AgentMoore.9453

People don't do Whisper of Jormag because it's more trouble than it's worth, ie: it isn't fun and the rewards are meh > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > The low-effort "open world pve" population in this game actively rebels against any content that has a fail condition. And remarks like this one ensure that it's an unpleasant experience to keep trying outside of closed groups, as you can expect this and worse should you pug it up. Now and then you can get lucky with a public group if Whisper is a daily strike and you LFG around reset, but strikes in general aren't what people wanted, and have more or less have become an 'exp only, ping ur role' wasteland. It's especially noticeable with the Whisper of Jormag, but really all strikes are like this. Not a good ramp to raids, and not challenging enough for raiders.

See, I wish male Sylvari _did_ have more impressive butts, but that's a separate issue. What you're talking about is the weird belling from the waist down that inexplicably occurs on Sylvari. Stuff that hangs straight down on Humans juts out and defies gravity on the saladfolk and it's rendered so many armor pieces (and gem store outfits) unattractive to me. Shoulder pieces and shirts often have the same issue on male Sylvari, looking comically huge or outsized on them (unless using the smallest body type, but even that isn't a guarantee) yet fine on other species. Here's an example of what I mean using the Noble Count Outfit:  So they've either broken something with the rigging of clothing on male Sylvari (the belling) or don't know how to scale armor for male Sylvari (massive shoulders/chests). Not sure why it keeps happening or how hard it might be to fix, but it's a consistent issue.

I'd be open to this. I'm one of the few mad lads who genuinely enjoys underwater combat. I want Frenzy - A fish that shoots fish at other fish. It's the only legendary I have an actual interest in. If they can improve upon what's already there, it just means I can shoot more fish at other fish with greater efficiency.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said: > without wings it would be awkward to figure out what your skyscale is actually doing. Wings give perspective and help with going up, or gliding. If the ground's getting closer, you're going down. If the ground's getting closer and you're _not_ riding a noodle dragon, you're going to land a lot harder. Glide or die! In seriousness though, I like this design. Sleek, simple, would probably look fine woobling around in the sky. Skyscales already seem way too chonk to be flying (yet there they are, doing that weird choking animation loop). Similar has been done before with the Skimmer, yes, but also in other ways like how the [Raptor](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Primordial_Raptor) and [springer](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kourna_Jackrabbit) have been made skinnier than the base model or in some [instances](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Caledon_Short-Tail) had their [tail](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Desert_Lop) and [ears](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Brisban_Brushtail) chopped off completely. If they can add horns, remove tails, erase ears, or change a fish into a bird (or a [turtle](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shell_Surfer_Skimmer_Skin)!), I don't think linguini beasts are too big an ask. ..still waiting on Fern Hound/Thorn Wolf Jackals though.

Sniffed around a bit on the GW1 wiki to see if maybe it was an easter egg. Apparently at the start of the [ice Caves of Sorrow](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ice_Caves_of_Sorrow) mission in Prophecies, there were [tameable bears](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Black_Bear). Unsure if that is related, but the mission area looks [pretty close](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/guildwiki_gamepedia/images/5/5e/MissionSequence.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/800?cb=20060928104607) to the location of Thunderhead Keep. On the topic of bears sitting in GW2, that's one of their basic animations you can see in parts of core Tyria, and if you have any bear (or bear-like) tonics, most of them have a /sit animation you can use (as well as /threaten).

Given that this thing was dropped on the last day of the Lunar New Year, I definitely expected it to look more like your sketch. I understand if hiding the wings wasn't an option (though how did the hummingbird Skimmer happen in that case?) but maybe they could have replaced those with wing-shaped cloud particles or something. I do think if they were aiming for an eastern dragon (or kirin?) that they failed and if they were aiming for a Skyscale, they also failed. If anything, it looks like the [goat Springer](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Summit_Wildhorn_Springer_Skin). Then again, I'm always pretty disappointed when we get a skin of a creature that's seen nowhere else in Tyria with little or no explanation of where it came from.

It's gotten to the point where legitimately nice designs are getting hidden under particle effects that render them ugly and game performance is visibly dropping when certain infusions and backpieces approach. I knew when they added angel wings to the game that we were in for a wild fashion ride (think TF2 before and after the hats started rolling in), but I think I would have been a lot more okay with it if we could toggle the flashy visuals in our settings. Cut forward a few years and our options for dealing with the glitz, audio spam, and obstructive visual noise are still extremely limited (and feeling moreso all the time). And that's not even going into things like ally skills looking like enemy AOEs, stutterstep performance issues, inability to disable ally portals/novelties to circumvent abuse, and other problems being brought on by all the flash. Let people have their sparkly things, I'm not opposed to that, but also please let me see the game I'm playing and do so without lagging off a cliff.

If I like a single piece of a 6-piece armor set, I will purchase the entire set. If I dislike a single piece of an outfit, I will not purchase the outfit. Right now, this means a vast majority of outfits have gone unpurchased by me (which means a profit of $0) when I'd likely have bought them all just because I liked the gloves or the pants or whatnot (a profit of $$$). To me, that by itself is a good enough reason to aim for armor sets and not outfits. Outfits, if they make them at all, should be for [basic looks](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Layered_Vest_Clothing_Outfit) or designs that are [very cohesive](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lyssa%27s_Regalia) which, if you look at some of the [nightmares ](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Starborn_Outfit)that [have](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nature%27s_Oath_Outfit) made [it](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Primal_Warden_Outfit) into the gem store, is not always the case. We can speculate all day and night about how long it does or doesn't take to make armor, but in the end, I know exactly how long it takes to make a purchase - or not. There's money to be made in all aspects of the game, but I think the greatest source is by providing fuel for the FashionWars.

No, it's not just you; the grind is real. Some will say 'ah, but it's challenge mode, it should be hard!' which I do agree with. ..but the wiggle room to get the /stretch emote is narrow - at least currently. This narrowness leads one to see the CMs as their only viable path, even if you're technically not "forced" to do them (you can grind out weapon collections instead, so pick your poison). I don't mind working toward my goals and putting in some brainpower to get there, but I've noticed a steady uptick in grind throughout the game - these missions are just the latest example. On top of that, DRMs just aren't enjoyable as repeatable content, even on normal mode. I hope things like this are just temporary space fillers (to bide time until EoD) and future instanced content will be created and scaled as well as [Forging Steel](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forging_Steel), which I like heaps better.

I want this too, but I'm not very picky about how it gets delivered. Maybe they should commission some authors and put together a collection of Tales of Tyria novellas delving deeper into lore that's happening in between all the big ticket things the commander is up to? Tell us the story of a heavily-populated Skritt scratch where the citizens can outclass an Asura and the biggest problem facing them is outwitting the bandits. Tell us the story of Duchess Chrysanthea, how she came to power, and what she was doing during Heart of Thorns. Give us a Norn coming of age story that isn't about Braham. Give us a Charr story narrated by an old grandpa cat who still remembers his cub days that examines how Charr society has changed since he was an anklebiter. Tell us more about the Harpies and explore their history and origins. Like, it's not just lesser races I want, but really just a deeper exploration of _any_ interesting lore aspects that either don't have a place in the main narrative or that wouldn't be worth implementing as game content. If they wrote all that up and released it as physical books or a collected tome, you know I'd be throwing my money down for that in a heartbeat.

Male Human also seems misaligned on the cloud (but not as dramatically as the Charr). Doubtful if it'll happen, but there are actually a **lot** of posing, scaling, and animation problems across multiple chairs for many races. Models clip noticeably into the chairs (and themselves), limbs twist off of the body, tails don't actually connect to the torso, hands and arms hover awkwardly above armrests, the animations of the [sylvari chair](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bough_of_the_Grove_Chair) continuously snap/break the left elbow of male Sylvari etc. I don't know if there's a 'designated chair dude', but going back to fix some of that in their spare time might be a worthy project considering how many chairs I _don't_ buy because the visuals are janky.

Might I interest you in [items that eat Bloodstone, fragments, and ore](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Converter) in exchange for loots?

As much as I like this idea, I don't think they're gonna do it. They have [equipment templates](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Template#Equipment_Template) that function as 'costume' slots, and they're already monetized. It's a clunky system, and in my opinion not the best way to implement saved looks, but to go any further on the FashionWars front, they'd have to completely rework the wardrobe system to devise another way of storing dyes/certain armor combinations. The last time they made such a gargantuan effort was when they implemented the [wardrobe system](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wardrobe) in the first place, so while it's not impossible that they might do it again, it just seems unlikely.

> @"Katary.7096" said: > And I doubt that the developers made raid content with the expectation that it would become one of the game's main pillars. They were likely aware that it is niche content and only serves to fill a gap in the game's assortment of content. You're saying raids, in their entirety, were purposefully made for a small amount of players? To me, that seems _unlikely_. That's a **lot** of effort for a niche. If you ask me, ArenaNet wanted more people to be raiding, and their explanation of strike missions was 'look guys! a ramp to help you get into raiding!!'. When that didn't work, they switched over to Dragon Response Missions and Sunqua Peak (the upper level fractal) as additional ways of trying to get people into more 'challenging end-game content'. I think they had every expectation that far more people would raid than the amount that actually do, and they're doing all the wrong things to try and make it happen.

> @"Katary.7096" said: > > @"AgentMoore.9453" said: > > If they're not going to add different difficulty modes (with scaling rewards) to raids, then I'm 100% in support of adding LI and LD as rewards in other areas of the game. Maybe it'd take longer to get them, maybe you'd have to collect legendary shards or something to craft each LI/LD, but at least you could work at it while playing content that's more within your reach. > > > > Either expand the audience of the content that provides the reward, or expand the content that provides the reward; that's my view. > > What portion of the playerbase would be interested in collecting crafting materials for the sake of collection? As Firebeard has already mentioned, **LI and LD would not allow anyone who is not playing raids to create legendaries anyway**. Which is a pretty big issue. If raids are unattractive to a large swath of players (which is why devs admitted they're not going to make any more for a while - we'll see if this changes with EoD), they should be trying to make raids more attractive. If they can't (or won't) do that, they should offer some other PvE path that ends with the same thing (Legendary Armor). Right now, you don't just need LI to get the armor, but you also need to complete a series of tasks within each raid which.. well.. that's not happening if you're not raiding to begin with. You could potentially remedy that by making a second collection that isn't raid-related (expanding the content that provides the reward) **or** you could make raids more attractive to more people (expand the audience of the content that provides the reward). I happen to think adding different modes of difficulty to raids (with scaling rewards) would be a much more sensible way to resolve the whole thing. Zoop through your legendary journey quickly on harder modes, or take your time on more relenting modes - I wager you'd see less threads like this one.