Zephire.8049

> @"coso.9173" said:

> people who threaten to leave the game because of having to wait for like 1 week for a new mount... isn't it a bit much?

It will be 1 week at best (possibly closer to 2, depending on how the fourth and fifth tiers go).

If you have limited time and/or resources, it could take months thanks to it being timegated to reset. This after the Skyscale was used as a selling point for the episode with zero indication it would be different than the beetle or griffon acquisition.

The timegating sucks and needs to be removed, but that's not the only thing going on. Being misled and all the intentional omissions are other huge factors in the backlash and people quitting.

Same here. Tried both Firefox and Chrome, and incognito modes for both, with no success.

This is something I seem to recall devs talking about way back, early in GW2's development.

In GW1 click-to-walk works because there is no Z-axis. There is no jumping and there are no ledges to fall from. If you click somewhere and there is a way for you to go there, the game will find the path. In GW2 now suddenly there is jumping and terrain that can only be accessed by jumping. There are also ledges you can fall from and cliffs that will kill you if you fall off. It's a heck of a lot more work to program the engine to pick routes that won't damage or kill players. Devs would have to go through all the maps, go over all the terrain, and designate large chunks of it as _Do Not Allow Player Pathing_.

One of the reasons they got rid of the Follow Player option was because with the Z-axis it was easier to get a following player stuck or killed.

Could they add click-to-walk? Probably. Is it worth all the time and resources and a future of bug/support tickets of players complaining about things? Nope.

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> Your point is based on a mistaken assumption.

>

> No, Anet cold not, "easily churn out a new expansion every six months."

>

> Part of the reason for shelving GW1 was specifically that they found the pace unmaintainable.

That plus the GW1 engine was severely limiting what they could do. (And yes GW2 uses a heavily modified GW1 engine, but it took years for them to change it enough to give us GW2 and every expansion they have to figure out how to get things to work and there's still plenty of bugs that pop up.) Limited engine + setting a rapid content release pace = massive burnout for devs and players getting angry when content isn't what they think it should be.

Arenanet also isn't hurting for money. Their current model is fully sustainable without treating devs like replaceable cogs. It actually brings in enough money consistently enough that for multiple years it was able to fully fund at least two projects with people being pulled off GW2 to work on those projects. Sure the numbers may not always seem impressive compared to other IPs, but it's not like Arenanet and GW2 is anywhere near the red.

Chasing forever increasing profits and using dollar signs as a measurement of quality and worth are overrated, especially in the video game industry.

About a year ago I learned that if you're in Mistlock Sanctuary, you can go to the map and pick a different map layer to be able to waypoint to nearly every WP on the standard map. For a long time I thought you had to go to your previous map, a guild hall, or use the hub in the middle of the map before you could go somewhere else so still used LA a fair bit.

The races of GW2 are actually really easy in that regard.

| **Singular** | **Plural** | **Adjective** |

| ------------- |:-------------:| -----:|

| Human | Humans | Human |

| Asura | Asura |Asuran |

| Charr | Charr | Charr|

| Norn | Norn | Norn|

| Sylvari | Sylvari | Sylvari|

Humans and asura are the only ones that have any sort of difference with humans being the only race where an _S_ is added to make it plural.

Nope. It would make balancing an issue and one of the reasons why skills were locked to weapons in the first place was to cut down on balance issues. Weapons are also one of the selling points of elite specs and synergizes with their new function skills and trait line, as well as having different lore reasons explaining why not all in a broad profession can use certain weapons.

To use your example of firebrand, firebrands study the past and are magic users who fight close combat and also use their skills and knowledge to protect allies. Dragonhunters, on the other hand, came about as a profession due to the dragon menace and they're essentially a magical huntsman who uses bows. It makes no sense for someone used to books to know how to use a longbow, nor for a hunter to know how to conjure magic from books.

The Commander is skilled at many things but being a prodigy that can learn all is not one of them.

But again, leaving all lore reasons aside, it would be an utter nightmare to balance and certain weapons would have to get modified skills because they add/use resources that only the elite spec has access to. Either they have to be changed/buff to work without, say, malice, or nothing is changed so they're not worth using outside of roleplaying (and then you can just switch your third trait as needed).

Guild Wars 1 had 1319 skills that could all interact with each other and it was an utter nightmare to balance. What you're asking for isn't so large, but it's still 80 skills that were only supposed to interact with 2 non-elite traits at a time.

> @"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:

> > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > @"phs.6089" said:

> > > > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > > I have been wondering for months now: where did you guys get the information that a new legendary GS is coming in the first place?

> > >

> > > There isn't anything left but GS. There would be no more aqua weapons, they said.

> >

> > Okay, but that still doesn't explain why you think there will be another legendary to begin with.

>

> The precedent of 10 Living World episodes, without *any* break? Statements that they'll keep introducing Legendaries with LW episodes? For 100% honesty, I can't remember if they said something like "until the set is done" or if they just said they would keep on.

>

> The only deviation since they resumed production of legendaries is that ep 3.6 dropped *two* weapons and a trinket...

>

> With only one weapon left in the originally promised gen 2, I find this out-of-the-blue questioning (both you and Dami above) perplexing...

> As I said above, if we'd gotten a real, full, trailer and that didn't even *hint* about a greatsword, *then* I could understand doubting.

It's also fitting to have the new legendary greatsword—arguably the legendary type that tops the popularity chart—be in the final episode of LW4. It caps off both the story and the gen 2 legendaries. Not releasing it means starting LW5 with a random gen 2 legendary and possibly messing up their rhythm of whatever they're planning on replacing legendaries with in future releases.

Plus the only break in gen 2's releases was when they literally did not have the resources to keep doing detailed world-wide quests, hence why when they resumed with Eureka, new legendaries were pure crafting.

Unless they explicitly state there will be no legendary release, it's strange to assume after all this time that they wouldn't release a legendary with this upcoming episode. Among other things, I can only imagine the blowback from the community if that happened, and Arenanet's run down their reserves of banked goodwill.

> @"dodgerrule.8739" said:

> There are already 2 in fact they had three since release.

>

> I think people aren’t realizing the fact that there’s also underwater legendarys.

>

> Last in set would include underwater legendaries you know.

>

> Generation 3 won’t start till end of next season atleast in my opinion

They've already stated that there will be no Gen 2 underwater legendaries. They also haven't made black lion skins for underwater weapons for a while now.

Greatsword is the only weapon (aside from underwater ones) to not have a Gen 2 legendary, ergo it will be in the next episode.

I get being annoying the greatsword has had three legendaries since the beginning, but Sunrise, Twilight, and Eternity are particle effect nightmare surfboards—a new one that has a different design can only be a good thing and players shouldn't be punished for a design choice made ~7 years ago because the devs at the time thought something was cool.

I enjoy it and find it relaxing, to the point where I've completed it on 13 characters and am working through on another. Even one of the first things I do with a new character is complete all the LW3 maps (except Doric because those hearts are brutal and mobs hit annoyingly hard). I also have ADHD and get frustrated if I'm watching something that isn't fully engaging, so map completion gives me something to do with my hands and absorbs excess focus. I've tried doing this with other games or drawing and nothing else has come close.

I've also stopped grinding maps from 0-100% in one go, since I found that made things worse. I'll just hop into a map I haven't done, grab WP's and POI's and any quick hearts and move on. Usually I leave a map at 50%-75% and come back later to finish up. This also helped me move away from getting stressed over spending ~1 hour doing a map and not getting a key. Now if I don't get a key it's nbd because I "only" spent ~20 minutes on said map.

It's also a nice way to gather mid tier mats and it never hurts to have excess GoE's sitting around when you flip legendaries.

"Ideas are like cream, the good ones rise to the top." I will feed that asura directly to Primordus. While it's not an individual sound, the blind anger and flashbacks it triggers makes it worthy of being here.

Other than that, the Ho-Ho-Tron bell that goes on ad nauseam, Jack-in-the-Box tools, and the drum. I don't mind the other instruments but something about the drum makes it impossible for me to focus.

> @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

> The WoW engine is even older than the GW2 one. If it is possible for WoW, then it should be possible here. Hell, WoW is even older than GW1.

Nope. GW2's engine _is_ the GW1 engine, albeit modified heavily. WoW's engine and GW1's engine were both built for their respective games. They were released 5 months apart so given development times, the engines are about the same age, give or take several months.

How I'd do it is something like this:

* Random mounts stay at 400 gems.

* Specific skins in a random pack or same mount pack (i.e. the Warclaw one) would drop to 800 gems per skin.

* Theme/holiday bundles would stay at their 1600 discount price.

* Premium ones would stay at 2000 gems.

My reasoning for the 800 bracket is because 1200 is a decent amount for one skin and can put people off it. 800 is in the same range as gliders, skins, outfits, and character slots, plus someone is more likely to get 1600 gems for two mount skins they like in a set rather than 1200 for one. And a bundle with barely changed skins for the same mount at the cost of a premium mount kinda sucks and far fewer people will buy the whole set for the 1 skin they like than will buy the skin they want for 800.

Also stick mount skins in the Wardrobe Unlock from BLC's.

> @"flyingplanet.6912" said:

> > @"Loosmaster.8263" said:

> > That's an awful lot for an Axe, lol. Were you wearing Zerker gear?

>

> Zerker gear with rune of earth.

> The below is the screenshot of the ranger a few moments later, but I am not entirely sure about the build.

>

Don't know what their exact build is but among their buffs they have:

- Opening Strike: _You and your pet inflict vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat._

- Signet of the Wild: _+180 Ferocity_

- Strength of the Pack: _Rampage with your pet, gaining stability, fury, and swiftness. You and your pet also grant might to each other when you attack._ AKA more might and ferocity, plus stability.

- Twice as Vicious: _Disabling a foe increases your damage and condition damage for a short duration._ (+5% damage)

- Ferocious Archetype: _+200 power; +100 Ferocity._

Their stacked weapon buff is probably might, ferocity, or precision. Their food and utility would be offensive. They also have the keep buff which could be another 100 power and precision.

As other said, you fought a glass build with your own glass build and lost. Though know that soulbeasts tend to put all their eggs in one basket—after they blow skills like Strength of the Pack, their burst is reduced. They still hurt but not nearly as much.

> @"Balsa.3951" said:

> One Word.....

>

> ALIENS.....

>

>

So, humans? ;p

Though I actually wouldn't mind if there was an opposing force from within the Pact or from a racial faction that isn't part of the Pact. Or hey, how about the portal to the human world gets re-opened and we do end up dealing with an alien invasion.

> @"Dragon Priestess.9760" said:

> > @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> > > @"Dragon Priestess.9760" said:

> > > An interview said yes. You can use it in PvE maps. It's just that you gotta do WvW to get the mount first.

> >

> > The important bit though is, would you want to? Raptor has speed and tail swipe, Jackal has ports, etc. What good would a mount be if all it did was run fast (while looking awesome) outside of RP time? Not saying that is a bad thing mind you, just want to make sure people keep in mind that you'll likely want to use other mounts for your day to day stuff.

>

> Well, I know for sure I'll be using it more than the roller beetle. To me, appearance is more important than function. I only care about looking pretty - and I'm sure there are many who feel the same way. So it'll be worth it.

Same here. I rarely touch 4/6 mounts outside their niche movement abilities and never pick them based on their engage skill (minus the springer if there's a CC bar). Does it move at least as fast as the griffon running? If yes the Warclaw will be my primary mount. Not just because it's cool looking but because most of my characters are charr so look oversized on other mounts.

I think one slot is fine. It can be frustrating if you're used to the Glyph of Industry, but that's part of it. Do you value speed more or extra mats/currency? Convenience or a bit extra gold? It's down to personal preference and what you value most at the time. Sometimes you need to pick between two good options and are only able to pick one, both in games and in life.

The only way I can see them having two glyph slots and it being somewhat balanced is if there's a slot for utility (Industry, Bounty, Flight) and a slot for extras (Leather, Tailor, Unbound, etc.). The former affects how you gather, the latter what you gather. No stacking the same glyphs and no double dipping on what you get.

> @"Tiviana.2650" said:

> This game used to be a sub based game didnt it? What if is was $5$10 a month to play but you could get skins/ mounts in game from boss drops, clean up some ingame Qol issues, keep the gem store as a side, but allow more to be done ingame instead of being bought. Allow wardrobe and hair to be changed ingame with ingame currency like gold or badges of some type. The big stuff like gender/race change really fancy outfits sparkle ponies and fancy tools rare minis fancy wings can still be in the gem store. Gems are here as i understand it to support the game since it dropped the sub, and thats fine, but i think if the quality of ingame play was there you wouldnt need a gem store, and people would pay a sub. Not a ridiculous sub like some games, but a decent enough one that it could work. But you have to have the content ingame to support it.

>

>

Nope. GW2 has never had a sub. Neither did GW1. GW2 was designed from the ground up to be buy-to-play and have gems as a premium currency that could be bought both with real money and gold (to even the divide between players who are able/willing to spend money and those who can't/won't). But that was about 10 years ago (as Eye of the North came out in 2007 and replaced the originally planned full Utopia expansion and work on GW2 was started around that time) and there's been some significant team and direction changes since then.

The business model of buy-to-play and having a cash store to keep revenue coming in between expansions is a perfectly fine method. The execution of it done by Arenanet is another matter. The game engine is also about 20 years old and doing things it was never designed to do, which makes it harder to respond to user trends and desires.

Still have yet to have the plate drop and spend 15+ minutes killing the graveling repeatedly before giving up 'cause the LoD buff won't last long enough to grab any other chests and the 5 VM from the graveling isn't worth sticking around for.

If not for people saying that the graveling drops the plate, I actually would have assumed it was a dead end room because it's something I have never seen.

This was brought up around release and from what I recall, there were two main deciding factors for why Arenanet decided to not put GW2 on Steam.

First was how big a cut of sales Valve would take. Given GW2 has no sub price and GW1 and GW2 are the only IP's that Arenanet has, it was not deemed financially viable to have another company take a significant portion of their revenue when Arenanet could distribute the game themselves.

Second was that having a game on Steam that requires frequent patching -- and GW2 patches every couple weeks -- means running the proposed patch by Valve for approval beforehand. This gives up some control to another company for no reason, and if Valve or Steam is slow or something bugs, it's not Valve that takes the player salt, it's Arenanet. Patches and in-game content would also have to comply with Valve's ToS and I believe there was also something about how they would have to essentially have two patches, but I can't remember quite what that was about.

Bottom line is Arenanet opted for less visibility to retain full control and income from GW2. Could being on Steam have increased visibility? For sure. Would it have resulted in more money? We don't know. Would it have benefited anyone to have a second set of red tape for stories and patches to go through? Not really.

I agree. I'm fine (though not entirely happy about) a POI being locked behind a twice hourly race or an event that happens a few times per hour. A POI locked behind two meta _successes_ with a two hour rotation, I am not.

Both myself and others on the map I was on crit failed the RNG and despite getting the plates, never got access to the POI room. I ultimately ended up waiting for a mesmer to port because I wasn't about to sink another 2.5+ hours to get the plates myself when there was no guarantee I'd be able to get the POI that time either. I really enjoy the new map but that one POI means I'm way less thrilled or interested in doing map completion on my characters.

The lack of "horror" and "darkness" actually works well when you consider Ascalon is home of the Charr. After the Searing, Iron Legion built their capital city _on top_ of battlegrounds and right in the thick of ghost-infested lands to show that they would not be beaten and that they are not afraid of ghosts. To humans there may be an expectation that things should be spooky -- and The Brand is eerie for all -- but for a charr, ghosts are nothing to be feared and seeing one is just another Tuesday. Cubs in the fahrar train against ghosts from a very early age, so ghosts are as notable as a drake or grawl as far as charr are concerned.

The ghost problem is also only central to a handful of areas where humans were settled, so it makes sense the majority of Ascalon doesn't have traditionally "spooky" vibes. Plus it's a call back to GW1 with pre-Searing Ascalon. That Ascalon was calm and pretty with not much going on and people loved it for that. Large swathes of GW2's Ascalon is a combo of that Ascalon, post-Searing Ascalon, and the charr homelands from Eye of the North.

As for why it's so boring, in your own words, charr don't care about developing land. They have little need of permanent structures and only need to develop the land as far as their cattle and other farmed animals need for grazing. Outside of that, they're not going to spend the time and resources building settlements unless there's a real reason that tents and some tanks won't suffice. The other races build because they want/need to, but charr are militaristic and pragmatic and have a high body temperature -- sleeping on the ground under a tarp works just as well for them as sleeping in a barracks in a fortified outpost.

(Also what we have is way more interesting than what the (canon) books say. In the books it's miles upon miles of open, grassy pastures for all the cattle and not much else. Even when outside the pastures, it's still flat, rolling hills with some canyons here and there)

> @"starhunter.6015" said:

> > @"Cynder.2509" said:

> > I think Lord Faren was behind this ^^

>

> Agree, Lord Faren 100%

It is indeed Lord Faren. Specifically the underwear of the Festive Lord Faren mini.

> @"PaxTheGreatOne.9472" said:

> **Engineer** (-cannot state a good use pattern-)

> can AOE heal somewhat using fields and blasts. I am no engineer fan and I'm willing to admiut this is the most I can tell you about engineer. no dedicated weapons, but can use it's medkit and toolbelt system. Has acces to a water field.

To clarify on this (good breakdown, btw!), engie is more medium heals and stacking regen. Scrapper is also the main spec for heal engie as it has access to the Bulwark Gyro and the function gyro ability. It is mostly close-ranged but does have long range heals/water fields through the Med-Kit, Elixir Gun, and Mortar Kit. If you take the Supply Crate elite instead, you can heal at range with the Med Pack Drop toolbelt skill. A lot of it is standing with the group and spamming your first med kit skill to keep everyone topped up since unlike a druid, you don't need a target to heal people with your basic attack.

I play heal scrapper in raids and T4's and it's solid. I do use harrier's instead of a combo of magi and minstrel so my healing power isn't as high as it could be, but it's still a legit healer. It actually pairs well with a druid in raids -- druid can do big burst heals and bring spirits, scrapper has a load of sustain and their subgroup should take 33% less damage for 15 seconds every 20 seconds. The function gyro can also be used to revive allies at range every 20 seconds instead of the 60 seconds and skill slot that Search and Rescue does.

Plus scrapper has access to multiple condi cleanse abilities and combo fields if conditions are a problem. With the Purity of Purpose trait, you can actually supply people with numerous boons in condi-heavy areas and bosses. (Soulless Horror is actually funny because the scythes and tormented dead corrupt all boons to conditions, then you change them right back into boons)

And with how kits work, you can quickly swap between them and your weapon as needed and not worry about getting caught with the wrong one at the wrong time. It actually means you can focus on doing some damage if your team doesn't need active healing. You won't do a lot, but it's an option if you get bored when people don't need your assistance.

(It's also just plain fun to shoot mortars and mines at people to heal them. It's true friendly fire)

Lots of people have been skipping over the healing scrapper, which is perfectly viable in open world, fractals, and raids with the updated Med-Kit. It doesn't have the burst emergency heal of a druid, but it has a load of sustain, regen, and condi cleanse. You also have access to the function gyro (res people at range while healing everyone else!) and can use the Bulwark Gyro for a 33% damage reduction for up to 5 people. Then there's elixirs, the other gyros, other kits. Depending on how much damage people are taking, it's quite possible to use your weapon or a kit to damage mobs, switch to Med-Kit to top people up and get loads of regen going, then go back to doing damage.

Or just camp Med-Kit if that's what you prefer.

OP, it really depends on how you want to heal people. Druid (ranger) is considered the main healer, but Scrapper (engineer), Firebrand (guardian), Scourge (necro), Tempest (elementalist), and Renegade (revenant) can all heal as well. Some of them depend on who you're healing and whether or not they're people who stand in the fire and expect to stay alive, as well as what content you're doing, but they all work. Even warrior and mesmer can heal to a degree, the only class that can't really heal is thief.