aikatara.3462

No. After what they did to the Spirits, the norn aspect of the Saga in general, and to my boy Smodur - zero faith in ANet's narrative capabilities. I'd prefer they not ruin Laranthir somehow as well. Might be the wise thing to do. I'm afraid it will end up like that but I still can't not get my hopes up. Oh well, the dissapointment to come is my own doing I guess. And slightly off-topic, I was not pleased by Aife coming all the way to the EotN and tell me almost the same thing we've been told for FIVE KITTEN YEARS about the Pale Tree's health.After having finally completed the newest episode I am still torn. On the one hand hope dies last - and so I'll continue to hope that they'll bring Laranthir back as the leader of the Vigil. He's been telling us that he'll replace General Soulkeeper in the event of her demise for years now after all. But on they other hand Jhavi tells me that "she's getting used to it" and that she didn't hear from Laranthir at all and my hope sinks. And considering how they treated other characters recently, like Smodur - oh my... But if they ditch Laranthir as the Vigil's General just because Sylvari aren't en vogue any longer or because it is considered good storytelling now to get rid of long existing characters I will be VERY disappointed. Sorry to kind of necro this thread but I had to get this off my chest. I like Laranthir. He was the one of the last of my favorite characters who was still around (usually my favorite characters get killed or booted out of the story), mostly because nobody was interested in him, and I made the mistake to think he was safe because of that. Guess I was wrong.

In the end it is always a matter of personal preference whether you like a character or not. For me Trahearne is by far my most favorite character in the game (beating even Canach). I found at a relieve for once not to be the "chosen one" or "big boss" in a story. I find this trope really tiresome. I just really like the way Trahearne is written, with all the insecurities and imperfections he carries around with him. Or the fact that he is a huge history nerd and can't stop talking about it even when the person he's talking to gets a bit bored ;-) - I can relate to that a lot ;-). I think he has in fact more character development then the majority of the Dragon's Watch crew, but it is easy to miss. Gameplay wise there may be a few quirks with his character: he can be somewhat buggy in some missions if you run to far ahead and sometimes he is facing in the wrong direction, looking at a wall instead of the other Npcs and such stuff, but I can see past those issues easily. And his voice actor, while having a lovely timbre, has a rather odd way of acting/voicing the character. But for me this just became a part of Trahearne's idiosyncracies. Not everyone has the ability to be/talk snarky and entertaining. I did start with a Sylvari character though when I played the personal story for the first time. Maybe that does make a difference? But then I also didn't mind Kormir (or Rurik) and I can't really see why others disliked them so much.

Additionally, when dismounting into combat, my pet isn't even available and there is nothing that I can do to enable it until the fight is over. This, to me, is not what was intended by this change so I'd consider it a significant bug. Pet swap doesn't appear to be an issue when I toggle to druid, but then I can't do that in combat either. Like you, I will probably end up switching my main which is really unfortunate as I mained ranger in GW1 and throughout all of GW2 to this point. Me too - so much this! I fight - or precicely fought - the same way as with my PVE SB, swapping between two pets (and the soulbeast mode sometimes) a lot in difficult fights. I also kept a CC pet as second to use when necessary. None of this works anymore. And the dismounting thing is just ... weird. It all really kills the profession in Open World PVE for me as well. I should switch mains too I suppose. But since my main is almost 6 years old... I really don't want to. Switching mains as I discover isn't easy for me. I'm attached to my main. I wish there was a way to switch classes for the first time I play GW2. If they would at least turn the druid into a viable PVE fighting class ... Sigh.

I personally haven't touched the game since I realised that I needed 6 strike mission achievements to get the meta achievement. I don't like doing instanced group content. It's not a matter of difficulty, and probably not even one of the time required in the end. It's just that. I don't like instanced group content. But I love getting the meta achievements. I love achievement hunting in general. And then there's the balance patch upcoming that will most likely butcher my main character's class completely for me. But I shouldn't complain about that, since I got off easy all this years, playing happily unnoticed by balance patches in my little niche for far too long. Thinking about playing GW2 makes me demotivated and depressed at the moment. Maybe it's time for a break. I didn't take a break from playing GW2 in 5 years. Or six in april, if I remember correctly. Maybe it's time to take one now. I never understood why some people feel the need to make "I am leaving/I am taking a break" announcement posts. I understand them a little bit better now. I love GW2. I really do. And the idea of distancing myself from my beloved game is kind off depressing. Sorry for the rant. Just had to get this off my chest. Have a nice weekend.

Not being able to swap my pets in combat as a soulbeast will severly effect my gameplay in a way I cannot completely foresee at the moment. And not in a good way.I rarely merge with my pet as a soulbeast, first because my pet tanks for me and second because I like to see my pet. The animal companion is one of the reasons I choose to play rangers in games. I want to see it. So I only merge when the fighting situation requires it. When I fight I often swap pets for several reasons1) to prevent them from dying. A dead pet is useless to me. And it cannot tank for me. Also because when I get down I rely on my pet to be able to revive me.2) When CC is needed I keep one pet with CC damage at hand and swap to it when the skill is not at cooldown. With this change when my pet is defeated I cannot swap it to the other pet. I loose the attacks and my little tank. And it will not be able to revive me. My ranger is my main. I am a bit frightened at the moment how this change will affect my gameplay in GW2 as a whole. Also swapping pets is a ranger's core mechanic. To remove that ability from one specialisation is simply ... weird. Especially considered that effectively my ranger has only one specialisation available, the soulbeast, since the druid is apparently a healing only spec and that's not my thing in open world PVE.

If I've counted correctly you need around 6 strike mission achievements to get the Shadow in the Ice Meta Achievement. I am very discouraged at the moment. I play this game for 5+ years and getting all the LW story meta achievements was one of the long term goals I had. Looks like I can abandon this project. I am in a VERY small family guild, I very rarely play fractals, I have a fulltime job and other hobbies. It may be true that I may be simply not good enough as a player. Or simply don't have the time available that is apparently needed to go become good enough to go for achievemnts in GW2 nowadays. I am not interested in group instanced content like fractals or strike missions. But its perfectly fine if others are and they should get nice rewards for that. That I'll never get them is perfectly fine. But the story meta achievement should be doable by everyone. Sorry for the rant. I needed to get that off my chest.

My favorite things in GW2: The action-oriented, fast-paced combat systemHow the game encourages players to play together in PVE. No loot stealing, XP-stealing or gathering node stealing. Events that can easily be played together. Etc.The game play in stories, especially in the Living World episodes, is in fact quite creative and well designed IMO. Some of the most commonly used formats of quests/story-quests used in MMOs are the “Go to x objects/points/people” and “Collect x of y” type of quests. GW2 does that as well, in fact most likely rather frequently, but GW2 is a lot better in disguising those types of quests or implementing them in a creative way than other MMOs I’ve played. The fact that every class plays a bit different. No gear treadmillThe megaserver systemHow easy it is to change builds and skills.Creating new characters. I’m an altoholic. Creating new characters and leveling them is my favorite activity in the game ^^.ExplorationJumping puzzleThe “The Source of Orr” chapter of the Personal Story. It gets me every time I play it. And I've played this chapter so many times by now (altoholic ^^).The map design of the Heart of Thorns maps, especially Tangled Depth. The fact that the world of Tyria has no generic medieval fantasy setting, but rather shows a world on the verge of the age of industrialisation (the Asura are an exeption of course).

The event-chain doesn't seem to be bugged all the time, at least not on EU-Servers (if that makes any difference). I did it a few days ago with a friend. We had the collection event with Savor Foulnight, which apparently means that the Bloodsaw Mill got damaged during the attack. When the three events about the devour egg, the scrap metal and the defending Hazaar Razenight were done everyone was gathering around Rankar outside of the Bloodsaw Mill except for Savor (event status "Rankar Harrownight is uniting his warband for a counter assault on the Flame Legion"). We waited a bit then we went to search for him and found him running around in Bloodsaw Mill and repairing stuff. I got afraid that he was stuck, but after a few minutes he finished the repairs and went to meet Rankar Harrownight and the others and the event-chain progressed as usual without any difficulties and we could enter the Fond of Rhand in the end. It may be difficult to trace down a bug that doesn't appear all the time, I can imagine that makes it really difficult to reproduce it. Of course that realisation isn't helping the people who currently encounter a bugged event-chain. But I don't do that event-chain regularly, so I don't know if we just got lucky to catch a map version that wasn't bugged.

I just want to put my seven cents here without answering to anyone specific, because I thought a lot about the topic of the difficulty of boss fights recently, not only related to GW, but concerning modern video games in general. In GW2 I usually try to play a LW episode at release day to get the pre-nerf version of boss fights, if there are any in the episode. I personally like the difficulty as it is and I don't mind trying a boss fight a few times. But that rarely happens in GW2 anyway - the only case I remember was the Eater of Souls, which I played with a friend at release and had a lot of fun figuring out how to beat him. For me an end (or "mid end") boss has to provide at least some challenge, otherwise the story telling experience is not that satisfying for me. I don't like the dissonance that I experience when the story tells you that this was a tough and threatening opponent, but the fight itself was easy (like the end boss in Witcher 3 in normal mode, to give a none-GW example). But as it is people's experiences and skills in video games differ greatly, since not everyone plays the same amount or in the same way. A friend of mine plays every game in easy mode because they want a story, not a challenge. I also thought numerous times in the recent years that - at least for me personally - some modern single player games are frustrating, because you cannot really die during fights, since some auto save system always revives you, even in the middle of difficult fights. I get frustrated when I kind off "died myself through" a boss fight and feel unsatisfied afterwards, because I didn't beat the boss "properly". I rather save before a boss fight the oldfashioned way and reload, if I die. This happened to me in GW too, where I found myself thinking after a boss fight, that I had rather died and had the boss reset then being revived by the NPCs in the middle of the fight a few times because I was tired and my reaction time sucked and that I will have to play the episode again to try to do it right this time. But that's just my personal preference. I am old enough after all to remember the times when you always had to save manually and there were no fancy auto save mechanisms in games. But then my friend is at my age, played the same games I did, and yet gets frustrated more easily and rather quits after trying two times, if the fight doesn't go well. In general I think that boss fights must be really tough to balance in an MMO if there is no way for players to adjust the difficulty of the content to their liking. With all the above said (and as it was said numerous times in the thread) it it goes without saying that simply having a kitten lot of HP doesn't equal difficult. That's only tedious. Maybe I should add for completion's sake that I don't raid and rarely do dungeons and fractals. So I don't enter a story episode with amy mind being in "raid mode" or compare it to that. That I like challenging boss fights is just my personal preference. (edit: grammar)

The issue is still there, Dwayna's Directive is still showing despite the collection being completed.

The bug is still there, I have it on a couple of characters with the Dwayna's Directive: it isn't going away, although Skyscale of Life was completed some time ago.

Yeah, I agree, let's just kill them all, that would certainly create an impact.If Taimi dies she would be the third GW2-character that dies whose name starts with a T and who is a favorite of mine: Tybalt, Trahearne and then Taimi? If it comes to that I should really make an effort never to like any characters whose names start with a T again in GW2. This idea that you have to kill (important) characters in regular intervals to create an impactful story certainly seens to be the latest fashion - it is the same with television series. True, if a story does not show the consequences of actions, if walking on an extremely dangerous path does result in any casualties the story can feel predictable. But killing important characters in regular intervals can get predictable too. After a while, as any repetition does, it dulls you. At least it dulls me. I get used to the idea that characters I like will die. And then I somewhat start to care for them less, simply because there is a chance that they will die anyway. So why bother to invest in them emotionally? To "kill off this beloved character simply for the thrill of it", as Gaile put it, does not equal meaningful story telling and I agree, it feels more manipulation than anything else. There are many ways to make a story impactful. Character death is one of them, but not the only one. There are ways of more subtle story telling. But the modern way of story telling sometimes seems to forget that. At least I just thought that recently when in the TV-remake of a classic childrens/young adult book an in the original book very subtle scene was changed into something far more dramatic in the television version. Or maybe, in the end, I just don't want to see another beloved character of mine die. Stories that are told should be meaningful, moving, dramatic and also depressing at times. But if a story gives me nothing else but depression and a dark mood I start to wonder why I bother watching/reading/playing it. And btw: If the deus ex machina aspect is the problem, there would be other surely ways to solve that than killing of all asuran technicians. Sorry, I didn't read the entire thread, just had to give my two cents to the topic since it was bothering me all day yesterday ever since I played the episode.

This has happened to me too more than ones, and precisely at the same spot, while playing together with another person. The story skipped from "Forging the pact" to "Battle of Fort Trinity" and then to the last part of the greatest fear storyline. The other parts of the greatest fear story were left out. When playing alone I have never encountered problems with the personal fear story part. I wonder what happens if you play the part where you choose your greatest fear ("A light in the darkness") with another player, but the following part up to "Battle of Fort Trinity" alone or what happens if you play only "Light in the darkness" alone, but the rest together. Maybe the bug is produced by the "A light in the darkness" story part, where you choose your greatest fear, since the greatest fear story part was temporarily removed from the personal story some time ago and was later reintroduced in the personal story again.But this is just a theory. I think if I play the personal story again together with another player I will test what happens if I and the other player play the "Light in the darkness"- part separately (but choose the same fear). Just for curiosity's sake...

I would love to buy the Ringmaster's Hat. That would be awesome. It is not obtainable even through the Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock, according to the wiki. Maybe it is possible to return it to the Gemshop? Also nice would be a version of the Top Hat, but with hairs like the Swaggering Hat has. While I am at it, the Swaggering Hat could return to the shop as well, I haven't bought it yet :-). Oh, I forgot: Since I made Nevermore recently I discovered that there is currently no way to obtain a raven minipet. What a shame, I would love to buy one for my Nevermore carrying character.

Many important things have been already said in this thread, so I will not repeat that. But I watched the other posted examples of game promo videos and I found it interesting what I liked about them. So I will post that, maybe it is of interest to somebody. The EVE online trailer is great, even if it is not my type of game. It transports why it is exiting for players to play this game in a far stronger way than the GW2 promotional video does it with the quotes. What I also really liked is that it showed the user interface, maps etc (at the end of the video). For me as a potential buyer of a new video game this is really really useful and important information and video promotional materials in general don't show ui-related things and actual gameplay often enough, IMO. Usually you have to go to youtube to get these information. The WoW promo video (I don't play WoW) is actually not bad either. Due to the voice over narrator it reminds me - as a fantasy lover - of great, epic fantasy stories and it feels like this game (or this dlc) will provide that. The "Welcome to Tyria" Fan Trailer uses footage of actual players too, which is great and shows things like the character customization. That aside the posted old GW2 promo video had a great, emotional start by using the piano version of "Fear not this night" :-). It feels to me that there are two types of promotional videos for games: The ones that deliver actual information about the game play (like the EVE-vid seems to do) and those who speak solely to the watcher's emotions. The discussed new GW2 video seems to fall into the latter category. Ideal of course would be to trigger emotions while using - among other things - actual gameplay footage - or at least scenes that show player characters ^^. (edit: I would love to hide the quoted post behind "show previous posts" as others have done it with quoted posts but I don't know how :-( )

True story: I was listening to a podcast talking about lootboxes in videogames and gambling while opening GW. There is a new item in the gemshop: The "mount adoption license" Me: What the kitten? What I liked about GW was that aside from the black lion chest, whose key you could get actually by playing the game (personal story) there was no such kitten in the game. So I am happy to spend a specific amount of real world money in the gemstore to get a specific skin I want (although 2000 gems on a mount skin is a little bit too much for my liking (jackal skin)). But I am not into this gambling thing (and for me this rng/lottery thing is gambling), I will not spend any money on this and I will not support it. So if this trend continues the gemstore will not see much of my money in the future. I am not in the mood for GW at the moment anymore. I am going to play something else. (edit for spelling)

I have that bug too. I had it before Halloween launched but it seems to be worse no with Halloween. I am quite sure it happens with and without the spooky mount skins.