[Easy fix to WvW problems]

Sure. Maybe each map should have world bosses and meta events on a timer as well.

[The amount of filler content in story is out of hand]

16 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Because now there's no potential reason to need Felicia Day's voiceover services anymore.

Any change in Zojja's voice is easily explained away because she drank the Water of Life and realized that the wurms are the spice, and the spice is the wurms.

Or something like that.

True. I should stop asking those stupid questions and keep filling those bars. The spice must flow...

[The amount of filler content in story is out of hand]

6 minutes ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Peitha is undoubtedly a trap.

Our intro to the Astral Ward was "we fight against demons!" Then we get one of those demons talking inside our head and just go with it, because PTSD I guess. The whole reason we even took up with the Astral Ward in the first place is now void for vagueness. Then we take sides in a demonic civil war that is absolutely none of our business and ally with her to help install her as the new demon queen, because why? Because she asked, and nobody bothered to corroborate her story; we're basically taking her word for it. What could possibly go wrong?

The little bit of ambient NPC chatter by the waypoint sums it up: when asked how to tell the difference between a good barf monster and a bad barf monster, the answer is simply "good ones ask for help, bad ones try to kill you." Apparently the possibility of a demon telling manipulative lies in service to their own agenda never crosses anyone's mind, nor does checking with any of the various spy agencies that we have ever worked with. 🤷‍♂️

FTFY, I think. "Nuisance" kinda works there too though. 😆

That first one did indeed deeply bother me. The idea that I gave any consideration at all to that NPC beyond "well that was a waste of time and effort" was bothersome. We met what, 3 minutes ago? I don't even remember its name. Why exactly am I supposed to be upset about this?

This whole expansion has had me asking "why are we doing any of this?" and I struggle to answer that, because the story doesn't bother even trying to explain. We just careen from one brief snippet of story to the next, and the filler map/meta events are all about what we're doing, not why.

You see, the Hero of Tyria, the Pact Commander, Godslayer and Champion of the Prysmatic Dragon has been retired. A decade of great deeds has left them psychologically scarred and crippled beyond recognition. All of which has been showed and miraculously resolved in the two weeks we spent in the Gyala Delves, where the people we met the month before listened to our problems in passing and our distant Asura friend conducted experiments on us to defeat a demon, because you know, they care.

Now we have the Wayfinder. The Wayfinder doesn't ask questions. The Wayfinder just does what they are told. Why? So the story can happen. Are the wizards kinda shady, not helping with any of our problems, wiping our friend's memory, farming sentient beings for science and all that? Sure. Does the Wayfinder care or challenge any of it? Nope. They're 100% on board "Just point to whatever I'm supposed to hit!" Is the demon lady creepy, shady and will most likely stab us or the "nice" wizard people in the back at some point? Probably. I know, you know, the wizerds know. The Wayfinder? Nah, just fill that bar and remove some opposition. Does any of this, even remotely concern us? Maybe. But why is the Wayfinder doing this here? Why aren't the wizards fighting the fight in Nayos and we are mustering our contacts in Tyria? Ah yes, secrecy, can't have others here. Not shady at all. "Stop asking questions and look at these vistas now."

And because our protagonist is detached from the setting and unbelievably gullable, I as a player am detached from the story and can not suspend my disbelieve. And ANet knows this, which is why they they throw Zojja at me. Why they had to lobotomize her is beyond me, maybe it will make sense in the end. To make me care, I get introduced to NPC that get killed two scenes later. But I don't know for what kind of person that trick is supposed to work. I mean Mabon was one thing. But Irja? That NPC had like 3 lines and only lived to showcase how bad and evil the boss was. It felt so forced and superficial, might as well have a NPC run into the scene shouting "ZOMG Wayfinder!!! That's Cpt. Cruel McEvildoer!!! They're bad!! Real Bad! Look out!". And that is the level of storytelling we are dealing with at the moment.

Anyway...turned out I had to rant a bit... Maye next release we get to close five Rifts between two short, talky instances🤞

[Possible bounties on Nayos?]

4 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

Also, tbh, I haven't seen anyone farming rifts. I've seen someone opening one and things like that, but when opening the squad list, most of them are doing the meta, it's not like in PoF that from time to time you see someone doing bounties.

Haven't checked in a while, because I'm not going for the armor, but there usually were groups doing the weekly Rifts but I guess the farms kida died with convergences because they give way more essences. Also, lots of people had 9 months time now to farm for their armors and are now done and I can imagine they won't go near a rift for quite a while now if ever again after such a grind. Just as a side note.

Bounties would always make sense from a lore or story perspective. It's a simple narrative that can fit every setting without bending backwards. "There's this singular problematic entity somewhere out there. get it!" It gives some rewards, players can engage with the content on their own time and only very few of them have proven to be a problem, mostly legendaries. It's really baffling why ANet let them slip.

[Possible bounties on Nayos?]

Bounties are another one of ANets testbaloons that got started and more or less immediately discontinued. Would be nice, but probably won't happen.
Also, Rifts basically fulfill that function for SotO.
Alsoalso, SotO maps are kinda crammed with events because the maps tell a lot of the story through events, so they wouldn't really fit anywhere now that the aps are designed and shipped.

[Arcane Chest mini games]

4 minutes ago, firedragon.8953 said:

Hahaha. Really? Is this the state of modern gaming? Is the modern metric, is it burdensome or not?
This mindset is just silly. The question should be "Is it fun?" It is not. Neither is "pressing f," but that is probably why the autoloot mastery is a big hit too.

Pressing f on a chest is also much less intrusive to gameplay as it doesn't hold you captive to do something (loot a chest) that 95% of the rest of the game doesn't do. If there was a point to the system (completing the puzzle faster provides bonus loot, etc.), I could see it as a game design choice. But this "design choice" is also used with Dagda yoga, with the poses in the same button order every time without the need to defend or anything. What is the point of these mechanics, other than to waste time? It's boring, and certainly not "engaging."
 

Very well put and very well pointed out what the difference between a game mechanic and filler is. Mechanics matter, fillers waste time. Mechanics engage, you want to do them, they are fun. Fillers bother you, you would rather avoid them, they add nothing to the experience.

[Arcane Chest mini games]

It's, as are many things with SotO, padding to add engagement where there would otherwise be none.

Inb4 "Oh so you don't like playing the game, huh? Because every form of buttonpressing counts as playing the game." No, I like playing the game. What I don't like, is being bothered with filler for a blue unid, two silvers and a few pieces of a useless currency.

[Mount Skins I would pay top dollar for:]

7 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

Kakapo springer skin.

I like how we have some other endangered animals like the Pangolin beetle and Manatee skimmer. It spreads awareness.

Kakapo springer skin.

An endangered animal charity collab with a few mount skins would probably 1) sell a few gems beause cutesy animals and 2) collect a fair amount of charity money because cutesy animals. Would gel well with the community of the game I'd wager.

[Mount Skins I would pay top dollar for:]

- Sylvari(plants and stuff) and Charr(gears and metal) themed mounts, because we already have Norn and Asura ones. For Humans maybe some extra regal looking ones idk hoo-mans are boring.
- Basic Skins with emblems of the Orders, the Pact etc.

While not technically a mount, I would love to have a charr themed airboat skiff skin.

[What counterplays are there to Stealth?]

1) Skills that reveal
2) Knowing where they probably are and unloading AoEs
3) Knowing that a single hit of them will reveal them and that there are very few if any one shots so it's probably going to be fine
4) Moving away
5) Unloading AoEs/Auras on self
6) Not dueling the stealth class on a bersi build that relies on support
7) Taking it to the forums and making the bazillionth "DeLeT sTeLtH pLoX" thread and hope it will work this time.

 

[Whats next..!? more of the same !?]

21 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Anyone spending more than a month on GW2 forums knows that whatever people ask for the most will be whined about the most once Anet adds it - Fishing, LWS1 rerun, OW Legendary armor, the new Skyscale acquisition, for minor examples every change regarding the Turtle - and whatever was released latest is the worst thing Anet has ever done, the game will be/is on maintenance mode and everything before was perfect.

I choose fishing and the turtle. If it wasn't for that uninspired minigame and the useless mount, Kaineng would be a sprawling metropole with thousands of interacable NPCs and events. /s

[Guild Renaming]

You can ask customer care for a name change but they won't grant you said wish every few months. As far as I understand it, it's a one time thing and they want to hear a reasson for it. I used to be in a WvW guild f.e. that had a name affiliated with a certain server, but the guild moved servers so it made little sense to still have that name. That wass an instance where they allowed a namechange. Another one was a guild that wass really old, i.e. named shortly after launch, and no one of the "founding members" was still around so the current members didn't want a name no one had chosen. In both cases we were asked for suggestions and at a later date on what we had decided on.
All I'm saying is think about what you want to name your guild as you won't get a lot of chances to rename it and since it's a small group friends I'd suggest talking it through amongst yourselves and probably chosing something "timeless" that's not bound to a particular expansion.

[[Suggestion]: Ideas for improving skills & magic in GW2]

Sure...
So here's "what I've got".
Your Idea sounds like a balancing nightmare that's only cool on paper. In reality probably 10% of the fused skills would be useful the rest may be flavorful, but that only goes so far, see racial skills which are flavorfull but in the end useless therefor nobody uses them really. So why use/waste resources (time, money, data) on 90% skills no one will use, when those resources could be spent on improving an existing system, elite specs f.e. that serves a similar purpose, i.e. being GW2's version of dual classing (mechanist being "the engineer version of a ranger", specter being "the thief version of a necro" etc.).
Also, "This Idea was not well-done on purpose" sounds like a terrible premise at best and a cheap built-in excuse at worse. Why not start with a semi well-done idea? Or an idea that is kinda thought through? You'd still get feedback, it will only be worth a lot more.

[Returning player, Half my exclusive dyes are gone, saying I don't own them.]

7 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

Don't change the character dye,. and maintain them as "proof" of your claim and contact support. surely they will fix it.

This^^ and open a ticket with customer service. Hope they can sort things out for you.

[Combat Tonics: Can we get a option to select the gender, and a way to right click cancel the transformation from the Boon UI]

Having more options where available is alwaays welcome. However, some tonics don't exist as both genders while some tonics are, in my opinion at least, gender neutral. In general, I would like an option to pick a model for tonics that have multiple models or at least to have the same order when switching through them. It's no fun to click through the RNG button until you get the transformation you want from the Fractal Tonic f.e..

Your second point sounds like a bug or at least like unintended behavior. Maybe a second thread in the apropriat subforum would get more attention.

[Obsidian Armor Skins?]

Having answered "If you want to have the thing you got to do the thing" to many, many "I just want the raid armor skin"-threads, I'll have to give the same answer here. If you want the obby skin you got to do what is necessary to get the skin. Having another piece of legendary armor has nothing to do with it. The two have nothing in common. It's like wanting a discount on milk because you already bought orange juice, sure their both liquids and make for a good breakfast, but that's about it. I get that it may be frustrating to see the new toy but again, if you want the thing you got to do the thing to get the thing. It has been the go to answer whenever people asked for open world legy answer and there was none, it has to be the go to answer now when there is an open world legy armor with an exclusive skin attached to it.

[[Suggestion]: Ideas for improving skills & magic in GW2]

2 minutes ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

You talk about fusing skills,  but what is the end result? 

Other than more power creep and less balance?

It's just the "Wouldn't it be cool if"-school of suggestioneering at work. That's why it's not thought through. Dont worry.

@OP
GW1 is still live, no need to make GW2 GW1.
"It would be so cooooooooooooooooooooooool" makes for a good first, rough idea. But that's about it. A good idea has to be feasable, it has to make sense within the game and within what is reasonably possible. If your cooooooooooooooooooooooool idea needs a complete rewrite of the the game's code or core features, it's not an idea for the game, it's an idea for a different game. If your idea would cost millions and millions of dollars without the possibility of gaining anything, the idea may be cool but probably won't make it past the executives. That's the boring and sad reality of the creative process. Ideas don't live in an empty space when they meet reality. Lot's of things would be cool. And in a world where development is free and devs don't need to pay rent, we could have all those things. But that world does not exist so ideas must somehow find a way to exist in the wold that we have. Sry m8.

[Underwhelming. Not really bad, but also not good. [Merged]]

Just going to drop my two cents with a disclaimer to explain where I'm coming from.

I've been playing the game since shortly after launch and haven't taken any longer breaks since. I play mostly PvE but also play some WvW, I used to play PvP too but I haven't done so in probably three years or so. Around the time of EoD release, a bit of fatigue started to set in and I played les and less, still daily and still a lot, just less. That's fine after all those years and all those things I've done in game. But that's something I have to account for when I think about how "wow'd" I am by a new release. Also I have pretty much everything I want for my account, all the Legies, all the QoL stuff, my toons look how I want them to look and so on and so on. So it may be harder to find carrots for me when compared to a player that started two years ago and doesn't have all those things.

Now here we go, SotO 3 "The Realm of Dreams"
1) The Good:
- The new third of the map is visually more interesting than the first. There's more diverse stuff going on.
- Also the events seem to offer more variety.
- I also like the meta more than on the first third of Inner Nayos.
- Finally getting the Legendary Relic.
- New Weapons seem fun, although I haven't tested them all.
- Always good to see skins as rewards.

2) The Bad:
- The new Mastery offers nothing when not going for the Legendary armor.
- Still no sink for Essences when not going for Legendary armor.
- Story instances feel empty, especially when we're supposed to fight an epic battle.
- Uninspired achievements for the new weapons. "Kill 1000 Enemies" just isn't very fun.

3) The Ugly:
- No new Relics and the Relic system as a whole. Still waiting on that communication when those core Relics are supposed to be released, especially in a world where we have "expansion" releases every 3 months.
- The 3 month cadence just doesn't klick for me. It's been nine months now and I really wanted to give this new model a fair try, and I think I did. But instead of having: a big release, six months of drought then living season for 18 months, then another drought of six months followed by the next big release; it feels like we have a very small release, two months of drought that feel like six, then the next very small release. SotO 1 started out very promising, I really liked the first two maps and all the wizard stuff but with SotO 2 it kinda came to a screeching halt and this release sadly continued this trend. The release feels small. One reason for this may be...
- There's not a lot to go for outside of the Legendary armor. I Know it's a big draw for many players. And for thse players, it's a big goal that will take a while, as it should, it's a Legendary armor after all. But for me, a player who will not craft it, it's not a goal, so I won't go for it and since so much in SotO seems to be laser focused on the legendary journey, it seems "not for me". A few other long term goals would have been nice.
- Story filler bits. We improved, I have to admit. We are not asked 4 times to close rifts anymore. But asking us to view three vistas is probably the laziest I've seen in this game. I mean repurposing Hero Points or "Do events until the bar is full" is at least a bit engaging and has some action to it.
- I don't understans why we get chests with the wobbly tentacle weapons for the uninspired new weapon achivements. Better than nothing, some of them are worth a few gold. But a new skin matching the weapon, something like we used to get with the old Elite Spec collection achis would have ben great.

Anyway, so much for my two cents. Have a nice day.

[is cerus cm possible? [Merged]]

59 minutes ago, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

hands down the worst mechanics in the game - enemies with oversize health pools and time limits.

large health pools are monotonous and boring and take forever to reduce.

Nothing feels lamer than "running out of time" and losing to a boss fight, its just ridiculous.

time limits also spits in the face of "play your way" their "moto" that they still ascribe to i would assume.

I guess it should be modified to, "play your way as long as its ranged dps that provides specific boons".

Phrases like "play your way" or "bring the player not the class" haven't been true since HoT. Sometimes, what you could bring/play was a bit more broad than at other times, but ANet has abandoned these mission statements almost a decade ago, when it comes to instanced PvE content and their design philosophy about it.

[Next: Utility Skill 2nd Professions]

I want none of those things. You do not speak for me.
GW1 is still playable, GW2 doesn't need to become GW1.
I'd rather have resources be spent on something else.

[Purified Kryptis Essence conversion [Merged]]

I would contact customer support. They usually react rather fast in these cases.

[Artisan of Arms Achievement for Mesmer (Healing Rifle)]

Maybe try some of these things.
--> Weapon Master Guide

[[Suggestions]QoL (Quality of Life) Ideas [Merged]]

7 minutes ago, Kunzal.5640 said:

Please let us change Jade Mech Color,

If you don't want to change it by color options(this would be better),
please change colors by trait decisions,

I play mostly heal alac mechanist, in squads there are at least 2 3 mechanist same time, support mech should be easy to recognize, its location is important.
this situation really confusing, sometimes 4 or more mechanist... all of them same...

gw2 universe has tech to have jade mech, but can't change color of it... 😞

While I fully suppot this, I doubt it will happen as ANet so far has never done anything in terms of minion costomisation. My bet is it's either because of coding reasons or because of competitive play and recognizabilty. The latter being the same reason they gave years ago why armor skins are basically locked into their respective weight classes, I know, competitive play isn't really a thing anymore and outfits basically nullify this for armors but that's what I remember from the old days.

How I solve the issue in the mean time isI try to name the mech in a manner that it sticks out. This can be a very long name or something in all caps with spaces inbetween or a string of letters you recognize better. Just wanted to offer advice as I know the pain. 😉

[Obsidian Armor Skin Feedback]

Does anyone know if the armors suffer from "sylvari with huge shouldersand  huge calves" syndrome?

Also, if things won't get fixed in the next ~ten days, they maybe get fixed with tier2 release. If things don't get fixed then, experience says issues will remain.

[Stop making special action skills mandatory CC]

Not all players know where to find their CC skills or have them equipped. By handing them SAK-CC skills ANet can design encounters with CC bars while kinda guaranteeing that there theoretically is enough CC. I know  "If they have to hand it to the players only so that they can design the encounter in a way that accounts for what is handed to the players, why design it that way at all?". Good question. But the alternative would be to teach players about CC skills and the game for sure won't do that. So we're stuck with SAK skills and players who after hundreds of hours still don't know what their skills do because the game doesn't tell them. It's just a thing now. Because it's the easier way.