perilisk.1874

Maybe not so much new races, as a way for the PC to transform into one of several new races as a Mastery ability (applying the same system to the playable races, it would be a nice opportunity to revamp the racial utilities). I do want some mechanical overhauls, but I just don't know how feasible they would be in an old game. Considering the outcry over sigils and runes, I can't imagine what would happen if they, e.g., replaced random criticals with a new skill customization system that lets you pick "critical" effects that trigger under an associated condition, making skills more like GW1 skills (prec/fero could be replaced with an anti-condi and hard CC boosting stat, respectively, if you were wondering). They might just about be able to get away with revamping the combo system, though, which at least would be nice.

I mean... I just can't understand the mindset of someone who would think an infinite-use BLSK would be available for 600 gems. 4800 gems, ok, I can see how you might be misled. But really, for the price of a few keys or upgrade extractors (which don't even destroy the item), you're going to get infinity BLSKs? If it sounds too good to be true...

It would be a lot less confusing if they said "...salvage upgrades into upgrade components", or something along those lines.

Elite specs sometimes feel like a kind of dual-class spec. Scourge is Necro with Mesmer elements, Reaper is Necro with more warrior elements, Mirage is Mesmer with elements of sneak attack/mobility/evade from thieves, druid is ranger with Life Shroud, DH is guardian with Ranger's bow and traps, etc. Some are their own thing, or build on certain elements of their own class or resolve some complaints about the class (e.g. Soulbeast, for people who hate ranger pet AI).

Everything being magic probably evens things out a bit.

To play devil's advocate, I remember going through the light female armor skins and noticing that there were, indeed, a lot of boots and shoes with high heels. However, only a tiny handful were genuine "you could break your ankle wearing this torture contraption" high heels. Most were fairly subtle, much like riding boots, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. OK .. but I think the problem here is that we have a person who's issue isn't that there are too many 'high heels', it's that there are ANY high heels. That's not reasonable. Until this person tells us what their standard is for what is 'high heels' and 'skimpy' armor, the response is very simple; Anet can't cater to someone's subjective opinions about what is acceptable to them or not. Funny because I looked through the wardrobe and I wouldn't consider any of them 'high heels', by my standards (granted with my woman card.) All of the footwear that has a heel in game are low-mid high riding boots.Considering that half the point of high heels is to encourage a change of posture, and that different boot types don't produce different animations AFAIK, it's sort of an all or nothing proposition: either nothing is functionally a high heel, or everything is and changing artwork on future boot skins won't change that.

I've seen this before: It's not their equipment that's the problem, it's everyone else that doesn't conform to their standard of what they believe we should be allowed to equip. Oddly enough, even that can be addressed through game settings, as those of us with potato computers could attest. I just see vague gray blobs everywhere I go.

Maybe they need to release a mobile version of GW1, heh heh.

Portal scrolls.

I remember that one as being a real PITA. I ended up using a Mesmer and got it after 10-20 tries or so, but the PPR seems like a better idea.

Wouldn't be bad to have some outfits suited for swimming and summer fun, for both sexes. If you can dye it metallic, so much the better. I'll make sure to buy Speedo Armor and get my Lord Faren RP on.

I've found it a little easier to just keep everything left hand, and use mouse for the camera. So, WSAD for movement~ for swap123QE for weapon skillsShift+123QE for utilitiesCtrl+123QE for profession skillsAlt+Shift+QWEASD for specific mounts.shift+R for the special skills that pop up above the skill bar

New races could be interesting, but considering how ArenaNet likes to do their own take on things -- what if new races were the next Mastery system? Like, you develop some new shapeshifting ability through the story (soaking up lots of Mist energy or something) and can unlock new racial forms. You could still customize the face/hair/horns/etc. you have in that form , and would gain new racial utilities or movement abilities for PvE or something. While you wouldn't have normal armor (otherwise, it would run into the same scope problems keeping them from adding proper new races), you could possibly have various outfit unlocks for your different forms, just like mount skins (but hopefully a few would be available in-game as prestige armor of a sort).

I don't know why they don't just rubber band you like they do under the ocean at map boundaries. If you really wanted to leave the instance, there are lots of better ways to do it.

Ultimately, it's up to the writers. If they want her to accept her fate, or die a martyr, or refused to accept it but still die of boneitis, then they will write it that way. If they want to save her, there are loads of ways. Merging with a golem is the obvious one, but there are lots of other transformations that take biological weakness out of the picture: becoming exalted, adapting the rite of the great dwarf for asura, or having aurene turn her into sort of a free-willed branded, minus the purple.

Just personal preference, but I would rather disable floaters entirely and just show it as a highlighted section of the affected health bars.

I guess you could have an extra weapon swap as a general utility skill? I mean, it's not more imbalanced than putting a kit in that slot, really.

While Chalice of Tears is annoying, the couple of times I did it recently (for tokens and then Aurora) I found I didn't have to wait long for Mesmers to port. Just make sure to tip them well, so they have reason show up! They definitely earned it for that one.

I never really had much of an issue with Trahearne as a scholar or as the one selected by the Pale Tree to use Caladbolg to purify the Artesian waters. That's a plotline that runs through the entire course of the personal story (if you're a sylvari) and he's written well for the part. It's an important part of the fight against Zhaitan, but not the be-all and end-all. It's just that shoehorning him into the role of Pact leader as well feels hard to justify -- why would you pick the charmless, uncertain loner who doesn't seem to know anything about commanding miliatry forces and who is going to just do whatever his one friend (who, in 2/3 of cases, is a member of a different Order) tells him? I think it was probably a way to avoid needing to a write a second character for that role, but it contributes a lot to the Mary Sue impression. He isn't just the Pale Tree's Chosen One, he's also leader of the world's largest paramilitary force. Being Treesus alone might be okay (and he's written well enough to support that role), being Stick Fury alone might be okay (if he was re-written for it), but both at the same time feels a little Mary Sue. The whole Pact concept itself bugs me. I don't mean the concept of the Orders working together, more the creation of a bland new supergroup that creates an excuse to sideline all the interesting lore and character of the Orders and eliminate the PC's connection to their chosen Order. Anyway, I think they could have split the role of Trahearne into five racial characters who aren't exactly iconics, but play a major role throughout the entire storyline, such that none would feel over-important or overused. A Sylvari whose Wyld Hunt is to reclaim Caladbolg and purify (corrupt for Mordremoth?) the Artesian waters. A human who is a scholar of Orr and the gods and a powerful necromancer (Priestess Rhie, with a bigger role). An Asura researching dragons and dragon-killing lasers (Gorr, with a bigger role). A Charr war-mechanic who dreams of flight and builds the Pact's first flying machines. And a fierce but savvy Norn Lionguard who survived and led the retreat from the original battle of Lion's Arch, worked with the Orders to coordinate the assault on Claw Island, and continues in that vein as a war commander for all three Orders to take down Zhaitan.

Poor execution is basically what distinguishes a Mary Sue from a character that is legitimately awesome.

It's not exactly an underwater mount, but here's my shot at it: Drakefrog Mount. Amphibious mount with a sticky tongue and sonic croak. Looks like a cross between a drake and a frog, has feet that are both webbed and sticky, slow hopping on land, has a tadpolish tail that looks made for water travel (they don't lose them, cuz reasons). Slow travel on land, fast travel underwater, has a decent jump (not a special ability, just ordinary movement jump). Has separate movement/dismount abilities on land and underwater, in keeping with the amphibious theme. On land or on the water's surface, it can pull itself places with its powerful tongue, similar to the mechanics of Oakheart’s essence. The tongue doesn’t have the reach of OE, but it can be used anywhere, and if possible, the frog sticks wherever it lands. It can use its tongue ability again while sticking as well. The frog has three charges of endurance, which don’t regenerate while it is sticking to a wall or using its tongue ability. The frog has a two-stage dismount ability on land. For the first stage, it uses its tongue to grab and swallow a single enemy (can be blocked/evaded, doesn’t work on anything with a defiance bar, structures, etc.). While an enemy is swallowed , the frog can’t use its movement ability or regain endurance. The ability requires/consumes a charge of endurance and can’t be used while sticking to a wall. However, the rider is not dismounted immediately on using the tongue attack. For the next ten (or whatever is balanced) seconds, the enemy takes damage, and so long as the enemy lives, the tongue attack is replaced with the ability to spit the enemy back out as a “projectile” (mechanically, more like a warrior's whirlwind attack aimed in the direction the frog is facing), damaging that enemy and every other enemy in its path, and dismounting the rider. If the frog doesn’t spit the enemy out within 10 seconds and it is still alive, the rider is dismounted anyway, and the enemy is disgorged without further incident. If the enemy dies while swallowed, the frog gets a temporary boost to endurance regen and the rider is not dismounted. Underwater, the Drakefrog uses its tail to propel itself forward rapidly, and endurance drains over time rather than in discrete charges. Its dismount ability is a sonic burst that pushes enemies away, reveals them, and very briefly dazes them, but isn’t massively damaging. When traveling on the Drakefrog underwater, it passively uses a sonar ability every few seconds that marks nearby enemies on the minimap at about the same radius as gathering nodes can be shown (their locations are fixed rather than tracked, but update with each new pulse).

I could see why Trahearne, surviving and learning in Orr, would have the respect of the Priory. But not so much the other two -- he didn't go around slaughtering enough Dragon minions to earn the respect of the Vigil, and he never seemed to have the cunning that might earn him the respect of the Order of Whispers. Now, maybe it would have worked better if your character saw the defeat at Claw Island and been the first to realize the Orders need to work together. You consult with your mentor in Destiny's Edge, who basically advises you to pull a My Fair Lady with Trahearne, who is known to the Orders but not affiliated, (under guidance from the other DE characters), and basically manufacture a reputation for him that will let him form the Pact. It would actually involve them more in the PS, and it would explain why people are willing to follow Trahearne. It might even let players see the emergence of leadership qualities (or, re-emergence, if they were lost due to self-doubt from some backstory screwup) rather than just pulling them out of thin air.

I could never really buy him as leader of the Pact. He didn't really have any charisma, or military experience. He wasn't somehow a mix of the strengths of the three Orders, he was basically just another Priory scholar that happened not to have a formal membership. He was a firstborn, true (they could have talked that up more), he had a Wyld Hunt regarding the dragon (which makes him a more verbal Aurene, ie a plot device, not a commander). I could see if he fell into it due to cynical machinations on the part of the Order leaders (trying to set up a figurehead to manipulate), and randomly happened to be good at it. I could see if he was written more as an intense charismatic not-quite-religious leader on a crusade against the dragon that pulled people along with him. Nothing against the guy, but both his relationship with the PC and with the Pact were just pulled out of the air without any real narrative backing. You know, how in a fan fiction a character might be added who becomes friends with all the important protagonist characters for some unexplained reason and everyone loves and doesn't just join one faction, but finds a way to rapidly become leader of all of them (i.e. a Mary Sue, or else an Elder Scrolls player character). Of course, the PC is also a bit of a Mary Sue, at least in the Personal Story, but there's at least an established progression that explains how you're building your reputation up. It's mostly the interest of your DE mentor that feels a little contrived (e.g., it's hard to take being the hero of Shaemoor seriously when it isn't even a solo instance, so there are multiple heroes. What makes you stand out?). Well, that, and becoming Pact Commander rather than just becoming an elite operative in your chosen Order.

I'm having horrible flashbacks to Claw Island and Deputy Mira now.

Getting some more closeups on the character speaking (along with the ability to skip lines) would be nice, depending on the situation. Obviously, it could also lead to silly results. I don't miss the two-character closeup dialogs, though.