Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

As Season 3 wraps up with “One Path Ends,” we’d love to ask you a favor, as we have in the past:

Please share your high-level feedback (75 words or fewer) on Episode 6.

Please mark any spoilers with the spoiler tag (see formatting guide) to avoid giving away the story to those who have not yet played all the way through.

Devs will be reading other threads, of course, and longer or more detailed feedback is welcome. This thread is designed to amass your high-level views.

Can you move this to the correct section of “living world” on the forums. You have forum rules that you expect us all to abide to, could i polity remind you that you should be setting the example with this, after all there are plenty of cases of people threads being moved for being in the wrong section.

Hi Anet, this episode is 2/10. The plot was bad, please write campaigns, these disconnected episodes are not well done. I have little hope or excitement for the expac. Why do you continue to write each episode this way? New fractal is much longer than others and gives same rewards, why? Please follow dungeon model and scale rewards. Dungeons>fractals anyway please use as example. Good 2 legendary weapons out and fine designs, frustrating that expac 3 will release before gen 2 leg are completed when advertised with HoT. Been playing GW for many years, and losing interest sadly. Please do better!

I’m a fan of this living world team. They’ve made my favorite maps. You feel the different zones again like in BFrost. The smarter AI is back. Pre-events before bosses is good; better than the boss fading into the game. I fear most people still don’t know who this exemplar is if they didn’t play GW or, like me, watch a youtuber talk about her.

Struggling thru this episode and so far not fun at all.
2 basic problems.
1/ Not everyone can do puzzles.
2/ Not everyone can fight mega powerful monsters.
The one size fits all mentality simply doesnt work.
Provide some alternatives for players who
1/ Arnt good at solving puzzles.
2/ Arnt good at fighting mega powerful monsters.
When MMOs have no fun component left in them , there no point playing.

Good: The Shining Blade & Sharur, Aurora, new Fractal, QoL changes and bugfixes, skins, Arm of Abaddon JP, instance subtleties/details

Meh: New zone (I just don’t like the Orr theme, the updrafts in the SW area of the map are annoying and make my head hurt especially since you can’t control the dash skill, and the ways to get up to the upper areas of the map are tedious, AND the NW area of the map is too tough), story (I have a sensitive but lowish standard for stories, but the one in this episode hardly made me feel hyped. In LS2 I felt a sense of urgency and awe at the end but in here I felt confusion with some hype. I felt like LS3 in general was grasping at random plot threads and cutting them off for no reason while making new ones out of the blue… IDK it felt weird).

Bad: none, despite some meh impressions I didn’t see anything that was abysmal.

Ill give this a solid 3/10.

The story was meh and full of holes as others have said.
The new map really needs more waypoints or at least respawn points without having buy them.
What is with the excessive CC in this game in general? Getting hit once and then being pingponged between enemies until you die is frustrating as all hell, the same with all the blinds and cripple etc.

The story was at least mildly interesting and the new map does look good. However the wholly frustrating combat and tedious puzzles really drag it down.

More than 10 guild ranks would be awesome.

Omne.4603:

More than 10 guild ranks would be awesome.

MORE RANKS HYPE

Omne.4603:

More than 10 guild ranks would be awesome.

This man here knows what he’s talking about. More ranks! HYPE!

Omne.4603:

More than 10 guild ranks would be awesome.

Hype!

I wonder why you have decided to make journal pages and the like even more elusive.
No floating nameplates. No clues in achievement pane. As if most players weren’t already relying on external sites to complete those achievements.

Omne.4603:

More than 10 guild ranks would be awesome.

I concur, this would be amazing.

HYPE!

Puzzle: I don’t think it’s hard after figuring out the pattern, but it’d be nice to have some clues. Like, the exemplar can hint the player how to do the puzzle, instead of having players figuring out by themselves, through trial and error.

Defending Livia: Livia should have more health or self-buff. It’s kinda laughable to keep seeing her dying from trash mobs.

Boss: I find the last boss a bit strong for solo player. I die once for trying to break the boss’s breakbar. Then, I realize I have an easier time fighting the boss if I just ignore his breakbar and just range him while focusing on dodging those over-crowded red circles and bubble barrage.

Map: It’s alright. It feels like just another gloomy Orr map. The concept of buying waypoints in map is new, I don’t mind it as long as it’s easy to obtain. And I like it’s account-bound.

New mastery: Too limited. It can only activated in certain areas, and the buff duration is too short to bother.

No comment about the story. I don’t know gw1 lore, so Livia and the Eye stuff are new to me.

Con:

• Really don’t like the waypoint/teleport unlock on the new map. Yes, it’s totally easy to unlock on the first evening. But why add it in the first place? It will only annoy new players that stumble onto the map and die in the north western area. Everyone else playing already has them so it’s only a burden for new players.
• I find the updraft area at the Dwayna region (the one south west) irritating. They vanish and reappear, probably after a pattern. While that is ok, I can’t really find out the pattern. If there is one. Main problem is the mastery east of it on top of the waterfalls. You can’t see the updrafts against a white background so it’s random gliding and hoping.
• As a Charr I don't approve joining the Shining Blades! I wished the game could evolve to allow multiple choices and story line arcs like the personal story did.
• Map has only 1 level :p
• I think the fight against Lazarus was way too easy.
• If you do the story with a friend the Shining Blade initiation instance is kinda boring for your friend as all he can do is sit on the balcony and throw stuff with 10 sec cooldown. I would've much preferred if he could join instead of just watching the whole instance.

Pro:

• While I don’t really care for an Orr map I find this one “ok” visually. It’s thankfully not as annoying to traverse and the different areas have a distinct feel to them. I love the random teleport area!
• I also liked the story instances. Skippable (if you must) jumping puzzle, finally a logic puzzle, an old school don't step on the fire puzzle (which I cheated with my mesmer!) and funny named achievements. Art Critic, eh?
• The Shining Blade initiation and the characters were very well done. I liked the a bit over-the-top assassin style character. Though she came over on drugs most of the time tbh.

TL;DR: even though there are more con than pro bullet points I overall liked it. I won’t comment on the map and events itself yet, because you need to play it a while to get a feel for it.

Is there a problem with the tome? It is implemented to pop up a window in the center of the screen. Fine, except you would have at least your inventory window open and it pops up BEHIND that. So not only is it tricky with low resolution/windowed environments for many laptop players it will be completely of no use. Does the tech exist to have it pop up in the front?

Three things:
- It’s been said already but I’ll say it again. As a charr, swearing a blood oath to the Shining Blade is ridiculous.
- Very interesting to see hexes make a comeback, and I’m curious what the extent of that will be.
- In combat, Livia spends as much time dead in GW2 as she used to in GW1.

We ran the story as a 5 man group, with 1 player consistently activating things and honestly? It was painfully frustrating at points, both mechanically and plot wise.

I’ll split em down, and include good & bad, largest ones bolded & underlined, as I can’t get it below 75 words.

Mechanics:
1. more puzzles/alternative to combat = good
2.Shining Blade Secrets instance – advise make instances like this solo because:
- major camera issues and oddities for the different cutscenes activating (facing us opposite direction from the final conversation was the best)
- boring for non- main player. ie Being stuck on a balcony with high CD grenades when everything hid under the balcony and a highly restricted camera, followed by a room you can’t do ANYTHING
3. New zone:
- Liked the new 1-core waypoint and buying more and being account-wide; didn’t like the fact we found it by completely by accident after frustrating deaths.
- Dwayna’s Flight buff; setting this as 2-4 instead of 1-3 was infuriating everything else changing weapon bar has run 1>5, leading to most of our party repeatedly dashing left instead of forwards
4. Ancient Magics Masteries
- new one why? what purpose? No use in instances, barely encountered in zone
-one party member is new to the ‘full’ game – no access to counter-spell
- some temporary masteries need reconsidering for permanent use ie gliding options from Bloodstone Fen – felt like an evolution/upgrade, removing feels odd.

Story:
1. Closing old open plot threads = good. See HoT, Malyck + other trees for why not doing so sucks.
2. Pacing was too fast again. Reminds me of Tarir’s plot all over again…
3. Shining Blade oath - PC prioritising Kryta over home country? Don't see Charr or Asura doing it.
4. If you haven’t played GW1 (or gone in-depth wiki lore diving), you won’t know the Eye of Janthir (apparently also in the raid most players won't see), Livia or the Mursaat. None of my group have played GW1, 2/5 of us having read the wiki lore, leaving 3/5 confused, disinterested and calling Deus Ex Machina.
5. PC not being passive responses = better since removal of 3 options system. Nice to finally not be a doormat to Taimi being obnoxious and her not have all the answers. More of this, or at least not “one character has all the answers every time for an entire arch”
6. Couldn’t have told you Crystal Desert from final incoherent cutscene at all I get it’s supposed to be an arcane object smashing images into your brain, but it was completely incoherent

Pros:
Very little Taimi this time around.
Boss fights were interesting and well-tuned.
New map looks nice. Great atmosphere. How it stacks up in terms of farming efficiency compared to some of the others remains to be seen.

Cons:
Most of the season 6 writing has been somewhat incoherent to me. This chapter was no exception.

At the start of the season I felt like there was a chance we’d see Jormag & Primordus at each other’s throats, in some kind of epic power struggle but that plot never really took off and developed as I’d hoped.

Lackluster ending leading up to the next expansion, especially compared to how it was handled during the lead-in to HoT. Was that a vision of the future? Or how things are looking this very moment over in the Crystal Desert?

Overall:
Still very much looking forward to the expansion and can’t wait to see what happens next!

Thanks to everyone who worked on the Living World this season, even though it wasn’t exactly perfect. Its provided countless hours of enjoyment playing these new maps.

Omne.4603:

More than 10 guild ranks would be awesome.

M O R E R A N K S H Y P E
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This new legendary is AWESOME! Simply awesome! It’s so beautiful.

Please, I beg you ArenaNet, please add more legendaries! Great work! Thank you!

My opinion:

• Instanced Mechanics, Fights: 9/10. I enjoyed the variety of offers. Easy fights, harder ones, all engaging, gj.
• New Map: 9/10. It was really good imo. Easy to navigate, with different areas all unique and fun. Y quit 1 point cause i dont like "devastated " areas, but said that, great map.
• Achievements: 5/10. Most of them are bugged (like “Art Critic”, by example), or cant be done in group (like those of mission 2. In addition those cant be done properly with all classes).
  Story: 7/10. Even thought i appreciate the fact that Anet have going to the roots in this patch, putting closure to Whitemantle, shinning blade, eye of janthir and muursats arch, i must say that it was a bit weird. By example: someone as important as Livia cant be a random NPC that you just met. Thats wrong. The main GW2 story, which is as at right now all about Baltazhar, Human Gods, Dragons, dragonwatch, aurene… all of that is completely forgotten in the season finale. Is like in Game of Thrones, you end the season with the last night alive of Ned, without talking about anything else. Yes, it may be interesting, as it was all the closure of livia+lazarus, but it is a bit… irrelevant at the present? I feel you guys in Anet needed a bit more time to add something relevant in this episode, even thought all we saw was cool and interesting. Aurene is missing, rytlock is missing, dragon’s watch is missing, baltazhar is missing… imo an extra instance linking the episode with the present arch would have been necesary.
• Cinematic: 8/10 very cool and at the same time seemed rushed. After saying 0 from baltazhar in the whole episode, suddenly we see him , conquering cities, lands and even killing a dragon? Kalkatorric?. It was like… "man, i just saw irrelevant things about shinning blade, characters that if you are not GW1 fan you wont know, etc, and i pass directly into a very huge and relevant revelation, like if had happens months and baltazhar was the king of the world XD. What im trying to say is that: there was no correlation between what happened on the epi and what happened on the cinematic, imo. You ussually build up the thing into a great revelation and finale. In this case was not built at all, and the cinematic was all fireworks. Seemed disconnected.
• Fractal: didnt taste it yet :P Soon™
• Legendaries: 10/10. Was great (and unexpected) to have 2 legendary weapons in this patch, and most important: Love the scavenger Hunt for Legendary trinket. I’ll definetly will work on that from now till expansion launch.

Overall, for what i have seen, i will give the Patch an 8/10. Was pretty good in general, just i feel it needed a bit more focus on the present. All what happened in this patch story wise could have happened on epi 5 or 4. Ending the season with a “not relevant” arch seems weird to me.

Besides that, gj guys. Looking forward for the expansion. Hope you allow us to buy it alone, separated from GW2 vanilla and HoT, at a reasonable price. Dont repeat the HoT’s commercial mistakes!

This is the first one that I didn’t like the direction the voice actors where given. It was all wink wink nudge nudge during the initiation ceremony and no cult/secret society would do that.
I like the map, confused about the siren abilities, can’t do last chance story instance solo since the npc dies at a sneeze and the sparks can’t be aggro’d away. Another character of mine probably but kind of defeats the purpose.

I love that gliding got some love on this map (Dwayna zone), really sweet, and generally like the visuals. Keep it vertical and maze’y guys

I have two gripes with the story part

I’m afraid that for me it’s just a tedious slog-fest. I’m sick and tired of long, drawn-out boss fights and of just dying over and over and over. This may be the first episode of LS3 that I don’t bother to finish. Right now I feel I will not be buying the next expansion. The last couple of episodes had given me hope but with this one it feels like we’ve gone backwards.

I usually never write anything in the forum, but the ridiculous backlash ANet got for this Episode was something I can’t get behind. First of all, the well implemented and effing easy puzzles didn’t bother me at all. I found them kind of enjoyable compared to the mindless grind that is usually found within the episodes. The new map is beautifully crafted and I liked the (obviously filter) story even if it wasn’t a top of the line legendary adventure. It took me roughly 4 hours to get through the story, get 80% of the masteries and complete the map.

The only thing I found wanting, was that the whole thing was way too short. BUT for a totally free mini expansion, I was pleasently surprised and can’t wait to get my hands on the expansion.

One way to improve your story telling in the game is by adding more animated cuts, its hard to take the story too serious when the caracters are just standing talking every single time.

Another way to improve your story telling in the game is by adding more animated cats

mbhalo.1547:

• Dialogues as usual are bad and full of immersion breaking humor and modern slang.
• A certain story character looked better in GW1 than in GW2 (she looks like generic npc).

This is not the first time someone mentions the fact that characters break immersion because of how goofy the dialogue is. I keep saying it with every occasion and now more than ever I ask myself WHY don’t you change the tone of the story? Why do you keep throwing at us all kinds of funny dialogues and whimsical characters when you have so much good stuff to mold into a great and epic story?

Now, the feedback:

CONS:

**The map is super uninteresting. Reusing assets from old Orr was not the way I imagined you would do it.

**The Story started well with the new character being quite interesting but by the end it fell flat on its face;

**The final cutscene could have received some more love if you ask me. For a season finale it was pretty dull.

PROS:

**The expansion announcement which I hope will be fix A LOT of issues with the story and characters and also, because I’ll make a habit of: *please give us an option to reduce the particles on skills and other things that make the game so shiny. *

The worst chapter/map of LS3 by a wide margin.

I don’t feel like dealing with puzzles after coming home from work. Sorry. Ain’t nobody got time to be trifling with that.

The story was very weak and doesn’t really set up the expansion well at all. By and large I preferred LS3 over LS2 but LS2 definitely had a better setup and a much better trailer.

The new map gets low marks just for having only 1 waypoint. Please stop it with that.

Oh, and so many bugs! I had to redo the final fight twice (3x total) because the boss was invisible.

Map: 10/10

Story: 7/10 Livia & Lazarus fun to see but forced & disappointing end for last Mursaat

Portal Tome: 10/10

Story Puzzles: 10/10

Jumping Puzzle: 8/10

New Ancient Magic: 2/10 Too limited in use.

New Legendaries: 9/10 Like the sword’s lore.

GW1 Lore (finally): 11/10

Expac tie in: 6/10 Balthazar chase, OK. We would know the Crystal Desert how?

New inclusions to material storage: 7/10 Thought there would be more but happy with what we got.

Great job overall.

I found the puzzles to be okay, I did not mind them too much but I am one who will always prefers fights. The fight against Lazarus was pretty fun, not too hard and not that easy, I only died once when playing as a zerk ele, so nice job on that!

The new map, I like it. I am one who prefers not too much verticality like in bloodstone fen or draconis mons. The new map found a nice balance by easily being able to nagivate while still having some areas with verticality, such as Lyssa’s place. The wyvern fight at dwayna was pretty fun too, it feels like an improved version of the modremoth from dragon stand meta.

Ps: Can we please get an account name change option? I absolutely hate mine and made it as a joke when I started lol.

I recently had a death in the family and thought I’d play some GW2 to take my mind off things. Didn’t get further than the second “beam puzzle” in the first White Mantle episode. Got the three beams in a row MULTIPLE times, couldn’t get the thing to unlock. At that point I was ready to punch my screen.

No thanks.

CRASH in Last Chance, have to redo the whole thing. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

locked the game up hard.

And now I have to redo the whole freaking mess again? I am seriously angry right now! So far I loved the episode. The dialogues, the npc chatter, the new map.

But this instance cost me real money (burning two canisters) and a lot of time.

And now your game things I should redo it.

AND I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO.

So how do I get to the end of the instance without going through it again?

I haven’t finished yet, but, I have to say, I am not impressed so far. That bloodstone prison puzzles were just beyond frustrating and ridiculous. I got so frustrated with it I almost quit the episode and didn’t go back to it, but I got help from a friend instead who had somehow stumbled onto the “correct” way of doing it.

For those that say that the puzzle was easy: Good for you. You have a mind for puzzles. That is great. -I- do not. A little help would be appreciated for those like me who cannot figure it out, or just have tried so many times we don’t want to do it anymore. Like the override on the machine puzzle that got you into the Dragon Lab? That was perfect. Just something like that so we have a way out if we are “boxed in.”

Are all these things that we are learning in the living story via masteries going to actually be useful later on in other maps? Because if not, I can save my mastery points and just level up other things with them like my gliding or something else.

Overall I am not entirely thrilled with this story so far. I just got to Orr so, it may get better. I would like to see more Logan, find out what is happening with Rytlock, and Zojja, if possible. I have to admit, I used to hate Logan. He was my favorite to make fun of. Episode number 5 humanized him for me. I actually feel badly for him, being ridiculed after what happened. That can’t be easy to take, and THAT was a bit of writing I can appreciate. Yes, it’s a retcon, I know, before anyone argues with me. But it was nicely done in a way that touched me, personally.

Story didn’t make me want to buy your next expansion. Ever since HoT you’ve been on the path of adding more annoying gimmicks to fights and maps. Go back to making FUN content not annoying and get frustrated content..

Very disappointed with the Puzzles having to be solved in Story, felt like filler so devs didn’t have to create more content but still stretch out the amount of time to finish.

Still hate that ArenaNet is still putting Masteries behind jumping puzzles. These need to be in context of the game not a Jumping Puzzle that not everyone wants to complete.

Story was OK with the exception of the puzzles.

I did not get that whole cringeblade oath or whatever part. I will need a WP vid or 2 for that.
New pass area is amazing.
New fractal is overloaded with mechanics. Last boss probably has more than entire raid wing combined. It is fun but I am not looking forward to see it in daily rotation.

Dwayna’s area I was unable to discern any pattern to the updrafts and it was sheer luck I got to the top of the waterfall. I could not see any updrafts because the falling water obscured them so you could not tell when they went off so you could use them. The updrafts were adequate for the event below but going higher definitely not.

Also once above a guildie and I found where the spider was that we kept seeing on the map. We got into its cave and basically were 1 shotted upon entering by the Champ spider who then spawned a large group of vet babies. There was a tablet in the cave we could not even get to before dying. The tablet is impossible to see in there unless you run over it and see the interact but you are dead from the spider by that time…. I cannot imagine enough of a group will go up to that cave to defeat the spider on a regular basis since it is so difficult to get up there and there does not appear to be an alternate route other than a kind mesmer porting folk up to get it.

Again, no repair stations anywhere on the map. One at the start point would be nice and logical since they are establishing a foothold on the beach.

In general liked it and had fun. Based on expansion news got a feel of where we were going and who we were going to fight, more on that after the 1st once we see if those thoughts were right or wrong. But there were some issues and wanted to share some feedback:

• Self Doubt, doing it while grouped meant that the player starting the instance was effectively alone since party members were confined to the balcony and had 2 skills that couldn’t reach outside of the balcony. It also meant party members spent that time trying to find ways out and missed what was going on. If we are meant to just watch them would recommend some other mechanic since this method left the players feeling as it was a bug that they needed to try and free themselves from.
• Bloodstone trap puzzles seemed inconsistent. Will have to replay this bit again and see if it was a bug.
• Spacing the living stories so far apart and having such core changes in what we were doing made the episodes feel more dis-jointed. Starting replaying them back to back and they feel more connected that way, but if that method is used moving forward then probably that opening mission/note needs to recap what is going on. Compared to other living stories these all did feel more disparate and it seemed the only common thread was everyone to be more snarky to the player character. If this was a cooking show then I would say the common ingredient was attitude. Self Doubt was probably the best tie in as it compiled all the issues from the episodes together when manifesting the doubts.
• Liked the new map, having to buy the waypoints was interesting and appreciated the fact that they were account based. Having to run from one side of the map to the other was rough but I could also see this as a transition period if things from leeks turn out to be true, no more about that for now.
• New ascended back piece, appreciate the fact that its there but can’t see how it won’t be transmuted. Think it would have been more fun and interesting if each temple had had a different skin that was of interest encouraging players to gather them all.
• Consistent gathering methods across zones. Again I’ll have to visit each of the LS3 maps again but it seems like each zone required different methods to gather unbound magic which felt disjointed. Appreciate the 2 price price structure and that each map required its own unique item but gathering unbound magic in differing ways felt off.
• New maps versus Silverwastes. Admit I use Silverwastes as a meteric when thinking about new maps since to me it seems to flow better than most. Main change I would have done to Silverwastes is only made the Lost Bandit chests available during the timeout period with a longer time period of availability assigned to a successful meta event but still open for a short period on a failed event. That said the replay-ability there comes from a build up of events that leads to larger rewards and a final zone event. That way you can still solo as you want but will need more people the more the event advances. You need to have things at risk and have events that require the players to commit to doing things to help advance the map. Tarir has that same kind of feel during it’s map meta event. Do I work on this side or does south need more help. The LS3 maps don’t have that kind of feel and I think all new maps do. Again, core concept in MMOs is progression and maps need to have that same feeling of progressing to something bigger and if you don’t you are going to miss out on something.

Good hunting!

Disappointing at least. All the build-ups in the previous episodes…and that is all you deliver? Makes me seriously consider if i buy the xpansion at all. If its so horrible written and with so many plotholes ( other races than human in the shining blade? ), then im not buying into it. Where are the answers to all our questions? From the beginning of Hot a lot of people want a explaining how for example the revenant works,e.g how Rythlock got this new power. Nope…just deliver plot twists after plottwists, with such out of place talking in the Scenes. Its cringy…the “great” Commander who gathered forces to slay 2! Dragons talks like a child.

mbhalo.1547:

• Dialogues as usual are bad and full of immersion breaking humor and modern slang.

This. I would even go as far as to say that some of the dialogues are downright cringe-worthy. Please scale down the use of modern slang and childish behavior.. For instance, does the Priest Of Balthazar really have to make chicken sounds? What is he, like 6 years old? :/

Also, I suggest not jump back and forth between so many sub-plots in such a short amount of time. It’s plot twist after plot twist, which leads to characters being dealt with as quickly as they were introduced. It feels rushed and messy.

Come on, Anet. You can do better than that. Aside from that, I enjoyed the combat during the story missions. The focus on break bars and dodging AoE was the right choice, in my opinion.

I love the riddle-mechanics (fights & regular). I grew up with old snes rpgs, like lufia II and when I first saw the puzzle my eyes were glowing ^^. The new fractal is absolutely beautiful. Soundrack, awesome as always.

Please give the physics-team a rise. The tide-mechanic, heat-updraft and the new low-gravity-mechanics (with glider) are mesmerizing. I have played countless low gravity simulations and this is the first that does not feel ridiculous. It is one of the toughest, most frustrating jobs and the players hardly notice it, sadly.

Vault changes are ok for me. Our scribes are very happy at the moment, big thanks from them. The tome changed the scrolls from a dusty book in the shelf, to a tourguide. Thanks for the Karmic Retribution, looking forward to enjoy it a few days before people start milking it for real and you have to nerf the loot again. No gathering node for my home instance? ^^

What I saw so far, exceeds my expectations. You walk new paths with your approach. People always complain when changes appear. What I have read on the boards so far, makes me beleive you are on the right way. Keep up the good work and GW2 will remain a glowing star on the firmament for another few years. We are not a clone of that one mmorpg on the market, and that is why we still exist.

This story felt like a short lousy commercial for the expansion (which we get an advertisement product placement for it at the end, advertising in your own product? Come on).

Seeya until the expansion rolls out.

I have not yet finished the story – but I am seriously annoyed at the way the instance where you join the Shining Blade is set up. My friends and I went through this together, and it ended up being 4 of us standing on a platform doing nothing for most of that instance, while a single player did all the combat. Having the instance designed this way made it far less fun for our group. I hope the rest of the story allows party members to also participate.

Annonrae.3681:

I recently had a death in the family and thought I’d play some GW2 to take my mind off things. Didn’t get further than the second “beam puzzle” in the first White Mantle episode. Got the three beams in a row MULTIPLE times, couldn’t get the thing to unlock. At that point I was ready to punch my screen.

No thanks.

Then you missed some fun. I freed our shining blade grumpy operative in a very unpleasent way:] Got an achievement and a giggle out that one :>

Unfortunately, I have no idea what the season 3 story was really about. For me – someone who is not overly familiar with the lore – it was just random encounters and shreds of stories that were picked up episode by episode. There was no real thread (or threat!) running through the season and I don’t really know where we are going now or why (well, obviously the Crystal Desert, but.. you know..). It’s not the end of the world since I care about the gameplay experience more, but I had a better idea of what was happening in season 2. That being said – overall the concept (length, new maps) of season 3 was better.

Thank you to the team who was responsible for episodes 1, 2, 4 and 5 and their respective maps. The other team.. well you tried but it was not fun.

The new map is fine. As with Bitterfrost there’s the achievement problem (too many necessary to complete the episode). The map is okay, but unlike Silverwastes I don’t really see a reason to go back here. I don’t think maps need to be just centered around a big event like Silverwastes and Dragon Stand, but some world event with a boss and some nice loot would create an incentive to visit from time to time.

Buying waypoints: Please. Stop. Right. Now.

The jumping puzzle: Easily one of the best in the game. It’s possible to do it, and the checkpoint system is fair. Having completed it felt like an achievement. I was close to giving up in the section right after the second checkpoint but I’m glad I didn’t.

New legendary weapons look great. New items in the bank are great too.

My friend who does fractals says to please not make them like a raid. Everyone is LFG at the last boss, which shouldn’t really be the case.

I generally loved it. Though when looking back at S3, I feel it opened up more questions than it provided answers. I think the dialogue, character and voice acting were solid.

I liked the new map. It has some annoyances, but overall it is good.

Story-wise: The trials for joining the Shining Blade is appreciated. The way it was handled was a good way to world-build – showing and not telling. The puzzle and final fight are nice, and appropriately paced and well designed.

Siren of Orr Mastery: A missed opportunity not integrating the Siren of Orr mastery for the player to use in all maps. It could have been done by allowing the player to choose the instrument of their choice, with a specific song (buff) that accompanied it.

Having that tied into the story and as a unique player item that would be separate from the player inventory (think shared inventory slot) to use without the need to interact with a Chancel of Echoes should have been the way to go.

Chancel of Echoes also need to be reduced in size. The current size is rather large and adds more visual noise to encounters, blocking views of an enemy’s tells.

Siren’s Landing: Great map layout. Shrines are essentially Waypoints, but it’s appreciated that the cost for each is obtainable. Events are all right, but it’s the scaling for completing each Heart that is praise-worthy.

Much better and faster to complete each Heart compared to the ones in Draconis Mons. It keeps the pace at a steady rush while allowing players to complete a Heart daily, then move onto exploring or farming Oysters.

If I had one thing to suggest: add a grown Giganticus Lupicus that is sleeping dormant on top of the Hidden Reliquary. When the shrines are all powered up and it can be accessed, it awakens as a map-meta boss. Oh, the wonders that would do for Orr!

Too short imo. It’s like this entire episode 6 is just for Livia cameo and get rid of lazarus from the story for good. We didn’t really cleanse Orr now did we?

The map is in my top 3 of season though I would have prefered shrine cost being one pearl but restting every day. Mastery is nice.
Story is good but I think it would have been a better episode 5 because the end of actual episode 5 felt more epic.
Legendary trinkets is a good surprise.
In short : good episode but not worth being season finale.