Guild Wars 2

Vengerin.6013:

Seeing your message posts, I guess you are a fan of the character story and don’t mind/like Trahearne and that’s cool, but for another kind of player like me, the ones that took to the letter the ’you’ll be the hero of your story’ promotion, the ’What’s your story?’ selling line from A-net, the thing with Trahearne is that we don’t feel so heroic or epicness being a delivery boy.

Sure, you said Trahearne wasn’t doing a thing until our character moved things and that only adds weight to the thing saying he’s big enough for his post and characters in game, npcs and lore side, are giving him much more credit of what he really deserves.

The Caledborg thing and the rest is a mere point of view. But for me, the actions of A-net with him are just saying who they think the hero is… and the problem is that what they think is the thing forced on us.

A-net did what they did and nobody can change that (for more that I saying mentally every time I have a cinematic with him: Gasoline, fire… please…) but as I said, they can fix that up don’t doing the same mistake again with another dragon.

It’s less that I’m a fan of the story, and more that I’m an amateur writer who has spent a fair bit of time understanding why stories are done certain ways. Trying to understand why things happen both internally (within the fictional universe) and externally (things in real life).

You’re correct in that I don’t mind Trahearne, as I like the character concept but I’m not going to go so far as to say I like the execution. I can see what they were shooting for, and from there work backwards to understanding for myself just how this got built.

From that perspective, and from the past works of Guild Wars 1, I already get the strong feeling that yes, there will be another NPC “point man/woman” the next time we have to go up against a dragon. If it’s Jormag, you may see it being a norn or kodan. If it’s Kralkatorrik you may see it be a human or charr. If it’s Primordius you’ll probably be seeing an asura or stone dwarf.

“Why can’t it be us?” There’s no real reason it can’t be, but if you decide to put the player character that close into the story you run into another set of issues writing this. Specifically, not all player characters are created equal. Especially now that you have a rather spectacular amount of options in the personal story of what path to take. (I won’t say “each one is unique” because by the nature of it being a programmed set of options, it’s more than possible that someone else you never met has made all the same choices.) And from a writer’s standpoint, it is tremendously hard work to write with a large amount of unknowns or options. It’s possible to make it work, but it would take a lot of time, a lot of effort . . . and that translates into a lot of money and a long time between concept and release.

As noted, since this game is voiced in places (in many places) you’re looking at lines for a voice actor to say. Allowing more variation and more options means more lines and more work for them . . . and more to pay them. You can very very easily reach a place where you simply cannot afford to make something more complex based entirely on cost. Similarly, you can reach a point where it would take far too much time to put it into practice. And that’s assuming you don’t find plot holes or bugs . . . both of which are highly likely to spring up.

Those are the real-world answers as to “why not my character?”. The lore based reasons are much fewer and weaker, but it boils down to trying to reconcile exactly what it is that makes them special as opposed to any other person besides the fact it’s the player character.

Sadly, understanding these things also led me to understand . . . yes, there are players/readers who simply do not care and will always stop to ask “why did Frank get to be the one to do this when Larry could have done it?” and won’t accept the perfectly valid answer from the writer:

“Because those are the choices I made.”

Tachenon.5270:

There’s only one NPC I will accept in this role: Rainbow Dash. If they bring her in, fine. Otherwise, yes, it should be our characters.

I don’t want it to be Rainbow Dash, she gets enough awesome stuff to do without killing a dragon too.

Ratty.5176:

If mobs are not being killed fast enough it means the people on your team are getting swarmed by more mobs, this can lead to you not being able to heal through the damage being taken, and this is when teams normally go down.

I’m not sure I follow how I’m directly responsible for other people’s inability to heal, dodge, or otherwise mitigate incoming damage . . . I mean, I can understand the point of “if you’re substituting a significant amount of your stat bonuses for ‘luck bonuses’ then you’re not helping as much as you could be”. I’d agree it’s true, without hesitation.

But we get down to statements like this, and often ask the same question: if we are getting through the fighting without people dying and without incident, why does it matter?

Ohoni.6057:

I will note this: If and when you guys get around to initiating the final battle storyline against Jormag, the lore apparently indicates that this series of events will begin when “someone” is capable of breaking Jormag’s tooth in Hoelbrak. I’m giving you a friendly warning right now, if, in some strange fever dream, you guys have even considered making this “someone” be a random NPC, rather than the player character, I would strongly advise against it. If you think the Trehearn hate is bad, you can’t even begin to imagine the deluge of hatemail that “Mary Sue Toothbreaker” would have showered upon her for “tooth-blocking” the player character like that.

It won’t be a random NPC. It will be someone who hasn’t already tried it, I’m wagering, and probably someone from among the kodan or norn. I’m putting my money on a kodan, I think, because the norn have been trying for ages and the kodan have seen no need to try yet.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

1. Though the fact remains that all Kryta’s doing to aid the Ascalon Liberation War (or w/e its called on the human side) is sending supplies and giving a pseudo police force for Ebonhawke alone – for the purpose of quelling Separatists. They’ve not sent any military support to Ascalon except in the past five years.

From what I understand, Queen Jennah understands Ebonhawke is a human city and wishes to support it. She opted to make the peace treaty because it was clear that there was only a stalemate going on between Ebonhawke (immovable object) and the charr (unstoppable force) which was detrimental to both sides.

Conjecture: She sends aid explicitly so peace can be maintained, not to launch offenses against anyone other than the charr. Notably, as well, Ebon Vanguard are working with charr against other targets in the northeast of Ascalon. Including the Dragonbrand.

And while the charr maintain a level of distrust and disdain for humanity, so far it appears most of them just went “meh, whatever, we got Flame Legion issues to deal with anyway”. The blind, unyielding hate is seemingly only one-directional in regards to current living people.

. . . Foefire ghosts on the other hand, well . . . that’s a different can of worms

1. I’d say the White Mantle/Bandits/Corrupt Ministry coalition (whether or not you say it’s a single force) are the biggest threat of all racial enemies, given their ties to so many hostile groups – I mean, they’re allies with enemies of humans, asura, sylvari, and norn. And thanks to the events of Crucible of Eternity, the Inquest have been given a mighty blow. And BTW, the alliance between Inquest and bandits is fairly new – at least as far as Krytans know (same goes for the human/centaur alliance). And the Flame Legion has posed no threat to Kryta – they may hold extreme hatred for humans, but they’re not only a far distant threat but also having all of their attention on the charr, who were until the past year, enemies of Kryta (thus Krytans had no care for the other three legions’ woes except for the groups trying to bring peace).

The biggest threat to humanity is indeed from within, and I think that was outright stated pre-release. That the court of Kryta is as deadly as sorties against the Flame Legion, but more subtle. But all races? I don’t think the White Mantle or the bandit coalition (whichever it is in truth) could muster enough strength to do more than be an annoyance.

We’ve already seen what happens if you kitten off the Captain’s Council of Lion’s Arch . . . they go and they wreck your home, kill your children, and call it a day. We’ve also seen long in the past what happens if you convince norn you’re worth fighting.

Also, the Nightmare Court and the Inquest appear to be using the bandits and each other as much as they’re working with them. The Inquest aren’t about to turn down anything useful to them, and the Nightmare Court don’t care so long as they get to inflict suffering.

No, I think that unless there’s far far more power behind the bandits . . . they are a credible threat, but not on the level as Kudu’s experiments in the Crucible.

Now, taking what decisions were made about Trahearne’s destiny putting yours aside for a time. It’s clear in the final chapter of the story that you cannot defeat Zhaitan until its power has been weakened, and until Trahearne succeeds. The steps to invading Orr one step at a time and pushing back the minions is an instrumental piece of groundwork to weakening the dragon enough to take on directly. The Eyes, the Mouths, and the cleansing of the Artesian Waters all are necessary first steps.

For that, you take out the Mouths, an Eye, and are instrumental in destroying more support without Trahearne’s aid than with it. The Pact’s three-pronged assault by land, air, and sea towards the end is where the orders shine instead of Trahearne. The followup mission I did in the Cathedral of Silence had Trahearne along but he didn’t do anything other than come to listen to the information.

If you want to widen it just to “NPCs” then we come back to something else which is of import. As I said before, if we accept that being a hero is acting when others would choose not to, then it’s your heroics which prompt things to be in motion. It’s your involvement which pushes things to get done, even if it’s not your hand doing it directly. You motivate and inspire people to action, and to put aside differences for the sake of the one goal which matters: defeating Zhaitan and the other dragons. Even Destiny’s Edge gets over their grudges and pulls together, because you convinced them through your assistance and prompting that it was not as important as getting the job done.

I would also submit that Trahearne’s “motivational speech” we see in the Dream, the one which you are present for, only succeeded because the Commander is such a strong figure that the Pact has seen they can win. After all, one person is running into battle against impossible odds and coming out the other side. What could a hundred . . . a thousand . . . do with that level of conviction?

They could have done anything else, but they didn’t. Trahearne existed, and his duty was to cleanse Orr. He was given the only tool for the job, and that tool is no more now that the task is done.

The whole “magic sword” aspect is an interesting conversation, though it will wander pretty far afield if we go ahead and discuss it. The magic sword making the hero is an old trope, but it’s been subverted recently many times to the point where authors and legends pretty much have come to an agreement that the tool is not what makes the hero . . . it is an inherent quality they possess which drives them to action in cases where ordinary people would choose not to act.

In this case, Trahearne is a hero not because of Caladbolg, but because he chose to do something. Before our characters came along, he wasn’t doing anything other than waiting. Being honest, he was mostly coasting by going “yes I know it’s my destiny, but I’m not ready yet”. Then we come along, and the time is right to act. He acts, he moves on his destiny rather than not acting, and for that he is a hero.

So too are our characters. Taking my human ranger into account, rather than run and hide when centaurs attacked Shaemoor he grabbed a weapon and went out to help evacuate civilians to safety and then unbidden charged into a battle alongside trained soldiers without regard for his own safety. That’s the prelude to the rest of the story, and that is what sets him to be a hero regardless of what happens after. It can’t be taken away, it can’t be blunted, it is what happened.

I am taking from your posts you are approaching this from the sylvari aspect, and I’ll be the first to line up and say: I haven’t done much with the sylvari characters. They were the second-to-last race I picked because I was more in tune with norn and charr after Eye of the North. Stupid reasons, perhaps, but they had more to them than the sylvari and I . . . plain . . . do not like the asura.

From what I gather, your wyld hunt, your destiny, is stated to be fighting the dragons. Starting with Zhaitan, since it is the most pressing matter to the Grove and the one which threatens your race the most at that time. Trahearne’s destiny is to cleanse Orr – one way or another, you were going to wind up with fates entwined. I understand he takes more part after the first chapter of the personal story, and I’m anxious now to start seeing how that works out.

(more coming)

Revolution.6301:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Revolution.6301:

Why is everyone saying you can ‘choose’ to grind. Okay so this what your saying

I can take the Bus which will take me over an hour and a half to get to work because I can’t stand driving my car.
or.

I can take my car and get to work in half an hour.

I might perfer taking the bus but taking my car is faster and sitting 1:30 minutes on the bus is simply to much time wasted.

Yes you can choose not to grind but you will never get anymore.

Well, maybe but the cost of taking the bus over taking your car is time as opposed to . . . well, extra unspecified charges. Fuel prices. Vehicle maintenance. Insurance. When you start adding it up, there are compelling reasons to use a good mass transit system over a personal vehicle in some instances.

So, yes, sometimes the “grind” to taking mass transit is actually better.

you missed my point. Ignoring cost, repairs JUST looking at time.

. . . we’re not going to do this are we? Boil it all down to one and only one detail and ignore everything else? Because then I’ll have to make the one comparison about avoiding time-based grind which will get this post removed, myself banned from posting anymore, and will be infuriatingly disgusting to everyone while still following your point.

Revolution.6301:

Why is everyone saying you can ‘choose’ to grind. Okay so this what your saying

I can take the Bus which will take me over an hour and a half to get to work because I can’t stand driving my car.
or.

I can take my car and get to work in half an hour.

I might perfer taking the bus but taking my car is faster and sitting 1:30 minutes on the bus is simply to much time wasted.

Yes you can choose not to grind but you will never get anymore.

Well, maybe but the cost of taking the bus over taking your car is time as opposed to . . . well, extra unspecified charges. Fuel prices. Vehicle maintenance. Insurance. When you start adding it up, there are compelling reasons to use a good mass transit system over a personal vehicle in some instances.

So, yes, sometimes the “grind” to taking mass transit is actually better.

Here’s a thought . . . try adding an opposing server person to your party and asking if you can just get help doing mapping. Tell them they can even escort you around with superior firepower to be sure you’re not about to try flipping stuff for your side.

I had someone from the other server actually ask me for help doing one of the three battle-based Skill Points a while back. And every now and then I watch a couple people who are friends across servers “dueling”.

vespers.1759:

i’m tempted to kick people when the tropical bird appears. ain’t nobody got time to carry a greedy kittener.

I know at least one person who would wear that set just for the lil tropical bird

mjharrison.3209:

True but that’s what gave GW1 such depth and longevity. Instead of shaving a little of that depth off to make balancing easier they took a sledgehammer to it, to the point that within 2 months of release, the game feels really bland. All the classes and skills are virtually the same, and play virtually the same, only with minor variations. Where are the skills like soul barbs and fragility for example?

Throw in “Spirit of Failure” and “Spirit Shackles” and you have listed here all four hexes I loathed to get smacked with during my time in GW1. Partly because they never seemed to work as awesome when on my side.

Vengerin.6013:

And there are a lot of things that bug me about Trehearne.

Unless you are sylvari, the first time to meet him is in Claw Island and you trust him right away enough to suggest him like Marshal of the Pact. And not only that, the guy accept right away.

I know he saw the dream from the Mama Tree like you and saw his future but… That creeps me out.

The same with Caladbolg… As a sylvari you save the sword and you have the task to kill Zhaitan. And Mama Tree gives the sword to the guy with the Wyld Hunt of being an exalted gardener for Orr?? Really??

Yeah, yeah, I know, the Pale Tree sees the future, yadda, yadda… But seems wrong from the very beginning.

And those lines ‘With him we have an oportunity’, ’Trahearne’s right hand’…

It’s like salt in the wound.

I know the devs should love their own creation, I can get that, it’s the typical Ed Greenwood complex (that guy really loves Elminster), but we players only want what we want. I said it before: I’ll wait for my real personal story to begin.

Not Trahearne’s, not Almorra’s, not Logan’s (please…)… My character, full in glory, being the hero and being calling that.

But also I won’t mind more from Destiny’s Edge, specially Rytlock and Felici… I mean, Zojja :P

Even something about Logan (I hated the guy until Arah, story mode).

Yeah, look . . . I’m just waiting on my Arah Story to finish my personal story but I did run it before. Let me address this please?

You’re correct in that he basically just appears if you’re not a sylvari. At least Tybalt was kind enough to explain who this Firstborn was and why I should respect him. (Actual thought: “So you spent your time around Risen and in Orr . . . which is almost literally crawling with Risen, and you’re alive to tell the tale? Can I shake your hand? Can you teach me how you didn’t draw all their attention so I can go there?”)

As for that super-awesome greatsword? It’s clear as you reach the end that Caladbolg was never meant to be solely a weapon. It was a “seed” to facilitate the rebirth of Orr. The fact you could tap its power offensively didn’t mean it was only a weapon.

As for “Trahearne’s right hand”, bear in mind that while he leads, you act. You act, and everyone knows by the final chapter that if you show up their chances of coming home alive just doubled. (Unless you tell them to “hold this entrance” in which case . . . run. Just run.) And you do need Trahearne, his knowledge about the Risen is important . . . as is his talent for rituals. But as far as missions go . . . without you, this wouldn’t work. He can’t stand up to a fight (he’s never had to) and people are expecting him to be this Risen-stomping leader when his talents are more in line with the Priory’s “knowledge is power” approach.

Odd note, Elminster isn’t who Ed Greenwood considers himself to be. He considers himself to be Mirt, an innkeeper in Waterdeep. Strange, as it’s said Ed Greenwood resembles Elminster.

Oh, and Destiny’s Edge? I really appreciated what they tried but we really needed them in the personal storyline, not the dungeons where their story unfolds. That odd choice never sat well with me – we spend the first three chapters learning from these mentors, but then they’re not there until the end when these five people show up and go “yeah we’re a team again, point us at Zhaitan”. I always thought the reconciliation should have happened during the last chapter.

It doesn’t even need to be the focus of the mission, or take up real-estate within it. Have it happen between the missions that slowly the members show up in the instances before the briefings and throw around lines, about how they’re getting over their failure and loss getting back in the saddle.

My Dead Characters.9517:

bolded non constructive part and italicized the extreme that you go to, wearing mf gear doesnt make you equal to lesser gear. but dont drag me into this war between you and tobias pls valenthor

I’m not at war with him. I got a fight enough trying to make the case Trahearne isn’t a waste of space.

Robbyx.1284:

Neural.1824:

Really starting to get disgusted with how Anet seems to treat support as just another facade that makes them look important to potential customers.

I’ll bet that if someone has trouble buying gemstones, the response lightning fast with impeccable service though.

I agree…as someone who drifts wide and far on the Internet i can tell you Anet’s reputation is not good, in fact amongst other games and game companies Anet is considered “a bit of a joke”.

So are a lot of other companies. Like, all of them. Even Mojang.

Vengerin.6013:

I was sure I was about to play GW2 no matter what and I was very into the hype but I played other mmos in the waiting and tested some in BETAs or so…

The Old Republic is… crap. How something created by Bioware and based in Star Wars can be so bad?? Npcs that doesn’t recognice your gender or race, a story that doesn’t care about that too, that doesn’t change a little (yeah, little things… very little), a story with an end (in a mmo >< ) and very, very, very unappealing enemies or friends… And the thing they made in the lore with Revan made me wanna punch them in their faces ><

In Tera I don’t see even a story and in Secret world, in Beta was awful but it changes and grow up better…. I like it, not so much as GW2 but it’s ok.

I really, really think that GW2 story can be turn to be great if they start from this point… Let us call the story ‘till this point the beginning. Bring up the rest of the Elder Dragons, let us get our glory, let us use our choices in the character creation for something more…. And stop trying to make us into companions, we aren’t >_<

Ps: Planescape Torment, ohhh, the memories :P

You may be lucky, I could never find a copy of Planescape. Legitimately.

I think the biggest problem with any MMO is that they want the story both ways. They want the player to feel good and the center of the world (maybe), but on the other hand, EVERY player can’t have that or you wind up with some interesting things. I mean, look around the game at other players. See all the humans? They’re all the Hero of Shaemoor. The norn are all The Slayer of Issormir. All the charr lost everyone in their warband except one person, while taking out the ghost of Duke Barradin.

Yes, it’s epic and it makes you feel good as you play those first few chapters of the personal story. But once you stop to think it gets ludicrous . . . and it starts to unravel. Unfortunately, you went and peeked at the man behind the curtain. You pulled Santa’s beard.

This is a problem I don’t know IF it can be solved. Everyone wants to be the hero of the story, but the limitations prevent it from working out where everyone has a definitely unique story to be the hero of. That’s just not possible (yet) in an MMO as written by the developers.

I almost want to go back to some of the older, ancient MMOs where you were just some idiot who wandered around doing things of minor interest except for one-off events.

Valenthor.4052:

Is there really a GOOD reason why MF should be allowed in dungeons and not just shared/automatically applied? Can’t we all at least agree that it is a bad game mechanic in group play?

I’ve always disliked “lucky” gear in any RPG I’ve played, because there’s always those few things weighted in the loot rolls to have a less than 1% drop rate. The lucky gear was supposedly to allow people to get it easier, though that’s not . . . quite how probability works.

Magic Find falls in the same category, but I didn’t find it so detestable here maybe because it didn’t seem as impactful as . . . say, it was in Diablo 2. (Even worse, in Diablo 2 it was possible to have that hard-won jumped-up loot ninjasnatched by a “friend”.) I suppose it’s that nobody gets to see how much you’re using or even what drops for you unless you tell them. And even then, well, there’s accusations of dishonesty since nobody’s quite really . . . sure.

You know what would be interesting? If when you weren’t grouped it only worked for you, but if your party had an averaged-out bonus where you take the MF of everyone there and divide it by the members active. And people would still complain it was useless, worthless, and weakening the party :P

(That’s not a strawman for the people who want it gone, that’s more like “I’ve been around the internet long enough to know better”.)

mjharrison.3209:

Distaste.4801:

Direct damage is currently better in probably 90% of situations. Perhaps if you’re fighting a high armor target with protection on and no condition removal, condition damage is better, but for everything else direct damage is better. The fact that people with condition damage almost have to stack precision to get another condition is just bad mechanics. There should be “on condition tick” sigils that have a chance on tick to proc another condition. Why ArenaNet is so focused on crit boggles my mind. Think outside the box! On hit sigils, On heal, On dodge, On stealth, on Block, On evade, etc. ArenaNet has had plenty of room to expand but they’ve kept most of the decent sigil effects in the on crit area.

This hits on one of the several fundamental reasons why this game is so poorly designed relative to GW1 – a lack of conditional effects/events.

GW1 had skills that procced on acquiring a condition, losing a condition, acquiring a hex, losing a hex, acquiring an enchantment, losing an enchantment, amongst others. The existence of skills like these allowed, for example, builds that were solely focused around the application and quick removal of (conditions/hexes/enchants) rather than the degen caused by the conditions themselves.

I don’t understand at all why the designers of GW2 decided to eliminate conditional effects in favour of straight damage skills. It goes to the heart of what made the GW1 skill system so great.

It also was part of what made it broken in places and made classes like the Dervish awesome in skilled hands and not that good in the hands of others. I single out the Dervish here because their whole initial thing was stocking up Enchantments and then blowing them up to power effects. Mesmers had the same thing going with Mesmer Hexes, and they were likewise . . . well, you really had to be able to play a Mesmer to play a Mesmer well.

One of the major issues in GW1 was, after every skill rebalance and edit, there would be dozens of builds which would take advantage of the changes in order to pretty much trivialize things. There was often a blindness of how some subset of 200 skills would actually interact with each other when used in a certain combination. See “55 Monk”, the first case where interplay of skills off each other led to something entirely outside the power curve intended.

(And for giggles, note that in the “Norn Fighting Tournament” Mhenlo showed up with a 55 Monk build and someone else as a “Bunny Thumper Ranger”. And Mhenlo was one person who got questions on how to be beaten more than Magnus the Bison in my alliance chat :P )

I think the idea was that they didn’t want to go down that road again of complexity, and having to keep up with all the options.

Rezzet.3614:

you wont even notice the MF on skilled players even i trash dungeons in a blink with MF gear. so its more a L2P issue.

I’m more worried about the people who might see me getting killed, decide I’m wearing MF gear and kick me even though I don’t have any on anymore.

A thought . . . we had the revelation some time back that ANet wasn’t able to rollback characters. Maybe the responses are because they actually can’t fix it?

Vengerin.6013:

Oh don’t get me wrong, Baldur’s Gate is a favorite of mine and I enjoyed beating the tar out of it. (Except for how there were items hidden in really . . . impossible to find places unless you knew they were there.) But the dialogue choices and the way I was drifting one way or another fits into the standard video game morality scale of "faultless saint’ vs “puppy-kicking maniac”. I hate that system. I also hated that I was automatically docked for bringing along Viconia for no real reason. And I don’t mean that NPCs reacted badly and that is it; I mean I was unable to be as good as I wanted to be because she was within ten feet of me.

Oh, about Imoen . . . did you play the sequel? She winds up almost as much of importance as the Protagonist due to a few things.

Aside from that…. Stop the ones that didn’t played NWN or KotoR ’cause is spoiler time.
(Snip)
Yeah, pretty much the same!!

Oh you also had your mentor go Dark Side for apparently no reason. Like Aribeth. You were supposed to find parts of something to lead you to the weapon Malak was after. (Was it Malak? I forget.) Like in NWN finding the Words of Power . . . yes, there is enough going on similar in plot.

As for that twist in the story? That alone would make me rate it better than NWN, because the twist in that story towards the final act was not worth discussing at all. It barely counted as a twist. At least the final encounter was interesting.

Sorry, but even when I love A-net and I think they can create the most appealing npcs, they also are very capable to create the most annoying ones. And the way they try to balance things out in the story line and shorta… I prefer something that give me the sensation of epicness and that my character IS really important.

Really, isn’t so difficult let us having a moment of glory >_<

It’s why I say that most great videogames suffer from the same problem lately: either the main plot isn’t interesting and the characters are, or the main plot is a wonderful idea and the characters drag it down. I haven’t seen many games in the last ten years balance it well.

(MANY games, I said. I know they exist and probably played more than a few, please don’t take time to cite them to me :P And the first one to bring up Planescape gets a cookie.)

digiowl.9620:

Both your scenarios seem to involve 1 on 1 duels with a mob.

what i am talking about is 1 on 2+. Often a skill point challenge involve the spawning of 3+ mobs, with one being a veteran. most CC skills are single target with effects that last 1-3 seconds.

Meaning that there is no way to temporarily reduce the threat by putting either the veteran or the other mobs out of the fight for extended periods.

This then mean that AOE and kiting is the most relevant way of dealing with the fight.

And similarly attacking a single target at range in the open world will see red crossed swords popping up over one or more nearby mobs, leading to yet another 1 vs 2+ fight where attempting to be clever with CC is less effecting than simply running in circles and spamming AOE.

Never mind personal story missions that almost from the word go, across all races, put you in front of waves of 5+ mobs, often in cramped quarters.

Oh there are ways to handle skill challenges with 3 monsters (1 Vet & two normal). I take the tried and true method of “focus-fire the lil guys dead while stunning, knockback, et cetera to the large one”. If your crowd-control is so tightly controlled, then learn to use it where it will work.

It’s worth noting that in most cases, if I have any room to maneuver and it’s not a champion? My ranger usually can take care of it. On the other hand, my warrior ran into severe issues with a skill challenge which spawned a siege devourer and two lesser brethren.

And before we go further, I played EverQuest, where one class could literally keep a mob controlled/suppressed for almost nigh infinite amounts of time unless it was immune to the effects or heavily resistant (i.e. dungeon/raid bosses). It was also a very different MMO game style.

A closer analogy is out of Capcom, the Monster Hunter series. Where the combat is very moment-to-moment and is focused on dodging or avoiding hits rather than tanking them. Control techniques in that game are likewise very limited, and offer very small windows. (Except for flash bombs, but most serious players call that cheating.) And there were not a few fights where you were flat out denied the use of these tools for control . . . I can’t recall many complaints about how the control were useless, only that they weren’t strictly necessary.

And again, that’s pretty true here in GW2. The crowd control skills/effects can be used to good effect, but you can . . . mostly . . . get by without using them.

Ruin.3461:

Poledo.3256:

I think I must be the only person that shakes his head in sadness whenever I see yet another one of these.

No, I’m right with you. I’m not sure why these became popular in the first place; at least Gangnam Style had the fact that it wasn’t an absolutely garbage song going for it.

. . . why it got popular on the internet . . .

Look, this is the same thing that allows Creepypasta, 4chan, SomethingAwful, Reddit, YouTube, Channel Awesome, and Spoony to exist within four clicks of each other. I gave up trying to figure out how things become popular on the Internet.

And I even like some of those things I mentioned above.

Be honest. If you have a sample size of 10,000 runs and can offer detailed information on the drops and how they appeared abnormal? You’re probably going to be able to make a very good case enough to make ANet look twice. That sample size is not massive, but it’s not trivial either.

Narcemus.1348:

When it comes to what Salacious was talking about, I was extremely disappointed to see the lack of dwarven ruins in the game, I mean yeah you find caves with dwarven ruins, and some of the outposts appear later on, but I wanted to see just one of those rusty metal bridges still existing in game

250 years is a long time for something made out of metal and wood, as I recall a lot of Deldrimor structures being . . . stone survives, but wood which isn’t cared for rots (Shiverpeak mountains with lots of cold and snow also presents other effects on wood over time) and metal will rust, weaken, and collapse.

The bulk of dwarven ruins appear to be underwater or half-buried. Probably because not much would have survived any other way.

No, if there is an effect it could be explained by a rounding of numbers. Bear in mind math will treat 45% as 0.45 and 51% as 0.51 . . . and by some equations 0.45 will get something rounding one direction while 0.51 will have it go the other. IF there is an effect, it’s math.

Stormbluff Island. It’s quiet, but not declined as far as I can tell? Aside from the guilds who were doing WvW having moved on. Someone who knows more than I can get into that, I still see people around and get into conversations from time to time. Just there’s a higher concentration towards “peak times” than during the rest of the day as there sometimes was.

Valenthor.4052:

No. Stop turning this MF debate into a debate about elitism. It is pretty difficult to have a “best” build in this game by it’s nature, but this is besides the point. The key is intention. There is a big difference between someone trying their best to help the group and someone who intentionally puts on a MF stat that helps only them and hurts the rest of the group. Especially when the group is struggling. If you are breezing through and let the group know you are going MF than it really doesn’t matter. Problem is most people will just hide it and leech, even when the group is struggling.

Not turning it into elitism, not turning it into a “don’t tell me how to do what I do”, I’m just wondering aloud why this is the only absolute you choose to bring up.

It doesn’t matter if we just breezed through and I never got downed, if I let it be known I’m wearing MF gear, the instant point is that I was being selfish and not helping the group. Even if it was working out fine, or even if I was doing very well, the instant I say MF was anywhere on my gear? In this line of thought you’re promoting, it wouldn’t MATTER how well I did. It still could have, theoretically, gone better.

And for the record? Most of my gear has no MF on it since I got Temple exotics. Even before that, it was Shaman and Cleric parts with Soldier medallions. (Why Soldier? I had 15 of them before I slotted them in.) I still use some jewelry but that’s because I’m still trying to waffle over what stats to shore up the most before I commit. I think there’s a total of +10% MF I’m using at all. But, as the argument would undoubtedly go . . . that’s +10% worth of other stats I could . . . should . . . be putting into something else. Like Power or Crit Damage to raise my DPS.

I don’t like people trying to tell me what gear to wear, or that I’m actively (or passive-aggressively) hurting the party by wearing certain gear. But I put up with it because I primarily group with guildmates and PUG only when they’re not available and I have the time.

Poledo.3256:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

That’s . . . an interesting problem.

I’d say the moral isn’t “don’t fiddle with stuff” it’s “double check your work”. The Bank/Bag tab problem, some other things that don’t ask for confirmation, in general the moral of all these problems hitting people is: pay closer attention to what you’re doing.

It’s your own doing, your own fault, and while I take my hat off in sympathy . . . the lesson is not that things are badly designed (and even if you can successfully make the case they are) it is more that you should ‘measure twice, cut once’ as the old adage goes. Double check before you do something you might not be able to undo.

Come on I have to press an OK box to break down a green item and there is no confirmation box for changing guild leadership?

I wouldn’t know personally? I don’t lead a guild so I have to go on what others tell me. I actually think there’s too much “are you sure?” prompts with no way of turning them off (“Do not warn me again”).

Maybe I’m a little harsh about it because I grew up with computer programs that didn’t always ask for confirmation if I happened to slip and type “format c:” instead of “format d:”. Just as a very significant example . . . there are lesser ones. I can appreciate safeguards now, but I still wound up learning the hard way to always doublecheck what you’re about to do.

HawkMeister.4758:

BobbyStein.2315:

I’d also like to say that the teams that handled those other content types worked really hard and were under some intense deadlines.

Ha. Say no more.

It was the bean counters again, wasn´t it?

So it seems not only the writing could´ve used another month or two in beta, but definitely the rest of the game too.

Bean counters? No, probably people further up the company food chain. And probably not any single person, either. Still, I don’t think speculating on the corporate politics here is any good. It’s sufficient to say: “they had a deadline to meet”. As an amateur writer, I can appreciate the pressures that can form there.

Vengerin.6013:

She is annoying, she is blank, she screwed up things and she ended up being rewarded for that. In the gameplay, having her around, with her model in the way the majority of the time and, in the only coop she can helps, she can really screw the perfect completition…

It’s a thing that I think A-net should change in their way of creating story for characters: They use too much the resource of a npc to mix things, or be the motor, in the place of being the character of the player itself.

Bioware did that right in Kotor or Baldur’s Gate: your character is the hero or the center of the story, it’s the important part and the glue of all.

Baldur’s Gate? Oooh, that game. Where you’re subjected to way more of Bioware’s “you are either a saint or a puppy-murdering madman” decisions of good vs evil. And where the story winds up missing a couple steps in the last few chapters . . . we find out what’s going on but the path of finding that out doesn’t make any sense at all when you look at it. In a way, I think it progressed worse than GW2’s because it survived entirely on “trust what we tell you without wondering how we know”.

KoTR (Knights of the Old Republic) I looked up once, and saw it was almost the same plot as Neverwinter Nights overlaid on a Star Wars backdrop. And NWN was . . . weak. It was very weak.

I could go deeper into how the protagonist of Baldur’s Gate is very much a character who doesn’t matter (hint, it’s his daddy that matters the most, and what he did) or the same in Neverwinter Nights (it’s Aribeth who drives the plot there). But the problem is much the same as with Guild Wars 1 & 2 – the games are full of interesting side characters but the main story characters we’re supposed to care more for don’t have as much . . . impact.

I will admit, I rather liked what happened with Kormir, and sort of like Trahearne (I’m about to actually meet him in my sylvari’s plot, so maybe I’ll get a better feel for him there) and while I can see the point of some arguments . . . any time I hear that either of those two “stole” what was “rightfully” the player characters’ spoils? I wonder how in the heck I played a game entirely different from that.

That’s . . . an interesting problem.

I’d say the moral isn’t “don’t fiddle with stuff” it’s “double check your work”. The Bank/Bag tab problem, some other things that don’t ask for confirmation, in general the moral of all these problems hitting people is: pay closer attention to what you’re doing.

It’s your own doing, your own fault, and while I take my hat off in sympathy . . . the lesson is not that things are badly designed (and even if you can successfully make the case they are) it is more that you should ‘measure twice, cut once’ as the old adage goes. Double check before you do something you might not be able to undo.

bluewanders.5297:

Groups of zerker warriors already burn through legendary mobs in under 1-2 minutes… there are videos of that on youtuve.

Either tone down direct damage… or make it a level playing field where specialists in another type of damage can accomplish the same thing.

This I’m not aware of, I’ve stayed clear of watching “speed clears/kills” since I saw one where Urgoz’s Warren was cleared in less than half an hour by using a couple odd glitches. (Or if you prefer, watching someone do Morrowind in less than 15 minutes by abusing the living crap out of alchemy.)

bluewanders.5297:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Fortuna.7259:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zookeeper.2513:

I can see the health pool issue in PvE (mainly world event bosses) but I don’t think it would have much affect in dungeons or WvW. In dungeons, it would help multiple condi classes in a 5 man keep up with the non-condi, serker (while not cancelling each other out) builds that people are running. In WvW/sPvP I don’t think it would have an over reaching affect as the amount of passive and active condi removal is insane as it is now. I definitely believe your point on a shift, but I don’t think it would be completely overwhelming.

. . . I think it could have a huge impact in WvW if combined with zerg tactics. And if each person got their own 25 Stacks of Bleed/Poison/Burn? Condition-damage zergs might become a “thing”.

What is the big deal about dying from 100 stacks as opposed to 100 crit/power projectiles?

You can’t “evade” damage from stacks, mostly. Since this isn’t an actual thing going on and I’m not in a position to run tests? I can’t say other than to speculate weakly. WvW is not a huge strength but I’ve seen Damage over Time effects with more unrestricted stacking rules cause problems in the past.

Your argument has some merit… and is one reason my wvw skills might be better seperated from PVE… because players don’t have the same monolithic health pools that mobs have, which is what negates some builds… or possibly just removing or increasing the condition cap in pve but retaining it in wvw.

I could agree to that, though the effect from that change probably would cause mobs to have more health overall since people would burn through it with stacks faster . . . meaning you might see it becoming the only viable way to take down a single Legendary/Champion mob.

Fortuna.7259:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zookeeper.2513:

I can see the health pool issue in PvE (mainly world event bosses) but I don’t think it would have much affect in dungeons or WvW. In dungeons, it would help multiple condi classes in a 5 man keep up with the non-condi, serker (while not cancelling each other out) builds that people are running. In WvW/sPvP I don’t think it would have an over reaching affect as the amount of passive and active condi removal is insane as it is now. I definitely believe your point on a shift, but I don’t think it would be completely overwhelming.

. . . I think it could have a huge impact in WvW if combined with zerg tactics. And if each person got their own 25 Stacks of Bleed/Poison/Burn? Condition-damage zergs might become a “thing”.

What is the big deal about dying from 100 stacks as opposed to 100 crit/power projectiles?

You can’t “evade” damage from stacks, mostly. Since this isn’t an actual thing going on and I’m not in a position to run tests? I can’t say other than to speculate weakly. WvW is not a huge strength but I’ve seen Damage over Time effects with more unrestricted stacking rules cause problems in the past.

Valenthor.4052:

It amazes me to no end the amount of rationalization MF leeches will go to justify their leeching. The stat helps no one but yourself, it is purely selfish. Any other stat would be better to the group, it doesn’t matter how marginal it would be. Stop rationalizing that the “extra stats wouldn’t matter” or “my skill can somehow surpass all game mechanics”. Since when was it okay to not be the best you can be? Since when can you spam dodge and dps while dodging? Since when do numbers not matter in a MMORPG?

Some MF defender please tell me how is it any better than someone rolling in all blues and asking to be carried? And don’t tell me that you would be okay carrying them because we all know that is a flat out lie, as soon as you wipe once. And before you get all excited, I am fully aware you can wear MF and not wipe. Speed becomes important as soon as people know the routine and just farm it for whatever. And guess what? Every number matters when you want speed. I feel like, all of a sudden, people want to change decades of common gaming etiquette because the shinnies are too tempting. In what other game is it okay and accepted to not be trying your best for pure greed? Apparently someone trolling your dungeon with purposely done lesser gear (for his own personal lawls) should be accepted because that is the path some of you suggest is okay.

All right, assuming I concede the point (I’m not, but we’ll assume I did). Assuming that not being the absolute best I could be is detrimental to any group I would join, MF, GF or neither . . .

What exactly should I be putting on my character to make him the best? And if I go with something else, we’ve already established it’s not good for a group, since it’s not the best and I made the choice not to.

I’m trying to see if this is what you’re suggesting in turn . . . that unless I am running a specific set of armor numerically identical to what you determined was “the best”, I should not be grouping. Am I correct?

Hmmmm. Meteor Shower from the original game was also notoriously unwieldy from what I recall. It usually couldn’t hit other players if they were awake, because each falling meteor was telegraphed before it hit with enough time to dodge. (By walking away from the marker.)

I really wonder if this is a problem with “random hit location” more. Also, I need to do an elementalist at some point

synk.6907:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bearzu Smash.5962:

diamondgirl.6315:

Trahearne is like JD Drew.

That’s an insult to one of my most hated players to ever put on a Sox uniform. At least Drew could manage in right field.

If Treehorn was out there, he’d just wait for Ellsbury or Pedroia to make the catch, then take all the credit.

This insult only works if Trahearne takes personal credit for things he didn’t do. Which he hasn’t. At all.

But he has…
for example, the name “Fort Trinity”, or things you’ve done with NPCs in some of the various forks in the story missions

Examples beyond that will be required, and I’ll have to send one of my characters to go look into it. I’ll say this right now, I haven’t seen him take blatant “Oh I did this” credit for anything. I’ve seen him use “we” more often, as in “the Pact”.

As in “I have three orders here who barely tolerated each other and the Commander belongs to one of them. Giving any one of them credit for doing more than the others would create friction which could drive one or both of the other orders to just walk away and try to handle it alone.”

Edit: I’ll leave this here too:

Scholar Inkblood: Well done, Marshal Trahearne. That Orrian ugly looked nigh unstoppable, but you did it.

Trahearne: The Pact did it. Our combined efforts made this happen. Just as we’ll defeat Zhaitan together.

Yes he sure takes credit for other people’s work.

Richard Nixon.6573:

Why would a zerg run DoTs that are (primarily) single target and do less overall damage than pure damage? Not to mention group cleansing (guardians, mesmers, and necros come to mind), along with self cleansing, actually prevents a good chunk of the zerg’s already lower damage output…

Until we get the AoE nerfs, “condition zergs” won’t be a thing, even if they changed the stack limit.

Why would a zerg run it? Because there’s not a Commander in sight and someone thought it’d be a fantastic idea? By the way, I have exactly one self-cleansing skill (Signet of Renewal) and once I use it, it’s down for a while.

Also, I wouldn’t underestimate people doing really strange things, Remember how the mesmer portal got used,

Sousui.1635:

Towndrunk.9562:

I’m a casual player. I have noticed that this game is evolving in a way that is making it harder for casuals to complete content. Too bad. Why is that?

The game we are playing.. they are not the same.

I dunno, the only thing that’s changed so far and impacting my play in the game is the fact everyone with “good, excellent advice if you want to get anywhere” seems to think I need to:

- Stop playing a ranger, stop using a longbow, start using a greatsword warrior. And use Beserker gear.
- Stop running Fractals. Never look at Ascended. Don’t even think about it. And stop playing a ranger.
- Don’t heal people, let them die and waypoint. If they were better, they wouldn’t need to.
- Stop talking in /map chat unless it’s to talk about if the Penitent/Shelter is starting, Jormag is up, or how the game sucks.
- Stop playing a ranger.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

I see a few people with small guilds here who are concerned… here’s food for thought: if you all just help each other out with these guild events? It really can’t hurt to work together with different guilds for the duration of a single guild mission.

I think they’re more concerned about what it means that they might have to get help or expand membership.

athuria.2751:

(if you have a Whispers character, see how many hidden agents you can root out).

This is seriously a hobby of mine, you know. It’s very entertaining to do, and the hidden agents often will tell you a bit about the region you’re in. Take for instance an agent in Dredgehaunt Cliffs, who tells you there’s a steading nearby which the Sons of Svanir have taken over.

Then there’s the one in Brisban, who MASSIVELY helps a Renown Heart if you can find her.

WonderfulCT.6278:

It mostly just appears to be a GW1 reference. The agony representing spectral agony and infusion being seer protection. Ascention was just something to do in GW1 to allow you to gain more attribute points and go into UW and FoW : P.

Actually . . . you still had to go quest for those points And they had lore-based consequences.

Zookeeper.2513:

I can see the health pool issue in PvE (mainly world event bosses) but I don’t think it would have much affect in dungeons or WvW. In dungeons, it would help multiple condi classes in a 5 man keep up with the non-condi, serker (while not cancelling each other out) builds that people are running. In WvW/sPvP I don’t think it would have an over reaching affect as the amount of passive and active condi removal is insane as it is now. I definitely believe your point on a shift, but I don’t think it would be completely overwhelming.

. . . I think it could have a huge impact in WvW if combined with zerg tactics. And if each person got their own 25 Stacks of Bleed/Poison/Burn? Condition-damage zergs might become a “thing”.

Hmm, very informative and clear. It’s a good place to start playing the game . . . it’s not everything, it’s not “all you ever need to know”, but it’ll get you started. The comment about “defense can’t cover up lousy play” is correct, but having more defense will help you survive learning how to play tight.

Also, there’s no permanent choices for your build. So once you do get better at playing, feel free to eschew defensive statistics in favor of more offense-related ones. Just be aware you’ll likely fall into the “glass cannon” category if you drop your defense too far.

Anyway! Have a +1.

Zookeeper.2513:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Zookeeper.2513:

Anymore than 2 condi classes in a group will eventually gimp each other. Having stacks max out at 25, instead of individual stacks can and do hurt groups. Condition duration DR also hurts and plays into this. So while having 1 condi class in a group won’t really hurt a groups damage output, 2 or more can and will probably hurt a groups overall damage output until Arena Net comes up with a change to how conditions from multiple classes stack.

Having multiple people able to apply the same conditions weakens the ability to throw huge stacks. A ranger with a shortbow can stack Bleeding pretty high if he can “flank” the enemy, and if there’s someone else there inflicting Bleeding than one of them is winding up not stacking when they could be.

I still think it’s a little better than how GW1 had it, where you could get a max of 10 degeneration pips of regeneration pips, so stacking lots of DoT effects beyond that wasn’t as useful. At least here Bleeding, Poison, Burning can stack well and possibly do better?

Still, I’d only work for Condition Damage if every attack would drop a damaging condition.

Which is why the stack limit needs to go away. If one class stacks 15 and another gets 13-14, it should either be 2 separate bleeds (which I would prefer…) or it should be 28-29, not 25. Hell, I can constantly get more than the 10-12 stacks up that I mentioned with my Ranger with my build, but that depends on my pet, but with how pets are in dungeons, they usually die off too fast to help keep stacks up. Now I wish they would get rid of that “flanking” requirement for SB bleeds. Although I think some would see that as borderline OP…

I think getting rid of stack limits or allowing multiple stacks if from different sources might break the game and require a big working-over of health pools. Also, how fast would people complain of it being done on them from small armies of weak mobs which still can stack 3 Bleed on them fast?

It’d be a huge overhaul . . . which just as many people would then complain about just as much I’d expect thusly that such a shift would only be done if they thought it was overwhelmingly needed. (I don’t think it is. It kind of sucks, but then I think about “so what if I was on the receiving end?”)

Zookeeper.2513:

Anymore than 2 condi classes in a group will eventually gimp each other. Having stacks max out at 25, instead of individual stacks can and do hurt groups. Condition duration DR also hurts and plays into this. So while having 1 condi class in a group won’t really hurt a groups damage output, 2 or more can and will probably hurt a groups overall damage output until Arena Net comes up with a change to how conditions from multiple classes stack.

Having multiple people able to apply the same conditions weakens the ability to throw huge stacks. A ranger with a shortbow can stack Bleeding pretty high if he can “flank” the enemy, and if there’s someone else there inflicting Bleeding than one of them is winding up not stacking when they could be.

I still think it’s a little better than how GW1 had it, where you could get a max of 10 degeneration pips of regeneration pips, so stacking lots of DoT effects beyond that wasn’t as useful. At least here Bleeding, Poison, Burning can stack well and possibly do better?

Still, I’d only work for Condition Damage if every attack would drop a damaging condition.

Yeah, the lore is a little less blatantly shoveled into your face as it was during GW1. Being honest, some of the parts had trucks full of exposition, and some were good about “pick up as you go along, bookah”.

Here, you do have to actually interact with NPCs and ask around areas. Or stand around and listen to conversations going on.

Would I use my chests if I had a means of getting keys without using Gems or Gold-to-Gems?

. . . yes. I do every time a Key drops. If I had other ways of getting Keys which wouldn’t cause me to go through excessive hoops (Like Captain Commendations of an absurd amount for what I would pull in?) then I’d do them. And then I’d enjoy and use the boosters and such from them more often.

goldenwing.8473:

There is a concern about small guild participation, and that is being voiced by my guild and others.

And it’s a very simple view. “We play the game as we like to. When we can’t anymore, we leave.” I appreciate it.

I’m concerned a bit more about the costing of these things, than the ability to actually do them. If a small guild wants to do them badly enough, I have no doubts they will manage to do so. And it’s within anyone’s right to say “no, I don’t want to do that” and . . . not do it.

I still think until we see exactly what this is, that anything more than concerns are probably premature.

I generally received one Rare when I did them on my ranger (after he hit 80) the first time. I have not gone back for some of them but when I did Urmaug’s Secret (far eastern bit of Lion’s Arch behind the waterfall) daily I wasn’t getting awesome items after the first couple times. Occasionally a gem shard (Tier 5 gem) or Masterwork medallions/sigils.

So you can kind of “tap them out” I guess?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(Also, Tobias, you should read the OP more often, ja?)

Probably, but that would leave nitpickers with nothing to do and I’m a firm believer in offering employment to the less fortunate.

. . . also I should probably stop posting in the lore section altogether. I get it 10% wrong more often than not.