[All of a sudden I cannot use my "Return to Previous Map" skill]

What was the previous map in question? The way map instances work make tracking certain ones difficult (if not impossible), if they are ones that prone to expiring. Anything involving story instances, guild halls, most Festival activities built off PvP code, some festival maps, and a hand full of PvE maps which don't have a normal overflow behavior.

Knowing what that previous map was would go far in indicating if this is normal because of server maintenance actions (which force all maps to go on Death timer) or a new bug with the patch.

[How can I switch back to a way to play without templates?]

@BadHealer.3608 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:You'll get used to it eventually, you'll see. :) And trust me when I say that

this

should be the least of your worries regarding this new "feature". :/I did fail suddenly out of WvW because of a connections problems on Guild Wars 2 side. When I log in again I was having my WvW-Build on and was in PVE constantly attacked by mobs. Fighting the mobs with my WvW build+gear did take 10 minutes, than I could finally switch to my PVE-gear - that could kill the mobs in 10 seconds. Maybe just laying still and pray for a quick death would be the best option.

So this new feature is great if it wants to increase the time players are frustrated because of the game.

Beside the fact that it is increasing the amount of mouse-clicks you need to do just to play into a INSANE amount. And the idea of this update is that it should reduce the amount of mouse clicks you should need to do.

So, does someone have an idea to change it back the way it was before? I don't care about build templatest or the way ARCDPS did provide it, I just want to play the way I could play for 7 years.

so that whole scenario is built on the fact that you-A. didn't find a relatively space spot before accepting the WvW queue (and I'm assuming thats the only possible reason you can accomplish that mid-combat).

B. Decided NOT to run from mobs in a low damage build.... which begs the question..... If they were weak enough that you could kill them in such a build, why not run? And if they were strong enough to be a serious threat, and would take no more then 30 seconds to get clear of them (POF aggro range and normal foot speed).... WHY NOT RUN?!?!. (and I'm ignoring the faster disengage of gliding, and the 33% chance you're a Scrapper with stealth gyro already equipped)C. The fact it would take 10 to kill said mob in PvE gear suggests its a Vet or higher, and reinforcing B being the smarter option.D. Even if this is all hypberbolic, the fact that the player base understands a lot of cheesy short cuts to find the shortest path to an immediate goal, and rarely suffers any significant consequences for performing it, you would had to have purposefully made the least desirable decision, and then reaffirmed it several times throughout the 10 min fight, to keep yourself in that struggle. This also indicates you didn't have a serious priority in WvW, since you were already aware that death would had been a faster option, and would get you back in queue a lot quicker.

The Circumstances are unfortunate...... but its not like it couldn't had been mitigated with forethought and/or pragmatism. You went out of you way and doubled down on a struggle that would had been apparent within the first 20 seconds of the engagement, disregarded better options upon that reassessment, , and obviously reduced WvW as a priority in order to follow through on your plan to "not die and avoid taking advantage of the massively convenient Waypoints that would not only get you way from the current danger, but would also prevent a repeat of situation when you popped back into WvW, as 95% of Waypoints are set up as relative safe zones ".

[Share your skill ideas]

@"cyberzombie.7348" said:Slap: A universal skill that dazes for 1 sec.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Technobabble :P

[Assuming any known magical effect can be combined with 1+ others what do you want to see?]

Magika logic

https://magicka.fandom.com/wiki/Spells

[Would you keep playing a game that ACTIVELY makes your experience worse just to charge you money ?]

@BadHealer.3608 said:

@"Naxos.2503" said:Bugs can be bugs. Bugs are expected, what I'm saying is, everyone is jumping the gun and essentially saying Everything has been happening on Purpose. I seriously doubt they had planned for default PvP and WvW builds to not properly swap is meant to be a feature. That isn't something the devs willingly downgraded. That serves no purpose.They can sell more build slots this way. So that is surely a big plus for them.

But thats still not proof of intent. With the frequency of which we accuse and/or call out Anet for incompetence, it seems kind of inconsistent that they are suddenly acting with such precision of programmed behavior to very selectively place physiological pressure via mild inconvenience in one specific edge case, and warranting a full blown conspiracy around it.

Up until this point, the explanation of "they are not good at what they do" has held up pretty good; and this case hasn't produced enough evidence that this is any different. Still disappointing.... but you don't need to be intentional to be disappointing.

[Possible creepy person, what to do?]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:also, some people sound creepy because english is just not their first (or even second/third) languages and what sounds fine to them, might creep you out.

Being shown as offline can be caused by two things: setting or server issue. Nothing unusual there.

As far as I've seen, they're probably just as creepy in their own language..... possibly more so.

As for being a crime...... in the world of PC and being professionally offended, how is it not a crime. If the OP claimed to be a women, it would had escalated to a witch hunt in seconds.

[are there some popular community ingame hangouts outside of cities?]

Farming spots..... always with the farming spots

[Many of us kind of take a lot of things in GW2 for granted.]

At this point its too late, because they've been in this spiral of accretion for way too long, and theres simply way too much content to try and backport. Before the mass lay offs there was enough hope going forward that course corrections were still possible, and enough staff to clean up future mechanics. But never once was there any assumption that old content could be fixed.....

Now that layoffs happened, and the direction shown by class balance teams is not at all promising, I'm now firmly in the camp that a clean slate is realistically our best possible scenario for more long term sustainability. Everything from HOT onward is built on experimentation, but haven't been properly cleaned up. Thats actually a HUGE problem if you look at story content as something new players are expecting to go through in order to get caught up. Something even WoW does it best to help speed up or bypass due to supersession, given its obsession with locking players into an endgame loop.

The stuff you're also mentioning about advancing the time line has been shot down/lamented by gamers on 3 different occasions in 3 different games, largely for the same reasons. Most people didn't care about Realm Reborn, because the game prior was just such a mess that restarting with a new timeline wasn't a loss.

LS1 and LS2 changed Tyria forever.... and new players got mad because they had no idea whats going on, and all the epic happenings of LS1 are locked off to them forever. Old LA still being part of the personal story exists entirely of necessity, as the system its built on is a black box. In fact, they can't even rectify a lot of Core Tyria's existing events; they can only disable whole sale, or insert new conditional variables, but have to maintain or point to all existing ones to avoid breakage. Grenth's Temple in Cursed Shore is the most dramatic change to an existing event since launch- and really all they did was change the Boss's skill profile (to make it easier to fight), repointed a failure condition in one event to the failure condition of another (to force the NPC to run away), and inserted in a break timer so it wouldn't kick off again immediately.

Then theres WoW players still kind of pissed off about Cataclysm, as all previous areas and quests are now references to pre-cataclysm content that no longer exists. New players are confused because they don't know whats being referenced, and older players have no opportunities to revisit it if they wanted to.

Rappelz was an old Korean game I used to play that used to do stuff like that a couple times per year, and later moved toward adding everything new as part of new maps and quest lines- since map changes started actively interfering with quest lines used for leveling. Being a Korean game with a crap ton of leveling grinding, you can see why they wanted to stop having to reorganize them every 6 months or so.

With FOMO being such a huge part of the current gaming culture, its compounding the already existing problem of how games age and burn out. MMOs have it the worst, since resetting the game back to zero is a non-option. At least single player games are structured in a way that you can fix new play throughs, and its finite format makes it tolerable or even desirable. But another thing to remember is that MMOs never had a precedent for long term content or story plans until WoW started doing rapid expansions in its early life. Up until then, most MMOs just adapted and added as needed, and this whole idea of a 10 year life cycle was not even a thing. No game that pitched a 10 year life cycle (like was popular at the turn of the decade) came even close to the stability that 10 year plan implied. Many were brought to the edge of failure within 1-2 years (with the reasons often being specific to each game), and I haven't even cared enough to see if many of them are even around anymore.

So back to GW2..... we're faced with a problem of new content struggling to find a proper foot hold, and much of the old content now being an active detriment to the new player experience. Veteran players took a solid beating over the years with how HOT changed a lot of the game's underlying approach to game play and content, but we only had to deal with it in small chunks. New players are getting whip lash at every content block, because they're all built on different paradigms. Many of which had to be rectified later on in a different content block, or through a succeeding paradigm. Mounts and Gliding also have had a major impact in how we handle old content, and we've unofficially made it the defacto "Catch up" mechanic for the game.

The glut of old content is starting to become dead weight. But we can't cull it, because players have an unhealthy obsession with content that drives their view of game value, as much as it corrupts it. Just looking at the whole net result of unique skin rewards and AP being tied to collections, made even more intense with the Legendary trinket collections. Plus at 7 years in, NOW would be the time to start laying the ground work for a new game if that 10 year life span is to be held to. Taking everything learned over all this time, and creating a better framework to do all the things this game and this engine struggled with.

[Future hope for the Guardian elite spec]

Core Guard is Group supportDragon Hunter is single target DPSFirebrand is Engineer kits

So the only 2 things I can think are missing is making them super mobile like Thieves, or area Debuff like Necro.

From a thematic perspective, the latter is has the most Potential for adding a Punishment playstyle that they're already kind of halfway setup for between many of their skills and Justice passive to ride off of. And easily named Inquisitor. Bonus Unintended sync up, its a Witch Hunter to the Icebrood's treason. Bonus-Bonus story tie in, can easily go hand in hand with Brham going off the deep end with a persecution spree, twisting Guardian virtues, and manipulating him against his own allies through paranoia, at the knowledge that Jormag may have willing spies and saboteurs hidden among them. The more I think about it, the more I like this.

Justice becomes JudgementResolve becomes PenitenceCourage becomes Absolution

..... but what does it punish?

[Cleansing Flame (torch 5) Can Some Day Self Cleanse Maybe?]

(Looks at list of guardian self-cleanses)(Looks at the Cleaning Flame's ability to inflict 12 stacks of AOE burning with Permeating Wrath, and clearing 10 conditions from multiple allies)

..... theres something of a fundamental problem with how the meta uses that weapon; since its designed for and gets used as an offensive weapon, but the skill that directly synergizes with the Guardian's justice mechanic is treated like leprosy.

[Lead the wind: Projectile combos become unblockable]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@"Revolution.5409" said:I would prefer something like this:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Splinter_Shot

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Sundering_Attack

Splinter shot should be something baseline to the shortbow with 1200 range, if the arrow hits it splinters like the arpoon gun.The GM could increase the radius and the targets instead the piercing. It fits better the condi weapon.

The second one is basicaly unblockable effect.

I would argue against the AOE bleed being baseline for 2 reasons. First, given Poison Volley is Piercing within the skill, and end up with a Splinter Barrage exponential effect on damage (I also remember removing Piercing from Engie Pistol because of Fragmentation shot). Second, not only is it similar Rev Shattershot, Crossfire is around 15% faster. Fragmentation shot is slower then both, but more of its damage is loaded into the bleeds. You also have to consider that making all the SB attacks AOE bleeds creates an issue where it has the potential to become stupidly effective in target rich modes, but does absolutely nothing for it in single target fights like Raids and sPvP.

The whole short bow skill set needs retooling, since its effects are based heavily on Flanking. Increasing it to 1200 is also a major no-no given what a ranger is capable of, as seen back when it was 1200 around Launch (in hindsight it was easily abused, but condi also sucked back then).

If anything, I would add the splinter effect to Sharpened edges and retool the stack count for better control over the burst potential (both for balance, and expanding the skills utility with other weapons). Replace "Light on your Feet" with "Obsidian Arrows" - Inflicts Bleed and Blind to 2 nearby enemies (other then blocker) when projectiles from skills 2-5 are Blocked, Skills 3, 4 and 5 change and gain Piecing, gain "Called Shot" when your shortbow attacks are blocked (next 3 Cross fire attacks are unblockable) 18 ICD.

Cross fire Bleed last longer, and inflicts 3 additional stacks of bleed when Unblockable.

Poison Volley reduced to 3 arrows, but inflicts 2 stacks per hit and lasts 8 seconds each.Crippling Shot is changed to Pin Down and always Immobilizes on first hitConcussion shot is changed to Screaming Shot (because thats already insanely strong with piercing)Quick shot I'm up in the air with, since its a rather unique skill.

This is first draft napkin math, so I haven't bothered to scale up for Raid conditions to see what the DPS is like. For PvP (and WvW?) its rolls all the damage bonuses of "light on your feet" into the skill's normal effects to make them less of a hassle.

[The “Fury” 2.0- A hammer wielding Ranger]

@"Dragon.4782" said:I respectfully disagree with this elite spec. I feel as though we should have a terrestrial spear as the next elite spec weapon because 1) it provides much more options in terms of combat either log range or close range, especially since dead eyes can do something similar with their rifles. 2) the hammer is a rather clunky weapon and will only be really valuable if the ranger using it is a tank. That being said, if handled right it would be interesting to see a ranger using it.

I disagree with the Hammer assessment, just on examples of how its already being used. Only Guardian uses it to "tank", and their usage is a pretty unconventional even GW2 standards. In Warrior, Scrapper and Rev, its a Shutdown weapon..... which [incidentally] is what the Bunny Thumper build was all about, AND is currently a build type Ranger lacks.

While I agree the OP's idea is not properly thought out (it rarely is)..... But I wouldn't rule out hammer being adapted for a faster play style; as both Ranger and Thief have a thematic foundation to justify this new approach. Of the 4 classes that use it currently, its handled as blunt force trauma through the weight of the hammer. What we haven't seen yet is a combat style that uses the weight of a weapon to aid in agility. An easy example is all the Choreography in RWBY; where almost all the fighting styles leverage physics to increase force, speed and acrobatics. Designing an animation set for a fighting style based on continuous motion isn't far fetched, given Ranger's historical and existing melee animations.

Put into further context, GreatSword is Ranger's only forward mobility option (sword doesn't count, since "about face" spamming is such a grey area to begin with). As a whole class, the other way to get that is selected pets and Soulbeast merging- viable for pursuit, but not deliberate navigation of a battlefield. But that limitation kind of made sense in Core, since they had a lot of ranged options, and all the backward movement was made for disengagement. But using the momentum of a hammer to facilitate leaps, or even Thor's hammer throw, would create some good engagement options to pair with shutdown or suppression builds.

[The “Fury” 2.0- A hammer wielding Ranger]

@Draeyon.4392 said:I take a quality espec over being disappointed by how it is named.

I don't mind the steam mechanic as long as it interacts with your new utilities i.e. using a new utility consumes the stacks but increases the power/effectiveness of the utility in the process.

Would actually call it a frost mechanic and centre the spec around cc (mostly in the form of chill).We have a support spec from Druid, now a damage spec from SoulBeast.A new espec to let us further specialise in crowd control would blend well with core ranger.

As for spirits, they just need to be made mobile again (baseline) and for them to proc their active on death if you take the GM trait.

But having a name with a strong call back to the game's roots, and being a good Espec are not mutually exclusive....... Its already proven with the Chronomancer.

[Am I the only one to love dagger offhand?]

As far as I know.... yes......

[Suggestion of an Achievements that can give around 1k AP each.]

The whole AP rewards system is kind of messed up as is. Its become the embodiment of the problems with Collections, but made into a Meta of the Meta Collections. If my napkin math is even close to being ball park, its quite literally Aurora/Vision time a Thousand.

[Most unusual character name that was already taken?]

(insert anime name here)(insert fantasy novel series from between 1985-2003)(Insert obscure video game from the 90s that you thought only you had played)(Insert random 90s movie that you were sure no one else would remember, but apparently they did) You remember Drop Dead Fred? so did 3 other people....

Come to think of it... I should check if Bob Malugalugalugalugaluga is take up. (1 Maluga, 4 Lugas)

Nope I spelled it wrong...... Its Bob Maloogaloogaloogaloogalooga

[Many of us kind of take a lot of things in GW2 for granted.]

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:No and when I say no, I mean yes they do some things right but they do SOOO much wrong that one outweighs the other. A prime example is from the inception of this game it was NEVER meant to be a main game for anyone. It was designed to be a side game; One where it takes no amount of time if you truly want to acheive anything where other games both single-player and multi-player have long term goals to strive toward to keep the player engage. All we really have is legendary Items which are in their QoL being undermined and made obsolete with build templates.

Don't get it twisted I love this game and this company, but I have to be realistic the way they are doing things now just doesn't cut it anymore and people are tired of waiting and tired of trying to give feedback. We have tried so hard to get them to listen about really just anything and they even let the backdoor sit WIDE open for hacks which have become a huge issue of late. It truly feels like Warhammer online all over again, a great game with good dev's but the time it takes them to pump out content + Fix bugs and issues is just too long. Plus we have two game modes who have had NOTHING added outside of maybe a mount and one beta map for like two years, we need more. Hell guilds are meaningless and serve no purpose anymore outside of just being a colab of people, Its not like it holds any weight anymore so like most things in the game it seems completely pointless to spend the time making and maintaining one. I want this game to succeed but something needs to change, in order for them to survive the coming onslaught from their competition.

Being good at pick up and drop does not mean its designed to a side game...... No game outside of a mobile games intentionally work to be side games. I can see where you're coming from... but you gotta admit that view point is incredibly jaded on older video game paradigms (like mutual exclusion, endless progression, and our own meme of "Purity of Purpose) that ended up being fallacies.

You make a lot of good points...... so don't fall into the trap of thinking the solution are the trappings of other games.

[Which GW2 foe do you dislike most?]

@Danikat.8537 said:Probably smokescales. I don't mind most of the enemies which can evade lots of attacks, partially because I tend to use condition builds so as long as I've hit them they'll keep taking damage but also because I often feel like it's one of the few things which forces me to really pay attention and think about what I'm doing but if I do pay attention I can beat them relatively easily.

But for whatever reason Smokescales are different. I think it's because they require more precise timing, which isn't something I'm good at. It takes me a lot longer to beat them and they're more likely to down me without me ever being able to get a hit in, which is pretty frustrating. I'll avoid fighting them when I can.

The way you're supposed to fight them goes against most established player habits, so players tend to not adapt to it. The way it works is that they get perma-evade while they are in their own smoke fields (possibly even yours)... so you have to kite them out of it to make them vulnerable. While solo this is pretty simple...... in a group setting it rapidly reaches impossible; since theres always going to be that One guy trying to fight in the smoke field, and the smokescale is happy to stay there.

[Collection items with no MF recipe]

With the change to Rune salvage, Jewels now have a 100% chance of recovery (since they can't turn into lucent motes). However, I do believe those items have a chance at Ectos, which BL kits help improve. But with BL kits becoming less frequent from the normal reward stream, I've found Master/Mystic being more cost effective, despite the lower drop rate on salvage. Theres also a thing where some high value sigils and runes go for more then items that contain them, making it worth salvaging for a side chance at ectos.

[Dragonstand DC]

Yeah the catch with Dragon stand is that the map locks itself and closes after 15 minutes. This is a defined "loot phase" for those who participated, and is there to prevent what happened with OctoVine. I think the only thing that stopped them from importing the idea to AB was all the Free Roam elements it would disrupt if they did a scheduled map purge.

[Who are the top PvE guilds of all time?]

obviously the guilds I belong to are the best, because I'm in them. Even the one that hasn't done anything in like 7 months.

[Add Chaos Wings to the Gem Store]

@Just a flesh wound.3589 said:Throw in a Chaos Glider I can dye with a least 3 clashing bright glowing colors and ANet will have my money.

You forgot the part where those colors have to clash with each other

nvm... you did say clashing XD

[GW2 is not dying or ending.]

@"Arden.7480" said:GW2 has some big issues with what it's exactly about, the devs must make a decision what they want to prioritize, as we can only see that PvE gets big updates, so it looks like that GW2 is not dying, but the challenging, WvW, PvP content is.

Also this announcement... it kinda proved that the devs don't really want to please WvW or PvP or Raid not even Fractals community, not even a single sound that Legendary weapons set will come...

I would argue that this doesn't have to be a mutually exclusive choice..... A better design all around would avoid that contention, because too many bespoke solutions for each mode is how that problem gets out of hand in the first place. Or a better design philosophy and approach within each game mode, to get more mileage out of what little content can be made.

I also make the argument that the nature of WvW, sPvP and Raids outright prevents them from being happy. They rely too much on the "best in slot" mind set, and goes so far as being counter productive, or even self defeating, with a paradoxical sense of trying to be "the best" while also requiring something better then them to compete against. And having spent enough time in sPvP and WvW, I can easily establish that the majority work on the same psychology as PvE players, just with a different set of obsessions. More importantly, only listening to the Top players of a game mode sounds good on paper, but causes you to ignore the situation in the massive player base "beneath" them. Same going the opposite direction, where the masses don't understand design interaction, and overly fixated on Outcomes; leading them to create the shortest path to it, often at the cost of collateral damage to things around it.

A big issue across the board, especially after Raids were released, is that the game doesn't actively play to its own strengths anymore. In fact it fights itself to try and fit in with more conventional game design paradigms that it was fundamentally made to break. Raids are bad, because it rewards/requires a numerical magnitude focused mindset, when the class system was designed around PvP sensibilities of action/counter-action. sPvP is failing by trying to create too much definition between classes and especs, which started shifting soft counters into practical hard counters. WvW is borked because the game mode doesn't know how to handle the scaling problem, and further amplified by the player's clear preference for open field battles. And Openworld PvE's problem is almost never having an opportunity for a dynamic battle on a personal level, which ends up off loading most of the player focus onto the reward system. Fractals is the one thing that does what it needs to do right...... but ends up overstaying its welcome due to repetition from the low number of them, and a scaling system that eventually creates the Raid problem but with fewer solutions.

And for the record.... calling WoW a Challenging game never meant what people thought it meant. Most of that challenge comes from actively fighting the poorly implemented game mechanics. I'm glad WoW classic took great effort to recreate that old experience as it was in reality, because it helped prove the game's design was NOT the reason it was remembered the way it was. After a month, when the novelty wore off, the player base quickly fell back into its "Normal WoW" habits. And the more adversarial design of the game flow is fostering toxicity rather then cooperation. The player's excessive self-interest is hurting the community building.... and the community building was the only thing holding WoW together, until they shifted to more casual friendly design choices.

GW2 is on track for a similar fate, but in reverse, as its whole underlying design is conductive to encouraging ad-hoc cooperation. But the push into hardcore elements and best in slot group comps lead to the community shutting itself off into little fiefdoms, openly talk about their superiority, and trying to purge the other game modes. Unlike WoW, there isn't a single path forward that forces the whole community to deal with itself out of necessity. So when a GW2 player meets resistance, they avoid it entirely unless absolutely forced to. See Raids, See Legendary Trinkets, See Gift of Battle, See Gift of Exploration...... but notice how no one gives a crap about sPvP's barrier for entry, outside of that time they introduced Ascended Armor rewards?

[GW2 is not dying or ending.]

so its worse then being dead....... Its Zombie Simpsons?

[A Discussion on GW2's Graphics]

@"Kamikae.9536" said:Yeah the engine is desperate for a refresh, it has been since HoT was released. To be honest some areas of GW1 looked prettier and more "photorealistic" Honestly I think they could do a "Core" expansion and refresh the old maps, add a hard mode for story instances, and freshen up the core areas, models, armors and such The new areas look great but I go from 50-60 FPS in core tyria to 15 or less in areas like Thunderhead Keep or other new areas. I get not wanting to limit players by upgrading to a higher DX version or switching to OpenGL or Vulkan but I doubt any machines running windows XP are keeping up with the game anyways. I agree that GW2 is one of the best MMO's on the market both visually and gameplay wise. However it feels like the game developers have lost the passion and and been falling down the gemstore rabbit hole. But I'm falling into a plethora of other discussions

TLDR: The game is pretty but could still be better, We need a new engine with the aforementioned Optimization

GW1 wasn't photorealistic..... In fact, it accomplished it by being practically the opposite. Both games have an art style made to mimic canvas painting, using a very selective range of color tones. A lot of early areas have semi-baked lighting and light/shadows tone built into the textures, rather then proper dynamic lighting. Even many of the "light ray" effects when you have post processing turned on are not full dynamic lighting.

Its both ironic and oddly appropriate that a lot of "advertising grade" photos of scenery have a lot of post processing done to them to increase vibrancy, contrast and shifting color temps to make them more visually pleasing. This creates a Hyper-Realistic quality that sits just of on the boarder of Surrealism, and is intentionally meant to invoke nostalgia-like feelings. Like a vivid memory of something, but you've never seen it before then. Just look for a "Comfy" thread on your favorite image board, and you can see this at work.

The reason for the hit and miss in later maps ultimately boils down to how much time and man power could be spent on tweaking map visuals. Some location and material types don't lend well to the type of color control they use, which takes more effort to look consistent. A similar struggle was felt in GW1, as Prophs and Factions had pitch perfect coloring, despite the fairly wide range of locations. But Nightfall being mostly desert and waste land, and maps being a lot more flat, lead to a lot of visual fatigue. Color isn't bad at all, and structures were more interesting due to contrast of the bland desert; but after seeing the same 20 shades of brown for hours on end, with the only visual refuge being villages and towns, it gets old quick. POF worked hard to avoid this by frequently mixing Oasis elements across all the maps, and having the Desolation carefully broken up using striking terrain features.

Orr is another good example. Despite being, overall, the weakest maps when it comes to visual stimulation, all the assets had the ground work done the same way you'd see in other maps. The difference boils down to how they handle light... as in Orr has next to no variance in light intensity, even around Fort Trinity. While you can make the argument that its supposed to be Oppressive (and I completely agree).... there aren't enough areas to modulate the mood, which creates that same fatigue found in Nightfall. When you look at it closely, Orr is actually incredibly well set up in nearly every other aspect. A wide range of colors, all using a consistant muted color tone, excellent use of shapes to break up monotony, certain areas have fog + wash out color filter to make it feel like a faded photo, with enough terrain features and land marks to make impossible to get lost. But if you look at every other map in Core Tyria, they all have a sense of Natural Light as a character; even in the areas (like Fireheart Rise) that are meant to be oppressive, you do get the sense that light is actively fighting to intrude on upon it.

If isn't obvious yet, good use of Light makes the difference in video game. Even the illusion of light and shadow baked into textures is enough to convince us a scene is logical- and actually was the way they used to do things when ray casting was barely an option. For awhile, a lot of games and game demos went overboard with color vibrancy to push being "photo-realistic", but came off more as hyper-real with seemingly impossible colors for reflected light..... and sadly, a lot of people fell for it. Heres something fun to research. Find screen shots of all of the COD games from MW1 forward, and compare that to other Mil-themed shooters that came out around the same time. In the BF series from Battlefield 3 onward, its kind of comical how they handle light and color. Bonus hypocrisy can also be found in reshader projects, which doesn't really fix colors so much as signal boost outlines and readability.