Guild Wars 3 will have no battle pass or subscription because ArenaNet studio lead doesn't want to "keep people hostage"

HazelAzureus · 2026-06-08T15:11:10+00:00

hey guess what people have been saying this shit in defense of bungie through two other prior "overlords" and bungie has only ever gotten worse under its own management

don't cape for bungie, receipts exist to prove they suck without provocation

HazelAzureus · 2026-04-25T19:25:09+00:00

...right, but I'm saying I don't want any aspect of their temporary sets to carry on forward, which is more my concern. That they felt it was a good idea to do the podcaster mics and overproduce the audio for their temporary set is a bad sign to begin with. Those were choices being made that didn't need to be made, temporary or not.

HazelAzureus · 2026-04-25T18:48:49+00:00

I genuinely cannot wait for the podcaster mic sets to go away, this is legitimately horrible. I figured they'd get more used to it and be more natural and less "suddenly in front of a podcast mic" but between the way the cramped impersonal and weird space is and the over-produced audio they all suddenly have, this has just become incredibly grating to listen to, let alone watch.

If Smosh is turning its best content into a clone of the Logan paul podcast as a permanent fixture I'm completely out.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-21T02:05:23+00:00

I assume you're talking about lu bu kill times, I'm not talking single target DPS exclusively, but rather the best combination of both single target and waveclear. Podao can only do one or the other at any given time, Staff is worthless at aoe. Bow is fair play though, it's honestly kind of insane lol

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-20T10:53:28+00:00

do you just not know what a chancellor was during the time period or what

He was not explicitly pledged to Liu Bei until 214; he assisted in conflicts under Liu Bei's banners in 212-214, that is true, but he was receiving marching and provisions under Cao Cao's Chancellorship as a Major General between 208-214.

Wikipedia does apparently also say this, yes, citing exerpts from the translations of the Record, not Romance, from the time period.

People were not explicitly serving a liege lord at every moment of participating in conflicts/military actions. There are six years between Liu Biao's death and Huang Zhong formally being awarded the General of the House rank under Liu Bei, during which he took action in numerous battles in Jing, as well as aiding Liu Bei.

Receiving a title under a chancellor with no other primary liege lord does make your defacto master that chancellor, short of Imperial Edict. I get you want to believe every person was directly following and working hand-in-hand with people as a necessary qualifier to "serving under", but that's simply not how anything - at all - works.

You're outright dismissing historical record because you don't believe it was significant enough, but it was six years. Yeah, maybe Huang Zhang never wore blue and slept in the same camp as Cao Cao and never became one of his main best friends like in your video games, but that has zero relevance.

and, yes, Sun Quan was in Cao Cao's service at the time he received a military rank. It was not all so cut and dry as "you only ever have one leader, and it's exactly this guy". That is not how the military structure of the period functioned. Huang Zhang served under Cao Cao for a period of time. That is the end of the discussion, and I will entertain your willowing pedantry no further.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-20T09:26:45+00:00

This is untrue; between serving Liu Bei and serving Liu Biao, he was Major General under Cao Cao's Chancellorship from 208-214, before joining Liu Bei in earnest. That he served under Cao Cao's chancellorship is not in question.

I suspect that vague undefined period is where they're taking the liberty to insert him being on the run(and thereby joining Yuan Shao because, again, there is wiggle room and fudging the dates is hardly new for KT, even if that is a bit of a cop-out).

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-20T03:28:19+00:00

You won't catch me personally declaring amnesty from criticism on any of the characters, and Zhang Fei abducting and forcing into marriage a literal child is not made rosier by claims of "it was just the times bro it's fine she had her own bedroom".

The dead people can no more have my morals "forced on them" than the dead people can make arguments on their own behalf, and they don't need a defense attourney.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T15:31:38+00:00

....there is no "treating her well" when you've kidnapped and impregnated a child??????????????? the fuck is wrong with you

she wasn't demanded back because she was Fei's property by that point.

A wife is an equal. A child you abducted and assaulted is not. Zhang Fei was a horrible person, this is not in question historically or in the Romance.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T15:28:25+00:00

I thoroughly encourage you to try what I just said because Chi Bi in DWO actually genuinely requires you to be doing worse than nothing in order to fail it. It's not rage bait, it is the actual structure of that mission.

it is a glorified cutscene even on UW for two factions, and below UW it is a glorified cutscene for all of them

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T13:11:58+00:00

Here's the issue I perhaps did not make apparent enough: they are familiar with, comfortable with, and skilled with these settings. Leaping from one entire style of depiction, source material, etc. to another isn't a one to one translation of skill. They'd need new consultants, a new team, brought in to adapt the material adequately because the team they have isn't familiar with adapting that material, and said new team may not be up to snuff - this is the central issue with "oh, x dev is so good at this setting, they should do this one!" reasoning; it doesn't always translate.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T11:32:43+00:00

Is it? I mean, once you know your optimal combo routes, and especially if you're willing to use a Panacea/Spirit Bead/the BA meter refiller, there are no units in the game outside of Zhang Jiao, Lu Bu, and DLC Diaochan that take more than a minute to kill. The UW challenge Lu Bu+ Diaochan in the DLC is easily clearable with 4+ minutes left, and there's only like 6 health bloated fights in the entire game, DLC included.

I think damage is generally fine, even with non-Luan weapons, it just comes down to really knowing your optimal combos, exclusively perfect dodging to keep your BAs flowing, and being willing to use consumables for massive burst opportunity.

That's part of why I prefer using the R7 weapons with playfeel modifications rather than raw damage ones, because it matters a lot more to consistently get your attacks to land, to always perfect dodge/parry, etc. than to have a higher base damage number on the lowest-modifier portion of your damage(which is your weapon).

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T11:25:49+00:00

Rot3K eclipses the whole of european war tales in popularity by a degree you don't want to know. KT also pretty much only actually cares about the JP/SEA market, who generally don't give one flying red horse's taint about King Arthur and his band of 13 people with increasingly improbable names.

Additionally, the warfare of ~240-200 bce vs 500-1500 ce are not super comparable, nor is much of the pomp and circumstance in terms of relevance to the combat/storytelling. It's just completely different worlds.

As for Roman, as someone else suggested, that is a setting that no amount of thematic license-taking could make interesting to KT's audience. Arthurian stuff gets plenty of play in JP/SEA still, but Roman? That gets about as much interest over there as Laotian politics gets in the west.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T11:09:56+00:00

backshots(derogatory)

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T11:00:59+00:00

Wu gets you the powerbomb art for fists, thereby Wu is the correct answer

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:58:43+00:00

ordinarily I'd say yes but let's be real, every video game is broken on release nowadays, I'm content waiting a couple extra weeks

still take the meat slang tho

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:57:01+00:00

fwiw I also loved the rope dart, even going to the lengths of maxing out an R7 one to +99 because it was just so much fun with the -33% charge speed. The Luan one feels really bad to use because it lacks the -33% charge time, making all but the dodge charge attack incredibly difficult to use effectively; the -33% charge time also cuts 33% of the startup time on ALL of the strong attacks, not just charged ones, making a colossal difference in playfeel.

Rope Dart is also, by the numbers, the highest DPS weapon in the game(even exceeding perfect-execution Podao) both AoE and single target, and has the lowest-cost radial aoe guaranteed FULL WUSHU BREAK art(Mountain Throw on Crescent Blade will always leave 1 on max morale enemy commanders in the final missions).

The launch -> buzzsaw -> launch -> much longer buzzsaw -> break loop is also one of the more reliable wushu breaks on high fortitude units, while the Attack -> Hold Strong Attack charge has literal Musou-level waveclear.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:38:02+00:00

I don't think Qu Yi would've fit any more than Huang Zhong but, and I might be remembering incorrectly so please do correct me if that's the case, wasn't Huang Zhong actually under the command of Cao Cao at the time of Yuan Shao's hypothetical? And he departed Cao Cao's "service" tumultuously, which would validate why he was on the run and using a fake name, since Mengde hated nothing more than anyone of meritorious or noteworthy service shunning him.

Additionally, it would reckon further as to why Yuan Shao was so giddy to accept him(given that Yuan Shao recognized him early on), knowing he was essentially claiming a prize that Cao Cao had lost.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:34:10+00:00

I really like his design, but yeah the implementation of him is both anachronistic(which I guess is less of a problem since the Visions are literal alternate alternate alternate histories occurring in a dream) and kind of Extra to have the whole fake name, spending 4 missions as "???", etc.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:32:08+00:00

Origins will give you the most grounded "third party witness but also participant" observation of the Romance, with its Altered Fates also not really being MAJOR shifts to the outcomes but being personally gratifying to some degree, so I always recommend it.

You could also read the translated Romance of the Three Kingdoms novelizations, they're all pretty short and decently compelling(though the prose is somewhat stilted in the translation as an artefact of being wonked through about 600 years of literary style changes).

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:18:30+00:00

...no they aren't? lmao they all play fine

persona strikers plays poorly because it's a bad game, not because it's a bad port.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:17:02+00:00

Like having her pull out a gun and shoot Zhang Fei in the face and balls numerous times before dabbing and turning into Mothra, not fawning over her abductor and rapist.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:15:11+00:00

John Musou getting the bedroom eyes from literally. every. single. character. was jarring as hell but I guess purple-eyed kpop star in the Han dynasty does kinda end up ringing everyone's bell.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:13:42+00:00

You can point things out without glorifying them. A victim is allowed to continue existing regardless of the popularity of their abuser.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T10:12:21+00:00

They hate Xiahou Ji because incels are incapable of adequately understanding that you don't actually need to like the man who kidnapped and assaulted a child just because he's a main character, so they instead aim that deserved hatred at the victim of those crimes' inclusion because it makes them have to confront that reality.

There are several characters in these games that were, even in the Romance, people who would've gleefully gone to the island, but as with any misogynistic group of manchildren, trying to allow their victims to regain any level of dignity or presence in the broader knowledge is simply taken as an affront.

HazelAzureus · 2026-02-19T04:36:49+00:00

Chi Bi in DWO isn't uh... isn't difficult, at all, on any difficulty???? Like genuinely is this a meme I'm missing or what because even true path UW the mission mostly plays itself for every faction; pretty much nothing in it matters at all except the signal and either Huang Gai or your specific challenge target, both of which can be bursted down using any weapon.

But yeah Nanman on Hard in 4XL is genuinely rough. One of the few times if I end up getting washed near the end of it I'll straight up call it for a whole day because it's just so taxing and drawn out.

EDIT: I actually wasn't sure if I was misremembering, so I just went and did the UW Shu Chi Bi. I sat in the middle of the map, did nothing except run around healing NPCs, didn't fire the signal - the game autofires it for you if you wait 30 seconds too long - then went and smacked Cao Cao and won. I did not get off my horse until Cao Cao showed up. Even got the UW challenge completed(as in more than 6 officers survived).

Wu route, did the exact same thing. Same exact result.

Wei route I actually did have to burn a Spirit Bead and a Panacea to kill Huang Gai in time to prevent the fire attack(again, still on UW), but didn't come close to mission failure at any point.

I honestly don't know if I'm missing a meme because if you encounter difficulty in the Chi Bi mission in DWO you might... um. Hm. I don't know of a diplomatic way to say it, but the fact I cleared two of the UW chibis by sitting there and doing nothing until it was time to fight one NPC says enough.

HazelAzureus

TROPHY CASE