Guild Wars 2

Aggrostemma.1703:

My first problem is that every other profession can be build and be played without the “unique class mechanic”. There are thiefs never entering stealth and necros basically never going death shroud or summoning any minions. You can play an elementalist only attuning to water or a “pirate” thief with P/P and never using stealth. You cannot do this if you play ranger. You are FORCED to have and use your class mechanic!

Thief class mechanic is not stealth, it is Stealing. Also, there are plenty of rangers who don’t use their pet. Y’know, because it’s dead due to catching a massive AOE or someone dropped a WvW zerg on it.

The second problem is that I doubt that any of the devs ever tried the ranger class (only in sPvP). The new LA fights are just driving me crazy as a ranger. Basically I have no chance to save my pet but keeping it on passive and go longbow.

I’m not having the same issue. Of course, I need some micromanaging. And one pet is ranged (Black Widow) one melee (Wolf) . . . and they die less than some people in heavy. Weird.

Also, I’ve been using Longbow for “Condition Shield” and Shortbow for “Condition Crash”. Results have been good.

The third problem is in WvW. Here I doubt again that any of the devs every gave a zergfight a go. Pets are so useless here that I cannot really describe the feeling of the uselessness of our pets. They just don’t make it! They cannot dodge through, they cannot avoid AE’s, they are useless on walls and under them. I cannot even use the pets after the initial zerg engagement to hunt down separated enemies or support my teammates because 101% that I’ve already lost at least one of my pets in the first few seconds of the fight.

Two things. In a zerg, everyone is expendable until the enemy has more numbers. People go down and/or die a lot in zerg-on-zerg action. I don’t know how it runs on T1 servers, but I do know when I run with the zerg it’s expected if you die and the zerg is not winning, you had better waypoint.

Secondly, if you know your pet is going to get lost then leave it dead and bring it out after when you need it. It does you no good to have that second pet die as fast as the first when you can just save it for when it is of use.

I don’t want to be forced to play something I find frustrating. And the current FORCED pet system is frustrating, annoying, illogical and weak yet we are bound to this system.

I disagree. The pets are oftentimes weak, many of them seem purely situational, and the ones which are good are seen so much it’s a cliche. The lack of fine control, I really miss, but they work out for most small-scale PvE such as solo roaming the world in those dead regions nobody cares about.

barabajaga.7652:

Let me fix the class on some “easy” steps.

Nothing is easy when you’re talking about class balance.

1.Remove the pet ;they can not be fixed they will never be,they are a handicap and a source of frustration
2.A new mechanic Preparations:

We know that’s not happening if they can avoid it. So there goes your idea for replacing Pet with Preparations. Though I do like the idea, to a point:

They will also work as a weapon modifiers,so using certain weapons under certain preparations will make them have added effects or work different.

This runs into balance/testing issues since it would require testing across all weapons and all preparations. No offense is meant to the QA teams but testing is an issue for ANet even in the best of times . . . do we need to stress test them?

It is still a neat idea.

F1 Read the wind: Get a bonus to power (+60) and extra 300 range ,while under this preparation.Use your bows and offhands at max range without the need to trait.

Ooops, now we give away a Major Trait for free! Balance issue.

“Read the Wind”: Power +60 when using ranged attacks. Projectiles move quicker to find their target. (If this is possible.)

If you absolutely must make that added range easier to get, make it a Minor Trait which only functions in this Preparation.

F2 Marksman Wager:Get a bonus to precision(+60) and 25% increase speed.

So what’s the wager? This preparation was a very interesting skill due to how it altered Energy use back in the day. It was possible to really get some fun times out of it, but this is not a “wager” so much as “hey, let’s make a crit happy extra-fast character”. What happens if Signet of the Hunt is on passive? The speed is useless here, and the Precision is debatable to not be as useful as damage.

Try this:

“Expert’s Wager”: Gain one stack of Might (3s) with each successive hit, but when you miss this preparation’s effects are inactive for 15s. (Cannot trigger off objects.)

Hey, look, also potentially makes Rapid Fire useful for building Might quickly.

F3 Expert Focus:Get a bonus to toughnes(+60) and a small hp regeneration.

This doesn’t seem as useful as the other two. Try one of these:

“Disrupting Accuracy”: Attacks which critical will interrupt the target, with an internal cooldown of 10s.

“Seeking Strikes”: If your attacks would be blocked, they instead deal half damage. Conditions which would be inflicted will still not affect the target. Internal cooldown of 10s. If you miss the target, cooldown of 15s

Bring back stances:i still can understand that something so integral to gw1 ranger didnt make it to gw2.Escape,Dodge,Natural stride,Storm Chaser,Whirling defense….

Because Stances are one of the types of Warrior skills now, which notably they shared primarily with Rangers and Mesmers. Mesmers had theirs turned into Mantras (another subtype). Rangers had theirs now on passive signets.

Revert spirit functionality to gw1,and bring back FROZEN SOIL, EoE,and maybe Toxicity.Gw1 spirits were a double edge sword and that made it interesting to use,gw2 spirits are boring and passive.

Toxicity would be broken, Frozen Soil would have people quit in droves, Edge of Extinction is still not quite as useful except in some instances where it pushes into “broken”. Like, oh, counting Risen as a Creature Type . . . abruptly it becomes nearly indispensable inside Orr, doesn’kitten

Bring back Smoke trap.Because traps.

Isn’t that in the thief toolbox now?

And last but not lest where is my D-SHOT? .Seriously ,where is it?.

Savage Shot was always better for me. D-shot refused to work 99% of the time while I would land Savage Shot with the converse accuracy. Up to and including interrupts which shouldn’t have been possible.

While I would like my interrupt ranger back, they did away with that as a viable tactic as the other really good class at interrupts (Mesmer) lacks the same capacity.

The gw2 ranger is a shadow and a joke of what gw1 ranger was.

Interestingly, so is the GW2 warrior vs GW1 warrior. Especially put together. Mmm, Bunny Thumper or IWAY . . .

The story?

Someone destroyed Lion’s Arch (again), three large clockwork knights are present which represent three branches of asuran studies and thus it means Rata Sum has to be behind it.

So I’m off to go return the favor.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I went back to ranger because even though warrior may be regarded as king of the game? It doesn’t work for me. And it’s why I really don’t want the ranger to turn into “warrior in medium gear”.

The ranger should atleast be able to compete damagewise.
But yeah, I already have 2 warriors; I don’t need a 3rd one.

No argument there.

Well, maybe a minor one. I’m not sure we should compete for damage – we’ll lose. What we should compete for is being useful.

Substance E.4852:

They’re also the group of people that tricked Anet into powercreeping the hell out of the Warrior just because it wasn’t amazing at 100% of the game.

What are you talking about, warriors are fine. (Rolled one some time back to give it a try – did not like the play style.)

Though seriously, I still prefer my ranger over my warrior, which is why poor Garah has stalled out around 60. I thought I’d try to learn to play and get in on WvW as a warrior and continue PvE as a ranger. Then I actually tried to play as a warrior . . .

Didn’t work. It. Did. Not. Work.

It was more boring than playing a ranger, more prone to getting pasted and stomped, and I generally just couldn’t find something in the class which felt comfortable enough. I mean, in theory I found some cool and fun options for personal story bits where I would wind up having to get creative to stunlock things stomping on me then.

I went back to ranger because even though warrior may be regarded as king of the game? It doesn’t work for me. And it’s why I really don’t want the ranger to turn into “warrior in medium gear”.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

bullyrook.2165:

Why is everyone down on Evon? Seriously, he warned everyone what would happen, he was right, and now he is getting his wares stolen by the Liongaurd because they wouldn’t listen. I still believe Evon is the Mysterious “E”.

I’m down on Evon because he stranded civilians trapped in the heart of Lion’s Arch by shutting off their asura gate for no apparent reason, and then has the kittening nerve to harangue that Kiel and Magnus have the blood of all the dead citizens on their hands.

That’s a good reason too. I would have just stopped at “he’s Ash Legion”.

bullyrook.2165:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

If you have trouble with the idea of two people of the same sex loving each other, due to your beliefs, then the problem is with your beliefs, not with the writing.

There is no logical reason not to agree with two people loving each other, regardless of their sex. There are only illogical reasons. Get rid of the illogic, and embrace reason.

You must resort to insulting me when I never insulted you? To get back on topic, I do not appreciate of this bit of the story. I want GW2 as it was when I first signed on. I suspect this thread will be locked by the devs soon anyway.

She wasn’t insulting. I assume ‘she’ from “Mad Queen” but whatever. She was actually really rather polite rather than how you’ve been asserting there has to be something wrong with the relationship and it isn’t right . . .

Love isn’t a matter of right or wrong. Love is. Love isn’t a matter of having sex, wanting to have sex, or just enjoying the company of someone because they make you feel right. Love is all of those things, and none of those things.

We can agree to disagree on whether or not the Kiss should have been shown – I find it isn’t terribly out of place, and was definitely a sign Kasmeer is the more emotional of the pair.

But we aren’t going to agree on whether it’s wrong for two people to love each other. It’s not about whether they are women, men, hermaphrodites, asexual, of the same race, of different races, whatever. It’s about them caring for each other enough for one to show worry, rage, and relief over the other’s injuries.

Contrast Rox/Braham which is more a good friendship born out of mutual respect for each others’ skill. If they’d hugged (not even kissed) I would have thrown a keyboard through the monitor, because that would have been rushed and out of place. Kasmeer and Marjory? That’s been developing since Dragon Bash and more visibly since just before the Tower of Nightmares.

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

What many seem to forget is the most obvious fact. Humanity had rough 1000 years hold on the land they named Ascalon. This fact itself would suggest that they the army and the technology and organisational stability to hold the land to such an extent that not all of Ascalon was a war zone.

Not technological, magical. But it could be argued “might as well be so” so hey, let’s go with that. Also worth noting it was a war zone from time to time – due to the Guild Wars, there was fighting on Ascalon soil. How much of it remains unsaid, except for the Battle of Khylo.

Magic and Science were able to be developed and progressively utilised by the war effort. It would also assume massive amounts of logistical and organisational synergy in the distribution of food and resources to keep the populace reasonably well fed and stable as well has feeding the army.

Be careful throwing around “science” – so far the biggest form of science which could be attributed to Ascalon by viewing pre-Searing lands were the aqueducts and city building. In other words, we’re looking at Roman-level civilization. (For us students of Western Civ.)

There was a lot of land in pre-Searing Ascalon near Ascalon City devoted to farming, orchards, or other sorts of gathering. Duke Barradin’s Estate seemed to be a lot of farmland in the Green Hills area.

This societal stability would allow the observation and research of any evidence of ruins of structures that pre-date human settlement. The sum total of this research over time would have been collected in the national library and form part of the education of the ruling dynasty and that of the nobility of the day.

Except we don’t have any evidence of one existing, or anything other than a few things saved from the Searing. What we do have is a vague awareness a lot of the northern part of Ascalon had become a war zone by that time and overrun by the charr. Not exactly held, because there was a definite back and forth going on even that “last day”.

The best we do have knowledge of is the Nolani Academy, but no idea exactly what was held there.

Conclusion: There is a shocking dearth of information, and without anything it is impossible to draw concrete conclusions disproving what is stated by lore having been established currently.

If the Charr had built structures where are the records that prove their existence?

If Ascalon hated the charr as much as they appeared to, they were probably erased, plowed under, or torn apart. Things of this nature have happened in the real world before, much of what I understand was known to have been done by some pharoahs of Egypt.

Not farfetched to believe the royal line of Doric who moved in did such.

Velijan.9061:

This sounds rather dubious. Someone could have just explained to them that it’s an immigrant enclave of the kind that have existed for centuries all over the world.

. . . this doesn’t sound like an easier sell.

bullyrook.2165:

Why is everyone down on Evon? Seriously, he warned everyone what would happen, he was right, and now he is getting his wares stolen by the Liongaurd because they wouldn’t listen. I still believe Evon is the Mysterious “E”.

I’m down on Evon because he’s two-faced, underhanded, and owes me some Black Lion Keys before I forgive him for what happened last September.

Kiel also told people what was going to happen, or at least told the people who supposedly could do something about it. What she should have done is recruited players to be on hand and given them all airships.

DarcShriek.5829:

I say kill all sylvari, starting with the pale tree herself! Hand them over to the charr to use as firewood at meatoberfest.

I’ll only come on board if we also take out Rata Sum.

kta.6502:

Nightarch.2943:

Yes! Yes! Yes! Needs more lesbian romance!

CORRECTION: Needs more HEALTHY lesbian romance.

Objection!

Needs more healthy romance of any kind.

kta.6502:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I’m all for equality. Neither type of relationship should receive prominence over the other. That being said we have gender considerations to make to. Female x Female relationships are not the same as Male x Male relationships – of which there is only really one in the game. I think most of the issues facing the lack, or percieved lack, of hetero relationships in game comes from the way Jory and Kasmeer’s relationship has been handled. Don’t get me wrong, I love them both – but their relationship has ended up eclipsing the plot somewhat and drawing away from actual story developing.

ADD TO THAT FACT: Marjory x Kasmeer pairing is going way too fast. From my point of view, the two characters just met and now they have a sexual relationship??? That’s what we adults call a CASUAL SEX RELATIONSHIP or “Friends with Benefits”. I think all of us romantic types (hetero & LGBT) can agree that it’s a relationship that’s built on lust instead of love. Sorry, Anet: That’s not romance. Where’s the healthy relationship that’s supposed to spawn between the two? There hasn’t been any meaningful buildup since October 2013.

First, not a fact but an opinion.

Second, I really do need to see where you’re getting “totally casual relationship” or “based on lust and not love” from. I mean, unless we’re talking about Logan/Jenna. Then I’ll not argue and just sit down.

I swear, Majory is taking advantage of Kasmeer’s compassion and terrible plight for some quick hanky-spanky. (<—-That’s not a mis-spelled term. I typed it on purpose.) Plus during one of the updates, Majory tells Kasmeer that she will never let Kasmeer go. The way she said it made her sound like a possessive and controlling domestic violence abuser. That’s a sign that the relationship isn’t healthy at all.

. . . I think you’re reading too much into it with your own baggage helping things make it what you think it should be. Not that there’s much wrong with that – I have baggage and experience which pretty much has a relationship like this one having developed within my awareness in RL. Though there . . . were other things involved which made it immensely weirder.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

The reason why I deinstalled the game yesterday is, that I for one think the design direction that this game is going is too stupid for me to continue anymore.

Well, your loss. Or gain.

Thanks for playing, see you again sometime.

Divinty’s Reach is a boring medieval castle because it’s literally the last major city humanity has left to call its own. It’s built like Minas Tirith because it is capable of basically hauling in the citizens of Kryta to survive a siege outside the walls if need be.

As for Kryta before the flood? It was “Mediterranean” in some ways but really tended to straw-and-brick houses for most villages and Lion’s Arch still had more stalls and temporary structures than complete ones. Kryta, thus, was not as well off as it is now with a major city and some large towns out there.

It also had problems with: undead, tengu, skale, ettins, a few outlaws, a cult around a crazy necromancer, and the occasional demonic incursion.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Here, I write it down for you:

To have an equivalent, the loot from the final event in LA would have had to be:

- an ascended trinket
- a 20 slot bag
- 1 or more random ascended items (armor or weapon), tradeable on the TP

Maybe some people in full ascended would have had no use for the stuff, but for most, this sounds better than a helmet skin and a lesser vision crystal.

And it still wouldn’t do anyone any good if they got an Ascended trinket they already had a copy of, or if their item they got was useless to them. (Because, face it, they’re not going to be able to make an item not Account Bound, without there being a chance of even more technical difficulties, which could be more game-breaking than what people complain about now.)

Though it should also be noted – they probably won’t go past what they put up for Lost Shores’ end chest ever again. I’d put money they wouldn’t even go close to that level again, due to the immense outcry from people reporting two precursors out of their box.

(Joke’s on them though, it was The Chosen and Rage.)

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Exotic loot was the best available loot back at southsun.

You got BiS items as reward for the event. And a 20 slot box, that is still BiS till today.

Exotic gear boxes have a slim “chance” to drop exotic gear probably less than one in a hundret, I do not know how you can compare this to a warrented exotic drop.

And a lesser vision crystal, wow, that is really close to a piece of ascended gear…

Well it was one of the last things I needed. So it was more useful to me than what I got at Lost Shores.

I got “Best in Slot” I couldn’t even use when I opened my Karka chest. I didn’t even get Rares I could use. I got a light coat, a scepter, a trident, and heavy boots. So, hey, best in slot? Still not useful to me. Neither was the darn box at that time either since I had gotten 20 slot bags already.

And it’s worth nothing those Deluxe Gear Boxes drop Watchwork Sprockets which everyone knows are gamebreakingly powerful. I mean, they’re so powerful the Watchwork Pick was pay to win.

Erukk.1408:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t think Caudecus is really keeping his hands out of things. And he’s alive.

Prove he’s White Mantle and he’s next, instead of those smug, potato-headed asura.

Because the Asuran race already have their need for a fanatical group of racists bent on world domination filled by the Inquest.

Plus, the Inquest covers dental…

No, because I can’t kill asura fast enough to get rid of them all.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Those skins are not the reward for the event, they are temporary RNG loot tied to the event.
Rewards are what everyone gets for playing the event and succeed.

Not everyone who participated in Lost Shores had the same chance for loot, mind you. The definite rewards were the Ancient Karka Shell and Ancient Karka Box, and an exotic-rank chest which had wildly varying rewards. If I recall, you were guaranteed two random exotic items and two rares.

Everyone who participates in “Scarlet’s End” for the first time receives a free Lesser Vision Crystal, and Scarlet’s Veil. But if you participate in the Knight killing you get . . . what was it, six Deluxe Gear Boxes (Exotic) when the three are either killed or time expires? . . . not terrible loot either. Then there’s a ton of Achievement points which can be racked up.

(Note: There were no achievements for Lost Shores participation.)

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Southsun:
Bad and buggy event -> good rewards

Speak for yourself, the rewards for many people weren’t all that good.

Battle for LA:

Bad and buggy event -> bad rewards

Stomping Scarlet finally was its own reward.

Evon will quit the Black Lion Trading Company, the Consortium will purchase the assets and jack prices up on the Gem Store 25% . . . then we’ll get a chapter to get Evon back in control of the company and oust the Consortium with “an extremely hostile takeover”. In gratitude we’ll get a Black Lion Claim Ticket, some Gems, and some consumable items will be permanently discounted . . . but not free.

Aedelric.1287:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I present to you the following title you can look up at your own peril, for this is an atrocious piece of writing which has no artistic merit and the only excuse is that it was written by a minor yet was attempted to be self-published.

“The Eye of Argon”

So now we compare the living story to the fictional works of a 16 year old boy? Yea I can agree with that comparison.

It’s better than Dan Brown, who had a character with the unbeatable password of “3”.

Aedelric.1287:

4/10

Highlights are updates like SAB, Bazaar of the Four Winds, new maps, they work well as standalone updates and introduce new interesting gameplay mechanics.

Low points are mostly zerg fests like Queens Jubilee, Tequatl, excessive bugs and uninteresting overall story with forgettable/unlikable characters.

Heal-o-Tron alone brings the overall score down for being the most useless running gag of all.

Vexander.9850:

Either a relationship like Kasmeer and Marjory’s needs to have a more permanent and available development for a character to progress through, or there needs to be a way to replay Living Story content/scenes/dialogue with a suggested chronological order.

Eh, I say it’d be almost enough if it was enough the sign outside the house wasn’t penciled in anymore . . . and they continue to show up as a team/pair. It’s not really necessary to beat us over the head with them having “completed negotiations” on their boundaries. What is necessary is showing they weren’t just shoved off camera and left behind, but continue to exist and act unless there’s compelling reason not to act. Such as for one’s health or concerns closer to home than . . . oh, chasing an Elder Dragon’s trail into Maguuma.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t think Caudecus is really keeping his hands out of things. And he’s alive.

Prove he’s White Mantle and he’s next, instead of those smug, potato-headed asura.

Aedelric.1287:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aedelric.1287:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And what propaganda, or opinion, is getting forced on me which is so objectionable as to be nearly criminal?

The only thing objectionable or truly criminal here is the exceptionally bad writing.

I’ve seen worse.

Yes, Dan Brown.

My point is I have seen better, a lot better. I actually find it hard to think of modern MMO games that have done worse than Arena Net in regards to the overall plot and characters of the living story.

World of Warcraft and what they did with Illidan Stormrage.

And no, not Dan Brown. I present to you the following title you can look up at your own peril, for this is an atrocious piece of writing which has no artistic merit and the only excuse is that it was written by a minor yet was attempted to be self-published.

“The Eye of Argon”.

It’s worse than Manos.

Chrispy.5641:

While it looks good on paper, the amount of condition removal we have compared to other professions, but, in practice….we really don’t have that much.

We have…..

Healing Spring – which requires you to be standing in a tiny area in order to remove up to 6 conditions.

Not as big an issue if you’re not expected to be moving very far. Such as combat at range.

Signet of Renewal – which requires your pet to be alive and close enough to you to remove all conditions.

Passive is usually good enough for me, and I usually swap pets if I need to activate it for conditions to be shoveled off to a pet. Any conditions which would be dangerous to keep for the 10 second timer would be powerful enough I wouldn’t have a chance anyway otherwise.

Empathic Bond – which requires your pet to be alive to remove 3 conditions.
Renewal – From Spirit of Nature which seems okay at first (it is quite powerful), except for how quickly the spirit dies, and then there is the very long cooldown to consider after it dies, etc.

Haven’t worked with these; Empathic Bond seems less useful to me, and I shy away from Spirits for anything except PvE and even then I tend to leave them aside due to the fragility.

Shake it Off – Which requires you to be close enough to it to remove 3 conditions.

We can do better than the bear, even within our limited pool of pet options.

Evasive Purity – Which only removes Poison and Blind, on a 10 second cooldown. (Which is pointless, because it is easier to just attack to remove the blind!)

Easier to have Signet of Renewal passive.

Please tell me if I missed anything for Ranger Condition Remocal. 3 of them are tied to and depend on our pet being alive, and 1 to a spirit that dies way too easily. 1 of them only removes 2 specific conditions, and the last 1 requires you to stand in a tiny area and not move much at all, completely counter to how you are supposed to be playing this game.

The passive of Signet of Renewal drops a condition every 10 seconds. Most conditions don’t last long enough to tick off, and those which do are good to see drop off (poison, cripple…)

urdriel.8496:

arkealia.2713:

I don’t think we need more condition removal on healing skills, it should be on a specific weapon skill or an active trait on a category of utility skills (traps for exemple).

Ranger need a heal with condition removal.

Signet of Renewal is enough for me, usually. Either that or I die too fast for removal to really mean anything anyway.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Yes. They. Are.

What happened here is the same as you getting “The Big Kiss” in a movie between two people of different genders. With moderately less fanfare (no swelling music in the soundtrack, no orbiting camera and slow clap…).

I respectfully disagree. It felt to me like they were going for “the money shot”. As if everything had been leading up to that kiss. It was almost as if the writers felt the need to prove that they really are a romantic couple, and that yes, they’re not afraid to show it.

That’s why to me it felt forced and heavy handed. I don’t mind their decision to include it, and I think the intention is good. But it seems to me that the writers are still struggling with how to handle the concept of homosexual relationships in a videogame.

When ever videogame writers tackle these sorts of topics, it often feel like they are struggling to find a sheet of paper, and then knock over the vial of ink by accident.

Ehh. I find it’s not limited to homosexual relationships. There are simply not enough really good romances to overturn the tons of bad ones which crop up. For every example which can be thrown out, there’s many . . . many . . . more which are just painful.

(. . . we still have to get more good ones to balance out Squall/Riona/Seifer. )

I mean, it’s the same within the franchise here. Gwen/Keiran was well-done for the most part, and Koss/Melonni was about the same . . . then again, Cynn/Mhenlo . . .

Diovid.9506:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’m with the camp of eliminating all hostile combatants on the ground right now with extreme prejudice (especially the asura) and if any crop up later, apply full lethal force until they don’t crop up anymore.

It worked on the White Mantle.

Not quite, see: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/White_Mantle

It’s even suspected that some of the ministers are in the White Mantle.

Like I said, it worked on the White Mantle. And still works. Someone crops up as White Mantle, they die. Or they keep their heads down and hands out of things, and everyone wins.

This reminds me, need to start manufacturing evidence asura joined the White Mantle.

Leshain.6720:

JTGuevara.9018:

the living story was a drunken man telling an epic tale.

Well said. That is the best way to describe the writers for Season 1. At least the vanilla story with traherne had halfway decent characters.

I’d beg to differ, as the characters between the two different storylines weren’t necessarily much different. The telling was better in the Living Story since it was more focused. Well, except for Scarlet – she deserved better than the disjointed mess she was introduced with.

The Personal Story, on the other hand, was just chock full of characters made solely to be sacrificial lambs, or momentary plot-facilitators never to be used again.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Rebound.3409:

End of the LS story arch…the most important and most memorable of ANet’s 1 year long work, after telling us they will take a longer break just to get everything as it should…we receive probably the most bugged and frustrating update this game has see in LS story (talking from the perspective of someone who doesn’t do the event just once and is happy about it). If i am wrong please recall an update they ever did that has been as bugged or infuriating as this one.

Challenge accepted.

The original Southsun Cove introduction, along with free trial accounts, massive OP karka and the glitched-as-all-hell fractals. 15 November 2012 saw this patch released, and a long weekend from hell when they up and left the game to run ‘as normal’ while they took their Thanksgiving break. Each new patch saw a heavier amount of glitches while LA was spammed with “lfg fractals” and getting into your own server was a nightmare.

They didn’t abandon the game, but there was only a skeleton crew left to try to fix the bugs. Like “Canach unresponsive, can’t progress quest”.

The biggest kick in the teeth was the event finale. I won’t go into details here but those who were there remember full well what happened, and the farcicle amount of precursors dropped, and the ‘mopping up’ Anet had to do upon their return to normal work.

Farcical amount? The only reason that many dropped was because everyone and their uncle (and their uncle’s sister’s roommate from college) seemed to cram in there. I don’t think there were many people not in Southsun.

The reason so many dropped was the RNG being hit pretty much once for everyone who existed on the server. Or twice, but I heard that was just some rumor started for drama. I recall hearing it was not statistically improbable for the volume of chest grabs which were made.

But then, we only have developer’s words on that.

Really, yes, Lost Shores was the quintessential bugged release from ANet. Except it’s still not the worst one I endured. The worst one had to be “Meridian 59: Renaissance” wherein there was a whole doubling of the size of the world . . . and the coders forgot to add the items to reach it to the game. So, until they could fake up something (quickly) there was zero way to reach the new content.

It’s quite possible to not eliminate them all, only those within Lion’s Arch and are foolish enough to rush out into the open where they can be found and destroyed. So as much as you want to go all Dark Knight of Baron on them . . .

I don’t expect it will be useful if some of them go to ground. The Aetherblades are likely holed up somewhere in the Mists, the Molten Alliance can dig themselves a hole and seal it off behind them, and the Toxic Alliance might make hallucinations of themselves to leave behind rather than the real thing.

Even if we could drop the magical equivalent of a tactical nuke on Lion’s Arch . . . today . . . we wouldn’t be able to be sure we got everything. So, no, nuking it from orbit is not the only way to be sure.

I’m with the camp of eliminating all hostile combatants on the ground right now with extreme prejudice (especially the asura) and if any crop up later, apply full lethal force until they don’t crop up anymore.

It worked on the White Mantle.

A R W E N.6895:

And vol let me tell you something. In the 600 hours I spent playing gw2, I spent probably 2/3 of that time in the tp because I found out that that instead of playing 8h a day running champ train, I could spend 30min a day playing the tp and making the cash. And that is sad. I played over 3000hours in gw1 because I was enjoying its content and it was also rewarding the effort I made. But this game does not reward you for your effort. And in the end of you want nice skins for weapon and armor you have to farm gold. I have a life out of gaming so I can’t spend 10hours a day farming champ train. But in gw1 I could do 2 doa with my guild and be fully rewarded and then I could go do something else (homeworks and stuff).

The prob with gw2 is that if you want something and that you can’t spend 8hours per day playing, you have to either buy gems or tp flip. Because the rest is not effective

Wait, so you have all the money you want, you could get anything you want . . . and you’re complaining about work which has to be done . . .

I don’t know what to say anymore. I’ve never been really short on money enough to consider myself “broke” and I don’t play eight hours a day. I don’t even play four hours a day. I play maybe twice a week normally, four hours and then out. I make enough money to handle most repairs, most waypoint travel, and if I can’t afford it I don’t need it. This means I don’t need those precursors for 600-800 gold each, or hundreds of Lodestones . . .

All I need is to go get materials I want and slowly build myself closer towards Ascended. And that’s if I care to – I really only do it because I have very little left to do other than the WvW achievements. (I’m not doing those.)

By the way? Flipping commodities/stocks is how people in RL made/make money too. It’s just much riskier, even though the concept is sound enough so long as people want to trade things of value – find a seller and buy, then find a buyer and sell for more. Not that hard.

It’s so easy there’s some guys making bank off it

A R W E N.6895:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Or . . . or . . . just hear me out here . . . you can start a character you don’t care about,run them through the first bits of the personal story until you finish the first chapter and then you get a key. Sell proceeds and repeat.

Easier, quicker, less frustrating.

Imo, this is going low lol

Nah, I didn’t call you names at all or insult your intelligence. I’ve been finishing for my mule characters all week

A R W E N.6895:

The game shifted toward loot and reward a while ago, and right now I don’t believe that this way of thinking could shift. Not until they add more content to the game so that people have something new to explore, and that they make you work and play the game to obtain skins and weapon.

Mostly because people really did complain about how there was no real reward for stuff. So it got added in steadily to get people those rewards. But what people should have said is “I want my precursors!” because they never stopped saying the rewards weren’t worth it enough.

Blame the posters and players who drove the loot into the spotlight. It wasn’t about loot until the population in general decided to make it about that. Well, that and how awesome quaggans are.

Sadly, I have to farm to get gold, to trade it to gems, to buy keys, to unlock chest, to have a chance to have 1 scrap to turn it to a ticket to get a skin.

Or . . . or . . . just hear me out here . . . you can start a character you don’t care about,run them through the first bits of the personal story until you finish the first chapter and then you get a key. Sell proceeds and repeat.

Easier, quicker, less frustrating.

Beldin.5498:

Just yesterday i noticed that the only server left on “medium” is Vaabi, so all other servers are now on “high” or “very high”. Thats not a sign for me that the game is losing players.

But i know, of course people will no say that the server status is manipulated or whatever.

Sadly, the only proof that it’s not is ANet releasing numbers, which can then have the saying they’re faked or just made up.

Not really a way to get around it.

Numu Boltar.6105:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

The only way I can tell that the game is “losing players” is because I can’t go through a thread without comments from people who “stopped logging months ago”.. but that for some reason still complain in these forums every hamster day.

Hope dies very slowly

Is Hope an asura, and if so can I speed it along?

Heraldusluminare.2946:

Lopez.7369:

-snip-

Besides, ArenaNet promised this content would be polished. Would you consider these past few patches polished?

I guess I have to agree this isn’t one of ANet’s most polished updates, but considering we’re already getting free new content and generally speedy bug fixes, and ANet’s been putting in a lot of effort for its player base, I thought there’d be less outrage and more understanding.

There’d be less outrage if it wasn’t:

- A more usual occurrence than “once in a while”. It does happen often enough an update has serious issues going on or something breaks after an update which needs fixing due to it being immediately important. Again, if they expand their release timeline to a slower schedule this may improve.

- Broken this time in a important way. Not unlike other broken times when achievements failed to count properly or LS events failed to update/start properly, this one is more central about an important part being broken. This was broken on the level of Lost Shores’ “Canach is not responding properly to prompts and the phase is over in 12 hours” problem. Sure, you can play some of the content but progression is halted due to things like the Knights resetting health or otherwise not working properly.

“It’s just a game, get over it” isn’t the issue here. What is the issue is there were some serious troubles which snuck through in the last two LS releases which either were frustrating (Citizen rescue not resetting properly, yet apparently still counting properly) or crash-stop-halt (Knights resetting health preventing access to Breachmaker).

It is just a game, sure. But people don’t like to have their fun time hurt by things like this. They’re good to argue and complain about it (they should). They shouldn’t blow it out of perspective as to being worthy of hanging people from lampposts in Divinity’s Reach.

Astralporing.1957:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They have been trying to discourage the zerg mentality these last two updates for LS.

Considering that the knights do not scale down very well, and have to be zerged, i’d say that they didn’t even try. The only difference is that instead of one zerg, you have to have 3 of them.

I did say trying . . . but the zerg, as we know, adapt to situations and continue on anyway

Terravos.4059:

Most MMO’s gave the ability for Pet users to instantly summon new pets…And generally those pets were far far more powerful then this game.

Magician in EverQuest was a rather maligned class for having a pet with behavior which sometimes was problematic. But if you knew your pets and knew how to control them, it wasn’t that bad. You did have to be careful because you couldn’t just summon a new pet – it had a long casting time and you could get interrupted easily.

The elemental pets were not terribly more powerful than in GW2, because they lacked anything other than really rudimentary behavior and required the owner to control via hotkeys. They attacked, they might have a special procedure effect (“proc”) which would go off nearly randomly, and they could hold weapons conjured for them to adjust their DPS.

There were four basic pets: One of them could go invisible and had less hit points and defenses, one of them could root targets and had the largest health/armor of the four, one had a damage shield and was fairly good at offense but died quickly when focused, and one could backstab and was the second heartiest.

(Yes, there were other options. No, I’m not getting into them since I both didn’t really use them much and the one was a “legendary” kind of pet.)

Magicians could buff their pets with items conjured and handed over to them, notably weapons which changed the default damage/delay mechanic. They could tell their pets to back off and stop attacking (unique to mages), attack a target, guard them (i.e. not attack any target that didn’t swing on the magician first), or just stand there and wait for further instructions. And that’s the basic commands, there were others which had more behavior on them.

( Link )

They were the pet class I recall as “the pet class” and were given a lot of micromanaging control over the pets other classes didn’t get. If rangers are going to be “the pet class”, we should have some more control over the pets at least.

Arghore.8340:

The biggest concern with the pet in GW1 though, was the fact that the ranger had to take all the skills for it. And if you truly wanted a good pet, you yourself ended up being ‘just a weapon, doing x damage/sec’, while still struggling with the AI. The one Hammer/Pet build aside (in pvp). ‘We’ (as in the GW1 pet interested players) were rather stoked to see the pet get their own skills in GW2. ‘But’ (unforeseeable) due to the removal of tank/healer and the introduction of more dynamic (moving) gameplay, the pet suffered even more, no more ‘still standing’ targets around a warrior to hit, and moving while casting (so no catch-up time). And instead of having skills on the pet we could control ourselves, we have to rely more on AI. And all sorts of problems more, (also see the thread) likely caused by the issues raised in my previous post above here…

Well, my pet was serviceable enough using two of eight skills (post-Comfort change): “Comfort Animal” and “Never Rampage Alone”. Throughout most of the PvE content I never really had to take them off, with the notable exception of HM Underworld. And when I did take it off, I didn’t have a lot of fun with two extra skills.

You’re right on the lack of pet skills to slot (with them being on the pet) makes it feel like they’re less a part of the class even with them hard-set into being there. It’s why I pulled two issues which . . . might . . . be able to be done without totally rewriting the behavior scripts.

Which ‘to me’, makes me long for a situation where the pet is simply a utility again. So it can be balanced as a utility, and improved through going for beast master traits (similar to putting points in BM in GW1). No [F2] skill control, just a pet with a bit more stuff on it besides an auto attack, a ‘guard/’heel’ command build in the ‘capture signet’ and a ‘resurrect pet’ change of skill once it dies. In fact, I would love to have 3 of these ‘capture signets’ available, so that I can have 3 pets at a time. (a beast-master has always been a ‘white’ minion master, with beasts instead of undead, and never a ‘boy and his pet’, or rather ‘the guard and his dog’. ) Possibly with a set of direct commands as we have (shouts) now. Complemented with f/e the Wand & ‘focus’ with more pet commands put on them as a designated weapon set for ‘pet mastery’.

Three pets active at the same time, or three pets to swap between? What I’d like to see is more this:

Pet Active/Alive
F1 – Lock Target
F2 – Activate F2/Offensive Skill
F3 – Block (Pet channels for 2s and will block an attack made during that time.)
F4 – Heel/Switch Pets (Heel if in an attack animation, Switch if not. Pets may be switched again in 30 seconds after a switch.)
(Can still toggle Attack/Guard separately)

Pet Inactive/Dead
F1 – Call of Vengeance (Gain a damage bonus for the next 3 attacks, pet heal timer reset. Cooldown 20s)
F2 – Comfort Animal (Restore 25% health to the pet and it gets up.)
F4 – Switch Pets (Dead pet may return in 30s)

Basically letting the F# buttons have more control over a living pet, and letting you help a dead pet back up quicker.

Drakonis.4579:

snailboyjr.4592:

Guys keep it up! You do good work! Don’t get discouraged, and don’t take the unhelpful critiques to heart.

I’m sorry? “Unhelpful critiques?” lol

Just because you don’t share the opinion of these critiques doesn’t mean they’re unhelpful.

I think he means the stuff which are just “dis sucks” or “stop the Living Story” and not the things with at least one reason why people didn’t like it.

Faowri.4159:

DarksunG.9537:

I’d hardly call Logan & Jenna a “relationship”. It’s more someone trying to impress someone else who doesn’t care.

This seems to be a case of bad writing. We’ve been assured before outside of the game that they do care for each other mutually, but from what we see in game and the way their interactions are written in the Edge of Destiny novel, it really comes across as one-sided idol-worship on Logan’s part. I’d definitely not object to seeing that relationship explored a little more.

Well, do they care for each other or are they in love with each other? There is a difference between these things, after all. She can still care for him without being slavishly devoted to liking him.

Personally I take it to be more like she’s wearing the queenly mask

. . . warning, TV Tropes link.

Templar.3418:

What if they killed Jory off and Kas eventually found herself some male? That’d be awesome to me. Needs to be a strong mysterious character though, perhaps somewhat generic but if they twist it in the right way he could be awesome.

Whyyyyy . . . why . . .

. . . ugh. Why do this? Why visit tragedy on a character solely so it can “fix” what’s “wrong” in your view? I mean, dramatically there are a ton of reasons to kill Kasmeer or Marjory off and leave the other alive. Simply to pair them off with “the best example of a male Mary Sue” isn’t one of them, and neither is to just pair them off with a male who is a perfect example of a strong male character who’s well-developed and well-written.

It’d be much better to introduce Kasmeer’s brother and have him endlessly hit on Lord Faren. Actually I’d pay for that, as much as I watched Lord Faren hit on attractive females.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Addressing either how the split works or how often the pet can be on “active time” would be preferable to an option to just remove it.

I’m in favor of the first suggestion but yeah, you’re right.

The only thing about the first suggestion is it still runs along that line of “I can safely ignore the pet” other players do already. Either that or they stomp on it so it goes away since it dies so fast, problem solved.

So in the first suggestion, if we take raw damage off the pet and move it to the ranger, then there has to be something put there to replace that.

And I’d rather the uptime be improved, since that has the added effect of not making it easy to “pound on the pet til it goes away for 60”.

The timer should probably have some more leniency as far as it goes. The achievement, on the other hand, I’m okay with being incredibly tight on timing.

I dunno if it’s a DPS check or an attempt to get people to all three events instead of just focusing on one then moving to the next in true zerg fashion. They have been trying to discourage the zerg mentality these last two updates for LS. (Notably, zerging around the map killing things wouldn’t get the better group prizes as opposed to saving civilians for 1200/1500.)

Nice effort, some work still needed.

Gatvin.6510:

Its not a huge problem that they’re going to have stuff that uses them in the future, its more that there isn’t anything to use them on right now. An alternative recipe for Twisted Watchwork Portal devices could be a good use for them. Especially if they are a permanent drop from aetherblades now.

Also an addition to mining the Clockwork Generator.

phys.7689:

haviz.1340:

phys.7689:

i think he just meant they arent using the old cutscene engine anymore. They can just have npcs talking that you can walk past/ignore. Or have people talking while you play like desha during the story fractal for thaumanova. Scarlet button press scene is uneccasry though, its short but annoying

Old cutscenes were skippable, dialogues are not. And if you have to endure the whole dialogues, that’s just painful.

yeah, they dont have to make them impede progress
think like conversations in towns or dynamic events where they are talking but you can run past them.

Or the text still shows up on your chat box so you can read while you fight or review it later. Actually, could you folks at ANet please help by making ambient chatter appear in the chat window and be filter-able?

Vexander.9850:

A video game is not a great medium for a Story. Players want to -play- a game, not watch a movie, or read a book. Because of this, content such as cut scenes and forced dialogue has to be kept short, so as not to interrupt the flow of gameplay. You can’t really get into the meat of a story because of this. A novel, a short story, etc… provides a much better medium. I would rather have read one about Marjory and Kasmeer than just had a simple scene that, contextually speaking, didn’t need to happen.

Plenty of games still tell a decent story regardless of this, and now you’re moving to defining what’s appropriate for game development as well as appropriate for how much affection should be shown.

You are not really making me want to agree with your views, here. Yes some games should throw in the towel with trying to tell an awesome story, and some games don’t need an epic novel of story crammed into it . . . we don’t need 1000 pages of script to tell us why Pac-Man exists, or why Mega Man is still fighting Dr Wily.

But consider this – if it weren’t for script and story? “Portal” would have been forgotten as a weird little puzzle game-mod.

Yes, I said it didn’t need to happen. If you take that scene away, it changes -nothing- about the instance dungeon and the story. It has no impact on it. Marjory and Rox are both still injured, Scarlet is still dead, the Elder Dragon still gets woken up, and the drill still explodes.

And if you take away “I love you.” “I know.” from Empire Strikes Back it doesn’t change anything of the movie’s ending act at all. But it does show character development and thus is just as important.

Taking away character development because it doesn’t change how the details of the story work weakens the story overall.

That kiss would have been -much- more appropriate in another cut scene after the fact, showing our heroes celebrating in a tavern somewhere, or at the refugee camps.

You’re not exactly wrong, but you’re not exactly right either. It’s appropriate, sure. But there’s not much wrong with the circumstances the two share the kiss this time. It’s after the known danger of Scarlet has been done, and it wasn’t a long thing at all to be unbelievable.