Finalfreefall.8247

You don't even have to spend money to skip the Living Story, just don't buy the thing and wah-la. Hah! Well played. I still want to adventure in the maps. I just don't want to get pulled out of my immersion by people complaining at me from a distance. If I can buy a "Black lion cat herder" to manage Destiny's orphans while I help the locals of whatever adventuring spot is handy, I'd have more fun.

Eh. I already use a mount to bypass most of the exploration. They work too well for that tbh. Can't complain about people wanting mastery points when most of us use mounts to skip the actual content. (Wheras masteries are more or less an artificial grind)Personally, I would pay money for a way to skip the Living Story. About fifteen dollars to pass the story and remove the B-team from the map per episode sounds fair to me.

Masteries are artificial content anyway. Convenience gated behind the grind. It's phone gaming without the option to pay. Might as well complete the cycle. Reiterate: Having players grind to make map traversal less obnoxious is terrible game design. "This skill unlocks a new area" and "Without this skill, you have to spend an extra minute jumping up that cliff" are not equivalent concepts.

I can't actually come up with a counterpoint for this that doesn't argue against the gem exchange. It's not a good idea, but a variant has already been implemented. I'd welcome the chance to skip certain (laggy) maps for a small sum. It disgusts me, but I'd welcome it because it's infinitely more convenient.

so feeling are not masculine, man can't cry or express worrying about being afraid to loose your friends nooooo.. What a toxic comment. Just a point of view as valid as yours. I am sorry I understand something different than you, I suppose that is toxic. Uh, why exactly is your point as valid as their point exactly? you aren't entitled to an equal level of respect for holding a point of view that is frankly a poison to society merely by virtue of it being your point of view. "You should have feelings" "But your views aren't valid, and you aren't entitled to equal respect. " Holy kitten. There are views that are authentically harmful to people or groups in society. The belief that masculinity cannot be emotional is, indeed, toxic. Just because I believe that it's important that people are allowed to have feelings doesn't mean that all ideologies must be taken seriously. To be kind to all people inherently means being cruel to others.So... being kind to some people then. And non-uplifting behavior to others. Honestly the fact that no one tried to reason with them and instead went "you're not valid" is shocking to me. At least a little logic. All the great things can be reasoned with logic. To exclude dissent instead of teaching is... religious.

Absolutely. The game has a ton of maps, and a bunch of exploration-based content. It does not have a lot of ways to play those maps without going full altitis. Adding two elite specs would fix most of that and (with content) has a good chance of revitalizing Pvp and Wvw as well. If Anet dropped in a bunch of minidungeons into older maps, that would be cool too. Maybe add a single underground level to an existing map for the final fight. But right now the game needs elite specs. And ffs, don't tie them into the expansion this time! It's cool while we're in the missions but afterwards it just makes our characters look like tourists.

so feeling are not masculine, man can't cry or express worrying about being afraid to loose your friends nooooo.. What a toxic comment. Just a point of view as valid as yours. I am sorry I understand something different than you, I suppose that is toxic. Uh, why exactly is your point as valid as their point exactly? you aren't entitled to an equal level of respect for holding a point of view that is frankly a poison to society merely by virtue of it being your point of view. "You should have feelings" "But your views aren't valid, and you aren't entitled to equal respect. " Holy crap.

As a writer, this made my mind segfault three times in a row. Character development is a cornerstone of writing and—at the moment—that's exactly what's happening. So, whenever a character gets any development we murder them? This new wave writing sounds incredibly lazy. Let's just murder everyone for schlocky shock and sleazy schadenfreude, then we can call it a day. We'll make a new round of characters and do the same to them, too! I've never understood the hate for the characters, really. I like all of them. Taimi though is especially egregious as she's very autistic in nature so where the loathing for her persence derives from is disgracefully transparent. Oh dude, it got so bad that Anet's nearly run out of (connected to the player) characters to maim or kill. So during PoF, they pulled a TON of characters from Elona and some from other GW1 areas, and added them to the suffering bonfire. This is... yeah. It's very bad. The relatively bulletproof qualities of the B-team only makes it worse.

The Commander always had a partner, or an army. Even in chapter 1, they had their Destiny's Edge mentor figure as a partner, if not others (as well). They didn't have a full guild, but they did have someone or someones. Wait. Renown hearts aren't canon? I'll still disagree on the basis that characters like Quinn exist as mission objectives more than teammates, and that the Destiny's Edge Mentor was more of a social boon, but that's interesting.Open world treats the PC as a random adventurer, not the Pact Commander. They're canon to lore, but not to the "golden path". Especially pre-HoT. And let's be honest, you're splitting hairs if you're trying to twist my statement to mean that the Commander has someone with them every waking moment. Obviously there are times the Commander is working alone against random mooks or puzzles, but yeah, since chapter 1, they always worked with someone in the overarching plot - whether that's a "social boon" or not.I apologize then. The renown heart bit was a surprise and it makes sense in retrospect. When I used team I meant it in the sense of an active squad, while (if I'm correct) you mean a wider-ranging group that still works together to accomplish goals. That does fit and I appreciate you expanding the point. "Alright mesmer'd team. We've blown up the Kralk draining device and we're going to walk out of here. No need to risk our best shot at Dragon Energy containment in a fight against a combatant that already killed her more prepared, arguably stronger and definitely more experienced sibling." Worst case: Kralk gets a case of demigodhood. (which I think happened anyway) I'm not even sure what your argument here even is. When we brought the army with, they couldn't continue through the - unknown to the Commander (hence: plan failed) - terrain warped by Kralkatorrik's branding and nesting, and when we do free Aurene, aka objective #1, Balthazar is right there and we could not risk Balthazar killing Kralkatorrik, aka objective #2, because let's face it, even without the Warbeast and captive Aurene, Balthazar still had a chance to win.The commander is standing next to a walking disguise generator and has recently used disguises to great effect. Association at a minimum is good reason for deciding to use the chaos and sabotage the enemy. Or any alternate plan besides "charge him". Hang on, how would Balthazar have won that fight? If he had weaponry capable of significant range Anmoon wouldn't be a thing. A really, really, really, dumb idea to let the best dragon containment option stay near the enemy. One lucky shot on Aurene would have been the end of the world. Except that there wasn't really a chance to just run away, what with an Elder Dragon and demigod bearing down on them, and Balthazar wanted Aurene alive.Flight capable dragon, and she's fast. Balthazar wanting her alive isn't a guarantee that she would live. Spite or bad luck would have cost Tyria's defenders their best long-term plan.

The Commander always had a partner, or an army. Even in chapter 1, they had their Destiny's Edge mentor figure as a partner, if not others (as well). They didn't have a full guild, but they did have someone or someones. Wait. Renown hearts aren't canon? I'll still disagree on the basis that characters like Quinn exist as mission objectives more than teammates, and that the Destiny's Edge Mentor was more of a social boon, but that's interesting. "Alright mesmer'd team. We've blown up the Kralk draining device and we're going to walk out of here. No need to risk our best shot at Dragon Energy containment in a fight against a combatant that already killed her more prepared, arguably stronger and definitely more experienced sibling." Worst scenario: Kralk gets a case of demigodhood. (which I think happened anyway) A really, really, really, dumb idea to let the best dragon containment option stay near the enemy. One lucky shot on Aurene would have been the end of it.

I do disagree with this. The plot comes off as rewarding what would by all rights be suicidal decisions with plot armor. Being bad at plans is not the same as being good at improvisation. And the commander did fine without a team early on.

Yes. 99% there. The quibbles that I raised with the plot was that "We went after Balthazar with no real plan, died, undied, and just when we went in for round 2 Rytlock handed us his sword"." Which can be summed up as "Stupid Commander, Lucky Commander, Deus Ex Machina". The reasoning behind the army bit was aggravated sarcasm which seems to have sidetracked my point significantly and I apologize for time spent there. I do however, disagree with the Hero's Journey assessment on different grounds though, in that the arc applies to the Commander's entire team rather than the commander specifically.

Ah yes, I forgot the part where we were killed by Balthazar's entire army instead of specifically by Balthazar in a small-scale combat scenario. Good job! And I fondly recall burying Balthazar in a mountain of awakened instead of fighting him one-on-one again with a weapon handed to us at the start of the battle. Yes. That would have been a similar scenario. I'm glad that never happened. All sarcasm aside, we picked up an army on the way to Mordymord. They're called the Pact. (this is the same Pact from the Living story) If you've been to Maguuma you can take time rallying them to your cause and fighting with them against the Dragon's army.

That is pretty much exactly what happened in PoF. We went after Balthazar with no real plan, died, undied, and just when we went in for round 2 Rytlock handed us his sword. I don't really see a motivation for the writers to change course.

Contrast the Norn spirits with the belief systems of other races. The Eternal Alchemy beat two dragons. A single de-powered human deity was a campaign. I'm fairly certain there's also an argument to be made that he was winning against Kralk. The Norn spirits aren't on the tier of other races. This of course works because the Norn are not on the tier of the other races. They're incompetent, overly hasty, and Braham. Ogres have a more developed society than Norn! Whatever they were supposed to be at the start, they've been undeveloped to the status of what GW2 refers to as a "minor" race".

I'd have Ideally enjoyed the Sylvari jumping allegiance to another dragon after Mordy died, or at least have a slightly edited view of the dream. Something to flesh out the threat.

I guess I'd just make Jormag smarter. Have turned Charr blow up houses and infrastructure in non-Charr territories to fracture the alliance. Drive wedges between the already fractured races and co-opt the Norn culture. (actually, that should have been done immediately. Minions guiding hunters to game, warning individual Norn about danger, etc.) But if I could do a big retcon, I'd make the Sylvari-as-dragon-minions thing actually have weight. There's really no reason to trust us post-HoT, especially with other dragons absorbing Mordy's power. Sylvari by all rights should be loyal dragon followers, co-opted by whatever dragon inherited the dream. But AT THE ABSOLUTE LEAST I'd have the other races react like they were. Some weight. Any weight. Just not forgetting such world-changing plot points would be neat.

Honestly, I'm just so tired of the "good" side. I want to join the Skritt and lead them to become the new science faction. The story conflict can be the Asura's attempt at ethnic cleansing once they feel threatened by the Skritt's growing intelligence. Which I need to specify is something they would have done pre-HoT. Most of the races have been changed significantly since then, and with no real in-universe reason except that Bubbles is the elder dragon of friendship and his corruption threatens us all.

Meta reason: I'm inclined to think no, simply because the percentage of female villains in Guild Wars 2 is... sexist levels of small. Everyone points to Scarlett then sort of just shrugs and goes back to a male-dominated villain scene. Scarlett didn't even have agency ffs, she was a dragon minion. Heck, a disturbing number of the female characters with "agency" ended up being dragon minions. Same with female characters getting killed to motivate poorly written males. (RIP Eir.) Apologies, you didn't ask for a rant, but Guild Wars 2 is pretty sexist about this and it irks me.

Side note: Why the HELL does anyone tolerate Rytlock? He wavers between unhelpful and actively useless, low-key sabotaging things and being an emo brooder about it. He has all the negative traits of Batman, without the nicest guy in the world repeatedly going to bat for him. Admittedly, I'd kick half of Destiny's Orphans off the team if given a chance, but Rytlock sabotages everyone. He should have been exiled for intentional incompetence ages ago a la the dramatically more helpful Jar-Jar Binks.

Nope. I want gameplay expansions. That is: New ways to play the game. The new zerg doesn't count as an expansion if I'm doing the same things across five characters as the old zerg. More of the same is not something new. New would be Elite Specs, expanding on the concept of minidungeons, finally putting some work into Guild Halls, or officially recognizing a game mode that's not "another arc of the story that not many people care about".

Is anyone taking a look at the current hero points system? Right now, boosting a new character comes with a not-insignificant amount of added time thanks to the required HP farming. This is mitigated with community farming eventus, but it's still surprisingly alt-unfriendly.

Okay. Fine. Nobody asked for this. When there's a response to the story, it's either lukewarm, or uninterested, with a very small number of responses as positive (less than 1/40).There are however, a ton of people asking for elite specs, some kind of long-term gameplay expansion, or begging for completion of dropped story threads. I don't have all the data, and it's entirely possible that what's visible isn't correct, but it makes no sense to push 1000% in a direction the playerbase is lukewarm or aggressively against, instead of giving the players what they want. Heck, I went into Icebrood, saw Braham following me, and went back into Core. (where I'm having a lovely time) I guess the question is: Why Anet? Why this direction? Most of the visible playerbase is angry or resigned- heck, most of the people on the forums are angry or resigned- just look at the lore discussions, the people reacting to the majority of the content being released are salty about it. And it keeps coming. Instead of elite specs, instead of a long-term game mode, instead of the story that people want. It's the same thing as the last four years. You know! You have to know!!! It doesn't make any sense to me.

Guild Wars 2 has had a problem of killing side characters by the dozens while the B-team remains invincible. Makes the story a little silly really. Having Jormag kill Rytlock, Taimi and... what the heck, let's throw Braham in there and that would solve most of Guild War's storytelling problems in one strike.