aikatara.3462

Ah thanks, I see :-). So it's a "release in pieces" combined with two timed bonus events I both missed. I finally figured out that you can still complete the donation achievement by buying stuff from the factions vendor (I had the five marks for some reason), so I go this achievement (and the other after talking to Jonna). In case someone is wondering about that.

I apologize if this is a stupid question and I may be simply too tired, but can someone please explain to me how these bonus events work that follow the latest living world chapter and why Calm in the Storm doesn't continue? Because I am completely lost and confused.

So I completed the chapter. Now it states in the upper right corner:

Calm in the Storm

*Ready your allies...

*Speak with Lady Camilla

Speaking to Lady Camilla does nothing though but as far as I understood the other thread this only continues when the next chapter releases?

Then I have this bonus event tab below the "Daily"-Tab, there is an achievement that says "Rallying the Ebon Vanguard" and I am supposed to donate 5 tokens, but I don't know where I am supposed to donate them.

There is Jonna (Rally event), who just says one sentence to me, and the factions merchant where I can spent my my "Ebon Vanguard support marks". But I don't understand the mechanics surrounding those marks either: Where did I get them and what do they do?

And what about the Crystal Bloom order bonus event, which I missed. Is that bad? Or is it just a timed bonus event and it doesn't matter whether I do them or not (aside from missing achievement points and rewards).

I read the wiki entries, I read the thread about Calm in the Storm here on the forums but I still don't understand what I am supposed to do and how those bonus events work.

Thanks in advance for your help.

> @"anninke.7469" said:

> > @"voltaicbore.8012" said:

> > > @"anninke.7469" said:

> > > Anyone else getting slightly hopeful that Laranthir's absence may have an actual reason after all?

> >

> > No.

> >

> > After what they did to the Spirits, the norn aspect of the Saga in general, and to my boy Smodur - zero faith in ANet's narrative capabilities. I'd prefer they not ruin Laranthir somehow as well.

> >

> >

>

> Might be the wise thing to do. I'm afraid it will end up like that but I still can't not get my hopes up. Oh well, the dissapointment to come is my own doing I guess.

>

> And slightly off-topic, I was not pleased by Aife coming all the way to the EotN and tell me almost the same thing we've been told for FIVE KITTEN YEARS about the Pale Tree's health.

After having finally completed the newest episode I am still torn. On the one hand hope dies last - and so I'll continue to hope that they'll bring Laranthir back as the leader of the Vigil. He's been telling us that he'll replace General Soulkeeper in the event of her demise for years now after all. But on they other hand Jhavi tells me that "she's getting used to it" and that she didn't hear from Laranthir at all and my hope sinks. And considering how they treated other characters recently, like Smodur - oh my... But if they ditch Laranthir as the Vigil's General just because Sylvari aren't en vogue any longer or because it is considered good storytelling now to get rid of long existing characters I will be VERY disappointed.

Sorry to kind of necro this thread but I had to get this off my chest. I like Laranthir. He was the one of the last of my favorite characters who was still around (usually my favorite characters get killed or booted out of the story), mostly because nobody was interested in him, and I made the mistake to think he was safe because of that. Guess I was wrong.

In the end it is always a matter of personal preference whether you like a character or not. For me Trahearne is by far my most favorite character in the game (beating even Canach). I found at a relieve for once not to be the "chosen one" or "big boss" in a story. I find this trope really tiresome. I just really like the way Trahearne is written, with all the insecurities and imperfections he carries around with him. Or the fact that he is a huge history nerd and can't stop talking about it even when the person he's talking to gets a bit bored ;-) - I can relate to that a lot ;-). I think he has in fact more character development then the majority of the Dragon's Watch crew, but it is easy to miss.

Gameplay wise there may be a few quirks with his character: he can be somewhat buggy in some missions if you run to far ahead and sometimes he is facing in the wrong direction, looking at a wall instead of the other Npcs and such stuff, but I can see past those issues easily. And his voice actor, while having a lovely timbre, has a rather odd way of acting/voicing the character. But for me this just became a part of Trahearne's idiosyncracies. Not everyone has the ability to be/talk snarky and entertaining.

I did start with a Sylvari character though when I played the personal story for the first time. Maybe that does make a difference? But then I also didn't mind Kormir (or Rurik) and I can't really see why others disliked them so much.

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > @"Blindefender.9834" said:

> > I am also having the problem that when dismounting to start a battle, my pet will not be active and it seems to take several seconds to get it out. It really ruins my initial burst damage.

> >

> > Moreover, I often play PVE SB with my pet out and swap back and forth, and merge/unmerge frequently during a tough battle. Some abilities provide a bonus for pet swapping/merging during a fight. No more I guess.

> >

> > I like to solo tough enemies using a DPS pet and when that pet dies, I switch to a fresh tank pet, then kite and heal for a bit, then switch back later to continue the fight. No more I guess.

> >

> > I assume these changes were needed for PVP type game modes. But for PVE, they are not needed or welcome, at least for my SB play style. I suppose I will be switching mains.

> >

> > Don't really understand why PVP changes affect PVE?

> So much this. For me, a ranger (soulbeast) main, this kills my profession in open world PvE. I do not understand the reason behind it. I know what they said, but I do not understand how this improves game play.

>

> Additionally, when dismounting into combat, my pet isn't even available and there is nothing that I can do to enable it until the fight is over. This, to me, is not what was intended by this change so I'd consider it a significant bug.

>

> Pet swap doesn't appear to be an issue when I toggle to druid, but then I can't do that in combat either.

>

> Like you, I will probably end up switching my main which is really unfortunate as I mained ranger in GW1 and throughout all of GW2 to this point.

>

Me too - so much this! I fight - or precicely fought - the same way as with my PVE SB, swapping between two pets (and the soulbeast mode sometimes) a lot in difficult fights. I also kept a CC pet as second to use when necessary. None of this works anymore. And the dismounting thing is just ... weird. It all really kills the profession in Open World PVE for me as well. I should switch mains too I suppose. But since my main is almost 6 years old... I really don't want to. Switching mains as I discover isn't easy for me. I'm attached to my main. I wish there was a way to switch classes for the first time I play GW2. If they would at least turn the druid into a viable PVE fighting class ... Sigh.

> @"Vayne.8563" said:

> Sure it's my choice. I agree. But it's not JUST my choice. It's everyone's choice. And if enough people are affected by that choice it will affect the game negatively. There's one group of players less pissed off than other players. I suggest it's probably not the group of players you'd want to alienate. Just my thought process. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe none of the casual players left in the game care enough about the meta to be frustrated...but I don't think that's the case.

>

> Saying this is my choice is absolutely true. Suggesting that I"m some how alone in my feelings on this probably isn't. Whether this is a good idea or not will depend on the size of that demographic.

I personally haven't touched the game since I realised that I needed 6 strike mission achievements to get the meta achievement. I don't like doing instanced group content. It's not a matter of difficulty, and probably not even one of the time required in the end. It's just that. I don't like instanced group content. But I love getting the meta achievements. I love achievement hunting in general. And then there's the balance patch upcoming that will most likely butcher my main character's class completely for me. But I shouldn't complain about that, since I got off easy all this years, playing happily unnoticed by balance patches in my little niche for far too long. Thinking about playing GW2 makes me demotivated and depressed at the moment. Maybe it's time for a break. I didn't take a break from playing GW2 in 5 years. Or six in april, if I remember correctly. Maybe it's time to take one now. I never understood why some people feel the need to make "I am leaving/I am taking a break" announcement posts. I understand them a little bit better now. I love GW2. I really do. And the idea of distancing myself from my beloved game is kind off depressing. Sorry for the rant. Just had to get this off my chest. Have a nice weekend.

Not being able to swap my pets in combat as a soulbeast will severly effect my gameplay in a way I cannot completely foresee at the moment. And not in a good way.

I rarely merge with my pet as a soulbeast, first because my pet tanks for me and second because I like to see my pet. The animal companion is one of the reasons I choose to play rangers in games. I want to see it. So I only merge when the fighting situation requires it.

When I fight I often swap pets for several reasons

1) to prevent them from dying. A dead pet is useless to me. And it cannot tank for me. Also because when I get down I rely on my pet to be able to revive me.

2) When CC is needed I keep one pet with CC damage at hand and swap to it when the skill is not at cooldown.

With this change when my pet is defeated I cannot swap it to the other pet. I loose the attacks and my little tank. And it will not be able to revive me.

My ranger is my main. I am a bit frightened at the moment how this change will affect my gameplay in GW2 as a whole. Also swapping pets is a ranger's core mechanic. To remove that ability from one specialisation is simply ... weird. Especially considered that effectively my ranger has only one specialisation available, the soulbeast, since the druid is apparently a healing only spec and that's not my thing in open world PVE.

If I've counted correctly you need around 6 strike mission achievements to get the Shadow in the Ice Meta Achievement. I am very discouraged at the moment. I play this game for 5+ years and getting all the LW story meta achievements was one of the long term goals I had. Looks like I can abandon this project. I am in a VERY small family guild, I very rarely play fractals, I have a fulltime job and other hobbies. It may be true that I may be simply not good enough as a player. Or simply don't have the time available that is apparently needed to go become good enough to go for achievemnts in GW2 nowadays. I am not interested in group instanced content like fractals or strike missions. But its perfectly fine if others are and they should get nice rewards for that. That I'll never get them is perfectly fine. But the story meta achievement should be doable by everyone. Sorry for the rant. I needed to get that off my chest.

My favorite things in GW2:

* The action-oriented, fast-paced combat system

* How the game encourages players to play together in PVE. No loot stealing, XP-stealing or gathering node stealing. Events that can easily be played together. Etc.

* The game play in stories, especially in the Living World episodes, is in fact quite creative and well designed IMO. Some of the most commonly used formats of quests/story-quests used in MMOs are the “Go to x objects/points/people” and “Collect x of y” type of quests. GW2 does that as well, in fact most likely rather frequently, but GW2 is a lot better in disguising those types of quests or implementing them in a creative way than other MMOs I’ve played.

* The fact that every class plays a bit different.

* No gear treadmill

* The megaserver system

* How easy it is to change builds and skills.

* Creating new characters. I’m an altoholic. Creating new characters and leveling them is my favorite activity in the game ^^.

* Exploration

* Jumping puzzle

* The “The Source of Orr” chapter of the Personal Story. It gets me every time I play it. And I've played this chapter so many times by now (altoholic ^^).

* The map design of the Heart of Thorns maps, especially Tangled Depth.

* The fact that the world of Tyria has no generic medieval fantasy setting, but rather shows a world on the verge of the age of industrialisation (the Asura are an exeption of course).

The event-chain doesn't seem to be bugged all the time, at least not on EU-Servers (if that makes any difference). I did it a few days ago with a friend. We had the collection event with Savor Foulnight, which apparently means that the Bloodsaw Mill got damaged during the attack. When the three events about the devour egg, the scrap metal and the defending Hazaar Razenight were done everyone was gathering around Rankar outside of the Bloodsaw Mill except for Savor (event status _"Rankar Harrownight is uniting his warband for a counter assault on the Flame Legion"_). We waited a bit then we went to search for him and found him running around in Bloodsaw Mill and repairing stuff. I got afraid that he was stuck, but after a few minutes he finished the repairs and went to meet Rankar Harrownight and the others and the event-chain progressed as usual without any difficulties and we could enter the Fond of Rhand in the end.

It may be difficult to trace down a bug that doesn't appear all the time, I can imagine that makes it really difficult to reproduce it. Of course that realisation isn't helping the people who currently encounter a bugged event-chain. But I don't do that event-chain regularly, so I don't know if we just got lucky to catch a map version that wasn't bugged.

I just want to put my seven cents here without answering to anyone specific, because I thought a lot about the topic of the difficulty of boss fights recently, not only related to GW, but concerning modern video games in general.

In GW2 I usually try to play a LW episode at release day to get the pre-nerf version of boss fights, if there are any in the episode. I personally like the difficulty as it is and I don't mind trying a boss fight a few times. But that rarely happens in GW2 anyway - the only case I remember was the Eater of Souls, which I played with a friend at release and had a lot of fun figuring out how to beat him.

For me an end (or "mid end") boss has to provide at least some challenge, otherwise the story telling experience is not that satisfying for me. I don't like the dissonance that I experience when the story tells you that this was a tough and threatening opponent, but the fight itself was easy (like the end boss in Witcher 3 in normal mode, to give a none-GW example). But as it is people's experiences and skills in video games differ greatly, since not everyone plays the same amount or in the same way. A friend of mine plays every game in easy mode because they want a story, not a challenge.

I also thought numerous times in the recent years that - at least for me personally - some modern single player games are frustrating, because you cannot really die during fights, since some auto save system always revives you, even in the middle of difficult fights. I get frustrated when I kind off "died myself through" a boss fight and feel unsatisfied afterwards, because I didn't beat the boss "properly". I rather save before a boss fight the oldfashioned way and reload, if I die. This happened to me in GW too, where I found myself thinking after a boss fight, that I had rather died and had the boss reset then being revived by the NPCs in the middle of the fight a few times because I was tired and my reaction time sucked and that I will have to play the episode again to try to do it right this time. But that's just my personal preference. I am old enough after all to remember the times when you always had to save manually and there were no fancy auto save mechanisms in games. But then my friend is at my age, played the same games I did, and yet gets frustrated more easily and rather quits after trying two times, if the fight doesn't go well.

In general I think that boss fights must be really tough to balance in an MMO if there is no way for players to adjust the difficulty of the content to their liking.

With all the above said (and as it was said numerous times in the thread) it it goes without saying that simply having a kitten lot of HP doesn't equal difficult. That's only tedious.

Maybe I should add for completion's sake that I don't raid and rarely do dungeons and fractals. So I don't enter a story episode with amy mind being in "raid mode" or compare it to that. That I like challenging boss fights is just my personal preference.

(edit: grammar)

The issue is still there, Dwayna's Directive is still showing despite the collection being completed.

The bug is still there, I have it on a couple of characters with the Dwayna's Directive: it isn't going away, although Skyscale of Life was completed some time ago.

I got the question too, on a 4+ years account (which was of course confirmed and 2FA enabled). I confirmed the email as asked and could progress in the login.

I subscribed to all three newsletters a few days ago (via Firefox). Then I go this email confirmation question at login and (while doing this), went and checked the email subscribtion. All three sliders were set on grey again. But my initial subscribtion was before the system update on April, 2nd, so hopefully it will stay now.

Yeah, sigh, time will tell.

When I heard the news about the upcoming changes the first time I was exited. It sounded like interesting, and seemed to provide a nice solution for all those useless minor and major runes and sigils. But then the patch came and I saw the recipes (5 globs of Ectoplasm - another ectoplasm sink. Sigh. I am not exactly swimming in those), saw the drop rates and now I fear that outfitting new characters will get quite expensive. I am an altoholic. Creating new charas is my favorite end game. Well, sigh, let's see how it developes. I know one thing though: even though I spend money in the gem store regularly I certainly won't buy Black Lion Salvage Kits or other Upgrade removal devices with real money.

Since the Mystic Forge recipes for all versions of the rune and the sigil have been removed with the November 13 release I wonder if there will be any way to optain them other than buying it from the trading post, since they are necessary to complete Winter's Presence (Essence of Snowfall and Essence of Mischief).

I hope they will be obtainable on Winter's Day this year.

> @"Linken.6345" said:

> > @"Seteruss.4058" said:

> > A simplest solution is to head to lions arch aerodrome and go in an out the raid instance. This will make it disappear.

> > If you don't have commander tag for this, ask from a comm to invite you just for that.

>

> You dont have to anyone can start a 10 man commanderless squad and go in.

That does not work. Or at least it did not work for me. Entered once with a commander and a second time with a 1 person squad I created myself, both times I/we let the Zommoros talk until the first boss encounter. The advertisement is still there. Maybe it will get deactivated after some time.

> @"particlepinata.9865" said:

> Why does every character always have to die? And why does everyone or everything always got to be 'hated'. Is is me or is this forum becoming more and more immature?

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> (...)* I am not a fan of what I feel to be overly emotionally manipulative writing, of "kill off this beloved character simply for the thrill of it or because it allegedly, in some warped mind, 'strengthens the story' or simply because, as a writer, I can do that." (...)

Yeah, I agree, let's just kill them all, that would certainly create an impact.

If Taimi dies she would be the third GW2-character that dies whose name starts with a T and who is a favorite of mine: Tybalt, Trahearne and then Taimi? If it comes to that I should really make an effort never to like any characters whose names start with a T again in GW2.

This idea that you have to kill (important) characters in regular intervals to create an impactful story certainly seens to be the latest fashion - it is the same with television series. True, if a story does not show the consequences of actions, if walking on an extremely dangerous path does result in any casualties the story can feel predictable. But killing important characters in regular intervals can get predictable too. After a while, as any repetition does, it dulls you. At least it dulls me. I get used to the idea that characters I like will die. And then I somewhat start to care for them less, simply because there is a chance that they will die anyway. So why bother to invest in them emotionally?

To "kill off this beloved character simply for the thrill of it", as Gaile put it, does not equal meaningful story telling and I agree, it feels more manipulation than anything else. There are many ways to make a story impactful. Character death is one of them, but not the only one.

There are ways of more subtle story telling. But the modern way of story telling sometimes seems to forget that. At least I just thought that recently when in the TV-remake of a classic childrens/young adult book an in the original book very subtle scene was changed into something far more dramatic in the television version.

Or maybe, in the end, I just don't want to see another beloved character of mine die. Stories that are told should be meaningful, moving, dramatic and also depressing at times. But if a story gives me nothing else but depression and a dark mood I start to wonder why I bother watching/reading/playing it.

And btw: If the deus ex machina aspect is the problem, there would be other surely ways to solve that than killing of all asuran technicians.

Sorry, I didn't read the entire thread, just had to give my two cents to the topic since it was bothering me all day yesterday ever since I played the episode.

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> Generally beat me to this.

>

> Pronunciation based on Nahuatl would be something like 'SHEE-ew-KAH-tull' with a lack of emphasis on the vowel 'u' if I'm not mistaken.

I do not speak any Nahuatl, nor Spanish or Chinese for that matter, but according to some googling the official IPA-code for the "tl" in the word Nahuatl is apparently that: T͡ɬ, which sounds incredibly difficult to pronounce in my untrained, none-linguistic ears (sound [example ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_affricate "example ") on wikipedia). If this pronounciation is the "correct" way to pronounce the tl, the word "Nahuatl" should sound something alike the third example on [this](https://forvo.com/word/n%C4%81huatl/#nah "this") website.

I think I do not even try to incorporate this sound in the name Xiuquatl =) . I think I rather stick to "fake-Nahuatl" and pronounce it either "SHEE-ew-KAH-tul"/"Shoo-KAH-tul" or "Shee-ew-KAH-t"/Shoo-KAH-t" or whatever pronounciation the writers prefer (it's their name after all) ;) .

Side fact: There is apparently a young environmental activist from Colorado called Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, who, according to the [bBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34974337/xiuhtezcatl-martinez-the-15-year-old-rapping-about-climate-change "BBC"), "a descendent of Meshika or Aztec people" and has Nahuatl first name. According to the BBC he himself said that is first name is pronounced "shoo-tez-cat".

I may have spent too much time on this subject ;) , but I always find it fascinating when I stumple across a language with sounds I have never heard before and cannot possibly hope to reproduce :). Nahuatl appears to be one of those languages.

I feel your pain. I struggle with that issue regularly and thought about posting in the forums because of it at times, but never did. Because ultimately there might not be a solution for the problem. Therefore my apologies for the wall of text that follows.

Three things affect the way a hair colour looks ingame (as stated above).

1. The first is the ambient lightning, which is the reason why quite often the hair colour looks differently in the preview window then in the game. And of course the ambient lightning can be very different in different areas, so the colour shade changes somewhat depending where you are.

2. The second thing that affects the way hair colours look are the shader settings (in the options menu - by default at F11), since they affect the lighting. With some hair colours there is a huge difference who the colour looks ingame, depending on the fact if you set your shaders to low or to high. With some hair colours a changing of the shader settings can make a HUGE difference to the point where a colour that looked dark red on low shader settings looks suddenly almost white on high settings.

3. The hair styles also have an influence on the matter. Some hair styles are more affected by the way the lighting changes the hair colour than others. Unfortunately one can only identify those who especially reacts to the lighting by try and error.

The shader issue of course only affects you if you switch back and forth between graphic's settings ingame, which I do. Ever since the visual effects of bosses got more flashy and affect my game's performance I constantly change the graphic's settings depending on where I am and what I do, so some of my character's hair colours change depending on what shader settings I currently use.

Solution:

There is none.

* Advice: DON'T start to switch between shader settings (as I do), since it will drive you insane (because the sometimes HUGE difference in how a hair colour looks. Better pick one shader setting and stick with it).

* If you pick a hair colour in one of the kits take into account that the hair colour looks different ingame. If you have observed that they always look darker ingame you can try to guess what colour shade you need to pick to get the colour you actually want to have in the game.

* What I sometimes do is to create I new character and have a look how the hair colour behaves in the starting area of the character. Of course this only works with the vanilla hair styles and colours. I can do this because I have a key farm character who gets recreated on a weekly basis anyway.

What sucks about the whole situation is that every use of a hair style kit costs money and it happens that you put a lot of thought into the question how the hair colour might look in the game and it still looks differently (and not the way you wanted) when you finally use the kit.

I guess best thing to do would be to simply accept the fact that there is a certain random factor involved when it comes to hair colours. When the hair colour of my latest Charr character showed a far deeper red than I had intended ingame I decided that apparently he wants to have such a hair colour and does not take my opinion of the matter into account. And who I am to argue with him, it is his hair after all ;-).

But yeah, if you are an altoholic as I am this is a constantly reoccurring issue.

> @"MeganG.6785" said:

> (...) do a new couples choreography/brand new dance totally in sync. 10/10 would buy.

I am not sure if you are aware of the fact that there is already an option for synchronised dancing?

_"Synchronizing emotes

Appending an asterisk "*" to an emote (e.g. "/dance *") will put it into a queue which is processed every 5 seconds. This allows for multiple players to do emotes at the exact same time."_

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Emote

It might not be what you had in mind though. I am actually not sure if two charas of different races do the synchronised dance. I think though each of them will execute their racial dance.

This has happened to me too more than ones, and precisely at the same spot, while playing together with another person. The story skipped from "Forging the pact" to "Battle of Fort Trinity" and then to the last part of the greatest fear storyline. The other parts of the greatest fear story were left out. When playing alone I have never encountered problems with the personal fear story part.

I wonder what happens if you play the part where you choose your greatest fear ("A light in the darkness") with another player, but the following part up to "Battle of Fort Trinity" alone or what happens if you play only "Light in the darkness" alone, but the rest together. Maybe the bug is produced by the "A light in the darkness" story part, where you choose your greatest fear, since the greatest fear story part was temporarily removed from the personal story some time ago and was later reintroduced in the personal story again.

But this is just a theory. I think if I play the personal story again together with another player I will test what happens if I and the other player play the "Light in the darkness"- part separately (but choose the same fear). Just for curiosity's sake...

I had a look at the options and so far it does not seem to be possible to deactivate the text box you mentioned. What you can try however, if you have not done so already, is to reduce the size of the entire interface. You can do that under Options (F11) >> Graphics Options (second tab) >> Interface size. If you change the size to small it will reduce the size of the text box at least a little bit. Of course it reduces the size of any HUD element, mini map included. I play with a small interface myself and prefer it that way.

I use custom keybinds though. I know people who click however and they are still quite good at the game (we do not play PVP though, so there is nothing I can say about that game mode).