Guild Wars 2

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Folks,

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

Cheers

Chris

It’s easy highest Level achieved it’s the only fair method to make a leaderboard about high end Content ( if you make it high end Content). Just make as I proposed after a certain scale fix Fractals with fix instabilities to advance further. So anyone has cleared the same Content… Sorry I atm have a Feeling with all the ideas put around about more RNG more LORE more REWARDS… that you seem to completlty forgett what you wanted fractals to be… a place with high end PvE. All you did with mandatory AR checks reducing Levels without announcement and compensation was making Fractals easier…

I played this Content with basicaly investing Money when I rushed to 80 because I wanted to get to my Limits to the scale that is so hard that I Need a lot of time and thinking to advance…

Now over a year later I see:
- My Money wasted and Progress reseted without an explonation
- Discussions about Lore Rewards and adding more RNG to a Thing that was ment to be high end Content
- Dev’s thinking about making it open to more than 5 People

The worst about this I really thought I can forgett about all the bad things you made with this Content I invested so many hours instead of farming for a legendary. But when I see where the discussion goes and the fact most People commenting about lore more rng and everyone Needs to have everything haven’t ever played fractals on high Level ( 50 is kitten easy especially with an only gearcheck instability)

I really start to loose faith if gw2 is a game where dev’s are able to Programm high end Content for a niche Group.. instead of making it available for all…

btw Chris since you promissed :

ANY UPDATE ON FRACTAL RESET?

and sorry I tried to be constructive but I really just see that the discussion completly ignores what you wanted fractals to be. HARDCORE CONTENT and now discussion about length of Dredge , rewards and RNG is top of the list. Where actually People should think how you could provide difficulty and a fair way to make leaderbaords that aren’t grindy and stupid as the achievment leaderboards ( where the top Player Report each other for a temporary ban so they can’t get daily)…

fractals isnt just supposed to be hardcore content, its supposed to be content that scales with your level of hardcoreness.
I agree that it could get harder, and i agree that agony design is a bit backwards, because its actually less challenging/interesting the more you have. I also agree that instabilities have been circumvented. I actually had an idea about the issue of expansion/making fractals appealing versus making fractals the type of thing that scales to your skill level greatly, ill try to do a proposal, but the system wouldnt be easy without an illustration.

Wethospu.6437:

phys.7689:

—
taking things to an extent that is illogical, is illogical.
random elements increase variability and test more different types of skill sets. Its pretty hard to make something incredibly replayable without adding uncertainty. Dealing with the unknown, or having every playthrough be different does more for replayability than just having the same thing again and again.

Solving the same problem 100 times is not more of a challenge, or more entertaining than solving 100 different problems.

I am a proponent of more random elements, and unpredictability in fractals. It doesnt have to impede progress, adding random extra goals, events, and very different levels will make it a lot more entertaining and replayable. And fractals is definately the place for it.

If they wanted replayability they could for example add infinite scaling.

I don’t know how many times you have played fractals, but there definitely isn’t any unknown or different playthroughs. Even with rolling “fixed”.

As I have said before, in my opinion randomness doesn’t belong to a high end content. Eventually luck will be the deciding factor whether you can get through or not.

Look, I know you want to promote your “random extra goal” idea but could you please stop mixing it with discussion about rolling? There is a quite big difference between forced and optional randomness.

Purple Miku.7032:

Holy hell, I’ve finally found someone with the same mentality as me. Hello!!!

I’ve been trying to push forth my ideas for implementing randomization methods into dungeons for a long time. Games are much more exciting when you have a whole world to explore and they lose their excitement when you have nothing new left.

Exactly what you said.

Content with great replay value MUST have an element of surprise. Uncertainty is a good thing and makes activities more thought-provoking and engaging rather than arduous and repetative.

And what if dungeons and fractals were truly random? There could literally be zero competition. Difficulty and length of every run would be affected by luck. Lupicus records already suffer from random mob behavior. Also if the content was hard enough, then there would be a risk of getting stuck if you get some hard events.

Do you realize how much content they would have to add to keep an element of surprise? Just few random events there and there wouldn’t do because you would have already seen all of them after couple of runs. If they just tweak some enemy parameters (color, amount) then it barely makes any difference.

Personally I would rather see them working on a more skill based content. Lots of encounters could use some extra mechanics to make them more complex. Also removing linearity would be a big step for competition as it would allow different tactics.

Your talking about competition, thats a bit different from replayability. In terms of having a fair competition against other players, random elements wouldnt help you. But in terms of having different/interesting challenges to deal with, and making each playthough different, random helps a lot.

now of course, if you are talking about competition, you have to have the same exact levels for every one, with the same enemies, then you can practice your mastery of learning specific and most effecient techniques, and accurately compare your performance to other people, but if we follow that path what do we have?

People doing the same 3 most effecient, most easy fractals, with the optimal party set ups, The replayability will be extremely low, except if the rewards are so good people feel they must do it.

I personally would give up a good competitive fair test type fractals for a fun/variable/semi unpredictable type fractal in a heart beat. The challenge i look for is more personal than about measuring myself against others. So for me, i dont mind if i have a harder fractal run than someone else, as long as we play well and overcome the challenges. Now, if the reward system rewards actually doing harder things, rather than mastery of the most efficient path, that, i think benefits everyone.

so yeah i think rolling isnt a great thing, i mean its only 1/4 fractals though, so it isnt the end of the world, but it doesnt add anything to fractals.

I mean the proof is there already, every one rolls swamp because it is the fastest fractal. Is it the funnest? not really, is it the most challenging? nope, is it the best designed? nope. Its the fractal that is the quickest stepping stone to getting the daily done as soon as possible.

Wethospu.6437:

Nike.2631:

Wethospu.6437:

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

We see the soul-crushing monotony that was CoF 1 over and over and over and over and over and over…

Players will gravitate to the easiest way to get the shiney. Sometimes its in the best interest of the game to NOT LET THEM.

Better “fix” dungeons too. Just make that whenever you try to enter a dungeon it randomly teleports you to any dungeon and locks the path selection. Only way to get rid of it is to completely the dungeon without stacking or skipping. Also remove grouping and just party people randomly. Imagine the soul-crushing monotony of playing with same set of friends all the time. We can’t have that.

Seriously, fix root of the problem. If people roll Swamp, make it longer. Like make people spawn at Mossman hut and move Mossman to trap area. Then require players to kill both bosses.

But no, let’s add some weird system which just makes everything more complicated and restricts stuff.

taking things to an extent that is illogical, is illogical.
random elements increase variability and test more different types of skill sets. Its pretty hard to make something incredibly replayable without adding uncertainty. Dealing with the unknown, or having every playthrough be different does more for replayability than just having the same thing again and again.

Solving the same problem 100 times is not more of a challenge, or more entertaining than solving 100 different problems.

I am a proponent of more random elements, and unpredictability in fractals. It doesnt have to impede progress, adding random extra goals, events, and very different levels will make it a lot more entertaining and replayable. And fractals is definately the place for it.

Holland.9351:

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.

Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.

Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.

So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

Give the longbow a 100% chance to hit at any range and allow pets to hit on the move 100% of the time. Then you’ll have a sustained damage class. Then you won’t have to add burst, then you wont have to add AoE.

I think this is somewhat accurate, although i think your conclusion is a bit off. Giving longbow 100% chance to hit is a bad idea, nothing in this game should be 100% chance to hit, you should be able to avoid any dmg by movement. Also longbow doesnt need/shouldnt be the highly unavoidable weapon. It should be the weapon of choice for long range damage, and decent control.

that said, to the developers:

many of the changes you have made have taken you farther away from your vision for ranger.

you lowered the effectiveness of quickness, which ranger used to more reliably hit many times over time (sustain)
you lowered the access to quickness by making quickness a GM master trait
by lowering access/effectiveness of quickness you also made it less likely pets would be able to hit (faster animations increase chance they can hit)
you lowered pets dmg, thereby lowering rng sustain, as well one way ranger could be fairly resilient, while still doing decent sustain

ranger resilience has gone down. you lowered access to endurance regen, rng is not heavy armor, nor does it have a lot of defensive traits.
you removed rangers strong condition removal on dodge after beta weekend
you weakened its ability to dodge by lowering endurance regen
you lowered its access to protection through dodge via lowering endurance/vigor

a lot of the small changes you guys have made have taken ranger further away from your goal. Did you really compenstate design wise for these changes, in keeping with your vision of ranger play?

And lets be perfectly honest here. You simply must make pets more responsive, and more able to hit moving targets. Even if this is not a small change, it must happen(budget the time/devs). You can never balance or fix rangers role, or design its sustain, if pets are not reliable.
If you really decide its impossible, you will unfortunately have to marginilize the pet, and essentially remake the class. This really isnt something you can work around.
It would be a good idea to decide which of these is more feasible for ranger before you do to much design, because which path you as developers choose, totally changes what type of changes ranger needs.

ColinJohanson.2394:

So an interesting challenge we always face when trying to make any type of dungeon content more lore heavy, is they are by their very nature highly repeatable content. Historically our design philosophy around group content that falls into that category is to try and provide enough context for the experience to make sense, but not heavily attempt to tell deep story in these instances.

While the core concept of using fractals to continue to show great moments in the history of Tyria is indeed totally in line with our own thinking as well, the struggle we always face is how much of that story we can really put there. Once you play it once or twice, you really just want to actually play the content and not wait around for all the story moments, scenes, cinematics, etc. This can lead to a problem we used to run into in Gw1 where some people in the party really wanted to see the story, and others had played it before and wanted them to hurry the heck up.

Our work around for this for Thaumanova for example was to provide a story version of it that was around during the living world release with far deeper exposition, and the current fractal version today that tries to focus on the game play. Similarly, story dungeons are really intended to be played a handful of times to get the story, and explorable mode dungeons are very story light since they are intended to be re-playable based on the core content.

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

Ok, first off, i want to say that even though you may only experience something once, it can be a driving force for a lot of other play. It can make it feel more signifigant. Keep in mind movies are multi million dollar ventures, and they are usually only expereinced a few times, but i digress.

As some have said, i think the key to telling a story in a game is NOT to interupt the action. Incorporate the story into the action, or have it go on while we are still moving/fighting. fractals are unique in that the player is an outside observer no matter what, so it can be something the player can observe while doing other things.

As per my suggestion,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3688910

you can also build dynamic event like events that trigger randomly, but dont interupt the flow, and give some reward on completion, or perhaps take you through the area in a different way.

Point is you can combine lore/story with gameplay if you do it right, just try to avoid direct cutscenes, and static dialogs, or waiting for npcs to slowly walk places. This is the mists, so you can have ghosts, ethereal figures, disembodied voices, or people out of time who just appear for moments and fade away. (even while you are fighting enemies! or traversing the area) Also make sure to reward the players for doing these side events, dont be stingy either. (note that one of the keys to this is making fractal relics more rewarding)
my reward for relics suggestion:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3688787

for cutscene or heavy dialog type exposition, make them into collectable lore entries or stories you unlock and can view/listen/read later.

Its definately within the scope of what you guys have created to deliver these type of interesting stories, without having to interupt the feeling of action. By making these pieces of the story happen randomly, you also make fractals itself more interesting.

for example,
take Ascalon fractal, a side story might be an event that shows that one of our legendary old npcs was trying to do to stop the charr. Sometimes when you do the ascalon fractal, his event spawns, and instead of fighting the your way through the alleys, you follow his disembodied voice, and after images across the rooftops,(mini jump puzzle) his voice exposes some story or plan he has to stop the charr. you then catch him in the alleyway right before the plan is set in motion, and fight to disable it. you beat him/the event which gives you some fractal relics, karma, and lead you to the regular boss room from a different path.
Overall the fractal was the same length, more interesting, you get extra karma/relics and you got to the end boss in roughly the same time. At the same time you heard the story of This ascolonian, and how his plan may have saved ascalon if it wasnt thwarted at the last second. you never stopped, never saw a cutscene, and yet you got a story, and action, at the same time. You even skipped mobs (which people love to do! even if it takes similar time). Its random so its not boring, and you got a bonus rewards.

Seems like win to me all around.

Shadowbane.7109:

phys.7689:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Kilger.5490:

There have been ideas presented that make the pet virtually not there.

ie a trait or option to switch pet to an impervious passive buff machine that just follows you around.

I think this is the closest to stowing we could hope for because they’ve said pets are here to stay. I would push this idea if stowing is what you want because its basically the same effect.

I don’t care what they do with the pet, as long as I get the damage back.

do you really want to play a ranger? or would you prefer a different class with bows, and burst dps?

pets is really the defining charachteristic of ranger. I really think the devs for ranger should be improving pet response, pet combo/interplay and pet control, rather than negating the pet.

I cant help feeling some of the people play ranger because it has a bow, and they always play the ranged class, rather than because they actually want to play a class whose main mechanic is using various pets to good effect.

The defining characteristic of a ranger is not a pet. Maybe for you it is but in the big picture a ranger is a mashup.

rang·er (r?n?j?r)
n.
1. A wanderer; a rover.
2. A member of an armed troop employed in patrolling a specific region.
3. Ranger A member of a group of U.S. soldiers specially trained for making raids either on foot, in ground vehicles, or by airlift.
4.
a. A warden employed to maintain and protect a natural area, such as a forest or park.
b. Chiefly British The keeper of a royal forest or park.

i dont mean what a ranger is in history, im saying in this game, its defined as a pet class. just like in this game mesmer is always going to be tied to illusions, and thief will always be tied to dual skills, stealth and steal.

The class mechanic is mainly what sets classes apart in this game. Everybody has support/tanks/ranged weapons etc, what really sets classes apart is how they go about doing it, and their class mechanics are a strong definer of that for most classes.

Im saying a lot of people like rangers/long range fighters in other games. but this ranger is actually defined more by its pets than by the fact it has ranged attacks or wilderness flavor.

so when people say they want ranger without the pet, they are kind of saying they want another class. Which im all for, but making ranger into not a pet class is essentially making a new class,

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Kilger.5490:

There have been ideas presented that make the pet virtually not there.

ie a trait or option to switch pet to an impervious passive buff machine that just follows you around.

I think this is the closest to stowing we could hope for because they’ve said pets are here to stay. I would push this idea if stowing is what you want because its basically the same effect.

I don’t care what they do with the pet, as long as I get the damage back.

do you really want to play a ranger? or would you prefer a different class with bows, and burst dps?

pets is really the defining charachteristic of ranger. I really think the devs for ranger should be improving pet response, pet combo/interplay and pet control, rather than negating the pet.

I cant help feeling some of the people play ranger because it has a bow, and they always play the ranged class, rather than because they actually want to play a class whose main mechanic is using various pets to good effect.

Heezdedjim.8902:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Merging all servers to colors might function sort of okay in NA, but here in EU it won’t work well, because we have so many different languages. I am glad that Arenanet developers understand that server pride (but also guild pride) are important aspects of this game.

“Server pride” is only a thing because servers are what we have. Other games with single-server universes have just as strong — if anything far stronger — communities. But they’re formed around other anchors like factions or player-made alliances, not an arbitrary set of load-balancing bins (which, after all, only serve to divide, not unite players).

“Servers” are not an integral or even a helpful feature for developing communities. Some sort of stable anchor for identity that will let players form lasting groups is. There could be other mechanics like global factions that would allow that, and that also would decouple the community anchoring elements from the underlying WvW population balancing elements.

As others have pointed out — and SoR’s recent failscade proves — given a choice between “server pride” and just bolting to a server with higher population and better coverage, to avoid the pointy end of the stacking + coverage meta, it is abundantly clear which thing is actually most important to most active WvW players.

It is certainly true that randomly tossing players on the fly into Red v. Blue bins does and would obstruct attempts to maintain stable communities in WvW. It is certainly false that “servers” and “server pride” are the only, the best, or even a very good alternative.

There are approaches that would preserve the ability to build stable communities and also allow ANet to address head on the elephant in the room, which everyone knows is the stacking + coverage meta. Sadly it doesn’t appear from this thread that they have any interest in facing up to and fixing those big, underlying problems.

when a server crashes, its because its failing as a community. It can happen anywhere. It is true that server identity is somewhat random for many, i think anet needs to work on server commitment and connection. It should not be near as easy to alter your allegience in WvW.

At the same time, server should be something you choose, and should have an identity associated with it. I know anet was hoping that the communities would form on their own, and they have to a degree, but they need more developer backing.
Taking down the match up forums was a big mistake, as childish as it may seem to forum mods, it makes people involved, and gives them a narrative to the story. If they wanted to remove matchups, i think they would have had to build some sort of WvW current events/commentary etc in its place.

I will say though, devons idea has a lot of merit, like i said i would break it into days, and have 3 rounds per day. For someone looking they can see hey, we lost two days, maybe if we work hard today, or right now, we can win the day, which can turn into winning the week. It also lowers the advantage of coverage gaps, because 8 hours of no coverage cant defeat 16 hours of winning. Of course you cant win with 16 hours of no coverage, but nothing you can really do about that.

Wethospu.6437:

Moshari.8570:

Proposal Overview
Improve current Randomness of Fractals
Goal of Proposal
Get Fractals to be more repeatable. I love the random nature of some fractals (dredge end-boss, new Thaumanova reactor), this needs to be increased to increase replayability.
—

BlueDragon.7054:

I also think that the instabilities should be random (for every level, not just the first one and don’t keep it for the other 3, to avoid rerolling) and the gold reward should scale better.
—

As with all “add more random” ideas, these would just make fractals more luck based then skill based. They won’t be able to balance it. For example if the content was really hard people would just roll Swamp until they get Bloomhunger instead of Mossman. Imagine this happening mid-run. You end up with the hardest encounter. Reroll?

If the random elements are optional, and rewarded as i suggested, it wouldnt really make it more luck based. you still have the well designed dungeon elements, and you have optional side elements which are rewarding and interesting. You have to remember, being super fast is only great for the daily, If extra missions and bonus missions are rewarded, its basically like doing another fractal, while you are already doing it/aka more effecient. Not only that but it makes it more entertaining not knowing exactly what extra things you may be given the option of doing.

Yea, some people will skip it and just want to finish asap, but those looking for a deeper, more interesting fractal wont (as long as its got rewards)
If you can get for example 10 extra fractal relics, 500 karma and some silver for doing a dynamic event, why not do it? If you can fight a guild bounty and get the same extra 10 relics, 500 karma and silver a long with boss chest, why not? after all thats pretty close to what you are running the fractal for to begin with.

Note this hinges on my suggestion for making fractal relics rewarding as well.

also random elements are a test of skill, some tests are harder than others, but that doesnt make them not challenging. Now maybe its harder to compare peoples achievements to others if it involves random elements, but thats not really the same thing as being tests of skill.

Allie Murdock.8152:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Gotejjeken.1267:

IMO, the discussion on pets is becoming overcomplicated. Why not just redistribute the power, fix the F2 timing, and keep them as-is? The pet is not the problem if you swap it, its the pet hitting things that is a problem.

Also I am not super happy with the idea of stow buffs and even less happy with a perma stow. The pet is part of me as a Ranger, it is one of the core things of the class.

You may not be happy about permastowing. I would be absolutely. Furthermore, if you could stow your pet, you could still use it like you are used to. And people like me, who don’t want to rely on the pet can stow it. Simple as that.

As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?

If not, I don’t think the aspect idea would be a necessity for players. There are definitely things that need to be done to fix Ranger pets in general, and it’s something we are well aware of. If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?

Just musing!

I think its a really bad idea to make ranger less about pets. I honestly feel like if you dont want to deal with pets you shouldnt be playing a ranger. I fully think that there could be another class that has good ranged options without being attached to pets, However i think most resources on rangers should work with the class mechanic, not against it.

If people want a mesmer, with no illusions, no shattering, then why play a mesmer?
thief without stealth/steal/dual skills?

Im all for a marksman class (after martial artist comes first of course) that focuses on preparations/long range dmg, controlling enemies, but its a bad idea to make ranger resources that work by making your pet cease to exist.

However if you decide that you cant do pets well no matter what, sure, but you need to totally rework the class mechanics and traits

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.

Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

I agree with your sentiment.

I also think the eight hour scoring matches can work, with some changes.
make it be rounds, and days.
theres 3 rounds in a day, in 8 hour bursts, all upgrades will last till the end of the day.
This way upgrades matter, but you wont get the benefit of an upgrade for the whole week.
so a round is basically a fresh new score, but not new upgrades, every day starts fresh, the advantage i think here is that it wont matter how badly you lose a round

The potential of a team with no overnight to win is much stronger.

I think the days is better because it will be easier to understand at a glance, and it makes it clear that things are only completely reset once per day, though the scoring blocks change 3 times.

It may diminish the long term feeling of the stuff you own, but honestly i have rarely seem long term owned items aside from your home garrison. Perhaps you can make upgrades on garrisons stay.

Proposal Overview
Create more optional random events and goals that can happen in fractals, and reward them for completion
Goal of Proposal
To increase the replayability of fractals, and make every run different, but interesting. Without having to do total redesigns, and its optional.

Proposal Functionality
Have randomized extra objectives and missions pop up while you are doing a fractal, defeating them will give extra fractal relics/or gold/ or karma.

1. Challenge type missions
   These basically dont alter the way you do fractals, but give you bonuses based on your performance, If they trigger, they trigger at the start of the fractal
   examples:
   1. Time attack
      beat this fractal as fast as possible (can be graded on results of player metrics, reward scales upward based on what % you place in, anything under 50% is no bonus)
   2. Survival
      best reward for no deaths during fractal, goes down with each death, total fails on full wipe
   3. killer/vanquish
      rewards increase based how many non respawning enemies you kill in this fractal, killing every non respawning enemy gives the most bonus
2. Explorerer
   exist somewhere off the beaten path of the fractal, maybe jumping puzzles, regular puzzles, hidden rooms, scavenger hunts these are unique to each fractal and usually award a lore entry as well as a standard amount of fractal relics/gold based on how hard it is to find
3. Extra missions
   these would be dynamic event like, and might include say bounties who escaped to fractals, people lost in fractals, protecting people. Some of the rarer events might include bosses from dungeons. These would exist off the beaten path, or spawn in areas you have already passed, so as not to block progress if people dont want to do them These would award extra relics, and if boss level difficulty, boss chests.
4. side missions
   these a could be mini stories about the fractals, allowing you to experience more of the story

the idea here is to make every fractal run offer some interesting different optional objectives/challenges, and reward people for doing them. You can make some more rewarding than others (like say you pop a skritt treasure hunter event) or rarer. Multiple events, or no events can pop in a fractal. the non challenge ones wont spawn in the very beginning.
this is tied strongly with making fractal relics more useful/desired, as you can give fractal based rewards/account bound stuff in them that wont effect the economy much.

Its also very scalable, and can be done with small additions over time

Associated Risks
Its possible it may cause some friction between those that do and dont want to do them, but i think this is acceptable, as for friends/guilds it wont be an issue, and for pugs they can put whether they do or dont want to do them in the description of lfg.

Proposal Overview
Create a better rewards for all types of fractals, and make all rewards worthwhile, while increasing replayability/variability

1. fractal keys
2. bonus rewards
3. fractal trade ins

Goal of Proposal
The current reward system of fractals rewards doing 1 set of fractals per teir as fast as possible, this makes any long/hard fractals undesirable, and leads to speed being the primary concern in fractals.
This proposal aims to make every fractal you run, whether its first or tenth, rewarding in a way that scales naturally with how the community is playing fractals. It increases variability in rewards, and makes the currency of fractals more desired. And hopefully cleans up excess fractal based rewards.

Proposal Functionality

three facets of this proposal

1. Fractizing key/ fractized unopened chests
   the introduction of a new randomized reward box key that can be purchased with fractal relics. Along with more fractal based fractal rewards.
   1. possible rewards in box
      1. unlock fractal lore books (explains some of the things/details/legends about fractals
      2. unlock fractal side missions(to be discussed in different proposal)
      3. agony resist infusions with more random range(like+2s or 3s/other infusions
      4. fractal skins
      5. progresses title track fractal treasure hunter
      6. make it fractizer key, which turns black lion chests into unopened fractal chests (just to give black lion chests slightly more value)
   2. The reward box will make fractal relics something to get even when you have the rest of what you need, and makes sure fractal relics is always a good thing. It will give second chances for some of the items people hunt/can get in fractals. Every chest is different and has a chance of giving you something you want/need.
   3. Can make the rewards/chance of reward scale with max fractal level, or make certain rewards unlock from loot table based on max reward scale

1. Bonus awards
   1. at the end of each fractal, you should be given bonus reward, more gold(maybe karma) and more fractal relics scaled based on some internal metrics that are generated each day.
      1. How many players died in this fractal yesterday
      2. How many people completed this fractal yesterday/versus the amount who came in
      3. Average time spent in said fractal
      4. for mistlock type fractals it counts how many even attempted that instability
   2. this makes your reward seem new every day, and gives you a rough idea what you achieved. It rewards more for fractals which are harder/costlier and more time consuming, it also rewards more for completing fractals people skip or instabilities people skip.
   3. the reward is self correcting, if player base figures out a fractal/always runs it/makes it easy/finishes it fast it will use the internal metrics algorithms to be less rewarding.
   4. this allows you to create more varied fractals, some longer, some shorter, and makes people more likely to play more difficult fractals.
   5. combined with the new fractal relic reward keys, people will be more excited about getting/using fractal relics.
   6. gives a soft competition, when you see you get a huge bonus, you see you just beat a hard fractal most people avoid or was extremely hard for them.

1. Fractal trade ins
   The ability to trade fractal type rewards for fractal relics.
   1. this makes it so no fractal specific drops feel like a waste, extra rings, account bound fractal exotics, fractal skins you dont want/need any new account bound item people can get too much of.
   2. this needs the new fractizer box to exist, or its pointless to get fractal relics

All together i think this reward system would make fractals feel more rewarding no matter how long or hard it is, provide more unpredictability/thrill and goals for players. And make each fractal run more fulfilling/interesting. This will increase the replayability i believe drastically.

Associated Risks

1. people who just want to do one fractal may leave in the middle of the whole fractal run after completing one fractal. Since you can replace people mid fractal, this may not be that bad.
2. people who afk in fractals throwing off the numbers, but you could make exceptions in the algorithm for these.
3. If you arent tracking some of these metrics already, you may have to create processes to track them.

Nuzt.7894:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Nuzt.7894:

I can see your concern here but, the option to have the pet as such an integral part of the class is one of the largest faults of the class. Could it not be optional to have the pet as an option, basically if you spec wilderness survival your pet becomes a larger part of the class, if you choose to spec in something different to be more valuable to your group then either you don’t have the pet or it has minimal impact on the class.

That is completely valid feedback that I will relay to the designers. Thanks for taking the time to share it!

I can’t just stand around when something like this is passed to the devs, so here’s my counter-feedback.

The ranger is a class specifically designed around teamwork with pet who is to be ranger’s equal partner and not an expandible minion. Said teamwork is something unique to the ranger profession and spot on.

So if a pet fails at the role of ranger’s euqal partner due to sloppy defense/offence/Ai, then it is the dev’s job to up it’s game to intended standard, and not sweep it under the rug, reducing it’s impact on the ranger to a point where you have to trait for it to become an accual pet and not a visual aid.

I’ve already thrown you guys a few bones how to get the job done in this very thread.

And what about those people who like the Class but not the pet aspect of it ? Should your opinion trump theirs ? What I was suggesting was basically having the option to stow the pet permenantly if YOU choose to do so. The pet would be more powerful if you traited for the pet to be powerful, just as the Guardians Virtues are more powerfull if you choose to trait them that way, same can be said for every other class in the game.

Its a suggestion I through out there and I am more then entitled to suggest it. This is suppose to be a thread about our suggestions on how to fix or elevate the class, as stated it is not here for you to shut down other peoples suggestions because its not what you want.

You have the right to make a suggestion, why not try that instead of attacking other suggestions. There are plenty of suggestions here that I completely dissagree with but its not my place to tell those people or the Devs that they are wrong.

The pet is the defining feature of the class though, its entirely designed with a pet in mind. I think they should have something different for people like you who want something thats not pet based, but gives you the ranged combat/adventurer/tracker class. Ranger isnt really that, even if you take away the pet.

i think that land spear might be a cool weapon for certain classes, but the spear guns wouldnt really make sense and tridents essentially are staves.

wildcode.5403:

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, I couldn’t see a more appropriate forum.

My girlfriend wants to start playing GW2 however due to the cost of buying a whole new version it is currently outside of our budget at this time. I know the EULA prohibits account sharing so I am wondering if it is possible to just buy a key, without the digital download, since I already have a physical copy of the game. And if so what is the price difference.

Thanks in advance

they have digital download- this is basically just buying a key, price is the same, though they sometimes have sales.

StriderShinryu.6923:

My main issue with Fractals is that they don’t really seem to know what they want to be. As such, it’s difficult to me to nail down a list of three things to improve.

Fractals should either:
– a series of graduating challenges with the design not reliant on lore such as to provide the developers with a more wide open tool set with which to design variable challenges. Think of something like Super Adventure Box where the only rule is that it’s a loose retro game homage.

OR

- a deep lore exploration tool that allows players of all stripes to delve into Tyria’s past with the design focused not on challenge but instead on being a sort of interactive history lesson

Right now Fractals are stuck in a place where they’re trying to be both and that position is limiting them to everyone.

My suggestions, then, for improving Fractals if the goal is to have them as story/lore instances are:
- Reduce the base difficulty level
- Introduce scaling such that solos, duos, etc. are welcomed
- Look at sections of GW1 that could be repurposed into GW2 Fractals

base difficulty is pretty low. level one fractals are not hard

Allie Murdock.8152:

barabajaga.7652:

I know that im out of topic here and not using the format proposal and i apologize for it ,but before posting any ideas about the ranger and having into consideration that this will be read by some dev ,i will like to ask something :

Would you ever (or have you) considered the removal of the pet ,knowing how borked the ai is ,and as anet says ,it can not be reworked because its tied to mob ai?

Or would you consider split the class in to two, ranger/beastmaster ,and rework the pet ai from the ground.

Again sorry for the offtopic and thx for any possible answer.

Removing the pet was something that was discussed in initial design of the class, but it is such an integral part of the Ranger’s design and philosophy.

There might be some ways that we can redesign the pet and it’s AI, but those are big projects. For the time being, we are happy to take any suggestions regarding the pet.

this is slightly offtopic, but i do think the pet is the integral part of the ranger class, it is its class mechanic, and i dont think its a good idea to marginalize it. That said, i think there is a demand for a ranged/adventurer/hunter type of class that isnt linked to a pet, and more personal. Since a recent interview says that you guys do intend things like new proffesions within the life of GW2, i suggest one of them be a MARKSMAN class, focused on preparations/strategically controlling/planning combat. Think of it as an evolution of the other side of GW1 ranger, preparing ahead of time to dmg, and disrupt enemies. and support allies.

This way ranger can be about nature and pets, and marksman can be about prepration/strategy

Nike.2631:

About All Those Rings…

Something to keep in mind with the pink Rings that drop in the Fractals – these were the first Ascended Gear offered and the time scale/commitment required to get pink BiS gear has been refined considerably since then. They simply are NOT on the same scale of value with most other Ascended gear. They still drop with stunning regularity and you can even buy your exact preferred choice with a very modest number of runs. The fact any Fractal Frequenter player has so many should tell you they aren’t worth much. Moreover, ArenaNet can’t just go back and lower the drop rate to give them some value – the horse has left the barn and it took multiple bank-tabs worth of rings with it before it left.

Second, the Economics Team fights a non-stop battle with the many, many gold faucets in the game, and turning left over rings and all future extra rings into coin is basically the least desirable of all possible transactions.

What I would suggest is allowing them to be exchanged for something of value, but NOT coin. Perhaps swap them for one of the random Fine Materials boxes currently available from the Laurel Vendors. Or maybe 1, 2, or 3 unidentified dyes per ring. This way the player can then sell the reward for coin if they choose, but they aren’t putting more coin into the system by doing so.

fractal rings are actually one of the better designed ascended pieces, the reason SOME people have so many is because they have been doing fractals for a year. I agree coin isnt the way to go though, because any coin reward they would put on it would have to suck im guessing. They dont like giving gold.
Best bet, make em tradeable for fractal relics, and make fractal relics have more items available from it.

they should honestly make server transfer cost more about average WvW population than anything else, after all you can guest in other facets of the game. WvW is the only place where your server really truely matters and cant be sidestepped

echo.2053:

Lol this is still going on.

Well I’m back from picketing walmarts decision to move the twinkes back 2 aisles annnnnddd it went nothing like I thought would happen. I thought I’d be get support from thousands as we marched onto Walmart to face this oppression and chant proudly " no we will not walk 2 more aisles to get twinkes, that is a pure cash grab" to be honest I was a bit fearful that I’d start a riot.

Instead I got a little support from a few heavyset people that wanted access to the twinkes to be at the doorway, but they quickly tired out. The most common response was it only 2 isles it’s not that bad. I told them in a sneering manner it’s not the point it’s the principle of the matter. You let them get away with this, then the next thing you know the milk will be moved 2 isles.

One man even had the audacity to say that the gas station across the street has the twinkes directly in front of the door. I shut him down quickly by saying the two left turns adds 7 seconds to the trip. Do you know how badly that would just wreck my schedule ??? That’s about a minute of my day just wasted.

Had they removed services everywhere, then it’d be a valid complaint. They are not so this really is just a silly jab.

You would of prolly had better results if you were just to ask to have crafting benches and skill trainers put into the vigil keep

interesting analogy, isnt walmart known in general for evil business practices? This would seem to suggest that the guy who is moving twinkies to the back then selling the ones in front for more, is also in other facets a shady business practioner.

Almost makes you think you should beef before they become impossible to effect/change.

I mean if anet said it was an error, and they are going to give free access to the ship until they have a place which offers what LA did, i think everyone would applaud them.

But it seems like it was intentional. If it is intentional, they are essentially saying ok guys, we have decided that we are going to more fully embrace creating inconvience to sell convienence. This is step one. Depending on your response, we ll see how and when to implement step 2.

Healix.5819:

mercury ranique.2170:

Malediktus.9250:

I remember how a dev said it wont come back because it would be unfair to people.

link the quote or it didn’t happen!

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the jet pack, those specific rewards are intended as limited rewards you can only earn during that time, thus making them valuable. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who did earn jet packs for us to bring them back, and suddenly undercut their value entirely.

except, it makes perfect sense to bring back these rewards for this event, and also as a last hurrah for this season/its rewards. Its not any easier to get now than before. I mean they could have had it have a different skin color, but i think that would make you less elite, because you would have the old shoddy version and they d have the one that signified the GW2 universe changing event that is the LA attack

Redscope.6215:

Einlanzer.1627:

Mesmer Scepter. Thief Pistol. Ele Staff. I could go on. All of these weapons are clumsy and feeble in large part because their #1 skills are not tuned well. Since the #1 skill plays the primary role in sustained DPS, they all end up being terrible in any even slightly passive or prolonged fight – i.e. almost all PvE encounters.

Mesmer’s scepter feels awkward because its one of the only ranged chains. Most other ranged “auto-attacks” are one individual skill.

Not exactly sure about ele staff. Thief ‘1’ is one of the most useful, and possibly OP, forms of bleed application in the game outside of Sharper Images. Play the thief right and try the pistol. Don’t try and face tank with a pistol, don’t try to spike damage with a pistol, don’t try to permastealth with a pistol. Keep at a distance and condi the target to death.

Chains are what is wrong with the ‘1’ skills in this game. They need to be rebalanced such that all of their attacks are powerful in their own right. None of this ‘third hit’ being the meat&potatoes stuff anymore. Melee gets the biggest shaft when it comes to this.

Einlanzer.1627:

Guys, guys – my point was that they need to do a review pass on #1’s for all weapons in the game, not to argue that x weapon is more broken than y weapon, although some are definitely in worse shape than others.

Should have lead with better examples, though I do agree with you in spirit.

theif main hand is horrible bleed application, thief has a big problem with aftercast, even though it says 1/2nd its much longer with aftercast.

but even more than that, its super boring and slow.

Stogzlol.4795:

I find it comical you say Ele staff and not scepter.

Ele staff is pretty strong as it is (especially AA), except for the ground targeting + long telegraphs making it quite pitiful in tPvP.

As for Mesmer scepter, it seems fine considering it generates clones and condi’s.

Thief doesn’t need anymore damage buffs until the spam that’s going on is toned down.

mesmer scepter is far from fine. And thief pistol 1 is not really good. How much people like some of the other weapons is not really relevant to the pistol mainhand being kind of lack luster, and the 1 button being slow/boring lame

ok, id like to say, id like to see some more mechanics around surving/survivor hard core mode or something. Its pretty interesting to try to play without dying.

DarcShriek.5829:

Aedelric.1287:

The op raises very good points, it is quite obviously a shameless cashgrab, their is nothing anyone can say to defend such actions by Arena Net.

It’s ANet’s game they can do what they want. Also, Anet is a business and the primary goal of a business is to make money. If you don’t like the idea of a business making money, feel free to move to Cuba or North Korea.

and your job as a consumer is too try to make the business give you an experience/item how you want it.
Point is capitialism is supposed to be limited by the consumers descions on what they are willing to accept. Capitalism henges on the idea that the consumer will in fact make demands, and limit the money making potential of business based around their own desires and greed as a customer.

point is,
dont hate on the customer for saying what they want with their money, and what they want to give up money for. You can disagree that its important, but its stupid to say they arent a part of the process, everyone playing this game has given the company money, and a great money will give them more. They are currently a highly profitable asset, many people have given them money. Its far from socialism for the customer to demand things, its very capitalist

The people defending here are missing the point, the debate about selling convienence items has always been that the game builds in inconvenience, in order to make the convienence items sell better.

What we have here is a situation where this update removes convienence and then sells it back to you. If this was not a mistake, if this was done by design, then you as a user should evaluate the situation and give accurate feedback.

the idea is simple, is it ok to remove existing convienence and then sell it back to the players?
Is it absolutely not ok, or is it a matter of how much convienece is lost

If you think its dependent on how much is lost, what would be an example of too much in your mind.

Rangersix.1754:

phys.7689:

Actually the mystic forge can be a very dominant part of crafting/merchanting.

Various item promotion recipes,
Green to rares to ectos
Sigil promotion

Is it the end of world? No, is it kind of shady? Yeah.

The various recipes require little interaction with the mystic forge. Like I said, most are once per character or very infrequent. All the other situations, like greens to rares or improving sigil rarity, only require a trading post.

the stuff im talking about, you do en mass, like make 120 major sigils, then put em in the mystic forge to get superior runes. Or back in the day, when silk was cheaper than gossamer, promoting cheap silk to gossamer. cores to lodestones, incandescant dust to crystalline, teir 5→ teir 6.
Its not unccomon for a power crafter/merchant to have to do quite a bit at the mystic forge

Rangersix.1754:

Lothirieth.3408:

This is why the “crafting is available in other cities” argument doesn’t fly for me.

So I take it you craft an ascended backpiece or infuse a ring every 2 seconds? The MF is needed for some recipes, yes, but these recipes are of such a nature that they prohibit, either from a financial or game mechanic point of view, anywhere near frequent use. Most of these will require the MF to be used 2 or 4 times per character’s lifetime.

I honestly can’t believe that you’re basing almost your entire complaint on the Mystic Forge. It’s something that sees so little use and, due to being RNG based, is mockingly called the Mystic Toilet.

You people cannot stop throwing a tantrum about the fact that you need to click, CLICK, once or twice a day (as a heavy user) to go to the Mystic Toilet. But you completely ignore the fact that the speed, convenience and quality of life in almost any other city between services was heads above shoulders better than Lion’s Arch. The time that you make up by using these other hubs completely marginalizes the extra time required to click and go to the MF on another map. The mystic forge in Vigil’s Keep is even right besides the Asura Gates!

But no, you people prefer to complain, kick and moan because you now you can’t spend more time on long loading screens and can’t spend far more time running around from TP to your Bank to the crafting stations. Because having to go to the mystic forge once or twice on a “bussy” day, is worth all the inconvenience you get for trying to get anything else done. Let’s not even start talking about the Laurel vendor who was at the other end of the map, kicking you into another (relative) long loading screen because hey, it’s the glorious and flawless LA!

Stop complaining simply to be able to complain.

Actually the mystic forge can be a very dominant part of crafting/merchanting.

Various item promotion recipes,
Green to rares to ectos
Sigil promotion

Is it the end of world? No, is it kind of shady? Yeah.

Wanze.8410:

I think t5 and 6 just went down due to higher supply. The last 2 patches steered alot of people away from the champ trains towards the marionette, which doesnt spawn alot of champ bags.
LA however, spawns alot of champs, so the supply increased.
In general, i think t6 mats are not a good investment for long term flipping as their value rarely spikes more than 35% over a couple of months.

the amount of champs in LA pales in comparison to champ train. You get like 6-12 bags in 40 minutes, versus 6 bags in 6-12 minutes in a champ train

really comes down to, killing lots of smaller things is better for basic materials.

kimeekat.2548:

Part 2
Obviously I can vote with my wallet, and my own characters don’t have to wear zodiac. I’m fine with that! Really, I promise. I don’t care about taking anything away from anyone – this isn’t an issue of fairness the way Flamekissed was. But I still have to live in a game world where women’s breasts are bared under the veil of airbrushed particle effects, and supported by wishes and dreams — or literal groping hands in the case of the Arah heavy armor. Which they changed as if the problem was the slivers of exposed breast and not the inherent grossness of implying that women’s body parts are to be groped and ogled. Are there going to be more armor sets like this in the future? Is this where the armor design is going? That’s what I’m hoping the feedback influences.

Your feedback is valid, you are talking about how you as person brought up in a certain culture feel about the tone of the armor. Keep in mind though, its a big world, people come from many different backgrounds and cultures. What you think of as exploitation is someone elses freedoms, What you find disgusting others find inspiring.

As far as the motivations i dont think its as dark as you make it seem, I prefer semi naked armors, on my male or female charachters, I’m an artist, i like the human form, and yes we artists generally idealize it. I draw men with impossibly diesel bodies, often showing way more of that body through the clothes than would normally be seen. I do the same with the females. Really artists usually just focus on making stuff look cool. In fantasy settings, people tend go hyper ideal. Everything is exaggerated.

Your realism angle is totally correct though, armor is not realistic, it doesnt follow real rules, part of that is due to development issues, part is due to design, part is due to trying to appeal to people playing an rpg. But to be honest, i dont think people are looking for realism here, guild wars is very idealized and almost surreal. Its never going to be like a elder scrolls with real looking people, and armor that obscures most of the charachter. Have you seen the male human faces? none of them dont look like they are wearing make up (even the clint eastwood face) The body types only range from slim pretty boy to slightly buff pretty boy. Just saying asking for realism now, or comparing these ingame idealized models to reality is kind of pointless, that ship sailed long ago with you re first foray into charachter selection.

edit:
im not saying GW2 cant be better at the idealization, and more creative, but i just want them to make good/better looking designs, While i want some shirtless wildman medium options for my charr (maybe vests, or just straps with pouches on it) i really dont care as long as long as whatever the make looks better. I just dont want to tie their hands with idea of whether it will be appropriate for X amount of people.

While the arah dragon bra may have annoyed people, it was a way better design before they fixed it than after. That type of compromise on design is what i hate seeing.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Fasalina.6571:

Ahem, I love the skin.
If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.

Ah that argument never gets old.

I personally don’t mind the armor. But I am sick of that argument/logic where something is completely immune to any form of criticism just because it’s optional.

though normally i agree its a cop out, in this case i think its apt. See armor is never going to appeal to everyone, its personal and its fashion. I think the good part about these sets, are they are genuinely different than others, they are offering a new choice. I think the blue skin effect could be more sky like, with a little more color variation and bigger difference with the starry stuff, but I get the point.

As far as the armor design itself, its kind of crazy for me, but i have seen similar crazy stuff associated with zodiac, so i guess its the artists take on that stuff.

Point is, when it comes to subjective stuff like armor, the more variation the better, and if you dont like it, dont buy it. I think they need to put out more various armors that can appeal to various different groups. Part of the problem is since armor is rare, people feel like every set has to fit their needs, or perhaps you have only had 1 or 2 sets that fit what you are looking for. The only real solution is to get more armor, that appeals to different people.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

That’s the reason no company in the world wants to say what the maybe doing next. Because everything will be taken seriously and gets demanded if not released after the announcement.

sometimes you, as a company just have to commit to dates, and be held responsible if you miss said date. Cant always say nothing in fear of people expecting things

while the event makes sense, it doesnt really give you much that the game doesnt do better somewhere else. As far as rewards, its kinda middle ground which is ok, but really its just a ton of monsters to kill again and again without much point, you cant win, the battles arent deep in and of themselves, the events inside are pretty simple.

I think they should have designed it to have a

few dynamic event chains going on which tell a few different and interesting stories

a few standard events like most of the ones we have which are very general and pop semi randomly

and a few interesting but very random events that pop that change the flow more.

the idea is to have stories to follow, but also have interesting things to find, essentially to make every play through feel more different, and at the same time deep, and really tell the story of the ransacking of LA

spending resources on races based on population or vocality of population is not a good idea. every race needs to be handled, and its not really an excuse for a lack of handling. Perhaps they need to hire some extra artists who are better at/more intrested in non human modeling/fixes etc. you got 2 races which are very non humanoid, and i think its clear that their armor suffers for it. The % doesnt really matter here, because if only 10% play charr, and you sold 3 million games, thats still 300 thousand people who are under served by the current armor

sorudo.9054:

i would rather see blue (or at least dye able) light come from the edges of the armor, a human character should also look the part……

I dont love the armor, but its unique and offers something different, i think taking away that difference doesnt benefit the games armor options as a whole. I think People who dont like the celestial part of the celestial armor should just not get it. Perhaps they can do a reskin with a different name and no blue skin, but the question is would you really want that? or would you rather a different skin get the reskin/effect treatment

Flytrap.8075:

The armor itself is not too bad. The female version could do with a little more coverage, but overall, it’s not a terrible set.

What really gets me is why ANet decided to include the blue skin effect. Maybe there are people out there who think it’s a cool look, but I personally think it’s just plain ugly.

the blue skin is the point of the armor really, its supposed to be sky/star/godlike celestial beings. Its hard to see with certain graphics settings but the blue skin is actually glittery and starry
google search celestial and you see a lot of starry blue sky things when you search celestial

khani.4786:

The lair is still there….just without the chests. So technically a correct answer. And if Danicia asked the team if the Lair would still be accessible without asking about the chests within, the information given to her answered her question.

and the information provided only causes more confusion. Anet should have declared the chests disappearance. There were multiple threads where people asked if chests would be around, and they were pointed to the quote. Theres not really a reason anyone would assume the chests would disappear.

Its a mess up, one they will hopefully rectify

kimeekat.2548:

Gulesave.5073:

On the male-vs-female discussion: yes, they show skin on guys, but not in areas that are popularly eroticized like a woman’s chest is. Male characters are deliberately desexualized in a jarring and downright surgical way, (their entire pelvic area is emasculated more than a Ken doll’s).

This is really the gist of it for me. I LOVE that the male version attempts to be as skimpy. Gold Star for trying. So many gold stars. Glad my male characters will get one whole bared nipple if I ever decide to drop 800 gems just to see a hyper blue version of half their chest and upper stomach, I guess.

But that fails to match the vast amount of bared skin, and the specifically placed nature of it, of the female version. My god, why even have fabric on the design of those tops at that point? Oh argue all you want that the blue effect isn’t skin it’s just a cool fabric bodysuit that happens to reveal every joint and the cleavage line like a mystical spray tan, ~educate me~ about how unenlightened and puritanical I am for not understanding that sexualization and fetishization of certain female body parts by western culture is just like, a construct man, don’t get your panties in a wad; while you then continue to perpetuate those trends and try to tell me I’m getting just as much fanservice from half a bared male chest (hint: I’m super not). kitten chaps or maybe some cupped ball design (can you imagine blue balls with those little doilies underneath? hahaha, oh man), and you’re getting warmer.

I guess at least this armor feints at covering the nipples via a texture rather than drawing attention to them with a megaphone like the watchknight design. It’s the small victories.

Also, in the name of desiring some relative practicality, it’d be nice if someone could design female chest armor that actually looks like it would support the breasts instead of being designed around a ‘cupped hand to the underboob’ aesthetic. Is that the only way they’ve interacted with boobs? Doesn’t have to be structurally sound but between this and the single bikini string at the shoulderblades thing going on with the light flamekissed/feathered I’m just feeling like someone doing these designs has never had to deal with a real pair of breasts. I’m all for skimpy, but take a note from the winged female light armor which actually looks like a top and not a taped-on applique.

people really do not look at the armor in this game do they? the vast majority of armor covers up almost everything, male or female. The issue is people actually pursue the naked armors.
As far as the issue of functional armor, its a fanatasy game, none of the armor is functional. Shoulderpads that would stab you in the head. Norn running around with heavy armor in the freezing cold that has the least coverage. being able to run in armor that would weigh a literal ton.

Its all magic armor, you can magically change any armor to have the same function as any other armor, arguing for logical armor rules, is a bit pointless.6

light armor
11/43 armor is more racy than what women wear in the streets of NY
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_light_armor

medium armor
4/43 racier than normal women
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_medium_armor

heavy armor
6/43 racier
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_female_heavy_armor

the vast majority of gear is fairly covered up. The racy gear is purely optional. Entirely too much of this debate is wrapped up in what people think other people are wearing armor for.

Substance E.4852:

phys.7689:

you do realize that the male sets show just as much skin? its an armor whose purpose is to show off the blue godly skin. I dont really like most of the design, but it has little to do with how much skin its showing

Male and female chests represent entirely different things in western culture and to imply otherwise insults the intelligence of everyone present.

to be honest, i see more women with cleavage showing than I see dudes wearing clothes like that.
And just because your part of western culture may want to impose a more puritanical view, doesnt really make it any better than the sexualized part of westernized society

personally i believe in the freedom to choose, just cause i dont like something doesnt mean it shouldnt exist. Its an option, nothing more nothing less.

Do you also run around telling random women they should dress how you think they should?

you do realize that the male sets show just as much skin? its an armor whose purpose is to show off the blue godly skin. I dont really like most of the design, but it has little to do with how much skin its showing

ChaosKirin.1328:

Why do people assume that just because there aren’t new races and new weapons and new everything released every two weeks, it’s never going to happen?

honestly, what you say is theoretically true, but the vast majority of the comments devs have made have suggested that how you envision the possibilities of LS is not how they envisioned it.

Comments have been made, that they didnt want to split playerbase up, and LS has been used to funnel people into old areas (instead of adding new ones)

Comments have been made that they dont think there is any need for new proffesions

Comments have been made, that they feel living story events and features are seperate entities. Note for example, guild missions, they exist with no context within the world. While they could have been developing new interesting dynamic events involving the guild bounties and their stories, we have none of that.

See i dont hate living story, i think it has potential, and while i had hoped it would be used to introduce new features, enrich the world, etc, thats not how it has been used. They ve been doing it for awhile now, and the game really hasnt changed much for it. The big things are probably fractals, guild missions, and WvW rewards/eotm but even if all that hit at once, it wouldnt really have changed the game very much.

look at what eye of the north expansion offered

new story
41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
10 new heroes
18 Dungeons
124 new quests
The Hall of Monuments, a place which allows you to obtain unique titles, companions, weapons, armor, and miniatures in Guild Wars 2 based on your achievements in the original Guild Wars. The Hall of Monuments does not support the transfer of characters or gold.

Actions have more consequences. For example, if you lose NPCs that help you, you can choose to continue without them (and their help) instead of being forced to try again (although you may start over with a clean slate by going back to town). Similarly, if you rescue NPCs, they may join you and help you.

More than the previous campaigns, Eye of the North is full of easter eggs and “hidden” quests, which are not immediately accessible.
4 new regions

Charr Homelands

The green homeland of the Charr, north of Ascalon and east to the Far Shiverpeaks.

Depths of Tyria

An immense interconnected underground complex of natural caves and excavated areas underneath Tyria.

Far Shiverpeaks

A desolate mountain range to the north of the Shiverpeak Mountains we know. It is home to the Norn and the Ebon Vanguard.

Tarnished Coast

An area of high magical energy, and home to the Asura.

now, anet maybe changing gears, recently they mentioned races proffessions and new areas as being within the life of the game(though not anything actually within planning) hopefully they can figure out how to make the world actually evolve, develop and expand soon, but little we have seen ourselves suggests that is the case.

If you tell someone who stopped playing after the first month whats new/changed? you really dont have much to tell them do you?

well much of the problem is things arent new anymore, and they didnt really develop the game in a way that its as fun to do old content.

The games itemization and rewards have never been that great, and its only gotten worse, its more noticeable once you have reached the end of the game, and mostly what you do is try to get items. Item aquisition and balancing is based around the TP, meaning they look at How fast someone can get something on the via TP as the main metric for their how to get an item.

Example: halloween skins.
year one, halloween recipes were made based on how much halloween stuff you could get via playing, and a small amount of trading of what a player could get in that time period. 250 candy corn and 100 plastic fangs

year two, halloween recipes were made based on how much of the material was available on the TP, which saw the items required to get recipes requiring 10,000 candy corn and 10,000 skulls. Which essentially becomes an impossible task UNLESS you buy them via the trading post.

the commerce and rewards team, well i dont think they try to make good rewards for gameplay/promote good gameplay, they try to make items to support the TP issues/benefits

ronpierce.2760:

phys.7689:

trinity doesnt entertain me, so not giving into the vocal minority that wants a trinity is actually good in my eyes, not ugly

I wouldn’t say its a vocal minority. It’s the vocal experienced who know/understands ideas that they aren’t able to physically see (aka able to use their brain). This game would have done better with a trinity than the hack and slash dps singularity that the game is now. They didn’t have to follow the typical trinity. They had their own trinity laid out for them but they abandoned it. Instead of tank healer dps they had:
DPS – Damage dealing, control/interripts.
Enfeebling/Utility – Conditions, conditional control, utility debuffs.
Support – Boons, aoe healing, etc.

They had this, and it would have been amazing if they made these roles matter, and have “hardmodes” that required each role to be filled to be executed. Instead they took the lazy way out because admittedly it’s not easy to make sure every roles feels their use. Making all dps the best route is DEFINITELY easier.

What did they do? Meh you can do it all! NP! Need “support”? Here stack yourself up to 25 might yourself, so people who actually dedicate themselves as support are useless. Everyone has conditions tied to their attacks, so most dps can bring all the utility needed to win fights. Just dps dps dps, the rest is covered lazily.

PvP? Burst condi damage/power damage or play a build that is completely useless but really good at night dying when rolling around inside of a circle. Afterall you don’t have to kill anyone in pvp, just have better knockbacks and not die.

Good game design, fanboys.

I’m fairly intelligent, even if this system has flaws, and they need to improve it, i dont think the type of rigid role system you seem to be suggesting would be very fun for me. I find having only one aspect to be aware of boring.

Now yeah, the current meta is pretty lame, it reminds me of how trinity usually feels. Stand in once place, do as much DPS with people trying to survive/heal till you win, but the answer isnt to go back. They should improve the AI routines, and fix the CC block that bosses have so the only effective Control isnt hiding in a corner. Also create strong groups of varied enemies whose styles compliment each other.

For me, trinity would be the number one way to kill the fun of the game. dps rotations without risk, and inability to do anything but one specific task is ehhhh.

trinity doesnt entertain me, so not giving into the vocal minority that wants a trinity is actually good in my eyes, not ugly

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Speculation: the game launched without a sufficient staff that understood how to optimize web UI. What staff was available to work on the TP at launch was dedicated to making sure it didn’t keep going down under the full weight of millions of trades each day.

Since then, the dev teams still don’t include enough people who specialize in web design (and/or are good at it) and their time is spread too thin. While everyone uses the TP a little, only a few of us deal with it a lot. So, it’s not likely to be a priority soon.

That doesn’t mean we should stop requesting improvements to the TP. But it does mean that I’m not holding my breath.

its probably not UI, its probably the TP DB design doesnt tag the armor type well. if it was just UI wouldnt be too hard to add.

a t s e.9614:

Living story is boring , I havent completed a single achievement for the living story . Why they dont release an expansion for those who dont care about their story….

a story is usually a big part of an expansion

Tecca.4036:

phys.7689:

expansions take a long time, its pretty unlikely they could have one this year when they havent even conceptualized one yet

This is false. They have a separate team working on “larger content releases” other than the Living World releases. There’s an in-depth article floating around that’s not even 2 (?) months old.

none of the larger content releases is an expansion. They said repeatedly they arent even sure they will do one. The orginal intention is to release the little things that might be in expansion through living world, but they have yet to achieve this really, though they have released a decent amount of content. Very little of it has been an expansion of the game though. No new game wide systems, no new classes, races, few new zones. No further development of the charachters story. etc.

Now im not saying they wont release anything big or interesting this year, im just saying it wouldnt be an expansion most likely

Finnway.2183:

phys.7689:

expansions take a long time, its pretty unlikely they could have one this year when they haven’t even conceptualized one yet

Is that why other MMO companies release expansions every year?

yeah, but they are doing it on a plan from the day after the last expansion comes out. Anet hasnt even decided they want to do an expansion yet.
heres how it has to go, first they have to decide they want to do an expansion, then they have to restructure development and content creation teams around an expansion model.
a year from the time they do the restructuring, they can have an expansion ready. but even then, those things often go off schedule, like nightfall and eye of the north took 1.5 years.
Its really unlikely to see an expansion in 9 months, when up till now the company wasnt even trying to do one

expansions take a long time, its pretty unlikely they could have one this year when they havent even conceptualized one yet