Guild Wars 2

This is not a QQ about difficulty, I do the dungeon a several times an evening and we never have a bother with it, from the moment you walk in till the last boss its fun and rather fast/easy. This is a complaint about the daftly dull/bland last boss.

Its not hard its just boring. 15mins for one fight where its the exact same mechanics is such a lazy design, neither of the bosses change tactics or gain new mechanics, the 1st minute and the last minute of the fight are literally the exact same.
The only thing that changes is the cannon phases get longer not even harder, and my god the 100seconds 3rd cannon phase lol, what the hell is that, we get it he has cannons, it drags on for so long I nearly feel like logging off the game :P

Molten facility was a great dungeon and I was hoping for more of it, Up till the last boss id say this is on par. Why couldn’t we have gotten 3 bosses, another boss with lasers or more trash with laser parts and shorten the last boss by 10mins. It kinda reeks of ‘oh crap’ we ran outa time/funds we had set aside for this dungeon and its a bit short and easy, I know lets copy-paste the last boss for an extra 10mins.

Very big missed opportunity, When MF vanished after two weeks I missed it greatly, I wont miss this is dungeon in the least, its not that it is bad its a new fresh and fun dungeon, but that last boss is one of the most boring/pointless fights Ive played in an mmo.

Yoke.4671:

but that last boss is one of the most boring/pointless fights Ive played in an mmo.

Did you ever tried the boss of the permanent dungeons ?

Riss.1536:

Yoke.4671:

but that last boss is one of the most boring/pointless fights Ive played in an mmo.

Did you ever tried the boss of the permanent dungeons ?

Not even the meatbags in HotW are as boring as AR final boss. The cannon phases could definately be shorted or cut 1 or 2 of them out entirely. I enjoyed the laser room, that was a pretty nice mechanic. The ideas for the final boss are alright, but it does drag on too much and you just become bored after one phase.

I have to completly agree with OP, why on earth make us remove the shield four times and go though 3 cannon barrages when 2 + 1 would have worked out just as well or even better giving Mai some extra challenge, the only challenge comes from tediousness and the resulting carelessness.

Laser boss is both more frustrating and challenging! It can be done very quick once mastered too … that’s good design.

Riss.1536:

Yoke.4671:

but that last boss is one of the most boring/pointless fights Ive played in an mmo.

Did you ever tried the boss of the permanent dungeons ?

Of course I have lol, And I get your point but as said already even the meatbags aren’t as boring as at least your not spending 50% of the time just running/standing still waiting for a phase to end.
Its just a shame they couldn’t work on-top of the Molten-facility success, that end boss was great fun, and looked great/felt rewarding to fight I always looked forward to it.
I cringe at the thought of the end-boss in AR, its a shame cause everything leading up to it is great.

Have to agree with OP as well. That last boss was boring with regards to repeating mechanics over and over. It made it feel like Mai had so much HP because I just couldn’t wait for her to die already.

The laser room was fun though! But I agree, MF final boss still takes the win!

Yoke.4671:

This is not a QQ about difficulty, I do the dungeon a several times an evening and we never have a bother with it, from the moment you walk in till the last boss its fun and rather fast/easy. This is a complaint about the daftly dull/bland last boss.

Its not hard its just boring. 15mins for one fight where its the exact same mechanics is such a lazy design, neither of the bosses change tactics or gain new mechanics, the 1st minute and the last minute of the fight are literally the exact same.
The only thing that changes is the cannon phases get longer not even harder, and my god the 100seconds 3rd cannon phase lol, what the hell is that, we get it he has cannons, it drags on for so long I nearly feel like logging off the game :P

Molten facility was a great dungeon and I was hoping for more of it, Up till the last boss id say this is on par. Why couldn’t we have gotten 3 bosses, another boss with lasers or more trash with laser parts and shorten the last boss by 10mins. It kinda reeks of ‘oh crap’ we ran outa time/funds we had set aside for this dungeon and its a bit short and easy, I know lets copy-paste the last boss for an extra 10mins.

Very big missed opportunity, When MF vanished after two weeks I missed it greatly, I wont miss this is dungeon in the least, its not that it is bad its a new fresh and fun dungeon, but that last boss is one of the most boring/pointless fights Ive played in an mmo.

I agree with this.

spoj.9672:

Riss.1536:

Yoke.4671:

but that last boss is one of the most boring/pointless fights Ive played in an mmo.

Did you ever tried the boss of the permanent dungeons ?

Not even the meatbags in HotW are as boring as AR final boss.

Still better mechanics than Jade Maw.

Taken from: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-guide-to-sky-pirates-of-tyria/

ArenaNet Guide

We’ll let you discover the specifics of the final encounter yourselves, but if you’ve been paying attention to mechanics used throughout the dungeon, you should find yourself equal to the task. Beware, though – Mai Trin’s deadly rapier and Horrik’s brutal cannon combine to pose quite the challenge!

Based on that, I fully expected the final boss battle to be a combination of everything we’d seen so far:
- Cannon Barrages
- Knock-Lock
- Laser Walls
- Jumping Pads
- Mines

…and it wasn’t.

Sarie.1630:

Taken from: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-guide-to-sky-pirates-of-tyria/

ArenaNet Guide

We’ll let you discover the specifics of the final encounter yourselves, but if you’ve been paying attention to mechanics used throughout the dungeon, you should find yourself equal to the task. Beware, though – Mai Trin’s deadly rapier and Horrik’s brutal cannon combine to pose quite the challenge!

Based on that, I fully expected the final boss battle to be a combination of everything we’d seen so far:
- Cannon Barrages
- Knock-Lock
- Laser Walls
- Jumping Pads
- Mines

…and it wasn’t.

Well the laser walls buffed the golems. The aoe debuffs Mai, so there are some similarities. (Using the mechanics to deal with the boss). Still pretty dissapointing.

Love this dungeon, good job Anet. Giving people with skill something to do

Up till the last boss, the dungeon was creative and fun, but Mai was nothing resembling fun. And yeah like most said, it was really the cannons that did it in. I didn’t mind having to trick her into getting her own shield blasted off, I found that kinda funny. However, the rat race around the room dodging spammed cannon blasts for a inappropriate amount of time was just bad, boring, and plain out anti-fun. The reason anyone ever died on it wasn’t that it was too hard, it was just too tedious, and when you drag out pointless parts of a fight like that people get fatigued and lose focus, at that point fun went out the window and jumped a bus to south america. I say this a million times over: fun and challenging is not defined by 1 shot mechanics, excessive endurance fights, or endless high hp trash mobs . Leave those things out of a dungeon and put in clever mechanics similar to the laser golems, or heck even the molten dungeon in it’s entirety, and you have yourself a fun dungeon. Just go back and read the feedback over the last few months. Speaks for itself.

Well if you have party of 5tanks it gonna be long and boring,bring 1-2pure dpser and it be fast ;P

i disagree with the “not fun” part, but it’s definitely on the long side. Mai should either have less immunity stacks, or less health, and horrik should definitely fire those barrages less times.

trim the fat of the battle, or else it loses the engagement halfway through.

I think the boss mechanic is just fine. Needs movement, a bit team coordination when reviving players and getting Mai into the AoEs. But it’s just too long. Reducing Mai’s healt by… don’t know, perhaps 33%? would make the fight less longbreathed. I really like the whole dungeon, the boss mechanics are cool (preliminary the laser walls!) and fun! Just Mai’s fight is too long.

I think overall the mechanics of the fight are good (I’m a pretty casual player & this was my first ever dungeon, so personally I was happy not to see the boss tactics change too wildly), but I agree that it’s just too long. As with many dynamic events when there’s a lot of people around, ANet needs to realize that lenght =/= difficulty.

The last fight is a bit long but it is all challenging for newcomers who don’t know the fights. When I go in with PUGs I need to revive lots of players many times and that keeps us all busy. This is a new temporary dungeon so players be won’t aware of all the ‘common knowledge’ tactics and it doesn’t have to be balanced for people who have done it 20 times.

I think a good boss fight should be about ~5 minutes, maybe 7.

10 is pushing it a bit.

15 ugh.

I mean the last barrage phase is a full two minutes by itself. lolwut?

I am going to have to agree with this. The length of the fight is WAY too long. If it was interesting, then I would have no issue, but just adding length to the same mechanic each phase change is not challenging, it is just lazy.

I completed the dungeon several times now.
I think 60-70% of players (casual or not) never completed the dungeon. And I blame it on the final barrage phase.
And I don’t see many people asking for group for it either.

Lucky.9421:

I think a good boss fight should be about ~5 minutes, maybe 7.

10 is pushing it a bit.

15 ugh.

A good boss encounter is when a player doesn’t start thinking "WTF is up with the length of this boss? When is it going end?.. .. ughh were only at 50%?!! " when a player starts saying these things to him/herself – then there is definitely something truly wrong with the encounter.

For me personally, when I kept seeing the “0’s” and “Immunes” during damage, I was more conscious of the time it’s taking to down the boss, and when the boss was down… it was more a …“ughh finally” which is not a good sign.

15mins is an okay length provided the encounter mechanics are good, WoW’s raid boss fights are verging on this length but they were interesting and unique, though I think their structure in the fights is significantly better.

If the last boss in this fight had a more apparent “burn” phase before all these immune, damage reduction or condition spam things occur, it might have helped with that sense of “progression” in the fight, rather than the feeling of chipping away slowly at a brick wall – death by a 1000 cuts…. you know what I mean?.

Completed it once and not interested in doing it ever again zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Anet – please put your dungeons in control of the Molten Furnace designers.

Between the last Sanctum boss, the click-and-grind achievements from the last two events, the wait-for-a-spawn fireworks show, the 1000s of RNG coffers, and the tiny amount of new story content, GW2’s been awfully tedious lately. It feels like my least-favorite parts of WoW.

With the original content, the Southsun event and Flame & Frost, I enjoyed the exploration and the journey as much as I enjoyed the rewards. With Dragon Bash and the Aetherblade Pirates? Not so much.

signahead.7281:

With the original content, the Southsun event and Flame & Frost, I enjoyed the exploration and the journey as much as I enjoyed the rewards. With Dragon Bash and the Aetherblade Pirates? Not so much.

This is true , and as the quality is so vast between the two I can only conclude they were done by different people.

Each phase is the same. RUN! cannon fire! ok back to dps. Such a dull fight… The Captain’s shield is the only cool mechanic this fight had. Cannot do the rest without simply wanting to leave and do something more enjoyable. Rather fight The Claw of Jormag than this. Atleast I get a guarunteed rare for all that time wasted.

It’s not long if you do it properly.

The last 20 times I tried, people just kept running around like headless checkens:
- Achievement descriptions are horribly bad, and not everyone comes to he forums to check the explanations, so they try to stay away from ALL aoes during the entire battle. Try to explain to them, and they’ll ignore you and do it wrong.
- You have to take out the Captain’s shield by luring her into Horrik’s AoEs, but people run away because of the achievement, so she stays with 10 stacks way too long.
- Mai has one-hit kill attacks and is able to deal too many conditions in too little time, so when you get people who can’t avoid her, you end up spending most of the battle reviving people, and as she uses those attacks mostly on people who are further away and people stays away so they won’t be hit by Horrik because they think that’ll give them the achievemement, they get hit all the time.
- During the barrages, they try to avoid all of them, and so they run in circles, so the barrages overlap and cover greater areas, so avoiding them becomes nearly impossible.
- Many visual effects during this battle are invisible in lower graphics settings. People can’t avoid what they can’t see.

This battle is the kind of battle that should stay for an Explorable path. Not the kind of battle for a temporary battle with achievements.
If anything, those achievements should have been put on hold until it’ a fractal, then put them as part of the fractal.
That way people can retry instad messing up the fight to get some achievements.

Now half the parties I get either die because they are trying to get the achievements and so do stupid things, or try to convince you to cheat the achievements and getting them by logging out while the rest of the party does the stuff.

This is the kind of battle that must be learned.
And there’s no time to learn when there’s an expiration date on the content and people is freaking out to get the achievements before they are dragged by heir families on vacation.

MithranArkanere.8957:

It’s not long if you do it properly.

This battle is the kind of battle that should stay for an Explorable path. Not the kind of battle for a temporary battle with achievements.
If anything, those achievements should have been put on hold until it’ a fractal, then put them as part of the fractal.
That way people can retry instad messing up the fight to get some achievements.

Now half the parties I get either die because they are trying to get the achievements and so do stupid things, or try to convince you to cheat the achievements and getting them by logging out while the rest of the party does the stuff.

This is the kind of battle that must be learned.
And there’s no time to learn when there’s an expiration date on the content and people is freaking out to get the achievements before they are dragged by heir families on vacation.

Exactly how I feel. Its a good dungeon. (I do agree the boss fight seems to drag out, mostly because of the barrage segments seem way too long; especially the second one, maybe I’m thinking of the third one…they all kind of ran together after a while.)

I think the dungeon is well made, but I also think its not what we should be seeing for “story.” With the current difficulty its quite hard for people that are boosted up to 80 to do this; they don’t have the gear and potentially don’t have the skill for this level of dungeon. But it is temporary content with story. Granted they have other things they can do. But the biggest issue I have with it, is it potentially cuts you off from talking to Mai to hear the end of the Aetherblade segment of the LS. I say ANet may be better off making two difficulties: explorable and story. I think difficulty wise, Molten Forge was perfect.

The achievements just kind of make it all even more frustrating for some.

Vegadonis.9154:

Love this dungeon, good job Anet. Giving people with skill something to do

Long fight =/= skill ??
(I agree up to that, I secretly love the zerk/CoF crowd say dungeon is impossible due to them not knowing what stability or a clean is)

MithranArkanere.8957:

It’s not long if you do it properly.

Takes us 11mins~ every time with no deaths, I assume that’s proper or close to it, don’t change fact it drags/is boring.

Sandbenders.5027:

I completed the dungeon several times now.
I think 60-70% of players (casual or not) never completed the dungeon. And I blame it on the final barrage phase.
And I don’t see many people asking for group for it either.

That’s more because the community as a whole is incredibly lazy and would rather just blindly run through a dungeon as fast as possible in full zerkers rather than use any actual semblance of brain activity to accomplish something.

OP and some of you took the words right out of my mouth. The dungeon was just fine until Mai’s fight. Seems like ANet is going to continue down the path of stupid and poorly thought out boss mechanics from here on out as they haven’t learned from the other dungeons. Shame too because now I won’t be able to see how this story arc ends (I play largely for story – well at least the Living Story). Story Mode dungeon bosses should not be this difficult/tedious. And before anyone comments on my abilities, I was one of two in the group who managed to never die on any of the cannon rounds (we attempted it four times) yet I can’t exactly blame the other three since the long duration makes it become difficult to keep focus and dodge properly.

Anyway I’m ranting so TL;DR: This dungeon boss speaks to Anet’s lack of capability to create fun and engaging boss fights.

Justin.7163:

Anyway I’m ranting so TL;DR: This dungeon boss speaks to Anet’s lack of capability to create fun and engaging boss fights.

Now I agree that the final boss fight takes a couple of interesting mechanics and stretches them out until they lose most of their fun. But that doesn’t mean that every boss fight has the same problem.

Frizz’s fight, for example, has great pacing. It zips along from one challenge to the next. It’s very challenging, especially while you’re learning the encounter. And when it ends, my first though is “Hooray!” not “Thank God it’s over!” To me, that is an excellent bit of gaming.

I feel the same way about most of the living story dungeon bosses. The weapons testing room and the final boss duo from Molten Facility are both great examples. Arena Net clearly has the chops to make fun, challenging, exciting MMO encounters. But that’s what makes the final Sky Pirates encounter so frustrating. Rather than a thrill, it’s a chore. And it doesn’t live up to GW2’s high standards.