Guild Wars 2

Hello,

Sorry, I can’t do below 75 words, but I tried to make it as easy to read as I could.

Story :

• A fair episode overall.
• Maybe it’s too fast-paced ? After all, it’s a big shift in the flow of events that’s taken here.
• First mission is ok.
• Kasmeer is a disappointement. I was so happy to meet her again, and was “Wow, she truly kicks quaggans now”, and then she just hides under the blankets. Meh.
• Very nice scenery in the last mission, but last fight was a huge mess, which didn’t help follow the storytelling. Not really sure about what’s really happening in the end.
• Big regret : no racial-specific dialogs. Lore-wise, it’s a shame, considering how much lore there’s in the story. I know it’s more work, but it’d be far better for immersion with 4 branches :
  1. Generic ;
  2. Charr ;
  3. Human blessed by Balthazar ;
  4. Human blessed by another god.

Draconis Mons :

• Overall nice and varied landscapes : I like it ; I’m just fonder of forests, but that’s my taste.
• Navigation is tedious. I’m getting used to it, but I think that kind of layout must be avoided. Previous ones were far better on that topic.
• Mini-map is no help. Some icons are very tricky.
• moderate issue : legendary wyverns are not fit for melee fighters. When they destroy a significant part of their podium, it’s impossible to melee them. Lava wurm is very much the same. Even if there’s that spot for melee fighters, you’re not at melee range (even at the closer edge) and you’re tossed in the lava all the time.
• huge problem : all those slopes and rocks and steps are causing collision issues, auto-attacks not working because “that asura is one step above me”, Searing fissure cancelling because of that, teleports not working “no valid path”, etc. If you’re not able to fix your engine to avoid those, then forbid yourself to develop that kind of areas. That truly ruins the experience.
• Remember that manifesto where you stated that you didn’t want quests to be “go kill 15 rats and fetch 10 apples” ? Congratulations, you did worse than this ! Renown hearts are a pain. They have no training value (while rats had some, considering it was beginner quests), they’re just braindead killing, and take ages to fulfill. It’s just slightly better with events. It’s been the same since Ember Bay. Something must be done.

Miscelleanous

• New mastery is nice when you get the hand of it.
• New back item collection is enjoyable. It’ll help with replayability. If it wasn’t here, I’d just finish the map with all my toons, and never go back in.
• Map-collectibles in collection : big THANKS.

Map

• layout too complex
• beautiful environment design
• boring fauna (the term “recycling” comes to mind)

Story

• too much high-tech (Taimi does all the work/discoveries and solutions = boring)
• ridiculous Balthazar revelation, plain awful
• too short
• Druids and Inquest are a nice touch
• M.O.X. <3

Oakheart Essence

• nice idea, fun
• however, means of travel that are not walking are getting to much focus and out of hand

Legendary Armor

• terrible, too futuristic
• ugly designs, especially the spikes
• sexist female light version (shows, once again, too much skin instead of something elegant with class)

Legendary Torch

• …no comment (ack)

Houndskin Mantle

• finally a cool skin, the first one in ages!

Swagger.1459:

I’m feeling that the medium armor main peeps would enjoy designs like these…

Absolutely not. More futuristic nonsense? Please nooooo…

Have you ever read a classic fantasy novel, played classic fantasy RPGs, played GW1, know what classic fantasy means? That is what most oldtime players want, not some modern anime or Marvel cartoon nonsense that only youngsters find appealing. That has no place in a game like GW.

First off (BIG SPOILERS)

I’ve played Guild Wars for over 12 years (1 and 2), invested a lot of money into the franchise, and loved it.

This living story episode was the single most disappointing and insulting thing I’ve ever experienced in Guild Wars history.

I “put back to sleep” 2 ELDER DRAGONS and 1 GOD, by killing 2 dogs. How pathetic that such incredible opponents and fights ended as a fight with 2 dogs.

Map: beautiful
Flames of war: It is truly the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Not legendary status.

EdSammon.1750:

I “put back to sleep” 2 ELDER DRAGONS and 1 GOD, by killing 2 dogs. How pathetic that such incredible opponents and fights ended as a fight with 2 dogs.

To be fair: Taimi’s technology put the two elder dragons back to sleep; you helped that by using her device after killing the god’s god-like pets. And the god wasn’t put back to sleep or anything. Taimi says it “looks” like he was vaporized, but he’s a being of pure magical energy who had just sucked a ton of magical energy from an elder dragon. So, it’s highly unlikely we did any damage to him.

Here is my feedback:

Map:

• The map is beautiful
• I liked the nature theme
• It was a bit confusing to navigate at first, which could be helped if it had a few more waypoints
• Could have used a world boss or map meta event to provide something to do during the long time between chapters

Story:

• I liked seeing the personality system options in a few of the dialogues
• Would like to be able to select how the pc responds to people and events (agree/disagree, like/dislike, etc.)
• Would like to see a few choices to make, even if it is for smaller things

Story
*"Suddenly Balthazar" I don't see how this fits in the narrative so far
*Kasmeer ditching Marjory. Uncharacteristic in my opinion
*Balthazar hires the Inquest...wouldn't they try to study him?

Map/Mechanics
*The prison feels out of place/not integrated into the story
*The new mastery/map-skill is fun
*M.O.X.: Awesome
*M.O.X. in home instance: Massively awesome
*M.O.X. needs to be a trader(I let my guildies harvest my nodes, it would be convenient if they could stock up on harvesting tools without leaving the instance)
*First to third tier of the backpack-achievement is pretty much the same stuff(monotone karma-sinks)

Legendary armor
*I don’t like the design of the light and medium sets, as well as the heavy helmet(but that’s subjective)
*Charr-tails getting armor on heavy and light is great
*Light and medium legendary armors have the asuran toes clip through the shoes(that’s not subjective, but bad)
*No plans for future legendary armors
*Suggestion: Make a community-contest, players design the new legendary armors, the winner-sets get into the game

I feel the same as most others on here. I do like the complexity of the map, but it feels like the story is too short and not going in any specific direction. There are a lot of plot holes. I like what I see so far, it’s interesting and engaging. But it is too difficult to keep up with each different map currency and map meta.

I’m hoping that in the future going forward, there will be more explanation and character-building with those we have grown close to in our personal stories. I see the meta though; Personal story, then LW1/2, then HoT, then LW3. I’m hoping that we see the next expansion with the water dragon (underwater content guys!) and hoping that it ties into the new discovery with the dragons as well.

And LW4 maps will have less to do with the jungle theme, more to do with the theme from the next expansion. (Underwater I’m guessing). Our gliders can also have special powers underwater with currents and all that!!!

Long story short, I love what you’re doing with the game, it’s the best one I’ve played and I’m in so much love with the story and would like to see it change and evolve even past the dragons and gods of Tyria. But I would prefer content that takes a while and is done well, than rushed a bit and left with holes. It seems that the expansions are given more focus than the ongoing living world though, and you all are doing a WONDERFUL job of keeping that balance. Enough quests and content to keep us engaged, though with plot holes and foregoing character development, to answer those questions later in the new expansions.

I have stayed this long because of the quality work that the developers have put into this game. Keep it up, and don’t listen to the people complaining that they had to pay more for HoT. I’d gladly pay a few hundred dollars for a really cool expansion and some new changes to the meta as we saw with HoT. I support this game so much and everyone who puts effort into making it. It’s not easy. Thank you so much for listening to the feedback and making this game amazing.

EdSammon.1750:

I “put back to sleep” 2 ELDER DRAGONS and 1 GOD, by killing 2 dogs. How pathetic that such incredible opponents and fights ended as a fight with 2 dogs.

I do not understand why ArenaNet completely diminished the once epic Elder Dragon storyline in such a hasty, crude way!

I mean, what happened to this? —> Watch Durmand Priory introductional movie from GW2’s personal story

“Now, as the dragons ravage ever-greater expanses of Tyria, we must do even more. We must discover the truth that Tyria needs to survive: Were the elder dragons came from, why, and how to end their thread.”

I don’t remember us doing any of that, really. Whatever has been uncovered this far was not uncovered on our behalf, it either happened off-screen or it was Exhalted or Asuran technology getting the job done, not us, the heroes.

So much story potential wasted — potential for unbelievable, breathtaking, epic adventure!

• The orders working together on a great level
• Personal story development
• Exploration of strange, foreign lands; not some wild jungles and dust-covered volcano zones but actual (remains of) civilizations, old tombs, hidden secrets

Instead we got:

• Taimi, an immature, annoying Asura who figures everything out for us, using futuristic high-tech instead of old magics or ancient artifacts or whatever (that Asuran machine she upgraded doesn’t count, because it’s a computer/high-tech gimmick again). That’s it, end of story, no adventures, good night adversaries.

I want to visit ArenaNet’s headquarters and cry out in sheer frustration: “WHYYYY??”

As there is not much left to be said, I’ll just add my voice to the chorus of “beautiful map, awesome mastery, story too short”. Contrary to quite a few other players I think that “putting EDs to sleep” is a nice twist that leaves a lot of room for surprises. Maybe the device only works for a very short duration? Maybe we are fighting the gods in the next expac and just when we need it at least, the ED re-awake? That would be cool.

I only wish that the fact that killing all the EDs would destroy the world was worded more clearly. We get the cinematic and the commander knows it all while I as a player am left behind to guess. Something as meaningful as “we abandon our mission of the last 4 years only because Taimi made a power-point presentation of some floating orbs indicating the impending doom if we keep our current course” would deserve at least one line of dialogue where we can ask what we just saw.

But all in all, I really liked this rather short episode.

Short form:
Map

• Beautiful and stunning, I loved exploring this map
• Mini map/World map UI could be handled a bit better, was difficult at times to determine where vertically parts of the map were
• Really enjoyed the events and map lore (i.e. Zinn’s past and of course MOX!!!)

Story

• Way too short, needed at least two more instances. Also I’d incorporate more side-quests that give other plot lines some much needed attention.
• Plot = atrocious
• Your “twists” can also be seen as cop-outs so you don’t have to design main events and such later on

Gameplay

• Enjoyed the mechanics for the most part in the missions, though they were a little wonky at times
• Instances definitely gave an epic feel though in the end were anti-climactic
• Could’ve used more moments of legitimate combat instead of a primary focus on mechanics

My feedback is:
GOOD – The map seems nice to explore. I liked to find Mox. The little recordings about the story were nice.

BAD- I was expecting to see mox in another instance, we found him and told him to come with us, he said yes and then there is no follow up for it in the story.
The story overall felt cheap and rushed. The machine that puts 2 dragons to sleep is not so interesting and the ending not well explained.
Also there is no cliffhanger for the next chapter…. 2 dragons to sleep, done, nothing more to do… Or at least that’s what the story leads you to belive.
I was liking the cliffhanger of lazarus in the other chapter and I think that every LS chapter should have one. It would keep me more engaged into speculating.
At first it seemed like that about the gods, but then big B started to say that he basically has no interest in Tyria and disappearing like that in the end left me meh…
I am disappointed by how it seems that the devs are trolling us with obvious plots or huge twists that take big characters from Gw1 back, just to force this big surprise.
For me the story should explain better the backscene or give the players the ability to understand it in game, like why big B did that, how did he got Lissa’s mirror and so on.
I understand that in a short release it’s hard to deliver enough solid story plots but maybe it would be better to focus on just 1 and make it as polished as possible, instead of telling the story of Zinn, the story of the White Mantle, the story of Balthazar, the story of Primordius, the story of Jormag and how we are fighting them. This is obviously too much to handle for the team, and frustrating for the players like me that find so many open stories in one chapter and never hear about the end because in the next chapter we will talk about everything else (+a ton more open stories and mysteries).
Overall this chapter for me was a 6 out of 10

Dantert.1803:

BAD- I was expecting to see mox in another instance, we found him and told him to come with us, he said yes and then there is no follow up for it in the story.

Basically, it is a lead in for him to enter your home instance. He does at least have some cool tunes to play you whilst there.

It feels like all of Arenanet’s passion goes into this content only.

Report from a casual:

The map is back to the horrendous maps in the original HoT: impossible to navigate efficiently. Something has GOT to be done about multi-level maze-maps.

There needs to be much clearer identification of higher or lower (light green and light blue arrows look almost identical to me, a partial blue/yellow color-blind person). Maybe you could offer alternative colors (red and blue would make sense, or maybe let us choose from a palette).

Another possibility is moving the arrow from right to left when it’s up. Or, allow us to make the arrows larger (without changing the screen scope).

Travelling under another passageway needs to be identified much more clearly. Right now, you have to go to the big map screen, and then change levels. This capability needs to be in the mini-map. Further, if you really want to do it right, find a way to show the other levels at the same time. Perhaps as dotted lines in colors that aren’t natural to the terrain. (NOTE: this distinction isn’t needed until the character has actually traversed the other location(s).)

Combat difficulty is overall not too bad, but there are places where the enemies respawn so quickly that it’s almost impossible to make it out alive. Same problem was in Bloodstone Fen, and (to a degree) in Lake Doric.

Edited to change “red and green” to “red and blue”. I realized red and green would cause problems for the much larger portion of color-blind people, who are red/green color-blind.

After chieve completement, still isn’t much of a reason to return to maps that often. Wish there was a world boss that roamed around the new maps, from map to map bloodfen, ember, bitter, doric, draconic – gave you more reasons to return to those maps.

Or some kind of mob that roamed mutiple maps so you have to go hunting.

fun idea

Dantert.1803:

BAD- I was expecting to see MOX in another instance, we found him and told him to come with us, he said yes and then there is no follow up for it in the story.

I told him not the bring the webby.
HE BROUGHT THE BLOODY WEBBY AND NOW THERE’S A SPIDER IN MY HOME THAT I CAN’T MURDER AND MY CATS REFUSE TO EAT.

Bad golem. :| Worst episode ever. 0/10.

Rauderi.8706:

Dantert.1803:

BAD- I was expecting to see MOX in another instance, we found him and told him to come with us, he said yes and then there is no follow up for it in the story.

I told him not the bring the webby.
HE BROUGHT THE BLOODY WEBBY AND NOW THERE’S A SPIDER IN MY HOME THAT I CAN’T MURDER AND MY CATS REFUSE TO EAT.

Bad golem. :| Worst episode ever. 0/10.

Seriously, he brings a spider into your home instance? Permanently?

Ashen.2907:

Rauderi.8706:

Dantert.1803:

BAD- I was expecting to see MOX in another instance, we found him and told him to come with us, he said yes and then there is no follow up for it in the story.

I told him not the bring the webby.
HE BROUGHT THE BLOODY WEBBY AND NOW THERE’S A SPIDER IN MY HOME THAT I CAN’T MURDER AND MY CATS REFUSE TO EAT.

Bad golem. :| Worst episode ever. 0/10.

Seriously, he brings a spider into your home instance? Permanently?

Glossing over my melodramatic post prior:

Yes. :\

Which is a shame, because MOX also acts as a little jukebox for your home instance.

Minority here, I’m sure.

Not that fond of the Oakheart Essence mechanic. Love the new color saturation in this map.

Oh, and it’s a shame that M.O.X. is character-specific. I would never use my Home Instance gatherer to do Stories, etc.

Thanks for all the hard work, all the time. =)

Rauderi.8706:

I told him not the bring the webby.
HE BROUGHT THE BLOODY WEBBY AND NOW THERE’S A SPIDER IN MY HOME THAT I CAN’T MURDER AND MY CATS REFUSE TO EAT.

Bad golem. :| Worst episode ever. 0/10.

Hehehe. According to the dev who built him in, there is a very small chance for a webby to show up. You probably don’t want to know what else he said about this in the stream. For those who do...The dev said Mox didn't intentionally bring the spider, but that his inner body was riddled with them so that he inadvertantly brought some along.

Best LWS3 episode. Only advice would be to tie more events to reknown heart progress. Since reward progress here is heavily tied to repeating daily hearts having more events per heart would increase variation; would also keep group-only events from being underpopulated.

Similarly I would recommend that super-events like the destroyer wyverns progress multiple or all hearts simultaneously (points divided between hearts not yet complete). This would maintain populations for content balanced for whole-map zergs.

Unless this gets answered in the final episode, the buildup to the reveal of Lazarus was bad. More clues should have been left behind for those that love speculating (which is pretty much everyone). When I say more clues, I don’t mean blatantly explicit clues like we had for Subject Alpha (the Teeth of Mordremoth skill) but more subtle. This obviously requires more thought and work but that’s what the majority of us have come to expect from the Guild Wars 2 team.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We are including this thread in a report to the studio, so please do feel free to add any additional thoughts on Episode 5 here.

Thanks for your feedback!

The Mercenaries Heart takes a bit too long and is a bit too repetitive compared to the other three. The bar fills slower, the wurm event barely fill it, and there’s less things to do besides killing guys or destroying turrets (which players usually skip).

Is Anet planning to do a polish pass over all S3 maps? Because if so, I also have some suggestions for previous maps.

Episode 5 was good overall,
-I loved the map and I give the Mastery an A+.
-I did not like how Taimi bypassed everything with scruffy 2.0 and the fact that there was no big introduction for Scruffy.
-Kasmeer was a cameo nothing more.

Now, I know a bunch of ppl did not like this, but the Mr. B. introduction opens up a lot of posibilities and I like those.

The last fight was a LOT of Fun.

Now… Plz let the product owner of the Legendary Armor to at least look at every skin and outfit of the game… A better message would have been: “I just wanted this set of Legendary Armor to make a homage for what has been made before. To honor what our amazing artists have done in the past.” Since Outfits change weight type look Outlines already.

Kumion.7580:

Hehehe. According to the dev who built him in, there is a very small chance for a webby to show up. You probably don’t want to know what else he said about this in the stream. For those who do...The dev said Mox didn't intentionally bring the spider, but that his inner body was riddled with them so that he inadvertantly brought some along.

Oh my god, that is horrifying. I’m going to go take a shower until I feel clean and not covered in spiders.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Kumion.7580:

Hehehe. According to the dev who built him in, there is a very small chance for a webby to show up. You probably don’t want to know what else he said about this in the stream. For those who do...The dev said Mox didn't intentionally bring the spider, but that his inner body was riddled with them so that he inadvertantly brought some along.

Oh my god, that is horrifying. I’m going to go take a shower until I feel clean and not covered in spiders.

o/’ Craaaawling in his skiiiiin (or, y’know, his hull)

I love the new map, but better indicators for points/WPs higher or lower would be very useful.

I would like to see Oakheart Essence in future maps. However, guild hall usage has led me to be trapped in walls multiple times. Be careful.

The map is amazing. Beautiful to look at and divers. There are places to just enjoy the surroundings and plenty of places to do events.

That being said, I don’t feel the need to go back there except to farm the daily orchids and unbound magic.

Nothing draws me back there for game play. It just makes me sad too because it is one of the most well designed maps in the game.

That is my problem with most of the new maps. Nice place, but no sustainability.

Lore-wise: It was terrible. As someone who played GW1 since Factions, I am extremely disappointing with the way the writers handled the Lore in this Episode.
Why does my Human commander want to kill his patron god? It makes absolutely no sense. Why are we antagonising a god who wants to absorb the magic from the elder dragons?
Gameplay-wise: The map is a pain to navigate, please tell whoever is designing your maps to stop.