

- pause -

Devs, is it possible? That’s be great to see them actually having the power to swap weapons mid-combat like a player for a greater challenge. You did this before in War in Kryta where you went all-out and made dual-profession enemies which were then a considerable challenge.

Pathing-based invulnerability is a cheap mechanic that doesn’t always work properly, resulting in it triggering in odd places and at times when it shouldn’t.

As I know I’ve said multiple times, I’d had it incorrectly trigger while I stood right next to a mob, simply because the mob was engaging me in underwater melee and our z-axis didn’t match up perfectly, so the game thought I was trying to “cheat” and slapped invulnerability on him….until it realized that we were both still hitting each other, then it would go back off. Then back on. And so on, until I gave up and readjusted myself so the game would properly read us as both in combat.

Big question. Have you /bug reported it each time with a photo of the invulnerability?

In fact the game struggles to understand “combat” in general, as it often will still think I’m in combat long after I’ve fled from a mob’s aggro range.

I find it counts any conditions on you as a sign you are still “engaged”. And if the leash for a monster is set far, then it will still take a while for you to be out of combat. Also, something else might have tagged you. I’ve actually been “out of combat” in a huge WvW melee a couple times because literally nothing was hitting me.

More to the point, what happens when you have that going on in a game where one group of players who can pretty much farm with impunity are playing alongside ones who don’t? Or more to the point, if everyone does it and there is no challenge?

We saw back in early GW1 the proliferation of certain farming builds because they were super efficient and almost unstoppable. I say “almost” because they required a lot of skill to pull off, and an intricate use of the system. But once you knew how? As many Ectoplasms as you had time to go farm. Or other objects, with no risk to you.

Aside from self-benefits, exactly how does this make the game better?

We already have all of that in this game.

How is the removal of a bugged mechanic going to change this fact?

That depends on how it’s removed, doesn’t it? Also, you skirted the question with a toss-aside comment.

Aside from self-benefits, exactly how does this make the game better? And from a different angle:

Is it worthwhile to open the door to more exploits or balancing issues to handle this in that fashion?

Gaudrath.6725:

There is virtually no downside to dailies. And yet some people try oh-so-hard to find one and complain about it.

Yes there is a downside, and it’s not with dailies themselves. It’s with the Laurels. The way they are handled to get access to Ascended gear is the downside.

Granted, if people would get over Ascended gear as a “necessity” then this wouldn’t be discussed to death like it is every few days.

Zeefa.3915:

I am among the few that actually like Trahearne I think. I think he is a nice character

I think he is too. But I liked him better when he was Cecil, Dark Knight of Baron.

Wait . . .

Onshidesigns.1069:

I think Anet needs take out the WvW tasks in the PvE dailies. And then reward WvW/ PvP players with a laurel for completing PvP dailies. Giving players two laurels for playing the whole game.

I’d rather they just give one laurel for Daily PvP or PvE. Please don’t give people more reason to complain about people “being better” because they do both We’ll be right back here two hours before the patch goes live talking about the same topic

Riselight.3695:

What do you expect? Getting stuff for not logging in? It’s a small task and reward for dedicated players…

Careful . . .

I would say someone who knows they only get a small amount of time and still logs in knowing they won’t be able to do much . . . is just as “dedicated” as someone else. Maybe even more so, since they could be doing something else with their time and they choose to play Guild Wars 2 instead.

Shiren.9532:

Dailies don’t happen while playing the game, they are restricted to once per day and if you miss a whole week you can’t make up for it on the weekend. If you don’t have time to play on Tuesday but you can play for several hours on Wednesday, a person who played for 30 minutes on both Tuesday and Wednesday is able to earn twice the reward as a person who played for four hours on Wednesday. This kind of system is horribly broken an in no way rewards content, it rewards logging in and comes at a massive opportunity cost for people who don’t log in.

Agreed. And this is different from normal play . . . how, exactly? Someone who pops on for 30 minutes at the confluence where they can hit Tequatl, Shatterer, Claw, maybe Frozen Maw and log out, day after day can make much more than Daily. Rare items which can either be sold off or turned (potentially) into Ectoplasm. (Note: This happened before the chest buff. Don’t drop this all on the idea the chest buff caused this.)

But we aren’t complaining about that. We’re complaining about Laurels. I assume we are, that is, because the Karma isn’t spoken of with the same bitterness, nor the Mystic Coins. And honestly, the Karma is perhaps the most useful of the three.

And we can pull the situation further. Someone logging on 30 minutes every day and milking it for a lot of goods to enrich themselves, while someone only can log in for a thin sliver of time on the weekends. Where they can do their Daily and absolutely nothing else.

Is that what we’re looking at here? Because I find it hard to accept someone who knows their time is that limited is going to expect all the rewards they “could have gotten” if they were available all week.

In most games, if you don’t play for a week or a month, you can jump back in and play a lot during the weekend or over a couple of weeks and catch up fairly easily.

Haha. No. Well . . .

Single player games, yes, but that’s the charm. No timetables, do things at your own pace. I mean, unless it’s Farmville.

Prior to all the daily and weekly rewards (laurels, pristine fractal relics, guild commendations) you were able to move along the GW2 gear acquisition at your own pace with no artificial limitations and nothing punishing you for missing out. Gear you obtained you earned in game the same as everyone else. Now that we have a bunch of dailies, it’s nearly impossible for a lot of people to keep up and it’s very difficult to acquire different gear for different builds, the resource investment and grind involved is quite dramatic and if you can’t log every day in to perform the trivial tasks required for dailies (it’s possible to finish most if not all dailies without leaving level 1-15 maps) you can very quickly fall behind people who complete far less challenging tasks than you, who play play far less (just more often) than you, people who don’t earn their gear, they are practically given it for fulfilling, not gameplay requirements, but login requirements.

Holy run-on sentence.

By the way? Almost everything you said there could apply to things before Laurels. Gear specialized for specific stats was difficult to obtain, or at least expensive. Sure, it was just a Trading Post away at any time.

But it wasn’t free. It still carried a requirement of coin. Or, if you knew someone, materials. Exotics would require pretty expensive materials too.

To me, that’s why dailies are a punishment. They have exclusive access to rewards that you need to log in every day to progress towards at a reasonable pace.

There’s a point in that they’re “exclusive” access to exactly one type of reward.

The coveted Chauncey von Snuffles III.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

“Posting on the forums should count as part of the dailies since obviously people spend more time complaining about them then actually doing them.”

Haha. Best statement i heard in a while. The irony. I guess complaining is more fun.

For some, it is. For me, discussion is plenty fun.

Of course, it’s only more fun because I worked second shift and all my friends were around either as I was getting ready to go to work or at work