Guild Wars 2

Excelsior.

Windows7 works fine for over 3 years straight on my computer.
(I will) Never change a (my) running system.
Windows 8 and above are a downgrade to me.
I am strongly against DX12 for that reason.

(This post has been written on a Surface Pro 3 with Win 8.1 – and I would never want Win 8/10 on my power machine tower PC…)

preacher.9370:

On that note, Anet can you PLEASE stop with the crazy thinking of “lets make this fight ‘challenging’ by throwing in constant knockdowns/backs” with your new content? all that does is make it annoying and makes me want to hurry up and get through it and not do it again.

HAH! And I thought I am the only one! The first time I stepped into HoT I was like “Wow, the game went into turbo mode” and I like it, but one time I have been kicked back and forth the map without being able to fight back. It was at the bottom of some spiral walkway and whenever I made it a few meters ahead, I am getting ping-poinged around like a football. Once I managed to fight that bunch o’ foes, the other beetle things respawned and I am being kicked around even harder without any possibility to really fight my way either forward or backward because in order to evade that I would have to dodge into the other bunch of knockdown enemies…

That was the first time I was yelling “BAD GAME DESIGN” at the screen.

Excelsior.

EDIT: That was with Zedekk, my (now-on-vacation) Engineer. Let’s see how it works with stealth abilities.

Excelsior!

I always have a very high relation to my alter ego in video games. And all are based on my real-life principles (e.g. I only wear black in real life. So do my characters, Shadow Abyss is 80% of my wardrobe colours, the other one is “black” and red, including hair and eyes). So I naturally have problems with alternative characters.

In League of Legends I even have several accounts to play only one hero on it – to keep the stats clean. In Final Fantasy 14, everyone can do everything, which is such a nonsense in many ways (Black Mage and White Mage in one person?!). But I was fine, I had my spot and I never change that.

Except for GuildWars2. This game provides 3 (!) classed that are totally like built around my (real life) character and preferences: Engineer, Thief and Necromancer. Since I started as Engineer, which is an outstanding class, I felt it was too average in all areas. I had fun, but everything felt like 60-80% in all departments. So I dared to lurk into other classes by using the HoT item and eventually fell in love with the Thief (actually assassin).

And while I can understand the thread creator, I send my Engineer on vacation and probably stay with my now “alternate” character (my main for now). So I have alternative characters, but usually only either to Ying-Yang out gameplay styles so they never get boring or because I found something better.. which is the Thief.

But else, I will never understand people creating 10 guys. But then, I do not like weak-minded people that are sometimes like this, sometimes like that.

(I think I lost the point of my post and kept derailing it. Now I have this essay here with a total obscure quintessence. Even Asura need a break I guess…)

So I have 2 characters in GW2, Zedekk and Zedexx, but I basically replaced the first one with the latter one simply because Thief is a tad better and not because of the need of switching around. I am glad other people are the same. “Mainaholic”, huh? That is a nice word. So if my Asura Thief is keeping me fascinated as he is doing for the past month, I might ditch my Engineer and stick with Zedexx. I haven’t switched back to my Engineer since then, so I guess even having one alt, I do not play him. He can do laboratory stuff now or whatever.

Excelsior!

Do not forget about the fact that if you enjoy something you can still boost the actual weapon set a lot.

Many people were telling me when maining Engineer I really should go with the Stilson wrench..uh…“hammer”. Pardon. But I hate the hammer and scrapper in general. I really sucked big times with it! That is what happens when you do something you do not like.

Now reverse that in a certain matter when you play something you like and you are used to. I also enjoy Pistol/Pistol as ranged solution and I really do like it and thus play it a lot. And that means more experience. Going trough certain situations with the pistols makes you more experienced and you get to know what you can do and how you can do it – and what not.

So be a little bit more “true to your heart” and do not look on plain numbers and theorycrafters only.

Oh, finally!
No more basketball noises when firing arrows?
It was so irritating! Painful sounds on impact, sounds of someone playing basketball in the backyard and then suddenly explosions. This is what it sounded like when I decided to pick the shortbow once in a while.

“Df..df..df…df..”Ugh"…df..df..df..“Argh”..df..df..".

I wonder why the’ve messed that up.

Gaile Gray.6029:

But I wanted to ask a question: How would you build a friend list without whispers? Or maybe I’m more wondering how would you discuss adding someone, mutually, without whispers? Open chat?

Excelsior!

I think whisper chat is the one most abused – because you can tell something others should not hear. Last time I didn’t ressurect some guy (because he was an idiot) and I basically got the full flame dictionary in purple chat. If he would have said that loudly my report would have had more impact.

Using the mapchat is the most fun and easy way to build a network of people with the same intentions. Simply by “broadcasting” further and thus reaching more people.

No, I don’t think that is necessary. The fauna is fine this way. Unlike other games bushes and flowers are even responding to bullets and characters walking trough. The amount itself is not quite important.

HoT has A LOT more fauna, and I get framerate issues in that area (GTX970 in combination with an i7 3770) and love the smooth and open look of “Central Tyria”.

I’d like to have darker nights and more changes in the weather though. . .

Excelsior!

Aww, I’ve expected it is about minibars with overpriced 0,1-Litre Coke bottles and 50g peanuts for 3,99€..

If you know League of Legends, there is a healer/support called Soraka. There will be a little circle/compass thingy around her (mind: It’s an isometric game with a fixed camera angle) an arrow/several arrows on it to indicate nearby players with low health. That works pretty well.

In GW2, due to the nature of sometimes 50 players within 1 m² of space, this wold be a bit harder, but I think any class with real healing abilities should get some “sense” or visual clue of who needs help in that matter instead of checking the map for “downed” icons every 2 seconds.

Hah! Yes, I remember the map chats, it also happens at 2 o’clock on the morning. I am still rather baffled about all the complaints in the chat of the two player fractions – one that want it to fail as soon as possible and the other ones that struggle and drag it out even longer.

Stupid to read, but very amusing as well.

Excelsior.

CMM.6712:

It’s your right not to. Form your own group and play how you want. BUT don’t force others to play your way either… see how that works?

Excelsior.

The thread creator allows EVERYONE to play the way they want – INCLUDING meta builds.
The meta sheeps however scrap that idea. So what is your point again against the TC?

In 99% of the cases in the Metrica Province.
I NEVER log off in the middle of the field. This night I logged myself out in the corner of a Norn tavern, next to a window.

For some reason, I can not just turn off the game. There’s a need for a safe place for my Asura to stay over night.

I always did so in other games, probably coming from MS-DOS games like “Das Schwarze Auge” or Megadrive games like LANDSTALKER, where the saving spot was the church or some inn. Before I dived into this awesome franchise, I played FF14, and there I always logged out in my (instanced) inn room, because logging off could be done at the bed and the game shut down with a “going to bed” animation.

I am going with Bullet here.
When I read the Thief forums (as well as the Engineer one) it takes two posts until a total harmless question spins out of control and becomes a theorycraft fest, resulting in a seemingly “perfect” playstile.

Heck, I just play my thief/assassin like I feel. If you like it – with or without HoT / Daredevil – just play it. I am totally happy with this profession (core or not) and I would never ask if it’s easy when I simply can try that out. If you still have that Level 80 thing in your inventory try that. It actually decided it for me to go with the five-finger-discounters.

But else: Play what you enjoy. This is the very most important thing. Better to take it 2 more hits than the “awsum dmg” FOTM stuff that you hate to play.

Excelsior!

I started to play this beautiful profession right before the patch which broke the sounds I guess…
Not sure what weapons I like, I remembered equipping the bow, firing a few shots and switched back to cold metal in my hands (daggers).

Like the next day, the sound was gone. And I tought: Fine, it’s my ranged “stealth” weapon (contrary to the pistols) and all the other skills do make noise.. But now it bothers me a bit, because the impact sound on soft targets is so weird, like someone is playing basketball. Tf..tf..tf-tf..

Because I turn off the music in all games, I need a great audio design, and basketball sounds by followed grunting and painful sounds is so dumb…

Chad.6104:

There’s a Dev break room with a TV set and a ping pong table and snack bar down there. Employees only. You understand.

Just like in “Leisure Suit Larry 6 – Shape up or slip out”.
You need to get the beer from it. Beer!!!1!

Beer is evil, it takes away cognitive capabilities. It’s basically intellectual suicide.

(I am also kinda pleased there are so many Asura ingame and on the forums. I am very pleased! Excelsior!)

Excelsior!

All of the points mentioned are right. Sometimes they even blend into each other.

I think the way the community reacts in general is very mixed. I have late shift right now and the past weeks, meaning I play at roughly 1:00 GMT+1. I do not expect many people to respond, but sometimes they do and some conversation develops and suddenly dies within a blink of an eye. No “bye” or “gotta go”. They just vanish. Is this apathetic? I don’t think so.

To come back to your, uh, “problem”: Personally, when I would see something like that in the chat I’d think several things. A few:
1) That dude just loggs off.
2) Giving away such an amount means he could glitch himself out of reach to never actually have to pay.
3) A gigantic map with spots certain classes can’t reach (as easily) kill competition
At that point, I would not mind anymore. . .

I have an older brother. And thus, I know when someone’s so sure to give away such big amounts of nice things, there’s something wrong. When we both were little in the early 90s, I can really see my brother smiling, promising chocolate for lifetime when I do (insert task). Of course I could never actually get that task done…..

I do not collect material or do dailies.
I just come back to “central Tyria” because I like the different themes.
Last time I teleported right into Charr area and fought a bunch of cats, err, Charr and various other foes and it was great fun.

And suddenly the achievment popped up I have killed a certain amount of them. Since then, I cause mad beef with creatures that I haven’t seen since months. Also: The activity in those maps are pretty high. And I meet many with 3-digit golden mastery points.

Mh, well, I do not want to turn that off, because it’s their people’s identity.
Like saying on the streets: “Man, your Eastpack backpack is terrible, get some ADIDAS NEO one”.

On the other hand, those terrible Barbie Fairytopia wings are bothering me so much!

Hardcore “Asuracist”.
The day they remove Asura from the game they will lose a paying customer (me).

The first franchise which has a diminutive race that is not only for the girls, but also arrogant and powerful. I am always a midget, might it be a Yordle or Lalafell, but especially the latter one were being used to be the “cute” guys that are pushed around in the lore. . .

Apart from that, I had never so much fun playing a character than this game. It’s like somebody dove into my mind and built the game around it. And that is very important to me. I could never play Duke Nukem no matter how good the game itself is, because of the main character.

But here, man, I could not decide between 3 professions, but I think I never felt so much joy playing as long-eared, brainy assassin (“thief”). Solely the fighting and the ability to use several weapons (dagger, sword, pistols, short bow) feels and looks great aesthetically. Could take screenshots the whole day!

The sound effects and animations are beautiful too. It really feels like I am playing a game, I mash buttons, I yell, scream, rage and laugh. HoT is a blast and I can not understand all the negativity around it.

Also, certain features are buyable: For example colours. One of the first things I did was buying Shadow Abyss for €25 in gems. In FF14 for example, it is gated behind so much unfun nonsense that I would have been running around with default colours till today.

Oh, and my character talks! The German dubbing for my Asura is incredibly good and better than the English voice over (which I tried and downloaded over 6 GByte of audio, also the same for the French). The other non-Asura NPC are rather, like, “normal TV commercial” voices, even though well-known. (The male kid voice is currently advertising “Müller Milch” yogurt in grocery stores.. so weird^^ But you get the point of the quality of the voice over)

Yeah…

I’ve never been tied to ANY franchise in my life. I liked Tomb Raider in the 90s and the Die Hard movies. But else, I could never understand the Mortal Kombat, Mario or Final Fantasy fans that suck up everything of those franchises, even the slightest crumps of story, rumors and screenshots. To me, it was a different product each time.

I’ve also played several good games, and all had either a nice facade without actual fun and content behind (Final Fantasy 14) or were good at gameplay but I could not like the style, the character I played as etc. So I never felt “at home” and had a lackluster expierence.

That changed on July, the 23rd of 2015. When Heavensward has been released, I sat there and could not resist the green Heart of Thorns logo that caught my attention while browsing trough several MMO websites. And guess what, I basically stopped my 1.5 year of FF14 gaming literally in one moment, uninstalled FF14 and pre-ordered HoT instead. It was literally a 180° turn within one day, I left all behind I grinded for…

AND IT WAS THE BEST DECISION I COULD EVER MAKE

It took me 3 or 4 weeks until I figured out how great this game is. And what is behind the facade is even better. There is everything I like in this game, except for the loss of hair when putting on a tophat…

The races that also covers beasts (Charr) and a diminutive race (Asura) that are not dwarves with filthy beards.

The races also would fight for themselves instead of this political correct nonense of “We are all equal” and all are smiling.

Asura. The reason why I am here.

The “theme park” setting (I like to have different themes).

The German dubbing is better then the original one (tried the English one and downloaded 6 GByte of audio…), especially when it comes to both male and female Asura voices, including NPC chatter that use well-known voice actors.

The combat has a perfect mix of fun’n’playable. Seeing WoWs skillbars it’s like a mosaic in a bathroom, here you have your bar like in DooM II on the bottom and you got all you need.

I turn off the music in all games, but the ambient sound and drones (deep basses etc.) in caves are well-mixed, even with stock sounds sometimes.

Player chatter with emotion. Shouting downed mates nearby or the snobbish Asuran way of saying “I bleed”. Or: Player do make painful sounds, scream and gasp when jumping.

The best community so far. I got flamed once – by a FF14 player that tried the game in F2P mode. Oh boy.

My thief can actually steal something (!!!) and is not only a “cool” name for a profession (even though it’s more an assassin)

HoT is a blast. It’s like shifting up several gears at once. My keyboard wear increased, meaning I actually PLAY a game, not like many tab target games which you can play with one hand to press QWE and 123 (looking at you, FF14).

Each class/“job” is well done. The engineer got me into the game, but I think the thief is a tad better.

No trinity which engages my feeling of being an adventurer that can help himself instead of hiding beihind the tank because a bunch of bees is attacking (…FF14).

I could go on and on.

GuildWars is a franchise I always overlooked for some reason. Due to to a lucky decision, I dove right into that franchise and it’s the first one I would stay with.

Right now I have spent more money on GW2 per month than on a subscription game. Means: You do everyting right.

I never had experienced any downtime in my 1 year and 2 months here.
When I couldn’t log in (and checked the website, not the forums for announcements, so Bookah!) I thought it was on my side until I noticed it still realized if I did type in a wrong password, so the server could actually be reached, but of course denied access.

With all the other MMOs, especially from Nexon, where they had 2 “emergency” patches every week, FF14 with huge downtimes and error 90000, this has been the first time with GW2, and straight out honesty with the problem. Not the “we encountered a problem” generic message, but actual information. Also, the timeframe was pretty narrow, expected to rollback way more.

Weird, that despite there was a problem with the service, this makes me stick even more to this company now. Well done!

One of the reasons why this game is so fun and fast-paced is the missing tanking (and healing of said tank) in the game design. I think I understand the thread creator a little, but this tank/healer combination is not only just dumb design-wise (imagine yourself standing there in your armor, getting spanked and clubbed to mush by tall monsters, trolls and Mordremoth beasts while being nibbled to death by mini raptors – and all you do is smile and wait for the healer to heal you and call this a good day) but also very, very stalling the gameplay somewhat.

Coming from FF14, I had just bad experiences.

a) Tanks were a very low populated group. Meaning: Slow waiting times for instances bad players picking this role up in attempt to shine despite they don’t like this gameplay and caused flames and mad beef because the tank didn’t meet the expectations upon entering the party.

b) A tank that starts a vote-kick against a easy-to-replace DPS player is usually never disagreed with, because if his votekick failed, he would left. So you had to decide DPS or the tank leaving. And thus the DPS had been kicked.

c) An aggro system/emnity system is a very, very unhealthy system. FF14 taught me that. As black mage, I did slow, but immense damage. This one skill often was enough to get me the aggro. Because of the design of “tanks protect”, all other classes were fragile. So basically, I got punished by design: Using skills caused much emnity, I became target #1, I got 2-shotted because I had not also rely on the tank, but also on the healer which rather healed the tank that was still getting spanked by 3 other mobs while I ran in circles. Fair enough, I also sometimes grab aggro, especially when nobody really wants to get aggro in group content. 2x thief’s unload and I am the new priority, but at least I can dodge/dash away, something in FF14 is not possible. If you have the aggro, you failed the (bad) system and you got to die.

d) Tanking often comes with said fragile non-tank players. The problem I have is that as super duper engame black mage (or archer or whatever DPS class you like, you name it) I am supposed to hide behind the tank. It’s embarrasing. “Hey, I just saved the world twice, but oh no, those spiders there, please protect meeeee!!!” and “Oh, please merci, dear healer, please do not be huffy and heal me, please do heaaall meee!”.

I do not want to hide behind the tanks to play. Or to pray my healer is not stoned at 3:00 in the morning..

No nonono. Let me do it on my own. I am a thief/engineer, and I have my own, class-specific ways to evade damage (or not) or to heal myself in a certain way. That is not only better design-wise, also for, uh, let’s call it immersion. Instead of being a one-trick pony (damage/healing/tanking) I can do it on my own “somehow”. I am an adventurer, right, so why would I not be able to defend myself a bit?

Various edits: Fixed the worst grammar mistakes. Today’s not my day for typing proper English I guess…

IndigoSundown.5419:

Feed them to the Thing That Should Not Be.
Then start on the Asura.

Hah! Try it, Bookah!
(/threaten @)

Quaggans are fine in this matter. To me it feels there is much potential of surviving and defense in their genes than they’re showing. Not sure how far they need to be pushed though. And I am not talking about the Pirinha-faces there…^^

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I wouldn’t play a new race, but I wouldn’t mind it if people wanted it. Anything that helps the game is good in my book.

Same here. I’ve been reading through all the threads about the new races (aka. “We want Tengu”) and was like “Sure, why not, as long as this game gets the support it deserves”. I am happy with what we have now. When you look to other games (except for a few ones) they basically just have humanoid ones, e.g. FF14: Humans, tall humans, stretched humans, humans with tail and ears attached, humans with hideous horns attached.

It was refreshing to see we have plant people and cat-like beasts with a great lore behind. Having another species would be nice, but then, I will be very pleased with the Asura forever (they dragged and hooked me into this game after all).

It’s just sad that the gigantic and awesome lore this game has to offer might be hold back like this. I wonder if any sort of survey with a pre-paid feature would ArenaNet consider this; If they would know a chunk of this cost would be covered by players of the new race. Some sort of kickstarter funding thing. (Even though of course the costs are immense and not covered by having 1,000 x €50)

Elyssa.8307:

HoT drove away a massive number of people. They gutted WvW and dungeon communities by killing the game modes, and the extreme grind drove away casual players.

Are you hired for the Nielsen company or do you just make these claims because of some angry reddit posts and close friends? As someone who joined just 1 year ago to me it seems people like you waited for something that did not happen and now you’re here to cause mad beef. If there are many other games that apparently are so good and not dying, why aren’t you trying those meanwhile? I am pretty sure you come back soon – or stay there (for good).

I actually pre-ordered HoT because FF14 turned into a pile of rubbish with actual content droughts and really only fillers. Even in the forums there is much more negativity out there.

Maybe some of you are just stuck in a weird mindset. I am having a blast with HoT and appreciate it to the fullest.

Tekoneiric.6817:

I’ve tried to get many people I know into the game but haven’t had any takers. Many don’t want to because it’s not on a console. I think ANet complicating things in the game isn’t helping. People usually want a simple distraction from real life not something that is more like work. The complicated crafting and open world meta events requiring LFG isn’t helping. The game doesn’t even allow single players to claim a homestead to mod and build in.

And I hope it stays this way. This audience is the last we need. If they want “distraction” of their life (which sounds like they are not quite in a good shape mentally), they can play some tablet games or on their phones. Same with consoles where nobody responds because they do not have keyboards/connected their keyboards (source: FF14).

If this game turns down the difficulty to cater the “console and tablet mini gamers” then I am out for sure.

@the post above me (I do not want to quote it fully)

That is the point of a survey. This is not a census, but a rough insight. If statistically the majority plays Bookahs, you will see this in the results no matter if you ask 10, 50 or 100 people.

In Germany, many “surveys” about politics include exactly 1,000 surveyed people – German population is 80 Million, eligible to vote are 60 Million. Still, these are published in newspapers and TV news as “trend”.

I’d like to see an official census though, but that will never happens so I am interested in the results here.

DGraves.3720:

My concern is with people becoming so incredibly theoretical that they lose touch with the game itself. The DPS arms race is the worst thing to happen to gaming overall simply because it creates a false standard of superiority through numerical mastery.

This is the first time I am reading this. Ever thought I am the only one. I’ve been seeing this in many other games, mostly with a big streaming population on Twitch. They build their characters exactly the same as the streamers do, but their actual gameplay is just clumsy and overall far, far worse compared to their gameplay they would develop during gameplay without following others or guides. They calculate everything and averages – ingame however, they land only 12.5% of the skillshots, or panic and just mash buttons, or even their PC start to have framerate issues and can’t aim properly etc….

Granted, I have asked for help (waves at Ziggy), but in the end I picked up only things that did not interfere with my gameplay I developed myself during my time here. When I see all these rotations I would lose a big junk of fun – in exchange of damage of course, but that ain’t worth it to me.

(Also, the fun should be #1, even though sacrificing damage for it is fine, but that is not the point of the thread)

“Glue Shot” now cripples.
Made me smile in joy.

Yesterday I had a blast!! It felt like shifting two gears up gameplay-wise!
Thank you all for all these hints and tips (including the PM guy!)!

I finally sat down and stepped up my game and that was even more of a pleasure!
Before, I enjoyed it, but my equipment and abilities (skills of my brainy midget) were less and less suitable. But finally I did all the stuff I saved up for Level 80, even things I totally forgot about (I feel like a Bookah!). The design changes in HoT are also awesome and the fights are really intense* but fun. Had to be spoiler’d a bit about Trahearne but whatever.

*Compared to “vanilla” mobs and HoT mobs.

Also I finally understood how the mastery system works. Reading and getting it explain is totally different to actually seeing it!

I finally stepped into Scrapper, I opened some exotic boxes that I had in a closed bag in the inventory and got a neat rifle from it, I finally can glide and all. First this game was a little but warm flame, now it’s bursting. Thank god I bought Heart of Thorns instead of Heavensward on its release date at July, 23rd 2015. Like an 180° turn. Best decision!

Thank you guys for all!
I will check the information regarding clothing and see what I can get/think is the best for me and then I am done with these steps.

(At least I got a bit of experience in “unnecessarily hard gameplay as Engineer due to lack of equipment” . Could maybe help later…)

Excelsior!
Zed

Excelsior!

Now that is quite an amount of information here! Great!
I have already contacted a very helpful guy via PM but the problem is that he gave me so many possibilities it made my head spin – eventually, I have not even looked into it at all. Not because I want to be rude, but simply I am kinda overwhelmed.

1) No, I have nothing unlocked so far. So I basically should just rush to that place wherever I am supposed to go, accept and then go back minding my business in Orr? The EXP bar flashes once in a while and the two pull-up menus as well, like: “Dude! Here! Man! Check me out!” and then it opens my (locked) HoT trait window (the lowest of the Hero panel’s tabs).

It’s good to know that because I wasted probably a good 150.000 EXP.

2) The confusion mostly comes from the fact that I am in Orr, having trouble getting rid off two zombies, enter an instsance in the very same area with the very same enemies in it and suddenly it becomes playable. Usual business. Then the mission is over and I am supposed to run like the devil himself is after me. It feels odd and wrong.

About my masteries, equipment and stuff, I have nothing really done so far. The same reason as #1 above. The friendly PM person gave me links to some meta builds (none of them feature my beloved dual pistols due to t easily cleansable conditions. . . . . . . .) and it all focusses mostly on Scrapper. I have no clue about Scrapper because from the looks the gameplay sucks so I was pretty much like… “ehh, later maybe.”

Apart from that I just have random stuff I got, some stuff here and there with yellow tags, some stuff I am getting from the finished quests.

I literally have all mix’n’match, from clothing to weapons, I have not upgraded any weapon yet, trinkets I have no idea and my built is what I felt fun to play with so far.

And I had a blast (no pun intended), but now the error margin is becoming thinner and thinner and I also planned to get everything set up at Level 80/when I am done with the story. Meanwhile, I ran into the problem of tough zombies and flashing EXP bars.

The only way I could get stuff is by buying gems which I don’t mind. I think I got 80,000 Karma so far, so that’s not an option. And any other things, like Fractals, WvW or diverse tokens is probably something I won’t touch as “lone wolf”. I survived 6 years of SoloQ in League of Legends an 1.5 years of Duty finder in FF14. But I am kinda tired of the stress it gives me.

So yeah, that’s the story of my life. Your information was quite good, at least I need I gotta to sneak myself into the Danger Zone (I am looking to you, Kenny Loggins!).. I mean, Maguuma and at least stop losing EXP.

If you have something to add I would not mind. I’m like a sponge…sucking everything up!

Sincerely and Excelsior,
Zed

Linux never grabbed market share since its existence.

Linux people were there when Win95 was handing out bluescreens for everything, they were there when people disliked Vista after years of XP and now when they are having this catastrophe called Win10. Still, Linux never takes off.

For me, I can not stand the elitist attitude of many of these “developers”. They never really finish anything. So many distributions, and none really get anywhere. I read about new desktops, but yes, you can do that on Windows too (just replace Explorer.exe with whatever Shell you like; I did so in the past as well). Apart from that, it is good for tinkering on low-end systems (eeePC, Raspberry Pi), Apache servers and for poor people (“Yay, a free OS!”). All the experience with Linux I had was Googling, searching in forums and some IRC. To get one of the basic, v0.0.1.2.6 drivers done.

Look at OpenOffice. Now it’s OpenOffice, NeoOffice and LibreOffice. Or Opera. Turned into Opera, Opera with Chromium and Vivendi (Opera with Chromium). This typical Linux behaviour of “never get anything done” is maybe what keeps it back. Or SmartTVs that crash when accessing connected USB drives. . .

When I would be ArenaNet, I would not want to build on sand as well..

I got my Win7 systembuilder and will stick to it until the last day.

Excelsior!

Today I was playing trough some more missions of the, uh, “kill Zhaitan” story thing. And while kinda like the story behind that, I just wonder myself about a couple of things and it just feels like I am doing it wrong.

1) Since I am still going trough the vanilla story (at least I think it is) I have not been to “the Heart of Maguuma” or whatever. So I can not glide and stuff. Once in a while, my EXP bar (that is full of course) flashes and it basically want me to unlock the trait lines. Or remembers me to do so. I wanted to finish the Vanilla quests first, but it looks like I am giving away so much EXP.

Would the EXP from those story quest fill up the EXP bar and I am basically losing those points by not unlocking yet?

2) Also, is it normal to experience a steep difficulty curve? All out of a sudden, when hitting level 80 areas with their foes, I barely survive 3 foes, sometimes 2 are pretty much a hassle. Right now, a lot of the story missions are in covered areas and I am pretty much running through those areas as fast as I can. It feels “weird” to do that but as soon as I pick a fight, I take a high risk of dying and getting nowhere.

I know my gear is still a mix-up of what I got/get from the quests, but man, I once could not advance because some random zombie veteran dude was blocking a small pass and would hand my Asuran butt to me. I felt kinda weird that I could not progress because of an open-world zombie randomly walking around.

The problem I face is there is a chicken-and-egg problem to me, where I am supposed to get gear from content I can not survive due to the lack of good gear in the first place.

So, is there any advice in what order I should work trough my missions? I changed once the stories to see what this Maguuma stuff is all about but it felt like I am not supposed to be there yet – as Level 80.. That is kinda confusing to me, even though I am glad this game is still a challenge later on. But to be honest, I feel hindered to get anywhere right now. The story missions are easy peasy compared to the random mobs wandering around in the open world…

I am pretty sure ArenaNet designs their game(s) the way it provides all the information (they think) you need. Some customization would be nice, but that wouldn’t be “add-ons” anymore.

Same with APIs for external websites.

Excelsior!

Thank you for your responses. I knew I have seen green too, but imagine when I would have been wrong and you read about me talking how my HUD numbers change colours you’d probably sent me right off to a mental home.

As said, I barely play with others next to me, but I of course have been chilled several times. (Even though it’s quite rarely happening). The day before posting however I participated in a mass…well…“fight” and probably got some assistance from said other players.

Weird the wiki does not explain that. Maybe I just didn’t search for the right trigger words.

Excelsior and thank you!

Hey guys,

I can not hold it back anymore. The web didn’t help, neither the wiki. All I read about “turquoise” is about crafting and dye.

Sometimes the colour of the cooldowns changes back and forth between regular white and very bright turquoise. It does not apply to everything, so it’s possible F4 and 3 can have different colours. It’s either super basic and I just haven’t paid enough attention or it’s something with a party/nearby players because I am alone on my journeys.

What is that all about?

Phew, and I thought something went wrong when loading the corresponding map. In one place (I forgot the name), near to a/that volcano thing, the light level went to 255. All my pitch-black Shadow Abyss clothes showed different shades (as it happens when you crank up gamma or HDR ranges) and my (Asuran) eyes were glowing like the Doomguy’s eyes when using the iddqd cheat in DooM. That particular area was like a couple of m² and vanished when leaving that imaginary box.

Thought it was an error during loading (light maps or whatever you wanna call it).

FF14 on a controller is terrible. I don’t know how people play that way. So awkward.

There is it. Right here. In this thread: Sanity and sense.

Do play what you really enjoy. Would you work in a job that sucks and is depressing – but highly paid? Or earning a little less but enjoy it to the maximum? There are plenty of jobs and all of them come with a “vibe” when playing. You should go like “Yes, that is me”. If you enjoy tanking, go tank. If you like pets, make your choice accordingly!

About an “age” slider, the only race that might cover this are the Asura. With one or two settings, you can literally switch from young to old and even older. The latter resembles the halloween pumpkin you forgot in the garden while mowing the lawn .. in July. But they are there.

For a “weight” slider, I think that would be okay, but “chubby” already sounds, I don’t know, … dumb. Many Asian games have this chubby-but-adorable way of thinking and I wonder where this is coming from (fat chocobo for example). One of the side effects would be very skinny people, too (by moving the slider to the left), allowing very skinny Necromancers.

I left Final Fantasy 14 and switched over to GW2 because FF14 is anti-casual. People say it is very casual-friendly, but these people are just wrong. I don’t know where FF14 is supposed to be casual.

The definition of casual is very subjective as it appears. But to me, casual means different paths for players to take depending on their needs and/or skills instead of forcing ONE way not everyone can take. FF14 for example has a lot of locked content; you HAVE to play certain dungeons that require certain “things”. In order to get these things you have to craft, in order to craft you have to this and that, that requires RNG, which you can’t afford without money (Gil) and so on and so on. It feels it is more easy to fill out some 20-page government paperwork than playing or advancing a bit. For example, there is a quest chain where you have to wait for a “fate” (random event). This random event spawns every 45 – 1 hour. So you sit there and wait, just like the Sydney Youngblood song. This is not casual, because that is roughly 75% of my overall playtime.

In GW2, to me it feels very different. I can teleport into any place, ask in the all chat for events, people will announce TS channels when somethings going on, or waypoints, or whatever. It is inviting for me to even launch it for 30 minutes while in FF14, 30 minutes is the average waiting time for one dungeon.

GW2’s gameplay allows more “drive-by” fun, not so stiff, not as intanced and “forced”. I enjoy it. If you don’t like PvE, you can take other paths, how about PvP? All this stuff is what I like when I boot up GW2. Something other MMORPGs lacked. It was, like someone said, more like a job with shedules and content locked behind stupid bullkitten.

In short: Casual should give everyone the ability to jump into the game. Enjoy it. Give it all they need. Not locking skills behind dungeons that require several people to complete. I for my part I am 100% solo. I would not waste my time with a game that would put all the shiny stuff behind a content wall I can not beat without alternatives to reach it. Leaving the super-awesome things to the hardcore people that deserve is okay, having no access to something similar, maybe weaker, is not okay. I am fine with grade-2 equipment, but at least I get said equipment.

Excelsior!
Welcome to this world and dive right into it. If you give the game a couple of days you will likely enjoy this game. Unlike other competitors, you can actually choose what you want to do.

Daniel.4763:

Heck, I even love you smart-alecky little Asura that always talk down to the rest of us.

Aww, thanks.

What are you talking about? Cats, pardon, Charr are everywhere.
And about Asura.. not everybody can be special..

CMM.6712:

Engi is my main and I haven’t really had an issue. This thread reminds me of a Russian(?) singer with a song with no words.

Eduard Anatoljewitsch Chil was indeed Russian.

You don’t have to use a ramdisk. Where did you get this idea from?
I write to a regular HDD which also holds the game files and despite it sounds like I/O bottleneck, it ain’t, because during loading screens there is not much to render (and thus to be processed) and else everything’s cached (that’s what a loading sequence is for after all).

I am recording with 50 Mbit/s (at 60 fps) – that is 6 MByte/s. Even my old Seagate from 1999 could reach this value. Also remember that is only a maximum limit, the MP4 decoding will compress it even further, so the actual amount of data is significantly lower.

35 MBit/s at 60 fps can also work, but you might get macroblocking at fast movements or blurrs with certain colours (red, green). Just standard MPEG-encoding issues.

As far as I know, ShadowPlay’s encoder uses a part of the GPU that is idling otherwise, so there is no performance drop. If you want to record in the “shadows”, which means a permanent background recording, you could run out of VRAM though.

ShadowPlay has 3 modes:
Off – Turns off. Does not require anything. Duh.^^
Shadow – Records everything into VRAM. You can set a timespan, e.g. 1 minute. If you hit a certain combination, that 1 minute is read from the VRAM and written to your disk. Cool for example in games where you don’t know when something cool will happen but overwrites the file when the timespan is over. Like a rubber band. Can eat serious junks of your VRAM, which should not be a problem in GW2 though.
Manual – Records only when you hit a certain combination (e.g. Alt+F9). Good when you know what will happen and when you want to record on purpose. Only takes a little of VRAM when enabled.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Because you can make characters all sorts of different heights, it would be hard to make a mount that looks reasonable on all races. Leg proportions (in relation to height) vary across the races, so it’s not just a case of scaling the mount up or down depending on the character.

I know that ain’t a motorcycle, but in FF14 the Magitech machine things worked fine with all races. You just had to zoom in hard to see there is a Lalafell driving. But else..

Tekoneiric.6817:

I personally don’t go into raids, dungeons, PvP, etc because I just don’t want to deal with the group dynamics of high-strung players plus I don’t want to rush thru content. I like to explore it. I feel going slow thru content makes you appreciate the work put into it more.

Yeah, exactly the same here. I am here for 11.5 months, I am slowly crawling to Level 74 now, explored 34% (which is actually roughly 50% because I leave Vistas out) of the map and I do enjoy it so much, like, I repeat myself, a good cigar: Slowly. After unlocking the third skill trait I try to get used to proper dodging for the tool belt skill reset and all that stuff, it doesn’t get boring that fast as many people say. I am basically wandering around on my own and shoot everything that comes into my way. Or at least I try to do so.^^

But then I see the “unlocked a dungeon” message, the slowly increasing interest to check out PvP. Which is immediately turned down when thinking of the elitist people that I might face. I saw this happen in LoL, which I played since June 2010.. 6 years ago, the community chilled. If I see it today, it gives me all sorts of diseases, so I uninstalled it 2 months ago. Do not really want to be matched with people that are overly raging (even though I have a threshold, as I think this sort of emtion is required and normal) or to get blamed for minor things that nobody cares like in FF14. “Oh, you used skill C instead of A, you are a bad blackmage, now we end this dungeon 6 seconds later as usual vote kick”.

If the matchmaking of PvP would work, I’d try it, because I would end up with people around my skills. But when I see the higher/even lower levelled players to get matched in as compensation and to fasten the queue times as seen many times in the PvP subforums, I do not want to enter PvP. WvW sounds.. not appealing to me at all. And dungeons, well they are a mix of all the aforementioned things. It’s like a Pandora’s Box. And I have a 70% chance I will regret it..

onevstheworld.2419:

Nero.8047:

I’d cruise around searching for horses to hit.

That’d be a very long cruise, I haven’t seen a single horse in Tyria yet

I am fine with beating dead Centaurs.

But back to topic, EWWW, no. Even in FF14, with all the reta.. weird players that call everything that is recycled from older Final Fantasy games a cure for HIV are against some strange motorcycle that appeared in the forums as suggestion.

I came here and got attracted without watching streams or gameplay videos on Youtube (okay, fine, ONE video, but that was kinda old and not a series of a special Youtuber).

So no, the amount of Youtube uploaders/Streamers have nothing to do with the game’s population.

Chroma keying requires colours that are very unlikely to find in the real world. It also forces the subjects in the video not to feature that colour in order to work properly. In a video game however, such a strong colour as this flourescend, bright green is more common, e.g. with Sylvari. You could lower the threshold but you would get grainy results when certain pixels are around that threshold of being “fine” (and thus removed/invisible) and out of threshold (displayed/visible).

The other colours I know is a dark and bright blue (known from old VHS recorders or satellite receivers for their on-screen display), bright pink (also available in the Sylvary palette) and, especially when on 8-bit colours, this destinctive turquoise, as seen in many games to create invisible objects or objects to look trough. The DooM and DooM II engine translated this exact, bright turqouise as invisible in the colourmap. But this turqoise might also exist in a fictional environment like this game.

Alpha-Channel transparency in general is what you would want, which could be a achieved by a non-textured room with a high (but not too high) lighting, because e.g. Asuran eyes reflect bright light and look kinda strange then. The problem with such a room could be a Hall of Mirros effect caused by an empty framebuffer, but not sure how the engine of GW2 actually works.

Sometimes I wish we had such a feature, too. When I see my (kitten it, I have to say it) cute Asura in the cutscenes (which feature the green screen you mention) it so adorable but I never can do that in the actual game… The problem there would be the name of such a feature and why it would exist at all.