PseudoNewb.5468

> @"Drizzt.1796" said:

> > @"Fenella.2634" said:

>

> > Fanfiction?

>

> Technically, yes i guess.

Sure why not.

Ever since obtaining the blue "krait orb"...

What if the DSD secretly empowers the pact?

Then

Jormag is legitimately attempting to negotiate with the DSD.

And

Either

It will emerge and use The Pact to betray Aurene.

Or

Aurene knows and will betray The Pact to defeat the DSD.

When I do smiting Monster Hunter World, the weapons stats and attributes makes me go oooh, if I get this, I won't get one shot by that monster.

Now Monster Hunter builds are a much simpler thing in that game.... but.

When I open the abilities/traits menu in GW2 I go, hmmm, then I just say Fuck it, and go do some zerg rush stuff instead.

I think mastering, and, leveraging the hero panel (skills, traits, stats, runes, sigils) to work well in gameplay is hard.

Most of the gameplay is easy, because it is tuned for having a pretty bad setup in the hero panel.

Or I could copy a build off the internet. But I really wish that I could do something in-game that works well enough, but doesn't take a lot of research or grinding to achieve.

Since using the hero panel is a part of playing the game, I can't say the game is hard or easy.

Don't balance worlds. Balance the maps. Eliminate static match-ups. If a server does well on all maps at the end of a skirmish, find other worlds that are doing well and dynamically create an additional maps for them to spread their players on. Reduce maps when a server isn't particularly doing well on all maps. Reward war score for each map. (Possibly adding a slight modifier to score per map as a world earns the right to participate in more maps).

In general, add more maps during peak times to keep queues and server lag down.

At the end of a contest period, all worlds are ranked among everyone else by War Score as a leader board/ladder. And the rank is used as a starting value for the number of maps to cover in the next match-up.

There will certainly be a bandwagon world, but the maps can be balanced by ensuring that that world has to face 2X other worlds in X different maps. X being however many they need to properly spread a world's population at any time. And if the other worlds feel particularly aggrieved by the bandwagoning, they can certainly agree to double team the bandwagon server on all of the maps they have.

I hope Jormag is less about planting lies, like Mordremoth, and more about biasing and twisting truths, to match the described power of persuasion.

So, lets say Jormag is genuine. Jormag wants to break end cycle, and preserve the world. Well then, my commander can't allow it. Tyria exists at a focal point of balanced magical energies. This cycle exists as a way for magic to rise and fall in balance... Preservation (ice magic?) is but one side of this scale. So I see Jormag offering to preserve the world a threat. A threat to balance, and therefore a threat to what keeps Tyria in place.

Joko called the commander a agent of chaos and destruction. Well if Jormag is threatening to preserve the world, this commander will gladly balance that out... Someone has to be there when things start getting "preserved" too well. In the mean time Bangar seems to be causing a bunch of chaos himself.

It is true, that chaos seems to have an upper hand lately, and Jormag could help push things back into order. But Jormag is a dragon, and that kinda of help is liable to push things too far. Being frozen is the same as being ripped apart. Either way it is being not very alive.

You get a chose prophecy, and you , and you...

... are you getting tired of prophecy moving the story along?

What is this about skyscale vs griffon? You aren't maximizing either if you don't use both together. Bond of faith allows aerial dismounts and air rescue allows aerial mount switching. Allowing one to use the strengths of both mounts in a single trip. Generally starting trips with skyscale, because canopy calculation is a bit odd when switching to skyscale.

More concisely you can gain height with the skyscale, and then switch the griffon to remove canopy restrictions of the skyscale and convert the extra height to speed.

You can also do this with bunny to griffon aerial swap, but I prefer the skyscale, because the skyscale can dash 4 times in a row, with bond of vigor, and allowing you to gain even more height and cover a significant amount of distance before swapping.

You can't get griffon's max speed just from skyscale height, but, given a modest hill or structure, where you normally can't launch the griffon from, the skyscale can give you enough height to greatly expand possible launching points for fast gliding.

I am not too familiar with meta building and stuff. Sorry I am probably doing noodle damage at times. (I can't solo some of the non-legendary bounties...)

But I have to wonder, if they should reign in damage buff stacking. Just that, it confuses me that people say things are too easy and fold over, because no health pool can withstand meta builds and optimal rotations. While being sub-optimal, doesn't simply make things somewhat more grueling, it make things take way longer, and quickly can shift into failing.

Not to say that 1111 should be sufficient to complete all content... but.. I dunno, maybe the punishments for being lazy should be 2-4x slower, not 10x.

> @"Dragon Priestess.9760" said:

> ..... Lucky New Years Skyscale.....

>

> in CHINESE DRAGON STYLE......

Oh, actually, it is the year of the rat. the first in the zodiac... and

no, no, skritt!

@"Palador.2170" said:

> > @"Zoltar MacRoth.7146" said:

> > This isn't a solution for everyone but I'd be happy with extra icons on my screen when a defiance bar comes up that highlight which skills would be best to defeat it, perhaps in order of usefulness. Or, a special highlight could appear around the skills at the bottom of the screen which are in some way useful to breaking defiance bars. Something visual that hints at what tools you have available for CC but - and here's the big takeaway, Anet - DOESN'T REQUIRE YOU TO CLICK A DIALOG WHILE YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT. All we need is something inobtrusive that draws your eye to your CC skills.

>

> If you're targeting something with an active Breakbar, all your CC skills turn a bit blue, perhaps? Or some kind of glow/highlight effect? That would be nice, but I think the people that most need to see it wouldn't be looking in the first place. They'd never notice it, or not have those skills in their skillbar to begin with.

Should the game highlight soft cc if the boss is already stacked heavily on the same type of cc? Soft cc stacks time and, if it is already heavily stacked, additional soft cc does not contribute to breaking the bar anymore, especially for time limited break bars.

Boneskinner CC bar is massive. Seems to be tuned for Essence manipulation, as spirit nova seems to do a lot more breakbar damage than say a flesh golem charge. Not entirely sure what the damage is, since there doesn't seem to be a formula for converting launch tooltip info into breakbar damage.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> @"Randulf.7614" I would expect Vlast's soul is indeed in the Mists. With Joko, it depends on if Aurene consumed his soul as well as the magic that bound it. Hopefully she didn't, since that's bonafide "villain territory", and someday we may get more Joko antics in Hallloween.... maybe, hopefully, one day.

If Aurene holds Joko's soul, that would be a more apt reason why she can channel his undying magics. Rather than, oh she absorbed his special magic, she ate his knowledge and his whole being.

If we assume Aurene went through ascension in a process like Kormir, then Kralk, Aurene, and possibly Joko (or perhaps Aurene released Joko with ascension negating the need to be undead), can presumed to be 'merged' or contained into Aurene's new form.

> @"Fenella.2634" said:

> I kind of doubt it was Jormag faking the call in the beginning, actually. The sons of svanir specifically took the communicators from the prisoners so they couldn't call the Commander. If Jormag wanted us there, why go through all the trouble in the first place. It could just have let the real Almorra keep her communicator and eventually call us herself.

After Crecia and Jhavi witnesses Jormag controlling Fraenir's body and using his voice, they make that conjecture about Almorra's call.

Dialog from https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Invitation

>Crecia Stoneglow: So that comm from Almorra... Jormag was using...

>Warmaster Jhavi Jorasdottir: Oh, Spirits...

Calling the commander may have been a plan B. We aren't really sure what the Son's of Svanir or Jormag wanted, as their plans didn't pan out correctly.>

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > It is “at last” because any contact has been through sublimal whisperings. This time it chose direct conversation to reveal some of its motivations.

>

> And what prevents those whispers to be direct "conversation" to reveal some of its motivations? Jormag doesn't listen to the Commander speak, so it's less a conversation and more a monologue. Which would be no different than the whispering.

>

> The VA is hard to tell since, as you say, the tone changes. Jormag has shown us four different tones so far - *if* the whispers are Jormag. Otherwise just three.

One thing Jormag can do with a body is to emote with body gestures. That is a difference between physical interactions and a phone call. The body converses just as much as voice. Creepy smiles included.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> There are definitely some parallels, which even gets lampshaded by sylvari PCs who comment that the whispers are very similar to Mordremoth's whispering tactics.

>

> I don't think the whispers are Jormag's because the voice is different and at the ending cinematic, Jormag *does* speak to us, and mentions that it's time to speak to each other at last.

When Jormag speaks/acts through a medium, it appears some of the mediums original voice get adopted/mixed, and there can be some variance in the volume for the mixed voices. This also explains the nature of the call at the beginning of the episode... I believe the whispers are the pure version of Jormag's voice. While versions that sound mixed, means they are spoken through a physical body. This would indicate that the Prologue trailer is Jormak speaking through a body too...

Yeah...

I mean...

Yeah...

Ain't much can be said of such a short story arc. ?‍♀️

Speaking of concentration players... Now they just need to codify taxiing with some kind of actual server/event browser. Not rely on the LFG "hack". Also, when they do this, they can use it to direct people to active dailies and the current public strike.

I don't get it. It never reset to 0 when mounting the roller beetle. The beetle used to have a separate bar, that decayed when not mounted on the beetle.

OK, just went quickly in game to see what they did. The got rid of the roller beetle stamina bar altogether. It uses the common stamina bar for all mounts now. Bunny's new purpose is to refill the common stamina bar after you mess up a beetle boost. (despite having a common stamina bar, the different mounts regenerate it at different rates, bunny is super fast).

The ocean waves never stay the same. They are volatile, immeasurable, unconquerable. As soon as you study one, quantify it, it crashes down back into the shapeless sea, but it is not lost. Another wave will come, melding with the remnants of the last, braining a new form to what you though you had mastered.

Water is the ultimate catalyst... Well solvent. In any case, water is key to so many chemical reactions that organic life depends on. So many things wouldn't happen without it. In fact, one way of preventing unwanted reactions is to simply remove all of the water.

I guess the other way of preventing unwanted reactions is to change water into it's crystalline form, or freezing it. Makes me feel like crystals and ice can be friends... but crystals just aren't what they used to be any more. Not after they got melted down. Hold on, I forget what are we talking about.

Just add unicode (UTF-8) support to the chatbox, and make sure it is using a font supported by the OS for unicode.

Any existing text, just make sure to convert it to unicode before displaying and filter out any of the exotic characters that can mess up multiple lines of text, or any other character you don't like and call it a day.

If one is worried about the word filter, I'm sure one can look up a list of look alike characters, and update the filter to detect substitute letters as well. I mean, they should be doing that even if the chat was only ascii, because you aren't going to keep track of every word that you can replace 'S' with '5' are you?

> @"Khnemu.6029" said:

> > @"Kalavier.1097" said:

> > And/or there are more individuals or groups capable of summoning ice elementals/constructs and snowstorms then Jormag.

> Crecia commented that the construct seemed to have been summoned by a shaman, not Jormag. But as far as the Commander and everyone knows, Jormag is asleep. We've seen with Scarlet that dragons can communicate with their minions while slumbering (or it could even be Drakkar doing the communicating on Jormag's behalf), but they have no reason to suspect Jormag is awake yet. Taimi or the Norns would've probably said something, and like with Mordremoth, there would've probably been a loud roar that could be heard across the region.

>

Crecia, also notes that this shaman is nothing that the Charr legions, nor Bangar's renegades have. So, in her mind, the list of possible sources are getting quite small. It seems she is contemplating external influences, especially since she will not believe Bangar's actions are of his own will. And the ability to bend the will of her imperator might be even more extraordinary than summoning of the construct. I think Crecia is not far from connecting the dots, evidence of icebrood is all she needs to declare Jormag as the outside influence, even if it would be a premature conclusion, she would be right.

Wait the way they worded flesh of the master. You get a flat 40 toughness if one or more minion is alive? I guess stacking minions to get even more toughness (in addition to the Reaper's Rise damage mitigation too) isn't something they are fond of. They trying to say, one minion is enough...

I feel like bone minions/death nova will give your more stacks of carapace if you take Putrid Defense... And since death nova exists, and without the ability to stack them for stupid amounts toughness, do you really want your minions to live longer anyways? Maybe they should just delete the trait...

Unless they are saying 2 stacks per minion, but that would be a doubling of the toughens effect on top of whatever stack size bonuses you now get??? If that is the case, it could make Corrupters Ferver appealing to minion masters who don't appreciate poison clouds from minions dying and just want to sit there absorbing damage all day.

I guess stacking minions is a silly thing to do anyways and plain bad for high difficulty content, but the change to flesh of the master seems to be making a big change it in some way, that I can't even figure out with the wording.

This a spoiler thread? I think so... so here goes...

They story taught me that Ryland's main charisma/personality trait is dignity, then the dignity option is what keeps your cover and prevents combat in the next sequences. That is how you combine storytelling with in game dialog mechanics. Thanks for that, please do more interesting things like that.

.... It is a very direct, but subtle way to teach the player about a character... Although the personality traits aren't used for the player character anymore, it is a nifty use of the personality options.

As for Bangar. To me, his demeanor makes him seem like he is going to be quite passive in most of whatever is coming (being passive, or just tactical with how he wields influence). He speaks, but not for himself. Between Bangar and Ryland, I am leaning towards Ryland holding more power, but Bangar, allowing his authority to be used. Ryland seems to be the dignified and loved prince of the charr (leading his people through the Shiverpeaks to salva... no I didn't play GW1 but...). For me, it is hard to say who is leading who, and if Bangar is playing some sort of other angle on the situation. He seems to have sized up Rytlock, and confirmed that Rytlock isn't out for blood or power. (and if Rytlock did harm Bangar, it would have added more fuel to the fire anyways). So Bangar may be up to something more than reflecting the will of the charr. Sentimentality.... is just an excuse.

And if I where to take the hazzard to guess. Jormag in, the Icebrood Saga trailer, is making an appeal to honor/dignity in it's speech, and is in fact targeting Ryland and charr who feel threatened by Aurene. The game keeps on re-enforcing that Ryland is well loved... so I expect him to matter more.

Here is a conversion chart, short of having a in game clock.

Each Tyrian hour is 5 minutes of our time. So...

Tyria, Earth (x being any EVEN UTC hour, convert right column to your timezone).

00:00, x+0:00

01:00, x+0:05

**02:00, x+0:10**

03:00, x+0:15

04:00, x+0:20

05:00, x+0:25

06:00, x+0:30

07:00, x+0:35

**08:00, x+0:40**

09:00, x+0:45

10:00, x+0:50

11:00, x+0:55

12:00, x+1:00

13:00, x+1:05

**14:00, x+1:10**

15:00, x+1:15

16:00, x+1:20

17:00, x+1:25

18:00, x+1:30

19:00, x+1:35

**20:00, x+1:40**

21:00, x+1:45

22:00, x+1:50

23:00, x+1:55

> @"Stephane Lo Presti.7258" said:

> Just so that we're all on the same page: the Prologue episode, called "Bound by Blood" and releasing on September 17, takes place before Episode 1 of the Icebrood Saga!

I don't think I am on the same page, yet...

So to confirm. Not all content releases will be of equal size, regardless of if it is story instances, new open world map areas, or other types of potential content for any part of the game? Is being a non-standard release what makes this release not a numbered episode? Does this also mean that there is going to be a more irregular release cadence? It seems there are still numbered episodes, though, so are numbered episodes things that have a targeted schedule, while everything else can be more variable?

Or is designating this as the prologue, strictly a narrative distinction?

I just want it explained clearly, I can guess there will be numbered episodes, non-numbered episodes, and other content releases through the living world calendar. But this is very uncertain to me. If there is not yet a concrete release idea for the foreseeable future, can the team explain, maybe this idea, but if not perhaps this second idea...? Just to provide clarity if not a "promise".

Does this also mean the login requirement tied to numbered episodes, so that any potential out of episode content will be designated as part of a numbered episode to determine it's release window, and inclusion in episode purchases in the gem store? For example does the prologue and episode 1 share the same release window for obtaining access for free?

I think it is safe to say, what they have already said is the only things they are working on. People have compiled all announcements. I doubt any sort of log or release plan will have anything more.

Is it possible that this outfits has legal issues, for being too similar to some other possibly existing fantasy property involving a school?

I haven't looked myself, so I don't really know, an my memory is a bit fuzzy.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> If The stockings were replaced by socks I'd be interested it it, too.

>

> > @"Mewcifer.5198" said:

> > I think the issue is less about it being a skirt and more about it being a skirt worn by people of a certain age.

>

> Our characters are at least in there 20's.

> Would you be offended by adults wearing School Uniforms?

> At least here in Germany we have schools for adults.

>

>

Well where I live, neither formalized education for adults, nor things like apprenticeships are really a big thing. Just school, university, then throw you into the fire of the job market. There is vocational training and adult oriented curricula, but it doesn't seem to be a big focus or very formalized like academics.

> @"Blackarps.1974" said:

> It just sounds like a mini-world boss. I personally don't think they are the correct way to go about making an easy mode for raids. I'd rather see them just change scaling in normal raids. Reduce the HP, add more time, put perma chill or something on bosses to make them easier. I wouldn't change it too much or mess with mechanics because the easy mode should be a training process to get into "normal" raids. Then just disallow players to get marks and reduced rewards for the easy mode and that be it.

>

> I think one person said it well. Strike Missions just sound like more content to abandon in a year from now. Keeping it tied to raids would be a lot better.

I think the problem with scaling normal raids, making easy modes, is that, regardless, the raid will likely be more of a time investment that any other content. And people really don't want to waste time. So pugging an easy mode, could still be considered an absolute waste of time, creating tension if the people you play with make the process even slower. The thing about strikes, in how they describe it. They are making the time investment much lower, because it is one boss, and done. That person doing crap DPS? they cost you 2 extra minutes, and you don't have to carry for more than 1 boss. The reduction in time investment should smooth over how players interact.

Now, I don't know if this will have the same issues as dungeions. Where dungeons are a grind to the point where, basically, you get a group, and do specific (zerker meta) strategy of minimizing the run time so that you can rinse and repeat for more rewards faster. Even the relatively short dungeon, is go fast or gtfo, because we need to grind faster.