Zephire.8049

Those were some nice concepts but like you said not telling much. Just perhaps that echovald buildings could look really good.. Yeah. Pretty concept art only goes so far. I get Anet not wanting to spoil the main story, but periodic location and creature concept art would go a long way in easing some of the frustration at the lack of information for EoD. Plus we already know it will be in Cantha which means we know the locations and creatures from GW1 so neither is really a spoiler unless it's brand new. new elite specs dont mess with the story either as no one can spoil the new story from elite specs alone.It depends on the elite spec and with elite specs there can be an issue of people hearing a concept and hyping it up way too much and then getting angry when the reality of a spec is different than what they expected, even if literally nothing was said about a spec but the name. That said, if they were to put out various concept art (possibly even models and renders) of places, creatures, and even characters, they could tease elite specs without saying anything about them and that would avoid the above situation. Or find another way to tease or reveal elite specs that wouldn't cause issues down the line because players built up their expectations far too high. But the bottom line is that they could have been way better about showing what's going on with EoD while still keeping hard information close to their chest during IBS and hopefully come the finale of that, they'll start showing players what they've been working on while utilizing some of the worst grind I've come across in an MMO to keep players playing. 'cause they really did drop the ball there.

Those were some nice concepts but like you said not telling much. Just perhaps that echovald buildings could look really good.. Yeah. Pretty concept art only goes so far. I get Anet not wanting to spoil the main story, but periodic location and creature concept art would go a long way in easing some of the frustration at the lack of information for EoD. Plus we already know it will be in Cantha which means we know the locations and creatures from GW1 so neither is really a spoiler unless it's brand new.

Odds are we won't see anything until the end of IBS because they're reticent to spoil anything before that story concludes, up to and including terrain assets judging by the Sunqua Peak Guild Chat.

Eh, not everyone realizes they got an infusion right away and not everyone has a desire to link rare drops in public chat. Doesn't mean no one got anything.

I think the frustration from players could have been avoided if both special promotions had been launched at the same time..... Amazon for the US and ??? For everyone outside the US. Or like many others already said: Give a discount in the Gem store itself. This, exactly. Even something in-game for those outside the US would have taken the sting out of being left out again if it had happened at the same time. Instead we're left guessing as to when and what it might be, or if it actually exists since the delay could also mean nothing was planned for non-Americans until players outside the US started calling Anet out on it. Silence here is not a good look, especially when there's been so many cases of promotions being US-only without anything for those outside of the US. (Also I got an email today to my Canadian email address with my IP showing that I do in fact play in Canada with a US-only promotion. Emailing people about promotions and getting their hopes up because you can't be bothered to filter regional email addresses at the very least is not fun. Thankfully I knew it was US-only ahead of time but there's undoubtedly going to be people who get excited only to learn that they can't get the deals even though they got a big fancy email telling them that there was an online discount on gems and PoF with zero mention in the email that it's US-only, so the only time you learn of it is when you try to check out.)

The main reason why mystic coins went up is that someone (likely a TP baron) put a wall of buy orders on the TP that will take years to possibly work through. The result of this means there's artificial demand with the buy price never dropping (indeed actually getting nudged up by players who want MC sooner rather than later) and the sell price creeping up with the supply being the same as before the buy wall. The increase in price falls within average TP fluctuations, especially with increased demand that outpaces supply. The only thing I can think of that may be having a (small) effect of the price is people speculating that the finale of IBS will have a legendary item that will need MCs to make and are stocking up ahead of time.

On all but my two main toons, by bags are simply: 1x starter bag, 3x 18-slot regular, 1x 18-slot invisible. I have a strong dislike of bags that change where items go so outside the olmakhan bandolier (because I wasn't going to not use something that had over 20 slots) I never use them. I have a whole system set up for storage that initially may take some getting used to but it takes seconds for me to deal with now. Two of the main things I'd suggest are: Either keep unid gear in a shared inventory slot or have a seed of each in an invisible bag so you don't accidentally salvage them.Make liberal use of Obsidian Sanctum (or Mistlock or another lounge that teleports you back to where you were) to drop stuff in your bank or sell.Once you have those things under control, it's easier to deal with everything else, imo.

'Exclusive' skins that exclude longtime loyal players will almost certainly be a slap in the face to those players.Not really sure what you mean here. Everyone would be eligible to get Twitch drops. Would just have to link ANet and Twitch accounts and watch a set number of hours of GW2 streams. Is super not hard and a lot of games to this already. I would much rather play a game or watch a movie than watch a stream, especially if the only way to get certain skins is to watch someone who's like nails on a chalk board. Even starting a stream and muting it and doing something else eats up bandwidth and impacts the quality of other online games or watching another stream. Not to mention the issue of datacaps and how a lot of people have mediocre connections or how some people have to share their internet with several people who use it at the same time. You can set the resolution of the stream to 160p which barely uses any data. More most Twitch drops, you don't have to be actively watching the stream. Most Twitch drops are under a few hours. What you're trying to describe is actually a non-issue. When you have 4 people using the internet at the same time with a combination of gaming, Netflix, and video meetings, that's still an undue burden that does not need to be there. And hour(s) of 160p will still eat into your monthly data limit. Not as much as 720, 1080, or 4k but it's not nothing and can very much be an issue because not everywhere has high or unlimited data and good enough internet for 160p to be a non-issue. You don't have to give out your personal information. Use a burner email to create an account. You then link your account with the game account which is fairly straightforward and easy. When you have the items, you can remove the link. There are numerous guides available on how to link accounts. Like above, what you're describing is a non-issue.So to get a skin someone needs to a) make a throwaway email, b) use a VPN, c) give Twitch AKA Amazon your actual game account info, and d) watch a stream for possibly hours. Sure you can delete your account link but that info is absolutely stored on servers (unless you're in the EU and can GDPR it out of there). That's a heck of a lot of steps and various middlemen if you want to protect some of your info when Anet could just do better marketing to bring in new players and do in-game or e-mail codes for skins.

'Exclusive' skins that exclude longtime loyal players will almost certainly be a slap in the face to those players.Not really sure what you mean here. Everyone would be eligible to get Twitch drops. Would just have to link ANet and Twitch accounts and watch a set number of hours of GW2 streams. Is super not hard and a lot of games to this already.I would much rather play a game or watch a movie than watch a stream, especially if the only way to get certain skins is to watch someone who's like nails on a chalk board. Even starting a stream and muting it and doing something else eats up bandwidth and impacts the quality of other online games or watching another stream. Not to mention the issue of datacaps and how a lot of people have mediocre connections or how some people have to share their internet with several people who use it at the same time. Twitch favours those who have the time, means, and knowledge to link accounts and who don't have an issue with giving Amazon personal information. There are other ways that are more accessible and have less of a negative impact. Anet absolutely needs to do better marketing but Twitch is not the way to go.

The main two I can think of are Tangled Depths and Draconis Mons. I've heard of people complain about Dry Top, too, but never had an issue with it. Luckily between map comp, mounts, and making the Henge I no longer have issues with finding my way around TD or DM, but until things clicked it was slow and brutal.

I don't believe that this statement to be accurate, the wiki says that the typical Norn is nine feet tall, and that does appear to be reflected in game. True, when people play at max height but it's the sheer range that's an issue. Max height norn are around 9ft or so, yes, but players can have norn that are slightly taller than a max height human, so there's a ~2.5ft range difference. Some difference is to be expected but instead of a range of ~7.5ft-10.5ft (which would put 9ft right in the middle AKA average), norn can be human height. Go with shortest height and a slim build and it's impossible to tell under armour if a character is norn or human. No adult norn in lore is that short yet players still have the option to be human-sized for gameplay reasons and aesthetic.

Unfortunately when it comes to multiplayer games like MMOs, sometimes game balance takes priority over lore and aesthetics. Canonically norn are far taller than they appear in-game but to not cause issues amongst players, they've been shortened. Charr have also been modified to have long, forever-extended claws in the game for visual reasons. Maps in-game are also a fraction of the size Tyria actually is because otherwise it would be long stretches of nothing for players. While it would be cool to have the norn shapeshifting ability always available or on a shorter CD given how norn can shapeshift in lore, that skill gives stat bonuses meaning for it to be a flavour skill it would need to lose those bonuses and become purely visual. You could argue for a separate skill or tonic that is purely visual, but Anet isn't going to touch one racial skill and leave the others untouched unless it's to nerf something affecting the meta. They did that with one or two of the asura racials several years ago and the norn bear racial is still part of a meme build in PvP and WvW so any reduction of CD will possibly make that build go from meme to meta. And from the beginning Anet did not want one's race to affect viability, hence why all racial skills are niche to outright useless. They exist to be flavour and nothing more since GW2 isn't a single-player game. All that said, I would be in favour of having visuals tied to the player character's race. Nothing's been done with cultural armour in years (with the exception of charr getting a couple helms) and if they can find a way to get tonics to work with the mount system, adding a slot for cultural tonics may allow for a way to do what you're looking for without it affecting gameplay.

Nope. I've never been in such a rush that I needed a hot key since I periodically open my inventory and salvage/sell/deposit things while doing things and hotkey real estate is already at a premium.

Ducky!!! ?No lie, my immediate reaction was "What? Why is Ducky a tengu?!" which definitely helped things. It's hard to get upset when you're laughing at the shock and absurdity of it :tongue:

As weird as it sounds, a giant bird having a high-pitched voice actually makes sense. Both golden and bald eagles have cries that are about the same pitch as seagulls (maybe even higher) despite being two of the largest eagles alive. If there's an eagle cry in a movie and it sounds fierce, they dubbed over it with, I think, a falcon (that or a hawk) because an eagle trilling does not exactly evoke a feeling of strength or epicness. Of course then we get into how much tengu follow bird biology and how much being bipedal and flightless (aka having solid bones) affect them. We also don't know how fast they mature since a lot of real life birds grow to adult size quickly but take months/years to fully mature. I do think part of it is how jarring it is to have a bird person about as tall as a charr sound like Ducky from The Land Before Time, though. If nothing else, new textures would help make it easier to denote age and differentiate between individuals.

They do but at extremely low rates. Out of a north meta with active play and AoE to tag, I only had 5 drop from mobs for example. So you could kill trash mobs for them but you may be there for as long as a meta if you do.

Mine's still there and works as well. Though I have noticed I sometimes need to reload the page for it to register and that if the TP prices haven't loaded, the API won't work.

Part of it is that you can join all strikes via the portal in Eye of the North and not have to go through LFG at all. If you haven't tried that yet, that may be worth a shot just to see what happens. There's also the issue that Whisper is known to be buggy and one of the worst strikes for finding a competent group (the worst being Boneskinner) which cuts down on the number who are interested in it or willing to PUG someone when there's a guildmate or someone trusted knows someone else who can fill that role in 5 minutes. LFG does need an overhaul, though, with more attention brought to it since a lot of people don't know it's there.

You can really tell that mounts were designed to be more than just a speedboost from the start. Not only are the animations great but each one changes how your character moves and is controlled. Sometimes I just run around in circles (especially while waiting for an event) because using a mount is enjoyable and intuitive. Of course the raptor will have a bigger turn radius. Of course the skimmer will slide down certain inclines. Or course the griffon and skyscale will open their wings a bit during a fall. Sure technically they do fit the speedboost role but there's a lot more there than animating a run cycle and calling it a day. There's a reason why so many people who are indifferent to (or even dislike) GW2 talk about the mounts fondly.

To expand on this for the OP, it: Creates a sense of scarcity so people drop more money more often to get something before it rotates out because of FOMO.Can make people check the cash shop weekly which in turn makes it more likely someone will buy something in the meantime. It also trains people to check out the store periodically even if they don't have something specific in mind.Items like vouchers and bundles that contain vouchers are more desirable because there is no advanced notice on rotation.If all items were available all the time, that would be great for players but video game marketers are convinced that would mean a drop in revenue. Think of it as the video game version of stores changing their layout periodically (forcing you to spend more time looking at more products), putting things like milk at the back of the store (making you walk through aisle(s) to reach it), and having highly marked-up small items at the till to tempt you. There's an easy way to make it more convenient for the customer but marketing says inconveniencing the customer will make more money so that's what the company does instead.

The logic of your post is totally out of order! XD So you are probably one of those who think that the introduction of the Alliance feature would be wrong because people wouldn't pay for a server transfer in order to play with friends. Every MMO is basically building a business around people inviting friends to play the game, thank GOD you don't run this kind of business...How is it out of order and/or illogical? Also I'm all for alliances though I don't see how that has anything to do with wanting an EXP share system added into a game when players can just alter their behaviour to not drastically out-level friends, especially when 2 (soon to be 3) expansions and 4 Living World seasons take place post-80. You are all for alliances but you are against my suggestion in improving the leveling experience for all those people who play with friends...Of course your logic is inconsistent. It doesn't make sense that you would agree on one thing and disagree on the other thing because Anet would sell less services in your opinion. Why would you care to maximize Anet profits? I think it's wrong for someone who belong to the community of players to blindly think about maximize the company's profits, if you really care about it why don't you start from yourself buying everything in the gem store? If you can't see the logical flaw of your argument then I cannot help you.Because Alliances would help an entire gamemode, not just in population but in balance between servers hopefully. What you're asking for would benefit fewer people than the entire raiding population (raids being sidelined because that population is so small and it requires so many resources) and is easily solved by you simply not using a mount and running ahead of your friends.You're also putting words into my mouth. I did say that the cost of features needs to be taken into consideration but that's because Anet is a business with hundreds of salaries to pay each month alone (that's not taking into account rent, utilities, sever costs, benefits, etc.). Alliances has at worst a net-neutral ratio between resources and benefit to the company. Gemstore, Living World, and expansions are net-positive. What you suggest is a net-loss unless they're already going back and changing the code and an EXP share can be tacked on, otherwise they won't do it because that would require multiple devs, testing, and iterations to make sure it's balanced and works and nothing else broke. Or you could just... not use a mount when playing with friends. Also when someone asks you to clarify why you think they're wrong, you typically go "You're mistaken with [examples] because of [reasons]" not "You are wrong but I won't tell you why." The former shows you've thought things through on multiple levels and are acting in good faith, the latter immaturity and bad faith.

That would make power leveling in GW2 easy which in turn would create a bigger market for it which in turn would reduce the need/desire for people to buy level 80 character boosts. In other words, that's not going to happen. If you want to play with friends, now is the time to learn how to do that (or accept you don't like leveling with friends and stop). Make a new character if you have to so you have another character to focus on when you start out-leveling your friends, but you are fully in control of yourself. Adding in an EXP share system would take time, resources, and make illegal services easier, more enticing, and cheaper which would then increase support's workload. So what's easier: one person adjusting how they play or a company sidelining work to make something that would benefit more power leveling services than individual players?

You claim it won't take much work because maps could be reused but you're ignoring all the work that would be required to. Remove all old NPCsAdd any new NPCsWrite dialogue for those new NPCSCode the entire modeBalance damage and add scaling to mobs and bossesThat's a heck of a lot of work even if models and maps can be reused. They also don't have a handy list of NPCs where they can go Select All > Delete so they would have to manually go through each map and find NPCs to remove them—it's a big reason why objects in core Tyria being changed to take condition damage has been put off as it's so much work to find everything on every map. And objects taking condition damage would be a huge QoL improvement for all PvE players instead of spending the same amount of time on something that's super niche. Not to mention the increase of resources because instead of one map instance for, say, 75 people, that would be 15 instances for the same amount of people if each party was maxed at five players. Also the vast majority of people aren't keen on locking themselves out of playing a game for days (or weeks) in an MMO. For such a mode, people would need to be able to stop at any time and get back to regular Tyria. GW2's demographic largely leans towards 25+ and parents given how it doesn't punish people for not being able to play hours a day every day so any new mode needs to respect players' time. Locking people into something until they finish it is not going to appeal to the vast majority of players. Speaking of the majority of players, the majority of players don't raid either between time commitment, the difficulties in finding a group, or both. The interest is there but it's no feasible with the current lack of options in-game. Your suggestion makes both easy in comparison. And do you have a plan on how to deal with someone who is toxic and going out of their way to prevent others from moving forward if you also want to lock people into the mode? If you get kicked or choose to leave a raid or fractal for not wanting to deal with that, that's generally 2 hours max that you lost out on, but you want people to spend days on this. A great way to turn people off of your game is to tell them they have to just deal with people who derive joy from antagonizing others and preventing others from progressing.

I suspect what happened was that because EoD was decided/announced while IBS wasn't halfway through yet, DRMs mark the point devs were pulled from what was planned with IBS to work on EoD with a small team finishing up IBS (and having the narrative team re-write the second half of IBS...). Since DRMs are so simple and there's no new maps, only dialogue, and there hasn't been any cinematics or custom animation, it's really easy for a small team to make and push out. That said, it is really boring and grindy and I can't see myself doing DRMs in the future. I think it should have maxed out at 3 for the number of times you have to repeat each one since while that would have been annoying, putting it at 5 means burning out on them. Especially since outside of Snowden, none of them are particularly hard so it really is just grind, not challenge. Hopefully if my suspicion is correct, that means EoD should be far better. That's what I'm banking on anyway (and I don't blame a small dev team resorting to grind because management hasn't given them the time/resources to put enough content in that doesn't need grind to pad it out) but I've talked to more than a few people who refuse to play GW2 again until EoD because they've heard of how grindy the current story is.

I'd rather they just update the current ones instead of throwing in an expensive paid item for your base character's look to take advantaged of players who don't want default options or want something with more polys and better textures. Some people have makeover kits and hairstyle kits sitting in their bank, yes, but it's been years since either were updated so updating them would still result in a surge of people buying them. Especially people with a lot of alts who don't like reusing the same face/hair/fur for multiple alts. Also updating battle tonics so you can mount while using them would make them more appealing to players in general. I just don't see the need of adding a whole new item (for $25USD!) that would prevent people from buying it due to the price when what we have can be updated to have more options while being far more affordable (therefore accessible) and making more people happy in the process.