Perisemiotics.4579

50 chests per full meta? 9 from Kralk plus 3 x 9 ley-infused bosses = 36 chests... I guess I'm missing something but still the idea someone gave of map currency in the Mystic Forge would make a lot more sense than an exceedingly tiny chance. Lottery is a rigged game, I don't play it.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Miellyn.6847" said:

> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > > @"Drecien.4508" said:

> > > > Here's a shocker, tou can read all the scrolls from outside when its closed. #shook

> > > You can? How?

> >

> > There are stone plates near the barrier on the outside.

> Those can be used only to read the verses you have already unlocked. So, they are useless as far as achievement goes.

>

No, they aren't useless... whilst doing the achievement, just focus on movement, combat, etc. Once you've finished them all you can read all verses outside, anytime, without minding a timer or annoying screechers... that is the point...

I was just on the Wiki checking stuff, I think it was on the materials page for Vision and I noticed an unusual API field at the top but didn't give it much attention... this is actually awesome, you guys are great. Thanks!

Whether we want them or not, there's no doubt underwater mounts (at the very least) are coming sooner or later, and I'll bet on a few of that type. That mock Largos xpack page is a very accurate example of a few ideas that can be interestingly explored by underwater mounts. Going even further, depending on what kind of environments devs create for new maps they can develop mounts to specifically interact with those, such as ice, fire, ether, or what have you. They could even make things like a fishing mount, assuming we get fishing as a craft (which, by the way, also makes sense).

8 may sound like many because each mount is unique in design and purpose, but I could easily foresee 20 that still maintain the current standard.

At the very least, assuming all your complaints make sense - most don't, a few are exaggerating some underdeveloped aspects of HoT that were much improved in PoF and LW -, HoT gave you a complete new class for you to level to 80 in the Core maps... that's something positive, yes?

Kourna feels like a lot of space wasted, the Ntouka Pond could have one event or two. I know they meant it in part for the beetle but still, the spatial configuration of that map feels odd. I do like that Choya ritual with the dance event and the Asura making out their language, lol.

Istan has the Amala fight that is very dramatic and ties up nicely to the fractal where we see how she became what she is; the meteor event is maybe my favorite in the whole game - I like these unique events with unique skills/tools/mechanics, like the Siren of Orr and Koda's Flame.

Jahai was really polished with the achievements, collections and Sun's Refuge but Dragonfall has the best map design and event mechanics for sure. Everything is well sectioned and yet everything is inter-connected; the idea of having the dragon's body physically present as part of the map (along with his clipped wing) was brilliant; the Skycale rentals and the moving ship are a nice touch.

ofc there are technical reason for invisible walls or they wouldn't exist in the first place, lol. That's not the point of this debate - the point is there are too many of them and, worse, in very bad places. It's bad enough when you go the border of a sea map and instead of a "strong current" - a solution that I like - you suddenly hit an invisible wall, but in the middle of a map like Dry Top when you're trying to shortcut with the Springer over a cliff and then you find another invisible wall... that's just too much of breaking immersion. For a game like GW2 that prides itself in attention to detail, this is grotesque. Like someone else said, the best way to create collision would be with visible, sensible assets like rocks, visible walls, force fields, what have you. Invisible walls still feel like one of the worst design choices ANet has made and keeps insisting on.

> @"Rukario.1695" said:

> _More violence, less violets I say. I'm rich you know, because I watch the ledges._

Just had to reply to you after reading your signature... that made my day, haha.

> @"phs.6089" said:

> No one complains of grind, People are saying efforts for Istan should be equal with other maps. Istan meta is restricted to 1 per day per acc.

Oh but they most definitely do - they even complained to me that I was debating their definition of "grinding"...

Ever since I tried the demo ones in Dragonfall they felt just right and interesting to use; if anything I'd like some sort of angle indicator.

Yeah the coloring there isn't going to go well with green ranger/necro schemes... still better than those annoying blobs orbiting you :p

> @"eldrin.6471" said:

> Grinding refers to the playing time spent doing repetitive tasks within a game to unlock a particular game item or to build the experience needed to progress smoothly through the game.

> that is the definition of grinding in an mmorpg .if you struggle with the meaning of the word google it.

That's exactly what I referred to if only had you paid attention to what I wrote - maybe that's why you struggled with the meaning of the word, you don't read attentively? or maybe it is because you automatically jump on "google" as the be-all-end-all when, for specifically linguistic purposes, it should NOT be used? or maybe yet, you just struggle with both things there... anyway... again: it is **your** choice to "grind" whatever content for the currency you want as fast as possible; maps have been out for several months with a ton of content, story and achievements packed in - I did those for playing the content, the currency I accumulated was an unintentional by-product. You doing it "repeatedly" to exhaust content as fast as you can is not how it was intended or designed to be played, so calling back their manifesto on this makes even less sense.

Play for the journey, not the destination. Have fun.

> @"TheGrill.4896" said:

> Even with multiple alts, this grind is just not fun and it leaves people feeling burned out. It’s essentially running around in circles for days to get what is essentially a non-legendary item/mount.

No.

This is the thing, it isn't a "grind" so you should not see it as such. I have stacks of 2k in storage of those currencies only by playing each map for a few weeks after release, plus the Home nodes. It feels to me people who are very short on those currencies didn't play a fraction of the content those maps had (and have) to offer.

The question seems to be incomplete - all you mention is ANet ceasing development, not working on a another game. "buying their games" - don't they only work on GW2? and your hypothesis of "a history of closing down games" doesn't feel right to me - they still maintain and even do minor work on GW1 up to this day,

Just the whole phrasing of this poll is odd to me.

> @"Hitman.5829" said:

> (...) see the beauty scenery from the sky. everything looks better from the sky!

You can still do that with just the Skyscale...

> Why dont we ask them to make skyscale a fully flying dragon. I am tired of them giving us partial flying mounts. I just want to use my mount to fly around the maps

For just flying around endlessly without a thoughtful design behind it, you can do it in games such as WoW or Perfect World.

Calling it now, if we get another "coatl" skin like the bunny and the leggy scepter, our next destination in-game will be where GW1 left off - Utopia!

> @"Telwyn.1630" said:

> I agree their is risk of the charr restarting a war against the humans after all the treaty is only temporary, or the charr have a chance to have a khan ur for the first time but their is a risk of a civil war among the charr for who the khan ur well be. either of these two paths happening be interesting. By the way I do not hate the charr, cause I love female charr.

I'm a Norn character but your ideas for the Charr sound cool though I doubt ANet will ever "break" the treaty between them and Humans... one can hope, though. I was thinking about that recently, how the old plot of the barbaric Charr invading Ascalon felt so more real and relatable than dealing with "magics" that pretty much can be retconned into whatever is needed to fill in the story and fighting Elder Dragons that we really only get to experience one at a time.

Their alliance with the Titans, capturing Althea and burning her alive, the subsequent journey Rurik undertook into the land of the Dwarves... those stories are just better in so many ways.

As much as I think a Cantha expansion would be awesome - and I do believe it'll happen at some point - I'd be greatly disappointed if it were the next one, for the obvious reason we just had an expansion themed around Humans (in an already Human-centric lore) in a game that decided to have 5 races concurring to the foreground of the lore instead of just one (GW1) being antagonized and helped by other, non-playable races.

In my opinion the next expansion should focus on either the Norn or the Charr and be about some storyline never (deeply) explored before in the franchise, also taking place in a part of the world never visited before. Cantha can wait.

> @"bOTEB.1573" said:

> We are already in Largos territory. We have awaken Bubbles and they will come and help us beat him.

That's an interesting point, the fact Kralk ended up in that ocean may be hard to overlook but then again, Aurene (apparently) absorbed all of the magics... hard to tell.

> Also, they look very cool, while Tengu is just a Char with bird head.

but the Largos look just like Humans with butterfly wings (and a hippie hairstyle).

> @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> the latency will be horrible since internet routing is even slower than light speed

Every speed we are thus far able to measure is slower than light speed.

I've found a couple uses for _Bond of Life_ but its downside is the penalty of getting downed... not sure increasing your mount's HP for a little while is worth that much.

The Mastery system as a whole is excellent, just many of them - especially the ones you mentioned from HoT - felt like they were rushed in last-minute to complement an otherwise fleshed-out system, unlike the Gliding line which is more impactful on gameplay and conveys that sense of progression more clearly.

The Auto-loot mastery feels good at the end of the Core line but many of the others there not nearly so (I do like the Fractal ones).

In PoF they seemed to have designed them a lot better - all of them pretty much make sense and are much more broadly useful than just talking to a Nuhoch vendor in some far hidden corner or being able to loot a daily chest from an enemy locked behind a meta. Then again, not all of them are meant to be super awesome and relevant, It's nice to have a few very niche ones like the Exalted Traitor.

> @"Kidel.2057" said:

> After all we already have RB that replaced Raptor (and I'd say, even Jackal, that was already better than Raptor on most terrains), **what's the problem with replacing easy mounts? It's progression.**

Definitely not - RB is advantageous if it's a long ride through relatively uniform terrain, anywhere else (probably most cases) Raptor is the better choice. Jackal doesn't have as much jump-range (without losing altitude) as the Raptor and the engage skill is tactically different so, again, definitely not "better."

The problem with replacing mounts is that this mount system doesn't seem to have been designed with "progression" in mind - rather each mount fills a niche (however fun or "useful" will always remain highly subjective) but these niches objectively don't supersede one another. The design idea was the exact opposite: to keep all mounts relevant and irreplaceable.

> Griffon replaced gliding (99% of the time)

For one, you can't griffon-out in combat but you can glide out of it - and go into stealth right away. How often you do it or how important it is to you doesn't ensure a (generalized) 99:1 ratio.

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> Read what I wrote more carefully: unless you do story, you cannot guarantee map completion without luck. There's a good chance that the purple room will not unlock for you. And if you don't do story, you either have to spend gold or complete two metas. There is no other map like that.

I'm quite careful - you did mention completing the story only to conclude "none depend on luck" implying this one does. Whether the requirement is part of the story or full story is irrelevant to the fact that it does not depend on luck. Also, what you call "gating" others call "interesting" or even "fun."

> The only requirement in every other map, LS or otherwise, is that one character complete part of the story for the account to gain access to the map.

Again, this map being unique in this respect isn't necessarily a bad thing; personally I welcome new ways of completion while you may see them as unprecedented gating - that's the beauty of subjectivity.

> @"Dredlore.1672" said:

> Ive been playing for over 5 years, and have avoided jumping puzzles at every opportunity because I dont dislike them. I HATE them.

> Many people hate them.

But, but... many people don't like them. They LOVE them.

I'm one of those - I had no intention of getting the new WvW lobby since I don't care much for that game mode and the Mistlock one is still my favorite, until... I learned the new lobby had a JP in it. That did it for me - I shelled out 1k gems just to get access to that JP, and it was worth every gem.

I think the premise of comparing performance to other mounts is mistaken - firstly because it's subjective to personal gameplay, secondly each mount is by design supposed to be unique and this one certainly is. It gives you the ability to still-hover anywhere, indefinitely - this will be more or less useful and fun for different players but it's objectively unique. For me personally, it makes exploring from the air so much better, it's like you have access to a satellite or those special free-motion cameras that devs use when putting together a map; even more so when looking for specific stuff, like doing the collections, it saved me A LOT of time and energy having the bird's eye view and being able to stall, go down and back up at will, quick and easy... I basked in the irony, using the very mount I was hunting items to unlock.

Also, it does go higher than the Springer if you factor in Bond of Vigor or Volatile-magic globs - it is also more precise since you can hold still and fine-tune your movement whereas with the bunny you have to get the one jump right or (in some cases) you'll fall off to oblivion. I also enjoy the "tactical" planning, looking in advance for subsequent ledges to ensure you'll be able to refill the meter and keep going up as needed... and finally, it can reach places the Springer never will such as chopper tops or hollow domes enclosed behind a horizontal flight path - this mount stands out through the _combination_ of vertical and horizontal movement more, much more than any other.

The one thing I felt was "missing" would be a sort of angle indicator when gliding since that makes all the difference when trying to not dip in to the flight endurance but I guess that would be a little too fluffy in a way.

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> None depend on luck: the objectives are available for everyone at the same time, with the same requirements.

>

Neither this one depends on luck - doing the story will grant the POI to everyone at the one time, with the same requirement. The fact that this is the only map that "gates" completion behind the story is no better or worse than "gating" it behind a timer, an event, or other in-game mechanics - it's just different, it just diversifies gameplay a little more. LW maps are specifically tied to the story (they are a slice of time as one dev put it once) so that's one more reason for it to be how it is.