Manpag.6421

I feel like if anything, griffon is now bottom of the list for upgrades since it already got ley-line and updraft use from SotO like skyscale did. The other mounts are far more in need of improvements to make them more broadly useful and appealing. It could possibly share some more benefits from other enhanced mastery tracks, like increasing its height cap if skimmer or turtle got a mastery that increased theirs or getting an extra wing flap when taking off if springer got a double jump mastery or something, but it already beats skyscale in all the ways that matter and rewards people who take the time to really master it.

Not super surprised, it doesn’t happen all the time to me, it was just odd that it happened twice in one day. I’ll keep an eye on it in future and try a repair if it happens again, but I’ve amended the topic title to reflect more accurately that this is an occasional bug, not an every time thing. No idea what might trigger it; I thought it might have been using a Jade Bot Personal Waypoint on a different level, but I do that all the time in VB and I hadn’t done that in DR so unlikely. It’s possible I landed somewhere that was right on the boundary between levels and the game didn’t update properly when going down.

I had an odd bug earlier; I was in Verdant Brink, and after dropping down from the canopy, my minimap didn’t change level/layer with me — it stayed stuck on the canopy level, which made navigating and seeing events around where I actually was in the map quite difficult. I was going to chalk that off as a one-off weird bug, but I was just in Divinity’s Reach and noticed that again, the level I was actually on was greyed out. Once this has happened, there doesn’t seem to be any way to fix it without leaving the map; there aren’t layer controls on the minimap (because it’s always meant to show the layer you’re on), and changing levels/layers on the big map does nothing. Has anyone else noticed this happening? No idea what the trigger could be, I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but I’d never seen it until now.

I can’t see them combining them, just because even though they’re considered niche, that’d make for a very bloated module (even though the Siege Enhancer one is bugged, making it near-useless). Though it would be a nice change if they made it so that the driver’s equipped module could affect the gunner and vice-versa. You can currently equip both, but only benefit from one at a time — and the driver having Siege Enhancer neither affects Slam nor gives the gunner the benefits. If they made a single turtle slot as part of a rework, but made it so that Siege Enhancer also affected Slam and two players on a turtle got the effects of each others’ module (if different), it would actually add a lot more fun cooperative play. It could even encourage more turtle use, because if me jumping into someone else’s turtle gave them my T3 Pilot Booster, they’d suddenly get a taste of how much better it is with more jet efficiency. I sometimes help teach people turtle techniques which either need T3, or at least are much more forgiving to practice with it, so being able to confer the benefits without them having it themselves would make that much easier. With all of that said, I reckon the “turtle slot” could instead be a “mount-specific” slot, encompassing both the turtle modules and the skiff one (of current modules), as well as a new range of specific buffs to other mounts, keeping mount energy booster as a general utility one. That way, you could run mount energy which is broadly useful alongside whatever specific module you wanted for a mount you use a lot.

Playing with builds that aren’t “good” is arguably the best part of open world. Not having to worry about what’s meta is a true blessing. Ridiculous weapon combinations that really don’t synergise for optimal DPS but look kitten cool. Playing elites like Spellbreaker, which gets 0 access to alacrity and just the limited access to quickness from core Warrior kit. Builds that generate their own boons are great, but shouldn’t be needed in open world, and you can’t rely on others to generate them either unless you’re in a large, competent meta group. Sometimes there’s only a handful of people in the map.

Double post

That’s my understanding too, but why they a) thought anyone using protocols was actually running round with just one, and b) decided to increase a cooldown that hasn’t been in effect for 99.9% of players due to the aforementioned bug is beyond me. Something ANet should really have learned from the Candy Corn Gobbler fiasco is that if you leave a beneficial bug in the game long enough, it becomes a feature, and players don’t like you removing features.

That’s logical, but would introduce new conflicts that would make other aspects less useful. At the moment, Mount Energy Booster doesn’t compete for a slot with Gliding Booster, Turtle Pilot Booster, or Skiff Supercharger, and makes all three of those modules more effective. I wouldn’t want to see existing synergies break if they reworked it; it’d be better if they just removed the categories altogether but made it so you can’t equip two scavenger or recycler modules at the same time.

I think the flaw is the variety and balance of modules, not the “this or that” nature of it. Being able to use all/most module features at the same time would be like having to repeat a very expensive mastery for each character. I say balance, as the scavenger protocols and recyclers are inherently cheaper and more accessible because they only have a single level, whereas all the utility modules have 3 levels and need a lot of research notes and RNG/Imperial Favor to use their full potential. An additional slot for the loot ones would be one approach, meaning people still have to choose what matters to them for utility, or tone the loot ones down a bit with a longer cooldown between activations and improve/add to the existing utility range to make them a more tempting option. It’d be really interesting to see if people still favoured loot over utility if there were modules like “Increases skyscale flight meter by X%” or “Increases max griffon speed by X%”. If they made it a more impactful feature in general, a hub/area where you can rent and test modules without owning them would also be a good idea. I’m not sure it’s really that everyone is just after loot and nothing else, it’s just that if you can’t try a module to know how much of a QoL improvement it’s going to be in advance, you’re probably going to go with the cheaper, safer option rather than gambling time and research notes on something more interesting. There’s just so much potential to augment different aspects of mounts that’s currently going unused, though maybe that’s deliberate. If SotO is the model of future expansions, we may see more supplemental mount mastery lines later on, so maybe they’re more likely to flesh out module options when they’ve exhausted what abilities they want to give mounts through new masteries.

Admittedly, stealth on a mount is often less useful than stealth off a mount. I think a better way to implement what OP is asking for would be a similar food to Cup of Light-Roasted Coffee, but giving stealth instead of quickness.

I think that’s a good summary. There’s a lot of nostalgia around HoT and people claiming that mounts “ruined” it, when in fact PoF complements HoT very well by mounts making it bearable (even enjoyable, look at the number of griffon flying videos in HoT maps). HoT is particularly guilty of adding a ridiculously bloated number of very specific masteries, then locking quite a few mastery points behind those masteries. Understandable with stuff like updraft mastery being needed to get to higher levels, which feels natural and updraft mastery is one of the first things you get. But things being stuck behind arbitrary poison walls, or portals, or other stuff that exists only to create a pretty unsatisfying treadmill of grinding masteries to grind more masteries. All expansions do this to a degree, but substantially less than HoT.

You can do this already. Go to the Content Guide settings in the General Options tab, and set it to “Disable Personal Story”. That will make the marker always prioritise events and undiscovered map, and you can collapse the personal story heading on the HUD. It might not be total removal, but it makes it completely unintrusive.

That would certainly explain why sometimes getting more players cancels the closure, while other times you can use LFG to fill a map to try and save it (e.g. because the meta is on) and it still closes in spite of that. Fully agree that the logic should be better and sync with metas (and/or new maps during the meta’s active time should open with it running, at least for 5–10 minutes after meta start so there’s still time to potentially succeed). Even just a bit more transparency by having different messages for “closing because of too few players” and “scheduled to close” would be helpful in deciding whether to stay on the map or not.

She’s actually secretly a human using a tall tonic to look like a norn, so it looks like it has no effect on her.

I’d gotten so used to using lounges, buying an alt account in the sale has made me realise how much less frequently we get small trade centres in maps these days. I suspect it’s deliberately done to drive sales of lounges, but it comes at the cost of immersion imo. The most egregious example is New Kaineng City; supposedly a sprawling, bustling, commercial metropolis, but zero facilities (unlike Amnoon, which at least has merchants and bankers). It’s baffling that there isn’t a single banker in the whole of Cantha until you’ve not only unlocked Arborstone access, but also trained it to level 4 of the mastery track (though you can access it through crafting stations from level 2). I think at least the following would make sense to add some of these amenities to: Seitung Province Daigo Ward (the main built-up area of the island) New Kaineng City Lutgardis Plaza Ministry Ward (I’d be happy for services to be split between them) Skywatch Archipelago Droknar’s Light (since Droknar’s Forge was a big commercial hub in GW1, and this is supposedly a fractal of it where the dwarves didn’t sacrifice themselves) It’s as much about flavour and depth as it is about convenience; lounges are still likely to be the more convenient option almost all the time. I like that Ebonhawke was enough of a commercial hub back in the day to warrant its own portal scroll, and it’s just bizarre that a human fort is still more viable and active than NKC. I’m open to alternative/additional suggestions for hubs, though.

I know this is well-intentioned, but achievements are something that you’re likely to get by sheer chance if you play the map at less popular times. Buffing bosses for the sake of achievements each account only needs once would kill the profitability of the map, which is the only farming map accessible to F2P accounts and is based on how quickly it can be done on a cycle. I doubt they’d stop at the bosses, either, if they were giving the map another pass. We’d end up with hordes of Kryptis-level HP sponge enemies that take forever to kill and slow the whole map down.

Even without a charging station, just having the protocols so you could top up would be a massive QoL improvement. You could go in with 4 charges, and pick up another 4 there from the zip lines, which would give you an hour of each, more than enough to keep you topped up. I’d probably put them either side of the fishing portal, and then maybe another set with a charging station in the largely unused area where the fishing vendors are. That way, if you entered with no charges, you could zip line down, and get protocols, or if you had charges you could fly down, get protocols, then zip line across to refill without needing to come back.

I wonder if a workaround using tech that’s already in the game would be like gliders/mounts etc — give people the ability to favourite and randomise titles, so that your title is a random pick from a selection you choose each time you load in. Probably trickier than with cosmetics though, the achievements UI is very old and probably quite limited in how it can be tweaked without breaking things.

Selfish I know, but I’m sad that “Top-Tier Turtle Pilot” is such a minor achievement with no title. It’s so snappy-sounding, I’d probably use it on all my characters. I feel like there should be titles for achieving gold in all the Siege Stampedes (and Griffon courses), to go alongside Rolling Ace from the roller beetle courses.

It does still get a very small burst of speed. I found that out by accident during Lunar New Year when I was doing the Festival Footrace achievement and using the old Imperial Impact to extend alacrity while having Speedometer running. My running speed increased slightly during each dodge. It’s not much, and certainly not enough to get you out of most AoEs, but it’s not nothing. It’s why I stay in Archemorus most of the time, because Nomad’s Advance is a pretty good replacement dodge for getting you physically away from the source of damage, while I actually prefer the evading-while-standing-still behaviour to regular dodges.

Hah, I never knew about that! Even so, one bugged encounter doesn’t warrant ignoring mechanics forever, especially as the options are “it might be bugged and you’ll still die” or “you will definitely die”. Most mechanics that have shields like that are unblockable, can’t be evaded, have a massive AoE, and some even hit twice in quick succession just to make sure that you’re insta-killed rather than just being downed.

Yes, but even that requires unlocking; you have to complete the first three chapters of LW4E6, they aren’t automatically accessible when you actually get access to the map. SotO does it better by giving you full access to skyscale when you’re in those maps.

The only thing I can think of that explicitly needs a flying mount is that one mastery point in Dragonfall that can only be obtained by flying through it on a skyscale (even though you can physically reach it on other mounts or by gliding). For everything else, there’s Mastercard usually another way up, Teleport to Friend, or mesmer portals.

I had another mount skin idea today while doing the Altrumm Mines event: a Wallow Siege Turtle skin, with amber cannons instead of jade. It’d be a neat Kurzick twist on a traditionally Luxon mount, they’re a similar shape, and amber is a canonically viable ammunition source because it’s apparently what Bladesworns load their gunsabers with.

…or they listen to what the NPCs are saying and follow on-screen prompts, many of which are huge visual indicators like arrows and circles on the map. The kind of on-screen information you were saying there wasn’t enough of in your first post. Some events are more complex than others, but people ignoring things like NPCs shouting “Quickly, get in the shield!” as two large glowing blue domes appear and then wondering why they get downed isn’t getting lost, it’s not paying attention. See also Echovald meta, where the NPC bellows “Get behind something!”, huge white text appears on screen saying “Hide behind a trash pile!”, and white circles with arrows appear behind said trash piles, and people still frequently die to that mechanic. In the Wizard’s Tower meta, every step of that fight is explained by the NPC dialogue, and even if you do get lost in it, that’s okay because GW2 will still reward you for participation even if it was minimal. Everyone plays games differently. Some players really enjoy contributing to the wiki, to the point that their priority when new content drops is documenting stuff as they go. In short, at least a bare-bones article on day of release is expected when you have a community of thousands of players playing it. Not everything is a big conspiracy.