Guild Wars 2

Since ANet seems keen on feedback these days, my personal review of this patch. I’ll try to keep it short. [Edit: I failed…]

Overall impression: Positively surprised.

Honestly was expecting this to be another boring instance dungeon you do once or twice for the reward and then never touch again (coughcoughtwilightarborcoughcough), or an uninspired farm zone, but I was wrong.

The nightmare tower actually brings some new and interesting enemies, different, more interesting, encounters than “tank n’ spank”, and a very different level design with the “tower” structure (which, personally, I love). I love the “verticality” of it too, and that there are all the mini-instances spread around that you can do outside of following the path. All too often is the vertical element forgotten in level design these days. Good stuff.

I love that there are enemies that move around instead of simply running at you and hoping you die before they do – An improvement I’ve noticed with the new Toxic alliance mobs. I really like the encounter with the megalaser that keeps you moving around – the laser feels like the right amount of delay between “not fast enough to dodge while in combat” and “too slow”. I love the variety in enemies. The different bosses spread around, especially that some hit hard, others load you with conditions, and others are just swarms of small critters. I love, loooove, that you’re using less champions and more elites (which are not immune to CC/don’t have defiant). It’s hardly perfect yet, but oh so many steps forward. You’re definitely in the right direction there.

On a “new items” side of things, I appreciate that the new items are being sold directly and not through one of those asinine “RNG box” systems.

On the downside, enemies in the tower, in some areas, can be rather abusive of hard CC. It’s the old Orr problem – it’s not that it’s difficult, per say, it’s that it’s incredibly annoying to be tossed around all day. Still, it’s mostly on the third level, and it’s not that excessive, so it’s hardly a rampant problem.

Additionally, while the instances can be soloed, getting to the instances does seem to rely on having at least one more person due to the champion “gates” (and one or two harder parts to rush through or kill solo in the third level). All fine and dandy on release day when everyone’s rushing it, but in a week or so this might be an issue if you weren’t around at the start and just wanna get to the next level, but have a champion or two blocking your way.

Conversely, getting to the top of the tower is several orders of magnitude harder than beating the instance. Particular mention to the final boss which, despite being visually fantastic, is about as menacing as a kitten’s fart… Is it possible the hybrid is bugged? I swear the poor sod does, literally, no damage with half of his attacks…. It just makes the whole experience rather inconsistent.

Another downside are the rewards side of things. The rewards simply don’t match the time and effort it takes to get to the top. Additionally more different keys to collect are a pain in the kitten (and in the inventory). It’s not a huge deal, but did expect a bit better in that area, given that you, Arena Net, have made a big deal out of having identified that lack of appropriate reward was an issue in your game.

Unfortunately that leaves us with only the lowest point of the Nightmare Tower… The story.

And, hey hey, it’s Scarlet again! Does anyone honestly give a kitten about Scarlet anymore? She’s been a Saturday morning cartoon villain from the start, and every update just piles up on it. Uuuuuuuuuh, she did Flame and Frost! Uuuhh! Oh who gives a kitten? How many months has it been now? And all we found out is that she did it. Not even why… nothing. I honestly would have forgotten why I was supposed to care, except there’s really nothing to forget is there? Everytime she talks she comes across as a “I’m doing bad things cause I’m evil!!!” cartoon villain. She’s like a 12 year old’s version of a villain. She’s “dark” and “nightmary”! And she’s EVIL! And talks about EVIIL things all the time! And, and, and..she laughs a lot too! Eviiiiiil laugh!!!!….

1/2

2/2

See, you have two problems here. First is that, so far, Scarlet is just poorly written as a villain. At least based on what we have so far. As a rule of thumb any villain that’s aiming to be “evil”, is just a lame kitten uni-dimensional cartoon villain. There is no such a thing as “evil”. A good villain is never someone that is “being evil”. It’s someone that’s acting with a specific goal. Usually motivated by very understandable, if disagreeable, logic. The best villains are usually the ones that honestly believe they’re doing good.

Just look at that final cutscene in this update… Very pretty visually, but oh dear god it could not make Scarlet look any more like a generic villainous kitten ant du jour if it tried.. “I’ll get you next time gadget! Grrrr!”

Which brings us to the second problem: The living story is progressing way too slowly as far as narrative goes. Each update only happens every 2 weeks, and the amount of story development tends to be slim to none. It’s like trying to read a book three pages at a time every two weeks. It doesn’t work. Again, look at this update… what have we learned? That Scarlet is lying to the Krait (shock and awe, a villain is lying, I know) and that she was behind Flame and Frost too (… Yeah, that was really difficult to put together given recent events…). That’s it. I still don’t know who Scarlet is or why I’m supposed to care. It’s like the Star Wars prequels… 3 minutes of poor story for 2 hours of movie.

Overall, really good in the gameplay department, definitely going in the right direction. Rewards are not there yet, and could use a tweak here and there, but overall positive. Story is… barely there. Scarlet is still a lame kitten boring Saturday morning cartoon villain that needs to be unceremoniously put down so a better antagonist can step up to the stage.

As a side note: Blatant bending of even the in-game world’s laws of physics much? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the tower is about 2 or 3 times bigger inside than it is outside and all…. Vertically and horizontally. Whatever. Magic. It’s nice enough inside that I don’t mind ignoring that. Just a funny note.

Cheers.

Have players been feared right into the plant mines after expertly dodging them and dying, then having to wp back at the beginning and paying another 5g to get to the third floor and then having the exact same thing happen?

I think there’s just way too much going on. The poisons, the constantt CC by enemies, the mines, the turrets… It’s fine for those who constantly want to zerg around with a large group, but if you are stuck in one of those remote overflow and you dont have a choice but to solo the paths, at least downscale the difficulty according to the population in the map.

Overall, do enjoy the verticality of the instance and how there are places to explore. I think the Tower had much more potential but overall, it was a fun first day.

The rewards, as usual, is simply terrible. I have no incentive of running this after the first week when I have completed all the achievements. I want dungeon tokens to make a comeback with new dungeon gears, etc.

I must say I was slightly disappointed with the story. So we learn that Scarlet was the one who pulled the strings to get the Dredge and the Fire Legion together… yawn. How did she do it??? Perhaps a codex system should be placed into the game so that we can at least read up on on the lore.

Honestly, I thought that the only remotely interesting part of the patch were a few of the nightmare chambers. Unfortunately almost everything does almost zero damage and it’s all faceroll content in the instances (or annoying immob/cond spam on the way up the tower in open world) that I couldn’t take it seriously. A higher level of difficulty scale might have made things more interesting. The champion queen spider I liked somewhat.

Apparantly Anet didn’t learn anything about the TA Aetherpath and decided to make long, unskippable boring dialogue/cutscenes in the final instance. Then they expect people to repeat that instance twice after doing it the first time again having to go through the unskippable dialogue.

Gameplay wise I find this fun, its like a villain attempt at the Queen Jubilee.
There are plenty of places for groups to meet up and power through, I was able to ride a zerg to the save spots. The triforce keys aren’t that hard to get, and the matches aren’t too hard.

Storywise though I nailed it with my prediction as did many others. Scarlet says a bunch of static, we don’t get anywhere with her, we fight a hybrid, and she says “Next time Gadget, next tiiiiime.”

I know they tease that she’ll be back later, but hopefully she slips on some soap in the shower.

I’ll gladly eat my words if they ever give us a release where we can investigate her and learn about her motives outside of “burn it for the lulz”.

Please keep this going well into Wintersday.

You did not even try to keep it short ProxyDamage, do not lie.

Points you made that I agree with.

The Orr effect, being tossed around by enemy skills, this one is especially fear heavy, such tactics is not fun. Yes it is counter-able, but it forces player to play a handful of builds rather than what they want.

I do like enemies with a bit of brains and the ai seems to be a step in the right direction, only issue I have is the finisher move, it was a novelty at first, now it is a plain nuisance.

Instances are great solo content, but pointless if you can not get to said content without a group to clear the way. I agree 100%, especially with it being a big issue off peak or when people complete achievements and go play other content. (I spent twenty minutes earlier waiting for players to come help me clear a blocked path, I ended up just logging out.)

The rewards, I did not mind aether keys, you just had to collect one type, now it is three different types, it is just such a pain in the rear. I agree rewards are an issue and seldom do we get rewards proportional to the effort put in.

The Story, it is a Scarlet arc and as expected it is a tiresome waste of time. A handful of people do care about Scarlet, but judging by complaints in-game and on the forums, people have had enough of her. I agree with you, I just could not care less about this character and just want it to finally be over with.

What I disagree with;

It is an uninspired farm zone, it spawns champions often along the path, just wait till the zergs come and operate regularly. No mechanics can stop a champion train just zerging around and this zone seems well built to accommodate such gameplay.

Story progression, I do not entirely disagree with you but I must say that every two weeks is perfectly adequate time scale for the story progression The real issue is the quality and depth of the story, the quantity itself is not nearly enough to make it fully engaging.

I was relieved to get out of Orr, much in the same way I will be relieved to get out of the tower. It is a bad sign when someone just wants to get the achievements over with so they can move onto some place more aesthetically pleasing, more rewarding and with less trolling gameplay mechanics.

In all, a fairly disappointing release, optimistic for Wintersday though.

ProxyDamage.9826:

And, hey hey, it’s Scarlet again! Does anyone honestly give a kitten about Scarlet anymore? She’s been a Saturday morning cartoon villain from the start, and every update just piles up on it. Uuuuuuuuuh, she did Flame and Frost! Uuuhh! Oh who gives a kitten? How many months has it been now? And all we found out is that she did it. Not even why… nothing. I honestly would have forgotten why I was supposed to care, except there’s really nothing to forget is there? Everytime she talks she comes across as a “I’m doing bad things cause I’m evil!!!” cartoon villain. She’s like a 12 year old’s version of a villain. She’s “dark” and “nightmary”! And she’s EVIL! And talks about EVIIL things all the time! And, and, and..she laughs a lot too! Eviiiiiil laugh!!!!….

I liked the content in this patch, but every time Scarlet opened her mouth I couldn’t roll my eyes enough. Every time they try to “develop her character” she becomes more & more annoying.

So my thought on the patch:

Cofirms that a 14 days release cycle is to ambitious. We got one update now split into two parts and it’s still feels rushed and incomplete with a “kill 10 rats” attitude even though it had potential.

But let’s go to the details:

Map design of the labyrinth: actually well done. Good training ground for skipping mobs. Maybe a little bit too much mobs/mines. But still ok. It’s more enoyjable trying to run through it alone than in a big zerg. Liked the diving goggles and the big jumps down as well.

Chambers: I expected some mechanics here. Instead just a differnet NPC from the game’s past with standard attacks.. Get’s boring quicky. Even just the 10 chambers for the achievement felt already very grindy.

I was hoping here for maybe a re-appearance of Liadri or other foes from Queen’s Gauntlet. But I enjoyed that I could kill Trehearne. This made me smile. Also the difficulties in level is just more spores. Feels unfinished and rushed. And takes too long until you can enter again for the farmers.

Events: run of the mill group events recycling existing stuff. Very boring and actually breaks the fun in running to the top. Tower would have been better without them. Putting more and different NPCs in the chambers would have been more fun.

End Boss: way too easy. Doesn’t do any real damange nor has mechanisc. The adds are more dangerous. This one is obviously not completed. Maybe we face a final version of the hybrid as a large group event (similar to a dragon) once the tower is destroyed. Then it would made sense, that we are facing a “baby” version with no mechanics at the moment.

Rewards: Gas Mask is nice. The rest? Spore backpiece? Are you kidding? Obviously the devs ran out of time here.

And that’s it. Achievements itself are the basic “kill 10 rats”. Why not some “make it to the top in x seconds” kind of achievements that actually leverages the design of the tower or “do not get hit by a mine”. Right now the map design is not leveraged in any way.

Tri-Chest Keys: time-gating for buying keys sigh. So need to buy keys the next 30 days and then open 30 times the chest to probably get the mini.

All in all, I was finished with everything this patch has to offer in about 3 hours and it felt like “kill 10 rats” and extremely grindy even though it wasn’t a big grind.

After Halloween and Part I this one lowers the bar even worse. Only the map design stands out here. But having a good map artists doesn’t make it a good gaming experience. What is need are mechanics in boss fights. Don’t have to be complex, but at least something.

Let’s see what happens in 14 days and if Anet can lower the bar even more, even though I cannot really imaging how.

Aedelric.1287:

You did not even try to keep it short ProxyDamage, do not lie.

Sad part? I really did….

Aedelric.1287:

The Orr effect, being tossed around by enemy skills, this one is especially fear heavy, such tactics is not fun. Yes it is counter-able, but it forces player to play a handful of builds rather than what they want.

Just a note here: I don’t mind that it forces you to change build a bit. Especially if it forces you away from “Full damage no defense” spec. I like it when a challenge pushes a bit for a more specific build. I ran this tower with one friend in my “safe” warrior build (my defensive PvP build, but with full berserker gear), and while that’s hardly the most efficient, I thought Cleansing Ire was very important. I like that. I like that I finally took out my hammer for PvE for more than “because I like the look of Entropy”. Because I could actually stun and knock things around, which is very useful when you’re trying to run past 2 or 3 elites piled together.

My issue is that even with stability it’s gonna run out eventually, and it’s a pain to get knocked around too much. Fear > Stun Break > knockdown > stun break > knockback off a rafter gets old.

That said, in my view it was just a little excessive and only in some areas. I like that mobs have CC too, force you to stun break/stability. Maybe this is more of an issue of too many mobs piling up in some small areas more so than the CC they use specifically?

Gillian.1859:

I think there’s just way too much going on. The poisons, the constantt CC by enemies, the mines, the turrets… It’s fine for those who constantly want to zerg around with a large group, but if you are stuck in one of those remote overflow and you dont have a choice but to solo the paths, at least downscale the difficulty according to the population in the map.

I think “scaling” is the key here. I know it’s not the easiest thing in the world, but I think the tower would be greatly improved by better scaling. Down and upscaling in different areas. Some areas feel a little too easy to solo, while others feel a little too hard to solo…