[Map Nav Mesh problems (No Valid Path to Target)]

I don't know how much work the idea I'm about to propose would be compared to fixing all the nav mesh, but in my head it's more like painting the terrain with a broad brush rather than finding a needle in a haystack.

Would it be possible to put tags on sections of the nav mesh (for simplification, we'll just use A, B, and U). So when you attempt to shadowstep, instead of trying to find a path along the nav mesh, it'll look at the tags at the start and end location. So if you're standing on a piece of ground tagged "A" and attempt to shadowstep to a part of ground also tagged "A" it will automatically succeed and teleport you there more like how portal works (ignoring the actual path in between the two). If you try to shadowstep from a place tagged "A" to a place tagged "B" it will default to the current path finding mechanic, and if a successful path is found, it will shadowstep you. This second check would be due to stuff like the inside of keeps and tops of walls in WvW, and inside the lord area of foe fire in PvP needing to be tagged differently from the outside of them to prevent going through walls. This would narrow your hunt for broken nav mesh down to only where changes in the nav mesh tags occur.

Alternatively, instead of the current pathing check to see if a wall or gate is down, have a trigger that when a wall or gate is destroyed, it applies a universal beginning and end to a shadowstep in a 2k radius around the piece of terrain. So the way it would work then is if a wall is destroyed, in a 2k radius around it, the nav mesh would be tagged "A&U" on the outside of the keep and "B&U" on the inside. The "A to B" check would fail, but the "U to U" check would succeed, triggering a successful shadowstep.

I have no idea what your code looks like and how hard it would be to add a new script to do this check of shadowstep abilities, but it seems simpler than looking for all the wrinkles and disconnects in the mesh.

Edit: P.S. I will try to document problems when I find them though to help with your search.

[Let’s Talk About Marketing...]

@Dethh.4620 said:While I think the points in my post and feedback from everyone here still stands, I'd really like to see something with a cameo like World of Warcraft did with Chuck Norris, Mr.T, etc. It's proven to do well on TV/online in bringing in new players in a more viral form. It would be really interesting to see something like this for GW2. I can just imagine a Game of Thrones actor doing a cameo.

Can... Can we get Peter Dinklage to play an asura? Or Sean Bean to play a GS warrior? Gwendolyn Christie as a norn guardian?

[Let’s Talk About Marketing...]

@JustTrogdor.7892 said:Also aside from just cinematic show some actual game play. When I am shopping for games I see tons of epic cinematic views. That doesn't really show me how the game play looks though when I am in the game. So I then go to find player created videos that show what actual in game play looks like. I want to see what a fight looks like for real in game with all actual the in game graphics, effects etc. So maybe throw in a few seconds from an actual in game legendary bounty fight or something like that.

This is what I was thinking. Show a boss or big mob cinematic, then show a dodge from player perspective against a well telegraphed boss hit. Then another npc cinematic followed by a big flashy attack from a player perspective against a mob. You guys have a pretty slick combat system and I think you can showcase that and new content hand in hand. Focus on some PoF skills in particular and it might sell to new and returning players simultaneously. Mix up between solo, 5 player, and 10 player scenes to show off some different aspects too.

Edit: I guess another way to put it is I don't buy a game for cut scenes, I buy it for gameplay. Some games have awesome cutscenes/graphics and an alright story, but the gameplay is horrible. Use the gameplay/mechanics (I.e. 99% of what you're doing in the game) with a story hook at the beginning and end, then show how much fun it is to get there.

[Anet switched to higher ping Amazon servers since 2 weeks ago]

Maybe it's a difference in price, but doesn't Google run gaming servers out of Oklahoma(among other locations)? Wouldn't that have been a better choice for US coverage?

[Feedback: Official Path of Fire Feedback Thread]

Fight with Balthazar feedback:

Initially cool, but giant healthpool made it monotonous after about half health. Suggestions that might have prevented that and could be used for living story updates.

Reduce his health by 1/3. At first he doesn't take you seriously because he's killed you once. At half health he gets annoyed with you and summons 2 forged hounds of Balthazar or similar large ad (each with health at about 1/6 Balthazar's current health), unique in their types of attacks from each other (think flame and frost duo). After you kill the hounds, he comes back, angry, and fights like how he did at the end of the current fight with the AoE spam and the stun mechanics with Aurene kick in like the current fight as well.

General feedback:

Casually playing it, I enjoyed the game. Difficulty was somewhere in between HoT and Core, which seems about right. Without knowing what's to come, it seems you guys have left open the possibility of extremely hard open world content by having the option to open up the mouth of torment if the story goes there.

I enjoyed the maps more than the HoT maps, but that comes down to personal preference and I largely enjoyed the storyline more than HoT. Mordremoth (in regular mode) was a more mechanically interesting fight because you had 2 pre-fights with bosses you got to choose, but the fight with Balthazar got to the final fight in a more sensible way than the HoT storyline.