Noobix.3958

Ok, 2 weeks in a row EU servers are blowing up. Thats after 8 years of pretty much non-stop uptime.ANET, whats going on over there? Is the infrastructure not being maintained due to covid-related staffing issues or something? If it is, we'd understand, just let us know whats up...

Excellent write up, its always nice to hear perspectives from experienced pug commanders, of which there are far too few in the game.I'd wager the primary issue with Serpents Ire at the time wasn't so much the difficulty or lack of general player skill, but in the pitiful rewards it offered (and imho, still offers even after the boost). If you add unique skins, with relatively decent drop rate about 2x as frequent as TT regurgitated chests, then the more experienced players will come and stay and the general community knowledge and competence with the event increases over time. You see this with TT wurm, I think people would be surprised with how easily you can pull off a map-chat %100 pug run these days. Alot of players know enough about the event that the dedicated condi husk killers and egg blockers are less and less required. Instead, with Serpents Ire you had a 'One and done' mentality with the players because besides a few one-off achievements and collections, there is absolutely no reason to repeat it besides the challenge. Another system that Anet should implement is some sort of increased rewards for the commander of a squad who successfully participates in the event. Maybe a slightly increased drop chance above the rest of the players or something. Right now, you have these experienced players who are willing to cat-herd an event and teach players how to be successful, and they get nothing out of it other than the players' thanks. I had a laugh about your description of the indignant players that whine or fight the commander. Met so many of those. Its like they want to be contrary just to 'fight the power!' or something. Like...dude, im just a player like you. Im not your dad or your boss or something. Play the game or dont but stop muddying the message im trying to deliver because you happen to believe that your strategy is obviously superior or everybody should use your cc skill instead of the one I suggested. Im not spending my time here to lord over you my sexy blue dorito, i just want to complete the event same as you.

Note how i explained what i meant by 'raid-hard'. TT is not mechanically hard no. It is logistically and coordinately hard. Balanced player distribution between 3 geographically separate and mechanically different events, with a tight synchronized component that ties them together. Its a different kind of hard than other events even though they have some or all of the aspects of TT wurm.

Totally agree with this. If you start tagging requirements for other pieces of content onto a hard and occasionally completed world boss, you are going to piss off alot of players. If im going for a collection and just systematically working through it, then all of a sudden need to find a way to get a full TT kill, im gonna be annoyed. The open world hard content should be totally self-sufficient and have no other dependencies on it whtether thats being tagged into other collections or story progression. It should have its own reward structure with a tokenised reward system. i.e RNG lets you get things early but with time you can get what you want with dedication.

I totally agree there is a lack of consistent meaningful rewards for these events. Tequatl has an entire unique weapon skin set that hardly any player ever gets to see. Even players that kill the bloody thing 100 times are not guaranteed to get anything worthwhile. The TriWurm has unique ascended armor pieces with the Regurgitated Armour set. Again, you can kill it 100 times and not ever get a Regurgitated Armour selection chest, and its technically the hardest open world event in the game!I much prefer the style of content where you can get lucky with a good drop early, but if you repeat it enough times, you can earn tokens or something that can be traded in for one of the goodies over time. Im not saying everybody should get everything. But c'mon, the dedicated players should be rewarded for their efforts surely? Anet is NOT rewarding players time. I'd do the dragonfall meta more because those weapon skins are kick ass. But the chance of actually getting one is so vanishingly small id rather just not bother.

I dont think the contention that the only reason players do it is for achievements and rewards is entirely true. I think alot of players enjoy the sense of challenge in and of itself. I organise a few pug runs of TT every other day or so. Im not part of a guild or anything. I just do it by myself and try to pull together a few more commanders and enough players to run the event. With effort and explanation its entirely possible to fully pug this content. But that doesnt take away from its innate challenge. Players constantly thank me and seem genuinely impressed they were part of a massive event that needed so many players. They are getting that same feeling of 'awe' that i got when I first downed the wurm. Its a special feeling in MMOs and only replicated when the content is hard and the player investment in its success is high. These players do the metas for Shatterer, Tequatl, Drakkar and the rest every day and they are just part of the DPS blob. TT is different. and Tequatl back when it was still hard was different too.

One of the things that has made me pretty sad as a veteran player of the game is the apparent abandonment of what I call 'Open world raid-hard content'. Im talking about TT wurm and Tequatl Rising revamp at its release. These were open world events requiring large player counts (150+), strong communication and coordination amongst the leaders of the event and often days of trial and error to find a workable strategy.Entire communities and guilds formed around this content in the EU region that went strong for years in the hope that more of this style of content would come into GW2 but sadly they have definitely begun to die off.I think ANET is missing a trick here. Im pretty sure a large segment of veteran players would come back to GW2 with a new 'raid-hard' open world boss event. The bragging rights of 'world first' was a massive draw to the crowds and personalities that led these events.I dont describe them as 'raid-hard' in the sense of maximizing dps outputs and precision mechanics fulfillment. But rather in the logistical, coordination and communication challenge in itself which some masochistic commanders and players do enjoy and can be extremely challenging.To an extent, the Chak Gerent was somewhat a return to this style of content but they nerfed the HP and the players got comfortable with the mechanics to the point that a sufficient map population is almost a guarantee of a kill. Most of the new maps that have come into GW2 with the LW episodes has had some form or large scale meta event with a big boss baddie to kill. Drakkar. Branded Shatterer. But they are all just 'player count' problems. Throw enough players at it...and it dies. Boring. Lazy. Promotes afk leeching of the event. I just wonder if Anet will ever consider actually challenging its open world PvE player base. The players are capable of completing it. TT wurm is still killed by dedicated communities and pug commanders to this day. 5 years after its release. There is a hunger for this kind of content.

Ok, so im going to work towards the Legacy Armor avian mantle in wvw this week. Also, love the foefire wrap so i may have to fork out for some gems. Also gonna get another ascended axe and reskin to Mordrem cleaver coz it does look pretty cool. Once i get the armor skins i dont have, ill change all the dyes and show you the finished look :)

Wow you did a great job. I'm busy this weekend so won't have the game time to implement your suggestions but I'll show you the end result on Monday.

Hey, im surprised this thread isnt more popular. I've always struggled in the fashion wars department ,i feel its the one game-mode in GW2 i havent quite gotten to grips with yet.My main is a Charr Necro. At character creation, i was kind of going for a scary death-worshipping tribal shaman type deal. I thought he looked cool at the time. The skull earrings were from character creation in 2012. I am a vet player and have access to a good portion of the skins in the game but i would be prepared for you to throw in some of the more expensive stuff and i can work towards it as a goal.I like the ancestral armor set as a whole. I run that from time to time when im in the mood. The arah looks is my first real attempt at Fashion Wars 2. A tribal look but still carrying the scary necro vibes. My biggest problem is the dyes imho, i think dark greens and blacks are too cliché for necros so id love for you mix it up for me here. Change the armor pieces too if you want. The pants piece is the CoF set coz it gives a flaming tail which is cool as fudge. Wish you could dye the flame colour tho.Personality-wise, I consider Mkkoll the Charr Necro to be a bit of an outcast, still firmly clinging to his tribal charr roots and can sympathize and understand flame-legion mentality more-so than your average 'enlightened' charr. If you want more angles or more context...fire away.EDIT: I spent alot of time at character creation on Mkkoll's face. Probably about an hour just on the face, the horns, the eye direction and horn curve etc. I've grown very attached to him and i truly feel he is part of my identity within the game. I feel his outfit leaves something to be desired though, its not unique enough. We can totally ditch the 'necro'-ness of the toon if needed, i feel his identity is more as a tribal charr, and the necro part is kind of secondary, although the themes do kind of go hand in hand? Ideally, he would be a believable character within the world, but not one that would blend in. Hopefully he can stand out somewhat. But not like Rasman-the-Boss levels of standout... My eyes they burn Mkkoll 1Mkkoll 2Mkkoll 3