Guild Wars 2

Good evening Arenanet (or morning, or noon, or afternoon depending on where you are).

My personal feelings about Scarlet are rather mixed. On the one hand, I get that she’s supposed to be a comic book villain — always there to provide the “evil” hand that drives a conflict. On the other hand, we get very little in the way of her characterization other than a condescending person who somehow has way too much power at her disposal, and doesn’t leave any kind of evidence regarding her motivations or how she even got this power. This recent update has done little to inform players about what kind of person she is, her motivation, how she got her power, or even why we should care about her as a character other than a conflict-provider. I’m glad we’re taking a break from her, and I hope it’s indefinite, as she has been really boring up until this point (I took a few months break [edit: Apparently a synonym for “break” is a censored word on the forum] from GW2 because the Living World story bored me so much).

The tower, as a zone, is pretty good on levels 1 and 2. Level 3 however has really managed to get my goat — unless you are with at least 3 people, if not a full group, you will die many many times. The random fears off ledges, combined with the debuff and random elite/veteran spawns plus the stuns/immobilizes make it very difficult to get through this part of the tower without a zerg to shove you forward. The weird thing is that this portion of the tower is that it is more difficult than the final instance (even scaled up for a group of 5). The final boss is a joke compared to that third section. While difficulty in a zone isn’t a bad thing per se, and can be a fun challenge (I think of the Aetherblade hideout), in this case it punishes players who prefer solo play or players who got left behind by the zerg.

Anyway, there’s my 2 cents. Feel free to comment, or don’t.