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[docbon]

This will definitely be an update where I play for two hours then disappear for a few weeks. Already had my fair share of farming LA.

The first go went off without a hitch. Sucks that yours was bugged.

Guild finisher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBuTGkkPs8

It's a good idea for a finisher, but the result looks a little weird with the ground texture and the awful looking shield.

 

[Shiokazu]

i got to see the end, first attempt. no real problems.

BEST FINISHER

EVER

oh... this finisher reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8b2kq4Z17E

 

[shysaursoft]

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg
that final battle
that ending cutscene
omg

 

[Hawkian]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELDshrAJEk8 finisher looks better with these emblems, kind of hard to say how it would work with GAF's but hey.

edit: My thanks for your patience in not posting spoilers, and please do use tags if you discusss anything specific

 

[shysaursoft]

I wouldn't want to spoil this for anyone. I ain't even going to post spoiler-tagged stuff. Nope, everyone needs to finish this season for themselves.

 

[Shiokazu]

I wouldn't want to spoil this for anyone. I ain't even going to post spoiler-tagged stuff. Nope, everyone needs to finish this season for themselves.

yeah, i even logged out not to spoil MORE than i did already.

 

[Jira]

I wouldn't want to spoil this for anyone. I ain't even going to post spoiler-tagged stuff. Nope, everyone needs to finish this season for themselves.

Indeed, the feelings I had during the whole ending were something I only feel when watching a tv show or movie.

 

[cheststrongwell]

So, I played this for a month after release and am going to start again this weekend. Really looking forward to it. Has the game changed much?

 

[Shiokazu]

So, I played this for a month after release and am going to start again this weekend. Really looking forward to it. Has the game changed much?

yes it has. from july last year, the time i started, it has already changed a lot.

 

[Jira]

So, I played this for a month after release and am going to start again this weekend. Really looking forward to it. Has the game changed much?

Here's a list of permanent changes, temporary stuff is even greater than this list:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FwI3ZJ2J6L7EnrSurfn03YcPBIeHpyKgaJJ3mkSVALA/edit

 

[shysaursoft]

So, I played this for a month after release and am going to start again this weekend. Really looking forward to it. Has the game changed much?

Depends on what you care about. WvW has changed a lot, there's been a year of PvE content you missed, some of it was made permanent but much was story related, most classes have been rebalanced some, and a lot of fundamental systems changed, like currencies, etc. Every dungeon retooled, new Fractal dungeons... Hard to sum up a year's worth of patching.

Speculation, after reading Massively article about the update.

Breachmaker (giant drill) will continue drilling for months and we won't know what's going to come out of it till next living story. We will just kill scarlet but we won't be able to stop the drill.

I hope I'm wrong.

You are wrong, is all I'll say.


Maaan, I'm too damn wired now to work. I can't concentrate on anything.

 

[Nemesis121]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELDshrAJEk8 finisher looks better with these emblems, kind of hard to say how it would work with GAF's but hey.

edit: My thanks for your patience in not posting spoilers, and please do use tags if you discusss anything specific

ha looks like a zrank from GW1...

 

[Kos Luftar]

Heading home now.

You guys have me hyped again.

 

[Shiokazu]

Heading home now.

You guys have me hyped again.

YOU BETTER BE FUCKING PREPARED SIR.

 

[shysaursoft]

Also: orange is the new red.
AoE markers, AoE markers everywhere...

Oh the screenshots I could post. I could use some out of context shots to make a lot of people very unhappy... good thing I'm not a troll.

 

[Hawkian]

the hell am I looking at? O_O

this afternoon at work has been one of the slowest I can remember.

 

[xeris]

Amazing finale and worth the hype. I don't mind the timer since there's a good chance it'll take an hour or close to it for most flows to do. Do NOT go into the spinal backpack portal until you've done it once. It's a way to skip the fights and just see the end, but you'll be missing out if you do that.

 

[Hawkian]

Do NOT go into the spinal backpack portal until you've done it once. It's a way to skip the fights and just see the end, but you'll be missing out if you do that.

Not really knowing what this is exactly, would it serve as a workaround for the people who are annoyed by the wait?

 

[xeris]

Not really knowing what this is exactly, would it serve as a workaround for the people who are annoyed by the wait?

Yup. You'll miss the fights and how you got there. Also if there's a daily involved with the end (can't remember if there is) you could do that and be done with it. That said, Lump did it before we knew what it was and kinda regretted it.

 

[Atrophis]

They should lower the champ spawns to every 30 minutes. No real reason for the hour wait.

 

[xeris]

They should lower the champ spawns to every 30 minutes. No real reason for the hour wait.

It'd be hard since you'd run into people finishing the second segment. They'd have to run instances based on time instead of number of people.

 

[shysaursoft]

Also, the chests are back in Scarlet's Lair, if you have leftover keys.

 

[Hedge]

That cinematic. I'm so excited. :x

 

[Mxrz]

The Torch, Scepter, and Pistol all look tasty for my Mesmer.... hoo boy.

!

!

Tormented Skins are in GW2 now? Don't lie. Screw the LS. Where? How? ALL my gold and possessions if I can have my shield and sword back.

Also, still hope that one cutscene can be skipped.

* Black Lion chests? ARGH. ALL THE ARGH.

 

[Atrophis]

Anet giveth and Anet taketh away.

 

[Ashodin]

So I'l probably be on at Five to do the event. I really want to see what the hubbub is all about.

 

[Mxrz]

Damn. Do these (Tormented) things look worse than their GW1 versions, or is it just me? The sword is 'bigger' with less of a gap, and the particles on everything are way more pronounced. I still want the shield, I guess. Not so crazy about the rest. Hrm.

 

[Jira]

!

!

Tormented Skins are in GW2 now? Don't lie. Screw the LS. Where? How? ALL my gold and possessions if I can have my shield and sword back.

Also, still hope that one cutscene can be skipped.

* Black Lion chests? ARGH. ALL THE ARGH.

Just buy gems and convert to gold. Though wait a week or so for it to go down in price.

 

[Proven]

I slept through the first chance at the fight because I didn't expect them to update for another. Since then, I've only seen it bug once and while I was in an overflow. Unfortunately, it's not real evidence as to how buggy it is as it was also the only time I've seen the Assault Knights come close to being beaten.

Guild finisher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBuTGkkPs8

It's not the disembodied glowing emblem I expected. Haven't decided if I like it or not.

Waiting an hour with a high chance of failure just to see it is not good. Its shit design lets be real here.

I can see why they did it this way. Since the instance is a one time thing and most people will do it in the first day or the first weekend, the main challenge and a decent percentage of the good loot is tied to the Assault Knights. It's technically something that will last longer. The only thing that makes the Assault Knights hard is their reflect condition mode. Apparently people have really bad ranged DPS (I might switch back to my Guardian the next time I'm on...). Combined with their high attack power, it makes it almost impossible to stack on them. People who like to stack might on the boss also become a liability because the fire field can proc unwanted projectile finishers. I was using my Condi Warrior, so all I could do was plink at it in between reviving people until I got to what essentially became a "burn phase."

Also, four out of the six champions have a mechanic tied to their achievement. They're mostly "don't get hit by their most telegraphed or signature attack."

Also, the chests are back in Scarlet's Lair, if you have leftover keys.

Oh yeah, they said they would do this. Time to cash in on my Necro.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention! Run by the north assault area where Rox and Braham hangout for cute conversation.

 

[Mxrz]

On the plus side. Shields are crappy for everyone but Engineers. So maybe the shield price will drop. (1h) sword might be an issue, but it being all wide in GW2 has turned me off it a bit.

Nostalgia!

Just buy gems and convert to gold. Though wait a week or so for it to go down in price.

At this point, its mostly a question of whether they will go down or not. Might just snag the shield, and then forget the rest in favor of bloody-eyeball skins.

 

[shysaursoft]

It's exciting to see a lot of good fight mechanics appear in the open world, but people are very slow on the uptake. I blame the UI, personally - that little row of icons up top? No good for the masses.

An example is the Canoneer fight. You can kill him in a few minutes, easy - but he's the Mai Trin fight, you have to lure him into the lasers to remove his reflect stacks. Once they're down, you burn him fast.

I just watched people fight him for 35 minutes. Every time he aggroed on someone, they'd just keep attacking and kill themselves off the reflect. Repeat as he aggros on a new person, until eventually I lured him into a beam, then his HP went down 25% instantly.

Great mechanic, but poor communication letdown from the UI. (Yes, I told people in /say what to do... but y'know).

Then there's the Knights, a nice see-saw between condition builds being best, and damage zerk being best - but people aren't "getting" it persay. Yes, it's the first day, but I've been playing GW2 long enough to know that it only gets a little bit better in a few days, then drops off again. Marionette was a good example - nobody could do it, then everyone, then nobody again.

GW2 does, in my opinion, need a complete and total overhaul of the traits system, and the way the UI communicates fight mechanics. Even so.. - man this patch is fun.

 

[Lunar15]

GW2 does, in my opinion, need a complete and total overhaul of the traits system, and the way the UI communicates fight mechanics. Even so.. - man this patch is fun.

I completely agree with this. I can only blame players so much: Sure, you can tell someone "get gud" all you want, but when we do these cooperative missions, I really wish the game would help people figure it out a little better. The reason everyone runs Zerk is because the game never tells them otherwise, and I think that just putting in bosses that force you to use conditions don't quite do the job. As much as I like not having the "holy trinity", this is the great obstacle the game has to overcome. A strong reason (PVE wise) to make people diversify their builds and work in a cooperative manner. This is even more important if the game is going to push towards open-world meta events for more and more living story releases.

I'll be really honest, I'm a dumb-dumb when it comes to traits and spec-building. I don't enjoy that part of the game. I put a little more thought into it than the dreaded "casual", but not enough that I'm making a difference. I just think the whole thing could be more intuitive.

 

[Nemesis121]

The shield looks smaller..compared to GW1. at least on the human to human comparison..

 

[Jira]

Autumn Frazee.3158:

We are currently investigating the Attunement Pools disappearing on some servers after they’ve completed the Assault Knights, thank you all for your reports!

The team is now working on a fix for this to be included in an upcoming hotfix.

.

 

[Edvardelis]

On the one hand, I want to wait a day or two to avoid the bugs.

On the other hand, people may stop doing it by that point.

 

[Nemesis121]

On the one hand, I want to wait a day or two to avoid the bugs.

On the other hand, people may stop doing it by that point.

That won't happen, what you will get in 2 days if please be experience and have 5k AP

 

[Retro]

Thanks for being respectful when it comes to spoilers, guys. I had errands to run this afternoon and figured I might as well wait to do the new content with Meg so we could geek out together.

GW2 does, in my opinion, need a complete and total overhaul of the traits system, and the way the UI communicates fight mechanics. Even so.. - man this patch is fun.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I've been saying this forever. I've been thinking I might want to sit down one of these days and come up with some kind of solution, not because I think I can do better, but because it's a fun and it might spark some discussion.

 

[shysaursoft]

Ouch - FA main defeated all Knights, and only the red buff circle remained, the other two disappeared. This is a mean bug, especially since it means having to wait an hour to try again and hope it works. Anet employee in mapchat said they have people working on a hotfix right now.

 

[Proven]

So yeah, to add to my earlier post about not minding the climatic boss fight being locked behind the Assault Knight fights (well, not minding too much), there's also a method to skip the climatic fight and go straight to the final instance. It was mentioned in the thread before, but now it's on Reddit too. So even if you show up at the very last minute before the update goes away in two weeks, you still have a method of seeing the important story bits before your client is forced to update (well, as long as you can get into the instance in time). Completing that instance also counts towards the Dungeon Completion Monthly.

 

[Jira]

So yeah, to add to my earlier post about not minding the climatic boss fight being locked behind the Assault Knight fights (well, not minding too much), there's also a method to skip the climatic fight and go straight to the final instance. It was mentioned in the thread before, but now it's on Reddit too. So even if you show up at the very last minute before the update goes away in two weeks, you still have a method of seeing the important story bits before your client is forced to update (well, as long as you can get into the instance in time). Completing that instance also counts towards the Dungeon Completion Monthly.

Yeah, though to everyone do keep in mind that if you choose to do this, you won't understand how the instance came to be in the state that it's in. It's very much like skipping to the last couple pages of the last chapter of a book and asking what is going on.

 

[shysaursoft]

Thanks for being respectful when it comes to spoilers, guys. I had errands to run this afternoon and figured I might as well wait to do the new content with Meg so we could geek out together.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I've been saying this forever. I've been thinking I might want to sit down one of these days and come up with some kind of solution, not because I think I can do better, but because it's a fun and it might spark some discussion.

If they removed a 0 off the end of every single enemy's health pool in the game, it'd be a huge start. They could learn a lot from Diablo III as well - have more fodder that dies practically one-shot (but gives like no loot), and have elites be more... like elites. Interesting area-control mechanics (the Aetherblade Strikers are kind of a start), affixes that let you instantly know what kind of crap you're in for, etc. Everything in GW2 feels like a 1.0, like it's halfway there to being super-great, they just need to totally redo everything with what they've learned.

I'm also thinking of how they could update the UI to better communicate fight mechanics and things like debuffs/buffs, without resorting to a billion tiny icons and fidgety mousehover to see what they do (that part is really bad, expecting players to hover over an icon to see what it means, but then having that icon jump around).

 

[Lunar15]

Thanks for being respectful when it comes to spoilers, guys. I had errands to run this afternoon and figured I might as well wait to do the new content with Meg so we could geek out together.



I hate to sound like a broken record, but I've been saying this forever. I've been thinking I might want to sit down one of these days and come up with some kind of solution, not because I think I can do better, but because it's a fun and it might spark some discussion.

I'd enjoy this. I mean, you'd have to factor in what's feasible, but also what's the most useful considering the kind of content they're pushing towards.

 

[Katoki]

Can't disagree with those tiny icons. People that've played a while get the general idea of what things do when they see it on the bar but newer people jumping straight into the Living Story experience will likely have no idea. On top of that they have those new attunements that I had to hover over to figure out as I went along.

And those particle effects from so many players. You'll never tell when an elite aetherblade thug decides to knockdown until it happens in melee.

 

[Remfin]

Also, the chests are back in Scarlet's Lair, if you have leftover keys.

I just destroyed mine yesterday...damnit...

 

[Retro]

Everything in GW2 feels like a 1.0, like it's halfway there to being super-great, they just need to totally redo everything with what they've learned.

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I do agree with the two main points of your post (stat creep and status indicators). There are non-icon UI elements that provide feedback on your status (mostly the border of your screen changes), but it's just not enough.

/sigh. I'll have to circle back around to this, or I'll never get on tonight to see the update.

I'd enjoy this. I mean, you'd have to factor in what's feasible, but also what's the most useful considering the kind of content they're pushing towards.

Yeah. I think I'll spend some time this week on some bullet points and rough notes. I can probably copypasta a lot of that original document I made before launch, at least the bits that review the existing systems and discuss why I think they're flawed.

 

[shysaursoft]

I just destroyed mine yesterday...damnit...

They said two weeks ago, they'd be bringing the chests back, since they weren't supposed to be removed with Escape from Lion's Arch. :/

 

[Jira]

Bug Fixes

Fixed various server crashes.
Fixed an issue in which the Attunement Pools were not appearing correctly after an assault knight was killed.
Fixed an issue in which assault knights would reset health when targeting players at the edge of their engagement radius.

Spoiler

Players leaving the Scarlet’s End instance will now always return to the ground of Lion’s Arch.

.

 

[Atrophis]

Menders my ass.

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

So I just finished watching the end of season stuff on youtube.

I really wish I could still play but my computer has too many issues which would prevent me from being able to enjoy the game properly.

I'm really interested in what they're going to do next with the Living Story.

 

[Ashodin]

Whoa game crash.