Guild Wars 2

I’m holding off on playing through the storyline again on my alts until this is fixed. Thank you for your communication, Gaile, I look forward to the narrative getting straightened out! I’ll keep an eye on this topic in the upcoming months to see when that might be.

This was beautiful and gave me a much needed laugh this week :) ty OP. And I agree: team skimpy male armor sets 2015.

Teon.5168:

kimeekat.2548:

I also have limited play time…

And yet you had enough time to write this post. In the same amount of time it took you to write this you could have viewed a vista and checked off one of your daily tasks.

But no, you’d rather spend that precious time of yours complaining about it here.

Funny how that works.

Unfortunately – and I’d like to emphasize this because what you’re ignorantly saying about my life is so ridiculous – I can’t play GW2 at my full time job. But I can hang out on the forum during my breaks. Which is when I’ve written both of these posts. I have maybe an hour of play time per day if I really want to not spend much evening time with my family or never play a different game. I absolutely don’t agree that the five minutes my posts take are how long the new dailies take, but I’m sure it varies per person.

I understand if you don’t agree with my post (a lot of people have made decent points to the contrary of mine) but perhaps try addressing the content instead of attacking me via some straw man scenario. I know my life best: when I tell you my time is precious, sit down and listen.

On topic, I will say the change has forced me to PvP to get them done quickly and to avoid the zerging of zone-specific events. It’s alright but only really fun when guildies are willing to flop with me. I still prefer that the world boss daily be less specific. Other daily tasks of increased specificity are bound by zone, not time.

I also have limited play time, and do not enjoy PvP (I get too angry in any competitive game) or much WvW (limited play time does not mesh well with waiting and scouting etc). My play time did not intersect with the Shaman popping. A generic “take down a world boss” would be much improved.

My play time is precious. I always go into it with an idea of what I want to do. Last night I decided to try out the new system and get my PvE dailies. I spent half an hour competing with a zerg for credit in events (thank god for those Mordrem events), mining ore I didn’t want or need and viewing a vista I’d already seen multiple times across multiple characters. I had to dedicate half my play time to the daily instead of getting them as I farm for geodes or play in the silverwastes – the content I actually wanted to play. The other half hour of play time I spent on wintersday events, which I prioritized despite wanting to play in Dry Top more. Thank you for the Wintesday dailies.

I do like the AP being a bundle for completing the overall daily instead of being doled out by individual task. I’m just disappointed that I have less freedom than before.

First, let me start by saying that I am so head over heels in love with the new armor sets. The attention to detail is stunning and the luminescent upgrade effect is really cool. I’ve been waiting for this set to come out ever since that_shaman datamined it.

I want every weight class of female; they are simply gorgeous.

That said, I am going to be a broken record and say what I say almost every time a cool new armor set comes out: why isn’t it more similar between men and women? In this case, it’s my men that are being shortchanged.

I’m really disappointed for my male mesmer that there are no actual butterflies on any of the male versions, yet they’re present on every single female version. It would also be nice for the light and medium armor men to be showing a little skin like their female counterparts (shoulders, back, upper arms, in some cases upper leg and midriff). Wonderful to see coverage parity on the heavies, so a big thumbs up for them.

…of course one of the first comments on Dulfy’s site is expressing the exact opposite sentiment (the butterflies “ruin it” and the person wants them gone from the female versions). To me, this reinforces that they could, as many have suggested of armor sets going forward, have been two different sets (m+f with butterfly parts and actual butterflies vs m+f made of dragonfly parts but no actual insects). The pushback is that it’s a lot of extra work and the ratio of “armor with butterflies” to “armor without butterflies” is heavily skewed toward the latter, so in this case I’d lean into the former’s unique embellishment.

If there’s a locust set in the future, will only the men get the cool bugs on their armor? Are the male versions of the Carapace and Luminescent simply previewing wrong? Will Asura and Charr be butterfly-less forever because they are forced into the male version of armor?

Thank you for your time, and for the lovely humanoid female armor.

I totally buy that the cutscene complaints were the cause, not least of which is because I do trust Gaile to be truthful. I never complained about it, but yeah: it was jarring to see Marjory/Kas/my character yawning and stretching in boredom while people were dying. I’m a feminist in a guild full of feminists and of all the issues of equality one could choose to take up in critiquing GW2, the human female idle animation is so not the big bad boss fight I’ve ever heard anyone choose outside the speculation in this thread. So I’m not sure why anyone would think they’d listen to that particular appeal to unequal sexualization instead of, say, armor parity (which I’ve see tons and tons of threads on). But I guess stranger things have happened.

That said, I would have preferred the animations stay in the game as a whole rather than being completely removed indefinitely until this becomes a priority. If it takes a few months to implement code that devs can use to toggle idles off in cutscenes, so be it.

When I compare the time spent in cutscenes to time outside, I feel that the chosen course is an overcorrection. Idle animations and player chatter are the kind of details that make me feel like my character is… well, a character. It gives them personality through physicality. I want more dialogue, more animations, not for them to completely disappear.

I’m concerned due to other seemingly higher priority bugs/hiccups not being fixed in a timely manner, but perhaps the team involved on this one was already working on similar overhauls that we’re in the dark on. It’s also not difficult to imagine that the team working on model animations are not the same ones that are working on, as I’ve seen it suggested in this thread, fixing bugs from mesmer skills. Still, having no timeframe and the idles completely gone in the meantime is a bit of a bummer.

Really, I’m just here to advocate for more idles and voice acting and to encourage whatever the fix is to get implemented quickly.

Thank you so much for communicating with us and on our behalf, Gaile.

Gilgalas.7860:

I hope the reworked UI will also include one currency exchange rate graph for the sake of giving all players an equal chance at understanding the market, and not just power users who will get the data from external websites anyway (the graph may either have no Y axis, simply showing the rate variations, or two Y axis, one on left for gems -> gold and one on right for gold -> gems with a little icon to ensure all players understand the meaning of each axis).

I’d like to second this. Advanced/power users may know about gw2spidy but new users (okay and lazy users like me) are truly the beneficiaries of that graph. There’s been community discussion for a long time about conveying more meaningful information in-game and imo this is a step backwards in that respect.

Perhaps reinstate it through a linked button at the top/bottom so it stays off the mainpage. Though I must say, I am still genuinely confused about why the original layout was unacceptable.

lordquibble.1672:

Some people here are going on about the market graph, but lets be honest, it was fluff. It was useless because it a) didn’t show you the buy and sell graphs at the same time, b) only went back 5(?) days (why not a week?), and c) had no sort of fine gain view or ability to zoom. If anyone really wanted to get more information than “huh, the marget really spiked sometime on tuesday”, we went somewhere online like gw2tp or gw2spidy. Power users are fine with that. It was neat, but lets face it, it was just a thing ANet used to fill space in a fixed size window and to “promote” the market driven nature of the gem exchange.

According to devs, the logic is that the change was for new users, so I want to ask a rhetorical question here: do you think these new players would know to go looking for gw2 spidy for context of gem exchange rates? You said yourself “power users” are fine with going to gw2spidy but aren’t we supposed to be concerned with the NPE?

The graph was a fantastic feature because it gave a quick in-game snapshot of recent data. It let you know “hey, prices are spiking right now compared to yesterday or a few days ago, so maybe I should wait/act now” and was a very immediate, easy to read visual indicator that prices are market-driven. Back in the day, its presence made me think “huh, maybe someone has a longer term graph”, led me to google and to gw2spidy. Without the graph, new users will have zero context for exchange rates and then may not even know/care to go looking for such a thing. The only thing on that page that lets you know prices are market-driven is a two sentence disclaimer at the bottom. Quibble as you like about the length of time it should ideally show, the graph was enough to at least put the current rate in some sort of context. What they’ve done by removing this is disempower the individuals in their market from making informed decisions.

The community has been talking loudly for years about putting more relevant information inside the game itself. This change does not in any way help that, and only succeeds in keeping players in a state of ignorance without third party sources. Blinding consumers is only beneficial to Anet, as far as I can see, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that people are annoyed.

Zaklex.6308:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

~Snip~

Side Problem: Removal of RNG weapon skins
I mentioned at the beginning that there is a fourth issue with this update not tied to Halloween. To quote the update notes:

“There are only four weeks left to use tickets for Lovestruck, Dragon’s Jade, Aetherblade, Fused, and Dreamthistle weapon sets. After November 18, these sets will no longer be available for purchase with Black Lion Claim Tickets this year .”

~Snip~.

Usually, most of what you post is very good and well thought out, however, on this one issue I have a bone to pick. You apparently just decided to completely ignore the last two words of that announcement, this year, which unless I am mistaken, means they will return in a different year, be that 2015, 2016 or what ever. You seem to be under the impression that they are gone forever, never to be return. When in fact this is a temporary removal and not permanent.

I fully expect them to re-release the sets next year at twice the ticket cost and sell it as though they’re doing us a favor, tbh. But that’s just my conspiracy theory.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.

So make the main conversion page ~simple~ with an obvious link to the old page, which provided interesting and relevant data about the recent history of the market’s volatility (or lack of, depending), as well as allowing people to enter in custom amounts. Custom conversion amounts are a necessity due to the pricing of items on the gem store. Also, this new theoretically streamlined page is not any less confusing imo, but I am all for a redesign that does not remove features.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.

I genuinely don’t understand this. Oh god, maybe I’m a confused new player. The “Shopping Experience” is the gem store itself, not the conversion center. See, when I invest money or convert to foreign money, companies/banks usually show me available data on recent stock volatility/exchange rates and how the current rate compares. I’ve never been to a bureau de change/bank/portfolio provider that didn’t let me choose how much to convert/invest, outside of long term investments like bonds where I get a guaranteed return. The difference is that they take a percentage, which I’m sourly surprised GW2 hasn’t started doing.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.

What about converting gems to gold? OP of this mashup thread has 1 lonely gem to convert. What you say may be the case for gold->gems, but removing the option for the rare occasions when you need it due to gem store pricing or are too poor to afford anything more feels insulting, like we’re being forced into higher and higher price tiers.

Ishtar.6457:

aerial.7021:

goodness, want to see a new post just press F5.

Just remember Gaile is a person.

so are we, but here we are and look at how they treated us. we are like a bunch of monkeys with no brain who have a lot of $$ to them. so what is your point?

The point is Gaile is not “they”, she is a third party going between the decision makers and the player base. Anyone who abuses her out of their anger at the decision is a scrub. People who flip out on customer service reps who have their hands tied by their superiors are only making themselves look bad and completely shutting down any potential input the player base has access to. You want them to treat you like an intelligent adult, then act like it.

Some of these reports seem very strange to me, since I haven’t been in anything less than a t4 drytop for weeks. I assume it’s something to do with the way Megaservers are grouping people? I’ve never seen anything higher than t4, personally, but I don’t really care for the grind after that or see much need to make myself miserable to go beyond it, so I don’t mind.

Monetary rewards are relatively worthless… I think I probably lose money from all the porting around I do. However, I also appreciate that they’re trying to raise the value of alternative currencies like Geodes. I told myself at first I was just going to farm for geodes to buy Mawdrey mats. That seemed quick at first until I realized how repetitive the mats are for each level up to Mawdrey. Now I’ve got all my geode-bought mats but I’ve also found 3 more fossilized insects that I need to buy recipes for. That’s 1,200 geodes I get to grind out in the future, plus 2 inscriptions for my non-huntsman crafters, which ensures I’ll be coming back to Dry Top for quick “I don’t have time to do a dungeon” spells for a loooong time in the future.

Ah! I hope this is a positive move for everyone. <3 Best wishes, Gaile. Moment of silence for losing our “jedi knight” in CS (perfect description, Luna). Moment of squee for our froggy in-game overlord.

1) Labwan the Deceiver is my biggest enemy in this game. I remember the feeling of my character accidentally murdering an entire squad, the feeling of killing Labwan and bringing to light the plot but not being able to erase the guilt. That was one of the most emotionally resonant parts of the game for me. Then I got to experience the Apatia arc with my boyfriend’s character and Tonn on an alt… they all brought a feeling of weight to the responsibility of Commander of the Pact and tinted each character with a unique form of loss. The thought of this arc being gone is depressing to the point of tears.

2) Is the Greatest Fear arc missing from the journal a bug? Please god let this be a bug. I hate the nonsensical rearranging of the personal story to begin with, but to wipe this arc out completely will break my heart.

Adding my voice here, too. The official Soundcloud is a big deal for music lovers. I make playlists and create cover art for each episode’s tracks, I listen to them on the drive to work each day… I’m starting to worry that the Soundcloud involvement is going to be phased out :\

I would also buy any/all GW1 & GW2 & LW soundtracks if I could, hint hint.

Ah, excellent Thank you to everyone who worked on this; it looks great and theoretically will run even better. So much work to rebuild it from the ground up like that.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Improving the visibility of the fees incurred while using the Trading Post was also important. Previously, we’d show you the listing fee and projected profit when selling, but this left out the successful exchange fee that comes out of the seller’s profit on every transaction. Feeding all those birds that shuttle your wares to the Trading Post isn’t cheap, or so Evon claims. It was better than nothing, but we got a lot of feedback that the projected profit was confusing because we weren’t calling out all the fees. The new selling UI in the Trading Post explicitly calls out both the listing fee and the exchange fee, so there shouldn’t be any surprises when selling.

What I find disturbing is that “projected profit” got removed and replaced by two fees. I am afraid that this was done on purpose, to make people do all the math themselves. The main complaint about “projected profit” (as stated in the post) was not that we wanted to see the fees… the complaint was that it didn’t calculate all the fees.

^ This is my only concern at the moment, besides no wishlist/watch feature, which I assume is a QoL thing that can come in a future update.

If you have The Complete Edition the basic version should be unlocked, period. You had to have the original to make the second piece. ~but you should hang on to everything~ Okay tell that to me from two years ago when there was no whisper of a wardrobe and no achievements tied to the number of skins you’ve unlocked, where every skin was a Sophie’s Choice of writing over something unique. Not to mention that the backpiece was not a skin, rather an abysmally statted out item that was soulbound on acquire.

There is a nice collection of issues like these put together over on the bugs forum which you may want to take a look at and maybe add your voice to.

I’ll always throw my support into built in voice chat. If Anet wants to make life much easier for newbies, this is one of the ways to do it. Yes, there are some logistical issues to consider (guild chat having appropriate management tools for officers, as an in-game example) but I don’t believe they are reasons to discard the idea completely until I hear it from ANet. I would prefer not to have to fumble out of game with three different third party voip clients just to communicate on all the channels necessary to effectively voice chat in dungeons, guild and WvW in this game (Mumble, TS3 and Ventrilo). A new and casual player is not going to realize how necessary having all three of those downloaded and ready to go are.

It’s much harder to convince a PUG to download and hop into your channel and then relay information about the boss fight (and hope they listen) than them hearing your explanation immediately in-game (and hope they listen). And wouldn’t this lessen the spying issue a little if you were automagically sorted into your red/green/blue team voice chat room, or your registered server’s chat? If you could mute people, or have an option to set everyone to auto mute beyond friendslist, guildies and commanders, that also seems like a good option. The immediacy of built-in party voice chat was a big part of what I loved from Tabula Rasa (rip) and what helped make it so easy to be both a new player seeking guidance and an experienced player looking to help.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t think adding tutorials are the answer . . . those who need it the most often aren’t going to suffer through the tutorials and will try to learn it on the fly.

It is known.

On the same side of the coin, slowing down Trait acquisition to try to get people to use them more isn’t quite the answer I think. At least the Trait resets shook out much like the old “Refund Point” system did in GW1 for Attributes.

Step 1: Integrate the tutorials into renown hearts, like that glorious heart in Queensdale where you have to learn to block, attack around a block and charge a weapon before firing.

Step 2: Make completion of the low-level map(s) on which these renown hearts exist a requirement for unlocking a trait tier, et voila. Players have to do it, and they get rewarded three-fold for doing so (heart completion, map completion, traits).

I also support practice arenas for boss mechanics though I’m not sure how to do that without making it instanced, which I know takes up processing power.

eta: Alternately, integrate some non-optional tutorialesque content in the newbie instance the way GW1 did.

Beautiful list, thank you for putting it together. I feel like I’ve been shouting myself hoarse about Mad Memories :\ so I’m very pleased to see it included on the list as not being attached to Mad Memories: The Complete Edition.

Part 2

Make it so that the unlocks for the Trait numbers help build up to the goal for the next tier unlock: do so many hearts or successfully complete dynamic events or complete so many skill point challenges or kill a boss relevant to the trait like you stole it off of ala GW1. For the Master tier unlock, make players complete a lowish level map or two. Direct them to that heart in Queensdale that teaches blocking and holding down numbers and such — and refine that. This heart is a treasure. I’m still devastated that this is the only heart that really is all about learning core game mechanics. I can not emphasize enough how lacking an immersive learning tutorial is in the game. This heart does its best to remedy that for blocks and wind-up skills. tbh, I would rather see more hearts like this teaching core mechanics in the newbie zones than a thousand trait mechanic changes.

Keep giving a skill point per level as under the old system. By not waiting to throw points into a minor trait, you can draw attention to and teach the value of a trait line’s passive bonuses. Once they reach 5 points (lvl 10), have them pop open the trait screen again (or visit the chosen trait NPC) with a notification button that won’t go away and show them the difference between minor and major traits. Show them the multiple ways of doing things (pressing the + or – buttons to dole out points or clicking on the trait itself to do so in larger lump sums). At 10 points, remind them again to distribute for their first major trait (potentially – they could double minor if they really wanted) and then leave them be until Grandmaster when this notification system should explain the special individual trait line requirements of the XIII traits.

If you went down a path that resembled this example, you’ve just taught a lot about a wide variety of game mechanics in a way that furthers fleshes out the story and world (integrating NPCs and giving them relationships and stories to eachother, the player, the land and the threat of the dragons) AND staggered out the learning experience so you don’t overwhelm them but conversely they can not ignore it. You’ll also have reduced the tedium of having to jump through a unique hoop for every single trait.

I just love the idea of making it more of a story than “do this task”, “do this task”, “do this task” which bores the daylights out of me. I’m still baffled why hearts in the newbie zones don’t teach and force you to use dodge, F1 skills, aoe fields etc. They, or some sort of instanced practice arena like them, seem like the perfect delivery and reward system for this information, especially if that map’s completion is required for unlocking a higher trait tier. It would also make for good training grounds for older players trying out new weapons/traits/keybindings etc. If you staggered the mechanic hearts around the various newbie zones you would also have a good segue way into explaining portal travel, the Lion’s-Arch-is-a-hub concept, and waypoint fees.

First of all, thanks for requesting feedback and laying out the rationale. It’s awesome and takes energy, so just know that it is highly appreciated. I hope our cupcakes last week helps convey that :)

JonPeters.5630:

Trait Tier level increase. …most players need to be introduced to systems more slowly so that they don’t get lost.

This is the gist of it all, isn’t it :) I agree with your premise but disagree with your conclusion. Dissociating traits from gameplay by removing them from the newbie consciousness is a big delay of grasping a core mechanic, not to mention gratification. As is bundling them in chunks of five, imo — once you understand the system, allocating the stray point or two is not complicated (especially now that we can retrait on the fly — a huge improvement btw).

The issue to me is that traits are not the only area in which newbies are confused. You’ve treated a symptom but not the disease: There need to be better in-game, immersive newbie tutorials in general.

JonPeters.5630:

Unlocking traits. We talked about this a bunch in the horizontal progression CDI and it came to our attention that many players were not learning about traits, how they worked, or understanding the options.

I loved unlocking elite skills in GW1 and I love the idea of unlocking traits in GW2. Examples of how my above conclusion (better in-game tutorials that are immserisve) might play out with regards to traits:

Let’s say you unlock traits starting at level 5, and then you unlock tiers which subdivides into unlocking numbers (across all trait lines at once — so an ele would unlock Adept and after would unlock the Trait 1s of Fire, Water etc all at once). At level 5 you get a notification button that opens the traits screen to show you the UI and how to get there from pressing “h”/using the top UI. Once on the trait page, it points out the tier you’ve unlocked (give them the adept tier as a freebie; they’ll still have to unlock individual trait numbers) and tells you that a tool tip on mouseover of locked skills will guide you in unlocking each Trait number/tier.

In this newbie case, the mouseover of all six adept traits initially tells you to visit your profession trainer in a certain racial city and yes I know you took them out. I loved having unique NPCs as trainers and unique questlines for professions in GW Prophecies’ pre-searing. They were (say it with me) immersive. Substitute “trait unlocker npc” there if you must. A “commander book npc” could work when unlocking Grandmaster. ANYWAYS. So you go to this NPC. They tell you “congrats, you are becoming more adept(/gaining such mastery/becoming a true grandmaster). I can help you unlock your full potential.” And then, boom, the newbie is notified that there are updated tool tips on their trait UI screen for each trait number. The trait NPC is then like “I have six lessons for you to be a true Adept. Which sounds most appealing?” And you choose one and he gives more information. You can go back and have him tell you about each one/repeat whatever info he gives. If it’s location-based, he shows you where the task you have to do is on the map (the way a scout or quest mail would), while a banner across the map screen tells you what your task is there. To unlock the “I” Traits, perhaps you have to make so many kills/hits/swaps/whatevever — make it a class specific goal — using your F1/2/3/4 skill(s). For “II”, maybe you have to do so many dodges or so many heals or equip and use so many utility skills — you get the idea. This is when you should really be teaching them their class and core game concepts. I also like the idea of USE unlocking things. If the skill is scepter related, maybe they need to use the scepter so many times (this is why I liked learning weapon skills with use: PLEASE put this back), or make fire traits unlock by using fire. This NPC can show you what you need to do/where you need to go to unlock the next tier, too, though of course your mouseover on the trait screen will do the written equivalent.

As a gamer coming from a MUD background, I love seeing GMs in game and getting direct feedback on actions. Tentative yays and also beforehand bracing hugs for any verbal abuse I’m sure people will feel entitled to dole out.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

The Feature Pack announcements will continue next week and some of them will definitely contain information that’s relevant to those of you who’ve been playing the game for long. We won’t tell you about them until the articles are live though, to keep the element of surprise!

Thank you, Stephane, it was nice of you to comment and reassure us. That said, I really feel that the three week parceling out of information like this sprinkled by dev posts telling us to be patient and that we’ll be excited is increasing the fandom kitten within the community. The blog posts feel a little fluff-y to get a length out of them that may not be warranted. I venture to guess that there would be a little less bitterness if the announcements were more compact and substantial. Of course, I can see how small nibbles of information is easier on the PR team when it comes to fan feedback; perhaps merely changing up the order, or two instead of three weeks would ease the feelings of being strung along. Hopefully you guys can see where the disappointment/antsiness from veterans stems from on this, the most glorious of birthday weeks, having nothing to do with us in the news department. Your fans hang on your every word, which is a double edged sword that I don’t envy, haha. It is demoralizing hearing that some of my favorite elements of leveling have been gated and at the same time seeing no news relating to my current in-game situation. Thanks again for the communication and all your hard work <3 Enjoy those cupcakes.

I would love to see this added. You could even make it run by humans in each city if it’s a “very human thing”. There might be some funny disputes over the finer points between the guide and a local NPC, even. You could even make small updates to it after major living story events… like “and this is the place where Scarlet Briar attempted to murder Queen Jennah” or tie them in to pre-existing vistas so the tourist players can get a special view with their history.

It was a really stand out moment finding the tour guide in my home instance in DR. I’m just a fan in general of giving the cities more special activities like this <3 thanks, writers.

I’m ridiculously excited for the toy. I am a little bummed that the random lottery of a mini is still not an option like in GW1, however, and also sad about the soulboundness of the gun (going to assume it won’t stack in the bank). It will permanently take up a slot in each characters’ inventory. I thought the community was pretty vocally annoyed about items just sitting in your inventory like that with the living story (Scarlet Briar’s Journal, Marjory’s Journal, that Krytan torch), sad to see them regressing into implementing it here. If there was an equipped slot for toys like there is for costumes this would be less obnoxious to me.

I also thought the whole community had been pretty similarly-minded about how useless those lvl 20 scrolls are as a birthday present. Especially now for a second birthday. Give me something my birthday character can use, at least. The Birthday Boosters are an example of such awesomeness.

8 characters, 6 of whom are gonna be up on their 2nd bdays soon. As of next month, that’ll be, let’s see, 12 lvl 20 scrolls plus the 2 from the year-olds. That’s a total of 14 lvl 20 scrolls in my account’s history. For characters that are all 80 with two 60s. I think I’ve used 2 of them in the last 2 years. This doesn’t even include the characters I plan to make with my 2 open spots, or taking into account the numbers should this pattern of yearly lvl 20 scrolls continue. I estimate I’d have a total of 24 by next year with these two extra characters made, which in year 4 would total out to 34 lvl 20 scrolls. I will never have that many characters to level and there is no other way to break down or exchange the scrolls. I don’t understand the logic.

My favorite pair of light pants (Ascalonian Catacombs) are way too plain for my tastes, but are the only ones I can find for my light norn lady that don’t bulge weirdly like the “harem pants” or involve the giant bulging butt over-skirt.

Some pants also go over shoes which is a big no-go for me. Any piece that covers up another piece of clothing too much are a pass.

Thalimae.3406:

Nanashi.6297:

I don’t know why everybody hates Trahaerne. I actually had quite fun listening to his ridiculous dialogues etc.

Can’t wait to see more.

lol same here. I’m not even his biggest fan but this ridiculous hate he gets makes me kinda like him more on principle. he’s so inoffensive that this “omg Thrahearne is the worst 5ever!!!111” meme got old pretty fast.

Yup, this. I never saw the hate until after my personal story and I spent the whole time enjoying him AND his voice. He’s a necromancer and a pretty big loner until you and he command the Pact, so I loved the contrast of his voice against say, Sieran’s to show the range of Sylvari personality. I think he’s just become certain segments of the fandom’s go-to punching bag -shrug- I always get a hit of the feels when he cleanses Orr.

I’m really excited for him to be back in the story. He was my character’s bff for a long while, and finally the United Forces of Messing Up Dragons is getting involved Esss just got real.

In light of the threads asking for VA names, I was going around the wiki and adding VA info when I noticed there is no information on Braham’s voice actor! My googlekittenhas also failed me, so I have come to grovel here :) thanks!

Astral Projections.7320:

TheMagickDoll.7594:

I would gladly buy one off the gem store as a skin, but yet again, they decided to put it behind a BLC. So I am not bothering with it.

They did release a set of skins in the gem store back in the Wintersday Holliday of 2012, the Winter’s weapon skins. The whole set was for sale on the gemstore for 500 gems per skin. My guess is, the sales through the gem store were lower than their expectations, thus the change to RNG sales.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winter's_weapon_skins
When first introduced, these weapons could be bought in the Gem Store for 500 each.

It appears they tried direct sales and then tried RNG sales. Since they continued with RNG sales then that must mean RNG brings in more money than direct sales.

Those Winter’s Day weapons were cute but not something I would buy. They had a few things working against them.
1) They were themed to a very specific season/in-game holiday, meaning people may not want to spend 500 gems per weapon skin (that’s more than half the cost of an entire armor set) on something they may not want year round.
2) At the time, a weapon skin meant dedicating an entire item to that skin. There was no wardrobe to feel like you could just sink money into a skin and figure out a time to use it later, or that if you deleted the item you spent real life dollars on it was fine because you could always skin something else in the future. So a single skin at the time was a big deal.
3) They were pretty basic/decorative looking with their wood and a frost effect. Again: they were cute, but when you’re asking for real life money the effects and details on the Ley Line, Halloween, Zodiac, Dreamthistle, Tormented etc weapons are a step toward making the price actually worth it.

Personally, I would buy basically all of the Ley Line weapons if I could/if the system were different. I have the staff and the scepter and one more ticket waiting to be spent once I make my final choice. I desperately want the shield, the focus, the warhorn and maybe the axe, hammer and torch. I don’t want to play the odds against all the other junk in the Black Lion Chests to get them, though, so I’ll have to think carefully about if/how much gold I want to spend and if I want to keep this last claim ticket just in case better weapons come around for next time. If I could buy the weapons in gems, I’d have also bought more zodiac (only got the rifle) and tormented weapons (which I passed completely on at the time) but as it is I don’t want to pour my money down into RNG so -shrug- It makes me wonder if they make more money off of people converting gems to gold to buy the weapons from the TP.

Stark.1350:

Nevermind all the other rewards you got from opening all of those chests.

Sorry, this just screams entitlement to me.

That’s a shame, since OP even agrees with Shiren’s suggestion of being allowed to turn in some of those rewards to an NPC as an exchange system. Which means they are saying they literally want to be able to work for them. Beyond some cooking recipes, there’s not a lot that is unique to turn Geodes in for beyond these weapon recipes. So once you’ve got the recipe and you’re hunting for the fossils, what good are all those geodes to you?

Account bound fossils plus RNG status is a double-walled fortress of depressing. They could either keep the RNG and make them sellable or keep them account bound and earnable. Having both just feels like being punished.

That said, the Ambrite weapons are probably going to be the big draw for keeping people farming Geodes/sandstorms through the week/beyond if these events stay (which would be really nice to know ahead of time since I spent all my geodes last week thinking that they’d become useless and that I just wanted cooking recipes and now have to start again from zero for these new weapons. Silly me). So I think keeping the fossils account bound is their way of making sure people have to come and specifically farm this zone. Clever; we’ll see how it works out. Probably not in my favor since RNG gods hate me, but I’ll keep trying and see what happens.

Good luck, everyone :)

eta: Someone brought up magic find and yes! It would be nice if MF factored in to this somehow. I stopped working for MF past 110% because it was just like… why does this even matter. All the stuff I want are usually from chests and not drops. Again, it would be nice if something I worked for (MF %) was part of the equation.

EgonVenkman.1907:

Astral Projections.7320:

kimeekat.2548:

I love the warhorn. I’m just left wondering why the pistol/rifle gets unique sounds but the weapon that is actually an instrument for sound does not.

ETA: It also continuously bums me out that all the weapons are the same ticket price. Is the staff really worth the same as the warhorn? Because I’d argue no.

Now how in the world are they supposed to adjust prices for individual preferences? It’s not like ANet is going to know ahead of time which will be most favored.

Someone playing a warrior would be much more interested in a warhorn skin than a staff. For me, the staff is the best one and the warhorn about the least.

It isn’t about looks but 1 hand vs 2 hand weapons. Instead of making 1 hands cost 1/2 a ticket, Anet would just double the price for 2 hand weapons.

What Egon said. It’s the same reason the Sovereign weapon skins were different costs of gold depending on the handedness of them.

They could make a one-handed black lion claim ticket. Make it Silver or something, idk. I’m sure there is a way if there is a will. Gold tickets can be exchanged for a two handed or reduced to two silver tickets by a weapons specialist, silvers only redeemed for one hands et voila.

I love the warhorn. I’m just left wondering why the pistol/rifle gets unique sounds but the weapon that is actually an instrument for sound does not.

ETA: It also continuously bums me out that all the weapons are the same ticket price. Is the staff really worth the same as the warhorn? Because I’d argue no.

It used to be that you could download the music straight from SoundCloud to import into iTunes. With the living story season 2 tracks up there, it seems as though this option is no longer being supported. Am I just missing the obvious button somewhere?

If this move is intentional, I’m wondering where I can give my money to get the tracks. I like making playlists in iTunes and this is really bumming me out. I miss listening to the latest music on my way to work. I’ve made cover art for past tracks and everything.

Thanks for any help :)

I am going to copypasta a response from a related thread (which maybe should have been part of this thread/will be merged) and use it as the basis for my feedback/thoughts:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

What bothers me the most, is that none of the geometry in that jumping puzzle in Dry Top was specially designed for platforming. It’s more like ice skating. Dozens of tiny poles that characters constantly slide off for no apparent reason. It’s infuriating. If they had just dropped a couple of normal platforms in there, this wouldn’t be so frustrating.

Then you need to get to the Goggles, and you are in a hurry, but there are no platforms what so ever! Just angled pieces of bamboo that your character randomly either slides down from, or sometimes lands on. The collision is bizarre, and most of the time it is not the player’s fault that he’s sliding off.

This is just bad design.

I didn’t experience this too much with the open-world aspect jp, but I feel this acutely in relation to the no-aspect jumping achievement in the story instance.
1) You fall and die and the NPCs don’t revive you. This means you’ve got to drag a friend into the instance to sit there for god knows how long as your rez pony. I get mad at myself enough on my own on some of these tougher JPs without adding bored hostages to the equation. Perhaps this is because I was in the middle of the gather the three bits of evidence bit in which Kas and Jory just stop moving around/get caught in weird corners and can’t move? Perhaps there is a more “correct” moment to do this where the NPCs rez? A tooltip would be nice, if this is the case. I’m tired of finding all these things out outside of game.

2) Exactly what Malafide said. I’ll be running up a pole straight as an arrow and then whoop, suddenly I’m sliding straight down the side even though I appeared to be on the bamboo pole. This could be my lack of familiarity with the puzzle’s “this is the one place you can stand and jump from with swiftness to land in exactly this place and make this jump” tediousness combined with my main being the tallest norn and thus weirdly proportioned against the bamboo. Add the lack of flat surface in to the couple of corner jumps and that’s half an hour+ of me wasting my boyfriend’s/guildies’ time while I find new places that suddenly seem to decide they are not, in fact, as solid as the pixels would lead me to believe. The number of times I’ve done a certain corner jump only to land seemingly fine but then slide down a split second later is vast. Why even give me the appearance of landing at that point? Either give me the flat surface and say I landed or just throw me down into the abyss so I know for sure where the arbitrary edge is. OR, my radical proposal that requires actual effort and care: if jumping is going to remain such a big focus, work on a new mechanic where you can grab on to ledges with your hands and pull yourself up to steady ground. I won’t even get into my tired camera complaints, I’m used to them by now ^^; I guess I should pick another character to unlock achievements on for this because I’m truly struggling in comparison to my boyfriend’s little asura. But the thought of doing that story for the sixth time in two weeks (why did I unlock it on two norn. why.) is exhausting so I’ll probably give it a long break or continue the cycle of masochistic attempts on my massive norn while I log into my boyfriend’s account on his PC so I can actually rez myself while he’s at work

That said, I found the puzzle ridiculously enjoyable with the jumping aspects, maybe because with the extra height I could land on the vertical ends of the bamboo sticking up instead of having to edge along the sloped horizontal pieces. I was worried that there were going to be less crystals around up top and I’d have to rush, but there seemed to be a decent amount to reattune with. Dare I say, it is insanely fun and one of my favorite puzzles (with the crystals). I didn’t have the heart to try to get up to the diving goggles, as a kindly mesmer was porting <3 shout out to all the mesmer ports, truly doing the work of good. Not a fan of the sudden timers on the crystal uses, though. Makes it really hard to line up a good jump/camera angle sometimes.

RedStar.4218:

kimeekat, you forgot that from Scarlet’s Short Story, we are told she was greeted by Mender Serimon right as she was born.

So it cannot be your first idea.

But I’m extremely eager to see the plot reasons for such a tweak. I have a feeling it’s going to be funny.

kimeekat.2548:

… The latter two make no sense to me since … that would also mean Mender Serimon would be firstborn, as he greeted her upon awakening according to a blog post which I guess could just be thrown out the window now so who really knows…

I still think it’s possible but I honestly only care for the wiki’s sake (the preciousss), hehe.

ETA: I honestly don’t think they’ll have to explain themselves in game at all if they just decide the secondborn were born earlier. As far as I can see there really isn’t anything in game with solid dates for the 2nds or stating that Cadeyrn was even the first secondborn (though in that case they’d obvs be choosing to ignore the Dream and Nightmare story).

To copypastaish from a post on my personal blog trying to think this thing out:

It could be: 1) The Soesbee secondborn awakening dates are correct. This makes Ceara either the first second born (and the Dream and Nightmare entry referencing Cadeyrn incorrect) OR she is some weird 1.5 generation (also seemingly contradicting Cadeyrn’s “wow, I’m first after the firstborn!” sentiments), OR she is some weird 1.0 generation straggler and is one of the three unrevealed firstborn. The latter two make no sense to me since she supposedly learned from Sylvari masters, the timing of the awakening of the firstborn, and that would also mean Mender Serimon would be firstborn, as he greeted her upon awakening according to a blog post which I guess could just be thrown out the window now so who really knows. Cadeyrn is never stated as the first secondborn in game (just Nightmare Court founder), so they could potentially retcon that to make things copacetic.

It seems more likely that: 2) The Soesbee secondborn awakening dates are now incorrect. Cadeyrn stays first of the secondborn, meaning there is much less time between generations than thought, much less knowledge the firstborns could have acquired for the following generations to learn from (supposedly why the firstborn are like royalty). The firstborn awoke in 1302, Ceara was born 1304 and the sylvari timeline is squished beyond recognition. It also leaves the question of when the secondborn actually wake yet to be answered, which I am curious about.

I’m willing to bet they’re just gonna go with the second, but who knows

Oh, thank god I’m not going crazy. Boyfriend and I noticed this over the weekend but thought it might just be a momentary thing or an isolated incident.

It’d be nice if the TP could get some TLC in general but this should be priority number one atm.

Lots of good advice here. As others have said: for the big world events led by guilds you pretty much just need to listen, and in fact speaking is discouraged because it causes more audio chaos. Many large guild-run channels auto-mute you anyways unless you have authentication. Just sit back, eaves drop, and follow directions.

If you’re in a guild TS, obviously the atmosphere changes depending on the guild/which guild members are online. If you’re new, maybe just listen at first and reply in /guild chat as if you had no mic so you get a feel for what everyone is like. Same as any group of new people, it’ll probably take a little while before you get an accurate read on the group dynamic and whether they’re the long term place for you. Be yourself but be respectful, too. Lots of listening at first can help you not embarrass yourself :) Although if they’re a good group, the embarrassment will be part of the fun :D Prepare to laugh a lot once you’ve met the right people.

Try to be mature and put your best foot forward. Sometimes an extra “would saying this thought with this phrasing hurt someone’s feelings/contribute meaningfully” can help, especially at first as you get to know people. Ask questions about other people’s interests and personalities; hearing you talk only about yourself is off-putting. Chances are you won’t be the only 15ish year old, so don’t worry about that either.

As for should you be worried… I mean, no more so than in any other situation online for a minor. Don’t give out your full name, don’t be too specific about where you live, get to know people for a long time before trusting them with pictures and personal details, etc. I speak from personal experience: some people will go to extreme lengths online to keep up a big lie about themselves. If the group makes you feel uncomfortable because of your gender/race/sexuality/whatever and they do not respond to a discussion on why, then just calmly explain your position and leave. There are groups out there who have codes of conduct for this very reason; find one of these guilds and repeat the process. You might think that would make them “stuffy” or something, but I’ve rarely found this to be the case. Policies like these are usually in place to justify the removal of bigots and harassers so they can’t say they didn’t know their behavior was unacceptable and a reason for suspension from the guild. Codes of Conduct in place in large all-ages guilds are often at least partially meant to create a safe space for their youngest players. Age differences in these guilds also, in my experience (I’ve been playing MMOs since I was 13, now 26), tend to be handled better and with more respect. I’ve seen some mean, bitter older people in lawless guilds and I’ve also seen some really rude, arrogant youths (youths! haha)… they tend to lash out less in places they know don’t approve of that kind of meanspiritedness. Chances are you’ll be one or both of these people (“get of my lawn hoodlum”/“in ur lawn smashin ur grass”) at some point because we are all fallible humans, the key is like I said above: take a few seconds to think about what you’re saying and maybe put that energy somewhere else instead of venting it into TS.

A little self-reflection and linguistic analysis will take you far in life, and I think a TS with a positive guild environment really helps hone that. Don’t give up. Don’t let the potential time investment discourage you. Shrug off some of your insecurities. You’re young, you have plenty of time ;) and the friends you make will be worth it.

Anyways, good luck :)

I love all the Sovereign skins, personally. I just wish the detail work on the mace and staff were a bit bigger, but overall not a bad complaint to have. I got the dagger and staff last time around and nabbed the shield this time for my warrior. They scream Indiana Jones/archaeology/south america to me, which is a breath of fresh air.

If I may, OP… why buy so many when you don’t like them? They cost quite the pretty piece of gold to get o.o That’s a big investment for something you don’t like.

ETA: To actually address the topic at hand, haha: I’m not a real fan of this idea unless the gauntlet is never coming back. Newbies might think an overpriced skin on the TP is the only way to get it, only to find they could get it with relative ease if they finish their meta and throw down less gold. Especially if LS updates are sticking around for longer in future seasons.

Oh my god, pop the champagne, I’ve been waiting for this for so long! My Sylvari thief gets her shoulders finally ;.; I passed on them last time because they were too big on my ladies, and then of course they got a patch after they left the store, haha.

Definitely buying them as soon as I’m home from work — and now I’m gonna also get the gloves, too :3 I’m so excited. See attached for accurate representation of my feels.

Thank you, whoever made this decision! I could hug you.

Please, please bring back the toxic pauldrons. At the time of release they had weird sizing issues on my sylvari (later fixed) and there was no wardrobe system, so I passed. I regret it to the point that I’d buy an entire armor set in a similar style.

Boyfriend and I on same connection, not happening for him. I feel like this happens to me after every other major patch, actually, but this has been pretty bad since tuesday. The client sometimes outright freezes, but most of the time it just kicks me. “lost connection with log in server” when I log in on the account name screen, sometimes writes out red errors on the Download xKB (xKB/sec) screen. If I can get through character select I’m lucky, if I can get past the loading screen for the zone I’m trying to get into I’m super lucky, if I can make it more than a minute without getting an error with the log in server 7:11 error, I’m lucky. All my other games run fine. I’ve been experiencing incredible lag lately, and it seems to have spread to the very selection of my character.

Things I noticed leading up to this: I’d log in and the motion would all freeze, but chat would still continue to update in real time. The latest time it crashed it actually let me send a crash report, so that happened. Like I said, if I can even manage to get on a character I don’t last for more than a minute or two before getting kicked. I show up in game on my boyfriend’s screen when it won’t let me past the zone loading screen. Sometimes I can move around for up to about 3 minutes once I load in. I watched myself die in Tequatl’s whirlpool on his screen but then I came back alive, now I’m under water and losing my health but regaining it and losing it. It’s like I’m skipping through time. People are still slinging spells, but Tequatl’s health is vastly different on our screens. My skills are pulsing…. Sometimes I hear just players and spells for a while before I see the rest of the battle — that I just watched on my boyfriend’s screen finish — play in hyperspeed for my character. I hear everything, I see people go down and have the option to res them (but of course can not), the shock waves happen. But on my boyfriend’s screen everyone is standing around the chest.

I don’t know if this is what everyone else is talking about, but that’s my experience.

Jessica Boettiger.2563:

We have identified the issue and are working on a solution to distribute the proper tournament chests to all who should have earned them. We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this.

Thank you.

Ah, wonderful news! Thanks for the update and all your hard work :) Hope you guys get some serious stress relief in this weekend, haha.

This would solve both my “save traits” and “save outfit” desires and combine them with my deep love of Sailor Moon so… yeah. I would buy this with gems if I had to.

Thank you for keeping us updated :) I’m sad this could take a while but I’m also happy for those who got the wrong ticket amount, as this move seems to be a way of heading off a potential logistical nightmare between them and support. This appears to be a smart, efficient decision.

Good luck on sorting this out, devs! Excited to get a lovely mistforged weapon when it’s ready.

Michael Henninger.7451:

I’ve spoken to the WvW team and they are still investigating. I don’t have any concrete information to pass on but one of the teams (WvW or Support) will let you know when we have something to post.

For those submitting tickets hang tight. We don’t have any news yet but will certainly update you as soon as we can.

So, should we be submitting a ticket now? I thought earlier in thread we were told not to? Because both my boyfriend and I, as well as many members of our guild who similarly completed their meta, haven’t seen our S2 chest and we’ve been putting off contacting support.

phys.7689:

the problem with your theory is you want to apply the same type of ascetic to men and women, when it currently for most people is not the same.

… what. Skimpy is skimpy, whether it’s on a guy or girl. There’s no difference in aesthetic there. I mean, yeah I find guys in suits hot and girls in ballgowns hot too, but we are talking about skimpiness here. Gimme some kitten chaps or some low slung pants on a guy, some crotch pouches or barely there shirts. Show off those arms and muscled legs. I’d love to know what survey said people attracted to men don’t find men’s bodies sexy.

phys.7689:

Skimpy, you can define as how much flesh is covered, but what you are talking about has no definition, you just want to put men in the same thing as women to prove a point, but its not really proving anything but that men and women dress differently irrelevant to sexiness.

What they are talking about is equality in skimpiness, shorthanded in the thread down to “sexiness” sometimes. Yes, we do want to put men in the same thing as women (and vice versa! Phalanx armor, for example. Put the male phalanx armor on women). “It’s not really proving anything but that men and women dress differently irrelevant to sexiness” This is ridiculous. We’re not talking about how men and women dress themselves, we’re talking about how armor designers dress men and women video game characters. I don’t know many women who dress themselves in just panties and a bra to go to the office or grab starbucks (the beach or a pool is obviously different), or many soldiers who slap on a bikini and a gun, and yet here we are. For people who like to throw out the “it’s a fantasy, of course they’d wear underwear to battle” arguments, it’s funny how that line of thought just doesn’t apply to the male characters.

phys.7689:

look at this gw1 armor
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080827201205/gw_/images/1/17/Monk_Star_Armor_M_gray_front.jpg

almost all naked, and yet i dont think it even really comes across as sexy.
The reality is, its all in your head, my head, etc. What you dont really like is that people are dressing charachters in ways you find offensive, but thats impossible to police. They have a great number (more than they have skimpy) of armors that are fully clothed. People just like the skimpy ones on average. Blame the people, not the designers.

You’re right. They’re half naked and covered in tattoos but it’s not necessarily sexy or objectifying. You know what aids that line of thought? Showing the female version alongside it. They are both mostly nude but for thick cloth underwear – not just underwear but underwear with modesty loincloths over the form-fitting element. They are both equally skimpy and the armor looks like the same exact set. There is beautiful detail and intricate care taken in the tattoo portion of that armor (I love that and Labyrinthine armor from GW1, favorite sets of mine). That is a wonderful example of male and female skimpiness equality :)

What we don’t like is an armor set that is supposedly the same looking radically different on males and females, usually in favor of more skin on the females. I do blame the designers for that, not the players. I have skimpy armor on some of my ladies. I don’t understand why I can’t do the same for my men or why people are telling me no one finds it attractive when there are people here flat out telling you that they do.

Jahroots.6791:

I’d argue that most women (and probably a few gay men as well) also think those Final Fantasy outfits look pretty ridiculous..

Okay? So some people would think those outfits on men are ridiculous. Some people think the t3 human medium female armor or the zodiac armor is ridiculous. All you’ve managed to point out is that people have varying opinions. I think boob armor is ridiculous and think that a similar look on a man would be this but I’m sure someone would claim that’s somehow more ridiculous. Yay, opinions.

Jahroots.6791:

‘Sexy’ simply does not work the same way for both genders. Yes – as a society we are far more comfortable with feminine expressions of sexuality – but you cannot force males to be equally sexualised. Our bodies are different and perceived differently. Would you also propose that female characters’ nipples should be displayed?Y’know…for equality, of course.

I disagree; I think sexy works very similarly. You’ve got the flesh factor, whatever’s left is form-fitting or loose but practically a scrap. Primarily we find it sexy when these are elements done to parts we cover with underwear. We’ve already had female breasts exposed with the Zodiac armor, and we get female pantyshots all the time in GW2 armor. There are armor sets where girls bend over and you can see their butt crack (human t3 light). I’d love armor that allows the same on men, with just some straps and tight-fitting fishnet. Like this or this.

For example, the female version of t3 med human on a male would look something like this. That’s pretty skimpy and sexy. It’s tight, the pants are super low-cut, you’ve got cut-outs along the leg and straps… it’s really not that hard to transfer the brand of sexiness usually reserved for females onto men. It’s exactly the same as the female version. I would def. buy that.

I don’t understand where the preoccupation with noting that differences in anatomy exist (never would have known…) or why you insist sexy is so different between the genders. Tell me then, since you obviously know more about lusting over males than I do: what does a guy have to wear to be considered sexy? Cause I’d consider those female armor on men images sexy and skimpy.

Jahroots.6791:

I can appreciate why you want to instigate change in society’s perception and attitude towards this issue. However for the time being, accept that it will take time for this to occur (if it ever does)

As for your dismissal at the end… sure. I think everyone who considers themselves any kind of advocate understands that change is slow. It would become even slower/nonexistent if you stop demanding it or critiquing the media that gets put out into the world and consumed en masse. It’s a little insulting to hear this at the end of every discussion on video game armor, because it’s insinuating that we don’t already understand that and that this fact somehow means we should be quiet. “Change is slow” doesn’t change any of the heart of the conversation, it’s just a sentence that tells me to sit down and be quiet.

I’m most annoyed at the vast differences between male and female armors of the same exact set tbh. My boy characters have nowhere near the amount of skin-showy armors that my light lady does and it’s a travesty.

The skimpy conversation is more one of taste. For example, I’d love rocking the t3 human medium if there was no underboob. I’d still say that’s pretty skimpy, but I like the style and detail of the design itself, as someone upthread said. I’d buy it for my male human mediums if it looked exactly the same on them and showed basically their entire torso and left breast. Hell, I’d buy it on my female human med at that point. As it is, it just seems like a shameless grab for T&A on ladies without the same shameless grab on men’s bodies. Equal opportunity skimpiness here.

My other problem with most skimpy armor is that they look ugly. Like wall sconces made into bra form (Flamekissed/Feathered) or half a bowling ball with a kindergartner’s art project on top (Conjurer’s) — or, heck, no support or detail at all just mystical blue paintjob boobs with afterthought accents (Light Zodiac).

Same with many of the covered-up designs, even. Light Ascended? Beautiful level of detail, but the pom-pom shoulders, gloves and pants are hideous while the actual construction of the top and boots are bland. The top is something I’m torn between because the detail is, like I said, wonderful but it’s basically a long sleeved shirt with none of the interestingness of the v similar Ascalon light top :\ The boots are detailed but somehow boring as well and look like heavy armor on top of all that, but that’s a quibble.

I want costume designs that are interested in various mixes of haute couture and armor (and maybe even cyberpunk/steampunk like the light male aetherblade and asura cultural sets) but :\ that’s not what I’m seeing so far as the majority in-game. And it’s a shame because I did see that in a lot of sets from GW1 and I do see it in a few sets that are not actually available to players at this time (Anise, I will start the first counterfeit clothing shop to knock off your dress, I swear to god. Then I’m coming for you, Norn shamans). I love the new ancestral costume, I just wish it looked basically the same on both men and women. Humanoid men really get the short end of the stick on the sleeves and gloves (one of the best constructed features on the design imo), while female charr totally lost out on the male charr’s dragon tail.

Onis.2418:

:s I just don’t understand why it looks so different on a male and female again. I love it on my female characters, but on male it’s just “bleh”. Why did it suddenly change into long-sleeved, chest concealing clothes with a completely different cut and style?

The female version is nice as always though.

edit:
something like this would be nice (fast overpaint etcetc)
http://www.onis.fi/GWhat/ancestar_fix.jpg

Wish I could plus one this more than once. Lovely overpaint. I’m tired of the vast difference between male and female skins. Granted, this is a lot closer than many other sets, but imo not close enough.

Why do male charr get a cool dragon tail but female charr don’t? Humanoid ladies get a cool a-symmetrical sleeve style but the menfolk don’t. The male pattern is apparently allergic to tight pants (whyyy) and only gets one patterned wrap on the legging while females get two. At least the female boob window (please put this on men. Please) is relatively modest as far as GW2 goes, I guess.

It’s just such a lovely skin for female characters in general… I wish it would be as interesting or unique on my male characters/female char.

Mostly what’s keeping me from buying it, though, is that it’s not proper armor. If I can’t mix and match, I’m wholly uninterested.