Adul.1520

Please change the permanent merchant and black lion trader contracts to no longer spawn NPCs and instead work instantly like the bank contract does.

Just want to say that I'm super happy to hear that SAB worlds are being worked on again. That news made my day! Mine is probably 1-1. I just like the small cutscene at the beginning, as well as the easygoing atmosphere and the feeling of starting a new adventure. This is not necessarily a weekly vendor thing, more like a general reward, but I'd love for SAB reward vendors to feature SAB-themed bottomless tonics and minis. Other than new worlds, I'd also really like a SAB-themed lounge, preferably featuring year-round entry access to SAB (rewards could be disabled outside of the duration of the festival, I'd just want to play for fun). It could also feature SAB vendors and, naturally, a train of SAB characters waltzing through every once in a while. Maybe SAB mount skins? I'm not sure how that'd work, but I'd buy it. :lol:

Different players have different preferences, and they're looking to get different experiences out of the game. GW2 started out as a game with mostly casual-friendly content, so that's the kind of players it originally drew in, but then it started leaning into the more hardcore content, and now there's a schism in the playerbase. Funnily enough, GW1 had this problem figured out before GW2 had even been conceptualized, and the solution is having different difficulty modes.

Expansion 3 headlining feature: heroes and henchmen. :lol:

Maybe ANet sees more income from the raiding community? I think the developers want to increase raid popularity because they love the raids and want to make more of them, which I think is respectable, but what they're not realizing is that there's a better way to make raids more popular that actually works, which is to add lower difficulty and/or solo-oriented modes to them. That way no-one needs to be coerced into playing game modes they don't enjoy playing, Anet can make more raids, and everyone gets more content. Everyone wins.

The reason why people feel the need to say this is that Anet seemingly has the impression that people who don't raid don't just not raid because they don't want to raid, but because there's not enough of a difficulty ramp between non-raid and raid content. Which is, for the most part, wrong, if you actually listen to what people who don't raid say their actual reasons for not raiding are.

Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine. How many of these story achievements are able to be done on the map without other players? I seem to recall that every LS episode’s achievements always have some that cannot be done solo. Whether or not you need to be in an actual party/squad is just semantics. It's not just semantics. Instanced group content requires use of the LFG tool and is generally a social experience where players are often expected to interact, bring certain builds, etc. Comparably, joining a zerg in the open world requires no LFG, can be done seamlessly by moving around in the in-game world without opening any menus or scrolling through lists, and is a much less social experience. Of course, those differences may not be meaningful to you, but they're meaningful to many other players. Again, it's semantics. Whether you're in or out of a group doesn't matter. How many people use the LFG to join an active meta map to do LW achievements? How many joined one of those squads with markers to various items (i.e. grothmar whispers hideout, interact-able items in Bjora, etc). You can't pick and choose when the LFG is okay or not. I don't like to use the LFG for open world content either, but an important difference between open world and instanced group content is that the former can be encountered and completed seamlessly as part of the exploration experience, while the latter can only be played through navigating menus and by isolating yourself from the rest of the game. Instanced content is as much a part of this game as it is in other games. If you’re so against isolating oneself from the rest of the game then perhaps you’d prefer that Anet remove story instances entirely and move them to the open world? I wouldn't want them to go back and dedicate resources to doing that, but if they can integrate new story more seamlessly and with less instances, which is what they've been doing for the last few seasons, then yes, I'm for it. I’m sure many players would not want this as they want the game to be more solo. Putting more of the story in the open world would likely lead to less of that. Not necessarily. Open world content is often soloable, it's up to the content designers to decide whether it is or isn't. How would they add meaningful boss encounters that wouldn’t be zerged down within seconds? How about when we get to Jormag? Having the story be completely in open world doesn’t work in this game. Phased content. You’re playing the wrong genre then. Perhaps a console RPG would be more suited for you? Not sure what you think your rationale is behind this smear, but I don't even own a console. Instanced content is a part of MMOs. The “console” part was probably incorrect as that would exclude the other part of MMOs: open world. You may not like instanced content but other do and it is very much a part of MMOs. It’s something you’ll have to learn to deal with while playing this genre. GW2 has revolutionized many aspects of the MMO genre. This is one aspect they failed to revolutionize on release, but have been making some headway into since. And I'm glad they have, because instanced content actually does go against the concept of being part of an online persistent multiplayer world where you can meet other players while exploring, which is the most essential feature of MMOs. They really haven’t revolutionized anything. Instanced content has existed in MMOs from like 30 years now. It’s a part of MMOs whether you choose to accept it or not. You not likely it doesn’t make it any less so. It's disingenuous to say they haven't revolutionized anything. If you saw the original marketing of GW2 you'll know that this was marketed as the MMO that doesn't do things like other MMOs do. Sure, they've walked back on some of those promises (no holy trinity), but have also delivered and still continue to stand by many others (no fetch quests, no killstealing/griefing, no gear grind). And since Heart of Thorns they have been introducing a lot more story content in the open world, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. This entire argument is beside the point, anyway. Whether they have or haven't been introducing open world story content has no bearing on the argument that they should stop mixing in instanced group content into an achievement category that has always been almost entirely separate from it. So is playing the game. No reason for Anet to start mixing together content categories that different groups of players have been enjoying completing separately. Yes, playing the game is optional but that fact still doesn’t change that many aspects of the game are still optional. Getting legendary weapons is optional too. What would you say to someone that said otherwise? Would you tell them that they were optional? What if they repeated the same thing you stated and that the “game was optional”? I wouldn't make that argument in the first place. It's not a valid rebuke of game design criticism to say "don't play it if you don't like it." It’s a valid response as not everything in a game will appeal to all players. What percentage of players dislike WvW and sPvP? They simply choose to not play that content and focus on what they enjoy. What I said is no different. As far as I remember, LW1 achievements were released well before the restructuring of achievement categories and they've never been part of the Story achievement category. They're certainly not there now, and haven't been there for the majority of the game's lifetime. The Story achievement section replaced the Living World section. The only difference being that the LS1 releases would go to historical rather than be permanently available.I don't care. They're not in the story section now, and they haven't been for the vast majority of the game's lifetime. Them being in the historical section doesn't bother me and has no precedence over what's in the story section. This is the first sentence of the first post of mine you've decided to respond to: Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). And I'm not sure why you think missing this detail would render my entire argument moot when there are other non-solo-oriented instanced strike mission achievements in the story achievement category, which is what my argument is about. Oh so this is now more about the achievements rather than the actual story instances? You keep going back and forth between the two. There’s absolutely no reason that a release’s achievement cannot be in instanced content. Anet has done this in the past and continues to do so now. They don’t share the same viewpoint on this issue as you. I don’t get where you came up with the rationalization that all achievements for a release must be able to be done solo. You've responded to me like five times and you still don't understand the criticism that you've been trying to refute this entire time. But maybe that's my fault. Here it is, once again, in the simplest terms I can put it: Before the Icebrood Saga achievement categories had been separated largely by content type. The story category used to include mostly solo-oriented content, some open world group content, and with one exception (Migraine) no instanced group content. Anet used to separate instanced group content into separate categories. Therefore, many players who like solo and open world content and don't like instanced group content—typically referred to as the explorer type, which is overrepresented in GW2 because it's a game that facilitates a lot of explorer content—have come to enjoy a sense of completion by completing all achievements in the story category. By starting to mix in instanced group content into the story category, the Icebrood Saga content designers are not only breaking previous precedence, but also cause many players who previously completed the story achievement category and its metas to no longer want to do so, effectively decreasing their enjoyment of and involvement in the game, for no reason whatsoever. It wouldn't be difficult to create a separate achievement category for strike missions, just how there are separate categories for dungeons, fractals and raids. That's obviously the correct thing to do, and it's also supported by precedent. It's useless for you to say that the current content designers don't see it the same way I do (or maybe they just haven't thought it through to the same extent, I will add), otherwise they would have already implemented it the way that I want them to and I would have no reason to criticize their work. But here I am, criticizing. And here you are, protecting Anet from constructive criticism. Here we are.

Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine. How many of these story achievements are able to be done on the map without other players? I seem to recall that every LS episode’s achievements always have some that cannot be done solo. Whether or not you need to be in an actual party/squad is just semantics. It's not just semantics. Instanced group content requires use of the LFG tool and is generally a social experience where players are often expected to interact, bring certain builds, etc. Comparably, joining a zerg in the open world requires no LFG, can be done seamlessly by moving around in the in-game world without opening any menus or scrolling through lists, and is a much less social experience. Of course, those differences may not be meaningful to you, but they're meaningful to many other players. Again, it's semantics. Whether you're in or out of a group doesn't matter. How many people use the LFG to join an active meta map to do LW achievements? How many joined one of those squads with markers to various items (i.e. grothmar whispers hideout, interact-able items in Bjora, etc). You can't pick and choose when the LFG is okay or not. I don't like to use the LFG for open world content either, but an important difference between open world and instanced group content is that the former can be encountered and completed seamlessly as part of the exploration experience, while the latter can only be played through navigating menus and by isolating yourself from the rest of the game. Instanced content is as much a part of this game as it is in other games. If you’re so against isolating oneself from the rest of the game then perhaps you’d prefer that Anet remove story instances entirely and move them to the open world? I wouldn't want them to go back and dedicate resources to doing that, but if they can integrate new story more seamlessly and with less instances, which is what they've been doing for the last few seasons, then yes, I'm for it. I’m sure many players would not want this as they want the game to be more solo. Putting more of the story in the open world would likely lead to less of that. Not necessarily. Open world content is often soloable, it's up to the content designers to decide whether it is or isn't. You’re playing the wrong genre then. Perhaps a console RPG would be more suited for you? Not sure what you think your rationale is behind this smear, but I don't even own a console. Instanced content is a part of MMOs. The “console” part was probably incorrect as that would exclude the other part of MMOs: open world. You may not like instanced content but other do and it is very much a part of MMOs. It’s something you’ll have to learn to deal with while playing this genre. GW2 has revolutionized many aspects of the MMO genre. This is one aspect they failed to revolutionize on release, but have been making some headway into since. And I'm glad they have, because instanced content actually does go against the concept of being part of an online persistent multiplayer world where you can meet other players while exploring, which is the most essential feature of MMOs. It feels jarring every time the game requires me to exit the open world and enter an instance, because as far as I'm concerned the open world is the crux of the game. See, this is the part where my original criticism of Anet dumping instanced group content into achievement categories that have, up to that point, been almost completely dedicated to solo and open world content comes in. Your shifting of the goal posts has actually reinforced my point. This isn’t shifting the goalpost. Yes, it is. – They shouldn't put instanced group content in story achievement categories.– Instanced group content and open world group content are essentially the same, so your criticism is invalid.– No, instanced group content and open world group content are clearly not essentially the same for these reasons: A, B and C.– Then don't play it. That's shifting the goalposts. No, that’s not. Shifting the goalpost would be me adding another criterion. Telling you to either accept it or don’t play is not the same thing.It actually is. You abandoned one line of argument (open world group content and instanced group content are essentially the same) and went for another (you don't need to play it because it's optional). So is playing the game. No reason for Anet to start mixing together content categories that different groups of players have been enjoying completing separately. Yes, playing the game is optional but that fact still doesn’t change that many aspects of the game are still optional. Getting legendary weapons is optional too. What would you say to someone that said otherwise? Would you tell them that they were optional? What if they repeated the same thing you stated and that the “game was optional”?I wouldn't make that argument in the first place. It's not a valid or useful rebuke of game design criticism to say "don't play it if you don't like it." As far as I remember, LW1 achievements were released well before the restructuring of achievement categories and they've never been part of the Story achievement category. They're certainly not there now, and haven't been there for the majority of the game's lifetime. This is the first sentence of the first post of mine you've decided to respond to: Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented).And I'm not sure why you think missing this detail would render my entire argument moot when there are other non-solo-oriented instanced strike mission achievements in the story achievement category, which is what my argument is about.

Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine. How many of these story achievements are able to be done on the map without other players? I seem to recall that every LS episode’s achievements always have some that cannot be done solo. Whether or not you need to be in an actual party/squad is just semantics. It's not just semantics. Instanced group content requires use of the LFG tool and is generally a social experience where players are often expected to interact, bring certain builds, etc. Comparably, joining a zerg in the open world requires no LFG, can be done seamlessly by moving around in the in-game world without opening any menus or scrolling through lists, and is a much less social experience. Of course, those differences may not be meaningful to you, but they're meaningful to many other players. Again, it's semantics. Whether you're in or out of a group doesn't matter. How many people use the LFG to join an active meta map to do LW achievements? How many joined one of those squads with markers to various items (i.e. grothmar whispers hideout, interact-able items in Bjora, etc). You can't pick and choose when the LFG is okay or not. I don't like to use the LFG for open world content either, but an important difference between open world and instanced group content is that the former can be encountered and completed seamlessly as part of the exploration experience, while the latter can only be played through navigating menus and by isolating yourself from the rest of the game. Instanced content is as much a part of this game as it is in other games. If you’re so against isolating oneself from the rest of the game then perhaps you’d prefer that Anet remove story instances entirely and move them to the open world? I wouldn't want them to go back and dedicate resources to doing that, but if they can integrate new story more seamlessly and with less instances, which is what they've been doing for the last few seasons, then yes, I'm for it. You’re playing the wrong genre then. Perhaps a console RPG would be more suited for you? Not sure what you think your rationale is behind this smear, but I don't even own a console. See, this is the part where my original criticism of Anet dumping instanced group content into achievement categories that have, up to that point, been almost completely dedicated to solo and open world content comes in. Your shifting of the goal posts has actually reinforced my point. This isn’t shifting the goalpost. Yes, it is. – They shouldn't put instanced group content in story achievement categories.– Instanced group content and open world group content are essentially the same, so your criticism is invalid.– No, instanced group content and open world group content are clearly not essentially the same for these reasons: A, B and C.– Then don't play it. That's shifting the goalposts. So is playing the game. No reason for Anet to start mixing together content categories that different groups of players have been enjoying completing separately.

Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine. How many of these story achievements are able to be done on the map without other players? I seem to recall that every LS episode’s achievements always have some that cannot be done solo. Whether or not you need to be in an actual party/squad is just semantics. It's not just semantics. Instanced group content requires use of the LFG tool and is generally a social experience where players are often expected to interact, bring certain builds, etc. Comparably, joining a zerg in the open world requires no LFG, can be done seamlessly by moving around in the in-game world without opening any menus or scrolling through lists, and is a much less social experience. Of course, those differences may not be meaningful to you, but they're meaningful to many other players. Again, it's semantics. Whether you're in or out of a group doesn't matter. How many people use the LFG to join an active meta map to do LW achievements? How many joined one of those squads with markers to various items (i.e. grothmar whispers hideout, interact-able items in Bjora, etc). You can't pick and choose when the LFG is okay or not.I don't like to use the LFG for open world content either, but an important difference between open world and instanced group content is that the former can be encountered and completed seamlessly as part of the exploration experience, while the latter can only be played through navigating menus and by isolating yourself from the rest of the game. Some of that criticism applies to solo instances too, by the way—I'm not necessarily a big fan of those either. But at least I can complete those whenever I want, at my own pace, without using LFG, so it's relatively painless. Meanwhile, instanced group content is the worst of both worlds. See, this is the part where my original criticism of Anet dumping instanced group content into achievement categories that have, up to that point, been almost completely dedicated to solo and open world content comes in. Your shifting of the goal posts has actually reinforced my point.

Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine. How many of these story achievements are able to be done on the map without other players? I seem to recall that every LS episode’s achievements always have some that cannot be done solo. Whether or not you need to be in an actual party/squad is just semantics. It's not just semantics. Instanced group content requires use of the LFG tool and is generally a social experience where players are often expected to interact, bring certain builds, etc. Comparably, joining a zerg in the open world requires no LFG, can be done seamlessly by moving around in the in-game world without opening any menus or scrolling through lists, and is a much less social experience. Of course, those differences may not be meaningful to you, but they're meaningful to many other players.

Read the thread. The opening instanced escort mission can easily be soloed. It's designed to scale to as low as 1 player. That's good to know, and I fully appreciate it as far as this mission goes (though Anet certainly should have made it clearer that it's also solo-soriented). But the fact remains that lately they have been dumping strike mission achievements into the story achievement categories and even requiring those achievements for the story metas, so I still stand behind my complaint/whine.

It's always been established precedent that story missions and achievements were solo-play-oriented with a couple of notable exceptions (original Zhaitan, Migraine). I find it very unfortunate that in this season Anet just decided to start dumping instanced group content into these categories instead of giving it its own separate categories like they had always done previously. It feels like I'm being coerced into playing content that I don't want to play and don't enjoy playing, and it also feels like that content is overtaking the spaces where I previously always used to find content that I did want to play. I think the people who designed and classified this content failed to properly take into account the preferences of much of their playerbase—the huge explorer player population that GW2 has because of what kind of game it is.

Been wanting hammer for ranger for a while. My choya hammer skin is woefully underutilized at the moment.

Sorry, I have to interject because my inner linguist is screaming. That's a definition confusion that I think mostly comes from WoW, though it definitely seems to have caught on in RPG circles. The original meaning is: Nounranger (plural rangers) One who ranges; a rover.Anyway. Carry on.