yoguil.7320

Fair point. I'm pretty sure Anet could modify the kirin jackal skin with little effort to offer you a basic horse. A horse that could teleport, though... Mounts in GW2 are somewhat magical creatures so far. What makes mounts in GW2 special are those distinct abilities they come with. And that's quite an obstacle to take if you try to use common farm animals like dolyaks as mounts. A dolyak jackal skin? Wow, think of all the frazzled charr ranchers constantly chasing their herd porting away. There's one exception: the warclaw. Warclaw abilities are limited to wvw, in pve open world they do nothing fanzy, don't they? Maybe implementing a new mount class in core Tyria based on warclaw would indeed be a good idea - a bit slower than other mounts, no special abilities, no mastery line involved, available for new players (including f2p) very early on after completing a certain quest, skinned as a basic horse. Optional skins for different horse breeds plus other common animals like dolyak, marmox and so on available for gems of course to monetize it. And the limitations might trigger some more PoF sale to get "real" mounts.

You know, bruh, if you start thinking a little more materialistic like the rest of the world... if you start earning money with your coding instead of offering it for free... 100g roughly equals two scoops of ice cream where I live, not a big deal, bruh.

Is it really that simple? I bought my first computer game almost 40 years ago, titled "M.U.L.E.", developed and published by a then small company named "Electronic Arts". True, back then nobody would have classified them as Big Business. Today however... Something happened in between those 40 years, not only with EA but the industry in general and the market for computer games as a whole. It's not so much evil big business invading our fairyland, I fear. It's not so different from computer software in general, I'd guess. When it all started users and coders where often the same more or less. Or at least users were an active part of the development process giving vital (and constructive!) feedback if nothing else. At some point users became customers, and support units, marketing, attorneys and so on did contribute as much to your product as developers. With games there's still a good opportunity to step in with an interesting idea and deliver a top selling game with a very small team. If your self-marketing is ok you can even get paid upfront during development via crowdfunding. But even that is a slippery road where you should really know what you're doing (and I mean not only in coding) - ever heard of "Chronicles of Elyria"? Disclaimer: I'm a disenchanted cynic when it comes to open source and stuff like that, sorry.

Sorry, can't do that. There's 3rd party ip involved. But just out of curiosity: Your friends would guarantee the same support level paid devs do? You know, stuff like 24/7 availability in case of critical bugs, fast path patching of vulnerabilities? And they provide somebody we can sue in case they break their contractual liabilities? You know, because we as a commercial service might get sued by our customers for bugs and service interruptions they might cause with sloppy coding.

Wow! Really? Could you get me in touch with them? Right now we* run a huge software project in our company we really really need done as soon as possible. Those pesky devs we employed until recently told us it would cost 40 millions. Hah! We fired them and went to some devs in India doing it for half the price. And now you tell me we could save even more money because there are devs out there doing it for free? I NEED those contacts! </sarcasm> *Disclaimer: No ties whatsoever to Anet or NCsoft, not even gaming industry.

It's a piece of software and therefore never really a question of possible or not possible. It's all about return of investment. Devs have repeatedly explained race change would be difficult, meaning: Anet would have to put a lot of effort into it, and most probably the demand for a feature like this isn't big enough to justify the development ressources. Business 101. Personally I don't get it why anybody would ask for that at all. But I'm probably to much into the R of RPG. My Norn characters have distinct Norn (or nordic) names, my Charr names follow Charr naming conventions. I don't play toons named "xxXSuperMariosCousinXxx" or something like that, it would break my immersion. If I want to play some new character, different race, different gender, different profession I simply create one and level them up. Even without boosters it's insanely fast pace levelling now with the new achievements and their xp gain. So I can't really imagine the demand for a race change option in gem store would be big enough. But that's a completely uneducated guess. Another point to consider: How many people buying a race change voucher in gem store would later demand a refund for gear they can't use any longer because it's culture locked? That's even more an issue with profession change - people whining afterwards they can't use their expensive legandary heavy armour any longer after switching to a class wearing medium? It would happen for sure, if something is really unavoidable in this world it's people being stupid. And support would have to deal with them in some way, wouldn't they?

Hmm. Are you sure about that number? Soo-Won's final end could also be counted from successful completion of story step "The Only One". At least it would be consistent with the numbers above since Zhaitan and Mordremoth can only be killed in story instances. Also I would be really surprised if Dragonstorm as an event would be nearly as popular as the Dragonfall meta.

I'd recommend unlocking mounts first. Since you're aiming for elite specs in general and Holosmith in particular I assume you've bought at least PoF. PoF alone gives you 290 hero points, so more than enough for Holosmith. All PoF hero challenges are designed for solo players, the same goes for EoD and the 300 hero points there. HoT is different, about a third of the hero challenges there are real challenges if you try to solo them; with little (PoF or EoD level of combat involved) to no effort you can get 200 hero points out of HoT maps (240 if you participate in a successful Dragon's Stand meta). I have more than 40 characters on my account, occasionally swapping out some old toon I got bored with and creating a new one. As others stated above, it's more like 2hrs to create a new character and farm the necessary hero points for an elite spec (including at least 30min to click through all the reward chests for levelling up with lvl60-boosts and Tomes of Knowledge). But it's only doable in that timeframe with mounts.

It happens quite frequently. That's why we veteran players don't idle around in hostile territory checking our loot, instead move to some safe spot or mount our skyscale, don't we? @OP: respawn usually takes some 30sec as others already stated. Sometimes it happens a lot faster, though. For example if a bunch of other players are nearby during an event. Sometimes it happens without an obvious reason (meaning: you simply don't see the reason). But it's not a random timer even if it seems so. You'll adapt, give it time :-)

Hmm, my guess would be you engage in combat to early. Give your pet time to attack two or three times (best start with F1 "Attack my target" followed by F2 skill) then you can shoot your bow at will without getting aggro. With a tanky pet and a little target management you can easily lock three or four mobs to your bear and fight them totally unharmed from range.

EoD in my mind will be remembered as the expansion that tried forcing the various factions within the playerbase to come together and do the same stuff, thus creating an incredible amount of toxicity in the community. A few days ago I played HoT content with a new character. Haven't been in HoT maps for years. I was shocked. Tarir meta with obviously lots of new players, lots of dead players, nobody explaining anything in map chat, a lot of toxicity instead. Dragon's Stand with private squads on two of the three lanes, the third more or less unorganized except for a handful of buddies the commander obviously communicated with on a private channel, rushing through, ignoring the trash that then butchered all the noobs trying to follow. It was the fastest DS run I've experienced so far, I give you that. Tarir also succeeded in record time. Efficient, yes. But fun? No. I remember HoT metas to be open community events, not a private party where you're barely tolerated as a random visitor. Maybe it was just bad luck, bad timing. Or is it the "new normal" established by EoD metas?

Your math seems a little weird to me. Playing GW2 for almost 10 years now did cost me something like 250 bucks (don't remember whether I always bought the superduper deluxe edition of the game at launch and every expansion). Would I've been playing WoW instead the monthly fee alone would have piled up to 1800 bucks. That's far from "more or less identical", wouldn't you say? Anyway, when we talk about LS in GW2 I think the general conception in the playerbase is Anet should a.) be more clear about what's bundled in a package and b.) offer something like an "expansion+" package for 5 to 10 bucks more (per expack) that includes the appropriate previous LS season.

You've noticed you'ld obviously have to pay them with legendary trinkets? Hardly exploiting that is... 🙃

Nah. The true reason I might quit are people I cannot name properly without being banned trolling every attempt on a reasonable discussion.

Ok then, I stand corrected.

Well, it's not about this one meta in EoD, it's not about this one strike mission. It's the overall tone of the game that changed. Ok, let's say Anet would provide an alternative way to get the Thruster Control Unit, too. Then what? If I'm not mistaken it's impossible right now to max out all EoD mastery lines including the turtle one without doing even more strike missions, right? So we're not talking about a one time inconvenience people like me have to swallow, it's an overall shift in game design and philosophy. It's intended to be that way, not a mistake. That's why I feel screwed.

And as I've stated in the past: I'm not afraid of strike missions, I simply don't enjoy playing instanced group content. I'm playing video games since the 1980's. I'm playing mmorp games since the early 2000's. I've learnt a long time ago I don't like instanced group content. What's the point in trying it over and over again? It's a game, it's not a job. In a job I simply have to do what I'm told. If a game starts to act like an employer I resign.

True. That's why I only have a single legendary weapon after almost 10 years playing GW2 (got it more or less by accident). Your comparison is flawed, however. The turle was a big selling point for the expansion. And since I've got every other mount in the game I honestly feel screwed on this one. How could I even dare to expect the unlock path would be roughly the same as with roller beetle, griffon or skyscale? Warclaw for example was announced very clearly as being a wvw thing, and it wasn't a selling point for a real money transaction either.

Well, it's not a new topic, you know. The debate is going on for three weeks now. Everything is said. Just not by everybody. In particular not by Anet. Right now my impression ist exactly as I've written: Anet forces everybody into a certain type of gameplay in GW2. And they don't care about that part of the playerbase that avoided exactly this type of gameplay in the past. Since there is no explicit statement from Anet on this topic, from my point of view I'm implicitly told: bend down or look for some other game to play, you're no longer welcome here.

Why do you even bother? You should have realized by now Anet and the more vocal part of the playerbase don't want you (and me) in their ranks any longer. Either play like the "real players" do or press alt+f4.

Well, I like pocket raptors and HoT content. There are a couple of HP's I still struggle to solo on most classes, but waiting a couple of minutes to do it together with one or two other players isn't a big thing. Sure, I'm not the fastest, most efficient player, doing mediocre dps on my usual builds, but I get open world and story stuff done.* I'm with the OP, I probably won't get the turtle. I've tried the meta once, was extremely shocked by the toxicity in map chat and never touched it again since, paying DE map only brief visits to complete the story (twice up until now). Since I've learnt there's a strike mission included as well, buying the egg isn't an option any longer. I don't do instanced group content. Full stop. I'm not a toddler you or the devs could pester to do things he doesn't want to do. And the more pressure exerted, the more stubborn I become. Ok, just like a toddler I guess 🤪 * Edit: Confusing without context, I get it... I'm in a 9-to-5 job. My team is a bunch of kitten. We play pvp in real live, one against each other. Year after year we have to get more work done with less people - the loosers in the pvp game get fired. Efficency is top priority. Maximum gain from minimum effort, get it? Why I'm still doing this? They pay kitten good money. And it's only a few more years till retirement. From 5 to 9 I want something else. Relaxing. Explicitly not efficient. Not a bunch of kitten I have to deal with in some group instance. No pvp either, of course. Fun is priority. Being forced to do something, forced to do in a specific way or at a specific pace isn't fun, it's work. Up until now GW2 was fun, other games felt more like work. Up until now.

Hmm, I don't think your analogy is on the point. Let's stay with chess. Knowing the rules is mandatory to play the game at all, otherwise you're doing checkers or something like that. Knowing the rules is enough to play chess with some friends, other casual players every now and then. But it won't help you much if you're suddenly forced into taking part in a tournament of some sort. Especially if it's a tournament set up not for single players, but teams to compete. Now imagine it's a team of random players mixed up by the organizers, all depending on each other for success. And you only know the rules (as you claim should be sufficient, right?)...

Yeah, looks nice. And I wouldn't mind the price tag. After all I've bought almost every mount skin in the game. But I'm still not over that feeling they somehow screwed me with this turtle thing, so I will shift my budget to other things for a while. Started playing Lego again after 45 years abstinence, or to be more precise: alternative brick manufacturers. Amazing brick sets for a grown-up audience I found at e.g. Cobi or Bluebrixx (this amazing castle Blaustein!). A bit pricy, but hey... Ok, I stop it derailing 😇

You would make a good insurance broker. Or let's better say: a successful one. The way Anet sold us the turtle as an expac feature surely was on the darker grey side of a sales talk. You're absolutely right, they never said, it wouldn't include a mandatory strike mission. And assuming one would get the mount in roughly the same way we got every other mount before was grossly negligent by us consumers, not Anet as the seller. Correct. In contrast to other games in the genre GW2 never forced you into instanced group content... Well, actually not entirely true: GW2 at launch had its finale in Arah set up as group content. We had exactly the same discussions back then until Anet admitted defeat (they took their revenge in a wicked way, though: this caricature of a boss fight it became nobody wanted either).

Mouseover username or avatar on the left, click "ignore user", click four checkboxes. Helps a lot keeping blood pressure down.