Gilled Horse Chew



  • 0_1489374270238_upload-5be44480-f392-42d9-b5a2-c43e3c57f66f

    I did quite well today. Except that every time I lost a match, there was a teammate screaming something like "U ARE ALL RETARDED IDIOTS" in team chat.

    Studies have shown that contrary to popular belief, yelling "U ARE ALL RETARDED IDIOTS" does not change who won the game.


  • Java Dev

    @ben_lubar said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    every time I lost a match, there was a teammate screaming

    Correlation suggests that was you.



  • @PleegWat said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    @ben_lubar said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    every time I lost a match, there was a teammate screaming

    Correlation suggests that was you.

    It was a different person every time, strangely enough.



  • PvP went quite well today:
    0_1489465883265_upload-a94d5f86-1478-4e1e-b566-1ee915c2d337

    I also got 200% Magic Find, whatever the hell that means (not counting character-specific bonuses):
    0_1489466008661_upload-1f04f214-845a-45c9-91d0-bbb4ccdd2f89

    I'm working on two Novelty Axes of Fighting so I can turn my Certificates of Having Walked Around a Lot from my Daredevil into Steins of Undisclosed Important Liquid, so I need to spend approximately 16 hours in Eternal Battlegrounds and the surrounding area.

    I got Koss' Pauldrons and Ebonmane's Weapon Chest from a Box of Worthless Shit as a random drop, so I guess that's what 200% Magic Find means?

    Anyway, I need 8 more ranked wins on Guardian and a Triangle of Spending Lots of Money and then I'll be able to craft the Wings of Expensive Wing Crafting That Requires Many Murders.


  • Java Dev

    @ben_lubar Normally magic find increases the chance for any drop to be a magic/rare/unique/whatever drop. So if you'd normally have a 1% chance of something to be a magic item, with +200% magic find the chance would be 3% instead.



  • @PleegWat
    It also increases your chance of getting a legendary precursor as a random drop from 0% to 0%. :trollface:

    From what I've seen, it's suspected that MF doesn't impact the results of boxes... which, given that most of the enemies in the game that drop stuff with a chance to be good (Champions, etc) drop loot boxes... means that the community suspects MF is intentionally shit at this point.


  • Java Dev

    @izzion I should have mentioned, I don't know about GW2 specifically so I'm more talking about my experience with the concept in general.

    I can understand not applying it to loot boxes to work around an exploit (equip a MF-heavy set specifically to open loot boxes). Possible solutions include rolling loot box contents when they drop, or having an MF-specific chance to drop a better loot box.

    I know D3 had MF but it was marginalized in D3X because it was considered a non-fun mechanic. Such thinking may apply to GW2 as well.



  • @PleegWat
    Yeah, it was a combination of that and the fact that they implemented MF as a tradeoff to combat stats on your gear (you could only increase MF by decreasing the combat stats). So they changed the system to have fewer things that MF improved, but people still didn't really substitute toward combat stats, and then they just basically removed MF from gear altogether and made it so the primary way you get MF is by increasing your account-wide MF through achievement point totals, or using temporary boosts. And then proceeded to shift even more of the desirable loot to loot boxes, but still haven't gone ahead and just removed MF completely.



  • @izzion said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    it's suspected that MF doesn't impact the results of boxes

    The PvP and WvW reward track boxes are explicitly affected by Magic Find.



  • I just finished my 6th PvP match ever on Guardian. I was randomly selected to be on the red team all 6 times, and I think the fact that I'm wearing Luminescent armor made me win. I'm basically wearing the enemy team's colors except for the very bottom of my cape.

    Fake edit: Ok, on my 7th match they finally put me into the blue team. Here's the end of game stats for damage/healing/kills/deaths/revives/offense/defense:

    0_1489534087302_upload-af87a0a5-a9a2-46df-9af2-79df7f9e7879

    Yellow highlights mean I was the best on my team for that stat. I think Guardian is broken.



  • 0_1489544307348_upload-da49966f-5048-41b6-8194-093cf7675e87

    If only that person had connected to the fourth game today and we had won it instead of losing 4v5, I'd be done with Guardian for the whole season.

    Well, all I have to do is win 1 of my 10 matches tomorrow and I'll be able to move on to Elementalist, Engineer, or Warrior.



  • 0_1489636910199_upload-68486549-7b6e-4587-91c0-964888977f66

    I played two sets of 10 today because I was upset that MilwaukeePC rebooted my router during a match again.

    0_1489636965640_upload-ce9d603b-a374-4593-ab78-5117255833ed



  • 0_1489718804848_upload-7a316dc9-ab0e-45ef-9411-e9d932851219

    Well, something went horribly right today.



  • 0_1489808436380_upload-dfcd20c0-1054-48a7-a393-1eb3256a7cbf

    🤷



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  • 0_1490064724254_upload-81c24c5a-57ee-4d40-963a-d09f9b14e3e6

    (Material) storage expanders were on sale today so I bought 2. A little over 400 gold for both.

    Now I can store 1000 pieces of raw chicken and avocados instead of just 500 (or 250 had I not bought a storage expander a while ago).



  • 0_1490319535482_upload-d1c632e5-8461-4870-bac9-edb354546c4a

    I am prepared to craft the spirit of a piece of a tree with some string attached to it in 22 days. RATE LIMITING!





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  • So I redid my elementalist's armor. Here's a video that contains jiggly plant boobs.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Y1oMTvgu8



  • A thing @royal_poet and I did a few weeks ago.

    0_1492711075909_gw017.jpg

    Chalice of Tears is fucking right.





  • @ben_lubar it took two hours the first time, I don't care to do it again any time soon.



  • So I'm thinking about getting into raiding and had a few preliminary chats with people about it.

    Apparently, if I solo some of the intended-for-10-people missions and earn a number of tokens from it, I can maybe one day join a training group so I can learn how to do it with 10 people.

    This seems so full of :wtf: it isn't funny.



  • DISCLAIMER: HUGE SPOILERS

    This text is here so the spoilers won't show up on the preview in the topic list.
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    This text is here so the spoilers won't show up on the preview in the topic list.

    I have a robot to watch my cats now.

    0_1493789946860_20170503003538_1.jpg



  • @ben_lubar I absolutely loved the story of S3E5. Seeing [redacted] was just fun having seen them in GW1.



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    I absolutely loved the story of S3E5.

    I was very confused by the fact that [redacted] was disguised as [redacted] despite being much more popular than the latter.



  • @ben_lubar Ah but it actually makes some modicum of sense.

    And here's my theory on why

    Just as a quick point, the redacted I meant was MOX, who turns up in GW1. But you're talking about Lazarus/Balthazar and 'the deception will burn'.

    Really quick recap: the gods aren't actual gods, though worshipped as such by the humans in Tyria. The Canthons and Elonians were aware of the gods but weren't exactly all religious in the way the Tyrians are about them. The fact they're all aliens (both the gods and the humans) is also probably relevant here. This is established in GW1 lore and we know they don't rewrite history too much.

    So... they're aliens, and presumably the dragons aren't. And the gods left Tyria - after the dragons started to wake up. My theory then is that the dragons started absorbing not only the ambient magic in the world but also the 'magic' of the gods, causing them to flee while they still had the power to do so. It's never been established why they left but that would certainly explain it.

    Now let's fast forward to S3E1. A mursaat looking figure arrives. The fact that one of the 'unseen ones' is clearly visible to all present is definitely a hint that something is not right. Yes, I know the mursaat can somewhat choose to make themselves visible, but it's definitely a little in the out-there category.

    Then there's the deal with the bloodstone explosion. If you remember, the bloodstones were created by the gods of Tyria in the first place, and the one in Bloodstone Fen is firmly established in GW1 as a thing. In other words, it would have been there when Balthazar left, so it follows that he would know about it.

    And he would have the magic to make the damn thing explode - so he could absorb its power. This would give some credence to the Lazarus deception. Lazarus has just come back from the dead and is presumably still weak so a recharge blamed on Mantle tampering would certainly fit the narrative Balthazar is trying to spin.

    Then we fast forward to S3E2. We're in the egg chamber, and Lazarus turns up to 'help'. Again it fits the narrative: Lazarus is back, reformed and wants to stop the dragons. Thing is, this is already getting suspicious. Lazarus waves away one of the waves of destroyers with a gesture. Why couldn't he just do that to all of them? Answer, at least implied: because he's underpowered due to recently being brought back from the dead.

    Then we skip to S3E4. We learn of the tampering of Lazarus' resurrection with the fake aspect. At the time this left an interesting question: if it's a fake aspect, how is there still enough power to recreate a mursaat with the apparently latent energy? The suggestion of course is that it wasn't enough and required the explosion of the bloodstone for Lazarus to absorb.

    But that, I think, is not what happened. In S3E5, Balthazar admits during the final confrontation in the volcano that he was weakened (presumably by the dragons, but it's not clear why, though I think I covered this) and that this ritual will recharge him. I think he was weakened by the dragons and the cost of maintaining the illusion wasn't exactly free either - but the discharge from the bloodstone helped with that.

    The interesting question is why he's now somewhat evil. Balthazar of old was encouraging of humanity to claim their place in the world. He championed glory, honour, valour etc. But now, he's actively prepared to let the world burn. Everything he brought to the world, he is prepared to let it go. I don't know if that's because he's been tainted by something, or because he wearies of humans and their petty squabbles and just wants the world to start over. Or even, if there's some longer game afoot that he's playing. Whatever, he made it very clear he wants to take down the dragons and has zero care for collateral damage. This is not the Balthazar of old.

    The GW2 wiki suggests that it's because he's no longer a deity and this is a matter of pride and revenge, even if that means the entire world burns to get it. I don't know if that's entirely substantiated by the dialogue, if it was I missed it, but I'll go back and play it again because it would explain his attitude.

    As for the deception, why appearing as Lazarus etc. that's a simpler question to answer. It's easier to move about the world if you appear as a lesser being where you don't need to show your full power immediately. Mursaat aren't as powerful as gods and it's easy to pretend to be a less powerful being, especially if you're weakened. Plus, of course, the Mantle were on the rise so it's not like he wouldn't have an instant foot soldier army to play with and do things on his behalf while he got things together like triggering the bloodstone explosion.

    Outstanding questions from episode 5:

    • if Zhaitan and Mordremoth have been defeated, how does Taimi have such minions for her experiment before Balthazar shows up? (The Kralkatorrik minion is cute though)
    • where has Kas been this whole time? Of course, not around Lazarus because her ability to discern truth from lie would reveal the deception and spoil it way too soon, but what story has she been tied up in this whole time?
    • is Balthazar dead? Seems unlikely that a being of his power couldn't somehow contain the metamagical forces and that he's gone to wherever he was hiding in the meantime.
    • does this mean that the dragon hunt is still on and that next up we're going to pay Kralkatorrik a visit and finish what Destiny's Edge started?


  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    if Zhaitan and Mordremoth have been defeated

    Hitler was defeated, but that didn't stop there being nazis. Same concept. There were already a ton of dragon minions. Killing the dragon doesn't get rid of the minions.



  • @ben_lubar I assumed one got their power from the other.



  • Even asura misspell things.

    0_1493847503334_gw020.jpg

    Translation: ZINN - HIS GENIUS KNOWS NO BOUNS



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    ZINN - HIS GENIUS KNOWS NO BOUVNS

    FTFY



  • @ben_lubar I had trouble finding an Old Ascalonian alphabet - the only one I could find listed a U and it looked like that.



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    Old Ascalonian

    There's no new Ascalonian alphabet. Ascalon fell within the first half hour of Guild Wars 1.

    Anyway:

    https://wiki.guildwars.com/images/1/10/Tyrian_alphabet.png



  • @ben_lubar that's the image I used, but looking again when not tired and hopped up on painkillers, I see an off by one, my bad.

    I know there is no "new Ascalon" alphabet but the only reference I could find called it old Ascalon. Question, why is this written in Ascalonian given that it was probably carved by an asura?



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    @ben_lubar that's the image I used, but looking again when not tired and hopped up on painkillers, I see an off by one, my bad.

    I know there is no "new Ascalon" alphabet but the only reference I could find called it old Ascalon. Question, why is this written in Ascalonian given that it was probably carved by an asura?

    I'm pretty sure it was carved by M.O.X., and M.O.X. was a companion for the (human) player character in GW1.



  • @ben_lubar I have played GW1 ;) but I guess it never occurred to me that he might have carved it. Though I'd still argue that golems would use asuran alphabets over human ones, but MOX is probably an exception to that.



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    but MOX is probably an exception to that

    M.O.X. is also the only living Dervish as far as I can tell. It wouldn't really make sense to make a profession that only one race could play, but I can see Dervish coming back as an NPC profession like those land-spear Seraph in Lake Doric.





  • @ben_lubar Not sure the maps are actually at the same scale there for that. Fairly sure there's one zoom level difference because the size we see as the player is not consistent with that map.

    Also, all core crafting skills finally maxed out. Finishing level 500 armoursmithing was expensive.



  • @Arantor unless players are a different size compared to maps on different maps, the reddit post is correct.

    I trust that_shaman on all Guild Wars asset related stuff.



  • @ben_lubar Hmmm, I'm not 100% convinced.

    That said...

    That said, it's hard to get a good idea of the scale of Zhaitan in the one battle that you do actually face him in (where you're on the airship) and he could conceivable be that big.

    And it really isn't clear how big Mordremoth is because you never truly face him at any point (when facing the Shadow of the Dragon in the Grove, or even the Mouth in Dragon's Stand), you're facing a minion in the same way as fighting the Plaguebringer during the Zhaitan campaign. And of course when you're fighting Barney, you're inside his head so fighting a Matrix version of him rather than his physical self.

    So maybe, maybe that thing really is that big. But it didn't look that big in the final instance of S3E5... it really didn't.



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    So maybe, maybe that thing really is that big. But it didn't look that big in the final instance of S3E5... it really didn't.

    Did you try gliding over to it? That last room is really big compared to most story instances. The dragon is like one and a half cities away from you when you're near the machine.



  • @ben_lubar That far? Really? Whoa. No wonder I misjudged it.



  • How do we know Detha Tremblebones is an open source software user? She had code download the software she needed, but she has to build it herself.

    https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_Catacombs_(explorable)#Detha.27s_path



  • Currently trying to solo my way through Citadel of Fire. The final battle with Gaheron Baelfire is a dick if you happen to die during the battle because then you get to restart the entire battle over except without it properly restarting - the magma walls still go up but his health restarts at 100%.

    May not be able to solo this one.



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    @ben_lubar it took two hours the first time, I don't care to do it again any time soon.

    By the way, did you do Searing Ascent? It includes spiderman jumps, blind jumps, jumps into pools of water, and jumps in the direction a skeleton is pointing.



  • @ben_lubar I suck at the Spiderman jumps. Pulling off Oakheart Essence moves while in mid-air is a skill I have not mastered enough yet.



  • @Arantor said in Gilled Horse Chew:

    @ben_lubar I suck at the Spiderman jumps. Pulling off Oakheart Essence moves while in mid-air is a skill I have not mastered enough yet.

    I find that the game likes to break if I'm trying to do it in action camera mode. The last story mission is nearly impossible without turning action camera off.


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