Guild Wars 2

wolfyrik.2017:

No, they’d be Rangers like we had in Guild Wars, you know, ones that worked. Which I’m kind of fine with.

Rangers in Guild Wars could function fine with the pets, due to three things I had a lot of use out of my pet:

First, they could lock a second target if I needed them to. I would like this back please. It allowed me to use the pet’s damage to help spread pressure and that was one thing a ranger could do decently enough.

Secondly, the bulk of their damage was not tied up in the pet, it was the same range as everyone else with a longbow and the proper Requirement being met (Marksmanship). The pet skill replaced one of eight skills on the bar . . . which was either inconsequential to the build or was incredibly important depending on how you built the bar.

Lastly, Comfort Animal meant my pet rarely had to take a dirt nap for 60 seconds. So uptime was much better, excluding things like “Frozen Earth” preventing resurrection skills. (I honestly don’t remember if pets could be picked up through it or nor. I didn’t often have to deal with it.)

There were builds which said “no pet” and there were builds which used the pet. They were both viable. The problem with the ranger in GW2 is primarily how there’s said to be a portion of our DPS potential tied up in the pet which is why our own output isn’t as high, and the pet tends to find 1001 ways to die quickly.

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.

runeblade.7514:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

runeblade.7514:

That isn’t a third option.

Despite hearing horror stories of pets, I never really had a problem with pets not hitting targets in PvE or in PvP. But that is for another discussion.

So lets assume that pets do hit targets 100% of the time. What would be wrong with this suggestion?

I’ve never had problems with pets and targeting in PvE, either. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, or that it’s not an issue. There’s enough reports to take it seriously as a complaint.

And what’s wrong with the suggestion? Pets hitting 100% of the time, infallibly. There’s something extremely wrong there.

So in other words, your third option is just a second option.

So in other words, you didn’t really read what I wrote and just want to complain about it.

“You want Rangers to be a fully pet class and don’t want Rangers to ever see a choice to dismiss a pet.”

I said to start this your suggestion for how to benefit from stowing a pet didn’t feel right to me, figured out a big reason why, and posted it. You put out a bad detail (100% hit chance) to try to get me to agree with your idea as being sound, and when I said that wasn’t useful you came back at me with trying to force me into one of two camps . . . both of which you could safely dismiss as not mattering.

I don’t mind the option to dismiss a pet, what I do mind are ideas which make it more attractive to play without a pet and turn the class into “warrior lite”.

runeblade.7514:

That isn’t a third option.

Despite hearing horror stories of pets, I never really had a problem with pets not hitting targets in PvE or in PvP. But that is for another discussion.

So lets assume that pets do hit targets 100% of the time. What would be wrong with this suggestion?

I’ve never had problems with pets and targeting in PvE, either. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, or that it’s not an issue. There’s enough reports to take it seriously as a complaint.

And what’s wrong with the suggestion? Pets hitting 100% of the time, infallibly. There’s something extremely wrong there.

Meglobob.8620:

I’m still working on crafting mine. I got Celestial, so it’s lucky enough I can almost have it pull many duties. Unfortunately . . . it’s a longbow. I get limited use out of it.

Also, I don’t play the lottery. There’s a reason I call it “the stupid tax” . . .

Zaoda.1653:

I think the lesson to be learnt here is that if there is an abundance of a particular item from a living story, we should keep it at least until the living story is over (though having said that, I’m sure there are items that were given extra uses much later after the living story had ended).

I think the lesson learned here is keep a modest amount but not all of the stuff. Each person can define their own modest amount.

If I wasn’t a packrat, I’d be able to store more things. Still waiting to know if I should get rid of my Candy-Powered gizmo and still agonizing over whether or not to use my “Sea of Sorrows” book or keep it.

Meglobob.8620:

They are exotic, according to a dev blog about them.

They are unique WvW skins, the mistforge bit gives the weapon effects…

Anet only want you to obtain ascended weapons/armour via crafting, no other way.

I got my ascended weapon through WvW rank bonus chests. Someone else in my friends list got it from Tequatl, and a third got theirs in LA while I was standing there using the crafting stations.

SirMorgenStar.6721:

3/10

Pretty bad. I appreciate the effort, but.. Yup. Pretty bad. A nonsensical story that felt completely random and out of place in the game until they shoved you-know-what in there at the end.. Wasn’t particularly interesting and the random alliances didn’t make much sense.

I think they made a certain level of sense when you saw what the end result was. The Molten Alliance generated special drilling techology and some sonic weaponry. The Toxic Alliance obviously made the miasma possible. The Aetherblades had their portal tech and . . . I’ll be honest, they’re the only fragment out of the three which actually is dangerous to me with the amount of stuns and such they throw out.

The randomness was a real issue, as it seemed there was no real . . . flow . . . of the chapters from one to the next. A staggered mess.

darkace.8925:

Levelord.5746:

Wow, talk about a thread filled with massive entitled whiners. You guys have no idea how hard it is to program a game, let alone an MMO.

I don’t know how things work in your country, but in mine we’re not required to be experts on a given subject before we’re allowed to voice our opinions on it. And you’re kitten ed right we’re entitled. We paid for this game. That entitles us, in every literal sense of the word, to criticize the game.

It does, you’re quite correct. However, it does mean there’s legitimate and insightful criticisms mixed in with “it sucks because it sucks”. One has to be careful when reading things to try to discern something useful.

To ANet – Can you please slow the timetable for releases down to every 3-4 weeks and use extra time to do a final testing pass before you release? Also, it’s getting clear some things are not getting caught in your internal test setup . . . it probably needs to be tallied just what slipped through and get its own patch soon.

Just saying.

darkace.8925:

Unsurprisingly, you’re defending the indefensible.

What can I say, I like to try my hand at impossible tasks now and then just to be sure they really are impossible. I’ve surprised myself before by actually succeeding.

By the way? I don’t find that much of a problem with this bit other than, eh, them keeping it a secret the Blade Shards would be of use later. Then again – hardly new. Nobody had a clue Nicholas was going to require some of those trophies way back when either . . . resulting in more than a few people going a leeeeeetle nuts and just saving everything over many mule characters.

runeblade.7514:

There are two huge reason why to dislike it:

• You like pet swapping.
• You want Rangers to be a fully pet class and don’t want Rangers to ever see a choice to dismiss a pet.

It is purely subjective and I can’t argue the above choices.

There’s a third, and it came up on the reread. It feels clunky and assumes quite a bit of truth in the statements. It assumes when the pet is out there will definitely be an increase in DPS and utility . . . which is debatable if the pet cannot track targets well.

(A note: Frankly, Signet of the Hunt almost assures me the pet is going to keep up with most targets I cripple or aren’t going faster than normal. There’s a trait I sometimes pick up – Marksmanship V, “Predator’s Instinct” which also helps much to keep a target where the pet can hit them . . . if they’re melee pets. Ranged pets still run the problem of aiming often at where a target is, and thus missing it when they’re in motion.)

The second assumption is the pet will function as a sort of inverted signet – a passive effect when stowed, an active effect when out with the default being active rather than passive. I don’t like this exactly because the pet doesn’t measure up to being worth the Active use for many people currently. And I’ll admit, they don’t function nearly as well as a simpler existence in GW1 did. Part of that is how much downtime the pet has when it gets killed off.

The mechanic proposition here doesn’t offer much benefit to people who like pets and want them to be better or more useful . . . yet it offers a lot to those who wouldn’t want the pet at all. So it’s not a fair split the way it is written.

That’s why I don’t like it. I’m not saying it’s terrible, just that I don’t like it.

runeblade.7514:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

runeblade.7514:

Hey guys, guys guys guys

If there was a pet option that satisfy both pro-pets and anti-pets, Would you go for it?

It depends on what it was. I don’t agree to do anything blindly. Last time I did that I wound up under a table waiting for the world to stop moving and the voices to stop.

. . . I don’t want to talk about it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/48#post3733440

Downside is that pet swap is removed, I don’t know about you, but I hate pet swapping. It doesn’t make sense on a ranger. I would gladly give up pet swapping for this.

Upside is that both pro-pets and anti-pets are both satisfied equally and Anet doesn’t have to balance ranger for both groups. Instead, it’ll balance for stowing and unstowing pets.

I don’t think I like it, and am re-reading it to try to figure out why. So some patience?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I have very mixed feelings about the “kiss-scene”. On the one hand I applaud them for having the guts and the maturity to have these two characters kiss clearly in a scene.

But on the other hand it feels a bit forced and heavy handed. As if the writers are saying: Look at us, we’re showing two girls kiss! Because!

We had this talk before. It doesn’t come off to me as “heehee lookit the lesbians!” it comes off as two characters who actually have grown into the part rather than it getting put in at the last minute for ratings. I’ve seen that tactic used badly before (Law & Order).

It’s been somewhat forming since I notices Kasmeer hanging around Marjory before Tower of Nightmares. And some intense, dangerous experiences have rather tempered it forward some.

I swear it comes off more as someone kissing a loved one in relief they’re alive and true affection rather than anything more exploitative. Especially given what we heard about Kasmeer’s issues with loved ones disappearing from her life in the past.

I think the intention is good, but the problem is that they’re still not treating a same sex relationship as normal.

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…).

By the way, before people throw in “Public Test Realms” into this discussion, two games I played which ostensibly had such did not deal with a lot of the bugs which were breaking things. UO had a “feature” of slimes splitting nigh infinitely, boy was that fun. EQ had its own bugs and “features” which were denied to exist by the higher ups.

And neither game had GMs which enjoyed having bugs demonstrated to them,usually resulting in temp bans. I know I got one on UO for “exploiting” for being able to reproduce an issue. Can’t recall what it was other than an item in town not behaving right, think it was being able to smelt items not on my person? Been a while.

mrstealth.6701:

A guild moving to Blackgate (or anything in T1) won’t have much impact or help that server do better, because they already have 24/7 player coverage/queues.

Moving to a T6 server where queues are less common and coverage gaps exist, a single wvw focused guild, or even just decent amount of individuals, can have quite an impact. Plus these servers are already clearly the top of bronze league, while SBI was on the lower end of silver league before their transfer surge happened for season one.

Eh, it’s moving off topic now . . . but worth noting the idea wasn’t to fleece people so they could bandwagon, so much as it seems to be “look,just spread out, we’ll make it easy. Free. There.”

Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work. People would much rather jam into a fewer selection of high pop servers than spread out.

runeblade.7514:

Hey guys, guys guys guys

If there was a pet option that satisfy both pro-pets and anti-pets, Would you go for it?

It depends on what it was. I don’t agree to do anything blindly. Last time I did that I wound up under a table waiting for the world to stop moving and the voices to stop.

. . . I don’t want to talk about it.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Nage.1520:

And the cash shop barely influences my gameplay at all. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I spent money on that crap. The game is fine without it.

Look, if noone is willing to spend money on the cash shop, where do you think this game is going?

What is the most southern point of the universe again?

I’d say Atlantis. Or wherever McKay wound up eventually.

Either that or Space Boondock.

darkace.8925:

Lord Kuru.3685:

So if no one had created this thread, we would never have known not to delete them until the announcement. Indeed, it appears this thread was too late for many people.

Yep. We’d also have missed an opportunity for the ardent fans to blame us for ArenaNet’s shortsightedness.

Nah. It’s not shortsightedness so much as it is not saying everything at all times forever. I mean, how dare they not tell people they had future plans for how to use those Blade Shards?

The fact I can mine them off my Clockwork Generator node in my home instance suggested to me there would be a use later. And, incidentally, there was no need for me to excessively hoard.

Eh, what can I say . . . by the by, could always turn those Bloodstone Dusts and Empyreal Fragments into their upgraded parts? Save some space, level your crafting it you’re 450+ . . .

Or junk it. I mean, not much use to that many stacks.

Arkholeon.7163:

i think we should ask for a salary or in-game better reward for doing their job :O

You should know there’s no guarantee that QA people get treated any better than players, assuming this is just slaps in the face for the lulz. There’s plenty of stories floating around about just simple abuse of QA staff some companies feel free to visit on them . . . not to mention even some places treat it like unpaid internships.

mrstealth.6701:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I think that’s wrong. I think I know why the pricing is that way – to encourage people to move for free to “less populated” servers to try to even it up. Same reason they don’t mind huge queue times on top-tier servers – they want people to spread out through the other servers rather than cluster in the top three.

That’s the one part of the deal that I think is good, but the tournament rewards incentives work against it. You can go there for free and get away from queue times or massive zergs, but that means getting less reward from the tournament.

0 gems and get the smallest reward vs 800 gems (or about 65g) to get the biggest reward. Having a near guaranteed chance at an ascended weapon (I’m assuming the “Mistforged” are ascended) helps make that a bit more worth the gold.

I’m not 100% sure it’s “near guaranteed” since a server which gets a lot of bandwagon joins is not likely to win any better than if they were at “normal strength” . . . they can still only field the same maximum people as anyone else and bandwagoners can keep competent people on the sidelines which might make a difference.

That, and the lesson SBI learned last season in the end: of course you can be knocked off the peg if servers team up on you to keep you from the reward spots.

I guess more to the point is “near guaranteed” isn’t “guaranteed”, or at least guaranteed enough for it to make sense spending gems to transfer to, say, Blackgate.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

Asura are the cutest thing ever, so if you get two asura together, who could hate it?

I could, I would, and I already hate it enough to be plotting ruining that wedding.

Vexander.9850:

frostyraziel.1854:

I tried to get a few of my friends back to GW2 by showing them that the Elder Dragons are again the focus of the game. Too bad Anet put the lesbian scene at the worst time, and now none of my friends can take the game seriously.

And that’s the issue of revealing these kinds of things. I mean, let’s be honest, the kiss revealing the relationship wasn’t -necessary-. It was added, and if we’re being honest, it was likely added just for the sake of being added. I’m not unhappy that it was added, but often times I think that those kinds of fun facts should be kept to novels or interviews with the writers. It doesn’t necessarily have a place in the story.

It was added because it’s a poor relationship where they won’t show affection when one of them nearly dies. It was added because it was a natural extension of their character relationship (never mind their sexual one).

I know if my best friend (eight years now, most of my adult life) almost died in my presence and wound up coming back like that? I’d certainly at least hug him and cry . . .

Can we please stop assuming the characters cannot be permitted to behave like actual emotional beings, just because we don’t like what happens? I mean, for all we gripe about Logan and his convoluted stuff . . . that’s part of being a person. All of it is understandable for a person to do, including that thing with Rytlock. I don’t like it, I think it’s immature, but . . . I know people who were exactly like that when their friendship dissolved. To the point one of them moved across town for no other reason than to never bump into the other in the grocery store.

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

If Scarlet was able to develop and build new armies of weapon systems why can’t Queen Jennah’s Kryta do the same?

Because they didn’t completely design the watchknights, they adapted a lot of technology they didn’t understand from the steam creatures. This is why it’s not been improved on yet, aside from the fact Scarlet still was running around and probably could have taken Version 2.0 for herself as well.

She has root user access.

mrstealth.6701:

This is a wvw-related thing, but it’s also related to how Anet has changed, and how cashgrabs can be damaging to a game and its communities.

There is a special pricing system in place for the week before the upcoming wvw tournament. The top half of Gold League has the same transfer cost (2400 gems) as the bottom half of Gold League(servers that have no chance of beating the top half).

The top 2/3 of Silver League also has the same 2400 gem cost. The bottom 1/3 of Silver is free.

Bronze league’s top 4 positions have a cost of 800 gems, the rest of Bronze is free.

The situation is that it will cost you 2400 gems to get top rewards in Gold/Silver, still cost you 2400 gems to get mediocre rewards in Gold/Silver, or 800 gems to get top rewards in Bronze. You can also move to a 5-6th place server in Bronze for free, and get the same mediocre rewards as someone paying 2400 gems to get into a 5-6th place in Gold/Silver server.

The really funny part is that once the tournament starts the pricing actually moves to a much better system. Within each league places 1-3 are 2400 gems, 4-6 are 1400 gems, and 7-9 are 1000 gems.

So what’s the deal with the totally different pre-tournament pricing? My guess is that they are banking on a lot of people taking that offer of 800 gems for an easy win and maximum rewards. Throwing away the integrity of the tournament (what little wvw has left) for the sake of making a quick buck on transfer sales.

I think that’s wrong. I think I know why the pricing is that way – to encourage people to move for free to “less populated” servers to try to even it up. Same reason they don’t mind huge queue times on top-tier servers – they want people to spread out through the other servers rather than cluster in the top three.

Joiry.2504:

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger is designed to have a pet. If the pet was taken away or didn’t do damage, then it wouldn’t be a Ranger anymore. Does that make sense?

I dunno, check a 1st ed AD&D rulebook, perhaps one of the earliest incarnations of the modern RPG ranger.

No pets.

No, what they were was a watered down mix of fighter/druid throughout most of D&D’s life cycle. To the point it wasn’t really useful to have one when you could have either.

And then in D&D 3.0 it became a more fragile DPS-oriented fighter or in 3.5 a dedicated archer. And both times you didn’t need them, you needed a fighter to let mages/clerics survive until level 6-7 when they started getting the awesome spells. After level 12, most other classes were jokes if you were talking efficiency.

SkiTz.4590:

I pray this is a joke and devs don’t even bother looking at this

Name of a pet has absolutely no impact on gameplay what so ever.

You honest to god believe people will use more pets if the nicknaming system was revamped? dear lord

Nope, but it is something I’d also like fixed.

Flytrap.8075:

And no matter what pet I pick, it’s still going to be hindered by terrible AI, sluggish timing, and poor survivability.

So those things should be fixed, rather than “omg pets don’t work, kill em off”. There has to be a way to fix it, and there has to be a way for it to get done without the massive upheaval they can’t really do.

Though, Allie? I’d really look into doing that overhaul of your behavior engine in the future, because it wouldn’t just benefit pets.

Why is Ranger the only class that has to make such a sacrifice? The longer I think about the 70:30 damage split, the more I’m against it. ANet would have to make significant improvements to the pet AI for it to be justified in my eyes, and even then, pets would still suffer in WvW.

Every single individual suffers in WvW when talking about the way WvW works. There’s no room in large-scale fights for the pet? There’s no room in large-scale fights for anyone not a warrior/guardian/elementalist.

Stone.6751:

There is a group of players who really hate the idea of the gem store. I feel like you all are thinking about it wrong. It’s not about greed, or else these wouldn’t just be cosmetic and convenience items. It’s more like they are holding a bake sale so they can keep developing their game.

Too bad they don’t have cheesecake bites, and their mystery cookie bags aren’t all that much fun. Too many coconut cookies in them, not enough macaroons.

I don’t hate the idea of the gem store for this reason. I just wish they’d get a better distribution of skin releases between the gem store and “you can earn this”.

KarlaGrey.5903:

False, it was just relocated to the AH for the extra gold revenue from transactions.

It’s still not Spamadan, which was wall-to-wall people semi-AFK selling things. At least the Black Lion allows people to throw things into it at a price and then keep playing rather than require them to sit, repeat, and hope they can clear their inventory.

DusK.3849:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

OneManArmy.9732:

tldr?

“Bring back Zaishen Quests”

Not exactly. Each Zaishen Quest on any given day was for all players. This system wouldn’t be. Chunks of players on the same server would have different Call to Arms (conceptual name only, btw) objectives on any given day.

You know, I remember when someone was complaining a storm in Temple of Balthazar over how Zaishen Quests would ruin GW1 completely because it was adding “Dailies” a la WoW to the game.

This isn’t a bad idea, by the way. I just think implementing it will give extra ammunition to people wanting to talk about how much grind there is in the game.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I have not much patience for games conceived badly or just to cash in.

What other reason do you think this one was conceived for though..?
Espaatz?

I’m going to go with “What is lots of booze, a bad idea, and two wagers for ego’s sake”, Alex.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

we probably aren’t going to agree on this but I think it’s a decent game and a passable imitation of “what if GW1 was a full-on MMO”. Shockingly, I don’t think it would have made a great MMO and I’m not entirely happy to see I was right.

It could pass as a decent game compared to other typical mmos a-la WoW/Lotro/Tera style, but not while carrying the franchise name of GW, or worse, misleading potential customers with lines such as ‘the best from GW1’.

Well it did take the best from Guild Wars 1. There’s no Spamadan.

OneManArmy.9732:

tldr?

“Bring back Zaishen Quests”

dagrdagaz.4913:

Well, did anyone enjoy the last (bugged) LS part the last few days?!

Not exactly, but then I didn’t get a chance to play due to work and this weird effect which started not long ago of Lion’s Arch not running for me. I’m not sure it’s the LS or just something going screwy with the server hosting the LA zone. . .

What I did get a chance to play? I did enjoy. Especially the part where I got to stomp Scarlet.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Think you missed my point. It only ticks me off to see games which are clearly BAD cash in successfully because of human stupidity.

Eh, I can agree with that to a point. But I also long ago stopped wishing human stupidity wouldn’t turn a quick buck. It just isn’t going to stop and . . . you know, if someone wants to melt daddy’s precious Visa playing Candy Crush Saga (trademark) I don’t pity them anymore.

Games such as Magic, on which GW1 is/was heavily based, as well as GW1 deserve every buck they can get. Quality creations should be rewarded, while bad products should suffer a terrible death by massive playerbase exodus (and certain parts of GW2 most definitely already met such fate).

And MTG had its own versions of that too, which I lived through enough to go “yeah….”. But the thing is, the games don’t deserve all the money they can get – they deserve all the money a person is willing/able to spend while they’re happy to play.

But I don’t want a game to die an ignoble death because they make a bad step. If that happened, MTG would be dead about seven times over by now, Minecraft never would have finished, and we’d never have D&D anywhere anymore.

I have not much patience for games conceived badly or just to cash in. But a game which has a definite spark of something there? I want them to get past bad things and improve. Unfortunately, this is so rare I might as well be wishing people would stop spending more money on designer clothing than on their food.

Obviously I am rather limited in what I can actually do/achieve (maybe things were different if I was a widely-known streamer, or anyone with considerable folowing in the online world), so I usually post as to constantly remind everyone what kind of game they’re actually playing – it is but a matter of time when people who currently still support the game come to the realization I and the rest of us did – that the game just isn’t worth a dime.

No, this game is worth the $60 I paid up front for admission. Currently I’d say it’s worth another $40 along the way, just to try to pay for them to keep the lights on and the rats running on the treadmills to power the servers.

As for what kind of game we’re actually playing . . . we probably aren’t going to agree on this but I think it’s a decent game and a passable imitation of “what if GW1 was a full-on MMO”. Shockingly, I don’t think it would have made a great MMO and I’m not entirely happy to see I was right.

JTGuevara.9018:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Cantha would improve this game. It would also increase NCSoft’s revenue stream, as I would throw endless money at them for this content.

Cantha can go to the Underworld and take those seven-times-kitten ed ritualists with it.

lol Like I said above, new zones won’t solve the problem! After Cantha is treaded in a week, we’ll STILL be back at square one discussing this stuff.

Actually I just have . . . flashbacks . . . to those goshdarned jellyfish in the Jade Sea. Especially the one skill which makes you a useless target for 10 seconds?

Never. Again.

Also, I want to burn all of Kaineng City down. Mapping that was the second worst part of my Cartography work.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

The lore set forth in either game is not sacred, and can be changed by the developers if they feel the gain is worth the cost in integrity.

The same could be said of lore for television shows, book series, movie series/remakes, tabletop games, wargames . . . don’t single out GW2 for this act. EverQuest had a ton of lore which was pretty much shafted so they could sell better expansions later. Warcraft 3 turned the previous three entries in the series into “what really happened”, and if you want someone to whimper, ask about White Wolf’s World of Darkness.

I didn’t intend to give the impression that I was singling out Guild Wars 2. I actually give them credit where it’s due- strictly speaking, any developer retains the right to entirely retcon something out of the continuity, but ANet has thus far endeavored to at least make a gesture of reconciling the difference by giving some reason that the old version was simply incorrect. If you managed to detect any exasperation within my post, it was directed towards the practice as a whole, and not the game in particular.

Totally understood but anymore it makes me sigh and reach for a bottle of my choice of alcohol to start dulling the anger a bit until I settle in with the new lore lines.

( Enterprise took so much I don’t even remember watching it, even though I know I did.)

Also, ever since the beginning ANet was usually careful to keep up the . . . shall we say, charade . . . of the lore being basically retellings of things other people said or wrote down. The only lore which could be 100% relied upon was what was seen directly – fond memories of the whole “White Mantle vs Shining Blade” stuff going on in Kryta during Prophecies.

“Hey the White Mantle are the protectors of Kryta, we can trust them. Those Shining Blade people kidnapped people so they must be bad news. Hey, what’s that Justicar doing on the Bloodstone . . .”

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Cantha would improve this game. It would also increase NCSoft’s revenue stream, as I would throw endless money at them for this content.

Cantha can go to the Underworld and take those seven-times-kitten ed ritualists with it.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Look, GW2 is one and a half years old.

Returning players, that have stopped playing the game see the following:

Not much new content.
The new content is buggy as hell.
Tons of new grinds that will take them monthes to get back to BiS.
A story they have missed and no idea what’s going on.

Sounds inviting to me.

Now, if people play some other games, only for a month or two, they will already feel like this when they return.

Where will this end?

When they leave.

Look, they’re not going to magically hit a toggle going “bugs == 0” and make it magically work properly. A PTR isn’t going to fix the issues of bugs existing, it will just shift them to something else. What’s going to happen is there are going to be a select few players who see bug posts and go “see, they can’t even do it right with a PTR!” and start this all over again.

And you want to complain about BiS taking months as though another MMO is going to be any easier on that front. Sure, there will be, but how much do you want to cash in your credit cards to get there? And which gold seller do you trust enough to get it to you? Though I hear Blizzard has a new scheme to try yanking money out of you to -pop- you to maximum level, so hey, maybe it won’t take months. If you pay.

Know what the worst part is? You actually have some valid points. It’s just you want to foster your problem with the current and fresh bugginess without remembering other games have the same issue, and will have different ones besides.

Ashen.2907:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It can work, with some reworking and refocus on actually expanding on the game and/or altering things so it actually has impact.

Which, notably, the last third of this ‘season’ did.

This is a really good point in my opinion. LS has a lot of potential. It is something new. Learning how to use any tool (and LS is a storytelling tool) well takes some practice. Some trial and error. This is an area where I think Anet gets too much flack. They should be allowed the time to either make it work, or to decide that they cannot make it work and to switch gears to something else.

And here’s where I turn a bit, so forgive me – Living Story isn’t a new concept. It’s been tried again and again in various forms as “GM Events”. Meridian 59 had its Bards supposedly to run minor missions or things to liven up the lore. EverQuest had Bloody Kithicor and other major events happening randomly unannounced. Ultima Online had various events from time to time.

The thing which is new is the whole announcing it ahead of time and letting it run without active guidance by GMs. Which, mind you, is where the bugs start coming in. See, a GM Event had the beautiful thing of having a GM who could unstick scripts on the fly or it was done solely through volunteers playing around. So it couldn’t bug up too much since it was actors in an NPC suit.

What really needs to happen for the LS is they need to sit down a few groups before hand, on this lull, and go “okay, sketch us out season two”. Start work on the outline now. Plan for more permanent additions to keep people interested. Plan for some impacts to the known world to keep it relevant. Plan for some hard elite content, plan for some simple “downtime fun” content. Give us a villain we want to strangle for the right reasons.

Now that’s about the LS. For the game itself? Hopefully the balance/feature patches coming will help and more X months from now (carefully worked on and tweaked) will be good for it.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Other games have a PTS and get some feedback early on.

On the other hand, in GW2 you get a new bug fest every two weeks, that get’s deleted from the game as soon as they get their stuff sort of fixed.

So everyone rushes to see the content, everyone get’s the bugs smashed in their faces, and get annoyed. This LS is pressuring players to play the content that is not polished at all.

That will just cause burn out and people flocking to other games.

I see you have some issues with GW2 and bugginess. It’s understandable, but I’m no stranger to it. Early days Everquest was buggier than a honey farm, and a lot of those were denied to exist for long periods until they were “fixed” (read, they were said to be fixed but really were just mitigated). Earlier games would often have emergency maintenance, UO was buggy in a lot of ways never handled and I only hear about recently . . . and notably, both of these had test servers. Though the UO one became less about testing and more about faction combat when I stopped. Good idea and it was fun, but . . .

Other games have that same issue so saying you want to quit GW2 because it’s too buggy and you want a better game? Good luck with that.

Leaving GW2 because it’s just not what you are looking for? I can respect that.

The LS needs to be polished and if they do lengthen the release schedule then it should get better. In theory. In practice, it just means we’ll still get bugs but less. Nothing’s bug-free.

JTGuevara.9018:

Let me just say I like this game. ArenaNet did a great job with this, thank you.
However, how can we truly, meaningfully improve this game? To make it grow?

The living story was an attempt to give us a new experience but it fell short. This game needs something new for pve & living story is not it.

No, this instance of Living Story didn’t work as well as was hoped. It can work, with some reworking and refocus on actually expanding on the game and/or altering things so it actually has impact.

Which, notably, the last third of this ‘season’ did.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

The lore set forth in either game is not sacred, and can be changed by the developers if they feel the gain is worth the cost in integrity.

The same could be said of lore for television shows, book series, movie series/remakes, tabletop games, wargames . . . don’t single out GW2 for this act. EverQuest had a ton of lore which was pretty much shafted so they could sell better expansions later. Warcraft 3 turned the previous three entries in the series into “what really happened”, and if you want someone to whimper, ask about White Wolf’s World of Darkness.

DeWolfe.2174:

I’m curious if back slot items could be considered play to win items? Apparently some devs are making certain the best in slot ones remain very pricey. Most Quivers still cost over 100g, Light of Dwayna is over 250g, and the Tempered Spinal Blades material cost are running about 95g right now. Not counting all the blade shards one has to farm for them.

If Back Slot items were cosmetic only, it wouldn’t be an issue. But, with stats included, does this cross into pay to win territory? If something as insignificant as the Watchwork Mining Pick could raise such a stir, I thought about back slot items.

Any thought on the matter? Should it be so expensive to gear our characters beyond cosmetic?

Only if you’re not willing to personally put in work for it. Notably, I mean the Damask/Leather/Deldrimor Steel and the crafting level. The ability to just buy these things should be considerably more expensive than actually making it over a longer period of time.

This, of course, assumes Ascended is the last tier of power which needs to be crafted. Or that the next tier they add is going to directly build off Ascended.

mrstealth.6701:

But I will likely still keep an eye on these forums, and occasionally post.

So, mrstealth will become a lurker? Something seems appropriate here.

bullyrook.2165:

First cut-scene kiss in the game, and we get this. sigh I am rather disappointed.

Man, so am I, all this crap being thrown about the-

No matter, I’ll keep playing, hoping the devs remember that the individuals who like this aspect are not the only people who play this game. There are good, honest, paying customers who don’t find this favorable. I’ll just have my finger on the “skip cut-scene” button in the near future and keep praying they try telling a romance within a story I can enjoy witnessing too.

Moving on, thank goodness I can forget about all this with the next update.

. . . nevermind.

matjazmuhic.1649:

I think most of the people replying here agree with you and stoped playing a while ago.

At least I did. I didn’t see any point of forcing myself to go online every day, it just wasn’t fun. I never did a ‘I quit’ post on this forums, I just still like to state my oppinion on the forums because I find like-minded people here.

And much like them, I won’t get on a soapbox and go “I quit and here’s why”. I may comment on threads to that effect, but no need to go trying to get a spotlight on me over it.

Just to be clear, I have walked from GW2 due to RL needing me more than the game and me going “Eh, nothing really needing me there”. And the one time my computer exploded.

Since this format was used, and I don’t want to rate the whole thing without basically copping out.".

1. Flame and Frost: the Gathering Storm – 5. Not quite enough content during the time, despite it being interesting for the first few days. Very atmospheric.

2. Flame and Frost: the Razing – 7. Better play and kept good atmosphere, and gave me a few more things to do. Introduced two interesting major NPCs who felt better than others.

3. Flame and Frost: Retribution – 9. Much as I enjoyed the dungeon, many groups would shout at me for mining, despite this being the only way to get Azurite. Also, very little here to do other than the dungeon but most of the other achievements

4. The Secret of Southsun – 6. I took a break because I really hate Karka. Really hate them. And lacking a usual crowd to run with, having an issue with RL timing? I wound up giving most of this a pass.

5. Last Stand at Southsun – 7. Decent ending, but RL kept me from experiencing most of it. Do like the development of the story.

6. Dragon Bash – 5. Mindless and entertaining fun, but with a lot of repetitive events and came . . . if I recall, shortly after something similar. I liked it, but it was a bit much. Sky Pirates was very fun though.

7. Bazzar of the Four Winds – 9. I really liked the new area and the Aspect usages. For every frustrating thing in navigating there was a wonder of “so that’s how I do that” when I watched someone else do it. My only complaint was how it was really quite . . . little. Also, Obsidian Sanctum Kite can kiss a dolyak.

8. Cutthroat Politics – 7. Neat concept, really bad since there was/is a lot of sniping between those who wanted Evon to win and those who wanted Kiel to win, and those who thought the whole thing was a waste and “preordained”. Had fun with it for a few days, then it lulled big time.

9. Queen’s Jubilee – 8. Very enjoyable work through the Pavilion and the Queen’s Champions were very entertaining fights which could be solo’d. Still a problem of too much festivities in too short a time.

10. Clockwork Chaos – 9. Love the Invasion events, it really felt fun to just cut loose on an area with about fifty other people. Scarlet should have been toned down a little, my only big complaint.

11. Tequatl Rising – 6. Do not like the revamp to the encounter, primarily because I live on a server where there is simply no interest in doing him so it seems. It was a good idea, but its content was simply not for me.

12. Twilight Assault – 4. I don’t do dungeons and this made it harder for me to get involved. It didn’t help this coincided with a period of RL where I was at work almost every darn night for two weeks. Luckily I took one look at the content and went “yup, can safely miss this”.

13. Tower of Nightmares – 8. Hey, look, a LS bit which had an impact on a zone other than random events popping up. Hey, look, enemies which help each other and have some mild synergy. Also, distinct lack of achievements I felt were “repeat 100 times”; most of them completed themselves.

14. The Nightmares Within – 9. Fun tower romp, good end battle, third floor was total bull after they patched it to prevent running through it quickly. Highly enjoyed this.

15. Fractured – N/A. No, I’m not rating this unlike Twilight Assault because I didn’t partake at all of anything while I did take a couple stabs at Aetherpath.

16. A Very Merry Wintersday – 10. Enjoyed it, loved the return of the events from the previous year with little tinkering. A very fun month-long trip and allowing me to get one of the mini toys I missed was good. Also – thanks for not adding new limited items to drop tables or removing old ones.

17. The Origins of Madness – 10. Solid play, good work on the story more or less, and very fun. Frustrations were more due to my availability not being there for successful warden kills to round out my achievement list.

18. The Edge of the Mists – 9. Love the addition of the Edge, and the recap story instance was sorely needed.

19. Escape from Lion’s Arch – 9. If only the darn thing didn’t have connection issues inside LA. It’d be a 10/10.

20. Battle for Lion’s Arch – 9. Repeating above. This is so far entertaining, but technical frustrations have me wanting to kill quaggan.

Overall: 7/10. A decent start if slow with the pacing, several missteps with character work and story presentation, but it finished rather well. Hope they do better next time.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Just popping in to say I am in strong support of the views expressed by Penguin, mrstealth, matjazmuhic (hello, fellow Slovenian?), and Zonzai.

If only (y)our kind of thinking was the norm.

Sadly, I’m proud not to be the norm in any way. What do I mean? I miss, despite all the grind, the original Dragon Warrior on the NES. I still view Final Fantasy 4 (GBA) as the best version of that game and one of the best Final Fantasy experiences you can have between story and gameplay. I still occasionally boot up Monster Hunter Freedom Unite even with the atrocious choices made for the RNG. (Heavenly. Scales.)

I enjoy a couple mobile games with . . . shall we say robust . . . monetization options. I’ll even throw a name out there: “Battle Nations” from Z2Games. Still really fun. I don’t mind these games exist, I do mind there’s a sort of push to try to apply monetization to games which don’t need it, but I also recognize the need for free games to . . . well . . . support their companies somehow.

Lastly, I enjoy one of the seriously “moneygrubbing” games out there: Magic the Gathering. Been enjoying it off and on for twenty years now. (God I feel old).

Here’s where I’m weird. If at any time I feel a game is trying to pull me in directions I don’t want to go, or are trying to get me to spend money beyond what I really want to? I walk away. I don’t go ape on the forums, I just turn my back and occasionally go “yeah I used to play that . . . don’t anymore”. I don’t have a problem with just accepting a game as “it has served its purpose for entertainment and no longer is fun” and forgetting it.

And honestly, this is what I wish more people were like. They go “meh, I got my money’s worth” and walk away rather than trying to hold a proverbial gun to a publisher’s head “I’ll stop playing/paying unless you…” . . . because it’s just not worth it in the long run. There’s plenty of other things you can find to entertain yourself, getting worked up to frothing madness over_one_ isn’t healthy.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Well Chris, I’m glad you like my scenarios. I hope you’ll get well soon!

Here are two more:

The branded ooze

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Background setting:

A massive mirror-like plains in the desert, branded, shining bright as it reflects the sun.

The encounter:

A branded ooze with mirrors so sharp they reflect half the damage back on its attackers. It’ll force players to look for a new balance on offense and defense. This would also be a big plus for condition users. It is of course not just sitting there taking damage, it’s mirrors are razor sharp and cause bleeding. Not to mention the burning that builds up when the sun is not blocked by the clouds.

Strategies pushed in this encounter:

Healing, vitality, condition damage and condition removal.

A fragile weapon

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Background setting:

A part of the underworld that is completely dark.

The encounter:

To light up the darkness, a crystal needs to be charged. But as it is charging up, we can see a shadow sneaking up on us in the dim light. This Aatxe is extremely tough, the main goal it has however, is to crack that crystal. If left alone, it’ll creep up to the crystal and shatter it instantly as it is about 10% charged, though it can also strike at nearby players. One strike is enough to destroy the crystal. Then you’ll have to get a new one somewhere in the darkness. So it is vital that the monster is slowed, immobilized, pushed back or otherwise held from progressing towards the crystal.

Another strategy would be to protect the crystal by interrupting the attacks or blocking them. Or perhaps both are necessary.
Once the crystal is fully charged the creature is blasted away and the darkness is cleared. At higher levels multiple creatures may approach, or they might even have new moves. A leap or a projectile attack for example.

Strategies pushed in this encounter:

Immobilize, blinds, slows, area denial, interrupts, aegis, push/pull and knockdown.

I see I should have thrown more specifics in my posts :P Just wasn’t going to since I prefer to start vague after the last CDI I participated in and then build up

Flytrap.8075:

Ltomato.8649:

I may be alone in this…

I honestly think you are.

Longbow is currently super clunky and doesn’t really do that great of a job of fulfilling its niche; the proposed changes would help address these issues.

No, I like the Longbow as the concept stands currently. I just think it could fill the role of “long range weapon” better for us if it had more punch to its attacks which are supposed to have teeth.

Mirta.5029:

Enokitake.1742:

Whereas GW1 had a maximum of 8 players in most common PVE maps, and 12 in elite PVE, and 24 in highest population PvE modes. But yes, GW2 aimed to be more of an MMO style than GW1… but that also means its more of a WoW clone.

So you’re unhappy about everything including the genre choice? In that case why not to play some other CORPG’s like Monster Hunter?

Not available to me. Or I’d be all over that like skritt on shinies.

mrstealth.6701:

The worst part is that we’re to a point where games don’t even have a reward system…or even gameplay mechanics in some cases. You just buy whatever you want with real money. Everything is turning into a Facebook/mobile “game” where all you do is decorate a virtual house with cash shop trinkets.

Minecraft, Terraria, Civilization 5, Dwarf Fortress . . . yes, you can do RMT in these games for items.

Wait…

OR wait, they all shipped without mechanics in place and are just existing to pull money out of wallets.

Wait, no that’s Starbound.

Careful with throwing “everything” around like that. It gets painful.

At that point, you’re just paying for access to a shopping mall to spend even more money, and a place to hang out to show off the things you bought.

I’m not claiming that GW2 is at that point, but it sure does have some aspects of it.

If it gets to the point where computer games are like that, or go the way of the mobile “wallet please?” games? I’ll go right on back to my cardboard crack. Magic: The Gathering is at least much more upfront about the fact you’ll be spending money to play beyond a certain casual level.