Finalfreefall.8247

You don't even have to spend money to skip the Living Story, just don't buy the thing and wah-la. Hah! Well played. I still want to adventure in the maps. I just don't want to get pulled out of my immersion by people complaining at me from a distance. If I can buy a "Black lion cat herder" to manage Destiny's orphans while I help the locals of whatever adventuring spot is handy, I'd have more fun.

Eh. I already use a mount to bypass most of the exploration. They work too well for that tbh. Can't complain about people wanting mastery points when most of us use mounts to skip the actual content. (Wheras masteries are more or less an artificial grind)Personally, I would pay money for a way to skip the Living Story. About fifteen dollars to pass the story and remove the B-team from the map per episode sounds fair to me.

Masteries are artificial content anyway. Convenience gated behind the grind. It's phone gaming without the option to pay. Might as well complete the cycle. Reiterate: Having players grind to make map traversal less obnoxious is terrible game design. "This skill unlocks a new area" and "Without this skill, you have to spend an extra minute jumping up that cliff" are not equivalent concepts.

I can't actually come up with a counterpoint for this that doesn't argue against the gem exchange. It's not a good idea, but a variant has already been implemented. I'd welcome the chance to skip certain (laggy) maps for a small sum. It disgusts me, but I'd welcome it because it's infinitely more convenient.

so feeling are not masculine, man can't cry or express worrying about being afraid to loose your friends nooooo.. What a toxic comment. Just a point of view as valid as yours. I am sorry I understand something different than you, I suppose that is toxic. Uh, why exactly is your point as valid as their point exactly? you aren't entitled to an equal level of respect for holding a point of view that is frankly a poison to society merely by virtue of it being your point of view. "You should have feelings" "But your views aren't valid, and you aren't entitled to equal respect. " Holy kitten. There are views that are authentically harmful to people or groups in society. The belief that masculinity cannot be emotional is, indeed, toxic. Just because I believe that it's important that people are allowed to have feelings doesn't mean that all ideologies must be taken seriously. To be kind to all people inherently means being cruel to others.So... being kind to some people then. And non-uplifting behavior to others. Honestly the fact that no one tried to reason with them and instead went "you're not valid" is shocking to me. At least a little logic. All the great things can be reasoned with logic. To exclude dissent instead of teaching is... religious.

Absolutely. The game has a ton of maps, and a bunch of exploration-based content. It does not have a lot of ways to play those maps without going full altitis. Adding two elite specs would fix most of that and (with content) has a good chance of revitalizing Pvp and Wvw as well. If Anet dropped in a bunch of minidungeons into older maps, that would be cool too. Maybe add a single underground level to an existing map for the final fight. But right now the game needs elite specs. And ffs, don't tie them into the expansion this time! It's cool while we're in the missions but afterwards it just makes our characters look like tourists.

so feeling are not masculine, man can't cry or express worrying about being afraid to loose your friends nooooo.. What a toxic comment. Just a point of view as valid as yours. I am sorry I understand something different than you, I suppose that is toxic. Uh, why exactly is your point as valid as their point exactly? you aren't entitled to an equal level of respect for holding a point of view that is frankly a poison to society merely by virtue of it being your point of view. "You should have feelings" "But your views aren't valid, and you aren't entitled to equal respect. " Holy crap.

As a writer, this made my mind segfault three times in a row. Character development is a cornerstone of writing and—at the moment—that's exactly what's happening. So, whenever a character gets any development we murder them? This new wave writing sounds incredibly lazy. Let's just murder everyone for schlocky shock and sleazy schadenfreude, then we can call it a day. We'll make a new round of characters and do the same to them, too! I've never understood the hate for the characters, really. I like all of them. Taimi though is especially egregious as she's very autistic in nature so where the loathing for her persence derives from is disgracefully transparent. Oh dude, it got so bad that Anet's nearly run out of (connected to the player) characters to maim or kill. So during PoF, they pulled a TON of characters from Elona and some from other GW1 areas, and added them to the suffering bonfire. This is... yeah. It's very bad. The relatively bulletproof qualities of the B-team only makes it worse.

The Commander always had a partner, or an army. Even in chapter 1, they had their Destiny's Edge mentor figure as a partner, if not others (as well). They didn't have a full guild, but they did have someone or someones. Wait. Renown hearts aren't canon? I'll still disagree on the basis that characters like Quinn exist as mission objectives more than teammates, and that the Destiny's Edge Mentor was more of a social boon, but that's interesting.Open world treats the PC as a random adventurer, not the Pact Commander. They're canon to lore, but not to the "golden path". Especially pre-HoT. And let's be honest, you're splitting hairs if you're trying to twist my statement to mean that the Commander has someone with them every waking moment. Obviously there are times the Commander is working alone against random mooks or puzzles, but yeah, since chapter 1, they always worked with someone in the overarching plot - whether that's a "social boon" or not.I apologize then. The renown heart bit was a surprise and it makes sense in retrospect. When I used team I meant it in the sense of an active squad, while (if I'm correct) you mean a wider-ranging group that still works together to accomplish goals. That does fit and I appreciate you expanding the point. "Alright mesmer'd team. We've blown up the Kralk draining device and we're going to walk out of here. No need to risk our best shot at Dragon Energy containment in a fight against a combatant that already killed her more prepared, arguably stronger and definitely more experienced sibling." Worst case: Kralk gets a case of demigodhood. (which I think happened anyway) I'm not even sure what your argument here even is. When we brought the army with, they couldn't continue through the - unknown to the Commander (hence: plan failed) - terrain warped by Kralkatorrik's branding and nesting, and when we do free Aurene, aka objective #1, Balthazar is right there and we could not risk Balthazar killing Kralkatorrik, aka objective #2, because let's face it, even without the Warbeast and captive Aurene, Balthazar still had a chance to win.The commander is standing next to a walking disguise generator and has recently used disguises to great effect. Association at a minimum is good reason for deciding to use the chaos and sabotage the enemy. Or any alternate plan besides "charge him". Hang on, how would Balthazar have won that fight? If he had weaponry capable of significant range Anmoon wouldn't be a thing. A really, really, really, dumb idea to let the best dragon containment option stay near the enemy. One lucky shot on Aurene would have been the end of the world. Except that there wasn't really a chance to just run away, what with an Elder Dragon and demigod bearing down on them, and Balthazar wanted Aurene alive.Flight capable dragon, and she's fast. Balthazar wanting her alive isn't a guarantee that she would live. Spite or bad luck would have cost Tyria's defenders their best long-term plan.

The Commander always had a partner, or an army. Even in chapter 1, they had their Destiny's Edge mentor figure as a partner, if not others (as well). They didn't have a full guild, but they did have someone or someones. Wait. Renown hearts aren't canon? I'll still disagree on the basis that characters like Quinn exist as mission objectives more than teammates, and that the Destiny's Edge Mentor was more of a social boon, but that's interesting. "Alright mesmer'd team. We've blown up the Kralk draining device and we're going to walk out of here. No need to risk our best shot at Dragon Energy containment in a fight against a combatant that already killed her more prepared, arguably stronger and definitely more experienced sibling." Worst scenario: Kralk gets a case of demigodhood. (which I think happened anyway) A really, really, really, dumb idea to let the best dragon containment option stay near the enemy. One lucky shot on Aurene would have been the end of it.

I do disagree with this. The plot comes off as rewarding what would by all rights be suicidal decisions with plot armor. Being bad at plans is not the same as being good at improvisation. And the commander did fine without a team early on.

Yes. 99% there. The quibbles that I raised with the plot was that "We went after Balthazar with no real plan, died, undied, and just when we went in for round 2 Rytlock handed us his sword"." Which can be summed up as "Stupid Commander, Lucky Commander, Deus Ex Machina". The reasoning behind the army bit was aggravated sarcasm which seems to have sidetracked my point significantly and I apologize for time spent there. I do however, disagree with the Hero's Journey assessment on different grounds though, in that the arc applies to the Commander's entire team rather than the commander specifically.

Ah yes, I forgot the part where we were killed by Balthazar's entire army instead of specifically by Balthazar in a small-scale combat scenario. Good job! And I fondly recall burying Balthazar in a mountain of awakened instead of fighting him one-on-one again with a weapon handed to us at the start of the battle. Yes. That would have been a similar scenario. I'm glad that never happened. All sarcasm aside, we picked up an army on the way to Mordymord. They're called the Pact. (this is the same Pact from the Living story) If you've been to Maguuma you can take time rallying them to your cause and fighting with them against the Dragon's army.

That is pretty much exactly what happened in PoF. We went after Balthazar with no real plan, died, undied, and just when we went in for round 2 Rytlock handed us his sword. I don't really see a motivation for the writers to change course.

Contrast the Norn spirits with the belief systems of other races. The Eternal Alchemy beat two dragons. A single de-powered human deity was a campaign. I'm fairly certain there's also an argument to be made that he was winning against Kralk. The Norn spirits aren't on the tier of other races. This of course works because the Norn are not on the tier of the other races. They're incompetent, overly hasty, and Braham. Ogres have a more developed society than Norn! Whatever they were supposed to be at the start, they've been undeveloped to the status of what GW2 refers to as a "minor" race".