TheUndefined.1720

I didn't know this was an issue. That's kinda of important to note to your paying customers that there's something wrong with a product they're about to pay real world money / real world time farming gold to buy gems to buy those instruments, especially since they were just / are being promoted on a sale pretty heavily in the cash shop. :/

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > @"TheUndefined.1720" said:

> > Anyone else have any thoughts on a melted Jormag being the second water dragon?

>

> We don't even **know** whether Selbbub actually is a water dragon, so it hardly makes sense to speculate in Jormag becoming a _second_ one.

> All we know about Selbbub is that it's called the Deep-Sea Dragon because of its physical location.

>

>


First time I'm hearing of "Selbbub," so thanks for the intro lol.

In the logo, there's clearly two -water- dragons, both dragons have frilly webbed fins on their faces, so it really seems like a hint at 2 separate water dragons that I'm assuming will be in conflict since they're in the yin-yang position (one above / below - opposition as well as their coloring). I don't think Jormag is -the- water dragon. I think if the real water dragon is either in cahoots with the Canthans (Canthans kick out all other races, so does the water dragon kick out all aquatic races) OR the Canthans have subdued their water dragon problem into a deep slumber. This is all pure speculation. It just seems like we're getting duality in this logo, so I figure ice is just frozen water, melt it and you get that second dragon in the logo. I don't think I've seen anyone really talk about this yet, please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm also behind on Icebrood Saga b/c I'm a GW1 fussy stubborn player and it really irks me to see how GW2 writing team has handled that whole thing, so I might be missing some lore on Jormag that might be forshadowed in the saga. ;P

Btw, has anyone floated the idea of Jormag potentially being melted and that's the second water dragon in the expansion logo? GW2 writing team always finds a way to jam a rusty fork into any sort of soft story spot (which can be super tiresome after a while..........), so I'm assuming at the end of this story Jormag is either going to corrupt / wound / kill / something bad to Aurene. We'll get our usual bittersweet ending of kinda defeating Jormag but not really as usual, and I'm thinking we'll melt the dragon. I hope that's not the avenue they go, b/c any kind of emotional response isn't always good, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's how they go.

Anyone else have any thoughts on a melted Jormag being the second water dragon?

So, I've totally seen a relationship in the works with my human female commander and Logan. Look, I know that's me and like 100s of others, but I just see a real wounded, vulnerable, yet still very confident character in Logan that my commander has really come alongside with. Logan definitely deserves a break, and I feel like with everything my commander and him went through together, it could really work.

Less specific, it would be nice to have more character depth with my commander. I was so frustrated I didn't get any option to respond to Bangar when he was trashing humans, but I just wrote it off as, she's being diplomatic. Either way, nothing super complicated or complex, but fun and insightful instead would go a long way - no need for voice acting, chat bubbles work great. It'd be nice to see our commanders get a short side break and explore characters that have been totally dropped off b/c of other bigger stories (Pale tree, Blish, Caithe, Canach, etc). I want my commander to be an adventurer again and watch her have fun :)

I'm surprised there aren't more responses to this! I'm super excited to go back to Cantha. I know my hopes are sky high (Heroes Mastery, Ritualist, Kurzicks/Luxons, new band of NPC's to run around with), but either way the GW2 team always surprises me with their beautiful art and creativity - writing on the other hand....... got way better in PoF :D

So here's my little bit of speculation. I've watched this trailer... more times than I should've. I keep going back and forth on who "they" are in the line "they need me." At first I thought, easy - Aurene and mortals, but then, why would Kunavaang(sp) be opposed to that ("it doesn't have to be this way"). So then I heard that the voice reading the line is a totally new character from the voice actor - which nixxed Aurene and other dragons we've seen.

I have to say, I'm definitely on the 'mother' bandwagon. I've since changed my opinion on who 'they' are. It's not mortals at all, it's the dragons. The dragons need this new character. The new character keeps relating how it's easy to forget what an ending is, and seeing as how there's an ending on the horizon, this new character is sympathizing with the ones who don't know what an ending really means, 'immortals' - dragons.

I think that's why Kunavaang is so opposed to this plan, 'it doesn't have to be this way.' Meaning, this new character doesn't need to intervene, the motions are already going, Aurene is set up to take the lead and it looks like Kunavaang is onboard with that, maybe. Still, who would want to take the side of destructive, insane, evil elder dragons? Well, who could ONLY take up their side? Their mother.

As for future speculation after dragons, I -really- hope we either delve deeply into the mysteries of Tyria (one of the reasons why GW1 was so attractive to me, each expansion brought new cultures, lore, and secrets to uncover) or we travel to a totally new space in the mists. I know we've been kinda dealing with the mists for a while with Kralk, but he left things in a huge disarray, not to mention the human's deities also kinda abandoned their duties there too. I keep thinking back to GW1 Utopia expansion (yes I know it was hacked and slashed into EotN and GW2, but still...) and I got the feeling that we were going to uncover some secret past the human deities had. Maybe that Utopia was a previously abandoned human settlement, maybe the previous pantheon before the current ones are still out there.

Either way, super excited for the expansion, and I hope there's a lot more features to help casual players like me (Heroes, please..... just give it to me D:)

Thanks for the trailer!

> @"Astyrah.4015" said:

> > @"TheUndefined.1720" said:

> > 3. **Kurzicks / Luxons**

> > Getting to see what happened with these two factions would be really fun coming from GW1. Honestly, those 2 cultures were some of the most unique MMO cultures I've seen yet. I've never seen that sort of gothic look of the Kurzicks or Southern Islander feel of the Luxons in any other game. I think it would be a huge wasted opportunity for them to pass up on putting those designs back into GW2.

>

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Movement_of_the_World#Cantha

>

> both factions were defeated and united with the empire along with cantha closing it's doors and booting out all non-humans.

Oh geez, I totally forgot reading that somewhere years ago lol! Thanks so much for the reminder! I still hope the Kurzicks and Luxons are in there somewhere. Maybe they were defeated and united, but their individual 'look' is still there. That's what I'm hoping to see, a Kurzick city / Luxon city in the empire. :)

I know the game is probably already almost complete, but here's my wishlist:

1. **A new guild team of NPC**

I honestly feel like most of all the NPCs have completed their journey and really should be retired. Marjory completed her arch after avenging her sister. Braham has really come full circle after closure with his mother's death. Kasmeer completed her arch after redeeming her family's name; in fact, I really felt Kasmeer was such a random character to have in PoF - I know she's human and that tie to the deities was insightful, but it felt very random having her be the human, while it should've honestly been a new character. Rox is sticking with the PoF Charr tribe. The only three that could still continue and have really risen above their archs would be Rytlock (though he does seem to be finding a story arch conclusion with the Blood Legion in Jormag Rising), Taimi - once her illness is handled I think she could really step back as well, and Canach - never get rid of Canach......... New fresh heroes per expansion would be so refreshing and something to look forward to (plus lower voice acting costs).

2. **Mastery system: Heroes**

This is so huge. Hero management, outfits, builds, etc were SO fun in GW1. I understand this system would need to be tweaked (Maybe cap the number of heroes out in the field at a time), but GW2 is so creative with introducing systems into the game I know they could make it work. A lot of us could really use the ease of taking heroes through a dungeon to farm or help out with Champion events that no one does anymore. If they could reintroduce heroes, I would honestly probably main GW2 over all the other MMO's I play due to my restricted play schedule and ease of play with this system.

3. **Kurzicks / Luxons**

Getting to see what happened with these two factions would be really fun coming from GW1. Honestly, those 2 cultures were some of the most unique MMO cultures I've seen yet. I've never seen that sort of gothic look of the Kurzicks or Southern Islander feel of the Luxons in any other game. I think it would be a huge wasted opportunity for them to pass up on putting those designs back into GW2.

Please bring back the Gallant Lightbearer and Primal Spirit mount skins! Coming back from a break and those mount skins match this new character so well!

> @"Randulf.7614" said:

> It's annual in GW1, it's never been a thing in GW2

>

> The problem now is, we already have two summer festivals in Dragon Bash and in Queens Jubilee/Festival of the Four Winds. On top of that we have the episodic content. I'm not sure thee is any room for another festival...it would be somewhat of an overload

Oooh, Hm, I definitely remember them doing Wintersday in July in GW2. I think it was the first or second year. My brain might be totally making that up though....

Anyways, those are really good points. Festival overload would be a lot - oh you know what, maybe it was a Black Lion sale I remember but not the actual event. They had a sale of wintersday items in July.

I don't know if this is an annual thing GW2 team does, but one year they had Wintersday in July. It was really fun and unexpected. I thought it'd be a really nice idea to do that again this year, especially with all the Covid19 issues that are currently going on. An early Christmas would cheer a lot of people up and take their minds off of the pandemic problems. Wintersday sales, minions, and events. I don't know about other people, but Wintersday is just a really fun holiday to focus on and share with other people. :)

Also, this totally doesn't have anything to do with my want to buy the fawn minion from the wintersday minion pack.... I mean... it has been a couple years and all :open_mouth:

What do you think about that idea? :)

> @"Uon.7491" said:

> > @"TheUndefined.1720" said:

> > I posted a link in my previous post showing video and pictures. If you don't want the glued on look, do NOT purchase the backpack. I hid mine b/c it looks so bad while running. You can't see your character's arms or torso movement, just those giant static wings with NO animation besides the very bottom tips slightly swaying. Honestly, had I seen the video of the character running, I wouldn't have purchased.

>

> Sadly, I had already purchased them. I am trying to make the best of what I have, and hoping that people share what works. However, it would have been nice if the wings pulled back whilst sprinting. The jump animation is fantastic, but as you mentioned: too bad about the lack of run animation. #BuyersRegret

Oh geez, sorry. I had read that but still thought for some reason you didn't. I don't want to waste my one return on something like that, but boy was I tempted. Like you said, the animation is so nice! They really hit it out of the ballpark with everything except the running animation. Unfortunately, that run animation is such a huge negative. I didn't mean to take over this thank you thread with criticism, but I really want to try to get the word out to save people a little money.

> @"Uon.7491" said:

> I'm not too sure if I am happy about my purchase They do look lovely on their own, but it's difficult to match them to anything and prevent them from looking like they've been glued on. I was hoping for something that looked like a natural extension of the character.

>

> Would anybody happen to have screenshots of their characters wearing the wings? I'd love to see them.

I posted a link in my previous post showing video and pictures. If you don't want the glued on look, do NOT purchase the backpack. I hid mine b/c it looks so bad while running. You can't see your character's arms or torso movement, just those giant static wings with NO animation besides the very bottom tips slightly swaying. Honestly, had I seen the video of the character running, I wouldn't have purchased.

[EDIT] Just another quick note, the wings are NOT totally black, they're a bluish / lighter grey black. I know it's really apparent in the preview, but I thought maybe it was just a lighting issue. Compared to the largos wings which are black, these range from a grey to blue black

I actually was going to put up a thread for a review on this item, but yay there's a thread on them already.

Just a heads up before anyone purchases these, definitely check out [dulfy's preview](http://dulfy.net/2018/10/09/gw2-gemstore-update-scaled-dragon-wings-backpack-glider-combo/ "dulfy's preview") on the regular backpack cover while running. Imo, it looks absolutely horrible. I bought them before watching the video, and I honestly really regret it. They're so big and the folded part on the wings just stick to your back like a giant awkward wet paper bag.

Everything else with them looks great - jump animation, transition to glide / gliding animation is smooth, and backing up animation is even nice and subtle. However... just running around, they seriously look stagnant is just really low quality.

> @"crosknight.3041" said:

> and now the shill media is working overtime to vilify us while propping up price on a pedestal because she played the victim card (and continues playing it) and wont take any accountability for her being fired. all while ignoring that Fries was fired too.

> it's like they are trying to create another pushback against game journalism ethics. surprisingly though at least game informer seemed pretty non-bias about the whole thing.

In all honesty, the best way to respond to negativity is with positivity. Get on and play GW2. If you see something in their store and have a bit of extra cash on hand, buy it. Come here and foster a supportive and positive community. In the end, that's what this community has been to many players. The more we attack, the more we are like her. Let's turn the other cheek here and do what we can to support this company in a positive way :)

I just wanted to jump in here once again to show support for the professionalism of O'Brien. I haven't been to these gaming websites in years, so my discontinued future support wouldn't amount to much lol. However, the response was eloquent and very well put in response to Jessica's dialogue. Keep up the great work, and God bless :)

P.S. this argument about this firing giving power to the fans is interesting. If you look on it through a different angle, the community would (and be right in doing so) point out that by NOT firing these devs, then the company has given power to very toxic employees who are right in using a public forum as a personal fan basher that wants no relationship with their fans.

In either case, keep up the good work O'Brien and ANet :)

> @"lordhelmos.7623" said:

> > @"TheUndefined.1720" said:

> > -SNIP-

>

> To be honest O'brien didn't have much of a choice. These people opened up a pandora's box that damaged the brand reputation (which is incredibly hard to fix). Their little kindergarten fight in the twitter ballpit probably did more damage to Guildwars 2 financially than both of their paychecks combined. He had to let them go.

>

> I just really wish I could have eavesdropped to see what the meeting looked like when they were called into the office for their terminations, because that would provide the most insight on how ANET runs it ship. It could have been a phonecall, but what I think is they just checked their emails the next morning and got termination notices.

>

> I imagine the emails were no longer than 2 paragraphs of text referencing the corporate blogging policy, one line regarding disappointment, and then the termination with instructions to bring a box into the office tomorrow to get your things. It's sad when something like that happens but it was kind of self-imposed.

>

> I do feel some sympathy for Fries though. It reminds me of a story in Yellowstone park where a dog jumped into a 500 degree scalding geyser and a guy jumped in after the dog because he wanted to be a hero. Well intentioned but not enough critical thinking was applied prior to taking action and it didn't result in a happy outcome.

>

I totally understand why people would feel that way. I also understand and respectfully disagree with why people think they shouldn't have gotten fired. I could see why you would have that curiosity ;D However, for me, actions always speaks louder than words, and ANet's actions were very appropriate imo - with or without a meeting hehe XD

I haven't been in GW2 for a while (just due to boredom b/c all I really like to play for is story ;P). I wanted to come on here though and say as a woman, I completely support ANet's decision in firing both people.

I know customers of all kinds can be disgusting and deplorable. I once acted the same way before God matured me in my personal life. However, there needs to be civility and a standard. I constantly hear, you do you (not in reference to the poster), or do what you want - no, don't do what you want. Do what is civil and kind to one another. Treat others as you would want to be treated. I've encountered sexism in my life (I've been sexually harassed by my ex boss who was indeed a male) etc. I've also seen sexism towards men in preferring me b/c I'm a woman. At the end of the day we all deserve respect and kindness - even if that is to kindly ignore someone you feel is being horrendous.

I am absolutely impressed by ANet's professionalism and am actually logging on for a bit of a shopping spree in their store just to support their professional response to all of this. Please, stick to your guns ANet and keep these toxic people out of your workplace in hopes they mature to become more civil individuals.

Thank you ANet :)

I totally agree with the OP about Champion's Dawn.

I have no idea why it's not affecting more people, but when I was in the zone I asked in map chat if others were having the issue, and there were a few more that spoke up and said they're having the same problem.

I don't believe it has anything to do with my computer's hardware b/c 1. This has NEVER happened anywhere in the game before nor is it happening anywhere else now, in all honestly the ONLY comparable time was when I was doing the halloween events, but even then it's different, b/c in those cases it's not nearly as bad as Champion's Dawn, 2. The rest of the zone is fine and there are no players around me nor was I playing during peak hours. I don't have this issue in any other MMO / game I play / movies / media / whatever. The only time this game lags is right when I enter Champion's Dawn. I ran out, fine, ran in, instant lag.

I did experience crashes when I upgraded to windows 10, however, again, I don't have the lag anywhere else and I don't crash in Champ's Dawn I just lag horribly. I did notice my game won't run 32bit, only 64bit so I don't know if there's something to do with that.

No response, probably b/c it's not in general getting hundreds of views I'd say. I thought this was the most applicable place to put this complaint. I think now, I should've put it in general. Kind of frustrating, because I can't play in that area. I would figure this to be a priority fix, considering it's their newest content patch, but oh well. Maybe someone should try to put a thread up in general?

Heya,

I was going to put this in general, but I thought I'd throw it here - the lag in Champion's Dawn makes that area almost completely unplayable. I have no idea what is causing it. I don't think it's my computer, b/c the rest of the map is fine. I don't think it's the graphics / players in that zone b/c those graphics are used elsewhere without any issue and I don't play during peak hours / I don't see many players (maybe 1 or 2 at a time). Maybe there's a part of that area that I haven't gone into that is overpopulated, but in general, I really can't play in that area. The only other time I've seen this issue is during holiday / meta events with enormous amounts of people, and even then it usually doesn't get this bad. Basically, my frames are crawling at 10-15 fps if I'd have to guess.

Anyone else having this issue? Is this a known issue? Does Anet have a plan to fix this? Thanks.

Pros:

1. Koss!!!

2. Intrigue: Corsairs, Sunspears, Koss, etc.

3. Istan / environment: Varied environments, wide open spaces for mounts

4. Story - tying characters together, introducing / keeping newer Elona characters

5. Pacing - felt long enough without trailing on

6. Boss designs - Warden avatars, Koss, Wyvern

7. Hearts - felt like I made a difference

Cons:

1. Boss fights - too many back to back spam / non-uninterruptible moves / aoes, too high hp pool

2. Bad fight encounters - spam inquest zombies with useless heroes standing around

3. Not enough new story characters - too much Braham, move on from old characters stick with Kito, Zaiem, Sayida, etc..

Overall 7/10, it was entertaining, although very frustrating at times.

I think this thread alone shows that a difficulty option for story modes would be pretty appreciated by the player community. There are a good number of players asking for an easier option, and a good number asking for a harder option, while still yet a good number of people asking for it not to be changed - easy, normal, hard modes could be a really neat idea.

It'd be an easy way also to introduce 'more' content and stretch these living stories out to actually last longer than an evening. Add some achievements, titles, rewards to the different modes. I'm not saying make a dungeon, the harder difficulty shouldn't replace dungeon / raid content - just something fun a couple people could do together.

In any case, thanks for the discussion so far. It's been interesting to see people's points of views. :)

I totally get it. I know the kneejerk is "It's not that hard!" or "get better!" If this were a raid or dungeon or some other sort of group instanced content I'd be like, "psh.. get over it or don't do it," but seriously? It's a story boss. S.T.O.R.Y. I'm new to going through a full LS. Last one I did was Season 1 - yeah. I did the expansions and I'm noticing a real trend here with ANet. They really push their players into the difficulty with stories, and yeah that's not a good go for me. I like stories to take a breather. I get to set my own pace. I get to enjoy the fights, look at the art, really take notice of the mobs. Not in GW2. I'm seriously constantly running out of dodges, skills / healing on cooldowns, and shaking my head at the totally inept companions.

With the Warden, I didn't even know she was taking on the forms of the 6 deities until like 3/4ths into her health bar b/c she wouldn't stop running around. I saw Lyssa, but I had assumed that was just her mesmer thing. Seriously, just slow down their skills and let me enjoy it. If I wanted a challenge, I'd go into a raid or fractal.

I made this suggestion back in my HoT review, and I'm going to make it here; Stop making PvE story bosses hard. I'm currently sitting in the active fight with Scruffy 2.0, dead, having died at least a dozens times, and I honestly just want to throw my hands up. The point where you frustrate your player to quitting is bad game design. I understand, as game developers, you want to make the fight epic - oh no! Taimi suffocating! I care and have to hurry, but I have massive amounts of projectiles, burning, aoe's, and a completely incompetent NPC that DOES NOT use his reflect as he should... that means I don't care about Taimi, I just want to get out of the fight.

So here are some suggestions:

* Lower the Bosses HP pool: The boss fight is taking way too long, and it is not enjoyable, take down the HP

* Stop with the rapid fire AoE's AND projectiles: Slow down on the boss's attack

* Relax on the complicated moves: This isn't a raid, it's a story boss, being solo'd, there's no need to make so difficult

* Program a better companion: In every fight I did during LS4 (Sunspears, Corsairs, the rag tag team, Braham) they stopped attacking and just stood there.. seriously during the inquest swarm they all just stood there

I know the automatic response from the forum goers will be "get better," sure, I'm willing to do that, I've tried doing that, but ANet keeps making their story bosses more and more difficult. This isn't fun anymore. Please chill out on the difficulty of the story bosses.

@mulzi.8273

Thanks so much for the build link and tips! I definitely want to do some testing between a purely core pet ranger and the weird build that I've mangled together. Do you happen to have any links to a pet build with beast mastery?

[EDIT] http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8XnUqAtCilsAWsActgh8gaDgCYt9if5b+PES3pukvFG

After messing around with the traits, I think this build edges out as being more effective than the soulbeast build. I don't know how effective this build is longterm, but things die a little too quickly for me to see how the build works while waiting on cooldowns. So, might gain with axes and quickening zephyr. I definitely think I could utilize the little nature 'spirits,' but I don't really see how without just adding extra weight.