[Bubbles - Elder Dragon of water and secrets? Or: Why Taimi forgot his name]

I don't think this has been the plan for the Deep Sea Dragon, but I think this is an absolutely amazing idea for it.

Turning our seeming inability to learn anything substantial about the Deep Sea Dragon into a plot point could actually work. It seems popular nowadays to attempt to canonize running gags, but it very often turns out fairly awkward. In this case, however, I think it would be within the realm of what we could accept from an Elder Dragon, that one had some ability to warp reality in ways of obscuring its identity. Perhaps it could play off the 'fear of the unknown' in a very direct sense. Certainly, having learning itself be nigh impossible would be quite the way for the Dragon to protect its weakness. It could also be an excuse to not just have asura research and technology figure everything out for us.

[Initial Thoughts on the story]

I was pretty impressed so far.

As someone who is not exactly a charr fan, that surprised me. Though at the same time, it's sort of exactly why I was impressed. GW2 has historically managed to pass the buck for the charr's warlike ways, usually by heaping it on the Flame Legion even while supposedly friendly charr make comments about wanting to kill the other races because it just appeals to them.

In this chapter, however, the charr who was most like that (and not Flame Legion) turned out to be the villain. The rest of the charr are actually showing growth, while still having a distinct and varied culture. That's the sort of thing I used to really love about GW1.

I found myself surprisingly ready to accept the Flame Legion too. I think maybe because, despite it perhaps feeling a bit extreme, there's a logic to it. They've been ostracized for so long that hate for them is going to be institutionalized among the rest of the charr, even when they aren't doing horrible things. And since this chapter is also admitting through Bangar and the other defectors that the other Legions definitely have their own dark side, finding that the Flame Legion has a good side makes a lot of sense.

As for Ryland, I'm pretty suspicious of him. I didn't give it much thought until the characters gave a speech about definitely bringing him back. While that could certainly be a way of reassuring us that he'll be saved, it set off a lot of red flags for me that he's the actual mastermind, not Bangar. I can totally imagine a situation in which we defeat Bangar fairly early on and get Ryland alone, and we're all like "now you can come home!" and Ryland goes "why should I, Bangar was acting on my plan all along!"

The only thing that really disappointed me in this prologue was the treatment of Braham. The story certainly has time to make up for it, but it made me really uncomfortable that it not only pretty much exclusively used "norn getting drunk" as his characterization, but it being an easily exploitable vice is a major plot catalyst. I liked the interactions between Braham and Ryland at first, I felt that Braham could really use a friend like him. I wish it could have stayed that way for multiple reasons.

A question I am left with is whether or not Bangar's forces knew that Jormag was clearly helping them. Those storms and elementals were awfully convenient and the charr didn't all suddenly freeze to death like we would have. Is Bangar already working with Jormag and his story just an excuse to lure others to his side? Is Jormag getting involved because he knows he'll be able to convert them? Or is there something else going on, like Ryland already working with Jormag without Bangar knowing?

[That box set in the magazine]

I know physical releases aren't that popular anymore, but I actually thought this would be a cool way to get the game some visibility. Perhaps it could be some sort of collector's edition that comes with the Icebrood Saga pre-unlocked (in other words, you don't have to log in each time to guarantee your unlock) and some goodies.

[Whats Preventing You From Quitting The Game]

Guild Wars 2 doesn't require an insane amount of commitment just to persist. Not only does it have no subscription fee, its horizontal progression means that I don't need to work myself to the bone catching back up to where I was when I last left off.

I "quit" Guild Wars 2 for long stretches at a time often, but I always come back when there's something to come back to because I don't have to work to feel welcomed back. I never have to grind new levels, or grind new gear, or re-unlock a major feature that I've unlocked multiple times before in previous expansions, or suffer through time-gated questlines just to be on the same level as everyone else again (well, except that one time ;P). It's always waiting for me with open arms.

[Would you love to see more new "Core" weapons?]

I definitely want to see more base weapons. Something that came up a lot when Elite Specializations first came out was how awkward it was that some of them originally shored up weaknesses in the base profession, even though we'd theoretically have more choices in the long run (and did eventually get another Elite Specialization choice) and thus that weakness would still exist outside of that one choice.

While that's less of a problem now, it still stands out that some professions are surprisingly limited in their actual options in combinations of weapons (usually main-hand versus off-hand), and since you can only ever get one other weapon choice max (because Elite Specializations are mutually exclusive), no current mechanic changes that.

For example, Mesmer only has two options for Main-Hand unless they're Mirage (I wanted Off-Hands in both of my weapon slots, giving me no choice to fill my Main-Hand with). I would like to see at least one more option added to the core profession. Pistol would be an easy choice.

Thief only has two Off-Hand choices. It just seems really small and limits your options way more than it looks when you see the weapon list. I think Torch would fit well as an option. Sure, torches aren't stealthy (unless you're a Mesmer), but they fit the more general sense of a Thief being a sort of resourceful adventurer type.

I'd also definitely support more weapon types in general and there are still plenty of options that don't need an Elite Specialization to justify them as an option. Spear as a land weapon definitely needs to happen someday, and even though they haven't been making more skins for underwater weapons, it at least would have a decent amount of art support for it already. It would be an easy fit for Warriors, Guardians, and Revenants, probably Rangers, and I'd like to see Elementalists try it out as well, at least (I don't think it should necessarily have to be tied to the classes that have it as an underwater weapon).

I'm also forever behind Whip as a new weapon type, even though Elementalist already has a lightning whip attack on Dagger. It would be great on Mesmer, Elementalist could certainly find something else original to do with it, I'd imagine it as a sort of Scorpion Wire-like control weapon for Thieves, and perhaps Revenant or Necromancer could draw on some Castlevania inspiration for it.

[Aurene and the Spirit of Dragon]

I was thinking something similar. After Aurene's fate, and after learning the sensitive nature of what the Elder Dragons are involved in, there's a lot of reason to more or less legitimize Dragon, but it would be in a way that would undermine the worst of what the Sons of Svanir stand for. It might be a path to redeem some and make utter fools out of the rest.

[Dragon Bash Returns Next Week]

We were just talking about this. I was really hoping to see it back after how far we've come. :)

[Should the Skyscale map currency be reduced?]

I thought I'd chime in again now that I've unlocked the mount and finished all of the Masteries.

By the end, I felt a million miles away from wherever it started. The further I got, the weirder it all started to feel.

I was noticing things like Gorrik being one of the vendors that you can buy map currency from, that you need to purchase a saddle component from a vendor that's not even that far from him. Frankly I was starting to feel like the real story of the collection was Gorrik just pretending that he's having me work on the Skyscale while just having me run expensive and laborious errands for him.

Also, because I was pacing myself and I don't have a lot of alts to unlock rewards multiple times, I started to heavily rely on daily resets to earn more currency. In the end, I probably ended up waiting for more daily resets just for the saddle step than I would have for the entire rest of the collection before the time gate patch.

So for now, I think I'll end with a suggestion. It's too late to apply this here, but it's an idea that I think would have involved a lot of the same ideas and goals, but in a much smoother and engaging way.

Overall, the story would be more or less the same, but things would be moved around a bit. You still investigate what's happening to the Skyscales, and then collect eggs to preserve. Afterward, you have your mount. What's the rest of it for then? Other, more prestigious rewards. If you choose to continue, raising your Skyscale and bonding with it, you unlock other things. For example, imagine something like the Skyscale chair, once you've bonded with it enough.

The point is, the story is still there, but the effort scales differently. The main quality of life feature*, the mount, requires closer to what most other mounts in the game asked for. Then, if you really want to put in all the work and the daunting amounts of currency, you get the really fancy stuff. Another idea here would be that, in my version, the basic Skyscale is more juvenile, but going all the way, feeding it all that special stuff, making it a super special saddle, and helping it grow, could grant you a more elaborate skin unlock.

*I do sort of want to reiterate again how things like this are less optional in practice. It occurred to me while doing the bonus bosses in Dragonfall while working on the Skyscale, that most of us were following on griffons. It made me wonder what a newer player/someone who didn't know about or couldn't put in all the time and money to unlock a secret mount would do. To be fair in Dragonfall, the Skyscales you can borrow in the world would probably offset this, but it's not the only place things like this happen.

I think, it's easy to look at this as a small thing when you're already caught up on everything else. I was late to Heart of Thorns, only getting it with Path of Fire's reveal. I had a lot to catch up on and it was pretty daunting. I can't imagine what it would be like, trying to keep up with other players doing things in Central Tyria, as a new player. Even if you owned Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, how many hours of game time you would have to invest before you could simply follow along.

I think that's maybe the main point I'm trying to make. I take huge breaks from this game, but when I play it, I feel like I play it a lot. But I know that what I do is still nothing compared to what the people who really talk about this game do. At the same time, history has shown me that I'm still more hardcore than the average player, so I can only imagine what something like comes across like to the players we aren't seeing or hearing from.

Anyway, I'm going to leave this alone for now. I'm totally burned out. I still like the game though, and I still appreciate the horizontal progression of rewards like this over obsoleting level cap raising. But even after finishing myself, I'm left with a concern and I can't help but voice that.

[Weeklong Bonus Event: Meta-Event Rush!]

The rewards feel a lot better this time around. Unfortunately for me, I'm getting kinda burned out right now so I probably won't do much in this event either.

I hope this helps to bring some awareness to certain events, as well. Some bugged ones have been mentioned, but I'd also like a pass of clarifying some. I don't have any good examples at the moment, but when I was doing some of the Temples in Orr, there was often a lot of confusion in map chat about which events had finished, when events would restart, or whether defense events would even count for this or that, and it would unfortunately get heated sometimes.

[Should the Skyscale map currency be reduced?]

Since I didn't actually specify in my post, I think reducing it to 100 each would go a long way, but I think 50 each is still enough. The Beetle only wanted 50 from one map and I think that's a fine precedent. I'd really be curious to know why such a huge jump between the mounts came about to begin with.

Also, I would definitely be behind reimbursing anyone who already completed those steps. Sometimes keeping track of something to reimburse is tough, but it should be a relatively simple matter to check those achievements.

[New Hairstyles/ Beards - Please Anet!]

One of my favorite parts about Path of Fire was when we got a bunch of new Elonian-themed options in the lead up to the expansion. I made an Elonian character immediately and really enjoyed it (even if I haven't played them much). I don't have any specific ideas off the top of my head, but I would definitely love to see more options added, especially things that tend to get neglected and fall behind like the beards.

[Should the Skyscale map currency be reduced?]

I know the developers only talked about reducing the time-gating, but I was disappointed to see that the map currency step wasn't affected at all in the patch notes. I think it might be the worst step, and I think it might even be entirely accidental. I feel like the number was decided based on Istan, where you can get 25 per Heart vendor, and then applied across the board. The grind for the rest of them is probably the single slowest part of the entire unlocking process, and it doesn't really add anything to the story or the effort.

What really makes it stand out to me, is the Beetle made you collect map currencies for only one map, and it wasn't anywhere near as much. That one slowed down the rest of the collection, but it was more or less just a time gate. The map currency requirement here is straight up a grind, and one of the longest ones I've ever experienced in this game.

For the record, while I do have a few level 80s characters, I still mostly play this game with a "main." That means and matters less in this game, but there are still places it matters. I don't bother to keep up with map completion and story on my alts because of how much time that would take up for little gain (and nothing particularly fun), for instance.

So I would have to do another hurdle before I could begin using alts to help with me the grind. At the same time, it's not like that means I spend less time on the grind, it just means the time spent is less spread out.

That ties into part of the reason this still bothers me, though. I feel like more and more of the game expects you to be "caught up." My fear of that was proven with the patch notes today, and I was not expecting that to come so soon. It starts right off by admitting that a new Legendary will require you to have Skyscale Masteries.

Sure, the Legendary is optional too, and I actually have never gotten a Legendary and never plan to, but that itself ties into my concern. I've seen a lot of arguments that compare the Skyscale grind to rare item grinds. Those don't mean anything as a precedent for the Skyscale for me, because I've never done them and I don't plan to. I've gotten enough idea of how they are, and that's why I avoid them.

I hate sounding like I'm harping on this, I really do. But it really seems weird to me when only the time is changed. The time gate is just annoying. It's other things that makes this not fun. I just want it to be fun. :(

[Next expansion selling point ⇒ Cast your votes!]

I absolutely want to see new races some day. I'd prefer to prioritize the old GW1 races that haven't gotten the chance, like the tengu or dwarves. I'd also like to see centaur just for the novelty of it, but the mounts make that harder than ever.

I'd still like to see new classes. I think there's room for some of the GW1 classes that haven't been truly represented in GW2. I'd still like to see a Monk class that leans toward martial arts to fit in GW2's paradigms, while still referencing the old healing.

Gliding and Mounts opened whole new avenues of movement and exploration, but I'm not sure where else they can go. I still kinda want to see a Grappling Hook Mastery like a permanent version of Oakheart's Essence, but that seems so much less important now. Underwater movement could use something still I guess, but a single mount wouldn't be as interesting for an expansion as a whole new system (not to imply they should force it if something simple would work).

I'd love any new cosmetic stuff. Saved outfits and another overhaul of the Transmutation system are things I'd love to see. Being able to dye more things would always be nice as well.

[[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...]

My brother helped me do the second day's Collection, and I want to come back and say some things. First of all, I feel like a couple of my last posts on this forum have sounded like I'm calling out other opinions. I apologize for that. Second, I really don't want to sound harsh to the devs, either. I always try my best to express my feedback in a positive way, but I realize it's still probably not fun if it looks like it's all just disappointment and no appreciation.

So I want to restate that I liked this chapter. I enjoyed the story and had fun finishing the map and doing the events. I also really like the Skyscale and had a lot of fun using it throughout the new map.

I also like the horizontal progression in this game and the many many things you can set out to do and earn.

I'll admit, part of the reason I'm bothered by the Skyscale collection is a personality thing that I can't expect anyone to acquiesce to. I certainly think it's a good thing to keep different perspectives in mind, but it's obviously impossible to make something that works equally well for every person on the planet.

Back to the main topic though, Day 2 wasn't that bad in the end either. The uncertainties I was concerned about turned out to be small in number and not as bad as I feared. In the end, I still find myself overwhelmed though.

I didn't even see any of this coming because the story just hands you a Skyscale and you get to use it in the map fairly freely. It wasn't until I finished the story that I realized I hadn't been given one and needed to look somewhere to find out how to get one as an actual mount. I thought I was going to grind post-story to finish the mount Mastery, not to unlock the mount and the Mastery to begin with. You can imagine how shocking that was. I did this for the griffon, but it was hidden, not a significant part of the story (the Beetle was similar, being less hidden but not really plot relevant either).

I feel like part of this came from a desire to tell a story just about earning the Skyscale, which is fine. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time we've done something like this, and the sheer number of requirements take away from the story. It does the opposite of endearing me to the Skyscale. If raising and playing with the dragon was absolute side content with some fun minigames, that might endear me to it. This is just too grindy to make me feel like I'm making a positive connection to the characters.

I just think it could be dialed back a tad, that's all. I feel like I'm doing work and not having fun, and that's a huge shame because I love this game.

[[merged] About the Skyscale Timegate...]

I think the time gate is unnecessary, but I don't think it's really a big deal either.

I feel like there's a narrative that you're not allowed to "complain" about something that takes "work" because you're supposed to earn things, but I feel like the context really matters.

I spent a whole bunch of time doing the scavenger hunt yesterday. I did the first part without any guides, and I enjoyed it well enough. By the end, I was using guides and was sick of it, but the NPC told me to come back and I thought I'd have the mount when the day came around. Then I read more and discover that there are several more steps that involve a whole ton of other things that are a lot less reliable to do on my own.

Is that really necessary?

I don't mind these things in general. This sort of optional horizontal progression is one of the things Guild Wars 2 does really well and makes other MMOs a joke to me nowadays. That said, I feel like they can go too far.

First off, I hate how Collections tend to be locked. Nothing is more frustrating than finding out that you pulled off something difficult or rare, only to discover you'll have to do it all over again because you hadn't talked to some NPC first to unlock the Collection. You should be able to earn progress on Collections from the beginning, or they should retroactively recognize things you've done when you unlock them. This is a massive, demoralizing waste of time. To some extent, this does help to give reasons for people to repeat certain events to keep players at them, but there's a certain point where it just ruins the game for me.

In this case in particular though, one of my biggest issues is that I feel that this mount isn't truly optional. None of the movement Masteries are. Until I really got used to it (and even then there were a few times), this new map was extremely frustrating to traverse. I appreciate what was done with it, but if I didn't have most of the Heart of Thorns Masteries and all of the PvE Mounts so far maxed out, I can't imagine getting around in it. I can't imagine that the Skyscale won't be something that future maps kinda sorta assume you have, even if they're built to work fully without it.

I'll put it another way. Exploring the map was something I absolutely hated in Guild Wars 2 at launch. Trying to figure out how to get to certain Vistas or PoIs was utterly unintuitive and it made me never bother unless I had to. The glider was an awesome addition that made exploring a lot less frustrating. The mounts just blew it wide open. I enjoy exploring now. That's probably the reason I did the first part of the scavenger hunt on my own. I found that hidden cave with the Sick Skyscale well before I needed to find them, and it was the coolest little place.

Having that ease is a major quality of life element for me, especially when maps like this seem to expect you to have caught up. I expect I will regret not having the Skyscale in the future if I don't earn it.

At the moment, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I want to stop playing, but I might still finish earning it. That's not really a good thing for me though, I just can't help it. This is more or less the reason I quit World of Warcraft. It stopped being fun and started being work, because you spend all your time re-earning things you already earned. They stopped giving you time to enjoy the things you earned.

I'm starting to feel that in Guild Wars 2. Every update means a new thing I have to grind out to keep up for next time. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there shouldn't be new things to do or new things to earn. What bugs me is when those things are major features, and when the way to earn them is so many steps and requires so much waiting on events and uncertain things. The scavenger hunt was enough.

[Mystery: Analysis of Mister E]

That's interesting. That would actually tie into a theory I have about the events of Edge of Destiny and E (and Kralkatorrik), but I'm hesitant to post it here because I don't really have any evidence and it's fairly "tin foil hat". To give a brief and vague version, that E is Eive and the reason they retired but still get involved is because they were given reason to believe there might be a traitor (one that didn't reveal themselves at Lake Doric as E hoped) and wanted to investigate things from a distance to prevent that traitor from influencing said investigation.

I do kinda want E to be Lord Faren, but the reasoning could apply to other characters. Mostly, I just want it to be someone that makes us look at them in a whole new and interesting light. A lot of these other possibilities like Eive or Wi aren't characters we really know enough for it to matter if they're E from a dramatic standpoint (although my aforementioned theory offsets this by making us see another character in a new light).

[Mystery: Analysis of Mister E]

I only noticed the Eive thing recently (or else I had forgotten about it), and it sounds pretty likely to me (although potentially anticlimactic since we don't know anything else about them). It stands out to me because of the nature of that scroll. They could have had a list of past leaders and just make up some names that may or may not end up being relevant without giving us a retirement scroll. Even with the scroll, if it was just world-building, it could easily have just said something like "I'm getting too old for this, it's time for me to pass the torch." Instead, we have someone who explicitly admits that they're still active, they just can't always be around, and yet we've never run into them as far as we know. Also, 'responsibilities that occasionally take them away' is the sort of way E talks, especially when they send us to do something they aren't there for. As you said, this would also explain E's implied connection to the Shining Blade and protection of the Queen.

[Which Race would you like to see in Next Xpac]

I still wish the Guild Wars 2 races were human, charr, centaur, tengu, and dwarves, since they were the most notable races in GW1, and that still would have looked distinct from other fantasy games. I love the sylvari, norn, and asura as much as the next person, but I don't know why they were invented when we already had established races.

So I still want other races, and my number one pick is tengu. I still really want a game where centaur are playable, but the mount system probably put the final nail in that here.

I think the tengu have one of the best shots still, too. A lot of work was already done for them conceptually and story-wise, and their presence in the world makes certain things easier. For instance, even if the Dominion of Winds is opened as part of a current plot, there are enough tengu that appear here and there to justify using the old Zhaitan story for playable tengu. It's not hard to imagine that one or two or a few tengu were involved in fighting Zhaitan, but it would only be when you catch up to the current story does the Dominion of Winds truly open and tengu start appearing in the story in large numbers.

I know adding a new race is a huge amount of work in this game, and perhaps is something they'll never be able to truly do, but I'll say again that such a situation would be a tragedy. Not only does Guild Wars have a deep history of other races that it would be unfortunate to never fully explore, but new races are an extremely popular feature and help draw in new players much more than other expansion features. Just look at how much new race discussions are still exciting people for World of Warcraft's next expansion.

[(Spoilers inside) Suspicious issues with Lyssa]

@"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:It really wouldn't surprise me if there was some level of discontent among the 6(besides Balthazar going off the deep end) about the decision to leave Tyria to its fate.

Lyssa always had a stronger tie to mortals then the others, and ancient texts say she lived among humans until Arah was completed, and that the other gods basically told her she had too leave them to live in Arah, despite not really wanting too.

It really wouldn't surprise me if she did something to help Baltahzar, even if she may not have known just what he was going to do.

Well, you'd think Kormir would have a connection at least as strong as Lyssa, actually having been a human herself, but that's actually a good point.

Something I found interesting about Balthazar this expansion is that he wasn't "evil" in the sense that his actions were out of malice or some desire to destroy the world. It turns out that, as the God of War, he simply couldn't resist a war on a godly level. He couldn't resist fighting the Elder Dragons because that's simply his nature.

On that note, it's possible that Lyssa's hesitation in leaving was similar. For whatever reason, it's in her nature to have a connection to the mortals. It's possible she helped Balthazar on purpose because she hoped that him fighting the Elder Dragons would help the mortals. Further, I think it's possible, then, that she might have stayed behind as well, because of her nature. Of course, the other gods thought she left with them, but there are several ways she could have pulled that off. As goddess of illusions, perhaps she simply faked it. On the other hand, perhaps they pulled a twin trick, and only Ilya or Lyss actually left in order for the other to assist the mortals.