voltaicbore.8012

This, too, was my ideal version of JW. I can accept the Commander being sent to Janthir by silly Pact 2.0, but only needing to send letters or updates occasionally because it's not a world ending threat, like Anet (sorta) promised. Just the lowlanders concerned about a growing threat in their area, and we follow along to help out. Even with a smaller scale threat... there can still be meta events! There can still be a big bad boss that's hard to kill! I don't understand why Anet seems allergic to this.

I fully agree with you, but I think it's too late already. I'm guessing that this kind of story direction gets decided way ahead of time, and the bulk of the work between releases (within the same mini-xpac) is just building gameplay elements on top of the narrative they decided on. I'm also guessing that the only real story changes we can expect is if they decide to just cut+rush story because they couldn't finish stuff in time. So I think our only hope is that they had the sense not to make the Titans the next big Disney villain ahead of time.

I think I get what OP is saying - they'd prefer to see core storylines expanded on in the... expansions. While some of the biggest threads for most races have been wrapped up (thanks to the demise of the dragons), there is still stuff about reclaiming Orr (referenced directly in a Janthir achieve), Malyck, the Ascalonian ghosts, and some other things that might be fun to get screen time. While I don't share OP's exact desire to see those same core stories finally resolved, I am disappointed with a lost opportunity to really, truly depart from the inane direction we've been on for so long. I can summarize GW2 story: "OMG! Look, a world-ending threat! We need - who would have guessed it - the Power of Friendship to win!" JW is shaping up to be more of this exact same narrative drivel. Here's how it should have gone, imo: Tyrian Alliance forms, thanks to the events of SotO (this actually happened in game, and I like it). Tyrian Alliance decides to dispatch the Commander to Janthir; this conveniently explains how any commander of any background gets sent to Janthir (this also happened, and I like it). Commander shows up in Janthir, and hears about local threats (this happened in the form of us hearing about the "Strangers", and I like it). The Strangers turn out to be a localized threat - they're dangerous, sure, but no huge evil mastermind with a grander "invade all of Tyria" plot; just a (potentially invasive species) creature that got a boost thanks to what's been going on (this clearly did not happen in JW, instead we got Titans). We continue to pursue the core of whatever has turned these local threats more dangerous, parallel to learning more about the Mursaat/Bava Nisos (nooooope it's all about big evil scheming Titans now). The big story boss is just the biggest, champion-version of the Strangers, and killing it (or on the path to killing it) we end up fixing the thing that keeps generating or empowering Strangers (in contrast the JW boss now has to be either the evil mastermind Titan, or a world-ending-threat-level villain puppetmastering them). Disappointed as I might be with this direction, I'm okay with JW being the way it is. What actually bothers me is that Anet's continued inability to stop using "ermagerd world might end!" as a cheap ploy for attention means that they will likely never explore all those interesting story threads in a meaningful way. At this point, I'd rather have them pick up those threads in side story achievements, rather than keep waiting for them to get actual story treatment.

There's more, including one of my favorites: Guutra's Homestead. But overall, there's almost no overt recognition of your Order choice past the core story. A bit of a lost opportunity, but it makes sense Anet didn't decide to invest into three extra branches of story flair for the rest of the game.

That's exactly what I thought it was, and it rubbed me the wrong way - it didn't feel like Anet really intended to flesh this out, so in my book this is yet another "narrative flair" throwaway detail that just complicates the lore for anyone actually trying to think about it. It would be nice to be proven wrong though.

Eh this is poor logic. Those games could be doing quite well in spite of the negative drag that is loot-on-last-hit. If GW2 is already doing worse than such games, denying loot might actually make things even worse. The point is, you just made a random association. I don't even care about your larger point; I accept "git gud" in so many other areas of the game, I wouldn't really mind adding that to the OW meta event system. I just hate seeing weak logic passed off as any form of intelligence. Your argumentation sucks, git gud.

Yeah in PvE I just gave up and made my catalysts open world cosplay characters. They all run celestial (+divinity runes lol) so they're almost unkillable, but only do about 10K dps when working alone. Pressing the exact same buttons jumps to 20K dps if other ppl show up and put out all the other boons, but all the energy issues made me give up on making catalyst competitive in instanced content.

I was just about to chime in with Serpent's Ire. Only Anet has the data, but I'm almost 100% certain is the single least completed meta, ever.

Sadly I think the OP is a real person... I dipped out of this thread many pages back, but the notifications and entertainment value brought me back in. OP actually made a thread about a year ago asking for devs to give back the summoned golem from the old 6pc golemancer runes - which is consistent with what OP said in this thread (they used to have the golemancer rune golem tank for them, but since that's gone they get aggro'd and die instantly). I actually partially agreed with OP back then - I still think the move to relics was a terrible/terribly executed idea. However, even back then OP was crying about the game being too hard, and clearly that position hasn't changed. I agree this thread should be closed, OP has made their stance quite clear. The vast majority of us are aware that the game is easy if you, you know, actually engage with it as designed. OP refuses to believe this is true, purely on the basis that OP cannot be bothered to actually learn anything about the game they insist they want to play. Most of the other concerns raised in the initial post have been addressed with no controversy, so this is pretty much the only issue... and there's no hope of anything actually coming out of this discussion.

Lol we've been telling OP that for a while now, but OP's difficulty scale has only has two positions: (1) I can clear it right now without changing a single thing I do, and (2) this is "torture mode" and needs to be made easier. I think I'm done with this thread.

No, I do not derive any sense of elitism from gaming, primarily because I am not elite by most objective measures. And even if I were "elite," GW2 story content is the absolute worst place to flex. I just have an aversion to entitlement thinking and double standards, which I detected in your allergic response to people who attempted to point out that you might be misjudging the difficulty of GW2 story missions. For someone who claims nobody needs to carry them, you sure do want the dev team to carry you pretty hard.

And this is exactly what we're trying to tell you: you do NOT need meta builds to beat story. As @Mistwraithe.3106 said earlier there are builds out there that can perform impressively well with very little active input from the player. There has to be something obvious about GW2's combat system that you're just not interacting with, and at this point I don't care enough to actually ask you more specific questions to figure out what that is. It would be faster to have you look up "GW2 LI build" or "GW2 low intensity build," find one you have access to, and just press 11111111 to win.

The embarrassment is on your end. The objective standards I (and others) use to call this game relatively easy include (but are not limited to) items like: the amount/variety of actual inputs from the player required to win, the signaling of boss attacks/mechanics, and the reaction time required to succeed, the price of making a mistake (does one hit instakill you and refill the boss to 100%? Does one hit instakill you and NOT refill the boss' HP so you keep progress? Does one hit take a good bit out of your HP but not kill you?), etc. Your "objective" standard is: "I find this super difficult. Anyone who disagrees has no objective basis for saying so." Again, sorry, not buying it. There are many things in this game (some of which you mentioned in your initial post) that are far from perfect and could use improvement. Story mission difficulty is not one of them.

Sure, I agree. But this doesn't sound like you're attempting to express an opinion. You are quite directly stating that GW2 is "clearly... terribly difficult" and anytime someone points out that it's objectively not difficult by any reasonable standard, you accuse them of trying to impose "torture mode" on you. Nope, not buying it.

This logic is terrible. From my perspective, all that proves is that SWTOR is too easy, NOT that GW2 is too hard. You would of course disagree, and our disagreement itself is perfectly fine. Also for reference I played SWTOR for years, still login in to push through new story/gear, raided extensively, etc. It's a much different game than GW2, and I know how combat works there. The problem arises when you basically yell at the rest of us like your position is objectively true. It's not. I have builds with only exotic-tier gear that can clear story with nothing more than autoattacks + whatever random task the boss fight forces you to do. You simply cannot accuse me of god-like gameplay when my character is only autoattacking. You are, on some level, failing to properly engage with GW2's combat system... and just loudly demanding that the game stoop to your level. And guess what? If you were clearing SWTOR raids by clicking skills and not even knowing a rotation (and likely not having a clue about boss mechanics either), you got hard carried by 7 or 15 other people. I believe adjusting a game to match this gameplay philosophy is always a poor choice.