Guild Wars 2

Don’t forget Aurora’s Remains.

Nage.1520:

Sorry to disagree but “all us Guild Wars 1 vets” didn’t fall victim to hype. I bet I have as many hours in Guild Wars 1 as you do, and I’ve played over 5000 hours of Guild Wars 2. I didn’t fall victim to hype.

You make it sound like most people who played Guild Wars 1 enjoyed FoW and UW, but I’m thinking that that’s not the case. I don’t know any statistic that shows it. In fact, I bet most GW 1 players barely ever set foot in those places. I know I didn’t do them much and didn’t enjoy them when I did.

This is like the raiding community in most games thinking most people love raiding. It’s not true.

I played Guild Wars 1 for a ridiculous amount of time and I see Guild Wars 2 as an improvement in most (but not all) ways.

I don’t want UW, FOW, DOA. I didn’t really want them before, even if I did eventually do them. They were not enjoyable for me with anything other than a bunch of alliance mates who were less likely to complain I brought a ranger without being assassin secondary.

I also want to note, I knew almost exactly what I was going to see when I got into the second Beta Weekend Event. Except for Hunger Royale, that was . . . not . . . not very fun or good.

About the only surprise was how much I actually hated playing a guardian. It just didn’t click for me, and one of my two mains on GW1 was a smite monk.

Ashen.2907:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Can’t speak on EvE Online. But I do know I face a bigger grind going back into GW1 to finish my Hall of Monuments title track. Not to mention the grind for “God Amongst Mere Mortals”. There will be an incredible grind for those last 15 points or so, not to mention 20 title tracks.

I am not one of those who will argue that GW1 did not have grind. I didn’t encounter it, but I know others did. Still, GWAMM and HoM grind were for cosmetic options, something we were told would be how grind was handled in GW2, for cosmetics only. GW2, instead, has implemented time gated vertical progression gear grind.

I’m going to try not to laugh loud and hard about that statement of “Time gated vertical progression gear grind”.

I could list, again, a lot of things I know I found grindy in GW1 and I only just hit the tip of the iceberg. While “none of it was mandatory” (a fact I still lightly dispute) . . . none of it is mandatory over here either. Save for one place and detail. Agony Resistance. (Ah, ye olde infusion run, we meet again…)

But what I think of these two games? Most of it is centered on two things which I say with little trepidation:

- Guild Wars 1 was not a very good model for an MMO to be built from. It was more like a semi-advanced Diablo 2 type game, without the insanity of the gear ladder. But it was really rather boring once you completed the missions, “Hard Mode” added as many frustrations as benefits, the concept of cosmetic progression very often was sidelined for people showing off hard to attain armors/dyes without really thinking about aesthetics, and the balance was rather wonky for most of its life. It was a fun game, but the best draw was it not having a monthly fee and being relatively low-level on minimum specs you needed to run it.

- Guild Wars 2 is what happens when that same company gets to do an MMO. It’s serviceable, but not “great”. It still has surprisingly good minimum spec requirements (and still look decent), but unsurprisingly there’s a lot of the same thing going on here there was before. Namely, “chase that skin” requiring tons and tons of good luck or good funding. But at least Black Dyes aren’t consumed on each set of armor requiring an nigh infinite sink for you to use them? The gameplay is mostly uninspired even if it is fun at times, and the active combat of the game barely holds a candle to things Capcom makes/made.

It doesn’t surprise me the game we got is a decent game for $60, but not a great MMO to be remembered for all times. It’s nowhere near perfect, I don’t really expect it will see great advances to unseat WoW as the king of MMOs (Blizzard is going to do that themselves), but it’s not going to roll over and die because something new and shiny came along. This game is robust enough in its core to still be entertaining, in small bites.

It’s the Olive Garden of MMOs. Decent enough at what they do, cheap and accessible enough to be successful, and not as front-loaded with instant gratification. And while it’s okay to like it, you shouldn’t choose (or expect) it as a paragon example of good cuisine.

Flytrap.8075:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aioros.4862:

A detail? I can probably use one hand to count ranger weapons skills that are not a dps loss compared to auto attack.

Yes, a detail. As in, something they should probably look into which is less important than the idea our unique mechanic could use tweaking and another look.

Remember, it’s been stated the pet is intended to be a nice slice of our DPS.

Keyword: intended.

Yes.

So that has to be looked at before we start talking about the DPS of our weapons. Because, as someone stated, if we buff our weapons and then sometime later we get someone who knocked out a pet fix which actually works? We’ll be doing damage out of line with the rest of the classes rather than more balanced with them.

Aioros.4862:

A detail? I can probably use one hand to count ranger weapons skills that are not a dps loss compared to auto attack.

Yes, a detail. As in, something they should probably look into which is less important than the idea our unique mechanic could use tweaking and another look.

Remember, it’s been stated the pet is intended to be a nice slice of our DPS.

sorudo.9054:

Slither Shade.4782:

It was only $60. I would not feel guilty over trying every single other game out there. We take this too seriously. Have you tried Eve Online? Everyone should try it once. There is no going back, I tried to go back it did not work second time around, but once was epic.

tried it, if there is an even bigger grind anywhere then it’s eve online.
it’s confusing, boring and has absolutely no action, let alone the drive to play trough it since no one has any control over their ship.

i am bored with GW2 (and mostly because of the community) but eve tops it.

Can’t speak on EvE Online. But I do know I face a bigger grind going back into GW1 to finish my Hall of Monuments title track. Not to mention the grind for “God Amongst Mere Mortals”. There will be an incredible grind for those last 15 points or so, not to mention 20 title tracks.

Aioros.4862:

Isn’t rapid fire a dps loss compared to auto attack?

A detail which needs attention and tweaking, perhaps.

Tao.5096:

May someone fill me in how GW2 is grind based?

Ascended Gear and its crafting, Yakslapper, “kill 1000 giants” . . . Legendaries . . . these are generally the go-to examples.

Darkbattlemage.9612:

Levetty.1279:

Lions Arch is allied with the Centaurs, that is more then enough reason for Kryta to stop turning a blind eye to the pirates who are squatting on the grave of their old capitol and terrorizing the nearby farms and take control once Scarlet is gone.

Lion’s Arch has a treaty with the Centaurs, just like the Charr and humans have a treaty with one another. How I understand this treaty so long as the Centaur do not actively harm or otherwise hinder Lionguard protected caravans, the Lionguard will not attack the Centaur. This itself is not reason enough for Divinity’s Reach to seize Lion’s Arch.

Considering the centaurs often ignore the treaty anyway . . .

I haven’t touched Tequila and the Worm because that type of drink makes me sick. Oh, oh you mean the big risen thingy and the Wurm.

Yeah, that makes me sick too. Mostly because I am almost never around or available when a concerted and coordinated effort is possible or intended. By the time I get to the game, it’s either late enough timewise it’s off peak hours and there’s nobody there . . . since losing doesn’t get you anything and winning isn’t really possible with the few people who trickle in . . . or the best efforts aren’t coordinated as closely because those players aren’t doing it then.

Etien.4601:

I don’t care.

I don’t care about your not caring. That you don’t care doesn’t change anything to make it mandatory or a good idea they talk more openly.

Nobody cares how much they can talk or not.

Sure, everyone cares, that was the point of the post I quoted and the rest of your post says . . . yes, you do care.

And notably, they cared when Josh Foreman talked a little too much during SAB Release 2. Along with other people who got their noses bent out of shape over often blunt responses from him. You can see what happened there, and that’s why you don’t get the candid and straight answers you desire.

Because, let’s be clear here. A lot of ideas posted here on the forums just aren’t very good ideas. More than a few suggestions, fixes, additions, subtractions are put up without any concept of what else doing that “one tiny thing” might affect. They don’t look at the wide picture, they don’t think about the game as a whole. They want ascended gone, they want HealSig nerfed to 10% of what it is, they want Queensdale destroyed entirely, they want (insert NPC here) drawn and quartered, and then hanged for good measure. And maybe fed to the goats, but they can’t agree on whether to feed them before or after the wood chipper in employed.

I’ll bring up a related point. A lot of feedback doesn’t even stop to think “why is Thing A like this?” . . . they just say it’s bad and move on, or “I didn’t like it”. Which is okay, it’s okay not to like something. But there’s nothing a developer can act on with “I didn’t like it”.

Lastly, treating the developers like the enemy isn’t going to get you anywhere to get them to listen to you. You can have the most awesome fix in the world which will make this game talked about until the world explodes from how incredible it is. But if you start with the attitude of “I know the developers are all idiots with their heads stuck up a certain rectal cavity” . . . yeah, they’re not going to take you as serious.

To the OP if you’re still reading? Are you right to give up on the game? Well, if you’re no longer having any fun . . . maybe it was right. If you’re not having fun playing something in order to have fun . . . time to step back. Maybe put it down and come back later or not at all. There’s zero shame in it.

Yeah, I think I’ve run out of things to say even with the little I’ve said. I like playing my Ranger even if it has its frustrations. I find myself actually rather survivable in solo PvE, I’m sort of useful in some group functions, and the only problem with the pet is its own survivability.

Any of the changes I read, while it might address problems others see, start leading me down to “but I won’t really want to play a ranger anymore” because it starts slotting me into play styles I don’t enjoy. It turns some “odd” weapon functionalities I’ve either learned to work with or leave alone (Work with? Sword. Avoid? Off hand dagger.) into things which I would probably then be expected to use or be forever branded a “noob ranger” for not going for them.

In the last several pages I’ve just seen people beating up on the same issues over and over to the point . . . there’s just no point to discussing anymore. You know what I keep reading in most of the posts? Either the ranger is irrevocably broken and ANet’s designers are incompetent, or the ranger is irrevocably broken and ANet’s designers don’t care.

I said it many pages ago – I don’t feel “broken” playing my ranger. I am a little more squishy than I like but I’m not supposed to tank damage like a warrior or guardian. I don’t do as much damage as the warrior when I was doing guild groups through areas but I could stay up and the pet pulls agro while I battle-res or drop healing springs. I have never felt like I was a burden to the group.

In WvW of course I feel like I’m not as effective or efficient. I am not a big PvP player and over several dozen different games and several different genres of games . . . it’s safe to say I . . . personally . . . cannot reliably play PvP well unless I am*so overpowered* it’s more like “point, click, and they die”. And despite that I don’t feel like I’m a “load” on the field in WvW anymore than I feel I should have saved the $12.95 and not done Booster Draft last Friday.

I think- no, scratch that. I know there are things which can be tweaked to fix some of the issues without ripping everything apart and starting over. “Fixing” the pet is one of them. We don’t need “two pets at once”, nor do we need pets to be 100% accurate with hits, we really need them to fill the damage gap they’re supposed to reliably without keeling over if a Elite/Champion/Legendary/Player looks at them funny. We could probably use some way of getting more control over the pet to micromanage it if the pet is supposed to be our signature mechanic.

Let’s face it, a ranger in GW1 who could micro their pet and had a skill setup to make it work could be a disruptive problem which needed solving instead of an annoyance to be suffered. Can we as a class get back to the point where we need to be responded to instead of just survived?

Bart Weird.9671:

CC Danicia.1394:

Hello all,

Whilst we don’t mind a comparison here or there, let’s keep it on-topic to Guild Wars 2 gameplay. Thanks!

That’s all you got to say from reading this post?

That’s probably all which should be said from reading this post from CC Danicia. She’s not PR or developer, she’s basically a non-automated moderator. (Though I can’t be too sure about that, the asura have made lots of progress in auto-moderation.)

I mean, there’s a lot they could probably say, but how much should they say as far as their superiors are concerned? Remember there is a limit to how candid they can actually be, and probably err on the side of caution to avoid white knighting their own game.

. . . or worse, one of them getting a green light to be 100% candid and proceeding to say things people don’t want to hear.

Aside from “we think we made a great game, even though it’s still got things we need to fix”, which is exactly what you’d get with varying degrees of verbosity if another red post was dropped in here.

Player created Fractals?

. . . anyone remember CoX’s mission creation system and how that was really abused? There would need to be some authority from ANet vetting these things and giving them the seal of approval rather than just rubber-stamping anything with certain criteria met.

Just food for thought there.

Aegael.6938:

Nike.2631:

Honestly, seeing this definition of “skirmisher” makes a lot of things clear to me.

I’ve always flat out HATED the Skirmisher line’s minor traits~

Tail Wind. Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat.
Furious Grip. Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat.
Hunter’s Tactics. Deal more damage while flanking.

To me, operating under the misapprehension that I’m on a class that’s an “unparalleled archer”, swapping weapons is a sign of weakness. It means I’ve lost control of the situation and I’m having to scramble for my back-up plan. Forcing me to take swap-based benefits on the way to picking up fundamental Archer Traits has always bugged me.

But now I see that “skirmishing” means having to whittle my foe down over a span of time so long I could swap weapons repeated… like its supposed to take 40 seconds or more to kill something (cue hip-hop beat) all Ranger-Skirmish-Style! Man, I am just so awesome against foes that stick around and let me kill them. Awesome I tell ya.

The problem is in 40 seconds I can swap to a character that can get the (*#^&$ job done. Without the enemy having to be a willing participant in their own demise.

This is another problem I have. Not just with this class, either, but it pertains more to this class than any other.

There’s simply no incentive in this game to kite melee enemies. Melee mobility in this game in general is very, very high. Typically, a player will simply swap to his melee set as soon as the enemy gets within melee range. In my eyes, this completely cuts out an entire playstyle, kiting the enemy and keeping a safe distance from him.

There is a lot of incentive to kite melee enemies . . . when solo roaming in PvE. WvW, well, enemy players don’t play that ballgame as well as AI enemies.

As far as keeping the enemy away from me? WvW I do this by running with people who are able to tie them up or a pet with an Immobilize/Snare effect. (This is less effective since a good warrior sneezes and they die, or a thief stealths and the pet forgets . . . )

In PvE, I only have problems when we talk certain Level 80 Veterans and any level Elites and up. I theoretically can solo the Queensdale Cave Troll, and did so once upon a time before the Champion Trains became a “thing”. Heck, I whittled Kol in Harathi Hinterlands (the giant) down to 33% health until someone found it. (I had someone watch and go “and you’re a ranger?” . . . yeah.)

Defiant/Stability makes it hard for me to control/lockdown enemies, but since it’s intended for those to be taken by groups, I don’t sweat it as much.

So in the one hand, I can solo-roam PvE and most places “get s**t done” outside of champion-spawning events. I can often handle Orr in places where others fear to tread, and usually with only two weapon sets: Longbow and Axe/Torch. I can escape from just about anything short of “pin you in place then crush you”. I dare say if it’s lower than an Elite . . . if I see it, I can kill it. I may need to prepare, but there’s enough in the ranger skill “toolbag” to handle many things PvE can throw at me.

Now on the other hand . . . WvW. Where my biggest asset isn’t my class skills but the fact I can get on a ram and drop a water field before I get cracking. Or I can put one extra Blast finisher in for a small skirmishing group. But in 50% of the cases versus another player I will need to escape rather than fight because they can burst me dead unless I specifically build for it . . . in which case I probably won’t be able to do much other than force them to run. And that’s not counting the “fun times” of thinking I got some solo-roamer and find out he’s merely about 15 seconds ahead of his four (or forty) friends, enter downed state and bag dispenser mode.

There’s . . . a considerable gap, which is somewhat heightened by the bone stupid enemy AI in PvE. Other players dodge, other players have stunbreakers and stability skills, and other players more probably put more time into figuring out how to counter anything I do than I could do. So I just leave WvW balancing in their hands.

. . . but rangers are far from useless in general PvE, it’s only the specialized things which fall apart for them.

And again, I worry about some of these suggestions which alter or otherwise change the ranger skills or other things into things which will negatively affect my PvE experience and survivability in favor of things I’m not too sure we need.

So the question to the nice ANet staff:

If Rangers are expected to be survivable, do sustainable damage, and not “Burst for 55K and rest”, how do they line up with what you envision and why . . . why, then are they so far behind everyone else? Especially since it’s been said Warriors are pretty much exactly where you folk want them to be and they’re potentially better at the survivable, sustainable burst damage?

Prysin.8542:

Actually, why can’t Anet just let me “charm” that sexy Legendary Defender outside my spawn in WvW. You know, that tall guy with the shiny smile, and the nametag that says “Johnson”

Don’t you mean “Ramirez”?

By the way, I would rather have Fenrir the Kveldwulf pack leader from Eye of the North. You know, P/W two headed wolf boss?

WatchTheShow.7203:

. They used to be able to revive dead players, and now they can only revive downed players. I would like to see this reverted. Also, rangers used to be able to revive dead pets, but now dead pets can only be swapped out.

I know. I was a ranger in BWE2 & 3 and since early access, I got to see some of those “nerfs” but know a few of them were QOL patches since some people saw dead pets and would revive only for the pets to fall over again shortly.

Also people using S&R for things not potentially intended for when designed so . . .

But allowing a ranger to “treat” their own pet goes back to GW1’s “Comfort Animal” res effect. (By the way, that was a great pulling tool sometimes :P )

Nike.2631:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Want to solve rolling? Add a vote on the next Fractal like the vote for dungeon paths.

Propagating non-random, player-determined scenario selection to all three tiers instead of just the first tier isn’t getting rid of it…

Well add it to the entry then, if that’s your concern.

I’m getting very concerned reading this thread since I posted last time in it.

. . . it seems I’m playing the ranger all wrong since I’m actually, well, using a pet with skills and it doesn’t end badly. I’ve used a pet to tank Warden II by having it keep agro and save others with “Search and Rescue” later.

It seems I’m playing it wrong by picking out targets in WvW different than what the rest of the zerg or major group is doing and making efforts to contain or harass rather than get in there and soak damage like the rest.

It seems I am one of the few who likes how Point Blank Shot works.

And it seems what other people want to turn the ranger into is going to force me out of playing my class.

Want to solve rolling? Add a vote on the next Fractal like the vote for dungeon paths.

Want to keep the randomness of selection? Randomize the selection of three Fractals plus a fourth “random” choice for people who want to give in to the whim.

And at the same time, make it so the Fractals aren’t “lost” when they exit back to Mistlock. Until the party departs the Mistlock, the Fractal they were just in is active and they can’t go into another one until that one is shut down. Dessa can give some typical asuran technomagicbabble explanation for why.

People who don’t want others to “reroll” and hope for an easier/different Fractal can have it stopped. People who want to just get the path they want have an option.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

We could do something like this, but when ends up happening is the work involved ends up being a lot of additional work to basically build something people play one or two times and then are done with it. In that time, we could have probably half built another real fractal, which I think probably would be better for the game over-all. Maybe the real question would be -> How do we try and get across better lore and stories with the current fractal system?

A few ideas:

- Have the stories run like Dessa’s voiceovers, which work well enough on their own. For the most part, the Fractals as of so far are relatively decent about the story content not being important but future ones could have the NPC dialogue take place while players are approaching or such.

- Have small scenes in places to illustrate or otherwise demonstrate the story behind the fractals. And I do mean small – ten to thirty seconds.

- Go relatively low-impact: a journal item or NPC which adds to itself as you do more of a Fractal or as you find “discoveries” while in them. Example: a new bit is added for the Urban Battleground, where friendly noncombatants are sprinkled in the battlefield and talking to them reveals more about what’s going on.

Enundr.9305:

Kal ill give you a hint , it all gets deleted , more common then you will ever acknowledge , im amazed this thread still hasnt been deleted yet actually.

It’s probably going to get locked, like the other one, for off-topic and personal attacks et cetera, et cetera. Every topic like this gets dragged there by all parties involved, and then Godwin’s Law gets invoked for the capper.

I’ll say this . . .

They do aggressively delete “I’m quitting!!!!!!!!!” threads, because it’s both against the TOS for the forums and most people never stick around after posting it. If the OP isn’t going to take part in the discussion, they tend to lock/delete them as nonproductive.

Alas, this is why moderating forums is one of the rougher jobs on the internet. As kittenifting through the junk mail filter for a company to see if any legitimate mail got caught in there.

Chrispy.5641:

Ellen Kiel worked really hard, all the way until we got to this dungeon, because she did nothing, as I said. so….nope.

She did nothing? She was ressing my one PUG all the time, so she was doing more than half of the work. Pfft, besides what do I need with a starship . . . I mean, airship? Could you imagine the repair bills, the upkeep costs, the Consortium insurance bills? No thanks, let her have the headache.

Its also the kind of quality that got Lions Arch destroyed apparently, because her inspiring words could do nothing to save the city. That, or she is lying. so….nope.

Of course her inspiring words didn’t help. Captain Evon kept saying she was full of crap right up until he started “Kiel didn’t do anything to save you but I warned everyone about this” . . . not only that but all his supporters kept saying she was a lying liar who lied and unfit for the council, so really . . .

Does it surprise you the Council basically said “yeah, they don’t trust you so we should?” . . .

Magnus is making a political play that probably has nothing to do with Kiel anyways, so much as spreading his influence?…yeah, lets go with that one.

At least his heart is in the right place. “Fort Marriner has never fallen under my watch and it isn’t going to now!” Of course, that miasma, it’s a killer. Someone needs to do something about that air quality in LA.

Astralporing.1957:

brittitude.1983:

Because in one week of playing, I have accumulated over 20 of the two-week passes from opening the alliance supply bags.

In the same time, farming heavily, i have accumulated only 4. And those do not seem to be of two-week kind, but one-use only. I haven’t seen any two-week pass drop yet at all.

Those 4 should be enough, if you take time and lay out what you want to do for the best efficiency. I’m still scratching my head on what to do with my “express” items which summon a merchant or trading post representative to my location when I have no need for them . . .

Windwalker.2047:

I will kittening laugh my kitten off when Anet starts removing convenience en mass and all you white knights start to figure out somethings wrong.

. . . when it reaches that point, and not before, I’ll start writing well-worded and polite letters to the developers illustrating “this is the point you went too far”, and after deleting the game from my hard drive I will not look back.

This would not be the first time either, and I did have some correspondence with some devs once before about games and “why”. It was enlightening and a big reason I defend the people more than the game. Or I tend to focus on the game more than the people (in the case of despised companies).

And once more, worth pointing out, those Vigil Keep asura gates can get you where you need to go with a minimum of fuss. I recommend Rata Sum or Divinity’s Reach, where crafting stations are relatively close to the inbound gates. Edge of the Mists has Laurel Vendors and Trait Retrainers right there at the entrance and it’s not unavailable due to being full.

There is every indication this is a “temporary” disruption, and we’ll be taking Lion’s Arch back to be resettled after March 18th. Hopefully they’ll put the bank, Black Lion agents, and Mystic Forge closer together than they were before.

I’m through repeating that though, because there’s no absolute proof everything will be back. Much like there’s no absolute proof it won’t be, but hey, who minds a little actual application of deductive reasoning when it comes to this sort of complaining?

MRA.4758:

PS: As a comic relief, and although it is about a DnD sorcerer and not about a GW2 ranger, I want to link this web cartoon that depicts exactly the situation I want to avoid (tl;dr: 1st panel in 3rd row): http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0154.html

PS, that’s not a sorcerer, that’s a wizard. Varsuvius would be cross if you got it wrong.

I’m trying to work through this, since ranger is my favorite class despite being regarded as either “suboptimal” or “dirt useless” depending on who you ask.

“Point Blank Shot” – Doesn’t need a rework as much as it needs people to use it more intelligently. That is, don’t just spam it as soon as it hits cooldown despite your melee group members winding up for hits now ruined by the knockback. The knockback is pretty useful when running alone in PvE.

Pets – I hate to be blunt and problematic but if you’re not able to fix the AI without a massive revision, we need to then look at where the problems are. Personally, I have exactly two problems with pets:

- They die too fast in some instances, and there is no means of recovering them faster. Being able to revive a pet was present earlier but was taken out for some purpose (I don’t recall what it was exactly, but know it was player requested). What about letting the pet owner and only the pet owner revive it at an increased speed? Also, could there be a way to “train up” pets to be tougher/stronger . . . a way of progressing them not unlike the “Elder/Dire/Hearty” of GW1?

- There is no way to “lock a target”. In GW1 it was possible for me to split my pet onto a target while I attacked another, which was actually a useful ability sometimes to let it harass one enemy while I as focusing on another. (In Random Arenas, this would often be some Mesmer or Elementalist, and I’d be trying to lock down and kill a Monk.) Pressing F1 doesn’t stick, because the pet will just switch targets when I do; this means, for instance, I can’t have it attacking some minor element I don’t want to devote my full attention to (spider boss hatchlings) while I beat on the primary target (said spider boss).

Proposal Overview

- Use the Mistlock Observatory as a lobby for further exploration of the Mists’ potential for revisiting lore.
- Utilize Fractals as more varied experiences than combat-heavy events.
- Revise potential rewards so people can still earn desired rewards through lower-tier play.

Goal of Proposal

The goal is to draw some appeal for using the Fractals for more than “random dungeon rush” type experiences. While this was the first goal of the design, it seems clear to me that goal is no longer enough to make this area desirable. One method is to diversify the offering and usefulness of the Fractals. Thus one goal is to get some use out of it further than to just dive in for loot seeking.

The other goal is to to develop the use of it so players aren’t feeling they are required to “buy in” to super-high-tier play in order to get what they want. In other words, I want to apply the idea of rewards earned through regular play slower but intense play faster to things from Fractals which are desirable enough to draw people in.

Proposal Functionality

First, there is no need to fully tamper with the original/current selection of the Fractals. But there can be a second set of Fractals accessible through unlocking them in various ways. These Fractals would contain a variety of events rather than simply combat-intensive Fractals, such as ones where there are problem-solving, defending a position, or location capturing. I would say “things such as the Swamp Fractal” where there’s a particular way to proceed which is not solely achieved through combat, but through other means. This would allow some variety to be achieved in what the Fractals are without forcing it on the people who just want to push through combat encounters. We can quibble about what content is available in the Fractals later, but right now this is a big thing I see – almost all the Fractals are very combat-oriented and while there are different shades of combat it becomes less interesting and more for the loot.

This leads me to my second point. I’d like to see a means of earning things which won’t require me to dump a lot of effort and time into cultivating Agony Resistance as well as running the Fractals again and again until I am bored with them all. I suspect there are a lot of players who would like the idea and implementation of the Fractals but are turned away by the sheer repetitive nature of getting to “the good stuff”. So why not offer things like the Fractal Weapon skins for sale for tokens such as Pristine Fractal Relics, or future offerings being likewise available?

Finally, the first point of my overview is the one I feel the most about: using the Mistlock Observatory similarly to how it was used to scan on the Thaumanova Incident. I’ve always maintained the Fractals’ potential is in reliving events for the sake of lore, and floated the idea a few times to use it as a means of allowing latecomers of the things done in the Living Story. Particularly the climax encounters. Now, it’s already been done of a sort with the Molten Furnace and Aetherblade Fractals. Let’s see some more, or also see ones depicting other events in the lore we could want to see?

Associated Risks

The major problems I could see is how it could be perceived to be “diluting” the actual point of the Fractals as it is now in favor of making it something it isn’t. Of course, if there is a vast agreement on this score I’d like it to be known I don’t exactly like playing Fractals as is, as much as I like the concept of it.

The risks I can foresee would revolve largely around making all this material and content and not having anyone use it, or have anything “worthwhile” take place in the eyes of players. Alternatively, it could be added in such a way people feel forced to do things they don’t want to be doing for the reward. These risks are, of course, almost unavoidable.

I’m late, and not sure I want to read all the pages before I post mine, so I’m not going to temper my post by seeing what came before. What you’re gonna get is what I came up with on seeing the topic and not reviewing it . . .

I’ll comment later on things I see interesting, but I want to note again: I don’t run Fractals, and the current incarnation holds little interest for me since there’s precious little in there which is mandatory or useful to me which I cannot gain outside of it.

Proposal post to follow shortly.

Zaxares.5419:

The Whispers agents are mostly in LA itself, getting the trapped civilians out to safety.

. . . yes, and the nice part is they’re not always unstealthed.

Though there are also a few more dedicated Whispers agents at work evacuating the rougher parts of the city. Of course, there’s Vigil members assisting as well.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I meant morally wrong indeed. I also believe “just following orders” is used too often as an excuse. But I get what you mean. It’s not really the guards I blame, more the leaders behind it.

The least they could have done is give Kasmeer’s father some time to come up with the money (which they may have done, but we don’t know that), not immediately throw him in jail.

You’re correct that “just following orders” should be a dirty phrase along with . . . claiming someone fornicates with their maternal parent . . .

But we are talking a group where corrupt guards don’t see anything wrong with a little murder on top of grifting, so stepping out of line for moral purposes can end very badly in Tyria and do no good.

Tyria, like most fantasy environments, is a harsh place. And that means paragons of virtue rarely survive long unless they have the strength of arms to back it up.

(And even the Sunspears fell, so maybe paragons aren’t as useful as thought.)

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

It’s the ministry guard that robbed her of everything, not the queen.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t robbery. Legal seizure of a debtor’s material assets might still suck, but it isn’t criminal.

I know it isn’t robbery/stealing in a legal sense. But in some cases it’s just wrong imo. Bad things happen in life, people get can into real trouble even though they are trying their best not to. The last thing they need is some authority figure steal away the only posessions they have left.

In Kasmeer’s case, there are no good reasons for what the ministry did, only legal ones.

Well, “wrong” as in legally wrong? No, it was purely legal by the laws in Divinty’s Reach. Wrong as in “morally wrong”? Again, not so certain it is . . . as far as the guards are concerned, there’s their orders and the clear interpretation of the law. It’s their moral duty to do that, and from the story it wasn’t done distastefully, merely dispassionately.

Which, mind you, is really rather the bright side. From what was said, the guards who were there didn’t do it maliciously. They did so out of duty.

I can’t call it wrong. I can call it a miscarriage of karma, though.

Slippery slope?

Relevant xkcd comic . . .

Moving on.

CHIPS.6018:

Oh yes. The idiot ball is strong with the Pact and allies. This whole story can be sum up by:

Our allies are unbelievably stupid, our enemies are unbelievably strong and high tech, and Scarlet is unbelievably charismatic.

And the quaggans are unbelievably cute.

MithranArkanere.8957:

The only thing lost was having the mystic forge in the same map as the crafting stations.

This would be solved by putting a mystic forge node somewhere near crafting stations., or crafting stations somewhere near the mystic forge.

This brings to mind my desire to own a Mystic Forge Conduit item, but then the cost is so astronomical in my eyes I’m less inclined to actually go get one.

TChalla.7146:

Or The Grove? Or Rata Sum?

Only rage it wasn’t done sooner, honestly. People hate the sylvari and I want the asura removed from the game for being insufferable. More insufferable each day.

Lion’s Arch was the target that made the most sense with the least player impact. Most of the amenities of Lion’s Arch were moved to Vigil. The rest can be accessed at any racial city/area/whatever you want to call it. It’s a minor inconvenience for what I think was a great event.

The above is my rationalization for what has transpired. If that makes me naive in anyone’s eyes, that’s fine by me. I’ve been called worse.

That’s not the part people are calling you naive over. They’re calling it naive because of the airship existing at all, even though in one week I have a half dozen passes sitting in my pocket I don’t ever need to use.

I have more passes than quaggan potions, all from bags.

It’s because ressing a totally dead player is dangerous unless a bunch of people do it, so I just don’t do it unless I know it’s safe. Downed players I’ll try for if they’re not sitting in an AOE effect.

I don’t blame events or people wanting credit for them. I blame not being able to dodge out of the resurrection animation.

LA still wasn’t as convenient as parking an alt I’d raised crafting on in a city or other crafting hub and using the old WvW express to deposit materials or stuff into the bank to transfer later. Or maybe use a bank express (I keep getting them from doing the Daily – gimme keys darnit!) . . .

And the Mystic Forge was something I could put off until I had a ton of stuff to do in it, rather than “hard stop, must handle MF stuff now”. It wound up working out more efficiently. Also more efficient? Selling greens instead of throwing them in the toilet. Pays my waypoint fees easily enough.

darkace.8925:

Person A
“I always took Highway X to get to work. Then one day the city decided to change Highway X to Tollway X. Now I have to pay for the same convenience I used to get for free. Sure, there are other alternative routes to get me to work, but these are far less convenient. I’m not happy with this change.”

Terrible analogy.

“One day something happened and Highway X got closed for now while they work on it. Instead I can take Tollway Y to get to work, and pay a small fee to do it like everyone else in the city.”

Person B
“This isn’t a big deal because I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s not like you have to take the highway to get to work. Besides, you should be happy to pay the tolls; that money goes to support your local government.”

More like:

“You should be happy the tolls are going to pay for the repairs to Highway X. There’s also citizens contacting the city council asking them to put in an extra lane to make it smoother.”

Again, I hate analogies. Always something wrong with them.

darkace.8925:

That’s mighty pompous of you to assume you get to decide for others what is and isn’t a big deal.

I’m singling this response out because, frankly, it’s interesting to see being said to someone on one side of the argument. But it applies to both sides.

Every time someone brings up the stupid, moronic airship there’s this . . . total lack of perspective. Either it’s the worst cashgrab ever, or it’s not a big deal. Everyone should be up in arms and outraged . . . but either at the people screaming the sky is falling or the people who are going “guys, what the heck are you on about?”.

We knew LA was going to “shut down”, and we knew that “hub” was going to be lost for at least the length of this LS chapter. The disruption of at least some services shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.

The funny thing is, the airship pass non-permanent drops often enough from the Alliance Supplies to render that permanent pass pretty pointless. Why pay for that permanent pass when you can find two-week passes for free, and none of the services in the airship are exclusive to it anyway? There is already a wonderful way around needing to have LA available for your needs . . . it’s called “park an alt at crafting stations in another city and use them for crafting”. I’d be surprised if people didn’t do that to begin with when they learned crafting was going to be a major component in Ascended acquisition.

(For better or worse.)

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Oh absolutely.
But I think you have to question whether or not the Pact are going to lend a hand. They’re pretty focused on their dragon-bashing.

They should next be focused on seizing Aetherblade ships to bolster their fleet. After all, what’s a little piracy between friends?

It’s silent about it because, well, secrets are meant to be kept. Not told to whatever shorty asura happens to swagger in to beg and plead.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Elrey.5472:

something more powerful and awesome than scarlet, in a word: Dragon.

Oink the wonder pig in GW is more awesome than Scarlet.

Oink is god-tier. He’s even more powerful than the black pikkard.

Morrigan.2809:

Axiom.6137:

Why is this even in game? Love trolling players that much? Have things really devolved so badly?

They have been warning people away from their city since launch.
at the moment there is a war on their doorstep.
They have never been exactly friendly- what did you expect they would do.

As for why it is in they game, because it makes sense?

If any thing I think it is a really nice reminder from Anet, considering the amount of “oh the Tengu will open their doors” threads on the forums recently

I don’t know about you but if they ever come out of there?

. . . that night I dine on chicken soup. There will be deaths aplenty, and enough to put the massacre of Caromi for feather farming to shame . . .

Uruz Six.6594:

Kalavier.1097:

I never got to do the Aetherblade retreat mini-dungeon sadly, but tell me, WHAT would your character do with an airship?

Go looking for Vyse, Aika, and Fina.

Speak for yourself, I’d be going for Zidane, Amarant, Vivi, and Beatrix. A better thief than any in Tyria, a brawler who can give ogres a run for their money, one of the most powerful users of offensive-type magic, and the single most dangerous sword wielder ever.

And together? Off to Elona to give a long overdue spanking to some petulant walking corpse with delusions of absolute power over the region.

mrstealth.6701:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

mrstealth.6701:

It’s reasonable to assume that the airship will remain available at whatever future hub exists, as they are selling permanent passes for it. It would make little sense to sell a permanent pass to a temporary area.

With the kind of incompetence and malice people are throwing at ANet over this, I am surprised nobody suggested this is, in fact, The Plan.

I did think of that as a remote possibility, but I don’t think Anet is dumb enough to attempt that stunt. The backlash for selling a permanent pass, then removing the area it allows access to would just be far too severe. Only the most rabid of fanboys would support such a move.

It would cause quite the amusing kittenstorm, but I just don’t see that one happening.

If people are trying to sell me on the idea they knowingly created this whole thing as a means of going “premium” routes to keep taking away conveniences permanently? Why, then, isn’t this plausible?

It winds up amusing me people stop shy of a point when trying to say how evil and money-grubbing this is. If they were, this would be the case. (And I’ve seen it in other F2P games I played. I could name one company whose products are nice but otherwise marred by premium currency stuff.)

What’s worse, they now aren’t going to touch this with a ten foot pole because this topic is getting as radioactive as the Watchwork Pick topics which were incredibly overblown and also relied on assuming malice and total incompetence.

I mean, ArenaNet is kind of sloppy when it comes to foresight and seeing what players are going to do with something they create (Perma-SF, exhibit A) . . . but far from the total incompetence attributed to them. And while they have some really weird priorities sometimes, and an odd definition of “fun” (No way HM Rotwing is “fun” enough to justify doing) but they don’t ever strike me as totally malicious.

I mean, except for Tribulation Mode. They could have made those clouds give middle fingers instead of pushing hands instead.

mrstealth.6701:

It’s reasonable to assume that the airship will remain available at whatever future hub exists, as they are selling permanent passes for it. It would make little sense to sell a permanent pass to a temporary area.

With the kind of incompetence and malice people are throwing at ANet over this, I am surprised nobody suggested this is, in fact, The Plan.

mrstealth.6701:

In my opinion, if this was just an oversight, we should have at least some short statement about the issue by now.

If it was an oversight they can fix by putting them into Gendarran Fields, then that’ll be done and then announced.

If it can only be fixed by more rigorous fixes, you’ll probably see “oops, our bad” and it could be assumed fixing it would take enough time to work on it might be fixed partway into next week.

I’m kind of betting on the latter, unfortunately

Ayrilana.1396:

Lord Kuru.3685:

You can remove QoL features from the game. You can add QoL features to the game behind a paywall.

But when you take what’s currently a free QoL feature and put it behind a paywall, that’s really bad. And judging from Anet’s response (i.e., none) this is a sign of things to come.

And looking at how Anet creeps these out slowly, here’s likely what’s next:

• Any new map will have a paywall on its WPs. (White knights: “hey, you can just walk so it’s ok, right? Plus, I walk everywhere anyway, who needs WPs?”) Then:
• All WPs will be paywalled. (White knights: “hey, you can just walk so it’s ok, right? Plus, I walk everywhere anyway, who needs WPs?”)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

He makes the same arguments in all these threads, about how it’s inevitable or “incredibly likely” they’ll maliciously coordinate to steal away our gunz. I mean, our shinies. I mean, our amenities.

Whether or not he proves to be right, the only reason to believe him is to believe ANet is out solely to squeeze money out of the players. Which, if that was the case, wouldn’t be quite as . . . incompetent.

AcidicVision.5498:

Once again, not saying that this was the case. But it is most definitely within the realm of possibility. Especially considering Mark was under the impression the crafters were there. If it were a big gem conspiracy I’d imagine he wouldn’t have been under that impression and just would not have said anything rather than come in here and be wrong. That smells to me like a last minute change and oversight.

It reminds me (not in a positive way) of Verant (“the quest isn’t broken”) during the first couple years of EverQuest. Where the nice people on the servers could see something wasn’t working right and filed reports of something going wrong but the forum moderators/responders weren’t aware of it. Or vice versa.