Guild Wars 2 Catch All

GrandmaFunk wrote:

it's mostly frustrating because it's a change that runs against a lot of design principles they've been adamant about. (no hard counters, less passive abilities, no rock/paper/scissor class war)

Not only that... but everyone on the forums saw that coming but all that feedback was ignored.

Tyops wrote:
GoldenDog wrote:

I only log in occasionally to PvP at this point. I ignore all of the temporary content and just use the game for siege warfare with some Spvp. Is ZoS willing to take Hardcore Casual gamers?

Based on what I've seen yes, but I haven't been there long. Besides, who's to say you won't play more when there are more people to play with.

I haven't been playing because it feels lonely, so that would be true for me. What's the application procedure for ZoS?

danopian wrote:
Tyops wrote:
GoldenDog wrote:

I only log in occasionally to PvP at this point. I ignore all of the temporary content and just use the game for siege warfare with some Spvp. Is ZoS willing to take Hardcore Casual gamers?

Based on what I've seen yes, but I haven't been there long. Besides, who's to say you won't play more when there are more people to play with.

I haven't been playing because it feels lonely, so that would be true for me. What's the application procedure for ZoS?

It's been simple enough.

Make a post to their recruitment sub forum(http://www.zealotsofshiverpeak.com/forums/), then a short chat (i.e., interview) with one of their officers on TS. sad to say but so far I have no regrets making the move. It's really nice to play with people.

Tyops wrote:
danopian wrote:
Tyops wrote:
GoldenDog wrote:

I only log in occasionally to PvP at this point. I ignore all of the temporary content and just use the game for siege warfare with some Spvp. Is ZoS willing to take Hardcore Casual gamers?

Based on what I've seen yes, but I haven't been there long. Besides, who's to say you won't play more when there are more people to play with.

I haven't been playing because it feels lonely, so that would be true for me. What's the application procedure for ZoS?

It's been simple enough.

Make a post to their recruitment sub forum(http://www.zealotsofshiverpeak.com/forums/), then a short chat (i.e., interview) with one of their officers on TS. sad to say but so far I have no regrets making the move. It's really nice to play with people. ;)

Good to know! Thanks! I'll probably wait until I'm done with my Skyrim and Starbound kicks and then join back in the fray.

Logged back in for the first time since... august? I think. As much as I like the steady flow of new Living World content, I really sort of hate the rapidity with which it's churned out. The last few months before I stopped playing it always felt like I was rushing against the clock trying to squeeze in enough playtime to finish stuff before the next release, and now that I'm back there's just so much that feels alien to me despite having spent so much time playing since day one.

Not only that, but you probably missed on a bunch of content and lore that you can't replay now since they cycled stuff since the last time you played. Every time I try to comeback to the game, I think about that and how I'm lost in the "story" so far and I just give up.

Don't let the Living Story scare you away from the game. It's all "extra" content and you can ignore it completely if you so choose.

Next week's patch will bring the finale of the Living Story arc, so if you're wanting to participate but don't like jumping in at a midpoint this is actually a good time to come back and knock the rust off before something completely new starts up.

next week's patch is the first part of 4(i think) of the finale.. so it'll be still around till March.

I will probably be making a GW2 return after this "season" is over. I want to see what they have planned for the rest of the year. I played this game to death until a few months ago, so I've experienced most of the content I wanted to see at this point.

Since I returned I've mostly been running around Kessex Hills mopping up the toxic events, and I've been really struggling against a lot of the mobs. At first I thought I was just rusty, then maybe that the toxic enemies were designed to be difficult.

It took me three days to discover that all my traits had been reset sometime in the last five months. /facepalm

ruhk wrote:

Since I returned I've mostly been running around Kessex Hills mopping up the toxic events, and I've been really struggling against a lot of the mobs. At first I thought I was just rusty, then maybe that the toxic enemies were designed to be difficult.

It took me three days to discover that all my traits had been reset sometime in the last five months. /facepalm

Chortle!

I love it when stuff like that happens (in retrospect, after I'm done punching things).

I was playing The Last Story on the Wii and played part of the final battle > 5 times, 30 minutes each go, before finally beating it, only to find that the next section split my party up and one of the portions was simply impossible because the health regeneration and knockdown mechanic changed without explanation. I beat myself against that for hours before giving up. The next day, on a whim, I googled "no health regeneration last story wii" or something like it and discovered that there's One weapon in the entire game that is very powerful but comes with a special effect (with no in-game explanation) that completely stops health regeneration when equipped. I loaded up my save game and found that one of my characters had it equipped, though I had no memory of it, because the Last Story has a helpful auto-equip button that kits your characters with your best class-appropriate gear from your party's inventory. My save was at a point where I could not change my equipment. I loaded an earlier one, unequipped the weapon, and breezed through the whole thing in 10 minutes.

This reminds me I have the Last Story on my pile for so long now... I really need to finish that game.

KillTrash wrote:

This reminds me I have the Last Story on my pile for so long now... I really need to finish that game.

I really enjoyed it.

I need to get back into this game. I haven't been on in months, but I've been slowly and increasingly wanting to play it. I'll probably just start a new character because why not, I wasn't too far to begin with. Norn Ranger or Human Ranger, hmm....

Starting to get that itch as well. My mesmer is sooo close to level cap.

In regards to the living story, I do not mind missing out on chapters, or feel compelled to keep up with it. I kinda like that they are doing it the way they are. Makes the world feel more ... alive. I am so no-longer-in-love with theme park MMOs. Anything that moves away from that mechanic makes me happy.

I saw you online the other day Ruhk. Good stuff. For those of you considering making a return I'd really recommend joining the few of us die hards that are left in Zealots of Shiverpeak (ZoS). It's pretty nice logging on almost any time of day and seeing at least 30ppl online (often 50+).

I started getting the itch to play again last week and took my necro from 20 to 37. Switched from conditions to power (dagger/focus and axe/warhorn) and am blowing through the content. Last year I gave up on the necro because it felt kind of clunky. But now? Having the most fun I've had in an mmo in quite awhile. Can't wait to hit 80 and do some wvw roaming.

The new Living Story installment is out today, btw. Two new world bosses with associated new weapon and armor skins. Apparently these new bosses are supposed to be rather difficult.

ruhk wrote:

The new Living Story installment is out today, btw. Two new world bosses with associated new weapon and armor skins. Apparently these new bosses are supposed to be rather difficult.

ArenaNet re-tweeted this image of a group's attempt at the marionette. (Here it is on Twitter)

So...I haven't been able to find a straightforward answer to this, so I'll ask here: What is the difference between the personal story and the living world stuff? Is it just different aspects of the same, big saga (f*ck you, King) they're unfolding?

danopian wrote:
ruhk wrote:

The new Living Story installment is out today, btw. Two new world bosses with associated new weapon and armor skins. Apparently these new bosses are supposed to be rather difficult.

ArenaNet re-tweeted this image of a group's attempt at the marionette. (Here it is on Twitter)

I was in one of the first (massive) groups for the worm thing and thats pretty much how it went too. I'm sure there is some trick to it because brute force sure didn't do it. We had around a dozen commanders and loads of peeps.

Oh, and I'm playing again. It was a bit confusing coming back with the magic find changes and my gear needing to be respec'd because of it and having a full inventory of stuff from the achievement chests to deal with. I do like the achievment tracking screen. The universal wallet and karma per account are much appreciated too. The zones unfortunately are largely devoid of players doing normal hearts and similar stuff, which is disappointing. It seems like the majority of players now are content to run the champion zerg loop over and over. I even popped over to WvW and didn't see many people there.

Any idea if its like this on all servers or how to identify which server might have more folks playing and levelling as opposed to just grinding for loot drops?

The personal story is your character's story, how she came to be a big part of Tyria, where she came from, who she is, what is her outlook on life, her motivations. And how she came to be a key player in the events that shaped Tyria.
The Living Story is more events that happened and kinda influenced certain regions, but they're more minor stuff.
That's from the lore point of view. In practice, the Living Story is content they roll out periodically, and the personal story will always be there, as a permanent part of the game.

Fought the twisted marionette last night, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard as long as you have enough people to cover each lane (we didn't :P). The actual battle is pretty straightforward and easy.

ruhk wrote:

Fought the twisted marionette last night, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard as long as you have enough people to cover each lane (we didn't :P). The actual battle is pretty straightforward and easy.

Can you do it with underleveled (my highest is in his 70s) characters or is it pretty much level 80/ascended gear or don't even bother?

Well, I did it with my 80 so it's hard to say. I have some ascended gear, but I just returned so I'm not fully decked out yet. You don't actually fight the Marionette itself, just a bunch of random mobs and some champions, while trying to avoid the Marionette's attacks.

You're leveled down to the zone so as long as you meet Lornar's Pass level requirements you probably won't have too bad a time.

The Ascended gear itself isn't necessary for anything other than high level Fractals. The stat difference between it and Exotics is only a couple of points, the slots for Agony infusions are the actual focus of Ascended armors.

jdzappa wrote:
ruhk wrote:

Fought the twisted marionette last night, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard as long as you have enough people to cover each lane (we didn't :P). The actual battle is pretty straightforward and easy.

Can you do it with underleveled (my highest is in his 70s) characters or is it pretty much level 80/ascended gear or don't even bother?

This event doesnt scale you up but it occurs on the world map in Lornar's Pass, so if you're at least level 40 you should be OK. That being said, there are advantages to being level 80 (i.e. full traits, exotic armor, etc).

Ah I see Ruhk already answered. Well I'll post this anyway.

It's worth noting that for your first time in the twisted marionette event you may want to start out in lane 1 (the southernmost lane) as it's the easiest of the five. None of them are particularly difficult per se, but the others require far more coordination and planning.

As for the wurm fight- yeesh. That event is basically impossible unless half the server is participating. Last attempt I made we barely even scratched the wurm's health bars.

ruhk wrote:

It's worth noting that for your first time in the twisted marionette event you may want to start out in lane 1 (the southernmost lane) as it's the easiest of the five. None of them are particularly difficult per se, but the others require far more coordination and planning.

As for the wurm fight- yeesh. That event is basically impossible unless half the server is participating. Last attempt I made we barely even scratched the wurm's health bars.

Yeah those fights are rough.

It was interesting today though running with ZoS guild, over 3 different cycles we focused each of the 3 different wurm heads to get them down and learn the mechanics. Most of the people on the map bought in and it was good "training" for those present. We even managed to successfully defeat the marionette between wurm heads once. Good times.

I dont know if we'll ever manage to do all 3 heads though. We have some serious "learn to play" issues on NSP. I guested on BlackGate to do the marionette fight earlier and get a success and to be honest it's pretty different. It's not surprising some of these servers usually succeed first while others flounder even though they all have the same map cap.

Thanks, El.

I jumped back into my Ranger, and took a few minutes re-learning the moves and general feel of combat. I made some progress in the Personal Story, got up to level 38, and now I definitely feel like I'm back into the swing of things. For giggles, I started an alt: a Norn Warrior. I love the Norns, their starting zone, and the whole Great Hunt thing in their story. Is there a particular trick to the Warrior? I seem to be getting my backside handed to me quite a bit. I don't know if it's because I'm so used to the Ranger, or because I'm not using the best weapon setup (sword and board at the moment). Maybe I just need practice?