sewenewes.4176

From what I've noticed, groups in tier one die mostly in the fire phase because of the rapid spam of AoE that inflicts a lot of burning. For people without agony resistance this is usually an immediate death due to the agony accompanying the burning. My experience might be an outlier but in every Sunqua attempt so far my group had at least one person with zero AR. I'm talking about the ones that are indicated by arrows on the ground and create a wall of fire with gaps in-between except half the time the gaps don't seem to work. There's also the issue of meteors sometimes crumbling at the same second as the boss unleashes its fire wave so it's impossible to know which rock is safe to hide behind until it's too late but that's clearly some kind of bug. Perhaps latency related? The few groups I've been in that have gotten past the fire phase fall to the second wave of Tidal Bargain because of the difficulty of managing the stacks in combination with the pull to the middle and the AoE arrows that are now so big it's almost impossible to find a gap that the game actually registers as a gap. I'm not sure how long the boss is supposed to stay in place after her bar is broken but she seems to ignore it completely. She does become vulnerable to attacks but immediately starts dashing around so even with everyone switching to their ranged weapons it's a massive slog as people are more focused on avoiding the AoE walls than unleashing a proper rotation on her. For me, it's not the mechanics that I mind but just the sheer amount of rapid flashing going on that I must stare at for an excessive length of time if I don't want to be one-shot. If every fractal was like this then I'd just write off fractals as content not intended for people with seizures or similar neurological conditions but from what I've seen it's only Sunqua? A friend of mine mentioned Silent Surf as having similar issues but I haven't given that one a try yet. Thaumanova Reactor has an unskippable cutscene at the end where the camera goes wild but combat is already over at that point so I can just close my eyes to avoid a trigger. Shattered Observatory has some major environmental bling bling with Skorvald and Arkk but the fights are short enough for it to not be an issue. All this being said, I don't expect Arenanet to change Sunqua (or anything else) for me and me alone but I wanted to throw this topic out there as a sort of "for your information" post and to see if there are other players suffering from the same adverse effects and whether they found anything to mitigate it if so.

Not here to moan about the difficulty but about the visuals. The last boss has so much going on visually when combined with player effects that it always gives me a throbbing headache and has even caused seizure. Yes, I do participate in large meta events regularly with plenty of bling bling going on without this happening and I suspect that's because in those cases I can stay at range when the effects get really crazy and just angle the camera at the floor to dodge out of anything appearing under me. Other fractals are less visually obnoxious and the flashier fights don't last long so having to stay in close range and stare at the fireworks isn't so bad. With the Sorrowful Spellcaster not only do I have to intently look at the whole playing field at all times with multiple rapidly flashing effects overlaying one another because even small mistakes bring you near death but do it for a solid fifteen minutes uninterrupted because the boss is a health sponge that takes a while to get down with an average team even when none of them die. Unfortunately many random groups wipe in there and I find myself having to quit trying to avoid more seizures. To date I have not completed this fractal even once. I've done the fractal rush event over the weekend and one of the random groups I joined decided to run Sunqua. It ended predictably. Is there any way to tone down the flashbang?

It's odd because they have done it well enough before without making it black and white. Someone being the bad guy doesn't have to mean they make no good points and are irredeemable monsters who kicks kittens for fun. As much as Joko was a bit of a comedic relief he also correctly pointed out that what our merry band of heroes did was monumentally stupid and we were well on our way to doom the entire world by gunning down elder dragons and an actual god. He also had a portion of the Elonian population loyal to him because he provided not only protection from very real threats but also the possibility of your loved ones being brought back to life. Were Joko's actions undeniably evil? Yes. Was he self-serving? Yes. It was abundantly clear that he was the enemy and us defeating him was a good thing but his absence left behind a void that needed filling and he also made us think of the fact that we have been recklessly gambling the lives of everyone on the off-chance that things will work themselves out somehow.

I like Peitha because I'm a huge fan of Patty Mattison's voice acting and it's really nice to hear her again after Blizzard ruined Sylvanas. The story itself is oddly boring despite the fantastical setting and the only thing worse than the blatant padding (repeat a bunch of events you have already done every chapter to progress the story) is the laser focus on a rather juvenile depiction of emotions. I never expect overly complex writing from games because that's not their only purpose but there were multiple well-written dialogues, events, and story chapters in the base game and in the expansions. Compare how loss, regret, grief, and post traumatic stress was portrayed with Aurene, Soo-Won, Yoon, Rama and later our character in Gyala Delve (just to focus on the most recent pre-SOTO writing) with how the same themes are portrayed with Mabon, Lyhr, Zojja, and the rest of the clown fiesta that is the Astral Ward. It's night and day! The EOD gang, for all their faults, felt like individuals who could exist in real life. The SOTO gang feels like, well, video game characters. Artificial. Robotic. I couldn't care less about any of them which is a shame.

This is an excellent idea and could help Arenanet sell more cosmetics so win-win. I love matching my equipment with my costume, glider, pet, and mounts. I even have multiple rangers to create sets themed around specific ranger pets because just one ranger with multiple loadouts unlocked isn't enough! The main reason I have been skipping on cosmetic purchases lately is because it's such a chore to change up everything on a character with no way to flip back to previous skin and dye choices.

You can make groups and have a commander tag (for 150 gold, that is) but if players are not interested in sufficient numbers at the times you are available then you either have to play your desired content without enough people and hope for the power creep to carry you (as is the case currently) or not be able to do them. Which is why I said that if players were given a buff to scale their power relative to how outnumbered they are then developers could pull back on the rapid power creep without dissatisfying a large percentage of people. An automated buff feels like a more realistic solution than developers being assigned to constantly monitor and adjust individual bits of content when they already struggle with the pace of delivering new content. The ideal solution would of course be the manual adjustment of everything but is it realistic to expect that?

What's more realistic? Arenanet dedicating time and energy to constantly monitor, evaluate, and adjust events (of which there are hundreds) on a case-by-case basis or nerfing the content across the board like in HoT or like with Soo-Won's fight? The power creep is already a roundabout way to nerf everything but if we had a system that buffs players when the odds are not in their favour the balance team could be a lot more strict and reign in the ever-increasing numbers. They can't do that currently without driving away a significant portion of their players who are already at a disadvantage due to the massive gaps in output between an unskilled, an average, and a skilled player. There is currently, according to snowcrows, an average of six thousand damage per second difference between the best and the tenth best build in the game and these are all the crème de la crème as far as damage builds go. The average person's gear, talents, and ability to consistently maintain the ideal rotation will have them doing not even half of those numbers. Not to mention that without a group that has dedicated roles the average person will also be missing a lot of buffs.

The game could use more power creep, actually. We have a lot of content that is completely abandoned by players so if someone wasn't playing them when they were run regularly they are out of luck. The core world is fairly soloable but the expansions are a hit or miss. Someone will say to this that you just need to call out for help because this is an MMO. Problem is that not only is it not guaranteed that players you currently share a map with will help in sufficient numbers but it's not even guaranteed that your map has enough players at all because layering doesn't seem to work properly and maps are constantly being closed and created with very low numbers. Dungeons could also be made soloable at least on story mode. I do agree that this power creep shouldn't be done through introducing increasingly broken builds. Maybe give players a buff on underpopulated maps, similar to WvWvW outnumbered?

Thank you so much for that link! I played around a bit in Gyala to see the story but didn't stay long and had no idea they added the strike item to a vendor. As for Leviathan and Renyak, I do see people doing them with some regularity but I don't see them succeed. I would have thought that these events would need less people now that our characters got a substantial increase in damage and survivability with the addition of weapon master training but it might be an issue of not enough participants doing the mechanics like using their skiff or breaking the defiance bar on the cannons.

I have stopped playing End of Dragons quite early on due to various reason. So I am now stuck on completing this achievement and unlocking the siege turtle mount. Cantha appears to be unpopular with the majority so I have been struggling for a while now to kill Aetherblade Renyak and the Adolescent Leviathan as well as get a successful run of the Kaineng Overlook strike mission. I have tried organizing groups and I have tried joining already formed groups. Simply put, not enough people are interested - at least during the hours I play. Would love to see alternative means of acquisition implemented for the saddle components. Maybe imperial favour or even a handsome sum of jade runestones?

For the fourth time, actually! The Long Way Around has also featured thrice and Vasburg Armory twice. I'm sure Valdhertz Crypts would also be getting shoved down our throats again if it wasn't so horrendously buggy that Arenanet had to concede and take it out from rotation. I'm confused as to why there is such a lack of variety when there are so many mini dungeons and jumping puzzles to pull from.

Don't worry, it was as broken as all of Arenanet's promotions. I saw it immediately when it became available as I actually knew of the brewery and have a friend who enjoyed their beers. Tried registering on every browser and it never worked. Same for friends and guild members. You could simply not sign up even with plenty of codes available. All the promotion achieved in our social circle is alienate the one consumer this brand had.

This is the crux of the issue. The pet class performs significantly better without a pet because pets have garbage AI. I love micromanaging critters and always had some kind of pet or minion class as my main in every game I played so I'm used to wrangling NPCs with less than stellar controls and pathing but the pets in this game are among the worst I have ever dealt with. I enjoy playing base ranger and untamed in open world but for anything more serious I need to bring out the soulbeast. There's no way to fix that issue without reworking pets.

I sent a screenshot of my charr wearing the outfit to friends who also play WoW with the caption: "Still a better Lich King than Bolvar." It was an instant hit. Thanks, Arenanet! 👍

Spirit Vestibule is on the daily rotation for the third or possibly fourth time since the introduction of the Wizard's Vault. It's getting a little silly. I own every expansion and Living Story so there really isn't a lack of content to pull from. Luckily I can skip it this time and still get daily completion but their task randomizer really needs a looking at.