thequeenofbees.4250

Story: Was great! I'm 100% ready to murder Joko over and over again. The Koss fight did feel way easier than any of the other bosses which was weird since he was described as so deadly. I'm also really happy to see Braham and Rox back! Taimi's voice actress did a great job in the final instance and there was a great tone of urgency but I almost wonder if it was a bit too much since I did get my anxiety triggered pretty badly by hearing her be so desperate in my ear (and I know the internet seems convinced that when people will mental illnesses talk about triggers they just mean they were offended or kind of uncomfortable, but that's not what it means; this actually did cause a flare up in my anxiety symptoms and while it wasn't super bad for me I know it was worse for some others. Trust me, I've been in therapy for half a decade now, I know what I'm talking about here ;) )Open World: I liked it a lot! I think the library in particular is a really great heart and I had a lot of fun reading all of the books. I love that kind of extra flavor stuff. The meta events are also quite fun and I've found them to be challenging! I like the branded meteorite encounter as well, though it did take me a while to figure out how it actually worked.I also think that @"Seth Moonshadow.2710" 's suggestion above about a library would be really helpful! I would love a place to keep all of my lore books. If I were in charge of implementing something like that I'd add a bookshelf to home instances that you can interact with, and if you have a completed book or other readable item in your inventory, there is an option to "place [the book] on the bookshelf." This would permanently remove the book from your inventory, but you could also choose to "browse your collection" by interacting with the shelf, which would open up a window where you could see all of the books that you've deposited and read them. Another way that might be cool would be for the hypothetical shelf to work like a container, except you can only put books in it. Maybe you could start with some room and more would be purchasable through the gem store for those who really enjoy collecting? I dunno, but I think it would be a cool thing.

I honestly think a lot of the problems people have with the system would be changed if it was possible to sell the skins you got on the trading post. I am not at all a fan of rng systems like this and the fact that there's only a 1 in 30 chance to actually get any given skin is so so frustrating. From the reaction to this feature it's clear that a lot of the community agree with me on this. In a perfect world I would love a system where you could just buy individual skins in the gem store, and I would be willing to pay a higher price, even potentially around 1000 gems for a skin that I really like. But, considering this system has already been added I honestly think it would be a good idea to just add the ability to trade the skins on the trading post from here on out. I think that would be a good compromise that would keep the main part of the system intact while still giving people who might only want a couple of the skins the ability to get them for a marked up price from the trading post.

I'm disappointed in this decision and I also honestly would pay more per skin if I could actually pick the skin I wanted. Having it work this way just feels exploitative and it's very frustrating to have such small odds of getting any individual skin. From a business perspective it makes sense, but from the side of the consumer it just breeds ill will in a lot of us, and I'm honestly less likely to spend money on a company that I feel is treating me in an exploitative way.

I see no problem with having skins available for purchase on the gem store. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to give players the opportunity to spend real money on the game. However, I am very much against the loot box system. From a consumer standpoint, it's very annoying and makes me much less interested in spending real money on the game. If it was possible to choose the skin you get I would even be willing to pay more per skin (around 600g maybe), but as it stands I am very much not a fan of this particular gambling system. I get that it's a source of revenue for anet but charging 400g for a 1 in 30 chance at getting the skin you want leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall I really enjoyed the expansion. I thought the story was very good and some of the new tech involved in telling the story was very cool, like having things happen in gameplay that normally would be relegated to cutscenes. I do think that Balthazar's characterization was the weakest part, because he seemed very one note, but everything else was pretty outstanding in my opinion and I'm looking forward to future story updates.The mounts are great and pve is great. I do think it would be neat to have maybe one map with a map-wide meta event, but that's just because I personally enjoy that kind of content, and I do like the smaller meta events that are there. Other than that though I think the difficulty of the enemies in pve is at a good level, and the same goes for the story instances (except the eater of souls but you already nerfed that!)I'm not well versed in balance so I can't really comment on that, but I can say that I am really enjoying playing soulbeast, and I have found dagger gameplay on that to be very fun. I'm not fussed at all about the lack of raid content, fractal content, pvp content, or wvw content, because those aren't handled by the team that did pof so I don't think it's reasonable to expect those things to be packaged with pof. Plus, we just got a new fractal with one path ends.

This is Bettyn, she's small and stabby and I love her a lot