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Guild Wars 2 |OT4| The only subscription you need is this thread.
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shysaursoft
Member
Cinematic doesn't indicate that it worked...
How lame would that be >.> Rytlock doesn't do lame.
I just so happened to be rereading some old wiki pages recently and I saw this:
In 1325 AE, Eir Stegalkin retrieved Magdaer from the Ascalon Catacombs, intending to have it reforged for Logan Thackeray. The sword has not been seen since.
Top of the page this is a good time to talk about our unofficial spoiler policy for this thread. This is all sort of new territory (can't believe I am legitimately starting to give a crap about spoilers for this story) but what we'd said is for the first week of a release, put stuff about its storyline in spoiler tags. Then on a preview Tuesday (like today!), that stuff becomes fair game, but anything about the new release should be tagged. Ideally, even if you see something in a preview video, don't just describe it outright without spoiler tags- we have some people that like to avoid all media until a release altogether.
So for example, Entanglement is now fair game to discuss openly. I have seen the Eternal Alchemy! Is that the Realm of Torment? Does its design line up with the six Elder Dragons somehow? I'm glad they didn't make Taimi go murdercrazy (yet ;_
But anything re: Dragon's Reach Part 1 is spoiler material for the next two weeks.
Why would Rytlock want to free the Foefire ghosts? Is this a "green men of the mountain from LotR scenario? Also ummmm new explorable path of AC with original Destiny's Edge members or what???
I was under that same impression, which is why I made that first reference to what I read on the wiki. Hmmmm.
I dunno! I actually really like all the paths since its previous revamp so I hope it's just something new, but I'm hyped either way!
shysaursoft
Member
Made my day:
The idiot decides to bot, and help others bot:
Idiot gets banned, tries to claim he wasn't botting:
ArenaNet reply:
My favorite response:
The idiot decides to bot, and help others bot:
Idiot gets banned, tries to claim he wasn't botting:
ArenaNet reply:
My favorite response:
Is it a spoiler if they showed it in the trailer, though? I assume some people do avoid those, so that's understandable.
Trailer Spoiler:
Now, as for things not discussed in the trailer: Will Mordremoth get his own Lieutenant?
Trailer Spoiler:
They also show off icebrood. This, combined with the fact that Jormag's ice field actually expanded in the last update (if I heard correctly) all kind of points towards Claw of Jormag being upgraded like Tequatl was.
Now, as for things not discussed in the trailer: Will Mordremoth get his own Lieutenant?
Not exactly. In Guild Wars 2, it's more about proactively avoiding damage than just reactively healing it and since there's a focus on self-reliance the first few layers of survival are entirely up to the individual.
- Your first line of defense is evasion, whether staying out of the enemy's attack range, using cover or dodging. This is entirely your responsibility, and knowing when an enemy is about to deliver an attack is one of those skills you have to develop over time (though usually the nastier the attack, the more obvious the telegraph; watch Kholer's arm the next time you're in AC Explorable, he makes it very obvious just before he uses his nasty pull-and-spin attack.)
- Your second line are defensive skills like Shield Stance, Protector's Strike, etc., that completely block attacks. These are also entirely on you to utilize, but not every profession has them (no surprise; the two heavy armor, melee-centric professions, Warrior and Guardian, have the most).
- Your third line are conditions like blind (negates an attack), weakness (50% of all hits cause 50% damage) and boons like Aegis (negates an attack), Protection (Reduces damage by 33%) and Vigor (doubles how fast you regenerate endurance, allowing you to dodge more). Generally, every profession has access to at least one or more of these, and a good group is one that will pour on the support boons as often as they can. This is why anyone arguing that Guild Wars 2 is all about 'spamming skills as soon as they're off cooldown' is talking out their ass, because so many of those skills have useful effects for both support and control (more in a moment) purposes that just using them to cause more damage is flat out dumb.
- Then, at last, you come to healing. You have your own healing skill, but there's also some heals that affect others (Healing Spring, Healing Breeze, etc.), some skills that have a healing component, and the Regeneration boon.
- If all of that fails and you're downed, your friends can get you back up with special skills (Battle Standard, Signet of Mercy, etc.), burning down an enemy for you to rally, or reviving you directly (a.k.a "Magic rubs").
- Finally, if you're defeated, you can still get back into the fight. It just so happens that when you're defeated, you're only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. If they're fast and good, your group can still revive you; though it's usually better to wait until a fight is over, I've seen GAF groups do some amazing speed-reviving mid-boss.
All of the above also sets up the framework for the GW2 version of tanking. There are no taunts or other forms of 'snap aggro' where a player can essentially push a "hate me!" button and force an enemy to focus only on them, nor are there any skills that specifically generate threat, allowing one individual to continually stay at the top of the enemy's aggro table. Enemies behave more like... actual enemies, not a mechanical puzzle piece disguised as one (which is why gamers who haven't been conditioned by Traditional MMOs find GW2 much more comfortable and familiar.)
Guild Wars 2 is all about controlling the pace, location and conditions of the fight; using skills that knock back, knock down or pull. Conditions like Cripple, Chill, Fear and Immobilize that limit an enemy's movement. Using the environment or skills (Line of Warding, Unsteady Ground) to obstruct the enemy's path. Keeping an enemy in harmful areas of effect or locations where they're less dangerous. It means staying mobile (which is why almost every skill in the game can be used while moving) and staying smart. It's is closer to Dark Souls rather than World of Warcraft; standing in one place and just smacking the enemy is the fastest way to find out what dungeon floor tastes like.
That said, there are some general rules for aggro, but they're not as cut-and-dry as most MMOs. Most of your PVE fodder enemies will go after whoever is closest, whoever hits them first, or whoever causes the most damage. That's generally a good rule of thumb, but bosses also have specific behaviors like going for whoever is weakest, whoever is furthest away, try to finish off anyone who's downed or reviving (in fact, reviving a player is generally a good way to get an enemy's attention), etc. so you can't rely on the same tactic always working.
And yes, later bosses are much more engaging. The Aetherpath in Twilight Arbor, all three revamped Ascalon Catacomb explorable paths and every single Fractal are a hundred times better than the dungeons they put in at launch. Wish they'd keep revamping them.
Some of the earlier world bosses like the Svanir Shaman (a.k.a "The Maw") and the Shatterer kind of function like that, but ArenaNet has been going back and tweaking them to make them more dangerous, and new encounters they've added have all been the exact opposite of that. Here's my favorite two examples;
Tequatl the Sunless used to be a snooze fest, but since his revamp he requires a coordinated effort to defeat; some players must use turrets to keep his defenses down while simultaneously clearing pools of toxin he creates nearby. Some players must hang out near them to keep enemies away from the turrets. Everyone else generally clumps up and damages him, though they need to clear tendrils, burn down enemies and jump over shockwaves Tequatl creates. At set points during the fight, he'll take flight and everyone will need to defend three batteries and a cannon from enemies so that the cannon can stun Tequatl so everyone who was on defense can run back and damage the hell out of him when he's weakened.
TLDR: +100 players who have to use turrets, defend turrets, kill tendrils and mobs, kill Tequatl (while avoiding his attacks) and survive long enough to reach the defense phase where everyone has to spread out and defend four different objectives long enough for them to charge up so they can rush back in and burn the dragon down while he's weakened, and then return to phase one again.
The Twisted Marionette (Living Story Season 1, "Origins of Madness") fight required players to split into five lanes, which needed to be defended against waves of enemies that would power up the Marionette if they broke through to the portal at the back of the lane (when the Marionette reached full power, it killed everyone nearby instantly, so... that would be a bad thing). This was done by straight up killing them, but also having some players building barriers that slowed the enemies down (which, in turn, needed to be defended since enemies would drop in behind you to tear them down). Once the lane defense phase was over, one lane would head through the portal and be teleported up to five separate platforms with a special boss on each. All five platforms had to kill their boss and a special generator before time ran out or the Marionette powered up quite a lot. After another defense phase, the next lane would try their hand at taking out the generators, and so on until the Marionette was fulled powered and killed everyone or the players were able to break all five of her chains and win.
TLDR: +100 players, split into five lanes that must be defended, then one lane is split onto five platforms that must each defeat a boss or the whole phase fails. Then defend again until a different lane gets a chance. You didn't even really fight the Marionette itself, though it stomped and slashed at the platforms just to make it that much harder.
It's not so much about getting new skills as it is having a new context in which to use them. Think of Guild Wars 2 as more like a fighting game, where each class is a different fighter with pre-established attacks and special moves. Each new encounter is a new opponent which behaves differently than the one before and requires you to use your attacks differently to win. The idea is that you'll get a feel / muscle memory for those skills and be able to use them reflexively without really having to think about them too much (in the same way nobody thinks of a Hadouken as Down, Down-Forward, Forward-Punch; it's just "Hadouken" after a while).
And I agree; there should be a dungeon around level 20. I was kind of hoping that Dry Top would be a low level zone (since the areas it connects to are also low level) with a new, early level dungeon. Not that I'm complaining, Dry Top is amazing, but I feel like the game holds back on the dungeon experience a tad longer than I'd like.
The biggest chunk of max-level content is the Living Story; since they're always adding something new, there's always something to do. It just so happens that (with the exception of Dry Top) that new content can usually be done by lower level players too.
"End Game" is kind of a useless term for Guild Wars 2 anyways, since everything except dungeons can be done from Level 1. Level doesn't determine what parts of the game you can or cannot play, it just determines how much of that content is available to you at any given time. Reaching max level just means there's nothing you can't go experience.
You also left off sPVP, and I would also qualify a Legendary as completely optional. I've been playing for two years and don't have or want any, simply because I don't care for the way they look.
I'm love Hawkian's "Fighting Game" and Miktar's "Golden Axe" examples. Mostly because both make it very clear that skill and experience as a gamer is much more vital to success than just memorizing the dance steps as old-style MMOs would have you do.
Kos Luftar
Member
Dry top will
next week. According to the massively interview.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/0...icles-introducing-guild-wars-2s-dragons-reac/
From the trailer looks like vines will be attacking some of the places we discovered with LOD trick a few weeks ago.
not be expanding
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/0...icles-introducing-guild-wars-2s-dragons-reac/
From the trailer looks like vines will be attacking some of the places we discovered with LOD trick a few weeks ago.
shysaursoft
Member
When you hit 80, start joining in on Fractal runs. I think it'll change your mind about a lot of things. But don't rush to 80. Getting to 80 is not the goal of the game. If you're not enjoying yourself from 1 to 79, perhaps try a different profession or weapon setup.
Ditto.. until they come up with a short bow that does something other than
shoot stupid unicorns
Complistic
Member
They need to do the same thing with all the player character voices as well so we can talk again.
Actually, I just looked this up. I didn't hear correctly. They had changed the ice fields during the Claw fight. I just misread something I saw people talking about in map chat.
I also have high hopes for the next line of legendary weapons, I completely abandoned everything related to the bitfrost after I saw the Raven Staff.
I just hope it follows the formula of Precursor + Gift of Fortune, etc, since the only parts that I need is an actual precursor and the precursors gift. The other two gifts I have, just in case I might find a future legendary interesting.
Speaking of shatterer , he definitely could use a boost .
Right now all you have to do is stand on a small hill on his right side and close to 90% of his attacks will miss you while your group just whales on him .
I don't know how hard it would be to implement it but i wish certain bosses have the ability to move around or at the very least turn towards most of the attacks are coming from instead of being stuck where they are or looking only in that direction .
Right now all you have to do is stand on a small hill on his right side and close to 90% of his attacks will miss you while your group just whales on him .
I don't know how hard it would be to implement it but i wish certain bosses have the ability to move around or at the very least turn towards most of the attacks are coming from instead of being stuck where they are or looking only in that direction .
Whatever happens, I like that the effects are seen all over Tyria. The scale is about what I had imagined for the Living Story when they first announced it.
It feels like we're gearing up for a pretty big battle. The sides are known, the stakes are large, and there have already been casualties.
It feels like we're gearing up for a pretty big battle. The sides are known, the stakes are large, and there have already been casualties.
theMrCravens
Member
The parts can stay the same as long as aquisition is different.
Now you can have Brony armor to match your shortbow!
I would like Legendaries more if they weren't so obnoxious. But then again, that's the point, so meh.
You guys think my Mega posts are bad, scope the original GW2 Mega Post; http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1058358-Guild-Wars-2-Mass-info-for-the-uninitiated-READ-ME
Jira's massive info dump probably sold a fuckton of copies, there was nowhere better on the internet to find out what GW2 was than that post.
I'm hoping the next Feature Update includes the Precursor scavenger hunt / crafting and a whole new set of Legendaries. Then again, after a decade of gaudy, physically impossible weapons and armor in other MMOs, it's nice that I can find realistic-looking armor and weapons in GW2 so I'm less likely to spring for a Legendary anyways.
The flashiest weapon I think I have is Cobalt, and the flashiest one I think I'd try to get is Infinite Light.
Spehornoob
Member
I just saw the new trailer and holy crap I'm actually excited to see what happens next. That's new!
I think GW2 group-play in general plays a lot more like a co-op action RPG than a typical MMO. This became really apparent to me when I started using a gamepad. It's much more about knowing your skills and when to use them rather than consistently filling one role within the team.
My cousin, who's big into WoW, doesn't care for it because he feels it lacks teamwork. I have to disagree with him. I think the teamwork forms organically and I prefer that to feeling like a cog in a machine. When I'm playing and I notice and Elementalist getting low on health, it's kind of cool to whip an axe over there, cripple the enemy, then run over and pop some shouts to heal the Ele, and then helping him finish it off.
PS. I'm in tech week for my show, which means I go straight from work to rehearsal til 10:30 at night. Not being able to play is killing me. Haha.
I think GW2 group-play in general plays a lot more like a co-op action RPG than a typical MMO. This became really apparent to me when I started using a gamepad. It's much more about knowing your skills and when to use them rather than consistently filling one role within the team.
My cousin, who's big into WoW, doesn't care for it because he feels it lacks teamwork. I have to disagree with him. I think the teamwork forms organically and I prefer that to feeling like a cog in a machine. When I'm playing and I notice and Elementalist getting low on health, it's kind of cool to whip an axe over there, cripple the enemy, then run over and pop some shouts to heal the Ele, and then helping him finish it off.
PS. I'm in tech week for my show, which means I go straight from work to rehearsal til 10:30 at night. Not being able to play is killing me. Haha.
shysaursoft
Member
Real life Kamohoali’i Kotaki.
http://guildwars2.tumblr.com/post/91502750314/auesis-real-life-kamohoalii-kotaki
They never elaborated on it much, only saying that it was one idea they were thinking of - making getting a precursor a kind of scavenger hunt.
http://guildwars2.tumblr.com/post/91502750314/auesis-real-life-kamohoalii-kotaki
They never elaborated on it much, only saying that it was one idea they were thinking of - making getting a precursor a kind of scavenger hunt.
The big thing that sets Guild Wars 2 well above the Traditional MMO fray is that when things go wrong in a game like WoW, it's usually over. Main tank is dead? Wipe. Adds got into the healers? Wipe. Even if you recover with stuff like Rebirth or Soulstones, or the off-tank manages to pick up the slack before everyone dies, your DPS may not be able to beat the enrage timer, and most groups (at least the ones I played with, when I played Traditional MMOs) would just tell everyone to wipe so they could start the next attempt faster.
When things go wrong in GW2, it gets much more enjoyable. When people go down, there's a flurry of options; is the boss on me and can I lead it away? If not, can I get over to revive them in time, or should I drop my Warbanner? Is there another enemy I can kill off quick to rally? Is anyone closer and headed that way and can I help keep things off them long enough to heal? What other special, encounter-specific mechanics are in play that I could help with?
I start grinning from ear to ear when shit goes wrong, I love those moments when you pull victory from the jaws of defeat. That's why I've never understood the criticism about GW2 being 'chaotic'. Chaos is fun. In any other genre of gaming save RPGs, things coming at you from multiple directions at once is when you know shit is getting real. Predictability is boring ... but then again, if all you're after is an easy, reliable loot grind, predictability is your best friend.
When things go wrong in GW2, it gets much more enjoyable. When people go down, there's a flurry of options; is the boss on me and can I lead it away? If not, can I get over to revive them in time, or should I drop my Warbanner? Is there another enemy I can kill off quick to rally? Is anyone closer and headed that way and can I help keep things off them long enough to heal? What other special, encounter-specific mechanics are in play that I could help with?
I start grinning from ear to ear when shit goes wrong, I love those moments when you pull victory from the jaws of defeat. That's why I've never understood the criticism about GW2 being 'chaotic'. Chaos is fun. In any other genre of gaming save RPGs, things coming at you from multiple directions at once is when you know shit is getting real. Predictability is boring ... but then again, if all you're after is an easy, reliable loot grind, predictability is your best friend.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm never actively trying to get things to go wrong (it's surprisingly hard to grief in this game) or even hoping they will. But I have great memories of things going very very wrong and getting very very exciting. Like one Aetherblade Retreat run where everyone wiped except Moose Rider Prime, and he literally danced through a whole bombardment phase (to this day, I've never seen anyone move like that in this game) and got us up to finish the fight. There have been more than a few times I've been the last one standing to finish off a boss. Sometimes we wipe, sometimes we don't, but it's always a thrill.
Complistic
Member
I see, so the reason I find myself ressing you all the time is because you're trying to create drama.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Extremely interesting, because I can count maybe two times I've run a dungeon with you in the last 3 months, if not longer.
I'm a hoarder, so I tend to just save them for an alt, but then never use them because I enjoy playing the game too much to want to speed through it.
I've stockpiled about 30 so far so I can use them if I ever make an engineer and I want to skip the slow levels. But so far all my other 9 characters are level 80, and the ones I keep making
and then deleting :C
Icomp
Member
Suddenly this game seems more advanced than I previously thought.
I actually thought Blind was like a 3s 100% miss chance or something like that, good to know that it's just one attack, maybe that's why I've been killed a couple of times going into 5-6 mobs thinking I can kill them faster than they can kill me.
So far regarding utility spells, for healing I just use a signet, one signet for knockdown, a stability spell, a sprint/aegis spell and one to recharge my virtues. Never bothered with anything else since I thought everyone kinda went their own way, minding their own business. I am really gonna have to change that!
I noticed that some, if not most bosses so far, you are either able to immobilize or knock down/stun, which to me is quite new and I think it's quite neat actually.
Unfortunately though, I've only played the story mode of AC and I could almost stand still most of the time during bosses, maybe I've been lucky?
Seems as if I have a lot to look forward too! Just watched a fight of Tequatl and it looks very very intese, really looking forward to that.
I guess that makes sense, since you're not yet utilizing all of your capabilities. However it just feels like it makes more sense to have more introductory dungeons, challenging yet approachable, even though you havn't got all of your "potential", so to speak.
Weirdly enough it felt like the first couple of levels, like 1-13 was slow like hell. It definitely feels a lot faster right now.
Well, 5 friends are playing it I guess. Where 3 of them are not on the same server (Though I learned that didn't matter much) and the other 2 I guess play very casual, if at all?
Actually considering paying for a move, since I recently got fiber and all, so the latency shouldn't be that high.
sackboy2197
Member
You should also consider, if you're character's level is not too high, deleting the character and moving for free to SBI.
I hear a screeching hawk(ian) approaching
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