Tekoneiric.6817

Occasionally I log into the game on my older system with my alt account. I've noticed the mount bug where the character sits on the ground rather than mounting is still an issue. I know that using a non-default skin fixes the issue but with new players that might be an issue which would reflect bad on the game. Where this would happen on slower PCs; faster ones will sometimes show the default skin before switching to the currently selected (non-default) mount skin. I've wondered if this is related to the default skin having a single color channel. A fix might be to create a skin based on the default skin but with 4 color channels. Add that skin to all accounts in place of the new default one, keeping the single color channel skins but hide them from the player's selection. This would make sure that all players are on a skin that won't cause the sit on the ground bug but that the single channel skin is still there for the low resource fall back.

Another option for lower spec PCs could be an option to hide the player while mounted. I'm not sure how many resources the game uses to keep track of the player and mount as a single unit but it seems to me like it would reduce the resource usage if the game only had to keep track of the mount. Exceptions would need to added for non-mount items like chairs that use the mount system. If this were done I'd like to see a version of the mount skins added that doesn't have saddles so that it looks like the player just transformed into the mount when the option to not show player was enabled.

Of all the things they could be adding to the list this is not one I would ever put anywhere at the top of. The programming would be complicated plus players can just put in the time to unlock the mounts like the rest of us did. If ANet really needs operating money it wouldn't bother me if they did a pay to unlock mounts as long as it goes to supporting the game and bringing us new content or for a good charity cause; maybe feeding people in this time of crisis. The question is what would the mount unlocks be worth to the player who doesn't want to put the time in to unlock them? I'm thinking 4000 gems for a "Take to the Skies" skyscale/griffon unlock package.

I think a better question would be which mounts do you use most to least and why.

Skyscale - versatility of crossing terrain

Raptor - quick point to point jumps

Skimmer - water and the odd areas where I want to rapidly descend without damage

Springer - for attacks and the odd short hops

Griffon - quick map crossings in air

Roller Beetle - quick map crossings at ground level

Warclaw - in WvW, useless otherwise.

Jackal - I only use for the rare sand portals I encounter

> @"costepj.5120" said:

> I think we need fewer new maps, not more. The population is already getting thinly spread. The only saving grace is that there is very little reason to return to many of the LS maps once the story moves on.

It's a virtual world. You can't expect every place to have high populations. Sometimes it's fun to go somewhere more populated and other times it's nice to just go somewhere empty to roam around.

> @"zyfore.3041" said:

> Please make the Central Tyria maps more Skyscale friendly by making ledges interactive on map edges for skyscales to perch. It's frustrating flying up to an obvious ledge only to have an invisible wall reject you when all you want to do is perch a minute to survey the land, inventory or TP search. Would add to the experience.

Invisible walls and those very annoying death zones are the bane of my enjoyment of the game.

> Also, could we possibly be able to at least use gliders in the home instance? It would help mobility there; feels too inconvenient without it. It's supposed to feel like home! lol.

It would be nice but the home instance is a basically the same as a core story instance. Altering one would likely affect the balance of the other. They could change the home instance to match ones in PoF/LWS4 that allow mounts. One big problem would be leaving the instance boundary would be too easy on mounts. It might be to complicated coding wise to make it worth the effort. I think a better option might be to change the Home Portal Stone to popup a list of different home instances and turn Claw Island into a neutral home instance without instance zones or mount restrictions. Basically you would have full access to the map.

> @"firedragon.8953" said:

> I really like this idea as it would create deliberate design, with ley-lines, gliding routs, and enemy clusters, putting to rest fears of constantly spammable glider attacks and their overpowered affects in certain areas of the game. Of course it would make the devs job harder, but I’d argue it’d make the mastery system much richer and worth the effort for creating it in the first place.

>

> Having played through personal story to LWS4 in 6 months, there was never a point where I was like, “Man, I really want that Nuhoch Stealth Detection, so better go play some repeatable metas or grind up some Chak.”? No. Never. Not that I wanted this skill to be required, but that I would have liked to believe there would have been some nice QoL improvements from getting it. It seemed near useless in the jungle, and has no application outside of it. Obviously I don’t expect EVERY mastery to have universal applications in the world, but a few low level ones as well as high level ones, beyond just movement, would make the system feel more “worth it”. Including new temporary powers to just help complete a single map just seems lazy, and well...pretty boring. Why were they even needed? May as well have designed the map without the mastery in my opinion.

The mastery system is a major need of an overhaul. The haphazard way things were put in makes it clunky. The gliding attack skills should have been in the mastery system and as I said balanced for use outside of B.Fen. Some things on the mastery system should have been a local map/zone purchase since they can't be used outside of it. There is a lot of wasted potential in the mastery system and deployment of game features. Oakheart's Essence would have been great deployed across other maps before mounts came out. If balanced right; the ley-line gliding attacks would make world bosses feel fresh.

There are many annoying gaps on the world map. I think many players would like to see them built out. I don't know what it costs to ANet to develop a map but I think players might be able to pull together to fund new maps in a community sponsored map program. It would be start with a descriptive proposal for a new PvE map on the forum, that connects to another map(s), have a period of open comments and a vote. When there is enough players supporting it on the forum put a gem store item that players would pay for. Players buying the item would be contributing to the development of the map. The item would give players current results of the funding pot. Once the map is created and goes live the gem store item would become a portal scroll to direct jump to the map. After the map goes live other players could continue to contribute by buying the (now) portal scroll on the gem store. If someone supports more than one map the second gem store item becomes a tome that can absorb the first portal scroll.

On the Siverwastes map, there is a rock door that opens in the story instance to the Sealed Cavern. That could easily be converted to a beetle-wall on the PvE non-story instance map so that players can open it up to access the cavern. They could drop a world boss event in there. Maybe a giant ley-line infused sand wurm attacking from the sand filled doorway. Put in jumping platforms (mushrooms would be out of place) so players can get airborne. Add ley-lines and allow players to charge up Bloodstone Fen gliding attack skills to attack the wurm if they have them unlocked. Drop a WP in the cavern for access by players without mounts.

I think the Bloodstone Fen gliding attack skills is one of the most underused skills in the game. I think that they didn't make use of the ley-lines enough on existing maps. In LWS3, ley-lines should have been heavy across core maps to that players could use ley-line gliding skills and to charge up the gliding attack skills balanced for use outside of Bloodstone Fen. On maps that are next to each other without a portal connecting them Ley-lines could be used to deliver gliding players to a new airborne portal in the sky. Example: Cross from Hoelbrak to Snowden Drifts and Lornar's Pass.

I'd love to see fog, rain and even heavy storms on southern coast maps from Lion's Arch down to Orr. Orr maps would be awesome with heavy fog at night like on the one personal story instance. Snow storms on Shiverpeaks, north western Ascalon maps and eastern parts of Harathi Hinterlands and Gendarran Fields up to the lake by the airship. I think they missed the mark by not doing a frozen makeover for the western parts of Harathi Hinterlands for the Ice Brood Saga. Heavy snow for every other night cycle with the intensity of how it is on Bitterfrost Frontier. On Ascalon maps they could have powerful dust devils and straight line winds sweeping up debris across the map randomly during the daytime cycle. I rarely go to Ascalon maps because they are so bland. If they want to bring in players they need to refresh existing content. Core is so 2012 and that's what new players see when they start playing.

> @"blp.3489" said:

> > @"Vavume.8065" said:

> > > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > > I'm generally not a fan of limited player content.

> >

> > I'm generally not a fan of zerg player content.

>

> On one extreme you have limited player content that requires you to follow an exact script, and if you don't you cause the whole party to fail, and therefore hate you; on the other extreme you have zerg content where nothing you do really matters, you can just press 1 and occasionally revive other players till everything is dead.

>

> The thing I enjoy most in wvw is where you and a few other players run into a similar number of players from another team with both groups being made up of somewhat random classes so you have to play everything by ear. And I kinda like how if twenty opposing players suddenly appear and trounce me into oblivion I can just laugh, because there's no such thing as "fair" to get worked up about in such a random environment. It does give me a warm fuzzy feeling when a group of twenty you just ran into lets you run away, or, very rarely, downs you but doesn't kill you if you aren't somewhere threatening.

I don't have a problem with WvW. If I had more time I'd play in there more often. I just wish WvW had a general refresh and more diverse maps. It'd be fun if it had better support for infiltrating enemy zones, maybe disguise tonics, training of guard animals to defend against infiltrators, etc.

As a mostly lone wolf player it's fun getting away from a group trying to take you down or getting in a one-on-one drawn out fight with another player. I was trying to take an elevated ruin once and an enemy player kept climbing the stairs but I kept blasting them off with the Rifle's overcharged shot and the flame thrower.

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> There is a reason strikes are made since they can balance it against 10 people.

> there are very few open world bosses that cant just be zerged down

I find instanced content like Strike Missions, Dungeons, etc tends to make players more antagonistic towards others. If you zig when others want you to zag, you'll have everyone else in the instance freaking out. For me that isn't fun and distracts from the enjoyment of playing.

I like bounties system on PoF. I'm not a fan of it being dropped in the Icebrood Saga for strike missions. I'm generally not a fan of limited player content. I find open world events more engaging if the boss is challenging and rewarding enough to draw in players. It's fun to see the mass interaction of players in open world. I'd like to see bounty boards implemented on all core maps with ones on starter maps designed to help new players gets a better handle on open world cooperation. Existing champs could be upgraded and converted to bounties, new ones added and a legendary for each bounty board. Example: Put bounty boards on Frostgorge Sound at Slough of Despond Waypoint, Safewatch Vale and Skyheight Steading Waypoint. Convert the Champion Snow Troll and other champs to bounties, upgrade the Minotaur bull in the Trionic Lattice to champ Raging Bull bounty, add a champ arctodus and a legendary Icebrood on the Snow Climb. There are plenty of other areas on the map (and others) that would draw in players. A daily core bounty could be added to the daily rotation.

This change really was a annoying waste. There are so many better changes they could make such as change the crafting sections default to closed so we open what we need rather than endlessly scrolling for what we want.

> @"Underdark.3726" said:

> So no more strike missions? pity.

I'm not a fan of them. I prefer bounties.

> @"medivh.4725" said:

> > @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > Can't you just use the springer to hop to the top from the outside and glide in from above?

>

> Yes I did that few attempts and I succeeded.

> Will definitely buy it from start for my next toon to skip climbing.

I usually enjoy the challenge. In some respects I enjoy the adhoc JPs better than the official ones.

Can't you just use the springer to hop to the top from the outside and glide in from above?

Can we get a Bristleback Hatchling mini-pet?

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> What does a Steam release have to do with anything?

Influx of new players. First time experience. I personally think collecting all that goofy stuff for crafting from early days of GW2 Wintersday was fun. I think it would be nice if the new players got that experience from the early days.

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> Why are you hard set on these items, which haven’t been used since 2012, being used to craft minis?

Nostalgia maybe. It seems a waste to have items in the game code that aren't used.

They could use the materials to craft new plushy minis. Just add different frames.

Years ago the Wintersday crafting items Plush Griffon Frame, Princess Doll Frame, Toy Golem Frame, Toy Soldier Frame, Ventari Frame, Mystical Cog, Wad of Enchanted Stuffing, and Drop of Magic Glue were made unavailable in the game. Since GW2 is being released on Steam I'd suggest this coming Wintersday might be a good time to bring them back for the influx of new players who will experience Wintersday for the first time.

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> You can always move (change the order) the tracked achievements so they show on the HUD.

> Just drag and drop (from the list in the Hero Panel).

When I moved one item to the top of the list the dailies started showing up at the top. Thanks for the info on this

The skimmer course in LA still has an issue. The help dialog pops up even if you've done the course before and fully mastered diving. When it pops up the dive skill vanishes for a short period of time. The popup shouldn't come up for people repeating the course. It seems like the drop in skill is tied to that popup. I'd suggest removing that popup on repeats to see if that fixes it.

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> You can always move (change the order) the tracked achievements so they show on the HUD.

> Just drag and drop (from the list in the Hero Panel).

I didn't know about this. That does help. It would still be nice to have some low priority items only show up in the watch list but not the HUD.

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> I thought the hero panel already had this. Everything you track by clicking on the eye, automatically goes to a separate, larger panel called 'The Watch List' and lists everything you want to follow

I'm talking about some only showing up in the Hero Panel watch list and others showing up in both places.