Guild Wars 2

Loved it.

Map is gorgeous.

Would have loved 3 story steps (yeah I know it’s usually 2 but one can keep hoping).

Looking forward to Episode 6 and the expansion.

“…all that glitters is not gold…”

100%
A++ for free content
It’s nice to have some challenge out in the open world every once in a while, I appreciate the complexity of the map. Obviously it is impossible to please everybody, a lot of people just want to run around mindlessly auto attacking and being rewarded for it. This map isn’t for them and they will let you know it lol I think I speak for the rest of us though, that want an engaging game, that you guys are doing a fantastic job and I hope you keep up this momentum.

Map design reminds me a lot more of Heart of Thorns, a big plus for me (using third axis, less flat). The only risk I see with this map (and saw with rising flames) is that there is quite some ‘dead space’ where it seems like you found something cool to explore but end up in an empty area or hole that’s not meant to be accessible. My feedback regarding that is like in HoT maps it may be worth reducing map complexity slightly in some spaces to avoid this.

Only having 4 hearts and 3 waypoints seems like a good balance to me, one wp for each ‘section’ of the map. New mastery is awesome and one of the best parts of exploration in the new map. The story went a bit fast with the introduced character, new druid collection is a nice method of acquiring lore.

I really don’t care for it, but won’t say I hate it. (1) I dislike the vertical maps aka Tangled Depths to me this is lazy design(2) very disappointed in needing 5 Masteries to get new skill, I had used all I had on the other maps so after doing story and killing worm I have 2 and can’t locate others without new skill to ascend (3) Story seems poor to me, the entire thing felt like lazy writing.

Positives:
-The Mastery is the my favorite one so far.
-The map is awesome to explore.
-The Spirit Collection has me intrigued and I love the story behind it.
-Kasmeer is back.
-The way we travled to the new map was awesome.
Map es beautifull and all the events are fluent and fun.

Negatives:
-The story is too short.
-(I bet anet will explain this in the future but…) How come we where able to defeat fake Lazarus since he is actually an extremely powerful entity.
-Kasmeer (she came back for 10min… just to disappear for the rest of the ep.)
-(The one that hurt me the most) Scruffy 2.0…. yes, he is in the ep…. but he was treated in the past as if he was his own character and Taimi’s companion… he should have gotten a bigger comeback.

Sure I’ll post some feedback for it completely fall on deaf ears.

Map – waaayyy too vertical, get the deisgners to investigate 3D map references/layouts. Make ALL PoI’s visible on the map layers.
Story end – not enough time to get the final enemy down with the mechanics in place, look at expanding that.
Collection – too many and far too vertical using map-only mechanics to get to some of them. Not my cup of fleas.
Jumping Puzzle… WTF?!?! Seriously do you have Josh Foreman designing this for you? It’s a sadist’s dream.

Ok you can take your ear muffs off now.

Episode 5 feedback -

Pros
o at least it’s something new finally

Cons
o Color is way over saturated and blocky – worst map ever
o Hate running dodging and stealthing to get to a POI only to find it’s on another level
o Story final battle was kinda tedious not fun… again.
o Oakhearts Reach looks fun except I’d need 13 mastery points and I’ve only got five
o Not enough waypoints; Lava Tubes seem designed to take you off course
o Out of about a dozen friends logged on not one is playing the map

So on a scale of one to ten I’d give it a C-

Meh

Out of the new season this is my favourite map so far. It really gave me the feeling of stepping in a primeval hidden jungle just like in some films. The design of the story instances was also stunning. And of course, more Taimi is always a plus. I still hope we also get more screen time of the other party members in future releases.

Liked the map overall, liked the story, but as many said, the reveal seamed a bit jarring. Other than that the only thing that really bugged me was the throat of the volcano sequence; I had a bear of a time finding my cursor and targeting circle.

I give it a D! I guess I was expecting something else! Something different. But (and maybe it is just me) it seems like you just are not even trying to come up with a good story/map? Maybe next time WOW us with something completely different. All I am seeing is more of the same old stuff. And TBH it is very boring and grindy.

Story – not really interested in the story element so only played to access the new map (which was slightly refreshing as I haven’t been able to get to BF yet due to that map’s access being story-locked. Frustrating).

Mastery – haven’t found how to access/find it yet. Loathe to check spoilers or Wiki.

Map – not my cup of tea. I really get frustrated with the jumping element in GW2 – if I wanted a platform game, I’d re-buy/install “Rainbow Islands”. Also, some of the terrain is weird in that you think you’re running up an incline, but, in fact, you are blocked by a mini ledge; and some rocks that look jump-able are misleadingly too high. And I disagree with it looking beautiful; a lot of core Tyria is much more easy on the eye.

Sorry guys, Lake Doric is orders of magnitude better. I won’t be going back to Draconis for a while.

All of this is opinion however, so please treat as such

I absolutely loved this new map. I have completion but haven’t finished the personal story yet. I found the reveal to be surprising and cant wait to finish it. Best map of season 3 by far! A few requests please :

- I love the new ancient magic skill and hope to see it in other maps going forward, like thermal tubes I think that this has a place in all new content so pls dont skip it!
- Has Anet considered putting in any new ranger pets to the new episodes? The new pets of HOT are awesome, I just think all new zones should have at least 1.

Thanks to all the Dev’s for their hard work! Season 3 has been amazing so far! Cant wait for episode 6!

Positives:
- Map concept is really cool, would like to see more “Depths of Tyria” maps like this.
- Arrival into new map is awesome.
- New mastery is A++ (please add it to other maps where theme feels appropriate aka Auric Basin/Verdant Brink/Tangled Depths)
- Guild decoration related to above also A++
- Kasmeer is finally back.
- The rewards in the new map are pretty cool.
- New roomie is awesome. Love his music collection.
- Is Taimi getting taller?

Negatives:
- Story too short, would have liked to have seen some other locations related to -that- individual used outside of Draconis Mons. Same with new transparent frenemies.
- Kasmeer here for all of five minutes.
- Scruffy 2.0 reveal maybe too soon?
- Would have loved to have seen more class based interactions in this EP.
- Would have loved to have seen a greater moral dilemma for characters with a vested interest in the main big bad. Especially those who chose that big bad for themselves. Similar to the Sylvari conundrum in Mordremoth’s house.
- No return journey to Rata Sum? (Unless I missed that NPC??)

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Sure I’ll post some feedback for it completely fall on deaf ears.

Map – waaayyy too vertical, get the deisgners to investigate 3D map references/layouts. Make ALL PoI’s visible on the map layers.
Story end – not enough time to get the final enemy down with the mechanics in place, look at expanding that.
Collection – too many and far too vertical using map-only mechanics to get to some of them. Not my cup of fleas.
Jumping Puzzle… WTF?!?! Seriously do you have Josh Foreman designing this for you? It’s a sadist’s dream.

Ok you can take your ear muffs off now.

Actually they did have Josh Foreman design the jumping puzzle. I think he designed the general map layout for that matter as well, but not sure on that

OriOri.8724:

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

Sure I’ll post some feedback for it completely fall on deaf ears.

Map – waaayyy too vertical, get the deisgners to investigate 3D map references/layouts. Make ALL PoI’s visible on the map layers.
Story end – not enough time to get the final enemy down with the mechanics in place, look at expanding that.
Collection – too many and far too vertical using map-only mechanics to get to some of them. Not my cup of fleas.
Jumping Puzzle… WTF?!?! Seriously do you have Josh Foreman designing this for you? It’s a sadist’s dream.

Ok you can take your ear muffs off now.

Actually they did have Josh Foreman design the jumping puzzle. I think he designed the general map layout for that matter as well, but not sure on that

Another find the secret pixel to land on exactly. Sorry but that is a major design flaw the the lead should have corrected it. So it’s a negative in from my perspective. Thank goodness for Mesmer portals.

Love it!

Love the story: the god reveal was something I’ve been betting on since the dragons were revealed for EotN! And I also got confirmation (again, more or less) of my theory of what would happen to Tyria if all the dragons were destroyed. Always fun to be right! XD

Map is great—love the look and the vertical design. Would like to have gotten to see the outside of the map from the peak of the volcano at the end of the jumping puzzle, though. That would have been AMAZING (and wouldn’t have to mean a lot of work, as long as you can see off into the distance and you couldn’t glide down from there).

Would like more waypoints. I know the point is to use the new mastery skills, but in the end I’d just like more waypoints on all these maps. I don’t think it’d hurt anything for the design.

The last story instance inside the volcano was great—looked gorgeous and very original, and I liked seeing the head over in the distance. I enjoyed the mechanics and falling.

As with the elixir in Bitterfrost frontier, I don’t think you should have to repeat the whole process of getting the fire shielding from the druids. Just do it once on any character and have that be forever, unless you’re repeating your story steps.

I thought the jumping puzzle was actually pretty easy this time. Hard to figure out what to do, but not hard to do it. Entrance was easy to find. The checkpoints make a very dramatic animation, so that’s good—better than some others where it’s not as obvious whether you’ve gotten it. I like the click functionality of it.

I love the new ancient magics skill. I want to use it everywhere.

75 words

Best map of LS3. Much better than Doric. Realllly hope to see more maps like this in the future. Liked how low wp numbers made travel, masteries, and adventuring feel more important. Loved variety and number of different mastery types in this map. Good variety for future maps.

Story seems short, but boy did it keep my interest. Lots of missing information, but I expect the last episode to feel in the gaps. Great job!

“Bonus”

Best mastery since gliding
Ty sooo much for adding LS3 currency to storage.
Was truly amazed a map of this quality could come out of a living world episode.
Can understand how people felt there was no build up but . . . . . I mean, it was suppose to be a surprise.
Loved the last fight to death and hope to see interaction like this in future raids.
Love the “direction” the story is taking us.
Would like to see more npcs you could talk to for acquiring lore in maps
Didn’t seam like there were enough events in this map, or they were spread out too much.
Needs to be more rewards besides trinkets, skins, and minis. For people who don’t like collections, I would like to see more rewards that provide “utility”.
After research, loved how there was foreshadowing I didn’t notice until after the big reveal, like divine magic used to protect Aurene and scorch marks on the ground next to the bloodstone explosion.

- New map is beautiful and has some impressive attention to detail. Love how the submarines turn up to unload troops at the staging area. Adore the water effects. Some great lore infused into the map too. If the next expansion maps look as good as this it’s going to be fantastic.

- The new mastery is what I’ve always wanted from this system – actually changing how we interact with the new environment. I really hope that the next expansion is full of this sort of thing. Bravo to whoever thought of this – give them a raise because they know what we want!

- I have to say I’m not really enjoying the story anymore. There’s just too many threads all over the place and it’s hard to get invested in any of it when the resolution to plot lines are so far off or potentially never going to happen. The reveal in this episode in particular was so random with no satisfying build-up for why this is occurring. There was no “ahah!” moment, just sort of “okay I guess it’s that thing from the Guild Wars universe”.

*Err that was 190 words. Sorry

Why are the commander always like ’’ let’s kill everything in our way, even if it’s our own gods ’’ !?
It make sense if the commander was Charr, Norn, Sylvari or Asura, but Human?!

Humans and the Six gods are something special, something they’re praying and granted blessings from.
Just because the kitten commander and the little annoying Taimi kitten has a theory that Balthazar will take over the world bla bla bla....
It’s one of OUR gods. We just can’t kill our god who has been a blessing for the humans for over 250 years and even more! (GW1~ years aswell)

Just imagine if Jesus Christ or Buddha would come to our world and then we must kill them because we BELIEVE that they are evil?
No but for real....

I am a huge fan of the Six gods, as my favorite race is human and their lore. I just hate how lazy ANet turn something like ... oh I don’t know, a GOD to evil just like that and we have to kill them!?

I simply don’t get it. As the commander (in my case, my ’main’ character is a human) shouldn’t even consider to kill one of our god just like that!!

I was excepting the human characters would be more how Kasmeer reacted when we revealed Lazarus’ imposter’s identity.
Atleast that would make sense!
They are our gods, not a kitten dragon or something we simply need to kill just like that and then happy endings. >_<

If the 2nd Expansion will give us more lore and meeting the rest of the Six gods, I hope the human characters will have their special and unique way, being affected by the influence of the Gods’ return to Tyria, just like Sylvari characters had in the 1st Expansion.

Extra to the LW story:
Otherwise the story was really exciting, map was a well-done as always and the mastery is so much fun!
Cool that we actually got to see Primordus in a close shot but abit disappointment that we put Primordus back to sleep once again....
I love the new make-over of Kasmeer and she finally managed to get her noble Lady title!
Too bad we only got to see her for about 5 min....

The few major concerns I have are:

- Needing the mastery to get the mastery points. If you don’t have the points at the start of the story, how are you supposed to get them from the map when they require the mastery to reach them?

- Green “*” marker for where to go next does not show on the main map “M” . The only way to see where to go is to scroll the mini map to the location. I’d much rather have them on the main map to see where to go next.

- Need unlimited gliding to complete some of the achievements and that is problematic for newer people as they might have placed all their masteries into other lines and this locks them out of certain achievements or makes them group up to get them (not all people are going to try this).

Alga.6498:

Why are the commander always like ‘’ [i]let’s kill everything in our way, even if it’s our own gods[/i] ’’ !?
It make sense if the commander was Charr, Norn, Sylvari or Asura, but Human?!

Humans and the Six gods are something special, something they’re praying and granted blessings from.
Just because the kitten commander and the little annoying Taimi kitten has a theory that Balthazar will take over the world bla bla bla….
It’s one of OUR gods. We just can’t kill our god who has been a blessing for the humans for over 250 years and even more! (GW1~ years aswell)

Just imagine if Jesus Christ or Buddha would come to our world and then we must kill them because we BELIEVE that they are evil?
No but for real….

I am a huge fan of the Six gods, as my favorite race is human and their lore. I just hate how lazy ANet turn something like … oh I don’t know, a GOD to evil just like that and we have to kill them!?

I simply don’t get it. As the commander (in my case, my ‘main’ character is a human) shouldn’t even consider to kill one of our god just like that!!

I was excepting the human characters would be more how Kasmeer reacted when we revealed Lazarus’ imposter’s identity.
Atleast that would make sense!
They are our gods, not a kitten dragon or something we simply need to kill just like that and then happy endings. >_<

If the 2nd Expansion will give us more lore and meeting the rest of the Six gods, I hope the human characters will have their special and unique way, being affected by the influence of the Gods’ return to Tyria, just like Sylvari characters had in the 1st Expansion.

I suspect the episode 6 “reveal” of the next expac will show that Balthazar was not really being evil, just appearing to be. He did, after all, say that there was something bigger going on than Tyria. Maybe Menzies (or Dhuum, or both) is back.

My only complaint with Balthazar is that he doesn’t acknowledge if your character is human. I used the “Hounds of Balthazar” elite skill against his hounds, and he said nothing, which was a massive disappointment.

+ The new map is amazing and it’s so much fun to explore it! I really like all of those different biomes. First I was a bit annoyed that there were only 3 waypoints on this map, but it’s possible to reach all heart quests and events by thermal tubes or gliding, so it doesn’t matter at all.
+ The heart quests are nice.
+ The events on this map are very entertaining (especially the Lava Worm, the Spirit of Nature and the Destroyer Lieutnants). It’s cool that it is possible to attack the Lava Worm this time, it was a bit boring in Ember Bay.
+ I also like the new mastery, it’s one of the best masteries in my opinion. Please add it to other maps!
+ The new pauldrons skin looks really good.
+ Two new titles!
+ As far as I know, no Firestone is hidden in the Jumping Puzzle… thank you.
+ Thank you for adding the Bloodstone Shards etc. to the material storage!

+/- The story was okay and I didn’t mind that it was so short. But I think there should have been an extra dialogue between B. and human characters. The last fight was a bit confusing for me and I didn’t know what I had to do with B.’s pets, and why.

- The volcano looked a bit strange inside and outside.
- The Lava Worm is often obstructed, which is a bit annoying.
- I don’t want to be forced to begin the story to enter a new map. PLEASE make it possible in the future to enter new maps without doing the story! I’m always so excited about the new map that I can’t concentrate on the beginning of the story.

Thank you so much for your hard work and for this amazing update!

My comments about Ep. 5:

• the map is amazing
• the spiderman-skill (vine grapple hook) is soooo much fun, I love it.
• the story-part is too short
• it is nice that the map-currencies are now in material-storage and not in inventory, but better would be to make them currency in the wallet
• I like the “rock star” title and how you have to use the spiderman-skill to complete the collection for it
• I don’t like the german translation of the “rock star” title. It is “Meister der Steine” (master of stones) which has a different meaning. It should be “rock star” also in the german version.

As a charr player I really enjoyed the story reveal. Just wished my character had racial themed lines like “We’ve killed gods before,” when Taimi is fretting over what to do about B. Overall I really liked it though.

The map itself is stunning. 3 layers, 3 areas each, with many shortcuts via the lava express and the new mastery. After the last two more “generic” LS maps, I absolutely adore this one. It has a Tangled Mess vibe, in a good way! Easily my favorite of the LS maps now.

I thought the story was solid. I like that even after finishing the instanced story bits and pieces of the area’s background are again told via the collections/achievements.

As for the story instances itself I really liked the ascent into the volcano gameplay wise. Taimi vs Phlunt, I found their conversations the best part of the story.

Keep adding more fun things to do with the environment. Connect fire with cannonballs via patches of oil = explosion! Big one even.

The jumping puzzle.

The refreshing pools are a very nice idea. So much better than to jump into the lava to be teleported back to your checkpoint in Ember Bay. And you actually got some feedback once you reached a checkpoint.

It was not very clear that you’re supposed to grapple to the glowing hot parts of the volcano and actually walk on it at the very beginning. I looked out for regular rock platforms for hours.

The end was a bit abrupt. Suddenly you stand in front of the chest in a little cave. But this is just nitpicking, I do love it!

Overall, not a fan of this map.

+ Looks pretty enough.
+ New mastery is a fun toy. (Obligatory “but”…)
+ Bonus +1 for allowing the vine whip to be used in mid flight and having the oakheart nodes refresh on fly-bys. Reminds me of the “little things” the devs think of that make me smile.
+ Good to have plenty of flight again. (And yet…)

[Suggestion]: It might have been better to have a waypoint at the highest elevation. Not just Heathen’s Hold, but one closer to the map ceiling, so it’s easier to warp up and glide down to some of the spots on the map.

• Not sure if I can say good or bad here, but the map is pretty huge. It might have been nice to have the gliding skills from Bloodstone Fen, even just the #5 horizontal burst.

- Navigating the map is a chore. I don’t blame the map design itself so much as the mapping tools we have available, which are still not up to snuff on portraying/conveying information for multilevel, complex maps. I sincerely hope an upgrade is pending for the expansion.

- (Mastery; Fun toy but…) Climbing/collision detection seems especially spotty on this map, even beyond my low expectations of most MMOs or GW2 in general. It was my biggest source of frustration on the map.
- (Mastery; Fun toy but…) Yet another mastery/gimmick that removes our weapon skills. With the Special Action button available, this really shouldn’t have been an issue.

- Not just Draconis Mons, but all the new maps: Updrafts don’t convey as accurately as they do in the main four HoT zones. I’ll be in the lowest swirly bits and not catch the updraft, where in the original HoT zones, it would have triggered.

- Open world encounters were . . uninspiring? Lots of rehash, thankfully nothing too overpowered. Between wind riders and mushrooms, I continue to believe someone on some team, somewhere, grabs the lotion when a player takes a 5-second knockdown. Reminds me that I need to write that treatise on how constant CC actually devalues Stability.

- Story yielded some confusing motivations and was really short. Final fight would have been difficult if I weren’t Commander/Defense-spec’d Warrior.

4/10 is what I give this episode. The story feels like it’s a Saturday morning cartoon aimed at 7 year olds. The plot twist with little build up aims to provoke shock and awe while failing to deliver either. Two dragons swept under the rug for the sake of not having dragon focused X-pacs, at least that’s how it seems to me. Could you tell the writers to not lock the mature stories behind raids and leavimg the rest of us with the kiddie books?

As far as the new map, the second I saw it was more multi tier nonsense, I just logged out.

My judgement so far: 6/10
The story wasn’t that bad (though rather short and at some points rather dumb) and the map looks beautiful, but is a bloody vertical map like TD. That part just sucks. Don’t know whether I’ll even complete it once.

The more time I spend on this map, the more I love it. Its an excellent map, love the pace of events. If you happen to miss one, you only need to wait a few minutes for it to happen again

The grapple vine is amazing! I have completely lost track of time just patiently exploring and seeing what I can do with this new mastery. It’s so incredible.

I really like the new map. At first I was grumbling to myself about “TD 2.0”, but once I got used to the map and realized it’s nowhere near as annoying as TD to navigate through, I started to really like it. I really like the new Mastery, too, especially when combined with gliding. That being said, it is seriously easy to get yourself stuck in a wall or a rock with the new Mastery. There are also a couple of places where you can accidentally find yourself outside of the map boundaries.

As far as the story missions go, I generally enjoyed them. The parts that were in the open world flowed nicely, and the final instance was really neat. The episode feels very, very short, though. The big reveal coming in the very first instance was jarring, as were the reactions of certain NPCs; hopefully, the next chapter and the coming expansion will shed more light on that, but right now, it just feels a bit disjointed and odd. I liked the mechanics of the fights in the first and last instances. I also liked the dialogue of this episode.

One last note with spoilers: I seriously loved that we meet up with M.O.X., particularly that he comes home with us and is now part of our home instance. It was also really neat to do the Zinn achievement and hear what happened to him.

For what it’s worth….

Pro

• GW1 references- glad you guys didn’t forget about those great times
• Interaction / dialogues between us and Taimi, Kas, etc.- well done and well voice acting (as usual, but still worth mentioning)
• story progress not gated behind grinding the new mastery

Con

• new map is just so…. boring and anoying. Another vertical fiesta like a toned down version of TD. Since fighting there seems even more irrelevant than in the rest of the world, I soon found myself running around in a hurry, trying to reach my desired destination (and still getting lost more often than not)
• new map seems totally out of place. Green jungle on the ring of fire? Did I miss something?! And even if there’s an explenation lore-wise for this- the parts with the bright colors seem way too… colorful, while the others feel way to empty and boring
• adding another mastery level whitout letting people gather the required masterypoints “on the fly” as in previous episodes
• the overall story feels… weird. It all started with “oh crap, another two elder dragons are about to awake, kitten, what shall we do?!” “may be we can make them fight each other let’s see…” “oh, what the- another suspicious foe from the past shows up” and it all got embeded well within the Krytan part of the story. So far so good. But this story twist now and the reaction of the player character feels all wrong and doesn’t seem to be thought out well
• there’s almost 0 fighting involved in this episode, just running around, doing some gimmicky stuff and you’re done. Very disappointing

Story spoilers ahead. Also, I probably went over my 75 word limit. I am sorry. Communication is hard.

I don’t enjoy the map. I literally get a headache when I try to find all vistas and points of interest. You see the unmapped points, but they are unreachable. It’s as bad as Tangled Depth, only much langer, longer walks, more time wasted.

The minimap sends you on a fool’s errand: you think you reach the south poi by walking that certain way, because it seems the same height. But it isn’t. Is it above? Is it below? But there is nothing. So you must search youtube for the way. That’s not how I like to play a computer game.

Nash.2681:

• new map seems totally out of place. Green jungle on the ring of fire? Did I miss something?!

If you find all the Zinn’s recorders and listen to them, you’ll find the lore explanation. There’s a short story embodied in those sound bites.

I like the map quite a bit, and the rich collection of achievements to work on. I really like the Druid backpiece. I’m one of the people who liked Tangled Depths as well.

Glad to have storage for the LS4 map currencies.

The first part of the LS episode was good, but I found the ending with the 3 levels of shields to be pretty weak and repetitive.

One thing I don’t like is the way the renown Hearts seem to take 24 hours to reset. I think they should they should reset at server reset.

Loved the story, still trying to get the hang of the map. The only thing I will complain about is those kitten hiccups.
I hated that so much at the end of season one. It was all dramatic and awesome, and then it all gets ruined by 50 million hiccups…
At least they toned them down a bit. I know it’s a petty thing, I’m sorry, it’s just annoying to hear.

Love the new map. It’s beautiful and I don’t have a problem with navigation (I only had an issue with one PoI, but that happens all over Tyria…).

I’m reserving judgement on the story until the next episode comes out, as (hopefully) there will be more explanation of what happened. But the big reveal and the change in pace was great and well done (as a sylvari character… not so sure about what it would have been like for humans).

Finally, this new mastery is my favourite thing and now I miss it when I go into other maps! However, I do wish the ground targeting circle went red if you have no line of sight to where you’re going. Several times I’ve wasted my last charge because I didn’t realise there was a little piece of rock in the way and it latched onto that instead (it’s harder to see the trajectory when not in first-person mode).

You should have changed the dialogue for the human pact commander when talking about/with Balt, the way you introduced him was very bad in my opinion. He looks like just another very strong character even though it is actually the first time a human god appears. All in all it comes very unrealistic, I mean the gods play such a huge role in the human universe. But I get it you may not have the money to pay these voice actors. In my opinion, you could at least in divinitys reach do some sort of extra dialogue for the npcs there who talk about the recent events, this would give a lot more realism and credibility. This may be done as a part of a current event.

The Good

• The new map is fantastic, particularly the fact that it effectively merges two biomes together within a cohesive theme. Easily one of the better maps released so far.
• The new mastery is fun and the map is designed well to take advantage of it.
• The final fight was engaging and a relatively cool set piece.

The Bad

• The story is dreadful, not in terms of content but in ramifications. There are two possible outcomes.

The new map is very pretty and all.
But I hate how long it takes to get to certain areas from a WP.

There is one particular champion devourer event, that is required for an achievement, which can take 10 minutes to run to.

The town/outposts in gw1, and the waypoints in gw2 are the best part of tyria. Having to run marathons to get to content is not fun. Waiting for people to run marathons to kill a big champion is not fun.

The map could seriously do with another couple of waypoints in it. As it is, replay is very boring. “Exploring” is only fun the first handful of times. After that it becomes tedious.

Please do not follow this trend for the next expansion, or those maps will be absolutely horrible to attempt to replay. If leaks are to be believed – no, adding mounts will not make this somehow better. Running faster though voids does not make a map in any way better or more fun.

also, nuhock wallows (aka, some kind of teleporter) >>>>> any form of mount or run faster thing.

Lenaro.5924:

The Good

• The new map is fantastic, particularly the fact that it effectively merges two biomes together within a cohesive theme. Easily one of the better maps released so far.
• The new mastery is fun and the map is designed well to take advantage of it.
• The final fight was engaging and a relatively cool set piece.

The Bad

• The story is dreadful, not in terms of content but in ramifications. There are two possible outcomes.

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The first, it’s not actually Balthazar – which is an awful reveal as all it amounts to is a cheap bait and switch. The second, it was actually Balthazar – this has massive ramifications to the scope of the world. We just fought and beat a “god”.

Let’s assume the “gods” are simply powerful entities – why are we equivalently powerful? Why is anything a threat following this? Even if you suggest the god was weakened, this episode spiked the player power level massively.

The player has killed 2 elder dragons. Its not like he wasn’t already extremely powerful. Mechanics wise, its not possible to show how powerful the PC actually is in game, since it would trivialize everything. They definitely aren’t on the level of a God, but they aren’t exactly weak either. And if you followed the dialogue, Balthazar hasn’t just been weakened, he’s had his energy drained. Notice also that we weren’t blinded when we saw him. This means that his power is almost all gone, to the point where he might not even be one of the Six human gods anymore. Notice that he was too weak to fight us himself, he had to summon his hounds to do the dirty work while he was focused on charging up again. If he had the power to do so, he could easily have killed us himself before powering up.

Additionally, multiple components make no sense, like how Balthazar hired a massive army of Charr, of all things, as mercenaries. The world doesn’t suggest those options exist. Did he pay them? How? Why would they accept? Your character is incredibly well known. When did an army sign up agreeing to fight them?

You answered your own question. They are mercenaries, they work for the highest bidder. It wouldn’t matter that he was Balthazar as long as he kept paying them. And again, mercenaries. They obviously weren’t working for the Pact so they don’t care to follow the PC. They might even resent him. And one last time, mercenaries. They always think they are going to win, in every game, in every story. Not exactly the smartest bunch, but they definitely would think that they would be able to beat us if it came to that

The fact that any humans allowed us to fight Balthazar is awkward. The fact that we chose to is awkward. If a god of any practicing religion showed up and asked for my fancy new toy I would give it to him, doesn’t matter if I don’t believe in that religion. The fact that we immediately antagonized/attacked Balthazar is weird. I’m assuming this is all a setup to introduce some issue with the human pantheon, but it just comes across as odd in an episodic fashion.

Weird? Maybe. Gamebreaking hole in the lore? No. Remember, at this point our PC has fought, and beaten, 2 elder dragons. He doesn’t exactly get intimated or scared easily. All he knows is that he has a goal, and Balthazar is getting in the way of that, and that Balthazar is a threat.

There’s doubtless an intention to tie loose ends together and create something out of this story, but you’re not adding this story in a format which enables that. If this were an expansion a surprise twist followed by enlightening the players can work. This is an episode, it should largely be self-contained. As it stands, this massively undercuts any worldbuilding attempts in the future. If you were really hell-bent on the idea of introducing Balthazar you could’ve done it sensibly and in a more interesting manner. As stands, there was nothing suggestive of Lazarus being a “god” and it simply feels out of left field while adding nothing interesting.

This is just your opinion. There were plenty of hints that Lazarus might be agod.
For one, he survived the bloodstone explosion. For another, he actually did use Divine fire in episode 2, something which I believe only the Six can use

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The lack of any thing to do with wvw and the god of war seems a bit odd.

Good episode. Interesting storyline, if a bit rushed.

Fighting in this episode was the best-judged for a long time. The final battle was, for once, reasonably clearly explained and didn’t outstay its welcome. For the first time in a very long time I feel I would enjoy doing this on a second character (I gave up doing that mid-LS2). Please keep future episodes to this scaled-down, less attritional format.

On the other hand it really was short, especially considering the repetition (three barriers, four shrines etc). I absolutely do not want you to pad these with tedious long boss fights and I realize voice acting is probably a major cost factor, but we could do with more actual story…

The new map is top-class. Far better than Lake Doric and probably the best of the season, although I like them all in their way.

The thing is, though, good as this was by the standards of previous episodes, it still took one short session to complete the narrative and one more to complete the map. Yes, I am going to go back to the map a few more times to get the currency to buy some of the minis but with the best will in the world there’s 7-10 days’ gameplay in this. That’s not much to stretch across 2-3 months, is it?

Keep knocking out those Current Events I say. I found one of those every two weeks made a huge difference to feeling we were getting regular content. In fact, if I had to choose between bi-weekly current events and Living Story I’d say scrap LS and focus on those events.

Map was amazing again.

Story gameplay had great instances but outside of that it was “talk to this person”

Story, lore wise, was bad. Making the elder dragons nap at the end made everything we did feel moot. The Balthazar twist was stupid because if he showed up as Balthazar, we would trust him completely, as he is an ally of humanity, and the betrayal would’ve been surprising.

I can now put LW3 tokens in the materials bank. This was my single biggest complaint from each episode and now is resolved. Best update that could have happened short of having a “keyring” for all those other tokens clogging up my inventory.

A+ rating based on tokens in the materials bank alone. The mechanics of the final fight were cool too (gliding up!)

I’m going to echo what others have said: The map is great! I spent the first few hours just wandering around.

As for the story, It was a bit short, and “big reveal” notwithstanding, left a lot to be desired. Below are my issues with it:

1. I soloed the whole thing and died maybe once or twice. I am in full exotics, with ascended necklace and that’s it. At this level of the LS, I should have had a lot more trouble as a solo player.

2. It took me a while to catch up to this episode, but I am pretty sure I forgot to do something, because it sure seemed like it was short. It took me all of a couple hours to finish it, when it should have kept me busy for a day or two at least.

3. It was anticlimactic. It really didn’t matter who Laz really was, the whole end-game battle between him and us was lackluster and unsatisfying.

So, there you have it, my opinion. I certainly hope that the remainder of this season is better than this episode.

Aside from everything else that was done in this episode that I enjoyed the single thing I am most thankful for is the idea of a glitch in time as in the last instance allowing you to skip dialogue and tutorial-esque stuff on repeat runs going after a certain achievement. I hope you guys remember that idea going forward for future instanced content as well

XP Empowerment ? Really? The most worthless possible boost for endgame content? Karma Empowerment is 100x better. Balthazar as the big bad? REALLY felt contrived. Totally something pulled out of far left field just to be a “surprise”. Absolutely no story to back it up.

Plus, another hard to traverse map that makes it difficult to reach a boss fight before it’s over. IF you can figure out where the boss is in the first place! Which is also a comment on how quickly most bosses in the map melt to 4-5 players. Diving as a daily achievement? Also not cool.

I HATE the final section barrier mechanics. Once was annoying, twice was infuriating, and third time I saw a barrier I nearly ragequit. The targeting of the anomaly shot is HORRIBLE! It’s a gimic mechanic that should have been used ONCE at most. Making us do it 3x was just trolling the players.

Aside from that, great troll ANet! Letting me finish the story, only to DC me in the middle of the cutscene so I have to redo the whole episode all over again. You’ve gotten me and 3 of my guildmembers with the same DC troll, so cut it out and fix the instance!

In conclusion, this chapter of the LWS3 gets thumbs down from me. WAY too many severe negatives vs nothing really exceptional about the story.