[All Hail Steve, Labyrinthine Horror]

@"Endless Soul.5178" said:I really don't understand giving the nickname "Steve" to everything.

Its not a new tradition for players to nickname certain unique (or even non-unique) mobs, or invent backstories for them for entertainment purposes. It can be varied in style, as most fan fiction is.... but occasionally sticks, and spreads to become a game wide meme within the community.

On a semi-related noted, Minecraft was popular by the time GW2 came out.... so it wouldn't surprise me if that had some influence.

[Is Renegade the most poorly designed elite spec in this game?]

@DiogoSilva.7089 said:I play with renegade because it's new, and purchasing a new expansion with new specs and not touching them would be unexciting. We've had base revenant + herald for 2 years. It always feels good to play with shiny new toys while they are new.

Even so, I spend more time on mace/ axe + mallyx than on shortbow + kalla, simply because the old skills are so much more enjoyable than the new ones.

I've found that the skills can't be used fast enough in the situations where it would have the most impact. I don't get that slow clunky feeling on hammer... and thats a weapon that is intentionally slow and clunky by design. The major difference is that Hammer has a big pay off if those skills hit, but huge risk to execute (rewards calculated attacks); while SB feels like it should be a kiting weapon, but relies on a specific, high cost rotation to get those attacks to land reliably. Ranger SB is also a Kitting weapon. And while its damage and utility is unimpressive, its usability is extremely high due to short cast times. That synergizes perfectly with Mid-range builds that are vulnerable to gap closers, and need the ability to disengage and reengage without breaking rhythm. In fact, thats basically the concept behind "Light On Your Feet", and would had been a good PvP trait if Shortbow had a better skill to set up for, and had synergy with a Melee Dive comp.

Mace/Axe fills all of those functions, with 2 gap closers, and a strong CC as an opener. And while it can't kite, it can control your half of the engagement so you can capitalize on openings. Renegade short bow is poor at kiting (which hurts in PvP), can't control a mobile target (hurts in pvp and wvw), and lacks the range to keep out of range of the front lines in WvW. Its great in open world PvP because most mobs aren't that mobile, or will sit around (which is why people hate Rolling Devils more then any other mob in HOT).

Given the nature of condi, and design of the skills...... Renegade SB attacks wouldn't be so bad if it either got its ranged extended (to 1000 or 1050), or fired off faster so you flip between offensive and defensive positioning. The Bombardment definitely needs more cast range or a wider strike area, and the Warband summons definitely need more resilience against interrupts (to compensate for their short duration). For the latter I would suggest native 50% duration reduction against hard CCs, and one of the traits offer retaliation on summon (like Mesmer phantasms) to help dish payback for bombing them in WvW.

[I'm getting bored fast...]

@Sylent.3165 said:Well the biggest issue isn't there is nothing to do, but there is no point in doing anything. Rewards in this game are bad and I don't want a gear treadmill ever those are horrible but a system like d3 paragon levels or eso champion points helps always give you a motive to play. (Of course these aren't in pvp)

To Quote Captain Jack Sparrow.... "the problem isn't the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Savvy?"

What you've described is the mental default setting that now plagues the entertainment industry as a whole....... a proverbial content locust. I'm not antagonizing your specifically; as this has effectively become the normal state of a mainstream audience, through a combination of apathy, addiction, and demand for comfort, on the part of the consumers. When you look at it as a whole, its basically a addiction cycle.... including the mechanisms that drive the behavior, and the diminishing returns from given stimulation.

Coupled with the lack of direction in what you actually want (ie an actual goal), you're indirectly advocating something to consume for the sake of consumption. Its not a choice or a goal..... you're calling for the affirmation of endless "milestones" and continual reward cycles to feed the addiction. An idea usually pitched under the guise of "Progression". It even more troubling when you consider you're not even asking for the elements that you do find rewarding, like more story content, but are mostly fixated on furthering "accumulation" with no higher goal in mind. THAT is really what I think is the problem..... "the means are the means to the means. but where does it end?" You've done a bunch of stuff, but you want more stuff to do for the sake of having something to do.

Theres no real solution to this, because its unsustainable by nature. The Breadth of content in this expansion is at least equal to, if not greater, then that of HOT. But what lands up happening is people complaining about content which requires too much effort, or doesn't return on effort, or gets burned up too fast. Theres only 3 ways to give game content replay value..... challenge, rewards, or be a hobbyist-like experience. The first is usually artificially weighted, since legitimate mechanical challenge is incredibly hard to do in game design; and even more difficult to modify upwards without losing that authenticity. Which is why the second is usually what developers resort to, because its easier to manipulate, and can be done for much less effort. The third is basically the Holy Grail of game design...... an activity that is indefinitely enjoyable to do, in of itself. Its something you can only really find in extremely niche games, as you usually have to fine tune around a very specific set of interests. These games also tend to genre defining, as it sets a number of expectations for future games that are even remotely similar in mechanics or presentation.

For GW2 specifically, its strongest elements (the story and setting) are by far the hardest types of content to produce in a timely manner, but are consumed the quickest. The difference is like that of $10 meal and $80 meal..... both take a lot of work and preparation to make, both are consumed in 10-30 minutes, and both satiate hunger. So why buy 1 expensive meal, when you could buy 8 cheaper meals that will last you longer? The difference is eating to have a valuable experience, verses eating because you have a need to eat. I used the term "Content locust" earlier for reason... it describes an activity where people consume game content for the sake of consuming, but put little to no value outside of that. As a side effect of that, rewards are used as an incentive to continue the cycle, because eventually the brain gets bored from the repetition, and needs a new element introduced to give it another endorphin hit. So like giving a rare weapon skin as a reward for repeating something enough times. Eventually that loses value, because you'll inevitably get duplicate skins, and need to replace it with something else. But that "something else" has to be better, otherwise we won't value it enough to pursue. But given the kind of time spans MMOs are meant to be played, any form of pre-defined reward cycle will either run its course, or be recognized as not being valuable enough for the cost of effort..... so to get around that, games started doing RNG.

.................And now it should be dawning on some just how systemic this problem is on both sides of the market. We are the fat kid chasing the twinkle!

[Gw2 for ps4/xbox]

Not with the kind of pacing and number of high demand keys needed for this game's combat system. They would have to fork the entire game play design, with its own team, and redesign the combat and control system to work under the heavily restricted nature of controllers. To an extent, even Blizzard, with all their resources, are regretting their console development branch, because half of their hero mechanics have almost completely opposite behavior between PC and consoles. And trying to back port a KBM control scheme to Controller is nightmarish compared to designing a Controller based control scheme, and porting it to KBM.

[Griffon Mount Cost]

@CptAurellian.9537 said:The griffon is a vanity mount and not a necessary one like the others. So yes, 250 gold is a perfectly fine price.

I wouldn't consider it a vanity mount, since its practical utility is the highest out of the 5.... with the one exception of Springer High Jump. Its like Gliding in Core Tyria- You don't need it, but it does open up routes to make getting around a lot more efficient. GW2 has a unique problem of non-obsolescence when it comes to daily activities; so players are under increasing pressure to get their daily routes done as quickly as possible, so as to not lose potential rewards stuck behind the time gate. They "could" fix this with redundant options in multiple areas of interest..... but doing so results in major push back from the players, as its seen as a lost opportunity for additional rewards on the daily routes. This is one of the few games where if 6 vendors are offering a daily item each, and then adding 6 clones in the new map for the sake of convenience, the player base would immediately demand they be unlinked so they can get 12 daily items by hitting all of them per day.

This question is going to become extremely relevant when the new Raid wings come up; because its asking if HOT still is a requirement for Legendary armor. If POF raids don't offer contribution to Legendary armor (if not a whole new collection track for players without HOT to get started on), then its going to explode into a debate of the reward viability of POF raid wings. They've already established 2 precedents: 1. That HOT is needed for Wings 1-4 because Gliding is a requirement. And 2. Xpac content can't assume players have access to abilities from previous Xpacs. This means Raid Wings can't operate independently of mastery abilities , unless they're willing to go back and redesign the levels to exclude them (which is unlikely)..... or that Raids mastery tracks will have to contain a redundant track for requisite abilities, and offer enough MPs to unlock them.

The result of this inconsistency means POF raids will either offer currencies (like LIs) for a collection that doesn't exist, which is a problem for players without HOT; or that it doesn't offer currencies, causing HOT/POF players to question the reward value of POF raids. If either of those end up being true, HOT Raids will remain the primary weekly routine given the high value assigned to Legendary armor. In turn, POF raids will need to offer an equally valuable set of rewards to entice people into putting it into rotation.... but thats a hard sell when Legendary armor is such huge QOL bump. This could seriously break raid teams, because those still working on Legendary armor will put most of their energy into rewards that contribute toward them; but those with enough sets of legendary armor (those who no longer need to work on them) will considering going back to HOT raids a waste of time, if POF rewards are mutually exclusive and compete for time on raid schedules. So far ANET is refusing to address this question in detail; and have only stated POF will not have a new legendary armor collection. But that leaves too much open to interpretation, with serious consequences for those those who aren't already maxed out on Raid rewards. What are going to happen to LIs in POF raid wings? In HOT they're used exclusively for Legendary armor production, and nothing else (not even sink rewards or consumables like the other currencies do). It sounds inconsequential to established raiders..... but that raises an issue for people still working on, or are only now starting Legendary armor, if the source of LIs are taken out of the rotation schedule. But if LIs are part of rewards for POF wings.... what are maxed out players going to spend them on? Or are they going to do what they did with WvW, and accrete a new currency to replace LIs (in an attempt to reset the board), and leave a back channel to let the new currency buy Envoy Insignias?

If they keep doing this, how big of a mess will this create after 2 generations of accretion, and the Devs lose interest in legacy upkeep? If this question keeps getting put off, or legacy support purposely dropped without replacements, it runs the risk of another LS Season 1 situation where those rewards are desirable, but have no practical method of obtaining. And after all the effort into getting everything standardized for future production, this seems like a bad time to revert back to piece meal abandonment of items that have long term practical value to the player base.