GeraldBC.4927

I can see where you're coming from. I was tempted to suggest the exact reverse of this feature. Something that suggests squads in categories you haven't specifically opened, for people undecided on what to do and where to go at the time. Kind of like an all-tabs random-overworld section. Right now, you have to extend each expansion or season individually and then select the section within it before you see whether there's anything listed.

I wholeheartedly agree with all the changes listed. I never played holosmith before, but I'm looking forward to trying that. I'm also looking forward to trying quickness power harbinger. I already have a spare template and tried it out. It doesn't deal any damage, but I'm hopeful that the balance patch changes it.

The kind of people complaining it's 'too easy' and citing how long it took the world first guild (who got to practise the same bosses for months on the ptr) to beat them, like that somehow speaks to the experience of the average player, are not people who actually play the content they belittle so much. They only watch others do it on twitch. They specifically watch the world's top raiders do the content, the world's top raiders make the content look easy and that shapes the uninvolved viewer's impression of how difficult the mythic bosses are. Then, they take to the forums with that impression and claim it's too easy and that Blizzard should make the next tier or expansion harder, which they then do. "Noo its too easy you need to make it harder" is a meme complaint. It is entirely performative, a form of posturing and self-aggrandizement rather than an actual criticism. The path WoW has gone down should serve as a lesson that no matter how difficult you make your next tier, no matter how unforgiving you make the mechanics and enrage timers, no matter how many mechanics you stack on top of each other, no matter how much you randomize components to force people to organize on-the-fly (or rather wait for addon developers to automate it) it is never enough.

I'm happy with how the story turned out. No major twists, but that also means that some of the really stupid ones I was worried might happen were not a thing either. The weapons are a mixed bag. Some are good, some not so good. I think swords are fun conceptually but they need to be tuned way up so I can use them in fractal CMs without someone throwing a hissy fit. I have not touched obsidian armor and don't plan to for now. I am doing my weekly rifts, hoarding the essences and sometimes turning them into amalgamated essences just in case I change my mind. The new skins in the wizard's vault are good. I especially like that the new weapon skins seem hand-tailored for the astral ward look from astral armor and that wizard's cape.

I wholeheartedly agree with every point in the OP. I can't even add anything, he lays it out pretty well. When even snowcrows is biting its teeth out, I do not believe one second that this encounter was internally tested. There's no way anyone at Anet has actually beaten this boss, at least without either godmoding themselves or nerfing it for internal testing and then buffing it again for release. I will even give a few suggestions on what parts need nerfing specifically so that it becomes a CM you can actually reliably clear every week. Cerus' health pool needs to be cut in half. Remember that when designing a boss encounter, the more mechanics you force the players to play down, the more you need to reduce the boss' health to make up for it. The duration on the malice adds' cc immunity and resistance needs to be reduced to 15 seconds AT THE VERY MOST. I'd say take it further and make it 10 seconds. If you want, you can slam protection onto those temporary buffs to really hammer home the whole 'the add is hard to kill unless you carry it out far enough' aspect. But having to stand on the literal edge like you do right now is untenable. I'd say even requiring a 1200 distance is too much because you're basically forcing the squad to lean on the blink+portal crutch. The large gluttony orbs giving him 3 stacks is overblown, and the fact that at least 2 people need to soak each is weird as well. And the fact that they travel as fast as they do forces squads yet again to rely on mesmers. Cerus gaining a 5% damage increase PER STACK is too much. At this point, you might as well achieve the same result by not doing the damage increase and instead making him instanuke the squad the moment he reaches a certain threshold. I get that this mechanic is supposed to be a reference to Deimos, but Deimos only got a 1% increase per hand, and that's only if the hands actually reached him, which was easier to prevent than most of Cerus' mechanics are. The telegraph on the Envy attack is too short, especially when it's the add casting it. Also the attack doesn't quite line up with the telegraph. If you stand a little to the side of where it's supposed to start but opposite from where it travels, you still get hit by it.

I like them for the most part, but their damage is still pretty low compared to greatsword or the burst from staff, even more so if you compare them to the weapons other classes have. Reminder for the above: No, necro being stronger than npcs and sub-elite mobs is not good enough, the class actually needs to be on par with other playable classes like guardian, engineer, revenant, mesmer etc. Unless this can be achieved, you can't really call what the game has 'balance'. Also, I think some of the skills are way too sluggish, especially sword 4. There is no kittening way that cast time is 0.75 seconds, not even with quickness. This is a full 2 second cast and nothing will convince me otherwise. And yes, you CAN make the skills more responsive, I know you can because you succeeded in doing so with Sword 3. I'd like the sword skills to be as fluid as that. I'm looking forward to trying quickness power harbinger after the balance patch and hope the sword issues are ironed out a little better by then.

I agree with Liewec It's okay to have a weapon with really slow skills like necro greatsword. But if you make a weapon be really slow and clunky like that, the amount of damage those attacks deal better have some serious power to them. They better hit as hard as the animations would imply, and even in the reaper's post-buff state, they don't really do that.

Like I did with the original release of SotO, I will go into the new story chapters with an open mind and share my reception of the experience with others. You're really on a good track (or at least vastly better than before) with SotO and the first content release. I really hope it stays that way. I really hope you don't disappoint me. I expect to be entertained, not lectured.

It specifically says 'you may', so yes you can have multiple accounts. The rule forbids account sharing, not having alt accounts. I still wish that at least multiboxing wasn't allowed, so people stop leeching metas on 7-20 alt accounts at the same time. It's really annoying when you do DE and 20 people are just sitting on the airship the whole time.

It's probably an attempt to prevent brand poisoning, in case people decide to make offensive images with GW2 characters.

Either way, anything involving Southsun is a moot point, because it's so dead by nature that even the rerelease of S1 wouldn't dare touch it. Agree to disagree I guess. I think that development can progress way faster than you're willing to believe, at least if people actually sit down and work on it.

I wouldn't put much thought into that statement. Iirc a little over half a year before SotO's release, all there was to show for 'development' of it was a single sketch depicting some abstract black creatures. Far removed from the Kryptis models actually found in the game now. They had to make SotO pretty quickly as previous plans that they were better prepared for, were scrapped. The whole reason for the 3-month patch schedule is for Arenanet to keep themselves on their toes, because they have to be. They're developing each patch's content on the fly. Maybe they're more ahead now and in a better state in that regard with the fifth expansion, but there's only so much half a team can do in a few months. As a more obvious reminder: There is a reason why the new weapons, the main feature replacing especs in SotO, are only coming out next week as opposed to last year on release of the expansion. They weren't just sitting on the finished weapons and refusing to release them, they didn't release them because the new weapons' animations and skills didn't exist yet. They were only an idea at the time.

While SotO is progressing into its next content patch next week, the idea guys at Arenanet are probably debating what to make next. Expanding the compass on the map to feature 3 currently unused diagonal corners leaves you with 3 choices where to add something new. Whichever you go with, a good design choice would be to make it prominently feature enemies that drop totems. I will explain why. At this point, for many of the trophy types there are already rewarding map metas that you can focus on farming regularly if you are in need of trophies of that type. Need claws? Just go to Drizzlewood Coast, you're constantly killing Charr there, which drop claws. Need bones or fangs? Everything that has you facing off with Kryptis between Amnytas, Inner Nayos and rifts all over Tyria gives you tons of bones and fangs. Need dust? In Dragonfall, you frequently fight the branded, which drop dust. Need blood? The Blood Legion reward track in DWC has you covered. The only trophies that don't give you a map-meta option to focus farming them outside of just killing mobs oldschool, are scales, venom sacs and totems. Scales and venom sacs are for whatever reason pretty cheap, whereas totems always consistently keep a higher price. So my conclusion from the above, is that the best way forward from a game design perspective, would be something that involves a meta or other repeatable and rewarding content that features enemies that drop totems. In fact if we discount the blood legion reward track, we end up with 4 trophy types that don't have a meta that fills the niche for them: Blood, Venom Sacs, Totems and Scales. I personally see a trend between those: Hylek. Or something similar to them. The best instalment from this perspective would be something that involves going to war against some kind of amphibian or reptilian (scales) civilization, their culture and technology should be primitive and tribal (totems), and they should keep large, venomous pets (blood and venom sacs).

The question I'd like to ask is: Do they need to be 'future-proof'? The reason to get legendaries should be so you can flip them around willy-nilly, not to lock yourself out of playing the newest thing in the future. The latter seems rather anti-fun and if they're ditching that, I'd say good riddance. I was looking forward to grinding the new content to collect components and craft the legendary relic, but if it's true that we just get the legendary relic gifted for having legendary runes, then there's game mechanically no reason for me to do so. That's also the same reason why I don't mind power creep being locked behind new content, at least if getting there involves actually grinding the new content. Getting to share in the power creep is your reward for engaging with the new content.

Real subtle there, Arenanet.