HotDelirium.7984

I think the general point is important story elements (the backbone for GW2) should not be locked behind the intense commitment of raids. I think ATM they have it backward with the current Strike Missions vs Raids. The Strikes should be what the raid bosses are and each raid itself could have been instead a LW episode. My rationale is the stories within each raid are actually pretty significant and non-raiders are missing what I gather is the equivalent of the loss of an episode per raid. The inner workings of the white mantle and those they killed, the inner workings of the Mystic Forge, the true nature of Djinn, and the new developments in the underworld are not plot points to shrug off. The second we say "sTorYmOdE RaiDs" all raiders bristle up because they think we want to force all content to be super easy and boring and that assumption is false. I want hard/challenging content for you if that's what YOU want. What we actually mean is the equivalent of what fractals do (the 4 tiers) when it came to these raids. I honestly have no idea why they jumped from fractals to raids with a completely different model when this game has had this air and energy for "casual gaming." SO to summarize IMO:-Raids should be what fractals are in their 4 leveled difficulty (tier 1 being the equivalent to a storymode)-Strikes should be what raids are in their difficulty and they're easy of access. Quick difficult content, hardly any story to trudge through. Win-Win.

The number one reason I have ever heard people quit in any and all industries is- management/those in charge/bosses/execs. GW2 is starting to show its age too.

There's no if; Mike Z. works at Amazon now. And, of course, Mike O'B. works at ManaWorks, his own company. (They've hired 3 more people, now up to 9.) The same Amazon that treats its merchants like poo, won't pay anything in taxes ever and stopped paying their workers for Hazzard pay during Covid-19? Super classy business to work for.

IF Mike Z did leave maybe they were hush hush about it because Icrbrood saga was going to be released and decimating the morale just before that release might have been another nail in the energetic coffin so they wanted to avoid it. That is understandable but for someone to work that long at ANET and just bounce without anything is a little disappointing. Maybe he can't say anything due to NDA's but that makes it sound like it wasn't amicable. When I say the word leadership and effective management ANET would not be on the top of that list and that saddens me. Maybe this is why we are getting expansions but some communication from them would be lovely.

What people want is a better buildup to these stories. When you kill zhaitan you see the whole world being corrupted and you slowly defeat his armies and his servants step by step. Now its just, this new guy bad-> 5 min later dead -> repeat. I dont know. Have some NPC dialogues that are interesting and make you engaged in the story without them being shoved into your face but that you can discover on your own. Like have some stolen jewelry found in Cannachs house that some NPC in X map was missing. Add hidden easter eggs and stuff. Sadly anet never listens to their comunity except when it comes to the gemstore, which is the most difficult content in the game atm. I sense a bit of mismanagement and disorganization. After the layoffs I'm sure they were in a bit of a tailspin trying to figure out their new normal. I always had my reservations about them having different content teams and how inconsistent the quality sometimes is. Whoever did the content for Grothamar IMO should do ALL map and LW content. There was the perfect amount of story, replayability etc etc. We even got this magazine release just before it and those 3 stories before dragonfall. if its an MMO treart it like an MMO and constantly give us more. Where IS Canach and why did Laranthir go on a hiatus. Is the pale Tree officially recovered by now (after Knight of Thorns side story). That brings me to Side Stories- we NEED more of those instead of just quick AP. I rarely see people do those Kralk portal events anymore. It was fun for a time...but like....give us ANOTHER one or a different one, something. This also might just be that weird interim between trying to shell out some content while they work on the expansion. I have NO doubt that the expansion will make or break this game. We BETTER be getting new elites is all I'm saying ;).

I will say that I do wish it was stressed more IN-GAME that the difficulty of bossess/instances is on this general level determined by ARENANET with considerations such as (allegedly) having ascended weapons, armor and accessories as well as having food buffs, utility buffs and traits that synergize well. They have this reasonable expectation that players are adhering to this to lower the difficulty of encounters and I am perfectly ok with that; its just not talked about IN-GAME that well or at all. You certainly have the freedom to not have buffs, ascended gear or relevant traits but I do hope they stress somewhere, anywhere, in the game that your play experience will be much better, survivable, and viable if you check off all those boxes.

Since ANET has said the point of the strike missions is to lead to raids....they need to keep up with that theme. The Cold War strike reminded me of the dragonbash holo instance. If they want to give us different flavor strikes that's good but always add raid mechanics MAYBE even from the current raid i.e. the Vale Guardian fight is the Shiverpeak boss etc etc. I played Cold War today and I guess they added new abilities because their ice powers are different and deadlier now (ice fields, ice reflects and blizzards).

I totally agree with disappointment on these two issues. I think it would be naive to believe that Smodur from the personal story wasn't capable of the kinds of things he's doing now, but I feel the writing has bent over backwards to portray him as off the rails and just as dangerous to the charr as Bangar. I really don't think that characterization of Smodur is going to work. I really, really, REALLY hope the character assassination of Smodur isn't happening primarily to pave the way for Cre to be the new leader of the charr in these most woke of times, but... I wouldn't put it past ANet to pull something like that. I like Cre, I think she deserves the imperator spot she has, and maybe she even deserves to be commanding instead of Smodur (a magic using charr who doesn't directly carry the Flame Legion stigma may have a lot to bring to the table to move the entire group forward). However, give us a more compelling path to that outcome other than "hurr Smodur bad now", which is what I feel we're getting so far. Also, the neutering of the charr is something that also rubbed me the wrong way. I fully acknowledge that this is a battle for the survival of the charr, but NOT because it's merely a larger scale civil war! IMO the threat to the survival of the charr comes Bangar selling out a large swath of his people to Jormag in a bid for the dragon's power. Even that's a stretch - the Sons of Svanir exist, yet the norn as a people survived their turning. I just assume (because we don't seem to have been told outright) that the Dominion's share of the charr is large enough that all of them turning icebrood is somehow an existential threat to the charr as a whole. I'm over wondering where the Norn are in all of this? Jora is here trying to lead the Vigil now but what about all the Norn leaders? This is turning into more Charr stuff than Norn so I hope we get more of them, their leaders and concerns so maybe they can lend a hand? Some random seraph and mesmer portals aren't going to cut it.

I was a bit confused about the timeline because we go from them trudging in the snow and trying to assemble a Charr army to go handle Jormag, we deal with Drakkar and then now we have Frost Legion, corrupted Minister of morale, Charr are infused with essence and steel warband is now dead. I almost feel we missed an episode.

It felt like they drop essences just for the sake of dropping essences, doesn't actually have a point to it. Also the RGB skin colour Charrs make them appears "cheap", if that's the right way to put it. I also agree with OP that after playing on that map for 2 days, the essences system is pretty much non-existence to me more so than ever. There really should not be a timer at all once you gathered until you leave the map, full stack or not. Not to mention firing it at any mob is like almost never succeeded like how Tyncale described.... I was in the hope of new patch would bring essence autoloot but I was wrong. Otherwise it's very distracting to the actual fight for something that don't even function or I die/contribute less, so I might aswell just ignore it. P/s: I like the new map & its events, just not the essesces system. I like that! Essence auto loot! Next mastery! I'm glad the new models aren't translucent RGB like the other creatures. They never said they were of ethereal/ghostly origin besides aberant being an evil doppleganger half so they really should be more solid. Its hard to fully see them.

How would we win when we can't kill Jormag without destroying the world? That juicy LORE people forgot about. ;) We can't kill Jormag, Primordus or Bubbles without Aurene being present to absorb, balance and relay it. We could also kill Jormag (Aurene handles the energy part) and then the "mother" and other forces at play they have hinted at descend on Tyria whatever those things are. As far as we know, Aurene can't do the work of multiple dragons. No one has claimed such. She is a suitable (and stable) replacement for Kralkatorric, but that is as far as we can rely on her.I am sure they will address that in future releases because its not clear if Aurene is the one solution. Glint's plan has suggested that this might be the case because if we can't kill any more elder dragons how do then plot-wise deal with the others? Enslave/Diminish/Knock out etc?

I'm new to the forums :3 Welcome! In case you didn't know yet, there is a search function. Type in Tengu and I'm sure you'll find several threads that might interest you. :)Is there a preference in the forums to consolidate topics in threads that already exist and to search first if someone already brought up a topic? Just add your idea to theirs?

I'm new to the forums :3

Is the boss combination random? I've had different bosses and I guess its lowkey a dps check when it comes down to how many bosses you can kill before the last boss? I'm still waiting on the icey elbow drop!!! I have no doubt (like they did with Boneskinner) that they will tighten up the mechanics.

How would we win when we can't kill Jormag without destroying the world? That juicy LORE people forgot about. ;) We can't kill Jormag, Primordus or Bubbles without Aurene being present to absorb, balance and relay it. We could also kill Jormag (Aurene handles the energy part) and then the "mother" and other forces at play they have hinted at descend on Tyria whatever those things are.

I agree a longer timer is much more desirable since I have to go out and aquire the stacks manually, with tons of time in between fights possibly. The essence system would be much less of a bother if it refined some. I do it, even though I feel like it seems weird, to go into strikes solo and acquire the stacks from the pylons then leave. It rotates so sometimes you can get two different ones. But why do I HAVE to do that? Additionally, I wonder why Charr on the new map have essence?

"I only want to play with the cool kids" is why raids were abandoned by the developers. Raid's, like dungeons, will have its moment as experimental development and then we will move on just like we are doing with fractals. We might only get a few more of those and then the new development idea will spawn. Those are visions of the past instances and strike missions. Why build content that only a few % of the population plays when you have the rest of your population left in waiting? Each raid itself could have EASILY been a story step in the Living World (with modified mechanics of course). That is what hurts me because I would have loved to experience it in the LW.

I concur. I assume they will optimize it in the near future (like they did with Drakkar) because its not clear if we kill them all in a certain order or what to do exactly. I see shields, and portals, helo's blasting us, their picking eachother up, you got me in here pressing all these crazy buttons no YOU can have a coke lol. WHAT is going on?!

Why should they try this map in particular? The siege weapons from WvW do not transform this PvE-map into some form of WvW. The map is still pure PvE. Yes but the siege weapons are similar. It may get some wvw to dabble a bit more into story. On the flip side it could get some PvE players to explore wvw or its training grounds eotm. I haven't really gotten far into this but found myself doing what I first did in wvw running supply and following tags. couldn't do a whole lot but I could at least run supply or take supply Yaks at level 30 something and felt I was making a contribution in wvw.. I actually leveled up one character from 7 to 49 almost purely on wvw. Now only level 80s can play wvw so forcing everyone to play PvE til level 80, Is PvP that way as well now. have to have a level 80 to play PvP? The implementation of the siege weapons does not seem particularly effective beyond just breaching the door since you have to manually operate them. I've tried to manually operate one at any other time and I just get slaughtered by the enemies. Some automation would be lovely.

Only they know their plans of course, so they already know if were going to get playable tengu or not. In game design, I doubt they would restrict themselves to boldly claim that since they made the tengu combat tonic they can NEVER be a playable race. That'd be pretty silly. However, I think it would be a slap in the face to the fans if the Cantha expansion releases, and we STILL don't have them as a playable race and no combat tonic.

With the sheer amount of people requesting playable Tengu over the years, I think it would be a good compromise to give people a Tengu combat tonic. We have some in the game already and I've enjoyed them even though I think they should have the ability to mount included. This request is only if they never become a playable race in any capacity. I will say that giving us just one generic Tengu Combat Tonic probably won't suffice so maybe variations based on the core 9 professions aesthetically. Thoughts?

After this last release "No Quarter" is the consensus....