Guild Wars 2

Sephyros.9652:

You can tell ANet failed to deliver when even the usual white knights are hiding.
This patch was simply pathetic. Let’s hope the conclusion will be better.

I’ve already posted my piece in several threads by now, I can’t be expected to copy/paste into every single thread. :P

Maybe…or perhaps it’s just a reference to how societies in wartime would reduce huge threats to more ridiculous levels in order to remove fear and raise morale. It’s hard to be afraid of something when you’re laughing at it.

Just wanted to point these parts out.

T K.5173:

People being relocated to that island after the event of F&F just is believable because any sane person WOULD HAVE GONE HOME!

Not every refugee went to Southsun Cove. The refugees that did go didn’t have a home to go home to in the first place…that’s why they accepted the Southsun offer. Those who did have a place, went home.

T K.5173:

Now you give us an instance that is no better than a half baked mini game with NO explanation as to why or what we are doing.

1. Check the mail you received yesterday: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Stand_at_Southsun#Secret_of_Southsun

2. Talk to Kiel at the beginning of the instance: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Canach%27s_Lair_%28story%29#Dialogue

Hope that helps.

Ayrilana.1396:

Use the wiki if you weren’t around for Lost Shores. Don’t blast through everything and skip all of the dialogue with the NPC’s.

Easy source all in one place for Lost Shores (I’ll get around to moving it to main pages someday, I swear): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Vahkris/The_Lost_Shores_Story

After that, read this dialogue (specifically the section labeled "Dialogue between Lost Shores and Secret of Southsun): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inspector_Ellen_Kiel#Dialogue_between_Lost_Shores_and_Secret_of_Southsun

That’ll give you the frame of reference for heading into Secret of Southsun content. Read the rest of this post for other plot points: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/southsun/Why-is-the-Story-So-Disjointed/first#post2116162

cesmode.4257:

Ill agree Mia Lunarfang…this "arc’ of living story was terrible and disjointed.
Ok! Flame and frost is done, we’ve got some refugees…that are…going to southsun for a vacation? And..something is kitten ing off the animals? Ok. Ill bite. Lets go.
Instigator after instigator…and then Some guy named Canach shows up. Who is he? And what are these contracts? Why should I be concerned? What impact did this have overall on the world?

I have NO idea whats going on, unless I read the website’s little story blogs. I try to read the dialogue in game when I can, but it doesnt tell enough.

I posted something in another thread about the story, of which there’s actually a good amount but since it’s not a direct narrative you kind of have to work it out unless someone spells it out for you. Basically a lot of the story here is based on the Lost Shores release back in November, where most of these characters were introduced.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/southsun/Why-is-the-Story-So-Disjointed/first#post2116162

Niyo.5920:

Galen Grey.4709:

I get that some people might have given up and never tried again thus never completed the story. But this is the internet, people who truly wanted to follow the story could search it up. There are detailed accounts of what happens in the Lost Shore online.

The GW2-Wiki helps there a lot.
And for those interested in the old letters of the Lost Shore-event I just started a new thread were I collected them:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/southsun/Lost-Shore-Old-Letters-from-the-Story

I hope the work I just had with this will worth it and somebody will read it…

Here’s my write-up of the whole Lost Shores story that I’ve been (unfortunately) neglecting to move new pieces over to the proper articles (there’s conversations that need to be moved to proper articles):

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Vahkris/The_Lost_Shores_Story

That should give plenty of background there, and many parts a ton of people never saw. The problem ArenaNet had with the narrative here is that they presented the story as an open world story, where NPCs in various places present their bits and the player learns about the story as a whole without being bombarded with exposition (not a good thing in an interactive medium). However, it was also a one-time event, so many players missed a huge amount, but never questioned it (and even directed players away from where the exposition was going to occur during the initial invasion by telling everyone to go to the lighthouse). That was a major issue they had there.

The wiki is actually perfect here as it’s linked to the game (type /wiki and an NPC or item and it’ll try to bring it up), and since the wiki is intended to document the game it’s the perfect place for no-longer-existing content to be presented so players can learn about it (cross-linking really helps here). It shouldn’t be considered separate from the game, nor should the main website.

As far as the story involved since Lost Shores?

Kiel remained on Southsun, letting us know that Canach escaped and vowed to deal with him should he re-appear. This was actually in-game , since Kiel has remained at Canach’s Folly on Southsun Cove between these two events.

Important lore bits that explain the story of Secret of Southsun:
From
1. The mail received from Inspector Kiel at the beginning
2. The conversations with Inspector Kiel, Consortium/Settler negotiators nearby, Subdirector Noll, Lord Faren, Lady Kasmeer Meade, and Researcher Levvi. (Note, only view May 14th to May 20th conversations right now)
2a. The idle conversations with all of these NPCs. (Same note as above).
3. The conversation between Inspector Kiel and Henrika after the crazed animal attack in Driftglass Springs, where Henrika describes the sylvari who supplied her, and Kiel suspects Canach. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Henrika)
4. Conversation with Henrika in Pearl Islet, where she names Canach as the person who gave her the stuff.
5. The various confrontations/conversations that happen with settlers, such as the brawl between Aggren Vicegrip and the Consortium (and the followup conv with Kiel), as well as the conversation between Tergvi and the Job-o-Tron, showing how miserable life is for the settlers. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tergvi and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggren_Vicegrip
6. The memos and settler journal placed around (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Consortium_Memo and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Settler_Journal)
7. The second dialogue of Kiel, and her idle conversation with Subdirector Noll, where he reveals the animals are targeting the locations of the refugee contracts.

Last Stand at Southsun lore bits so far
1. The new mail received
2. The new conversations of Kiel and Levvi
2. The Log Book Fragment at Canach’s Folly
3. The quick chat of the deputy at the entrance to Canach’s Lair
4. The conversations with Kiel at the entrance of each version of the instance
5. The post-fight dialogue between Kiel, Canach, and Marcela Oakaxe (who for some reason is around).

That’s what I can remember off-hand, and I haven’t even referenced the background lore posted on the main GW2 website (which IMO is still fair game for information). It’s not perfect, there are definitely some missing holes, and it’s not direct exposition, but there’s definitely story there…it’s just an open world story you need to piece together. It’s not a normal story where you go from a pre-directed A to B and get told exposition after exposition.

And if you miss something, that’s why we have a wiki.

Mathog.3157:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Yeah, I was a bit perplexed on why it was called a dungeon as well. Coming from the dungeon team previously, it really felt more like a boss instance, but I don’t write the patch notes or do the marketing.
I didn’t build the Canach encounters, but I did enjoy them. It’s a neat variation that changes gameplay, and I liked the mechanics. Sure there’s a few things that can be done better (as is with everything), but given the time the designer had to work on the instance, I think he did a great job.

The fights themselves are good (people cry just because it’s not another faceroll boss battle), but they feel like:
“Hey look, here’s a dude, catch him”
“Oh… ok!”
“Good job! Btw there’s another one, catch him too”
“Em… ok…”
Maybe I missed something but there is no story before and between the encounters.

Read the mail, click Show Me and read the two bits there, and talk to Kiel at the entrance of each version.

I don’t know if you were expecting a lot of exposition detailing everything involved, but there’s definitely something there.

Although I do find it interesting that the two nobles seem to act as if everything is completed.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Behellagh.1468:

It’s just players have a different definition for “down the road” and “in the future”, just like “rare chance”. Causes a lot of misunderstandings. Also most players aren’t software developers, it can take months from idea to implementation that doesn’t break something like the economy, profession balance, etc.

True enough, we also try to avoid putting timelines on anything due to the volatility that comes with live development, and if we’re ever wrong folks tend to not respond terribly well to it.

One of the fun things about live MMO development: all the steps that things have to go through to make it live. Generally a feature needs to be done 2+ weeks before it can go live, so it can get locked down and separated from everything else in development to be tested in isolation with the live game to verify it doesn’t function different in a server filled with development code vs. what’s going to go live. Before this lock down, the feature needs to be done with core development about 1-2 weeks earlier to allow downstream teams like localization, editing, and audio to have time to complete their work after the content teams are complete so content isn’t changing out from under them. And if any VO is used in the feature, all the recorded text needs to be completed 4+ weeks earlier than that to allow all of our localization VO partners to get all the correct staff in studio to record all the VO to match the english recording after the first batch of VO is recorded.

Most of this year we’ve been having a release once every month, which means if a feature has a lot of issues during testing and we need to make a lot of updates and pukitten back, it could be multiple months until it gets into the next one due to all the lead time required before something ships in game. The amount of steps required to get something live is pretty staggering, I just covered some of the high level steps above but there are a lot more than this.

We’ve actually been re-working this pipeline a bit lately in the background to try and speed it up (thus 2 releases in a row with 2 weeks separating instead of 4) but it still makes it really hard for us to give exact dates. A little peak behind the curtain how development works, there are around 300 folks working at ArenaNet, but a lot of them have nothing to do with building the feature, and instead provide all the support required to get that feature live. It’s why very few live games do frequent updates to their products, but we’re trying to find innovative ways to buck that trend and update more frequently.

Nice info on the pipeline. I think the main thing I’d want to know in addition to this is the timeframe for building an event using only existing assets (new would obviously increase the time).

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

She has been downtuned since launch, so it’s possible the Wiki is just out of date. She’s currently at L10, and I know that the duration of her poison attack was reduced significantly several updates ago.

Very possible. More editors to keep things accurate would be nice, everyone! It’s very easy.

kroven.4895:

They should make some NPCs that follow you and spam “Spare some change?”

“Change?!? You got change?!? Oh c’mon, help a guy out, will you? C’mon, change!”

From what I’ve seen, it looks like the old ones. Only the weapon skins and minis are new.

Don’t know on your second question.

I got spoiled by people talking about Zhaitan early on in the game. It’s a risk when interacting with players who may be further along than you.

It just got out, people are still seeing what is actually there. Until someone can put together a full walkthrough, this post is all we have: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/southsun/Things-to-do-on-Southsun-Cove-May-14th-May-28th/first#post2026130

Patch notes are out, so if it’s not live it should be soon (hopefully).

Sounds good, I like the idea of different teams staggering content. Hopefully the permanent changes result in more gameplay things to do (like events) and not just new or changed NPC/models/etc (what I call “window dressing”). Guess we’ll see tomorrow unless one of the devs lets us know earlier.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

skullmount.1758:

Not to sound too negative (or disrespectful), but all I get from that last sentence is that there might be some NPC changes and possibly monster changes/spawns. We know the crab tossing game is going to be temporary, which means probably any other stuff like it (such as the end dungeon of F&F) will also be temporary. I’m still really disappointed by how F&F was handled, so much so that I can’t really even look forward to any new content, since nothing (worthwhile, at least to me) seems to be permanent.
Anyways, thanks for giving us an/the answer Mr. Hrouda.

Nah, it’s cool. No disrespect for stating your opinion about things. I don’t want to spoil things, but I have been working near exclusively on the content that is going to be a more permanent fixture of the island. It is significantly more than NPCs and some spawns. When a precedent has been established, it’s okay to be skeptical/doubtful, and it’s okay to voice those things. I do hope you’ll enjoy the permanent content I’ve been working on, and it changes your opinion

That makes me much happier!

Robert Hrouda.1327:

no new armor models in the southsun shore story stuff.

Although looking like a crab would be pretty sweet.

I agree, get someone on it.

Rico.8574:

After the end of the events, it would be nice to see Southsun Cove become a regular “world completion” map, with Hearts and whatnot. I guess it would make the zone less “abandoned” and more interesting.

Hearts, PoIs, vistas, etc isn’t what’s causing it to be abandoned. It’s the almost complete lack of events (some claim the karka as well, but I can live with that if I have stuff to do). There’s only a handful on the entire island (7, according to the wiki), whereas most full zones around the same size have about 30+. I think players can live without the world completion (although good to add it), but without events it’s going to reach the same point, so hopefully this update adds a good amount of events.

Silicato.4603:

I feel like this minigame is going to be too similar to the guild challenge one.
Am I right?

There is a similarity, but the guild challenge revolves around holding on to the crab while your guild kills all of the karka until the timer runs out. If done well, you never have to even toss the crab (we didn’t the last time we did it).

This mini-game might actually do the opposite, where tossing the crab is actually the point and you don’t have the defense, but we’ll have to see more info.

A sPvP map has been found in the files, but no information on whether it’s coming with this update or the next.

JonPeters.5630:

Ok Necro staff is 22% faster than this skill. I think we just missed upping this when we did our pass to up projectile velocity on skills that were absolutely too sluggish. That being said it looks like you can fire one of these orbs every .8 seconds whereas Necro staff fire rate is 1.3 seconds. Grasp does pass through targets in a line so I feel that differential is fairly warranted. I can’t promise when this is going to be fixed, but I can say I WILL fix it.

Best news I’ve heard all day. It being the highest DPS #1 skill in the game doesn’t really make Guardians feel better when it’s also probably the most frustrating one we have due to the slow speed, and also the only real long range weapon we can use.

Centrix.4065:

CrassBippy.4619:

they have to patch wvw, obviously you can’t be in it while they are updatin it

Makes no sense. :P Think about it: So WvW has to update server-side (what exactly?) while the PvE-zones are still up and also need server-side updates?

DevonCarver.5370:

It is a technical reason. The servers have to restart which takes time.

Thanks. That’s a more reliable answer.

But why do the wvw servers have to take so long to restart while the pve servers don’t? o.o

Or nvm, your NDA probably doesn’t allow you to go in such details lol

Likely this:

PvE is designed so they actually have both builds up at the same time, involving a large amount of overlapping (including overflow servers), which is why downtime for PvE is so low. They’re not as concerned about splitting up the playerbase while everyone is patching and can patch up the PvE servers without affecting the playerbase.

WvW doesn’t have that luxury, there’s likely no overlap allowed because they can’t split up the playerbase to keep the scores accurate and reliable. They have to drop everyone before they patch it and restart it.

It’s very likely the PvE servers take just as long, if not longer because there’s more of them, as WvW to restart…we just don’t see it because it’s already done before the build is released to the players.

I followed the wiki guide and didn’t fail to get any of the baubles (got each achievement first try). It’s a bit tricky to follow at a few points, but it keeps a running count of which ones you need.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sunny_Glade

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dark_Woods

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kingdom_of_Fungus

Also, make sure you wait until you reach the next area before exiting (or the Rapids for Zone 3).

I don’t know what to tell you if it’s truly a bug, though.

Just some ideas on a few of them.

General:

• You’re allowed to make this open world content hard and fail-able. Seriously, you are. Even if the mechanics are complex, with enough visually noticeable tells and possibly NPCs shouting out things that aren’t as obvious, players can and will figure it out.
• Introduce mechanics to split the zerg and allow players to contribute without necessarily doing DPS to the main boss. Force the players to split up and take out something or activate/support something in another (within viewing distance) area to contribute or be allowed to continue the fight.
• There should be a reason why this epic mob is there, and not just to give a loot pinata to the players.
• Design the event so it takes at least 3-5 minutes of fighting (not counting any non-fighting segments) to complete. Many of these fights are so short their epic-ness is completely overridden by the fact you only see them for <1 minute every hour or three.
• Have some way for the bosses to determine if players are mobbing together…then target those areas.
• Add a “failure in: X:XX” mechanic to the fights like the Guild Bounties. Seriously, let these things fail.

Shatterer:

• Introduce strafing runs for Shatterer while you have to take care of his minions/repair the cannons.
• When he lands, have it produce a crystal shockwave over the main area that either engulfs you in a crystal or knocks you back.
• Introduce another phase he goes into where he spawns four large crystal formations a little bit away that buffs him tremendously so players have to abandon the fight and take those out or die. Meanwhile he’s making his way towards the forward camp, and will take it out (and fail the event) if you don’t.
• One of his scaling attacks should be a Dragon’s Claw type of attack that hits any player in its path.
• Add events to the Kralkatorrik’s Legacy meta event so that it feels closer to the new Orr meta events. Right now the Shatterer feels a little like just another mob in the zone because there’s only a couple events that people expect others to complete and then he spawns.

Tequatl:

• Have the siege weapons do significantly more damage to Tequatl than the players can (introduce a buff to Tequatl that lowers damage from player skills by 20-50%)…until the mega laser fires, which removes that buff and increases their damage.
• Allow players to speed progress of the mega laser by bringing items from the nearby United Arcanist Lab.
• Have the risen minions proceed to another siege weapon after claiming one, or go after spots where players are mobbing together.
• Add event chains to the Danger at Fabled Djannor meta event so it feels more like Tequatl is arriving because you’ve pushed the Risen forces back to the water. Upon failure, risen should swarm back along the chain and wipe out your previously captured locations.

Maw:

• Vastly more health. The fight NEEDS to last longer.
• Break up the fight by forcing players to go back away from the fight and take out more portals or be swarmed by more and more powerful elementals. Make the shaman invulnerable during this time if you have to.

Wurm:

• Again, vastly more health. It needs to live long enough to pull off the mechanics. The health increase from devouring the husks should be massive so players are encouraged to get rid of them. Having a NPC call this fact out is necessary.
• Preferably there should be enough health, and the healing from husks so large, that whatever the scaling is at players cannot not defeat the wurm without taking out at least some of the husks. Taking them all out should speed it up a good bit.
• Some sort of punishment that includes ranged and not just melee. Maybe a powerful, but short retribution buff when devouring husks.
• Since it’s stationary, minions that cause more and more havoc (and also come in from the outside as well as scattered through the fight) as it scales up are useful.
• It’s an animation change, but introduce a new phase after the husk phase with a highly deadly caustic/poison attack that the wurm slowly rotates and uses, causing players to have to stay ahead of it or be downed. Have it be just slower than combat run speed so you don’t actually have to use swiftness to stay ahead (although doing so would give you more opportunity to attack). After it completes a rotation, it stops and summons more husks. Failure to take the husks and wurm out causes the wurm to heal up from devouring the husks and repeat attack…this time faster.

Shaez.5762:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’m not aware of any plans to have a public test server.

Where are you from? You seem to have a really Czech (maybe Slovak) name and surname. Or are some of your relatives this nationality?

I’d be very proud if someone from Czech Republic was working on Guild Wars 2.

This previous post of his might be of interest to you: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Devs-mention-ranger-PvE-buffs/page/3#post1847410

Bailey.6892:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Semil.8279:

Now Robert is going to quit ANet and change his name, maybe move to Bangladesh or Mongolia.

Being that my namesake is Czech, I think I’d give them a shot first

While I wish we could make pets super awesome ASAP, this patch will be a good step in the right direction. Will it solve all the problems? No, but it’s going to put rangers and their pets in a much better place.
I realize you all may have heard this song and dance before, and it’s okay to be doubtful about the upcoming patch – folks have been burned before, and its just going to take experiencing the changes and playing them to soften that. As a ranger player I am excited about the changes, and I hope once you all get a chance to play what the balance team has worked on, you’ll be happier too

Honestly I don’t understand why it cant be done in one patch. Plenty of time to get it done, the issue has been their since release so plenty of time to have known about it. If things go wrong and it makes an aspect op hot fix it. Really no reason that it should take more than one patch.

And when can we expect this patch and the details?

EDIT:
And thank you for being here, it is appreciated.

I imagine that it’ll take steps because the extent of later changes will very much depend on how the initial changes work once it hits the general public. Very very few MMO devs can accurately predict how players will react and utilize any change they make.

You can even see it in the forums. Several people will claim to know what is wrong with the ranger (or <insert profession here>) and what needs to be done to fix it…but I can guarantee that there are many players that wouldn’t find those things to be a problem at all, and may even be a strength for them in particular, and those supposed fixes may not actually fix the problem because those people may not actually have a good idea of what’s wrong (they just believe they do).

Assuming they could actually implement all their ideas for changes in one patch (a lofty assumption, IMO), it still may not actually fix the problem, and may actually cause other problems as players get their hands on it and find it didn’t do anything to fix what they see wrong with the profession, or even removed something that worked really well for them. Then the devs would need to do further changes anyway.

Edit: Ninja’d by Robert

Robert Hrouda.1327:

VitalSuit.1980:

Thieves as well? I hope this is only for pve and not pvp because thieves are the last thing that needs a buff.

Most thieves don’t make it out of the lower tiers because you can mitigate them very easily. As a ranger I shut thieves down all the time who don’t use venoms, especially if you have something like healing spring and Lightning reflexes. One fixes stun, one fixes immob/cripple, and then it’s just dodge rolls at the right moment and CC to shut them down. Also bring wolf for f2 and stay nearby when thieves start doing their stealthy bit, and then be ready to watch them flee in terror.
That of course means their build options are highly limited, and when that happens people can hard counter you more easily.

The changes for rangers coming in this next patch are a step in the right direction for them. I am not part of that team so I won’t be announcing any of the changes unless told otherwise.

Wonder if they’re general system changes (like general pet AI…aka things that could affect minions too, for example, since some don’t associate those as pets) or Ranger specific changes…

Josh Foreman.8250:

Demeron.5423:

well can you make these Bauble Stacks bigger? and Give us a slot in collectables for them then? because stocking up on all this crap to not even need it for months is a waste of space..

I don’t control that stuff. I’ll look into the collectible slot but I honestly have no idea how likely that is.

While you’re asking, ask them why they haven’t added collectible slots for the various dungeon tokens (they have a “deposit collectible” right click menu entry that’s greyed out). If it’s due to the system only allowing 250 of any collectible item (my theory)…then tell them to get on expanding that pronto for all of these tokens. :P I keep worrying I’m going to accidentally destroy them.

Acebob.6901:

Also, is there any truth behind the existence of a loot table? If there is I would very much like to see it.

Yes, there is…and no, you can’t see it because it’s internal to the system and only developers see it. Nothing of the sort has actually been released. It’s actually server-side, as well (or at least is with 99% of all MMOs), so there’s nothing on your system you can view. The wiki compiles various information from recorded drops, but it’s all from observed information.

Basically a loot table is the term for the possible sets of items you can get anytime you get loot. When you get awarded loot, the game makes a RNG check against multiple tables to determine what you get. Sometimes specific items are tied to specific mobs (such as Final Rest or Wisteria), so there’s likely a table for that mob with those specific items, but most mobs probably pull from a generic set of tables.

Rare and Exotic (and above) items have a much smaller chance of being selected than everything else. Magic Find raises the various chances a bit.

Buying the three specific Super Adventure Box items on the gem shop are probably a good start.

(By which I mean the minis, the finisher, and the box o’ fun)

There’s a Guide post at the top of this subforum. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/flameandfrost/Guide-Flame-and-Frost-The-Razing) (look here if you don’t want immediate spoilers)

Also, the wiki shows the three main aspects of this release so far (under Living Story section). (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_and_Frost:_The_Razing)

If you want an in-game reference, check the very first mail you got for the Razing (make sure you click the “Show Me” button in it) and talk to the heralds next to the portal.

There are three main parts so far. Braham, Rox, and the Secret Contact parts (initiates by the Order of Whispers Sylvari).

Lucky.9421:

I like where they are going with this as well. My only criticism is that the facial expressions and lip-syncing in the new cutscenes are not as good as the dialogue sequences. Is it possible to improve on these?

I know GW2 is capable of doing really good facial expressions. The best examples are actually in the emotes, those are even better than the dialogue sequences.

But perhaps there are technical or resource limitations to achieving that level of quality consistently? I think overcoming them would be worthwhile.

IIRC, the dialogue cutscenes used in the Personal Story are actually a higher quality model than the ones used during normal play, so they have the much more complex facial structure to handle the facial expressions and lip-syncing during talking. Could be wrong, but that’s likely why.

BobbyStein.2315:

Glad that people like these. We’ll do more in the future, perhaps.

I’m curious:

1. Which of the two types of cutscenes takes more work overall?
2. Which is more fun for those making it?

I think you have to be past a certain point in the Personal Story.

Dreamwalker.3617:

To everybody picking on the Dredge, I gotta say that they are actually a pretty good race: they’re bad guys but not really evil, a nation of xenophob rebels who just want to be able to be communist moles in peace; and I’m happy that Anet is taking the time to flesh them out more.

And Danikat, yeah I’ll admit my suggestions weren’t amazing, but those were off the top of my head. I’m just thinking that with all the brilliant people they got at Anet, they could come up with something a bit better than “Molten Alliance.” But that’s just me.

Reminds me of Iksar…except they were even more awesome.

Bear in mind that Ree was actually talking about the Personal Story.

That said, I agree with you that those NPCs should respond differently after you’ve given them the item.

I’m curious too. This is a lot closer than previous releases for…well, anything to be listed there other than the short blurb.

In lieu of a full overhaul to turn Rangers into literally a single character split into two, I’m in favor of pets having an endurance bar themselves and having a defensive or “death save” skill that uses up endurance to activate it. It could be based on pet family, with some just evading during that time (like the flying pets), teleporting nearby (towards the Ranger hopefully, like the cat pets), or just temporarily ignoring 80-90% of the damage/conditions (say…bear and boar?). They’d be able to activate it about the same amount as we can dodge, endurance refresh pegged with ranger’s current rate, and is triggered when they will take damage more than a certain percentage of their health within a short time (maybe toss in a self heal when it triggers too).

Of course that’s in addition to my other pet wants:
1. health values displayed

2. boons/conditions/effects displayed

3. Using ranger’s stats if they’re higher. Basically all those stats on the Hero panel? If the pet’s stat is lower, it should use mine instead. AR’s on there, so that should cover that.

4. MUCH stronger visual/audio feedback when commands are given (to help avoid repeatedly slamming the button out of frustration). I’m talking lights, a small gust of wind, sound of lightning or a bullet firing…just anything more than a soft whistle I can barely hear.

If telling the pet to attack caused a shout (even if only heard by me), a small gust of wind, and a response noise from the pet…I’d never feel like something was wrong even if it was.

5. Giving a pet command, including F2, should immediately interrupt whatever the pet is doing and the pet should start moving and doing it without any delay. There shouldn’t be any delay between the command and action starting. It feels a lot of the time like I’m giving the pet a suggestion rather than a command. No queuing the command…just immediately act on it.

6. Focus weapon skills. In any weapon bar, one of the weapon skills should also force a pet command (even if a new toggled mode needs to be added that allows the pet to respond to this). Call it a focus attack or something, but it’d make me feel like the pet was working with me far more if we worked together to perform an attack rather than just do our own things. I’m not talking about just giving them a buff, I’m talking things like Swoop being able to have the pet leap at the mob at the same time (pet interrupts their action, gains swiftness, and immediately leaps at the mob too). Put it on offhands and 2handers if necessary, and only allowed when the pet is in aggressive stance or some new stance.

Tell me, who doesn’t wish they could perform an X-Strike with their pet? Hell, give the pet a stance and make multiple weapon skills do this instead of just passively buffing your pet.

7. On passive the pet should follow directly behind me, and take the direct distance between me and them. No wandering, no aggro bubble, none of this behavior where they want to stand somewhere in the surrounding 30 feet or something, they should be practically trying to nuzzle me at all times. In addition, maybe they could absorb an attack once every 10 seconds or something.

8. If attack becomes a toggle, there should be some option at allows me to choose whether I want it to toggle regardless of target (choosing a new target still does the “back off”), or toggle only if I’m on the same target (as in switching to a new target will issue another attack command instead of a “back off”, but having the same target will issue a “back off”).

That’s just me, though.

That’s a pretty loaded question and probably wouldn’t be seen on a good survey. The rewards were random exotics. Legendary precursors are not “special exotics”…they’re just exotics that are also used for Legendary weapons. Given a large enough population, there will be players that receive those weapons out of all of the possible exotics they could have received. Normal RNG rules apply here.

XyleHarkyn.7029:

This is a short summary of the events in Lion’s Arch and the event chain in Southsun Cove for those that missed:

The event did not start with a CS like most events. *

At the Lion’s Arch Plaza, Head Researcher Levvi and Captain Magnus the Bloody-Handed begin to have a conversation about the Karka. Levi states that she developed an Alchemiclal weapon that can be used to defeat the Karka and she wants to test it. Mangus agrees and they begin to march to Port Mariner. The players should have followed them to the area.

Shortly after, a wave of Karka attacked and a meta event starts. Verteran Karka and young Karka spawned near Port Mariner. Veteran Karka could not be damaged unless your weapons were coated in the alchemical formula or you picked up a bundle that was a spray form of the weapon. After some doing, the Karka were defeated.

After which. Inspector Ellen Kiel appears with a newly captured Canach and Subdirector Noll. Levi forces Canach to tell the story of what the Consortium was doing and their role in all of this. He confesses that he has sent a Consortium team down to Southsun Shore in order to do some research on the Karka. This backfires and he loses contact with the team. Levi then states that this could have possibly agitated the Karka into attacking Lion’s Arch. Magnus, angry at Canach for putting the city at risk, states that the next course of action is to invade Southsun Cove in order to eradicate the threat. Noll protests, stating that the island is private property of the Consortium and the Lionguard have no business being there. He eventually recants and the Lionguard begin sending ships of soldiers to Southsun Cove.

There was a 15-20 minute wait until the next phase at this point. The event log changed and the player was directed to board a ship. A transport facilitator spawned on the Sanctum Harbor docks which teleported the player to Southsun Cove.

Upon arriving, you meet with Noll, Canach and Inspector Ellen Kiel. The first order of business is to establish forward camps, which Levi walks the army of players through waves of Karka in order to establish several outposts in the area. At the middle of this excursion, the Consortium wishes to break away from Kiel and the players, stating that they have other business. Keil retorts, stating that they will end up dead without us. The Consortium leaves anyway and splits from the team.

The player team moves deep into the area and eventually establishes a post named “Captain’s Retreat” they decide to hold there and wait for the Consortium Team to arrive. This is where the event is halted at the moment and presumably will conclude tomorrow.

Please correct anything that I may have been mistaken on, I’m pulling this purely from memory.

Edit: Names were wrong in some areas. Fixed.

Edit 2: More touchups, added section regarding the wait in-between phases.

Would you happen to have any screenshots or video of the conversation that happened at the very beginning? I’m trying to gather all of the conversations for the wiki but barely anyone recording was in the right places, and not all at the right time, or didn’t even notice it was going on so didn’t follow the NPCs.

Asumita.2174:

Vahkris.6847:

If I might make a suggestion to resolve this: Since there wasn’t time to figure a better plan out, preserve the one-time content somewhere once it’s done. Don’t archive it and forget it. Later, repackage it in an instanced storybook (similar to your personal story events) available to experience after the fact by buying it from a NPC related to the event (or a general Storybook NPC who sells them), similar to how the Bonus Mission Pack instances worked in Guild Wars 1. Put a marginal account-based reward for completing it so players are encouraged to see it at least once instead of farming it.

This allows players to see the content regardless of whether they were able to be there, but still allows you to do the awesome one-time story events for things like this that don’t seem as awesome when they’re repeated multiple times in a day. Sure, it’ll take some work to set it up like this (although if part of the plan going forward it could partially be done and available “soon” after the event ends), and you’ll need to account for the lack of massive numbers of players that could help you out during the harder events, but the benefit received is very significant (the one-time content doesn’t fade away into darkness).

It’s a possibility that I’d definitely like to see. It still won’t make everyone happy, but knowing they won’t miss out on seeing the content (even if they have to see it afterwards) can greatly lower the grumblings.

Yup, I don’t see why anet just can’t set it up like the instanced story modes. It will eliminate 95% of the complaining on these threads.

“If you can’t make the time, then too bad” attitude will not bode well for the community.

Well, I would still want them to do the live event without it being instanced, just like they’re doing this now. Having that is too powerful a tool for immersive, world-changing content for me to suggest not doing that.

I’m just suggesting they set it up afterwards so those who missed it can still experience it in some way.

MatthewMedina.5419:

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We know that this is a topic that’s going to be heavily discussed, and we definitely want as much of your feedback as possible, both positive and negative (so long as it remains constructive and within the guidelines of the rules of conduct). However I would just like to point out that this:

“…fact that it’s the highest concurrence time…”

is contradictory to this:

“why not choose a time where there’s a higher chance for people to choose to attend?”

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.

Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

I love one-time and live events in MMOs. They do more than any other possible content in making the game world feel alive, so despite the fact that computer troubles are keeping me mostly offline for yet another event, I really like what’s happening here.

That said, I’ve always hated that MMOs would remove story-based content in later releases, as it makes it incredibly difficult to maintain a cohesive in-game story when bits and pieces you feel should be known are only available to those who managed to be there during or before the change.

If I might make a suggestion to resolve this: Since there wasn’t time to figure a better plan out, preserve the one-time content somewhere once it’s done. Don’t archive it and forget it. Later, repackage it in an instanced storybook (similar to your personal story events) available to experience after the fact by buying it from a NPC related to the event (or a general Storybook NPC who sells them), similar to how the Bonus Mission Pack instances worked in Guild Wars 1. Put a marginal account-based reward for completing it so players are encouraged to see it at least once instead of farming it.

This allows players to see the content regardless of whether they were able to be there, but still allows you to do the awesome one-time story events for things like this that don’t seem as awesome when they’re repeated multiple times in a day. Sure, it’ll take some work to set it up like this (although if part of the plan going forward it could partially be done and available “soon” after the event ends), and you’ll need to account for the lack of massive numbers of players that could help you out during the harder events, but the benefit received is very significant (the one-time content doesn’t fade away into darkness).

It’s a possibility that I’d definitely like to see. It still won’t make everyone happy, but knowing they won’t miss out on seeing the content (even if they have to see it afterwards) can greatly lower the grumblings.

It’s very interesting to see what happens when you make people responsible for their own healing, either by staying in areas that provide it or by activating their own healing skills.

All I can say so far? Most people I’ve seen so far suck at it, or just can’t understand the system. This is probably why shoving it off to someone else (a healer class) is so preferable, and why the trinity has been so successful.

This is coming from someone who plays healers, BTW.

Just give the Inquest time…they’ll be in space. Then we’ll discover another Elder Dragon still in hibernation orbiting the planet.

Actually that sounds kinda cool.

I’ve given up because only I don’t have enough time to keep trying with everything else I want to do before the Halloween event ends. If I had more time, I’d be still working on it.

I very much doubt she was in any real danger from being captured by separatists during the dungeon. At the end they can’t even touch her, and I’m pretty sure she could do that for hours if she felt like it. I don’t think she was in any way worried. More likely she wanted to wait and figure out where this whole thing went, and when you arrive with Logan, she instead takes the route of keeping an eye on Caudecus.

I think she’s taking the more subtle route. Being overly aggressive against a calculating enemy will only drive them further underground and out of your sight.

Agreed, looking through all the changes, there’s a lot of effort here for a holiday event. LA changes, trick or treaters, new costumes with a brawling minigame, scavenger hunts/story on the Mad King, hidden areas for extra, pumpkin carvings, new items, haunted doors, a new jumping puzzle (and everything else coming out in act 2)…

And we still have two acts left! They really put a lot of work into this, I must applaud all of you devs. Good work!

Perhaps the Act 3 event destroys it?

For the scavenger hunt, which has the story parts for Act I, you’re looking for Magister Tassi, an Asura in the Grand Piazza near the asura gates (portals). She should have a pumpkin icon above her head, last I checked. She will send you a mail with the item you need to begin.

I’m curious as to how you’re deciding you’re now under-leveled. If you’re gauging it by “I’m now 100% completed in this zone”, then that’s not a good way to do so. Dynamic events are the main content in this game, so if you’re focusing on the items that are always up (and only completing events as you come across), you may not have completed enough events in that area to get enough experience to be at the max level for the zone.

Essentially, if the above is true, you may be focusing on the “support content” instead of the “main content”, because this is one of the first games where event-type content is the main part. There’s not enough support content to carry you through the levels. There are far more events than what you’ll find only while hitting all of the POIs, waypoints, hearts, etc.