Rando Khan.3705

This is something I've pondered as well, and an opinion I'm in agreement with. Verdant Brink in particular is honestly mind-blowing -- I still remember playing through it for the first time like it was yesterday. You touched on how great the art design is, which it definitely is, but it was the intricacy of the map design that I found fascinating, particularly for an MMO. The verticality and layering made it feel like a hostile environment regardless of the enemies -- traversal was difficult, but rewarding. I also think it was really unique how they incorporated some Metroidvania-like design with the masteries, where you could later access areas that you may not have been able to reach previously. Verdant Brink really is one of the few examples I can think of where the environmental storytelling and gameplay are so cohesively informed by the broader narrative beats, that it feels like one cohesive package. There have been times where I agree that it has felt like Anet were at the top of the pile when it came to innovating in RPGs/MMOs (the first 3 Guild Wars games come to mind for me), and I think HoT was such a time as well. While I do think Anet still put put out a good product, another factor to take into account is how many senior staff have left/were laid off over the years. When individuals with years of institutional knowledge leave a studio, often times they simply can't be replaced.

Thank you for cherry-picking a tiny portion of my post, as well as quoting and reframing it out of context of the point I was making.

I didn't say you're stuck in the past, I said your mind-set on this topic is. I then gave reasoning as to why I think that is based on my own experience. In other words, I was pointing out that while your opinion is valid (and is one I have held before as well), it is one based on a general lack of understanding of the topic at hand. It wasn't meant to be perceived as disrespectful to you as a person.

You don't need to dumb down a game to make it workable on a controller. Frankly, this is a mind-set that's stuck in the past by a good decade or two. I remember feeling the same way when a lot of developers started to pivot towards console development over PC in the early 2000's. Compared to most traditional MMOs, GW2 actually has a fairly tame amount of keybinds. I've played GW2 on a controller for about 5 years now -- you use modifiers to shift between sets of keybinds, as well as utilizing action camera. Doing this allows you to have essentially as many keybinds as you want. It's the same concept as someone who uses a modifier key on their keyboard (often shift or CTRL) to utilize the same key for multiple keybinds. If you want to look at an MMO that supports controllers natively, look at FFXIV. It has considerably more skills than GW2, and it works great -- people reliably complete every level of content using a controller.

Thank you for doing all of this (including your previous write-ups). I primarily play Bladesworn, and it's pretty discouraging how many technical as well as mechanical problems it has/continues to accrue. I really hope Anet put some resources into taking a broad look at Bladesworn and what they want it to be, and fix a lot of its nagging issues.

Agreed!

I really enjoyed when Bladesworn's gunsaber was tweaked into a pseudo-ranged weapon. The problem is that the cartridge/explosion sound effects were transplanted onto other skills and the volume levels were never adjusted (skill 1, particularly). This has made the auto attacks extremely grating over time. Arguably worse, the actual skill 1 effects are completely masked, which is unfortunate, as they were unique and sounded great. Any chance these can be adjusted in a future patch? I think the Bladesworn sound effects are generally really high quality, and this one sticks out like a sore thumb because of it.

Thank you for this. I absolutely love the gameplay of Bladesworn (I feel like it really rewards proper spacing/timing), but it definitely has a lot of little problems that need to be ironed out still.

I've been having similar problems since the last update -- constant, 2000+ lag spikes as well as generally lower performance ( FPS drops where I had none before as well as an inconsistent frametime, especially when panning the camera or entering combat initially). I've even tried a pletheora of different game settings and it didn't change anything. My driver is the same as it has been and I'm not having trouble with any other games besides GW2.