Illconceived Was Na.9781

There are a number of sources of armor that allow you to choose Celestial stats. Just two examples: Defender's armor chests (the ascended boxes that drop from fractals and some other places less frequently)Triumphant armor, the exotic from the WvW reward track.I'm not sure if there's an easy way on the wiki to find all of the potential options.

In this case, it's a little late. There are already extra Giants in the game and the achievement is much more, um, achievable than previously. (And I'd argue that what [GINT] and [JINT] did was every bit as creative as death-leveling foes in pre-Searing Ascalon, although not nearly as tedious.)

March: Daily Sales in the Gem Store

Slayer of Humanoids of Unusually Large Size?Although I am nowhere close to finishing the achievement, it does seem as if the more laborious ones deserve a title. (Too bad there's no way to know whether someone did this just doing the UNIT event and/or our favorite named giants in core Tyria, versus those who slayed 1000 in PoF zones.)

Defender of Maguuma?

Rather than cater to completionists, so-called ridiculously-long|laborious minor achievements send a signal to the majority that, "you know, you don't need to do everything the game has to offer." I think that's ultimately a good thing for the game and the community, even if it's frustrating for some of us. According to the wiki, 13 different NPCs count as giants, including some non-champions: BrawlerHunter (awkwardly named in-game as "Giant Hunter", although actually it's the readers of this thread who are the Giant hunters ;))Trunt & Uhiwi (specific giants)In the end, I don't think this chieve is any worse or better these days than some of the weapon masteries or costume brawl (with six Halloweens lasting ~three weeks each, even doing three brawls per day wouldn't be enough to complete it), among others. I won't be sad if ANet changes the requirements or makes it easier, but I don't think it's important that they do so. Back in the old days, the [JINT] and [GINT] guilds formed to take advantage of the pre-megaserver, pre-squad instance system: people would join parties of 5. It worked exactly like AB multi-loot, only more annoying. Each person would aim to get on their home server's unique Brisban map. Folks would kill the giant(s) from the UNIT event chain on one instance and use the "join in" feature to warp to another and kill more. With 5 people, I think you got 3-4 giants. With 10 you could get more. And folks would spend an hour plus cycling maps. It was a slog, but a less-painful slog than we had after megaservers.

Colin said many things and look how good he's doing at Anet. Did Colin said anything about LS1 other than "it's on the table" ?More recently, Mike O'Brien has said that he, too, would like to see it. And that they took more than a look to think about how they'd do it and that it would be a lot more work than we think. He's said it would compete for resources with other things. (And look at how well he's doing at ANet.) It comes down to what people think is more important: a new story? an old story for nostalgia's sake? an old story done right (or at least, with different mistakes than the first time)? What are we willing to give up to see something other than what the devs have planned for the next couple of years?I'd love to return to some of the memorable moments in LS1, but for me, a lot of them came about because it was new, it was epic MMO with so many people, and most of all because it was temporary (one of the very reasons that ANet doesn't do content like LS1 any more). The transient nature gave the events an urgency that we don't feel with HoT or PoF or LS3-4. Obviously, most of us agree it would be bad for the game to go backwards and try transient content again (although I think ANet has learned a lot and could a better job of it now). So why is it that some of those same people think it would be good for the game to try to recreate some of that same content, rather than starting from scratch, without any of the baggage that comes with retelling a story? Bringing back LS1 isn't a bad idea — it's a good idea. But it isn't the only idea and it turns out, it might not be the best one of many, for all sorts of reasons.

In the case of LS1, there is so much more effort involved. It is the equivalent of a new expac story or a new LS, it isn't a single instance with a cute them. Can't blame them, since the community is mostly immature with design decisions, so they'd rather stay silent and give exaggerate excuses to just save face.If you want the support of others, how does it help to refer to their preferences as "immature" or "exaggerated"?Why would anyone care about "saving face" when the facts are pretty simple: it's a huge undertaking to bring back LS1. What do you think would happen if they were honest and just said "we're not bothering with LW1 because it's not worth the effort" instead? Why do you think they stayed silent about SAB for almost 3 years, and only broke that silence to give an ambiguous response when the community started to get really angry about it? Basic public relations.They didn't stay silent about SAB. They told us it wasn't a priority, because it was designed originally to be a short term bit of fluff. That bringing it back required redoing the mechanics, so that it could evolve with the game more sensibly.The reason nothing happened for 3 years is that other priorities meant it couldn't even be worked on as a labor of love. Once ANet started getting into their current, more organized routine, that changed. The key of this thread isn't discussing about how long it would take, or other technical aspects, it's about showing enough interest to make LW1 worth the effort.You spent nearly all of the opening thread discussing how long it takes and other technical aspects.If you want to make it about "showing enough interest", then I recommend starting a new thread and not running it as a poll, but leave the answers opened ended. In fact, the text is easy:"How interested are you in seeing LS1 return? Should it be prioritized over other new stories? Should it take the place of side stories? How closely should the revamp be to the orginal?"

From today's blog: (emphasis added)

There are several reasons this won't happen. Some of them have mitigating factors, some don't. The underlying theme in all of them is: it's a lot more effort than we think it is, with a smaller payoff than proponents imagine (mostly because it's a change that has limited value for lots of people). Recognizing foe professions: this is important and it's complicated by outfits and mitigated by the option to use "standard models" (which ignore opponent's armor choices). Clipping: yes, the game has tons of clipping. But it would be far, far, far worse if the devs didn't spend tons of time eliminating as much as they can. Essentially, it's impossible to avoid clipping; the goal is to make it so most people don't notice it most of the time. Mixing weights adds tons of clipping because the skins aren't designed to be matched. So yes, this is huge.Incompatible designs: besides general clipping issues, the "meshes" used for each weight are different. Which is partly why there are so many trench coats and but capes for medium armor (unfortunate choice of mesh to make trench coats easier). The meshes don't, well, mesh together. So that would have to be adjusted, probably redesigned. Dyes: different materials take dye colors differently. We already get confused when using dyes on the same types of materials and see different effects; this would be far more common.Other priorities: regardless of the pros & cons above, to make this possible, the designers would have to work on... making this possible. That means that they aren't working on fixing existing issues or designing new skins. And while lots of people like the idea of mixing more than seeing new stuff, there are plenty of players who would rather see another armor set or two in Expansion #3, rather than use any of the other weights, because they don't like the current selection.In short, it's a lot more work than most of us realize to make this possible and that means designers would be taken off of other design/skin projects.

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 replied:Capes are problematic. They are difficult to animate well. Especially when it comes to tails. I know we had them in GW1, but animations there were much less complicated, including not having the ability to jump. I think the OP is saying that we have that banner in and can we have the same item, but with a guild emblem instead. Which seems reasonable to meIt 'seems' reasonable, but the tech is apparently different. (My guess is that banners are simpler because they don't touch the character or armor.) I don't have the quote handy, so I'll see if I can find it later. As I posted afterward, I think if people want more banners, they can do that.

Banners, by the way, are a different mechanic. It seems much more likely that ANet can add more banners in the game than redesign backpacks to act as capes. (My reading of dev remarks is that they probably are already considering this and we might see more banners 'soon'.)

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 replied:Capes are problematic. They are difficult to animate well. Especially when it comes to tails. I know we had them in GW1, but animations there were much less complicated, including not having the ability to jump.

GW2 is a successful game and many games borrow from its design and feature aspects, but that's true of GW2, as well (it also borrows).

What the kitten are you smoking ? Any WvW guild I have encountered has never restricted acceptance based on gear.... what sad server are you playing on if what you say is even true. Both of you seem to be assuming that personal experience is a substitute for checking to understand what others are seeing in the game. There are some "serious" WvW guilds, just as there are hardcore Raid guild or restrictive Fractal PUGs. Such guilds care very much about gear and player skill, in addition to other requirements.There are 100s of guilds. Not all of them are "serious". Many don't care at all about builds or comp; they just want numbers and work with whatever they get.PS you can't count food as part of the "fully buffed up" because exotically-geared players can use the same food. Counting WvW infusions seems fair for Veterans, but most newer players won't have the gold or laurels to also afford that. Regardless, in an even match up, Ascendedly-geared players will defeat exotically-geared foes, but... in WvW, it's almost never a fair fight. Skilled commanders can defeat PUGlings, folks who know their professions (and their opponents') will win out over those who don't. Gear is a factor; it's just not enough to determine the outcome.

Test... what? What sort of meaningful testing do you imagine there would be that doesn't involve, oh all of WvW for 8 weeks? If only 10% of people join the test and some people are still playing live, then it's not a valid test of the system, which depends on everyone playing as they normally do (some full time, some sporadically, some bingers, some burn outs, etc). The only "real" test is going to be the first Season. So instead, I'd ask, Generally, for the first few months after launch, are you prepared to make frequent changes to the formula breakpoints, ratios, and even variables used?If the numbers are wildly off from predicted, are you prepared to end Season 1 early and start S2 with appropriate adjustments?What sort of metrics will you be able to share with us post-launch to help us see whether it's going well and/or better than the current status quo? Or is the only metric how many (or how few) people complain about weak match-ups and/or overpowered sides?

There are a couple of different achievements. Most of them require "completing a race"; as I recall, just one requires finishing win, place, or show.

How sure are you that the race didn't start? As I recall, the race start|stop times aren't "announced" everywhere in Vabbi. My memory is that I I wouldn't learn of the race if I was too far. For Vabbi, I ended up parking a toon near the start and just flipping to the character whenever I was waiting for something else.It's been a while, so I might be confusing one zone with another.

I run mostly exotics in WvW. I can count on one hand the number of times I've died because my gear wasn't ascended. It's much, much more often because I was outplayed, let myself get out of position, took a dumb risk, or generally because I'm not skilled enough to survive some circumstances.

They are going to look at the numbers and figure out if it's a useful tool for predicting outcomes. If it is, of course they are going to use it. If not, they won't. You make it seem as if squads of 50 goofing off are equally likely than squads of 50 crushing opponents. They are both possible situations, but one is far more likely than the other... and even if it isn't, ANet's has the data to figure that out and change the metrics accordingly. It wouldn't surprise me, for example, if squads with a core of 25 + 10 more (adding & dropping) affect warscores far more than squads with 10 core + 40 (adding & dropping). If that's the case, ANet might set a smaller multiplier for commanders with huge squads than those with smaller/tighter squads. The point is that any model is going to be an approximation of what's really going on in the game. If it's useful in predicting results, they'll use it; if not they won't. And we won't every have access to anything close to enough data to evaluate whether ANet's doing that well or not, whether they missed something big or coincidence plays a bigger factor than they can handle. Netflix can't tell you for certain if you're going to enjoy a movie; they can just predict whether that's likely to be true or not. And that's all that's reasonable to expect from ANet: that this will allow them to do a better job of arranging match ups, compared to the tools they have now.

Let's be careful, however, not to overstate the actual numbers or the importance of the metric. The link doesnt show linked pairs. Linked servers can equate or surpass blackgate. Still BG singularly doubles that of the average server and linked pairs dont make up the difference due to lack of organization and time used to make a solid effort to compete. BG doesn't play against the "average" server.Of course it's relevant that BG doubles the average; it's just misleading to say "BG had everyone beat by double." That statement is not supported by the evidence in the chart.

There's only so much any model can do to predict what would happen if this group is paired with that against another group paired with two others. All ANet can do is identify the factors that are highly correlated with even matches. Hours played is clearly going to be the biggest factor; everything else is going to be used to modify how they use hours played. People who tag up are going to have a disproportionate influence over people who don't; guilds that play together will impact outcomes more than guilds that play at varying times. Big guilds with high rep will dominate over even tight-knit smaller ones with high rep. My hope is that they identify more factors than they plan to use on day 1 and setup the formulas so they can tweak ratios and breakpoints and add (or remove) factors from the formula, without having to overhaul the system again.

Let's be careful, however, not to overstate the actual numbers or the importance of the metric.

I'm sorry that you keep crashing, especially after wading through all the steps up til the very end. That's got to be super frustrating. I had a friend for whom that used to happen during one particular instance of LS2. First, create a support ticket and provide as much info as you're able in the ticket. If you figure things out before they contact you, you can reply to the automated email to let them know you resolved the issue (and you can tell them how, if you want). If not, then you're already in the queue for another avenue of help. Second, what have you tried to do to address? Anything besides restarting the instance? The more details you can provide, the easier it will be for others to suggest things that might help. Until then, here's some generic things that tend to solve a lot of hard-to-pin-down problems associated with cutscene-related crashes: Repair your client. This takes 5-30 minutes, depending mostly on your hard drive speed.Clear out the Cache.Tone down your graphics to the barest minimum, including turning off things like light adaption & best texture filters. Turn on things like effect LoD.Change your resolution (use windowed full screen or full screen at a lower resolution than your monitor)Turn off all sounds from the game.If possible, do the story with someone else who can start the instance and literally turn off your monitor before the cutscene. (Sounds improbable, but this is how we got my friend through the LS2 instance. Turned out he had a hardware problem that only showed severe symptoms in GW2. Having us run the game and turning off the monitor allowed his machine to stay just calm enough that it could survive a few more minutes... and it crashed after instead of during.)Good luck and please let us know what you find out.