Psientist.6437

There is also an option for the content guide to turn off previously completed hearts. Makes map completion a little easier.

They just mean you can mix exotic and legendary of the same item and you still get the bonus. The one exotic was an example, not a rule Making it possible to get one Legendary upgrade at a time and use that Legendary. Thank you. That makes Ascended upgrades unlikely.

Not very interesting. They definitely have value, especially in the context of saving and loading builds. Maybe they couldn't do anything more interesting. There are so many Legendary effects from other sources and increasing stats may have been a hard sell. I would be ok with Ascendeded upgrades with a small stat increase and free removal. The requirement for one exotic seems unnecessary and confusing. What does it add? Or am I reading the description wrong?

In the context of the expression, "May you live in interesting times": the process of raising a skyscale qualifies as interesting times. Playing catch was plain fun.Hide and seek was fun but perhaps could use a more unique hint. Chirps from the dragon before there is a minimap hint.It proved there is a lot of room in any zone for layered scavenger hunts. There are more than enough scavenger hunts to prove this.I become a different person doing jumping puzzles. Every kitten becomes a bag of kittens and I am knee deep in kittens. The studio gives me a way to remain myself. The food item is a brilliant example of using the market place as a way to provide player autonomy. I could argue that jumping puzzles are valleys meant to hold kittens but there are too many people good at them for that to be true. I never had to use the food item. I would have gladly but whenever I was ready another Tyrian helped.The time gating did not impact my play schedule but I can understand the frustration if it did. I wouldn't change the time gating though. Flyng around, I am surprised by how much available space there is in some zones. There are many remote nooks where the skyscale species could be shown living.

I think one of the reasons Joko's speech is so popular is because he is projecting beyond the fourth wall. He is talking directly to the Commander, the Tyrian PC narrator and the meta of PC narration in mmo's.

"a lot of great analysis" Thank you for the post, I agree with most of it, especially the first paragraph. I would add to that paragraph that the one thing that didn't work, Aurene's resurrection, was written during a heart breaking event for the studio. It is difficult to recommend a different approach to her resurrection without knowing what they intended with her death. Her death and journey through the dragon afterlife may end up being an important plot point. Something obviously happened, she is not the same dragon. If so, then they couldn't have had the PC accompany her without giving significant information about future plot. If their only intent was showing the NPCs dealing with the prospect of her death, then Imo, it didn't need to happen or we needed to see a much broader range of reactions that included all the stages of grief with some NPCs still working the problem. They would have also needed to take the PC narrator more seriously, we weren't going to buy Aurene's death as the death of Tyria and we would project that disbelief onto the NPC characters. Unless they were shown to be acting realistically and with great dimension, they would instead appear extra incompetent and one dimensional. Which is what happened. I would have used the requiems to reinforce the mystery of Schrodinger's dragon. Have some characters believe she can be saved, remove the branding and the spike but not get any reaction. Some characters could struggle to decipher inconclusive readings from the Asuran magitech. There are many approaches but the overall intent would be to ressonate with the PC narrator's disbelief and not force it into submission. Open the next episode with Caithe and the Commander beside Aurene. Caithe is forcing the bond to reignite, bargaining with fate, offering herself in exchange for Aurene. Using a combination of Joko's magic and her bond with Caithe as an anchor, Aurene resurrects. Aurene doesn't understand her power of resurrection and draws too much life force from Caithe, converting her entirely into crystal. Caithe could stay in this form until the end of the episode. Aurene would return to her after defeating Kralk and with her new abilities, return Caithe to normal. If the crystalization happened slowly enough, Aurene could recover enough to implore the Commander to use their dragon magic to sever the bond, leaving Caithe incapacitated but with only crystal blooms.

The skyscale brought me back as a regular player. It is so much fun to fly and see Tyria from a new perspective. I keep starting something on my to do list but end up flying around re-discovering instead. I take back any snide comments I made about mounts!

Well, that is mildly embarrassing. Apparently I mixed my logical fallacies. I had read "begging the question" to mean dodging or leaving unanswered, which somewhat fit in the flow of your argument/discussion. After you looked it up, so did I, something I should have done in the first place. My apologies. I know better. I hope I am not dodging any questions, I am genuinely trying not to. I admit I put pressure on Illconceived and not just his premise. I want a respected forum contributor to propagate the obvious reason for soul binding 24 and 28 slot bags and not some convoluted theory about bags as Legendaries. I can't participate in the masochism that frequently emerges from fandom, the sentiment so well described in the post directly above yours. Applying spurs while whale riding isn't sinister. In the context of fandom, it is dishonorable. In the context of data mining revealed preference it is noise.

Which begs the question: What does the studio gain by soul binding 24 and 28 slot bags? I could grudgingly accept account binding 32 slot bags as a way to provide individual players with a sense of accomplishment. At this point your question which you say has been begged cannot be answered anybody in the community apart from speculation. @Illconceived Was Na.9781 has been very clear that they are not defending Anet's position, simply restating here what has been stated elsewhere. If you desire that @Illconceived Was Na.9781 speculate on what Anet thinks to gain, then perhaps you ought to stay that straight up. Saying "that begs the question" implies that you believe the answer given in the quoted post to be the offender in begging the question when in fact your question as restated is flawed because it is directed at a recipient unable to answer that on behalf of Anet. No. Na offered speculation, an interpretation of what the studio said. They did not restate anything. I asked them to clarify their interpretation and they wisely decided to abandon their premise. Their premise was flimsy and worse, could erode the ability to understand the studio's intent with soul binding 24 and 28 slot bags. I understand being a fan of the game, the studio and apparently Na can make it uncomfortable to face evidence that the object of our affection has flaws. I prefer to face those flaws and at least describe them accurately. Of course my description will include some speculation but it doesn't require the studio to be incompetent or depend on a convoluted scenario derived from an interpretation of the word precursor. My description only requires the studio be willing to apply spurs when riding whales. I looked up the term "begs the question", thank you for challenging my usage. I had no idea it had so many usages. I was using the vernacular understanding of the term, that one thing raises the question of another. I don't see any definition of the term that matches the definition you are attempting to propagate.

Which begs the question: What does the studio gain by soul binding 24 and 28 slot bags? I could grudgingly accept account binding 32 slot bags as a way to provide individual players with a sense of accomplishment. They don't need to have anything to gain from it. They could have simply failed to consider all the issues associated with doing so. Maybe they were following some old design docs which makes all masterwork and higher things soulbound on use.I can't take those ideas seriously. No personal offense intended and hopefully none realized. I don't think it is fair to the studio to assume such low competency.

Which begs the question: What does the studio gain by soul binding 24 and 28 slot bags? I could grudgingly accept account binding 32 slot bags as a way to provide individual players with a sense of accomplishment.

Making skyscales perma-fliers would not significantly increase our ability to skip over content. We would just lose the challenge of finding roofs and terrain to hop off, which, imo, makes skyscales more fun to fly. Skyscales are so much fun to fly, don't spoil the little challenge of flying them.

Accordingly, I accept that this is the mechanic in the game: that it's not worth it to me to craft 24- or 28-slot bags. To be accurate, you are offering your interpretation of the studio's explanation. An interpretation that doesn't accurately represent their explanation. The allusion to Legendary weapons is your own. Why do you think your interpratation is valid? A player can avoid the mini crisis caused by soul binding 24 and 28. You have offered advice describing how. Soul binding clearly accomplishes something. It penalizes players who don't complete the journey to 32 slot bags. It creates the mini crisis that so many players have described. Do you think it is valid to assume this was the studio's intent? I don't know if the studio will change anything and I am willing to not invest in bags above 20 slots. I am not willing to let the studio hide their intentions.

Would you expand on the bold? Are you implying that soul binding 24 and 28 slot bags exists because the studio sees 32 slot bags as equivalents to Legendary gear? I would interpret the studio's use of the term precursor to mean that they see 24 and 28 as temporary stops on the way to 32. If so, then the studio uses soul binding to penalize those players who don't want to complete the journey. Since soul binding will have to create the mini crisis of sunk cost fallacy being experienced by the OP, then we must assume that is the studio's intent. Please offer me anything else that you think soul binding accomplishes. If we can tell the OP that they could have avoided soul-binding and this mini crisis of sunk cost then we should be willing to accurately explain why soul binding exists.

There are ways to avoid this particular example of the studio's shallow and arbitrary approach to creating market activity and acute demand for gold, but it sure would be nice if their approach didn't have to be shallow and arbitrary. I would describe this example as econ-bro, edge lord approach; bait a trap and hope a player approaches. I can not think of anything soul binding the intermediate bags does besides create economic activity and acute demand for gold. If it did, we would see it.

It continued to track Kralkatorrik, but a sensor does nothing when nobody is looking at it. Caithe's judgement may or may not be solid all the time, but the core group immediately notice the magical adornments on her body that literally came from Aurene fade away, as Caithe mentions that Aurene is gone. It's a noted point, especially in the intro of War Eternal, that pretty much everybody in the Pact, knowing Aurene was the key to victory and without her there would be no defeating of Kralk without destroying the world, had sat back and decided to camp about and clean up the area/rest and heal. The Requiems establish Rytlock, Zafirah, and Caithe all accepting that the world could end soon, and at that point they had no way to stop it. Surely you've seen the cases were a grieving person has to literally be dragged away from the corpse of a loved one. Who wants to be the person to literally wrestle the commander away? Also, some could have thought the branded crystals impaling Aurene had partially branded and fused to her, which means breaking those crystals could break apart her. I'm unsure what you mean by that, but if it's about Joko I'd point out people could've easily assumed Aurene's devouring of the Lich simply severed his magical link to an artifact keeping him alive. Aurene first absorbed magic from Mordremoth, but showed little use of those abilities. She's only shown foresight, breathing fire, and much later after absorbing more magic, "branding" If you look at her body, the crystals on her body are totally purple, like brand crystals, and her body has turned almost stone-like in coloration. Infact, the one crystal Caithe pulls out is the loose crystal in her side, which causes the magic to surge and the commander's connection to reform, allowing the commander (with Zephyrite help) to smash all the other crystals. To be perhaps a bit too much, you don't hold a funeral the day of somebody's death. Even tragedies IRL you have funeral preperations done at a later time. The difference is that Aurene's body isn't going to rot, and isn't going to move. Relief efforts could focus on saving living people throughout the tunnels, and taking out branded still there. You liked the scenario and found it convincing. I did not. Objectively, though, the scenario depended on a lot of just-so coincidences, a fragile foundation for so much emotion. Imho, resolving all that emotion with a coy joke verges on gross. I have a no pressure question for you. If the Earth were going to be destroyed, would you need to be 100% certain of your plan to save the Earth to attempt your plan? At what percentage of certainty would you give up and do nothing?

It's definitely wider than that. Keep in mind that the distances we see in-game are not to scale for lore, by a long way. And skill measurements are also off. Some dungeons, such as Caudecus' Manor and Crucible of Eternity, are probably closer to scale towards lore than most open world maps; the latter is large enough when comparing map sizes with centralizing the two points, to cover the entirety of Nonmoa Lake in Timberline Falls. I was basing it off this which appears to say 12.4 miles https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/API:Maps#Trivia Ascalon alone is many miles to get from Ebonhawke to Ascalon - we get a pretty decent feel of distances and scale in Ghosts of Ascalon. I would expect 14 miles to cover maybe 1-2 zones, although in theory zones will probably vary wildly without necs accurately representing it in game. Whatever the wiki/API is referring to, I'd disregard it for actual lore size Well going strictly by lore will prove difficult as I don’t think any numbers were given and the closest we have would be travel times given in the books. Indeed. It would be interesting to find out the Devs have an internal scale for the entire playable area. I'd be surprised if they didn't to be honest. Someone post waffle pictures - see if it summons a lore dev...If the studio were using a standard scale we would see evidence of it in the design of zones. It would be impossible to convert a naturally shaped zone into a rectangle and use a standardized scale. Who would we include in the term population? It seems to me that the term population is related to sapience and that we would have to include the non-playable races such as the Skritt and Centaur. If so, the population of Tyria could easily be in the billions. I would approach the math by estimating the population of the largest race (likely humans) and then comparing the other races to that largest race, then add them together.

A: Joko bounced back up near-instantly, Aurene did not.B: Nobody knew if Joko had an artifact keeping him alive somewhere or the magic was within himself. Most people saw and reacted to Aurene eating a mummy, not going "Aha, she's consuming his magic and gaining it!"C: Emotions. When people get very emotional, they may not think rationally. The commander an Aurene both saw her not moving, appearing dead, and Caithe's crystal blooms that came from a connection to Aurene fade away. Caithe couldn't hear Aurene or feel her emotions/thoughts anymore. If the person who literally is hearing the thoughts of Aurene and has an intense connection with the dragon goes "she's gone" are you going to go "NOPE, SHE ALIVE CAUSE JOKO." I think these are nonsense answers based on the tricks the writers used to sell the scenario to players. The tricks only work if we assume Tyrians know as little about their world as we do, as though they are just visiting as well. Which is ridiculous. Within the first five minutes the Commander or someone else would be looking for any witnesses to what happened. Did anyone see Aurene's magic leave her body? Did any Asuran devices pick up her magic leaving her body. Was there any sign of her magic reaching the other Elder Dragons? There would be plenty of devices and people watching them. How do soldiers react to the death of their comrades? They get very emotional but they never leave corpses impaled on spikes for days. Tyrians would have had Aurene back alive within minutes. They wouldn't need to prove to themselves that Joko's magic lived on in her, they would have hoped and acted. How are they nonsense answers? Again, literally nobody knew how Joko kept himself immortal. Hell even Turai Ossa resorted to literally shoving the lich under a boulder and sealing it up. As for the other part, We read in Rytlock's requiem that Caithe and the Commander basically sat next to Aurene after the battle and didn't move much at all. The commander eventually left and was wandering Lion's Arch when Caithe called them. We know it was a span of several days. There was no Witnesses, as literally everybody around during the final blast was a fair bit above that level, and the closest ballista setup was totally branded with most everybody there dead, trapped, or wounded. People got down to Aurene as the commander stumbled out of where they got blasted through a cave wall. So nobody would've seen the magic (Note, when Kralk died and Aurene absorbed his magic there was no explosion because she was right there. They could've assumed Kralk instantly devoured the magic.) leave because everybody had been a fair distance away from Aurene and Kralk's mouth was literally a throw away from her. Asura devices may have picked it up, but I highly doubt anybody was actively keeping an eye on their scanners when they saw Kralk suddenly rear up and roar. Assuming Gorrik and Taimi were in the forge area itself (reasonable as it's where a bunch of Asura tech had already been setup), I assume they probably evacuated before the final blast happened, or when Kralk started branding that section of the cave with the last ballista set, and commander attacking his eye. As far as we know, Gorrik and Taimi (the two experts on this stuff) were the ones watching the devices, and rushed down. With Kralk instantly retreating to the mists to feed and escape, they could've seen a spike/raise in his magic and assumed it was Aurene. Cause you know, The person who was mentally linked to Aurene was shown losing her crystal flowers (from Aurene) and completely unable to hear the thoughts of the dragon, saying "She's gone." And soldiers do try to bury their dead, yes. But I'm pretty sure everybody backed off from the Commander and Caithe in their grieving, and/or focused on cleanup, search and rescue, and burying the dead of the Pact. Aurene was far from the only death that happened during that battle. IIRC there is dialogue about how the Dredge dug Almorra out of the rubble where she got completely buried. There is also the situation of while Aurene may have been dead and impaled, and the commander and Caithe sitting there, branded may have been active in Thunderhead Keep and it's tunnels around. "They wouldn't need to prove that Joko's magic lived in her, they would've hoped and acted." Again, we saw Joko bounce back up instantly, actively triggering a trap as he was still stuck on the ground. Caithe, who was again, directly linked to Aurene said she was gone. Who would try to challenge the two people who had a mental link to Aurene and go "No, She must be alive because she ate Joko!" As Konig said... > @Konig Des Todes.2086 said: Another reason to find ^ improbable, from an in-universe showing. The Awoken showed zero link to Aurene, and She showed zero connection to them. She did nothing concerning undead (She only appeared to use some visions, and breathed fire as abilities are concerned). So, viewing it entirely from the eyes of the pact and people of Tyria, they had little reason to think she had gained anything from devouring Joko beyond an upset stomach, but had destroyed whatever kept Joko immortal.I am at once sorry for calling your ideas nonsense and willing to call these new ones flimsy.Asuran magitech goes from being able to track dragon energy and general competence to being incompetent.Caithe proves her poor judgement but everyone is convinced by a bond that has only existed for an hour.The world is ending but everyone respects Caithe and the Commander as they cover Aurene defiled corpse with tears and snot for days.Tyrian history describes the constant evolution of magi-physiology but everyone has the same rigid approach to magi-physiology offered by Konig.They forget that, with Aurene, they have been building a new magi-physiology and faced with the destruction of the world aren't willing to gamble. The only thing they would have to wager is paying the least amount of respect to her body. You are right, the studio can build a scenario with flimsy coincidences that require infantalising every character.

Caithe and her blossoms organize a rebuilding effort, employing Tyrians of all races and trades. This is used to introduce player housing. Aurene releases her white paper on the flow of magic. Using the analogy of Tyrian magic as real world finance: Elder dragons are the equivalent of "too big to fail", corruptible banks. Her white paper proposes an alternative where the flow of magic is maintained on a public ledger, all Tyrians would play a part in maintaining the flow of magic and the integrity of the All. Jormag and Primordius are on board with her proposal but the DSD says nope and tries to drown the world. The DSD rises from the depths lowering sea level and exposing new land. The Commander, Jormag and Primordius stand shoulder to wing and face the DSD on a soggy battlefield. A cape glider skin is released because....wait I forgot this can be baseless.

She herself I don't have an issue with. I understand the character that does what is necessary. It was that she committed such actions that tarnished the Word and Honor of the Character without an option to call out on it. Now I understand that won't be a problem for most players. Probably mostly RP based ones would, and even then for those that care about such things. If I get the chance to play through LS2 myself, then I will be interested in seeing how she behaves and if she has changed at all. Also random aside, did Faolain ever resolve or is she still out in the world somewhere? Do you really want an answer to that? I understand what you are saying and you should get used to it. The Commander is often very passive, without agency.

This is incorrect. You can only purchase map currencies once per week, with the vendor resetting at the weekly server reset on Monday. The most the OP could get would be 2 weeks worth or 100 map currencies each. If they haven't done any festival dailies and don't want to buy Jorbreakers from the TP they can get a maximum of 50 each before the end of the festival. Still worth it.

you want her to do what it is advised to young women today so they become single post 30 years old women staying alone with cats? not good advice. You've convinced me! Aurene and all woman should stay focused on childbirth and their men, I mean husbands. If Aurene has children, she better be married. Obviously, the Commander will give her away but if the player doesn't have a male character will they have to make a male character?

Have you been doing the Dragonbash daily? For every 5 completed dailies you get a chest that gives 5 Jorbreakers which can be traded in for the map currencies, 1 jorbreaker grants 50 currency. The dailies themselves are fairly easy.

I usually come back to the game when a LW episode is released and just do the story. The skyscale is the first thing in almost 2 years that has made me stick around. Some of the collections are tedious and I am terrible at jumping puzzles. The treats are an amazing way to integrate economic activity into the collection and represent genuine market relative player agency. I had the treats ready but never had to use them, whenever I encountered a puzzle where I was tempted to use one, there was a player offering ports. I was impressed by the number of mesmers I encountered who were leaving their characters at jumping puzzles just to help people. In general, I think the studio's approach to mounts is great. I got the roller beetle the other day and love it. I keep ending up in trees and halfway up cliffs but just don't care. With mounts, the studio nailed fun.

I had to look up wood hardness scales. I found this. I couldn't find a way to compare it to mineral hardness scales. The 2 scales use different methods that are hard to compare. The hardest material produced by plants is sporopollenin. It looks to have properties that would make it good for teeth.