Alright, my rant on the storyline. Spoilered for, well, spoilers:
Spoiler
The storyline of GW2 has its good points, this is undeniable. The first ten levels, and their many different storylines, are very well crafted and make your character feel alive and important in a living world. You are doing all the stuff, moving up the ranks, finding fun things along the way. It's great. You have this mentor, the character of DE, above you. Which is... sort of fine. The storyline progresses well until DE characters, the so-called iconics, start taking a bigger role. Here you can see all the shortcomings of the ANet writers - most iconics are terrible.
They all have two things in common: they act in a Mary Sue-ish sort of way when they're alone, but they behave exactly like 7 y/o kids when they're together, with the men and the asura insulting each other while the girls cry and complain. This is absolutely on purpose, which is worrying to say the least. They are supposed to be the greatest adventurers of their time, yet they are completely clueless. I know this is supposed to be the starting situation, but it's really horribly done - because those five characters basically behave the same way, they're copycats; the only difference being the gender differentiation. Could you picture Logan reacting differently than Rytlock or Zojja, had he been in that situation? Of course not. Zojja would have made the same mistake Logan made and she showed it. Eir and Caithe are really echoing each other's words, too.
So: problem 1 is that among five iconics we get two personalities and they're both either childish or Mary Sue. Heck, Cynn alone has more personality than the 5 combined and is childish in a less stupid way.
Then it gets to your storyline, after 30, which is composed of two parts. The first one is you meeting the only well written character in the storyline, your order mentor, and seeing him/her die at Claw Island for no reason whatsoever other than dramatic tension and DM fiat. Thanks for that. The second part of your storyline is executing what the DMPC says you have to do. Said DMPC is, of course, Trahearne.
Trahearne deserves a paragraph on his own because of his uncanny ability to detroy all that is good in a storyline. He is Mary Sue, and he is the classic bad DMPC we all encountered once in our DnD experiences. On top of that, he is in the top 3 of worst written characters I've ever seen - apathetic, never showcasing any strong character trait, condescending. He just feels so indifferent and bland, you really do forget about him. And yet occasionally he goes and uses 3 elites at the same time, or does DM-fiat tricks. You could forgive him if he had some good writing, like having a flamboyant/extra depressed/always furious/hectic/mad scholar/sardonic/badass serious personality. There, I listed seven personalities he could have had, it took me three minutes, and I'm not even a pro writer. They chose to make him this bad. Why? To make up for the fact they couldn't write epic lines for our character, most likely - so they decided to make the DMPC even blander, so our character wouldn't get overshadowed.
At the end of a series of fully linear quests without plot twist whatsoever, you kill the dragon. Woo. I could see it coming 50 levels ago, thanks Trahearne. Now die in a fire, I want my order mentor back.
There, end rant. ANet is really great at writing secondary characters, I find. Too bad they blow completely the big ones. Even Gwen was better in pre-searing...
I disagree. I've only done AC, CM, and TA and I'm in the mid 70s on my personal story, but:
Spoiler
The members of DE act like they do because they are broken. Their disagreement is not based on logic, but emotions. Their arguments are justifications for their feelings more than anything. Now, that can get real old real fast. But since it's spaced out, once every ten levels you get to see DE yelling at each other, it's not too bad.
As for Trahearne, maybe it's just because I played a Sylvari and he was a big part of my race story as well, but his transformation from scholar to Marshal of the Pact was pretty neat.
with regards to the personal storyline thing, and storyline in general, it seems like it could have been done better if they had made it a bit more like world of warcraft, with the players being the heroes(in world of warcraft, you end up being able to slay deity power level things, in guildwars 2....you have npcs slay the final boss for you.....and not even nesasarlarally named npcs....just some random mooks controlling cannons)
Hopefully, when they add more dungeons they'll make more classic style mmo raid and dungeon bosses, as it be more fun(WoW and ddo for example have great dungeons and raids, though one thing to avoid would be something like eq2)
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Spoiler
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anyone want to try grouping for ascalon catacombs later today?, I should be able to be online sometime around 5pm pdt, and my guardian is now level 36(he mostly uses sword+torch or greatsword, but I do have a staff, and a shield if it would be better for me to use multiple weapon sets for catacombs).
I just got my Thief up to level 31, so I'm willing to do it anytime. I currently run dual pistols and focus on condition damage (I have a ton of bleeds, cripples, blinds, and poisons.)
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Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keld Denar
What can I say? When life gives you lemons, you BLOW THOSE LEMONS TO BITS WITH YOUR LAZER BEAMS!
ok, if I see you online I'll send an invite on my guardian(he isn't very sturdy currently, and mainly focuses on damage over time, so we probably will need a few more people
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Spoiler
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ok, if I see you online I'll send an invite on my guardian(he isn't very sturdy currently, and mainly focuses on damage over time, so we probably will need a few more people
This is an understatement. Don't even *think* about stepping foot in there without a full party for your first run. Or for your fifth run, for that matter.
My first run through there was with two guildies that had run it prior [so we had strats set up instead of going in blind] and three guildies [myself included] that hadn't run it yet. We lost one player to a DC. He never returned. Losing that one player made an extremely noticeable difference, even with knowledgeable leadership and competent players.
I'm not saying that it can't be shortmanned on your first run. I'm saying that I'm not sure it would be worth the time and effort [and repair bills] required to do so. Learn it with full groups. Then go ahead and try to shortman it.
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Spoiler
LLama says: Of course, the game would also have been more balanced if you all would learn not to trust Shadow
no matter what game he's in or role he has. Duos says: I've read the archives... and Shadow frankly scares the bejeesus outta me. It's like playing with a
hypothetical cross of Lex Luthor and professor Moriarty.
If he was made of SPIDERS.
with regards to the personal storyline thing, and storyline in general, it seems like it could have been done better if they had made it a bit more like world of warcraft, with the players being the heroes(in world of warcraft, you end up being able to slay deity power level things, in guildwars 2....you have npcs slay the final boss for you.....and not even nesasarlarally named npcs....just some random mooks controlling cannons)
Hopefully, when they add more dungeons they'll make more classic style mmo raid and dungeon bosses, as it be more fun(WoW and ddo for example have great dungeons and raids, though one thing to avoid would be something like eq2)
Disagreed. While I agree with the idea of you personally taking out a Elder Dragon is epic in theory, I find it silly that a single hero can actually do it. It cheapens the strenght of the enemy, and simply takes your own char's power scale to a ridiculous level. Who could potentially challenge you for rulership of your faction?!
The idea that it takes careful planning, geo advantage, massive armament and a bit of luck to be able to defeat them allows for the Dragon's defeat without cheapening their threat. Kinda like how we defeated Sovereign at the end of Mass Effect.
Disagreed. While I agree with the idea of you personally taking out a Elder Dragon is epic in theory, I find it silly that a single hero can actually do it. It cheapens the strenght of the enemy, and simply takes your own char's power scale to a ridiculous level. Who could potentially challenge you for rulership of your faction?!
...The final boss is the boss of a dungeon, right? One that you're supposed to go through with a group of players?
I read an article by ArenaNet that said that you can get up to the penultimate step without having to deal with other players, but not the ultimate because you can't take down an elder dragon alone. Maybe they changed it before the launch for guys who want only solo for PvE?
The last story step is the Story mode of the dungeon Arah. However, before that you get an important last instanced story step.
So, yes, you have to play in a group to complete the story.
I sort of agree with Cikomyr's point that solo killing a dragon cheapens the whole story. I have no quibbles with the way that particular fight is handled. On the contrary, I think it's very scenographic and cool. The story part I think is written worse than what my housecat could do is from 30 to 79.
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I didn't mean one-man it, i meant let a group handle it, like any other dungeon or raid boss in any other mmo.(then again, it sort of annoys me that they don't have raid instances yet, or a dungeon finder)
I also don't see how having players have huge amounts of power is a bad thing, the god of war games for example are fine, and wow ends up just fine while still letting groups of players kill even deathwing.
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I didn't mean one-man it, i meant let a group handle it, like any other dungeon or raid boss in any other mmo.(then again, it sort of annoys me that they don't have raid instances yet, or a dungeon finder)
I also don't see how having players have huge amounts of power is a bad thing, the god of war games for example are fine, and wow ends up just fine while still letting groups of players kill even deathwing.
To be fair, Deathwing is killed by a party of 10 or 25 people, with the full backing of the four remaining Aspects or head dragons. They don't kill him for us, they actually do a pretty good job of having the heroes work WITH the Aspects, not just stand back and watch them do all the work.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gooddragon1
If the party wizard can't survive a supersonic dragon made of iron at epic levels it's his own fault really.
Well, one has to consider exactly what Zhaitan is. He is one of the five dragons which, as tvtropes says, are closer to being eldritch horrors than your usual dragons. Take their commanders: there are two that I know of in the game, the Shatterer and Tequatl. You can't expect to kill them without tons of people, in game. That's because they're just too much. DE supposedly became good at killing similarly powerful dragons, but they should be the five strongest characters in the setting. And yet they couldn't kill one of those dragons even with the help of Glint.
No, killing a dragon is out of the question for a small group of individuals.
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Did you get regular Transmute Stones, or Fine ones?
Regular but I'm only level 50ish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadow
This is an understatement. Don't even *think* about stepping foot in there without a full party for your first run. Or for your fifth run, for that matter.
My first run through there was with two guildies that had run it prior [so we had strats set up instead of going in blind] and three guildies [myself included] that hadn't run it yet. We lost one player to a DC. He never returned. Losing that one player made an extremely noticeable difference, even with knowledgeable leadership and competent players.
I'm not saying that it can't be shortmanned on your first run. I'm saying that I'm not sure it would be worth the time and effort [and repair bills] required to do so. Learn it with full groups. Then go ahead and try to shortman it.
Its not that bad if your group has decent players. We lost someone to a DC on my first run through and only one other person had gone through it before. The only thing that gave us trouble was the Lovers but from what I hear they're WAY out of tune compared to the rest of the dungeon anyway.
The Lovers fight was actually my favorite part of that dungeon. But yeah, that's where we lost one as well.
I was simply saying that the two of them had never done it, and he was like "well,maybe we should get a few more...."
Maybe is an understatement.
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Spoiler
LLama says: Of course, the game would also have been more balanced if you all would learn not to trust Shadow
no matter what game he's in or role he has. Duos says: I've read the archives... and Shadow frankly scares the bejeesus outta me. It's like playing with a
hypothetical cross of Lex Luthor and professor Moriarty.
If he was made of SPIDERS.
I didn't mean one-man it, i meant let a group handle it, like any other dungeon or raid boss in any other mmo.(
If you have not noticed yet, ANet looks at what other MMOs did, and changed it. For the better.
That being said in WoW people complained about BBE fatigue. Oh this guy is going to end the world. Oh you beat him. This Lich is gonig to kill the world. Oh you cleaned that up. This Darkwing is going to kill the world. Oh you managed that too? Alot of people were happy that MoP was more a "look at new area to explore and enjoy"
Likewise there were alot of issues when DDO announced its expansion. You are going to her (a goddess's) realm, and going to kill her? Right. Not going to happen. Hence their escort raid, which is widely considered a failure.
Realistically though, you character is 2 weeks old. And you thought you could kill something big and strong? No thanks. You are a minor player in this world (see WvWvW). Maybe in the future, when you have shown your power and refined your skills you will be worthy to fight something on your own. Until then, training wheels.
The Lovers fight was actually my favorite part of that dungeon. But yeah, that's where we lost one as well.
I was simply saying that the two of them had never done it, and he was like "well,maybe we should get a few more...."
Maybe is an understatement.
Thing is, the Lovers are really hard to beat (They should give 2x treasure chests). But they are also the bosses who actually require some thought, coordination and teamwork to defeat. It's not about who is experienced in the run, it's about who can stick to a plan well enough.
It really is a 5-men job.
You need 1 to solo the Male Lover and keep him busy.
You need 1 to throw rocks at both lovers to keep them as far appart as possible and throw them on the ground, which buys anyone about 4 seconds.
You need 1 (ranged) to take out the ghosts as they come up. It's high priority, for these can really ruin your day.
You need 2 to take on the Female lover and kill her as quickly as possible.
You definitely need a crew who can stick to the job at hand and act disciplined in the face of chaos. We succeeded it at our 5th attempt with a bunch of 4 newbies and 1 guy who did it once, but had terrible lag problem who couldn't actually do anything (but he was an engineer, so he just created turrets and still helped a lot).
And the reason it needed us 5 tries was merely because in the first 3, we tried to take down the guy, and on the 4th, there was a bug that got both lovers stuck in a location close to each other so we couldn't do anything.
You need 1 to solo the Male Lover and keep him busy.
You need 1 to throw rocks at both lovers to keep them as far appart as possible and throw them on the ground, which buys anyone about 4 seconds.
You need 1 (ranged) to take out the ghosts as they come up. It's high priority, for these can really ruin your day.
You need 2 to take on the Female lover and kill her as quickly as possible.
The first guy you mention (keeping the male busy) should also be focusing on DPSing the Female lover. I (Mesmer condition staff build) take the male over by the fire brazzers (The word is escaping me, sorry, but you know what I'm talking about :) ) and kite him using line of sight with the fire things. using my illusions to keep him off me, I can keep DPSing on the women using the '1' and '5' staff skills, keeping boons up on my allies. This opens up The rock thrower to focus on throwing rocks at the woman so she stays up on the stairs on the other side of the room, and can help DPS as well. Worked well for us, but it was a guild (of casual players) with mumble.
Also, before any of the "there are no agro mechanics". This is not true.
True statements would be "There is no taunt" "There is no lock down tank" "Agro is a bit random". But it is fairly predictable. Play with it, learn about it, makes stuff alot easier.
Last edited by Hullabaloo : 09-14-2012 at 09:30 AM.
Hey, it's no rocket science. The formula I gave should be a rough suggestion, but it's a good basis for role redistribution. If you can succeed to manage the male and DPS the female, do it!
I am a pretty DPS heavy warrior (just like in WoW!), and we managed to bring her down pretty quickly. I died in the process, obviously, but not before she was eliminated.
I am wondering if I should have taken the Strenght traits instead of Defense or Discipline. Better movement and dodge skills would be great for my playstyle. I am so happy I can play the Warcraft III Blademaster That's all I ever wanted in an MMO. In WoW, I kept the Whirlwind Axe (lvl 40 weapon) up until Lvl 55 just because of the whirlwind ability it gave me.
The randomness of the agro mechanic is a bit of a pain though especially for this fight. Since we only had 4 taking down the woman was longer and as a result we had times when the male, for some reason would just run over and start attacking someone who was attacking the woman (probably buffs or something). Once he gets close you're kind of screwed since aside from the rocks its pretty damn hard to move the woman.
I think they probably need to tweak that fight a bit in terms of output damage. For the first dungeon you're going to run its way out of proportion. I'd have no problem if this was in a mid level or endgame dungeon but it doesn't make sense in the first one.
Hmm, I think you only get Fine Transmute Stones from Gem Store or Black Lion Chests actually. I keep getting regular Transmute Stones for finishing areas, so...
Hmm, I think you only get Fine Transmute Stones from Gem Store or Black Lion Chests actually. I keep getting regular Transmute Stones for finishing areas, so...
Yeah I think that's the case too. The fact you can buy gems with gold makes it so that this doesn't really bother me that much. I suspect I'll create the appropriate exotic set at 80 (I think its Carrion for Pow, Vit, Cond dmg) and then transmute it into the Order of Whispers armor for my female thief. The only issue is that Order of Whispers armor is pretty pricey at a couple of gold per piece.
If you have not noticed yet, ANet looks at what other MMOs did, and changed it. For the better.
That being said in WoW people complained about BBE fatigue. Oh this guy is going to end the world. Oh you beat him. This Lich is gonig to kill the world. Oh you cleaned that up. This Darkwing is going to kill the world. Oh you managed that too? Alot of people were happy that MoP was more a "look at new area to explore and enjoy"
Likewise there were alot of issues when DDO announced its expansion. You are going to her (a goddess's) realm, and going to kill her? Right. Not going to happen. Hence their escort raid, which is widely considered a failure.
Realistically though, you character is 2 weeks old. And you thought you could kill something big and strong? No thanks. You are a minor player in this world (see WvWvW). Maybe in the future, when you have shown your power and refined your skills you will be worthy to fight something on your own. Until then, training wheels.
first of all, while maybe on some backwards server, some moron though that the lich king and deathwings things were bad, the majority of people are sane and enjoy fun and having the heroes be heroes in a plot.
second, who the h*** cares how long your character is a hero, have you never even read a story. or played an rpg before?, most start with the hero suddenly becoming one, and then over comign some world threatening evil.
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Re: Guild Wars 2!
ANet is really great at writing secondary characters, I find. Too bad they blow completely the big ones. Even Gwen was better in pre-searing...
people isn't that small.
That's all I ever wanted in an MMO. In WoW, I kept the Whirlwind Axe (lvl 40 weapon) up until Lvl 55 just because of the whirlwind ability it gave me.
