Guild Wars 2

I won’t break it down encounter by encounter, as that’s been done to death. I like the increased reliance on mechanics and paying attention to them in this dungeon. This post, however, is about the little touches that make it fun as an experience.

• The Journey The way this dungeon begins in one environment and gradually transitions to a completely alien environment is really satisfying. I truly feel like I went somewhere rather than dredged around identical tunnels. The set pieces are really nice and no part of it feels like “oh look, another corridor.”
• Cutscenes/Plot Aside from anyone’s personal feelings about scarlet, the way in which this dungeon tells a story that’s ancillary to the player’s own is well done. I don’t feel like I’m Caithe’s hired lackey, but rather that we happenned to show up at the same place, and have to different things going on. Heck, we actually saved her! This is far better than me doing all the work and the NPC taking all the credit. The cinematics to introduce the bosses were quite nice as well. Really amped up those fights and made them feel more important.
• Victory I really like that there’s and honest to goodness victory cinematic. After several hours, replacing ragequitters, and figuring out mechanics seeing all those lionguard drop in from the roof was just awesome. Running rampant through the panicked facility afterward was just icing on the cake. I like the attention paid to the “feel” of victory, the use of non-cilver mobs that we can just punt, and the overall smackdown and spoils of war feel of it. Winning hasn’t been this much fun since blowing up those pesky molten facilities. Keep thinking of really awesome victory sequences!
• Easter eggs Things like the bathing aetherblades, the fleeing fern dogs, or the hidden areas which contain the chests did a lot to make it feel like an actual place rather than a tunnel full of mobs.

Oh. Those two were just bathing? Ah.

WyldKat.4712:

Oh. Those two were just bathing? Ah.

Okay

“bathing”

Rated T for teen!

I loved the artwork of the dungeon…its flow was nicely done. A very beautiful dungeon…and it felt huge.

Agree with all of the above. However, I cannot enjoy the scenery because my FPS takes an incredible dip after Slick/Sparki every single time. I tried lowering graphics and it did not help. I never have FPS problems anywhere in game except here. Poorly optimized lighting for the lose.

ZBeeblebrox.4928:

Agree with all of the above. However, I cannot enjoy the scenery because my FPS takes an incredible dip after Slick/Sparki every single time. I tried lowering graphics and it did not help. I never have FPS problems anywhere in game except here. Poorly optimized lighting for the lose.

I was wondering if this happened to anyone else when I did it yesterday. The portion after Sparki / Slick hits my FPS harder than entire zergs during world bosses (and that’s with both character model detail and character model limit set to highest). I was dropping from my usual 25-30 FPS to like 7-8. Something definitely seems off there.

These are the bad pixel shaders inside the game. Certain effects (don’t have to cover the whole screen) have huge effect on fps as the shaders are very poorly written.