Guild Wars 2

guardian.6489:

cesmode.4257:

The idea of tier’d open world content like this is good. But poorly designed. 9/10 people need to be part of a group to go through it. Unless you are one of the few amazing elitists that are probably decked in ascended gear. Not to mention, once you go into the instanced portions and come out, you lose the ‘zerg’ or the open group you were with. So…you wait ? Thats bad design.

I am a mediocre to above mediocre player. Im not elitist, I cannot solo Lupi or anything. But I can definately hold my own and solo enough content in the game. But I cannot solo this. You do need a group. Most people need a group.

But is there anything really wrong with that though? I find this content is fun because it’s designed to be beaten by a group but it’s still possible to run into random people.

I mean the LFG group tool exists for a reason.

Normally, no there isnt anything wrong with that. But Im finding that the community is quite hypocrytical now.

All across these forums, If someone says “the game should be like X”, that person is met by a swarm of responses like “Well not everyone likes X”. “Well I want dungeons to be a bit harder!”…“Well not everyone likes harder. Some people like speedruns”. “I want open world content to require more strategy and less zerg”….“Well, not everyone likes to cooperate. Some people like to zerg to farm $$”.

Get where Im going?

The game and every patch since release has been launched so that everyone can complete it, regardless of gear and skill. Which is why GW2 has been dubbed an easy game to play. Now that theres content that is difficult and only soloable by a small minority, you all are saying “welll thats ok!”. Yes, I agree. But I also see some hypocrits in here(no necessarily talking about you).

Now that content suits THEIR needs, its OK. But when someone wanted the content to suit their needs in a different way in the past 14 months, they were told “Well not everyone is like you”.

Why is this different now?

Edit: If the game were like this all along, Id be fine with it. But every LS patch has been completable with little to no group requirements, and so that the average joe(if he has the time to cram all of it in) can do so.

cesmode.4257:

guardian.6489:

cesmode.4257:

The idea of tier’d open world content like this is good. But poorly designed. 9/10 people need to be part of a group to go through it. Unless you are one of the few amazing elitists that are probably decked in ascended gear. Not to mention, once you go into the instanced portions and come out, you lose the ‘zerg’ or the open group you were with. So…you wait ? Thats bad design.

I am a mediocre to above mediocre player. Im not elitist, I cannot solo Lupi or anything. But I can definately hold my own and solo enough content in the game. But I cannot solo this. You do need a group. Most people need a group.

But is there anything really wrong with that though? I find this content is fun because it’s designed to be beaten by a group but it’s still possible to run into random people.

I mean the LFG group tool exists for a reason.

Normally, no there isnt anything wrong with that. But Im finding that the community is quite hypocrytical now.

All across these forums, If someone says “the game should be like X”, that person is met by a swarm of responses like “Well not everyone likes X”. “Well I want dungeons to be a bit harder!”…“Well not everyone likes harder. Some people like speedruns”. “I want open world content to require more strategy and less zerg”….“Well, not everyone likes to cooperate. Some people like to zerg to farm $$”.

Get where Im going?

The game and every patch since release has been launched so that everyone can complete it, regardless of gear and skill. Which is why GW2 has been dubbed an easy game to play. Now that theres content that is difficult and only soloable by a small minority, you all are saying “welll thats ok!”. Yes, I agree. But I also see some hypocrits in here(no necessarily talking about you).

Now that content suits THEIR needs, its OK. But when someone wanted the content to suit their needs in a different way in the past 14 months, they were told “Well not everyone is like you”.

Why is this different now?

Edit: If the game were like this all along, Id be fine with it. But every LS patch has been completable with little to no group requirements, and so that the average joe(if he has the time to cram all of it in) can do so.

Sure it’s not SOLOABLE by the average player but it is DOABLE. If you have trouble with a certain floor just open up and LFG tool or team up with people there to increase your chances or just stick to a commander who’s got a zerg going who can probably steamroll the entire place.

I don’t see why every living story patch has to be strictly soloable, just achievable by the average joe if he willing to team up with other average joes in the exact same position.

I don’t usually write much on forums, but this time around I felt like I needed to leave my take on the new update. Speaking as a casual, no-legendary wielding, player who ran to the top floor with a party of 3, all light armor, and did nearly everything by intuition; I love this update.

- I like that it offers key parts as drops, but also leaves the option open for people who hate it and want to try their luck buying them. This is an excellent response to the past rng critique in my opinion.

- I like that the lovely skins are available in the gem store instead of the usual Black Lion’s chest ticket collection. Very appreciated. Also good job on the new armor skins from the previous update.

- I love that antitoxin injections make it feel like everyone is collaborating to make Kessex toxin-free again. (It used to be one of my favourite maps before, I’m double driven to help it get unpolluted again)

- I love Kasmeer and Marjory’s dialogue, interactions, voiceacting. Lovely job! Amazing job on coding too; I love that they rush to help downed players and act as good fighting support. (The other NPCs, affected by the toxins, too, offer a really good contour; Senna's sudden exclamation that she doesn't deserve to live was quite unsettling. We crowded around her trying to figure out what was the matter. Unlike most other Living story NPCs, it wasn’t boring to learn what was going on, but actually very immersive).

- I was amazed by Scarlet’s comments in the instances, shudder worthy – in a very good way. She’s a horrible, terrible person – but an enjoyable villain. I’m am immensely glad we have not seen the last of her.

- I love that the final boss evolves; and that the instances were very managable, paced and overall enjoyable; I will definitely be running this a lot.

- The thing that got to me the most though, was the nightmare instances facing significant npcs from one’s own living story. Nothing in this game has truly made me freak out as much as facing my own faction mentor has... that was. Very unexpected. And the dialogue attached... I had to sit back and take 10 to process that actually happened. That was a legitimate nightmare. I speak for myself and a couple of guildies who were on at the time; that was really well played, ANet. You guys deserve a round of applause for this update. In my opinion, it shows you have been listening to the players and have tried to come and meet us halfway. I’m very happy to be playing GW2 and will continue to do so gladly. Thank you!

Like the update, it’s decent and although the lore was still far to lean, at least the cinematic was ok.

The only thing brilliant about it were the Quaggans though. They have such good voice actors.

I, too, was pleasantly surprised by this content update. I went in with a party of guild members. None of us knew what to expect. Three members of my party are pretty inexperienced with GW2 mechanics and that certainly frustrated things when we got to the Third Floor, but otherwise it was a great, open dungeon experience!

I’m a bit baffled by the claims that this is another zergfest. Not once during my long trips up did I see any encounter that required more than a handful of people (10 at the most). On the First and Second Floors, most of the mobs are non-elites or Veterans with low health/armor. We encountered a few Champions for the Group Events, but most of what we encountered died pretty easily to a group of 10.

I believe, with the way the game scales to the number of people nearby, the Tower would be worse with a zerg, with mobs scaling in number and health/armor to match difficulty.

Frankly, I enjoy this update and its one of the few that has me looking forward to it after work.

This is probably one of my favorite updates.

The only big thing that I would change would be to decrease mob density in floor 3, and replace them with some bosses such as in floor 1 (warlock) and floor 2 (spider + wurm).

Also I hope that they replace the Caledon Forest wurm with the skillset of the floor 2 wurm (since he actually seems somewhat threatening).

Can’t wait for FotM update though, since that’s the one I’ve really been waiting on.

I have to agree. I thoroughly enjoy the tower, The side instances are good. The over-all feel of the tower is good…it really makes you feel like you are invading a tower and that the bad guys are putting more and more resistance against you. I felt like it really made you want to work together towards a goal also.

I started out with 3 of us in a party, but quickly ran into 2 more people who were downed where we had to clear the bad-guys to help them up. One of those two joined our party while the other one quickly ran off ahead as soon as we raised them…he quickly learned the error of his ways as he died just a little ways further once more….and even though I argued not to raise him (he did, after-all deserve his death from running off) my party-mates raised the guy, who then joined our party and stayed with us from then on (even raising us as we went down).

We ended up hooking up with even more groups as we went up the tower, our force growing from 3-5-9-15-20-25 people as we went further and further up the tower. By the time we reached the final instance I actually feldt a good comraderie with my fellow players (myself and 2 other guardians kept rotating our walls of reflections to defend the ranged players from ranged attacks from the creatures we were melee’ing, we all worked together with Ele’s and rangers putting down wells to heal us and remove conditions…‘stand your ground’ was constantly being shouted and “for great justice” by warriors.

It felt good to not have anyone griefing, or screaming “L2P IDIOTS!” like has been happening lately in a lot of the LS content.

My only complaint is that the story didn’t really progress. We really didn’t learn much about Scarlet or her motivations….but overall I enjoyed it.

my complaint is that the main dungeon was way too easy lol it needs a slight buff at least for the final boss. I solo’d it and it hit like a wet noodle :S and idk if it’s scaling but the toxin didn’t bring down my health either xD but I hear parties saying it’s easy too. I haven’t had the right timing to gather friends since they’re on a diff times when I have school and hw but I’ll def see how it is as a party when I finish soloing the achievements…. I guess it’s also good that it’s solo able

the run up the tower is a lot of fun as well rly puts you on ur feet. the times I’m online in the day there’s not that many ppl for some reason and I actually never ran with a Zerg and had to rly be on my feet. the final third level to dungeon entrance run I had to get sword torch and focus with full four stealths and focus pull to get mobs off me, that rly means I had to change things to do this so it’s nice to need to adapt. I can imagine it being harder for non stealth classes if u wanted to run thru

it’s fun and looks epic. just the final boss needs a buff to be actually a challenge…

what might be crazy but interesting is if it scales according to your toughness and dps. less damage against less armor and more health and cc against zerker. might be crazy tho lol

takatsu.9416:

my complaint is that the main dungeon was way too easy lol it needs a slight buff at least for the final boss. I solo’d it and it hit like a wet noodle :S and idk if it’s scaling but the toxin didn’t bring down my health either xD but I hear parties saying it’s easy too. I haven’t had the right timing to gather friends since they’re on a diff times when I have school and hw but I’ll def see how it is as a party when I finish soloing the achievements…. I guess it’s also good that it’s solo able

the run up the tower is a lot of fun as well rly puts you on ur feet. the times I’m online in the day there’s not that many ppl for some reason and I actually never ran with a Zerg and had to rly be on my feet. the final third level to dungeon entrance run I had to get sword torch and focus with full four stealths and focus pull to get mobs off me, that rly means I had to change things to do this so it’s nice to need to adapt. I can imagine it being harder for non stealth classes if u wanted to run thru

it’s fun and looks epic. just the final boss needs a buff to be actually a challenge…

what might be crazy but interesting is if it scales according to your toughness and dps. less damage against less armor and more health and cc against zerker. might be crazy tho lol

This scales with the amount of people in the instance. I easily solo’d it, but had much more of a challenge when we took it on with 5 people.

I will say I was quite happy with the scaling that was done in this whole LS. I was pleasantly surprised that I could solo instances but also still have fun when I repeated some with my guild-mates. The main rooms also….since we started with only 3 people it was do-able, and by the time we were in a “zerg” of 30-40 it was still fun (having TONS of mobs spawn around us)…we never facerolled anything really but at the same time, even though tons were dying while we were in the large zerg….it was still do-able and eventually we cleared it out and then set about raising all the dead (bodies all over!!) I consider myself a pretty good player and never found it “easy-mode”…and several people around me were constantly dying so I dont’ think they thought it “easy” either…and this was maintained from when we had 3 all the way up to the zerg size, so I will say WELL done on the scaling aspect. Good players shouldn’t die, but it also did not completely overwhelm the not-so-good players to the point where they wanted to quit advancing in the tower.

Wanted to toss in my voice of this tower being a great deal of fun and yet challenging. I love how the instances blended in with the open world feel of the place. A tower has always been a great symbol of classic adventuring. Higher up you go, the more danger and rewarding it can be. A dungeon structure going up instead of down. Has a great feel to it and something I loved seeing in this game. Reminds me a bit of “Tower of Druaga” in many good ways.

I am looking forward to returning to it several times over during the coming weeks.

lol well then I think the dungeon instance should be a bit harder to solo than that. I have no real motivation to do it in a party now that I know how easy it is to solo, other than to try it as a party and have fun if it is considered fun. I love challenging content so I really was hyped up to fight this boss solo and see how well I can do but was kinda disappointed. it needs a slight buff imo, it should’ve hit spawned more mobs perhaps if the boss itself doesn’t hit harder cuz I know some classes who have to stay melee might not be able to tank too much more damage

Great look to environment and enemies. Good and interesting story development. But they forgot to make the gameplay content fun. Vanialla mobs and no mechanics here. Solo and group content are great…zerg content is fail. They think actually enjoy zerg content, but players only do it because it is more profitable than as soloist or with a few friends. Sadly this zerg content seems like it will never end.

Add me to the list of people impressed by the Nightmares Within content. The Tower is attractive to look at, memorable, and the Nightmare Chambers/Heart being soloable with character-specific lore helps build the story. The fact that the achievements are fairly light also means it’s easy to knock them out in a day or two of playing, and then return to your normal routine (or keep farming the Tower, as one likes).

My only wish? That the final battle with the Toxic Hybrid had Marjory/Kasmeer AND Rox/Braham with you. I so badly want to fight a boss with all four of my new friends beside me.

Incidentally, I think the difficulty of the Hybrid is spot on. He’s definitely soloable, but he can be trickier on certain builds. My Mesmer wiped once because she couldn’t destroy the Toxic Blooms fast enough to avoid it filling almost the entire room. I imagine I won’t have any issues on my Ranger (pet for tanking, Barrage and Axe for AoE damage), Ele (TONS of AoE), Warrior (incredible sustain) or Necro (minion army) though.

Love the tower…

A big thumbs up from me, for this entire event.

I think they got the difficulty spot on, the achievements are not a burden and its fun to run the tower, doing the nightmare chambers on the way.

For me the entire Kessex Hills/tower living story as to go down as one of the best from Anet…well done!

The only sad face from me, is it isn’t permanent…

It seems all the best living story chapters that I really like are ALWAYS TEMPORARY!

Molten Forge Dungeon – Temp, once only.
Mad Kings Dungeon – Temp, once only.
Queens Jubilee – Temp, once only.
Kessex Hills/Tower – Temp, once only.

Why? From my point of view are all the best bits of the LS always temporary, one shot deals? Its so sad…

Its boring just like all the others.

Meglobob.8620:

Love the tower…

A big thumbs up from me, for this entire event.

I think they got the difficulty spot on, the achievements are not a burden and its fun to run the tower, doing the nightmare chambers on the way.

For me the entire Kessex Hills/tower living story as to go down as one of the best from Anet…well done!

The only sad face from me, is it isn’t permanent…

It seems all the best living story chapters that I really like are ALWAYS TEMPORARY!

Molten Forge Dungeon – Temp, once only.
Mad Kings Dungeon – Temp, once only.
Queens Jubilee – Temp, once only.
Kessex Hills/Tower – Temp, once only.

Why? From my point of view are all the best bits of the LS always temporary, one shot deals? Its so sad…

True that.

Bring back the Scrying Pool, ANet.

First and second level you can run through solo. Third is an absolute pain, can be done solo but your timing needs to be spot on. Zerg is not required anywhere just sticking with a group of 3+ is good, easy kills, most will res (some won’t but meh they would just run past anyway).

I am usually quite critical about LS releases, but this one blew my mind.
I really enjoyed playing solo in most of the tower, and teaming up was also appreciated against harder bosses.
The instances were a blast.
I loved all of the art work.
The mob skills were very well designed ! It was really interesting to learn to fight each type of enemy and train to “perfect” them in solo.

Thanks!

Also Zephyr was one of my favorite releases. From what I understand Zephyr and Nightmare were both designed by the same team. Congratulation and many thanks to them!

I love the tower, the maze, the endless fighting… but i hate we have to face scarlet again… she has no taste, no fun, no charisma… its not even a villain one learn to hate, it’s just a boring, spoiled teenager.

Again, short, booring and easy as hell living story. Why this game is so kitten easy ;/ I understand that clicking 4 buttons can be to hard. But ending the whole event in 1h~ only by following the group? I even didn’t had to use spells, just AA. I though they’ll add new dung, with few cool lvls, but nope. Again grinding event This game suck, totally.

Thugem Chi.6189:

I’ve given the new update a chance and found it more frustrating and ridiculous than enjoyable. The sounds are cool but sounds don’t make a game. Here are some of the major problems you will run into:
*Unless you are in a large zerg group you have NO chance of getting through any section of this new content.
*Unless you have a fast char that just tries to run with the zerg you have no chance.
*Trying to figure out where you are going is kind of frustrating so you hope someone else knows.
*You will get swarmed with mobs of overpowered foes in tight areas that will be impossible to fight unless you are a large zerg.
*You will constantly get knocked down, stunned, etc, and half the time not even know why or where it is coming from.
I can see this content dying quickly because once players finish it I can’t see too many wanting to go through it over and over especially if there isn’t a zerg running it. Once the zergs die this content will die. This is really disappointing and a real let down. This content is not player oriented but rather only for large groups to run through hoping they can make it. I really miss the old days of Guild Wars and how it was player oriented and players had the opportunity to do things on their own and not be dependent on zerg groups.

been able to duo my way up the tower with no issues at all… I run a def. party support banner warrior with my wife’s glass cannon necro. Solo I can drop an elite (silver ring) mob.. slow but it can be done unless there’s a LOT of adds, in our duo we’ve taken on as many as five or six mobs, a few of them vets. While I consider that the limit of what our duo can do, we did do it.

if you chose to not run with the zerg you’ll have to pick your battles… especially if you’re running ’zerker gear / builds.

my experience:

I grouped with a random guy on floor 1 and he took the lead. We were seperated when I was under CC and he decided to run along a passing zerg. Now I managed to survive and went on. A few minutes later I got a pop-up to join an instance. I was confused, because I didn’t know about the instanced chambers. I thought that he somehow got to the last boss and went along with him. When we got the boss in there he left in an instant and I was thrown out of the instance without knowing if I left some reward inside untaken. I was thrown back into the tower and was alone. No one around, only angry mobs which killed me fast.

To sum it up: I was really confused about where I am and what I’m expected to do in there. Teleporting to instances which were not next to me was odd and going back was and being alone was frustrating.

A thing that annoyed me a bit: the behaviour of some guys to rush through the zone without taking a break to fight the mobs. When I ran with some people, we had a huge tail of mobs behind us and when I was knocked back by a mine… game over.

What I liked: challenging enemies. Challenging environment. It was really difficult to stay alive with a second player on level 3 while the poison-damage drained us of life fast. It wasn’t unfair though imho, since we were successful too a few times.

Story: Well, it felt odd to me that I had Braham & Co around me in the chambers but no sign of them outside (?). I didn’t know they were there until I met them in the instances. The story felt a bit stagnant, the cutscene at the end was a review of the things in the past but nothing about this weird creature (the final boss) or the krait. How were the Krait involved and what was this creature?

Ingame cutscene: I really loved the design of the final boss, but I couldn’t take a good look at him during the battle. A closeup-cutscene would have been really nice. The battle was too frantic/ too much effects as that I would have had enough time to take a good look. (I found nice screenshots in the web).

This patch should be rename to “TOWER OF MADNESS”!
Join today and you will at least get more than 3 stacks of cry of frustation.

Seriously. ARENANET just put ALL MONSTER LEVEL INTO 1 TINY SPACE! And their spawn late are so fast too.
And the ending is so bad. Why she just walk away like that? I hope SHE will not ruin Wintersday k? I want to meet Tixx again. :’(

I just wanted to hop in and say to ANet that I´m really enjoying the patch. This one gives me hope. Mechanically and atmospherically speaking, it´s just great. I love that even though there are zergs, they can be sepparated from one another. First time after a long time, there is this happines of seeing another players (although I rage for those that are just running by and don´t help at all, even if they could) other that “hey, there´s zerg! lets farm!”.
I also enjoy the moments when I´m alone and there is this susspesion and I have to run/sneak past some mobs, or just wait for other players to help, this is great.
And the bar thing, showing progress in real time and for first time ever (if not counting elections – those could use that type of bar too) we can see OUR progress and how it matters (you won´t fight? tower will stay as long as we don´t try harder). Ofc, some people will want to and will do whatever it takes so that it can stay the longest, but that´s just farmers mentality, I´m getting used to it.
Special mention goes to the ambient dialogue at the camp, really great to set up the atmosphere (the female quaggan makes me sad anytime I´m there).
Nightmare chambers – could use at least a little different interiors (not all the same) but I enjoy the random encounters. When I first fought Tybalt, I was really torn up since I loved him. Only problem with this is that the rae encounters (witn Order mentor, racial mentor and Trehearne) are too rare, only fought Tybalt so far and I´ve done looooots of those chambers. I just want to experience all the tidbits of it and it´s too hard and stereotypical to always have those aetherblades/toxic enemies to fight me. The text/VO references to characters personal story is also nice (even though the VO didn´t play for me, I only saw it in chat), good to see you ar tieing some of that things and give them more meaning
The final instance was amazing, not too hard but not too easy. I tried to solo it the other day and it was pretty chalenging, but not impossible and that´s always nice
The cut scene was well done, great art, and finally a story sumary for those who weren´t following LS for the whole time. Maybe the machine for the replay could be available in the cities too (on the Durmand Priory sites, maybe? ) and could be expanded upon for every bit of story to keep us up to date, that would be nice

Only bad thing I see is that the story and Scarlets´s character didn´t progressed at all again and we are in fact at square one once again. But as I saw somewhere, you are aware of that and there should be more info and story in upcoming release? Hope that is right, because the story didn´t move for almost a year now, so that´s surely not good. I´m also interested what´s up with the sylvari krait. Is the toxic plant some sort of Pale Tree after all, altered with some toxic chemistry?

But really, if you keep improving the releases in this way, there is hope for LS after all (I actually started to hate Scarlet in other way than “I don´t like her, let´s kill her”, so that´s nice change too. But she still needs some work…and needs to be killed ).
Anyway, you guys keep up the good work, looking forward to conclusion to the years worth building-up

The idea of the open world tower was good. Better than what we’ve had until now. The result isn’t good, though, because it’s just the same “zerg is best” mentality as the previous living stories, except it’s in a tower…

Story wise, we’ve learned nothing.
Gameplay wise, it’s just zerg, kill a champion, zerg, do an event, zerg…

I was happier about the modification to the permanent gathering tools than about the LS itself. It shows that the devs might actually be listening to some of our complaints, sometimes.

I agree, this was an amazing update, I am enjoying the hell out of it. Keep up the great work!

how can you people enjoy this? lol its the same thing over and over and over. and the story is so bad. that final cut-scene was like “YOU DON’T SAY, WHAT A PLOT TWIST”. It’s the same old zerg content filled with trash mobs, with small instances inside it, also filled with trash, uninteresting mobs…

edit: like this is probably the worst story i’ve seen in videogames i’ve played. Shes walks away (literally she just walked LOL) everytime. I swear she says the same thing everytime “good job getting here hurr durr you’ve surpassed my expectations hurr durr and now i’m gonna leave hurrrr but ill be back to get you ah ah ah ah”. cmon anet lol

I am shocked too. Never really cared about living story, used to clear the achievements to earn the reward then moved to ignoring it altogether. But man, I’m loving this update. The tower is amazing to play with a friend (untill the zerg arrives and spoils your fun), the bosses are challenging enough to provide fun, but not enough difficult to cause frustration. For the first time I’m doing LS because I find it fun and not because I want the rewards.

Also, previous chapter was quite cool, but not as good as this one.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

edit: also how can people be so gullible to fall for the “you can kill the tower” crap… it is a bar, that will fill slowly over the next 2 weeks until the next LS update launches. That will magically coincide with the destruction of the tower. It really has nothing to do with how many times you do the instance. That is just a cheap way to get you to grind it for 2 weeks.

Pretty much, it’s moving a consistent rate…this obviously means it’s on a timer.

If it were accurate that bar would have made a huge leap at the start when everyone jumped in on the instance and then been slowed down, that’s not what’s happened it’s moving at the exact same rate consistently…the bar represents a countdown not how many times it’s been completed.

wookiee.4631:

On the gameplay side of things, yeah, it’s unique and pretty good. I like how everyone can contribute to bringing the tower down. The way people have been zerging through it reminds me of Mad King’s Labyrinth, which I thought was also fun in short bouts. Also, the Gas mask skin is cool.

Story-wise, I finally have a detailed impression of Scarlet, and she’s annoying and out of place as crap. I hope the next big villain, and all afterward are, for lack of a better term, more “adult”. With her I feel like she’s the villain of a kid’s show who wandered into the GW universe. You can have “adult” villains who are crazy or comedic, but they should fit the tone of the game better.

My other big problem with the story and writing is the fact that nothing seems to have been accomplished again. I know nothing more about Scarlet’s plot or character, and the threat of the Toxic Alliance has been foiled. Everything’s back to square one. It feels like nothing changed in the story whatsoever. There’s no sense of escalation. Things happened and were then resolved.

First impression of Nightmares Within is just like most other releases, pretty good in terms of gameplay, really mediocre for the writing. I hope the next one has better writing. At some point we should be seeing the results of all the feedback Anet has received.

The real question about the story is, where did this thing come from, why did no one notice, why is all of kessex hills still business as usual and more importantly, what happens when its over? lol You would think that prior to this thing being rolled out in the first place there would be some happenings in kessex or elsewhere, things appearing, NPC’s commenting, changes in the surrounding areas missions etc to accommodate the eventual release of this, but it just pops in out of no where, which i imagine will be the same for when this is over, it will vanish like a fart in the wind.

What really made me laugh was the fact that, this gigantic thing appeared in the middle of the lake, and the centaurs and seraph and bandits around it, are still doing the same kitten they were doing before.

lunacrous.6751:

Vaxx.3178:

How is this different than any other LS update?

Queen Jubilee, Mad King Maze, Scarlet invasion, and now the Tower. Throw a bunch of mobs in one area, have everyone zerg. That recipe is getting old.

Why, the difference is that this time if you fall behind the zerg you can’t catch up! Hope you never have to go to the bathroom.

Really sounds like you are upset you cannot be lazy or play without having your brain turned on xD

And you can fall behind a zerg, heck 2-3 manning bosses and going through the levels is the most fun

I found the tower cool…the first 20 minutes!
Final boss is very well designed, i admit, and i loved cutscenes…BUT…i fell like being inside a vertical crown pavillion! And also with the same instance repeated 4X, instead of the minibosses with ‘’a tactical approach’’ we found in that other zergfest-instanced-place.
Anyway, new armors and weapons for gems only, and crappy rewards from the tower made this content a joke ! Let them drop, not be bought, omg!!!

Frenk the Vile.2596:

Anyway, new armors and weapons for gems only, and crappy rewards from the tower made this content a joke ! Let them drop, not be bought, omg!!!

Still better than RNG chests.
You could just convert gold into gems and buy the skin.

I’ve been enjoying this update too. I found the open world design that had a dungeon feel to it to be a lot of fun. The fact that you can group or not group as you want is excellent. The ability to unlock the different areas so you can travel to them instantly later is a good addition as well.

I love the content, but it’s so unrewarding. I don’t know why they’re so skimpy with loot in living world content if they’re going to keep ridiculous farm zones like Frostgorge Sound around. Shouldn’t living world content always be the best place to farm so people actually do it?

It was entertaining enough heading up the first time. Not having a transport golem at the last level is a real PITA though. Getting back up to the top every time is so tedious.

What’s so amazing again? Rehashing of old “living” stories and oh yeah scarlet again, and again she teleports away? This kind of amazing?

It’s a pretty big zone they’ve created, with new enemies, and its own bosses (some with unique mechanics). So yes, I would call that an amazing accomplishment. And it’s fun too. The achievements aren’t grindy, and the reward chest contains things that are worth the effort, and do not require to be bought from the gems store. Good job Anet, I really enjoy it. Now lets hope they don’t remove it again.

cesmode.4257:

All across these forums, If someone says “the game should be like X”, that person is met by a swarm of responses like “Well not everyone likes X”. “Well I want dungeons to be a bit harder!”…“Well not everyone likes harder. Some people like speedruns”. “I want open world content to require more strategy and less zerg”….“Well, not everyone likes to cooperate. Some people like to zerg to farm $$”.

You missed the most overused and silliest one by far:

“They said I could play the way I want yet they make me do X”

I see this oh so many times, from some line in their Manifesto (I think), that everyone latched onto and some refuse to let go, extrapolating it to back up any argument they want to make.

aspirine.6852:

What’s so amazing again? Rehashing of old “living” stories and oh yeah scarlet again, and again she teleports away? This kind of amazing?

You’re another one of these players who takes the Story and uses that as the sole basis for declaring something as bad.

We all know the story is terrible. That’s a fact. Such a small percentage of players find Scarlet compelling or interesting. Noone really cares for this mess of “alliances”. Ok?

Now ignore the story. Look at the update as a standalone piece of content, Story notwithstanding. In essence you have a new explorable zone (albeit small), you have new enemies that hit pretty hard and stack rather a lot of conditions which is why I’d wager many players find it difficult. Someone, somewhere likened it to the difficulty of FoW or UW in GW1, and I’d have to agree. Don’t you find that refreshing? I do. I find fighting my way up the tower a pretty enjoyable experience that I have done many times over so far.

This isn’t to say that they’ve not short changed us with the Living Story. I definitely feel they have. If they could channel their energies into releasing updates with full size, real world maps with good dynamic events, NPCs, and lore content I’d be much happier. Comparing this update to those of the last three months, however; seems to be it’s a substantial improvement. Looking at how much work must have gone into that new Edge of the Mists WvW map really depresses me. PvE deserves more explorable zones, surely? Anet? Anyone? Anet? Pleeeease?

Lopez.7369:

I love the content, but it’s so unrewarding. I don’t know why they’re so skimpy with loot in living world content if they’re going to keep ridiculous farm zones like Frostgorge Sound around. Shouldn’t living world content always be the best place to farm so people actually do it?

This is precisely my concern about the current player base. “No rewards: not interested”. It’s a point, a sad one, but a valid point nonetheless.

What you maybe forget, or do not realise, is that the majority of players from GW1 played through the game for the experience (not “XP”, the experience of playing through the game). We didn’t have special skins hurled at us at the end of each mission to “keep us interested”. It wasn’t needed. Prestige stuff was farmed for at the end, if that’s what you were into.

My fear is, even if they get much better at writing episodic content for the Living Story, it will not satisfy new players, or those from other MMOs who migrated to GW2. Those players, such as yourself it would seem, are too loot driven to really appreciate it.

It’s also worth noting the achievement system at this juncture. Too many grindy achievements and players complain about grind. Few achievements and players complain there is not enough content – mainly as they’re not “forced” to play through for a longer period of time in order to complete the meta achievement. It seems to be a catch-22 situation that ArenaNet can never win.

takatsu.9416:

and idk if it’s scaling but the toxin didn’t bring down my health either xD

One of my few non-story complaints with this update is that stupid 25-skillpoint heal skill.

Worthless. Totally worthless. It heals for nothing and, in the tower, where you’d think you’d need it, toxin is reapplied as fast as it’s removed by that skill anyway.

Why, Anet?

Maybe I’m jumping the gun and it will see more play in later releases.

I really like the new content. The tower is something fresh and a lot of work was put in it. I like that its not easy and it takes some time to get used to it. The last 2 updates were amazing.

This is the best update since the Bazaar of the Four Winds. I love the sense of exploring a new zone and all the little callbacks to past stories in it (even though there was not much actual story advancement).

The best part is the difficulty feels right on for open world group content. My girlfriend and I have really enjoyed having difficult content to duo that isn’t overwhelming and scales to whatever group we’re in whether it’s just the two of us, or if we’ve happened to make a friend along the way. Please MORE scalable content!

Speaking of making friends along the way, we did just that. This is the first open world content I’ve found that really encourages people to work together while still splitting us into smaller groups. If you’re of a sociable mindset you can really get a sense of camaraderie while fighting your way up the tower.

This update really shows what can be done with the open world and if Anet doesn’t forget the lessons they obviously learned in crafting the Nightmare Tower then I look forward to future updates.

A truly wonderful update that shows the kind of game play you can only get in GW2. I just wish it wasn’t going away. If we had several places like this with scalable content around the world that rotated weekly just like the mini-games rotate daily it’d great. Scalable content for small groups is something that really fits this game. And it’s a lot more fun than Frostgorge Sound farming.

A Massive Headache.1879:

I didn’t think there was a single good thing about this living story, it took everything bad from queens jubilee. There’s rewardless zerging to get to the top, cakewalk instances, I felt the cinematic was just pointless and dull yet still somehow cheesy. and everything that looks good is either in the cash shop or locked behind rng.

Pretty much this.