Jokubas.4265
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Posts posted by Jokubas.4265
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It is interesting that a lot of the bad stuff in this season has been Bangar's fault (even the Frost Legion are created by machines powered by Jormag's blood, not Jormag, as far as I can tell from the meta), and there's a consequence for that, but I never doubted that we might get a reveal that Jormag isn't the real bad guy. My problem is that this totally doesn't absolve Jormag.
It's tragic that a reputation may have built up around Jormag that is untrue, but it did not get built up arbitrarily. This isn't just humanoids jumping to conclusions either. The Spirits of the Wild made a sacrifice to protect the Norn. If you already have a bad reputation, and then a cult forms that starts killing people in your name, and you say nothing about it, you can't blame everyone else for severely distrusting you (and unless that was one monumental coincidence, Jormag bailed out Bangar with a blizzard, otherwise Bangar's treachery would have been dealt with right away).
The problem isn't that many of Jormag's whispers haven't been positive. A lot of them are. The problem is that, of course we're not going to trust these whispers that tell us they're totally going to help us and save us, when everyone who claims they're working for them is a murdering jerk. Of course we're going to assume that the people killing in their name are doing so with their blessing if they never deny it when they have every opportunity and every reason to want to do so.
I guess I also want to clarify that the reason this bothers me is because it would be a writing problem, not a character thing (I don't blame Jormag as a character). If this happens, the way I see it is that Jormag is failing to clear up the misconception so that it's a twist when it's revealed that they're actually good, not because it actually makes sense for a good person to let a blatant misconception fester. Otherwise this whole season could have just started with a whisper from Jormag that they need to meet us. We'd be suspicious, but we'd have had no reason to fight our way there. Bangar would be the wrench in the works instead of the apparent representative.
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@"Hypnowulf.7403" said:You say something and they'll hear something else. They don't listen.I know all too well what you mean, though I can't narrow down where it's coming from. It's not the best thread to elaborate so I'll try to make this quick, but it's something that has been getting to me somewhat existentially in the last few years. It's bad enough when you say something that just gets skipped over, or misunderstood, but I started noticing too many direct responses that... weren't direct responses at all. Like, someone would quote me on a website, say "I disagree" and proceed to say exactly what I said, or they'd quote me and just say something so completely unrelated that it made me wonder what they thought I said.
I definitely don't have the knowledge of specifics or words to really articulate this, just my experiences. Even within family I have people that I can more or less discuss things with, and people who, just, no matter what I say, their responses or reactions prove that they did not actually hear anything I said. It's really scary once you start realizing it.
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I never minded this part, not that I mind this change (I really appreciate the reaction to feedback! :) ), but I've never had enough cache keys to open all of the chests anyway so it did feel like I could just do whatever in that time and just open the chests I happened to pass by.
The bonus boss rushes in Dragonfall and the mid-point of this meta are way more stressful. You'd expect to relax after the big climactic boss, but instead you have to rush after the zerg, hoping you can keep up in order to get credit for all the bosses. Then you have to further hope that the zerg can get to them all in the timer (this map improved that a bit by at least randomizing the boss order), especially if you still need the achievement.
The chests at the end here were generic and don't have any sort of achievement or Mastery Point, so it's not really a big deal if you can only open a few.
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The reaction to Mastery Points is certainly going to have some variety because a lot of it relies on what you want out of a game and how much you care to put into it.
For me, Path of Fire and the following season was nice. You never really had to worry about them and that's how I like it. I'll admit that I just don't like putting a lot of time into the games I play anymore (not that I don't play seriously when I play, but it seems every game nowadays expects to be the only game you play, and I've got other things going on in my life). One of the things I like about Guild Wars 2 is that it doesn't keep invalidating my progress like level cap increases in other MMOs, and the lack of a subscription fee means I can play when I feel like it.
I didn't really like Heart of Thorns' use of Mastery Points either, but I could forgive it because it invented the system. There are some really great Masteries in there, Gliding and its upgrades were an amazing addition to the game that organically weaved in, but a lot of them felt like filler or seemed only to exist for a specific objective. Point-wise, it seemed easy at first. So many things granted them it was kind of exciting, but as you get down to the last few Masteries, and they start requiring huge amounts of points, you get more and more desperate. I hated that moment. It's easy to say that you don't really need them, but a couple of those last ones are still important, like Adrenal Mushrooms for that one Skill Challenge (and I know there are ways around that, but it's much nicer to have the intended solution). Plus, I like being in the position where you can just earn Spirit Shards again.
By then, it stops being "get rewards for the playstyle you like" and starts being "is there any of these I'm not into that I can still manage to pull off", at which point it's no longer fun. It's not like the Masteries are just prestigious. They all have a use, even if it's not an absolutely necessary use.
For the Icebrood Saga, I've been dreading each chapter because of the Masteries. It's been much more stingy with points than last season and it feels less worthwhile. A good chunk of the Masteries feel like they were made up just to pad the list, which feels like overcompensation to Path of Fire only having a few for each mount and then one per chapter for the season, but quality definitely counts over quantity for Masteries.
Worse, a lot of the content seems designed to justify the Masteries, not the other way around. For instance, the break bars for most enemies this season are designed with the Essence moves in mind. This means that players new to the season, or just not up for the grind, are dead weight in certain fights. A lot of people start yelling at each other for failing to CC, as normal, but that isn't the problem here. CC can barely move many of these bars in order to make the Essence moves worthwhile, but it means that you're in a bind if you don't have them. This is also a problem because even if you have the Mastery unlocked, it's not always easy to have the Essences maxed out when you need them. I actually like the idea behind the mechanic, the rock-paper-scissors nature is great, collecting the essences hits the right spot, and firing the beam is fun, but it falls apart in a lot of places.
Point-wise, this season is stingy again. A lot of points come from super grindy things, like repeating meta events a whole bunch of times, or collecting every weapon in a set. The former sucks because, for instance, the first Bjora Marches meta is often abandoned, I've seen it fail a lot, and last time I went to do it everyone got kicked from the map when it was reaching the end. The second is annoying because I hate crafting, only have decent craft skills on one character, and the alternative of buying them is super expensive (I can afford it, but I don't really care about the skins so I'm putting all that money into a Mastery Point). It's also inconsistent. The meta I've actually done a bunch doesn't give any rewards.
Even some of the most accessible, you're-in-control, points just take forever. I've done five of the six commendation achievements now, because I needed so many points last chapter that I was pretty much going to have to do a couple of them anyway. Doing the final one seems feasible, by this point, but I feel like I'm never going to want to play the game again if I keep running this same map that many times.
I still have that Grothmar Valley one they added later to do, but I'm really not looking forward to having to do it even though it's technically "easy". Six bosses that only show up every once and awhile and you have to hope you get the ones you haven't already killed? That's actually one of the things I find the most frustrating, but it's hard to explain.
Right now I've managed to be one point ahead for this chapter, but I started this chapter one point ahead and still had to grind past the point of fun to catch back up. I'm really nervous about what the next chapter is going to expect.
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Is this saying Drakkar was once similar to the Spirits of the Wild or am I parsing this wrong?Braham Eirsson: What are you doing to the Spirits of the Wild?Bangar Ruinbringer: What Jormag did to Drakkar. Use its power to control the uncontrollable.Bangar Ruinbringer: Elder Dragons want only magic. And the Spirits are nothing but. So I'll convince them to share it wi-
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I think I've only seen one Charr Intel, one Dominion Intel, and one Corrupted Intel from natural drops in the time it took me to get 5000 Dominion Commendations. Also, during that time (doing the full meta multiple times), I only got about four or five miscellaneous scrolls from the original set. The conversion cost is absurd. I just bought my Dominion and Corrupted Intel from the Trading Post and ignored the expensive Charr ones for now.
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I feel like they might be setting up that Jormag still isn't a villain, but I can't stand the villain that is revealed in a twist to have "actually" have been a hero all along, even though the only reason why we thought they were a villain to begin with was because they were actually doing horrible things and refused every opportunity to explain themselves until the big reveal.
The problem with that cliche is that we aren't jumping to conclusions about these characters and misunderstanding them. They are actively causing destruction and never once even attempting to give meaningful context to it. We are given only one conclusion to reasonably come to. Retroactively trying to make us feel guilty about it will always ring false when such a character never tried explaining themselves to the heroic main cast who are usually defined by being understanding. "I swear I have a plan" doesn't mean anything when we've only been reacting in self defense to begin with.
We were content to leave Jormag alone after the whole Taimi's Machine thing. We've been going after Jormag right now because of the trouble Bangar caused, that Jormag bailed Bangar out of, and because of all the dead people in Jora's Keep. Jormag didn't have to let that happen. While we're following in the wake of this destruction, Jormag could have ordered their troops to lay down their weapons. Bangar is the sort of person who would keep slaughtering his way through unarmed Dragon followers, not us. Rytlock would immediately question what's going on instead of murdering defenseless pacifists. If Jormag doesn't have such control over all their followers, and considers some to just be crazy cultists that give them a bad name, then tell us that.
The only time I've ever been able to forgive such a plot was in a setting mired in conspiracies, so the "villain" had an excuse not to trust anyone, but that isn't the case here. Not only is the Commander and our friends world-renowned heroes at this point, but through Aurene we've shown that we can also befriend a dragon. This is not obscure information. Jormag would know this. If Jormag actually had altruistic motives, they have absolutely no excuse to not just tell us what they are, especially when we're shown on multiple occasions that they can literally just whisper to us whatever they want. When all of those whispers are wasted on baseless claims or vague riddles, the onus is not on us to clear things up.
In another words, by this point, Jormag would be, at best, a villain who is retconned into being a hero in order to make you feel guilty, not a hero all along that we misunderstood. That's already not something positive to associate with either way.
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Now that I've gotten to experience the new map and its meta (done the whole thing 2 or 3 times now working on commendations) I can finally post about this.
The new meta is pretty fun overall, but it still feels really weird being locked behind the first half of the map. I'd like to say it should be completely standalone, have the bridge just be a zone line to a Northern Drizzlewood, since a lot of the new stuff only counts in the new half of the zone anyway, but the new half of the meta doesn't quite feel complete enough for that.
The problem is how it interacts with the progression. It really hurts since so much of the new stuff, like the Dominion Special Missions, require you to be doing things that only happen during the meta. That's technically true for a lot of things on the original map, but the more open nature of the first half of the map makes that less of a problem. The new meta is much more linear, so those events either happen or they don't, and once that window has passed that's it for another two hours. Also, the fact that the cache bosses still happen after the original meta is really jarring. In theory it's a break, but the hectic nature of trying to keep up with everyone during those bosses (the camp teleports help a lot, but the bosses die really fast before the zerg arrives and makes them scale) makes it one of the most stressful parts of the whole meta (especially when you still need them for the achievement), and it's just a long enough time to suck if you just sit and wait.
It feels good to be rushing the citadel with everyone. The one question I have is how the Claw of Jormag part is supposed to work. It seems like you're intended to be hiding behind the cover until you break the Claw and move in while the dragon is down, but everyone just seems to stack near the literal claw and I can't really blame them. I seem to get hit with a million things while hiding anyway, half of which push me out of the cover. Also, while that far back I can't exactly hit with a lot of CC. So it seems you might as well just stand in the thick of it and just heal through everything, because at least then you're not sacrificing damage or CC.
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I was all right with this chapter. The characters felt more in-character and I didn't feel like I was being tugged around. I'm not sure how I feel about the map because nothing ever happened with the new half while I was there and I didn't feel like sticking around when I realized there were another three new masteries to learn and I've been stretching myself to my limits gathering the points to finish them as it is.
In the end, though, I just felt... like all I've done this season is passively observe an origin story video for the real plot. Even one of the last moments in the story, which was suggested to me might have supposed to have been a twist, was functionally what I predicted for the characters in a post I made when Bound by Blood came out.
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@"Automaton.2751" said:Am I the only one that misses the old "Town Clothes" option? A set of clothes you could equip like armour in a seperate tab that would equip like a costume whenever you were in town.
Did you have a mod? My problem with Town Clothes was exactly that it didn't do that.
The idea of actually having our characters dress like normal people in town instead of going around in elaborate glowing armor 24/7 was an interesting concept for immersion, but when you had to equip it manually it was just never going to matter.
The vast majority of players aren't roleplayers and are never going to bother with it at all.More casual roleplayers (like myself) aren't committed enough to bother remembering every time they went into town (especially when you're often only in town briefly) and doing a manual action that otherwise doesn't matter at all.
The fact that there weren't very many options (everyone just wearing the same racial outfit while in town would be silly) didn't help, but it seems obvious that one of the reasons the options remained limited was that people weren't using it to begin with.
I'd be all for it returning if it returned as an automated system for the sake of immersion, rather than a manual thing that only a small part of the audience is ever going to use (and a part of the audience that could still manually replicate a similar concept, at that).
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I'm on no one's side, and it's one of the reasons this chapter's story was so hard to get through for me (the gameplay was great, but the story made me consistently uncomfortable).
Early on you have Smodur's firing squad, which I understand the distaste of, but the idea that we were supposed to condemn it as the most disgusting thing ever felt completely forced and a bit hypocritical. In Bjora Marches we have a Norn massacring the Sons of Svanir (Norn defectors) and insisting its justice, and its worded like we're supposed to accept their justification. Even worse, they try to hammer it in later by reminding Smodur that he'd have the people to build his war machines if he didn't execute his traitors, which doesn't make any sense, because they were traitors. They wouldn't help him do anything. Even if he forced them to do it, they might sabotage what they were working on, and that's not even getting into the ethics of forcing labor.
Of course, then they have him jump off the slippery slope throughout the chapter, by having him increasingly be a jerk until he outright has you commit what they even call a war crime (which was telegraphed from a million miles away but you can't stop).
But that makes future events even more baffling to me. So Smodur ruins the plan and betrays everyone else, and then they save him. Why? Why would they save him? Not only does everyone else hate him at this point, but he himself now proved to be a traitor. I mean, the other characters have shown a tendency to want to redeem their traitors, but letting Ryland get his revenge might have been a way to salvage the plan, and in exchange you get to remove this dangerously rogue element from your own side. I mean, seriously, at this point, no one can trust Smodur. He's significantly more dangerous than Bangar's forces, because Bangar's at least open about being our enemy and isn't in our midst.
Onto the next character though, you have Crecia and Rytlock. Their obsession with their child has gone beyond reckless at this point. Under normal circumstances I'd hate that, because while I can understand a character's sympathetic motivations of family, they are putting the entire rest of the world in danger because of their personal problems, but it stands out even more here because it's contrary to Charr culture. They're not only endangering everyone because of their refusal to believe that their child made a bad choice, their own people aren't even going to think it's sympathetic for them to do so.
This probably annoyed me the least, but when they were bullying Smodur about it early on in the chapter, I totally walked over to him and thought to myself, you're right, they need to let him go. I saw his backstory, Ryland had a chance to prevent any of this from happening, but he chose loyalty to an obvious monster over loyalty to his people or morality. That sort of enabling is how evil actually wins. A monster can only do so much without followers who will look the other way and carry out their orders.
If that didn't make it obvious, I wouldn't choose Bangar. Bangar is an almost cartoonish fool and a horrible person, and no matter of "culture" can justify that. The fact that we keep having to see him be smug and walk away untouched (at least that wasn't in this chapter) is one of the things that makes this arc as a whole so annoying. I preferred back when he first escaped from us because he at least had Jormag's storm protecting him. When Braham got to Hulk-out right in front of him, and somehow both Bangar and Ryland got away unscathed, that was the limit for me. He's just a Charr with a massive complex, he's not a superhero. He should die as easily as anyone else.
One final team I'm not siding with, but isn't a character, are the Charr themselves. The idea in this chapter that the Charr are defecting en masse, even with everything we know about Bangar, it says more about the Charr than it does any one character. "Culture" does not give you a blank check to do whatever you want. It doesn't suddenly become "good" to murder people or sacrifice them to a god against their will just because it's your culture. It doesn't suddenly prevent that victim from having grounds to be considered a victim. Despite constant attempts to say that we shouldn't hate the Charr like in Guild Wars 1, they are consistently failing to be shown as anything other than warmongering, violent monsters who have an insatiable need to be killing things on a regular basis. That is not okay.
But even if we did follow that logic. If we're supposed to accept that the Charr need to be killing something in order to preserve their species and that makes it okay, then the Charr need to understand that everyone has a right to stop the Charr in order to preserve their species, since if the Charr can't help themselves but kill, they are innately a danger to everyone around them. It's absolutely ridiculous. Ironically, the best perspective we've seen for redemption so far have been the Flame Legion, who actually do seem like they can do something other than kill, and actually seem to feel bad about it now.
I want a chapter where we care less about Bangar specifically, and let the Flame Legion shame the rest of the Charr for not really being any better. I mean, who cares if we stop Bangar from getting an Elder Dragon on his side if any Charr leader (like Smodur) is going to want to go to war and go to any lengths to fight it?
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I want a Transmutation Overhaul.
It's often used as a counterargument, in discussions on the topic, that Transmutation Charges don't matter because they're easy to earn and people are swimming in them. I recently saw someone hope that none would be given for free during these giveaways because they have so many that it would be meaningless. I think this situation is overestimated. I doubt that applies to most players, and it obviously applies more to people who main PvP than people who main PvE. Also, the main recommendation for earning them in PvE, creating extra characters to do Map Completion, is clearly not a use of alts that anyone intended.
My point is, that's broken no matter how you put it. From one side, Transmutation Charges are so easy to get that, by the same logic, they already aren't contributing to the economy and don't need to exist. Then, earning them itself is extremely skewed, being apparently too easy for PvP, but requiring unintuitive hoops for PvE.
For my playstyle, they are just a hassle. I barely earn them. I have a decent stockpile, but only because I barely ever use them. I know that if I regularly used them, I would be out of them in no time. However, this doesn't encourage me to buy more, because I also know that would be endless, and isn't exactly an exciting purchase. On the other hand, it has caused me to pretty much otherwise ignore any non-Outfit cosmetic on the Gem Store, because I know my uses of that item will be limited by another reagent.
I don't have any numbers, however. That is why I said Transmutation Overhaul, and not Transmutation Removal. I have to admit, the economy in Guild Wars 2 is one of the most stable I've seen in an MMO, and I wouldn't want to destroy the exchange rate over something I've mostly been able to ignore. However, something is clearly broken here, even if you're currently okay with the way it is broken.
Maybe all we need is normalizing the way you earn charges between PvP and PvE, but maybe people like me are more common and the system is holding us back from making more and bigger purchases on the Gem Store. I legitimately don't know and I legitimately don't want to make an assumption, I'd just like to see the problem addressed.
The current system may have me relatively apathetic, but I feel like posting about it because I think an improvement would be an exciting quality of life expansion feature for me.
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Yup, but that's part of why I didn't make it part of my suggestion. It's a much bigger topic, but the most important part to me is that the feature is there at all. The details would be another suggestion. ;P
@Josiah.2967 said:Savage All: Customized Default Option.Example:All Blues -> Copper SalvageamaticGreen -> Rings and Amulates -> Copper SalvagematicsYellow ->Mystic Salvage Kit or Silver fed SalvagematicsDo not salavage anything that is unidentified.
This reminds me of a Quality of Life suggestion I had back in the day. Since Salvage Kits have been such a core part of inventory management since Guild Wars 1, I wanted to just see Salvage Kits as a series of buttons on the backpack (still with the tiers and number of uses, but they wouldn't be inventory items themselves). Things like the Salvage-O-Matics make that more complicated and not quite a feasible solution anymore, but anything to improve Salvage Kits is great.
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I would like to see a Wardrobe Template System (I'd call it Outfits but that name is already being used). In other words, let me create my own presets of Skins and Dyes, very much like the Equipment Template System. The main thing here is to make it more convenient to keep multiple outfit ideas around at the same time. One of the reasons I don't switch my outfits much (except for by switching between an Outfit and my Wardrobe) is because of the hassle of changing all the pieces, all of the dyes, and then remembering what all of those were if I want that outfit back again. How Transmutation Charges would interact with this system is not as important to me as simply having the ability to save designs I like so I can remember them and access them without hassle.
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@Head Kracker.4790 said:I'm going to say other: My other is not a weapon but a armor class. Give us heavy armor for the next class change and call us Magic Knights. While I don't know if its possible or even preferred that's what Id like. Otherwise Gimme longbow.
I always love Magic Knights, but the armor class thing is an interesting idea. I don't know how possible it would be either (whether the current system is that hard-coded, or if it would just run into too many complications regardless), or how much it would even change on its own, but it brings up a much grander question. The Elite Specialization topic often runs into questions of balance, how many the game can even support, etc., that I could discuss, but are so encompassing that they're better for another topic. However, one that's more directly relevant to what the next weapon should be, is how tied to weapons should the Elite Specializations even be.
It was a neat idea at first, but frankly even by the second set it started to feel weird to me. For one, getting a one-handed weapon instead of a two-handed one is a big deal, because it's the difference between 3/2 new skills and 5. For another, since Elite Specs are mutually exclusive, the classes aren't really growing over time. This is simpler for balance, for sure, but it means that the new weapons can only be so interesting. Mesmers can get a new main hand or a new off hand, which means they can't mix and match them. This hits some classes harder than others. Some classes barely have any choices to mix and match as it is, resulting in less build variety than it appears at first, and getting a new weapon in an expansion doesn't really change that if it's only ever one extra weapon. I'd really love to see new core weapons for some classes in an expansion, but that's another topic.
As a result, however, I find myself almost hoping that Elite Specializations experiment with something different. I'm not going to expect anything new, but we can discuss the possibility. It may sound a bit underwhelming, but an option I'd be fine with myself is an Elite Spec giving different skills to an existing weapon, or even the same weapon as a different Elite Spec, but with very different skills.
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That reminds me. I have Signet of Illusions on my Mesmer right now (it works wonders for the playstyle I was going for, but I have no idea if it's a 'good idea'; I tend to do my own thing and don't do the harder content where I need something specific), and it's really annoying that it will spawn clones even when I have no target. A lot of times I'll finish a hard fight, a moment will pass, then a clone will spawn and run after a random enemy, preventing me from mounting up and sometimes getting me killed by preventing my health regeneration. What really baffles me about that one is that it's a key mechanic of illusions to begin with that they need a target to spawn for the sake of Shatter skills and such, so it's weird to me that the Signet even triggers when I'm not targeting anything.
I don't think it's a bug per se (the signet seems to be choosing a random nearby target on its own so it's not like it's broken), but it's a weird side effect of the ability that makes it completely unnecessarily risky in a way that does not feel intended. The fixes wouldn't be the same for these abilities, but I feel like these would be relatively simple quality of life changes.
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That might have been it. I didn't pay attention to how well they were being kept up. They did a great job of making it look like they were permanent though. :P
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There are a lot more interesting ideas out there, but I'd still like to see a Specialist specialization: an Elementalist that specializes in one element to the exclusion of the others. I know it seems contrary to not just the basic idea of the class, but what makes it unique, but it's part of something I see in a lot of places that just sort of bugs me. It just seems like, in a lot of games, there are either two situations: magic is just magic, and different elements just show up willy nilly across different spells, or you play an 'elementalist' and the elements are there, but you're still expected to make use of all of them. I love personalization, and I love theming things. I'd much prefer to be a Fire Mage or a Water Mage than the Avatar weaving all elements together.
The hardest part about such a specialization is the Trait Lines, since the Trait Lines literally are just the different elements, plus Arcane and the Elite Slot. Perhaps part of the specialization's gimmick could be that all Trait Lines now contribute in some way to the element you pick to specialize in (not sure exactly how you'd pick that, but it shouldn't be hard to find a solution to that).
Weapon swapping in combat would be easy to bring back for such a spec, at least, but obviously it would need just a little extra something to make it awesome and not just normal Elementalist with less choice.
Perhaps there could still be something like "sub-elements", somewhat similar to Weaver, but in a different context. Something like, if you pick Fire, you now have access to powerful Lava abilities as an F skill, which is technically adding Earth into the mix, but in a way that solidly feels like a Fire Mage still, rather than a generalist. If you pick Air, you might have access to Storm, which theoretically adds Water but is solidly themed as Air and doesn't require swapping around, or it could give lightning abilities the chance to ignite things.
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Mesmer can be an extremely complex class and it not being as archetypal or universal makes it strengths less intuitive than other classes. In that way, it's not a good class for new players.
On the other hand, Mesmer can be one of the most self-sufficient classes in the game, and sometimes just running in circles while firing your first Scepter ability to keep clones up can allow you to get through content that you would struggle with on other classes if you don't know what you're doing yet. In that way, it's a good class for new players.
My recommendation (this comes from personal experience) is to try it out, but if it's feeling too slow or you're just not getting the hang of it, or you're just getting sick of the game, consider that it might be the Mesmer not being a good fit for you and not the game, so try something else before you form a complete judgment.
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I hadn't been checking the patch notes for Elementalists recently, but I found out about this change when someone in a Strike Mission had five or six (maybe even seven, it's hard to tell in the screenshot I took) fire elementals out. It was impressing everyone, but now I'm wondering how they had that many out at the same time even with the new changes.
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I get the idea that having the elementals trying to keep up with you while mounted might be a problem, along with them getting into trouble along the way, but that's a problem that could be solved. Perhaps the elementals could be temporarily unsummoned while you're mounted but it remembers them and resummons them when you dismount?
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I made an Elementalist a little while ago. I hesitated for a long time because I really wanted to specialize in an element rather than switch between them on the fly. I eventually found a build I was comfortable with enough, and it's a Tempest. They coincidentally became the character I run Fractals with. I know it's not optimized and I'm lazy about it so I don't have a lot of utility as them, but I burst things down way faster than my other characters, and the emergency healing, like you said, is really nice. For the level of difficulty I go with, it's way more than enough and extremely satisfying.
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@Fenella.2634 said:
@Drgnfly.5812 said:The hero needs to have his weakness shown and exploited.Maybe. But that weakness should be convincing and not pulled out of nowhere just for the sake of drama. For me at this point even slightly considering Jormag's offer feels out of character for the Commander who should simply know better by now. They are not that naive after seven years of war against Elder Dragons and a former god. Even Braham should know better by now.At least I hope so.Yeah. Jormag may be a master manipulator, but they have a massive uphill battle for the Commander (even more so for a Sylvari player character). They're not some shadowy benefactor who gets in our good graces before revealing their true identity and the nefarious ulterior motive they had all along. We know already that they're one of our main nemeses. Pretty much, they're going to have to use mind control to ever get me to believe that my character would fall for them.At the very least, I'm going to need Aurene to tell me that they have an agreement (why would I trust Jormag saying that?), and I'm going to need absolutely undeniable proof of a greater threat. But even then...
@"Weindrasi.3805" said:Maybe.There's a LOT of reasons to not join Jormag. Namely, that no matter how persuasive her argument is, her actions undermine it. Sure, she has the "I'm just trying to defend myself" argument given to Aesgir, but her actions are not those of one interested only in self-defense. The Fallen, Abberant, aggressive Svanir cultists, Boneskinner, convincing Vigil to commit suicide, ruthless murder of anyone disagreeing with her cause, and now--reaching beyond the Shiverpeaks to corrupt charr who don't care what's going on in norn-land.... she's definitely a ruthless conqueror, and she's obviously trying to kill or enslave you.The only arc where I could see this working is if we find a way to cleanse her of the corruption that turned the other elder dragons into crazy monsters. By that point, Jormag could become a Vlast-like figure--no empathy or liking for mortals, but grateful to Aurene and the commander for saving her. In which case she could help out of a sense of "duty" to Aurene, the way Vlast served out of duty to Glint.Exactly. The mass murder of anyone who disagrees with Jormag doesn't exactly sell their argument. If Jormag wanted to convince me that they were heroic, the Sons of Svanir should be straight-up pacifists, at least until we get to this supposed greater threat (could scarcely say they meant us ill, then). Self defense isn't a good argument either, because we wouldn't even be in this position if Jormag didn't chase out the Norn to begin with (not to mention Svanir himself).
Frankly, the whole "I swear I need your help against a greater threat" sounds like a lie tailor-made for the Commander (like the other tailor-made lies we hear from other characters), because that's the sort of thing we do. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny though. Even if it turns out to be true, Jormag would still be at fault for completely failing to give us any reason to believe them (and I don't see why we wouldn't just see both as enemies). There's a vague feeling that a peaceful solution could exist, but the onus is completely on Jormag to show that they don't have to be a world-destroying menace like the other Elder Dragons (and they'd need a really good excuse for the victims they've already made). We have nothing to prove.
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I bought it as a gift for someone who is absolutely in love with it. It helps that it matches our guild's look, even the GW1 version of our guild.
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Last time the Storm Gloves were on sale I thought about buying them for an upcoming character idea. I wasn't sure how it would turn out though, and I was waiting for the Character Slots to go on sale so I could experiment. The Storm Gloves disappeared by the time I decided they would work and I did want them. :(
What is your favorite map in Guild Wars 2 so far and why?
in Guild Wars 2 Discussion
Posted
Oh, good question! I don't talk enough about what I like around here. I don't think I can pin it down to a single favorite right now, but maybe a few things I like is better than nothing. :P
Grothmar Valley was a lot of fun. I liked how it managed to do some very different things, like barely have a single enemy on the map, but still feel like a real part of the game. It's not easy to leave enemies out of a game designed around action and combat, but Grothmar Valley pulled it off for me. I really felt like we were taking a break from all the world saving and doing some celebrating.
The Silverwastes is not the sort of thing I'd like on the surface. The barren landscape isn't particularly inviting and saying that the enemies can be annoying is an understatement. However, the way it all just built up to a single meta was something that was really cool at the time. It also felt like a direct improvement on the Marionette, which was an interesting idea that was hampered by the fact that a single troll or simply less-skilled player could ruin the meta for everyone. I don't find myself in the Silverwastes often anymore, but when I do I often find myself helping to finish off the meta just because it pulls me into it so naturally.
Dragonfall was a really cool map on several levels. How it tied into the story was very nicely climactic and it built upon a lot of what I liked in the Silverwastes. The variety in the lanes made them feel even more organic (despite the actually artificial nature of their placement) and gave more replay value to working on the various achievements for the regions. Simultaneous boss take-downs stress me out and the early experiment in a bonus boss rush really drove me nuts originally, but that didn't stick with me as much as the zone and its meta as a whole package.
Bloodstone Fen may have been the first season map, as we know them now, and thus was very small and not really used for a lot aside from its relevant gimmicks, I nevertheless had a lot of fun with those gimmicks. There were a few times I wanted to grind... was it Bloodstone Dust? for something, and the way that there's always something to do close by in Bloodstone Fen made it easier for me to turn my brain off for that grind, but I mean that in a good way!
Verdant Brink was an amazing introduction to Heart of Thorns. It was also unfortunately the peak for me, but I do think the entire expansion had beautiful zones. I've never seen a game really capture the idea of being so deep in a tangled jungle and it made me realize how basic environmental design is in most games compared to what it could be (especially in fantasy). Verdant Brink just happened to balance everything very well. The multiple layers were mostly clear here and I never got lost for long, it just made for a massive map with several very different things going on at the same time. The meta could be annoying depending on how many people were in the map, but it was still a really organic way to roll out the concepts of the expansion to you and really let you feel each bit of progress you were making with your gliding and mushroom Masteries.
Finally, I want to give an honorable mention to the whole of the Crystal Desert. Individually they don't have elements that stand out the way that the maps I listed above do, in amazing metas or awe-inspiring landmarks, but not every map needs those (exploring all of the launch maps was a huge draw to the original game and they weren't designed around any gimmicks). Instead, what these maps did well was just be wide-open vistas that were a blast to explore. Certainly the mounts helped with that, but the entire point was to design them with mounts in mind. Being a fan of the art and architecture of Elona certainly contributed. It was a pleasant surprise in Guild Wars 1 and I was happy to return.