Rogue.8235

I can't believe I forgot this type of weaponry. My brother and I, over the holidays, were talking about the evolution of tools around the time of kitten erectus, neanderthals, and denesovans. One thing I do know is that we, kitten sapiens, exist because kitten erectus was able to eradicate all other species of humans to extinction through the use of tools specifically for warfare. I posited that axes were one of the earliest weapons after the pointy stick (spear). Basically a sharp rock tied to a stick. This is a much more refined version of "sharp rock on a stick" that predates the sword (if I understand you're post correctly). Thanks for pointing me to more things to read! As for the topic on hand, I am all for incorporating as many different types of weapons and aesthetics into the game. I certainly doubt that it will be a new weapon type, but a new weapon model for an existing weapon type would be awesome. There's plenty of historical weapons from around the world to incorporate into the game, such as a two-handed falchion.

So I was blinking my eye as fast as I Could but the jackal didn't do anything. For anyone reading this, Silent meant having the jackal blink, not your eyes. /jk Anyways, forgot that blinking on the jackal resets the altitude. Also useful for preventing fall damage and not letting the jackal slow down that tiny bit, so you can maintain speed after a fall. Oh, and this is concerning the jackal's little teleport, not the jackal blinking its eyes.

Thanks for the tip. Now, explain how I can teach a jackal to fly for the million times I fall off that murder trap of a floating skyplex.

So, rather than flying there, you flew there? Your point seems to be that if you had unlimited, unrestricted flight, you'd be able to quickly get a PoI or vista with minimal engagement with the game and continue zooming towards your destination. Instead, with the griffon, stopping to interact with the game requires interacting with the game, so you still zoomed through the air towards your destination. Spending 1-2 seconds, at most, at a map objective is not really interacting with the game, it's merely making a slight deviation in your flight plan. I'd rather have mounts that actually interact with the game than have a noclip mod. Does the character free fall upon death? If so, what's the air time for that fall? Asking for an Asuran friend. Seriously though, sounds like something I may try to do someday just to see how it happens. Still not convinced that removing game mechanic interactions merely for the sake of fast traveling at all times without restriction is a good thing. I'd rather have game mechanics that interact with the game, not disregard it. Part of using flying mounts is the skill required to use them to maximum effectiveness, and I prefer mechanics that require player skill. At the same time, I'd prefer almost every skill in GW2 to be a skill shot rather than auto-target and auto-hit, but I'm at the extreme here. I think what makes the GW2 mounts fun to use is there game mechanic interaction. To create an unrestricted mount is merely a waypoint by a different name. Just my opinion. Don't really have much to say about the last part of your post. Those things can be frustrating, or at the very least mildly annoying (still never good). I do understand that they're required to prevent scripts from breaking and bugging out, so I accept them.

I've been in meta events with people rushing around faster than I can track the group. In those instances, rather than get frustrated, I just shrug and go do my own thing. My mindset is essentially, "eh, I tried. I'm gonna slaughter these things over here..." There's nothing wrong with player zergs rushing around the map. Particularly, in this game, the zergs aren't dragging mobs but actually killing everything. My only problem with zergs in other games is the inevitable wave of mobs that'll swarm and kill me if I don't hop on board. Here, zergs don't interfere at all. If you prefer a laid-back, easy-going style of play, then just play that way. If you're only concern is grinding for stuff, then you've shifted your enjoyment away from enjoyment through gameplay and into enjoyment through the dopamine hit from rewards. There is completely nothing wrong with this. It's only bad if you are negatively affected by your own need to grind away. If you don't enjoy grind, then you need to start the process of adjusting your gaming mindset towards something you do enjoy. I have never felt pressured to rush through anything in this game, and am able to play it without rushing around. Even during Mad King, I command labyrinth runs at an easy-going pace, and advertise that is what the squad will be doing. You can do the same thing, advertise that you want to do a meta event at a slower pace and lead a squad. Also note, I'm blind, and it's hard enough to merely follow a single player in the game who is trying to help guide me, let alone a chaotic group rushing around. It's possible to enjoy the game without doing anything that frusterates you.

So I'm in the game now, while running screen reading software (which is stupidly graphics intensive) and other access tools to grab text imagery (OCR), all while on a computer that is over 10 years old. There are no problems here. I'm really not sure what the complaints are, because I'm not experiencing any change to performance at all. Now, Autodesk Maya definitely has some performance issues when I'm running physics heavy simulations, so I'm familiar with what horrible performance is.

I don't notice any change in the sociability of the GW2 community in the game. PvE is still full of nice, cooperative people willing to help and PvP is still an "omg what have I done with my life" kind of interaction. One thing that is proven is negative bias. That is, we humans are more likely to recall bad experiences and negative interactions. This, as theorized, is predicated on an evolutionary psychology paradigm, wherein hunter-gatherers must remember the bad stuff more easily to stay alive. It takes a lot of work to change your attitude on this, and is not something that can be easily done by yourself. Just keep this in mind, and remember that you're probably not recollecting all the good stuff that happened as easily. I'm always a fan of systems that incentive playing with new players and helping them out. There are studies into this. 2007 study published to Cyberpsychology & behavior (link to abstract in PubMed, U.S. Library of Medicine) The study is by Arkansas Tech University, which is an institution I'm not familiar with. I have not done any search for validation studies, take with normal level of skepticism in how the researcher obtained and analyzed the data sets. 2020 study by University of California (link to abstract in PubMed, U.S. Library of Medicine) A study on the positive and negative psychosocial impact of the recent paradigm shift towards online socialization. 2021 study published to Frontiers in psychiatry. by Henan Normal University (link to abstract in PubMed, U.S. Library of Medicine) A validation study that looks into the association between online interactions in gaming and video game addiction. A major limitation is the single scoring system quantifying the qualities of online interactions, whereas more robust studies look at 2-3 dimensional factors. Additionally, the regional limitation of the sample study group may not necessarily correlate to the American population. Still a fascinating read. I can link to more upon request.

Adding more condition "varieties" will have massive balance implications. Condition cleansing will not ever be able to keep up if there are 7 types of bleeding and 3 types of burning, each covering torment/poison/confusion/etc. You would need to ramp up condition cleansing to keep up, and for what? This is similar to just making strike damage and health pools bigger across the board. It doesn't do anything but provide bigger numbers. 100 damage to a 10,000 health pool is the same as 1,000 damage to a 100,000 health pool. Ramping up the number of different conditions in the game while ramping up the number of conditions cleansed across the board is the same. As for the examples provided, there is no such thing as magic damage. There is just damage modified by power and critical hits, and damage modified by condition damage. Increasing the number of conditions is power creep. These are additional stacks of damage over time that only add to the damage taken by a particular target. The increased damage is harder to remove because there are more conditions that require cleansing. Also, how would elite specializations be prevented from accessing the conditions of core specializations? They ahve access to core traits, weapons, and utilities. On a personal note, torment does go with the mesmer theme. Mesmers are all about tormenting the minds of others through reality-altering deceit. I would certainly be tormented if a massive hot-pink mustachioed Norn wearing neon green tights suddenly manifested several copies of himself around me. Actually, I'm just going to stop thinking about mesmers for now.

Blind player here. I don't have a right eye and my left eye is light sensitive and motion sensitive (no detail, effectively completely blind). I managed to get the Wintersday meta achievement this year. I couldn't do the JP at all, so I went with Bell Choir. It takes a while, but it can be done blind. Key is that you can quickly detect what octave you're on. Then, keep at Bell Choir and memorize the songs for one of the octaves. For me, the lowest octave was easiest. Once learned, it's easy as it is always the same songs on repeat. Overall, it's a lot of work and a massive exercise in auditory memory. These kinds of challenges are why I play video games blind. All other events are pretty standard mechanics already learned through normal gameplay. The biggest exception is the Lair. So, I kept dying at the end because the cracks in the ground are visual only. I couldn't hear any sort of audio cue for their presence and there is no unique audio feedback from stepping on them and dying from them. Essentially, if you're blind, you'll be dying randomly in the Lair once the ground is cracked. I don't have a way to adapt to this yet, as I'm still not completely familiar with the fight. I find Wintersday to be pretty accessible for my disability. The exceptions are the JP and a single mechanic in the Lair.

Umm, leveling was extremely quick far before Steam release. Being level 80 is less consequential than being an actually skilled player. There is no way to out-stat the content, so level doesn't matter. The only lengthy level 80 I remember is my first character from launch. I don't really remember level 80 taking long outside of that. There have always been ways to quickly level up. I tend to level very quickly because I kill everything, and mobs provide bonus experience for the length of time they've been alive. I kill what the majority of the player base skips. I also do map completion as I'm playing a new character. When tomes and birthdays came around, I used those. Level 80 has been quickly attainable before Steam was a consideration.

Seconding core Tyria Orr for mindless mass murder sessions. They are absolutely target rich environments. Harathi Hinterlands may be one for you. I personally don't like it because mobs die too fast and are dispersed enough that I find myself needing to run somewhere, looking for something to kill. Contrast to Orr, where you can endlessly just chain from kill to kill. If the major events are up in Harathi, it is a target rich environment. Silverwastes is good, depending on your definition of low effort. Assaulting the flame legion fortification in Northwest Iron Marches may be good, unless you kill them too fast and you have to wait for respawns. Ember Bay is good for endless slaughter, as is Lake Doric and Bitterfrost Frontier. Of the above, , I recommend core Tyria Orr the most for what you're looking for.

For loot boxes, approach it with only the guaranteed drops in mind. If the guaranteed drop is worth the gems/gold to get the key, then go ahead and buy/use them. If you don't really care for the guaranteed drop, ignore the black lion chests and wait for the next cycle. With this mindset, anything else you get is a completely unexpected bonus that you get for "free." I say free because you value the guaranteed drop at the price you paid for the key. Everything else is just an added bonus to what you wanted. This helps manage expectations with the black lion chests. There shouldn't be disappointment because it's just free stuff that you can sell on the TP. Unfortunately, this is the best way to use the gambling loot box system, or any other system that rewards you based solely on random chance. Treat the randomization as an added bonus.

So by planting a railroad spike into their foot, they're slow. So... I think it works out? I'm assuming that a railroad spike plunged through your foot would hinder your ability to run at some level. Maybe the measles reference is so incorrect that they actually missed their foot with the railroad spike, further contradicting the point. Anyways, Combat movement speed is actually the normal speed. During the betas, we complained that movement was slow, so out-of-combat movement speed was increased. Dedicating a build to maintain extra movement speed is a trade-off for having other build aspects, such as damage or defense (though movement speed may be a defensive boon if the player is skilled). To just increase speed across the board would remove any sacrifices to builds for getting that movement speed. With the same logic, we might as well all have permanent 10 stacks of might, baseline, regardless of skill usage or traits. That's because there's always might around so might as well just always have it. As for fury, might as well give every character a permanent 20 percent base critical chance, because fury is easy to maintain with meta builds. Etc.

If there is one thing that easily encapsulates the reason for the cooperative nature of GW2, it's that all resource nodes are shared. This, alone, was a drastic change for me compared to other MMOs (I've done EVE Online, TERA, Secret World, Aion). Everyone has equal access to all resource nodes, no players can interfere with gathering resource nodes, and no one can steal the nodes. This concept is expanded to every aspect of PvE, wherein a player is never unhappy to see another player. In fact, I distinctly remember changes made to the game based solely on this concept. An example is the Sanctuary runes and Scourge mechanics, which were changed because healing from other players negatively affected you. They also changed the starter zone champions to dissuade player conflict (some wanted to farm champions, others just played the game, both goals competed and were mutually exclusive). Since ArenaNet designed the game to be cooperative and friendly, the players, in turn, respond with a cooperative and friendly manner (mostly). I'm glad for it.

I think this would be a fun idea. It's similar to requests for having SAB year-round. Understand that this may not happen because the skill and time required to create these jumping puzzles is immense. Check out Josh Foreman's videos for insight into how much thought goes into creating these things. He's also the creator of most of the jumping puzzles in GW2. I like the idea and think it would be a fun addition to the game. It would be another set of activities and I can randomly do on a whim just to change things up. I also want to emphasize that the Wintersday JP is far more accessible than the Mad King JP. The key is audio cues to help give direction and allowing enough time to react to audio cues and commit directions to memory. I, personally, don't do JPs that often, but I think the player-base is diverse enough to have such an activity present in the game. What I like about GW2 is it's inherent replayability with the wide array of ways to play the game, such as game modes and playing different professions. This idea, i believe, would add to that replay value (disregarding any reward mechanics).

I'm all for expanding character customization. .... I've been found out! Run! (Shiny Earring!).

Just here to say that one reason to not use Level 80 boosts is if you lack funds to instantly equip the character with level 80 gear. Having under-leveled gear plus down-scaling will make the game much more difficult than it should be for new players. If you have the gold to immediately equip your character with level 80 gear and you know what stats you want, then use it. If you don't know what stats you want, you're not ready to use the level 80 boost. Otherwise, using the boost doesn't really change the game too much. You simply have access to all core traits and skills. You won't necessarily overpower anything if you still lack the player skill to effectively use all of your tools. You can still play all low-level content with a level 80 character.

Not trolling at all, just joking to hopefully make someone laugh. By the way, posting here did not work, still hadn't gotten gold. 😜😎

Excellent point, and worded in such a general way as to not induce any form of functional fixedness. Looking at any video game from this standpoint, without necessarily putting it in terms of in-game currency, items, cosmetics, etc. would (hopefully) spark some creative solution. Unfortunately, I have not given this much thought into the loot system to identify any such out-of-the-box solution. I re-read my post. I did not mention capitalism, only the "American business model" which is specifically different from other business strategies around the world. Primarily, it is short-run driven with little thought (if at all) to long-run sustainability. I have seen this mindset develop in most students while getting my degree (it cost me a good grade in my Strategic Management course, because my group mates were so concerned about implementing my plan which would adversely affect our stock price in the next fiscal quarter). That said, I understand your point and agree with it.

I think you hit on a fundamental, underlying issue. Thus far, all discussion concerning progression has been in terms of "things" such as gear and whatnot. While this isn't what you're saying, you do bring up the problem in the perceived blandness of loot. The pattern I see here is that there is a general mindset that players want new, shiny things (be it cosmetic, better stats, etc.). I'm not saying you, personally, think the loot system is a problem in need of a solution. I'd just like to point out a pattern that I'm seeing. Essentially, players want a perpetual influx of new, interesting "things" (things is always in quotes because we're talking about virtual items that don't actually exist). The biggest flaw, or rather limitation, here is the same as the American business model faces: Growth cannot be infinite. It is impossible to have an infinite influx of new, exciting, and interesting loot, because it would require perpetual creation of new, interesting, and exciting loot. There is no organization that can sustain that level of exorbitant growth. Essentially, no matter how "interesting," "exciting," or "valuable" loot is defined, they all have the same requirement, which is the infinite creation of new things. I'm not aware of any human or human-run organization that is capable of doing this. This premise subsumes the aforementioned discussion of the paradox of a stat-based progression system which does not actually change the end-state of the game. (this last bit is directed at everyone, not any one person)

So... report your own accounts to gain useful information on how ArenaNet responds to your botting, then make adjustments to stay ahead of the curve. Yeah, this suggestion definitely upholds the best practices concerning information security.

Just here to say FOMO marketing is proven to be effective, and I still dislike it. Can't wait for the next marketing fad. When I was getting my degree, the fad then was guerrilla marketing. I miss that marketing, it was better for everyone. Note, I refuse to categorize native advertising with guerrilla marketing.

Looking at the rare and masterwork unidentified gear, I do see my ignorance. I thought there were more exotics available than listed. Regional weapon skins still drop in their respective regions outside of unidentified gear. Even so, adding unique exotic skins will still lead to the same problem, unidentified gear is boring once you have all the cosmetics. The only solution is to perpetually shove new cosmetics into the unidentified gear, which will always end with the same lack of interest once those new cosmetics are attained. Is the solution a cosmetic treadmill? Oh, and I wasn't attempting to build a strawman for your particular case, I was merely attempting to cover all bases. Please forgive any misattributions.

It is impossible to determine who reacted to your post, and why they reacted. If you can, then please identify every post I reacted to, how I reacted, and why I reacted. The reason none of us can determine anything specific about reactions is because reactions are anonymous and have zero context. As for going out of your way to "counter-confuse" another user... that's a strange way to provide rational thought to a replying post. Again, you cannot determine who reacted nor why. No amount of deduction will enable you to do so because there is no information from which to deduce a conclusion. And your symbols are converted to sound waves for me! Is it still voicing if a computer does the voicing? 😜😎

There are things in the game, such as Chak Egg Sac, which are "exciting" drops. Would you (collectively) like more such items in the game? How many of these ultra-rare items have you guys obtained? If the counter-argument is that these items are too rare, then making them any less rare will put these items into the same category as all others, which is "junk" or "not interesting." If the argument is that you (collectively) want drops that have better stats, well that is really the status quo masquerading as change. Players will perpetually obtain gear with bigger numbers to fight foes with bigger numbers. Ultimately, the proportion of damage is the same. If not, then all players will eventually be able to one shot everything with a single auto. Stat-based vertical progression is merely the progression of damage numbers with the same end-state. Nothing effectively changes. What does a perpetual "interesting" loot system look like? What can drop that will always be valuable and interesting? I guess one solution will be an infusion-type item that is ultra-rare for each modular content in the game. However, the super majority of players will never experience having the valuable interesting drop, due to rarity and random number generation. If this is solved by making the new items more plentiful, then there will be complaints of cheap, boring loot. Now this is becoming a repetition of previous statements. I really don't see a worthwhile system that can accommodate the statements of the quoted players.