[Voice Actor Suggestion]

Morgan Freeman should voice all the dialog like an audio book. Good in theory. But would it be good in practice?

Plus if we’re giving out work based on fame and range, then Matt Mercer should do a whole story arc voicing all the characters. 

[With the open world pvp armor set coming soon i was wondering...]

18 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It doesn't matter how many avenues to obtain legendary armor there were. It matters how big percentage of the populace they covered. And the answer is - not very big. Majority of players simply do not play either of those 3 types of content (or do not play them to a degree where they could reasonably obtain a set).

In short: they introduced OW set, because most players play in OW, and do not raid, play WvW or SPvP.

And yes, that likely means at some time we'll see OW (or LS) rings as well.

But how big a percentage of open world players actually use the QOL feature on the regular?  The answer is not very big. 

Most players will not change builds 3 or more times a day to react to a changing battle field. I imagine its still at least 30% that have ascd gear, but not a coherent build. 

Legendary armor doesn’t alleviate that, so the justification is still the weakest. And its pretty hard to get lower than Legendary PVP armor, since that mode doesn’t even use armor slots.  

[The Skyscale Epidemic in Open World]

17 hours ago, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

Instead of allowing another thread to turn into a popularity contest, here are just a few of the problems with Skyscale from the top of my head (EXCLUDING FIREBALLS)

- They Trivialize older maps that were once interesting and unique to traverse. Take tangled depths for instance. You now traverse every single map in the game by the exact same method (Skyscale).

- The Skyscale undermines the original design of events, such as bosses. Look at how it fundamentally changes how Mordremoth plays compared with how it was originally intended to be experienced.

- They made the other mounts pointless. You can pretend like that the other mounts are still relevant, but 9 times out of 10 you're going to pick the Skyscale.

- They made gliders and their accompanied masteries completely irrelevant. But gliders are just more old content. So who cares, right?

- It is the only ESSENTIAL mount. If you wish to keep up with the commander or the event chain and not fall behind, you need the mount. Nobody wants to feel like they are falling behind in a game about community open world events. It is the reason Anet made Skyscales easier to acquire in SotO and advertised it as a main feature of the expansion. READ THE WRITING ON THE WALL! Anet knows what the players are thinking. Those who don't have a Skyscale yet are thinking to themselves "kitten, I really need a Skyscale!".

- They are and will kill most of the sense of the adventure now and going forward. A good analogy that I saw another forum user make; Imagine if in Lord of the Rings Frodo just jumped on a Skyscale and flew to mount doom and dropped the ring? Movie over? Guild Wars 2 used to be a game about the Journey and not the destination. Flying mounts change this fundamental entirely. It is now all about jumping on the Skyscale and beelining directly to where you need to go. You can ignore most of the ground mobs and environments now...

World of Warcraft added flying mounts to their game over a decade ago and they were renown for being a bad addition to the game in the longer term. Arena Net completely ignored this for some reason. I am very glad we got mounts in the game, but I really wished they'd resisted the temptation to add in the terrible idea that is the flying mount. It's a great idea on paper, but it changes the game too much by trivializing content or simply making it obsolete.

You mean Griffon, right?

[Tribal Armor Acquisition]

20 hours ago, Kiki.9450 said:

Sounds like a cool opportunity for a side-quest to me. "You, an asura, are tasked with assisting the norn people, and your reward is access to their special armour." Get actual game designers in here to flesh out the idea and make something real and fun with it. Buuut implementing the cultural armours for other races would be a bit of an effort, aside from my silly side-quest idea.

But how does a 4 ft tall gremlin fit in armor made for a bear sized human?  Its basically required for them to remake the armor for human to non-human, and visa versa.  If they do that, they’re just gonna sell it as an outfit. Plus they’ll look different from the reference model. 

[When are you going to balance builds in pve?]

On 1/10/2024 at 6:12 PM, Raarsi.6798 said:

What, you don't like smashing bricks together repeatedly until one crumbles?  I suppose some of us have finer tastes then.  /sarcasm

Anyway, well done OP, good bait.  If you're not trolling though, I'd highly recommend either trying new things or playing at like 3am, or even just taking your time getting kills and tags here and there because the game is kinda designed for that.

Now now…..  if he wants to play hardcore difficulty, thats ok.    Ok until they start dragging the rest of us into it, due to lack comprehension.  

[Preparations are too weak, have too long of cooldown, and the arm time is too long.]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ec_g-hGWAAEP2YQ.jpg

Prepare to leave a pile of caltrops.   Preparing to leave a pile of caltrops, sir!

[Symbols and a way to make them more fun(useable in pvp)]

I just miss the bug that made the damage bonus multiplicative instead of a binary tag.   Watching world bosses melt was something to behold.  

[Abomination weapons are facing wrong anet!]

19 hours ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

Well it looks thematically awful should be facing out pretty sure this was a mistake, and i dont want  creepy eye smooshed up against my butt.

This is why so many eyeballed weapons become sociopaths.   Have you seen Eye of Rodgort?  its a chronic tweaker.

[Ascended Salvage Tool's Glory Shard price is preposterous.]

On 12/28/2023 at 1:20 PM, LSD.4673 said:

Like the hilariously bad memories gobbler.

So many poorly hought out aspects of the ga e that could be brought into line with maintenance...but they never do. They never do...

The sink did its job.  You should be blaming the farmers who are too lazy to farm new supply, despite the massive uptick in price.  

[Season of Discovery and the future of GW2 character progression]

10 hours ago, Parasite.5389 said:

it sounds a lot like the old https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Signet_of_Capture from GW1
which honestly wouldn't be a bad idea for a future expansion feature: players could buy a blank Signet (in the form of an inventory item) from an expansion vendor, which can be used after defeating a Worldboss, Raid/Strike/Fractal/Dungeon, or a special enemy type from the expansion; this then opens a dialogue box letting them select a new skill which will be added to their available Elite skills or Healing Skill pool:
limiting the available skill to the specific slot would reduce the number of new skills that need to be made, and give better control for further balancing.

They almost tried that with POF.   The idea didn't get very far.  

[Deadeye rune any good?]

On 12/24/2023 at 7:21 AM, Juneau.6095 said:

Yep, so why is scholar the most popular rune choice in a lot of builds i find online? And the same goes for other similar runes that have either precision or ferocity as the primary stat like rune of the ranger, infiltration, etc.

Shouldn't Deadeye be the most popular given Power is the primary stat, and having precision and ferocity as secondary just like Berserker armour?

The short version is that meta builds specifically count the absolute lowest number needed to get Crit chance cap.  Prec is only "one" source of Crit chance.  And historically the lowest priority, since other sources tend to be additive %, where with Prec its a derivative %.  And you only need 100% Crit chance.   So once you hit the cap, excess precision is basically wasted.  Ferocity on the other hand, while also derivative, doesn't have a cap.  So 400% crit damage is better than 300% crit damage, but 120% crit chance is the same as 100% crit chance.

The main reason Berserkers is meta, is that there aren't enough sources to hit crit chance cap without "some of it" being from precision.  There was a time when Reaper could get 100% crit chance between 2 traits and Fury, and it let you swap out all your gear for Valkyrie's (Pwr/Vit/Fer) for more shroud durability, with no loss of DPS potential.  

Now on top of this, you also have to consider magnitude of a source for stats.  Runes add a significant amount of stats, but not much granular control, since the biggest part of the stat boost is always on the 5th/6th slots.  Theres only two instances I know of where a meta build was mixing runes. And thats mainly due to this rare situation in the earlier days, where Condition Duration was harder to get, and two rune sets had condi duration in 2nd and 4th, and an otherwise useless 6th bonus.   I can't remember which ones specifically anymore.

Anyway.  Scholars also used to have a flat 10% damage bonus in its 6th.  This is what made the rune popular in the first place.  And it stayed there, because its got the highest power and ferocity total out of all the runes.  

[Fastest ways to farm ecto]

You have to get over the fact that you'll never be able to farm at a volume for a specific item, where selling mats/etc on the TP and buying ectos off the TP isn't the smoother option.   Now you can maximize your opportunity for rares to salvage ectos by opening bags and UID gear yourself, but its not gonna be faster and generally more cost effective than the TP; even in spite of the 15% TP tax.

The game's whole drop system is largely designed around the TP being the central commodity exchange.  This was intentionally done to dissuade farming specific areas for too long, and lets you convert wealth from multiple sources into any resource you'd need.  They haven't always 100% stuck to that, but law of averages works out in most people's favor.  Outside of the Mid-tier armor mat problem, most materials have a targetable source.  So if you habitually gather everything as you move around, you effectively trade what you don't need for stuff that you do, using gold an intermediary.  

The problem really boils down to spikes in demand.   Because the supply side is more prone to being trickle in nature, sudden upticks in demand will cause prices to skyrocket as supplies are used up enmass.  It usually takes 2-3 months to peter off, and another 3-5 months for supplies to slowly recover.  If you plan ahead properly, you can buy up supplies in the off seasons, when they're the cheapest, and convert them into refined materials (for example Curios for Legendary weapons) for use later.  Then when a demand boom happens, you can sell your gathered mats for double the value, and put it towards other materials you need.    Tail end of festivals when all the bags are happening, is the best time to get basic and intermediate materials.   New map or story drops are the worst, since those usually introduce collections made to sink something, spiking demand for something that used to be cheap.  

 

[If I buy a few copies of the expansions through the steam sale...]

or skip steam entirely, make an Anet account, and just add it as a non-steam game?

[What professions+ elite specs for a ranged caster?]

On 12/18/2023 at 12:44 AM, Cuks.8241 said:

This is not about meta builds, just about fun and caster feeling.

 

I mean, thats pretty vague than.  How do you define "caster feeling"?   There have been people who vehemently argue that Necro is not a Necro because it doesn't have enough Minions, nor a Warlock because it has too much of a death magic theme.  Speaking of.... Warlock folks are stupidly picky some times.   Rev isn't a Warlock, despite having a magical sugar daddy, because it can't summon a familiar pet.  

[I don't really understand how to get the items for transmog. Can someone explain the easiest way to get them?]

On 12/27/2023 at 8:20 PM, Quickpawmaud.6374 said:

Yeah I read that like I said in my post. The part I did not understand is the locations where you get the charges. Everything seems very similar to how it works in FF14. Just seems much more difficult to get the charges in this game than in that game.

Thats because transmog used to be considered a major source of income for the gem shop.  When they switched to wardrobe, the whole system was scrapped, all associated items were converted into "charges" as the primary resource.   Some older gem shop skins still have the code path where the item IS the skin, and "using" the skin applies the skin without consuming charges (its basically is the charge) and unlocks the skin in the wardrobe.  You can do this out of order to unlock the skin, and if the skin item isn't consumed, it acts as a free transmutation charge for that one specific skin.  If it does get consumed, it usually adds one charge to your wallet.

[Gliding]

and remember to disabled double tap to dodge.   That'll get you killed a lot.

[Game Art]

When you can just sit down in a high spot and watch all the ants go about their business below, you've done a good job on your art style.

[Love the world of GW2, but the classes :/ (HELP)]

Is the problem that you don't really like ARPGs, and you're more into static skill spammer type games?

[Giving sword some love]

On 12/20/2023 at 12:37 PM, Zzik.5873 said:

I think sword would be better as a pure power DPS. Probably just  dps increase would help it. Mace is our melee condi weapon main hand.

Sword's real problem is the animation timing of the auto attack.  That needs to be tightened up slightly.   Whats kind of ironic is that Hammer is Sw/Sh with better range and an Electric Field.  If Shield 5 dropped an electrical field if not thrown, Sw/Sh combo would be a slightly different version of the Hammer's skill set.  

Pistol is a different story, as Pistols in either hand have pretty weak interplay with trait options.  They weren't really designed as main weapons in the first place, which is part of the problem.  

[Best Race for Engineer]

Look at the Racial Skills for Tool Belt.   

 

if all you care about is Aesthetics, 100% just get Aether Blade armor and the problem goes away.

[Ranged/Melee Imbalance is a Fundamental Problem.]

 

On 12/26/2023 at 9:26 AM, Zenith.7301 said:

You people keep getting this wrong. The problem isn't that range do the same dps as melee weapons. The problem is that the combat revolves around stacking for boon share and heals.

 

There are no mechanics exclusive to range vs. Melee weapon loadouts like in WoW and FFXIV. Mostly because you are constricted around boonshare paradigm of stacking for boons and heals.

If characters with equipped ranged weapon loadouts had specific mechanics to handle and lower uptime like melee, it would be balanced.

Instead, what you people lobby for is a return to the greatsword meta with thw odd staff ele of old hugging the boss's face. To hell with that.

Fix the actual combat and encounter design.

 

Its a circular problem.  We Melee Ball because boon share is limited AOE.  Boon is limited AOE because targeting is too clunky, and they are explicitly trying to get away from stand and cast combat.  But Ranged DPS is weaker, because its inherently lower risk.  Melee is stronger because its higher Risk.  But the ONLY reason to take the higher risk is because of the greater DPS.  But you know where this problem is totally different?  PvP.   

The PvE encounter design is a victim of player base's general inability to play the game.  All the enemies are lumps that straight line, soak damage, and are mostly melee.  Any time the AI has shown any ounce of awareness, the player base lost its mind over it.  This dates back to GW1, and the 55 Monk farms.  

What PvE needs is to mimic more of PvP combat dynamics.  But last time they tried this, the player base revolted.  This was the entire idea behind the Mordrem.  Enemies with specific counter tactics, and relatively low thresholds to shut down on an individual basis. Ultimately the only reason this fell apart, is because Core had poor availability to the desired CCs, and the mobs were not scaled with that in mind.   Especs over compensated with very high CC availability, and too much damage, causing most mobs to not be dangerous enough with bigger health pools. 

Until this happens across the board with every mob's move set being redesigned, and the AI being more responsive to attacks, the core of all problems with the game's combat ends up being "Damage is the be all end all solution to all problems".   Lower density of enemies, but each being a major threat in the own right.   CCs need to matter more, and the cool down timers retuned  on two new assumptions.....  A. that CCs are either frequently needed, or heavier impact, to gear toward types of targets; and B. when upscaling for events, expand the mechanics of the Defiance bar for Inclusive and Exclusive CC vulnerability.  The Defiance bar could theoretically solve this problem if employed across the board ( even to trash mobs), by focusing on selective vulnerability and expanding the side effects of the vulnerability.

TLDR; we have to make fights less DPS centeric at every level of combat, and rework the enemy ecosystem to accomplish what the Mordrem failed to.    The more PvE resembles PvP type fights, the greater the clarity in play and counter play.  And yeah, I am suggesting we roll back and try to undo all the things that made PvP more like PvE in a bad way.  

[Are rotations more fast paced now?]

2 hours ago, Freya.9075 said:

Faster? I sure hope not 👀 I tried condi weaver once and got flashback to stepmania and rose. 
 

 

needs to be Surface by Dimrain47, feat Prince Zuko

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYOyyWN2xBM

[Any plans for vanilla servers?]

15 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I fought a Champ Ice Drake in Frostgorge who was uncamped the other day. Then did a little run to the undersea frost wurm, Drakkar trio then back round to the troll. 

Oh the nostalgia..

You don't know GW2 nostalgia, until you've seen a pile of dead bodies at the Fire Elemental meta thats been (no joke) running for 3 days now.    Trying to remember what other Noob traps existed back in the launch month.  

[It's about time to remake the 3D models.]

On 12/22/2023 at 10:14 PM, Pifil.5193 said:

Seems kind of pointless to put a bunch of work into the faces when you spend most of your time staring at the back of their heads from 10+ feet away.

What about those cut scene close ups?

[It's about time to remake the 3D models.]

On 12/20/2023 at 7:17 PM, Kiki.9450 said:

Upping the polygon count and texture resolution is all I think I want. I would welcome new customisation options too, even if I wouldn't use them.

Ultimately, I'm for an update if my mesmer comes out the other end just looking like a better version of himself... but he does look great now, so if he doesn't get an upgrade any time soon, I won't be mad.

Oh and if they do update the models, they 100% need to give out free make-over kits. No matter how hard Anet tries to make the models look like better versions of their old selves, there will always be folks who prefer the old look.

 

Edit: I do realise going for a character model update may also be somewhat resource-intensive, so if it were to happen, it'd probably be at the expense of something else new, art-wise. Seeing as one of the main complaints I've been seeing about SotO is about models (animation rigs, really) being reused, I think they'd have to be careful about upgrading any time soon, unless they can swing an expansion with little new art.

On its face, this is a bad idea.  Pun not intended.  We could get a lot more milage out of a new production paradigm that both looks better, and is cheaper to render. More opportunity for a better character creator system in the process.  I'm just not convinced they have someone currently on the team that can spear head that kind of project.  Especially if theres no more parallel projects that might justify the effort.