Guild Wars 2

I ran Twilight Assault a few times – there were easy runs and difficult runs, fun and no-fun ones. For reference: I ran the Molten Facility 2 – 3 times a day. I ran Aetherpath 3 times in total so far.

I think that Twilight Assault could have been great with just some minor changes, which I am going to list below.
____________________________________

Interior Design

I really liked it. It has its own identity with the TA/Aetherblade style mix, but still feels like a part of Twilight Arbor.

Caithe

I liked the premise as well. Scarlet is baiting Caithe? Fair enoug. I’ve always liked Caithe and I’m happy to experience more story elements together with her. But after the initial enthusiasm came a bit of disappointment. Caithe is merely a voice from the off for most of the dungeon run. Apparently she’s doing some other important stuff, only showing up to tell the players what to do, but not helping in the actual fights at all. Eh.

Ooze Room

I appreciate the idea to put some puzzles into dungeons that aren’t combat-based. This one requires players to take auto-attack off, not use their aoe and remember the control skills, and that’s something I can get behind. That being said, for many PUGs this is an obstacle that just can’t be overcome within some players’ attention span.

Suggested tweak: The principle would have been the same with the two side of the door unlocked individually, without players having to time their two oozes, and made it easier for PUGs to go through.
Getting both oozes to the door at the same time would have been a great idea for an achievement, so people would be motivated to work on their teamwork, communication and syncrhonisation without it being a showstopper for (many) PUGs.

Sparki and Slick

This feels like a mid-boss fight. Sparki and Slick complement each other in a very similar way that the Berserker and the Dregd did at the end of MF. It worked for the MF and it works here. My main beef is that there is another mid-boss (foreman fight) that is more interesting. Sparki and Slick felt (to me) less connected to the dungeon, too. The oil-munching ooze was a nice touch, but ultimately the dungeon felt very long to the people I ran with and this part would have been the easiest to cut (or least sad to miss).

Suggested tweak: Remove the fight altogether and use the ooze-oil mechanic in a different dungeon path.

Destroying Hologram Generators

The mechanics are okay, and they’re supposed to prepare you for the end-boss. I accept that.
Story-wise, though, you shouldn’t have used the word hologram. Maybe should have used golems or something other that can actually explode (because, like, it doesn’t consist of pure light). When you think about what a hologram actually is, then destroying the generator IS destroying the hologram, not the other way round. And to create machinery that can be destroyed the easiest by the very thing it produces makes no sense at all.

Suggested tweak: Keep the mechanics, but use power generators & steam creatures or something instead of holograms.

Foreman Spur and his Aerobics Class

I liked this. I also like the idea of the extra achievement, although my group failed to get it (so far).
Sadly, the workers aren’t working on airships at all. If anything, it looks like a corporate yoga event.
Secondly, this room had the potential to be almost as awesome as the MF’s test chamber or the speech in SE story mode, if written with a little more humour.
The foreman fight itself was fine.
The achievement is fine.

Suggested tweaks: I realise that you needed to work with the existing animations, but you could’ve given them workbenches or something.
Secondly, adding humour to Spur’s lines both towards the workers, and later the players.

Disco Floor Room

Here’s a room that I love the idea of. It reminded me a lot of the platformers I used to play.
I’m not really sure how the holo-thing works though. Is the hologram supposed to de-spawn when you hit the floor? Because we don’t always have people in our group that have the range to aggro it from the platforms which makes the whole thing a bit of a mess.

Suggested tweak: Make the changes to the floor a little slower. Make sure the holo can be pulled by all classes, even if not traited for additional range.

Clockheart Boss Fight

Ugh. There is a lot here that made this fight not fun. I’m not saying make it easier, but make it more consistent/reliable. Secondly, less is more. There were too many mechanics mixed together here; a simpler fight would have sufficed.

For example, why kill all the holo projectors before the actual fight – it takes time and doesn’t add anything new to the fight. It feels like this was designed to just drag it out. Besides, what was that even good for if later in the fight we NEED holograms to take down the boss’ shield?

I don’t mind knockback as an effect that you can recover from, but getting knocked back 5 times in a row, into the middle platform, just takes you out of the fight completely. (As you can’t even be revived in there.)

The first wave of cogwheels felt “unfair” as no player made the decision to move out of melee range, it is simply where you are forced to start the fight.

Then sometimes the floor electrified and sometimes it didn’t. We tried to work out a pattern (i.e. when the Clockheart’s armour came on) but it was inconsistent. The hologram required to take down the shield sometimes spawned in an electrified sector, outside of some characters’ pull ranges.

The issues with holo projectors and rubberbanding have been pointed out repeatedly already.

Suggested changes:

• Ditch the holo projectors altogether.
• If you don’t want players to stand in the middle platform, seal it off with a barrier rather than electrifying it. This way players would not have access, but wouldn’t get tossed in by the clockheart either.
• Spawn the boss closer to the door, or have him not throw the initial batch of cogwheels.
• Stop it already with the chains of knockbacks that take players out of the fight.
• Spawn holograms inside pull range.

Aftermath

The lionguard coming through the ceiling was completely kitten and probably my favourite part about this dungeon path.

Secret Room

Love, love, love the concept of following Caith to Scarlet’s secret office. Love the suggestion box spawning another critter. Love the extra achievements.

Didn’t love how we were baited (along with Caithe) to go into that room and then nothing was revealed. It just… ended in the middle of it. Or maybe I missed it because I was hurried out of the room to get some of the other achievements?

Suggested changes: This scene deserved a cutscene. And some sort of “proper” conclusion.

Additional Achievements

I am really happy about these achievements being permanent / separate from the living story meta-achievement. So these can be done whenever later, without the pressure that for instance the Aetherblade Retreat put on us. You did this already with the Tequatle update. It’s great, please keep it this way!

The achievements themselves I think are fine… Other than that I think the double-ooze-synchronisation should have been one.
Not sure what the point of the Aether chests is since they don’t contain anything of value and it seems like they were put in simply to have an excuse to have something drop in PvE that generates attention towards the dungeon path. (Fair enough, but, meh.)
____________________________________

Summary

Slightly less fun than MF, felt “too long”, some parts put PUGs’ patience to the test too much, resulting in 3-4 hour runs. Less would have been more.
Good story, fun achievements.

Minor changes would have made this a fantastic and fun dungeon path with high replay value.