Official Feedback Thread: Episode 4 -- Head of the Snake

Official Feedback Thread: Episode 4 -- Head of the Snake

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Posted by: Gaile Gray

Gaile Gray

ArenaNet Communications Manager

Hey all,

As you know, we released Episode 4 of Living World Season 3 — Head of the Snake — today. As always, communications team members will be gathering feedback from players on all aspects of the release and will share it with the entire studio. Members of the dev team also will be reading your input, as well.

This is our official feedback thread, as we’ve created for each episode this season. And as normal, we’d like to use this thread to gather your high-level input. Sooo…

After you have played through the episode, please share your overall thoughts on Episode 4.

Please keep it to 50 words or fewer in this thread, offering your top-level overall impression here. More detailed analysis or feedback would be more than welcome in alternative threads and you can rest assured such comments will also be read. I hasten to add there’s no need to rush through the content, we’ll be reading this thread for a week or more.

Thank you for sharing, and I hope you have a great time in the game!

Gaile Gray
Communications Manager
Guild & Fansite Relations; In-Game Events
ArenaNet

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Posted by: Thanathos.2063

Thanathos.2063

I really like the new map. Before, I didn’t really knew how much I missed Krytan style maps. The feeling of mostly peaceful villages, attacked in a sudden siege, was pretty realistic in my opinion. I haven’t played all events there yet, so there may still be much to discover.
I just wondered what the (ingame lore) reason could be for blocking our access to Lake Doric before the attack. It seems to consist of villages similar to Queensdale’s eastern part, so is there a reason it was “forbidden” to the PC before something dangerous took place there?

I leave the raid to the raiders… but I’m very excited about the location. Will it take us to Janthir Bay somehow? :O

The story missions were fun to play, but I have to replay them to get a better insight.

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Posted by: coso.9173

coso.9173

I’ve just played the first part, up to the new map, and I loved it. the story was cool, the dialogues were awesome, taimi was funny as always, and the new map is great, feels awesome to be back in Kryta again.

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Posted by: Blaeys.3102

Blaeys.3102

New zone and story are fun.

Map seems perfect for new guild missions. Really don’t understand why they aren’t part of LS content drops. Please. Please. Please. It is years past time.

(edited by Blaeys.3102)

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Posted by: Lorenz.8905

Lorenz.8905

I really loved the story in this one. You could feel the attention to detail. I especially loved the revisit to an old dungeon, with the perfect execution of your character saying “I think I’ve been here before”, leaving you wondering, when? Until you spend 5 seconds realizing where you are.

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Posted by: Caro.2730

Caro.2730

The map is beautiful, but the story… The story was awesome! I honestly didn’t expect it to be that good. I’m positively well surprised. You are on the right track with writing entertaining stories. I was really amazed + Anise is my favourite character, I was very happy to finally see her in action.

(edited by Caro.2730)

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Posted by: Endless Soul.5178

Endless Soul.5178

I haven’t played through the entire episode yet, but I’m going to just leave this here…


..beside Queen Jennah! And it was AWESOME!

Asura characters: Zerina | Myndee | Rissa | Jaxxi | Feyyt | Bekka | Sixx | Akee | Tylee | Nuumy
| Claara
Your skin will wrinkle and your youth will fade, but your soul is endless.

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Posted by: Hevoskuuri.3891

Hevoskuuri.3891


LinseyMurdock on Lake Doric: “This is not Episode 4’s map and we have zero plans to release this into the game at any point in the future.”

Ha! Didn’t fool me Anet, didn’t fool me

Thank you so much for this wonderful episode, I absolutely love the story and the new map! Was definitely worth the delay, I hope you didn’t exhaust youselves over this. Keep up the good work, can’t wait for more!

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Posted by: Magnus Godrik.5841

Magnus Godrik.5841

Great map. Grear story telling. Great final instance. Thank you for making GW2 great again. The new rifle is meh.

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Posted by: Metricos.5617

Metricos.5617

Really not enjoying what I’m assuming is the last fight.

Stick a mesmer in an arena the size of a shoebox, add a ton of mobs that do nothing but knockback. Really really not fun. At all.

The zone’s fine. Takes forever to get anywhere compared to previous LS3 zones, but it’s fine.

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Posted by: Locce.8405

Locce.8405

I would have liked the story better with quite a bit less filler. The worst part is when the story log simply tells us to do whatever in the zone for half an hour or so. When I have to do content in a zone in order to proceed that is one thing. But when the game literally tells me that I should grind for a while it becomes all too clear that that part is 100% time sink and 0% story.

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Posted by: Ben K.6238

Ben K.6238

I haven’t actually completed the story yet; I just wanted to do map completion first and explore the zone.

I like the map design; it’s full of alcoves, particularly in the buildings, one of which led me to wonder what that crazy old man needed such a deadly basement for. This is a fantastic return to Kryta.

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Posted by: Randulf.7614

Randulf.7614

It was an episode which occasionally felt very plodding and the story step where you just fill a bar by doing map stuff felt lazy.

Then I played the final instance and it blew me away. The final fight felt way too chaotic and tuned for more than 1 person, but in essence it was a decent mechanic in a brilliant room and finished off after with a very intriguing twist. The dialogue from the start of the final instance was excellent – from the dungeon joke, to Canach, really enjoyed it all.

Closure of a an arc felt premature, especially as it didn’t really make any sense to close it off this early, but at least a loose end is tied off for a change. Map was formulaic, but good fun. Not sure i;d repeat play it often mind you.

Leather farming area was a bad idea. It felt like we;ve gone back to the old MMO days a bit and locking a poi in a group area will prove unfair to many. Simpler would be to improve drop and salvage rates all round.

Thoroughly enjoyed the episode as it grew to an excellent ending, I’d feedback that solo bits need tuning to solo players better and curency needs to be in the wallet without a single exception. We’ve fed this back enough now for this not to be still cropping up. Also, please stop with the 1 point per achievement. Can we get back to 5 again so we feel rewarded?

(edited by Randulf.7614)

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Posted by: Atlas.9704

Atlas.9704

The map is fun and interesting.
The story was entertaining and dark, a good direction from ANet.
The final battle is frustrating and not fun at all. The room is too small, the AoE is too powerful, and there’s too many mobs.

Basically if feels as if you wanted the difficulty of a raid end, but with very little pattern for us to learn and defeat. Aside from that black mark, the rest of this update is spectacular.

Elona, Land of the Golden Sun….and undead…and poison. The travel brochure lied okay?!

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Posted by: aerial.7021

aerial.7021

I also feel like it’s tuned for more than 1 person, I’ve not formulated my entire thoughts on the details of what I think yet but I do have a title, ‘Emotionally Charged Situations’ should never result in a battle that’s unwinnable or even sets the player to be killed, downed sure but killed no, it ruins the flow of battle and taints the player to be less than heroic, I had to pug the last mission I knew what I was supposed to do and how to do it but as a light feathered paper weight I was utterly ruined to the point of nakedness it then just became a case of respawn dmg, respawn dmg, respawn dmg, win, that room is far to small I was simply (alone) turned into a ping pong ball.

puging anything but personal stories is fine, but when you have to for part of what is supposed to be a personal thing it ruins the experience.

nb: this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the situation where it’s a war of attrition of how long you can put up with respawning and being naked.

Server: Gate of Madness

(edited by aerial.7021)

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Posted by: Shaaba.5672

Shaaba.5672

Setting is great, story is good, but I find myself not enjoying this map as much as the others in LS release for some reason. Not sure why, I love the scenery. And that last fight – no thank you. Confusing, frustrating and too small an area. Also way too long without a break. Get a DC towards the end and cry into your keyboard.

But the Indiana Jones experience – A+. Would have liked even more!

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Posted by: Rodzynald.5897

Rodzynald.5897

I also found the new zone pleasant, the events are fun too. This episode’s story is also on the high level, I enjoyed it a lot

BUT!
There is one thing that caught my eye right away, that kept me the most interested. It’s the picture attached.
How great tell, do some of the Seraph Guards have… POLEARMS?! Oh boi, my favourite kind of weapon. I even spend a lot of time watching their fights, skills and animations.
Is this a hint? I hope it is.
I heard once, that it might be a good idea for a change to bring something new to the game’s armory instead of just elite specs. It appears that Seraph Guards with those polearms use guardian magic, they do some sort of a leap of faith that knockbacks enemies which is ultra awesome! I really hope for polearms to be added to the game at some point in the future.

Attachments:

Guardian is meant for jolly crusading.

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Posted by: Lord Drekar.4619

Lord Drekar.4619

Loving the new map, though the story step that makes you fill a progress bar for it felt like a time sink and didn’t really bring anything to the table – particularly as there was a previous story step that had you run around the map to check on various locations.

Rest of the story was fantastic, with the exception of the reveal that Lazarus was never actually resurrected. Given what happens in the stronghold of the faithful raid wing as well as this LS, it seems almost impossible he could return – that’s pretty devastating, and feels like a cheap tactic in terms of where his story could have gone. I appreciate it made a good plot twist, but as a hardcore fan of GW1 and GW2 lore, it’s very depressing that the mursaat and Lazarus could be gone forever.

EDIT: The centaur corner at the top of the map? It’s literally hell. Fine, a leather farm was needed. but seriously? two POIs in an area that for most classes will be impossible to reach without endless deaths? one of my guildies used 10 res orbs to get the POI in the circle area up there. Not okay.

(edited by Lord Drekar.4619)

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Posted by: Hesacon.8735

Hesacon.8735

Another token using up an inventory space? Come on, inventory management is bad enough. This alone means once I finish the episode and map I’ll salvage the stones and just not come back. It’s not worth the aggravation of death by a thousand paper cuts inventory clogging items.

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Posted by: godofcows.2451

godofcows.2451

Really not enjoying what I’m assuming is the last fight.

Stick a mesmer in an arena the size of a shoebox, add a ton of mobs that do nothing but knockback. Really really not fun. At all.

The zone’s fine. Takes forever to get anywhere compared to previous LS3 zones, but it’s fine.

Same with this guy. I really didn’t like the last fight either. The place was a bit small for classes that require alot of moving. Amazingly the barrels didn’t help since they sometimes even blocked you from going around. And…quite frankly you fell in love with cc too much. Some of them undodgeable. Alot of them.

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Posted by: Stralgarr.7561

Stralgarr.7561

The trailer made it seem like we were going to see a damaged DR and a damaged Eastern Divinity kitten either of them were damaged, at all. I even finished the entire chapter, no changes were made.

DR is the same as it has always been, and the dam is still there. Soo…….what?

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Posted by: OriOri.8724

OriOri.8724

Haven’t finished it yet, but so far I love it, and I love the map too! Amazing variety packed into a single map here. Only two things that could be improved so far are

  • Hearts are just tedious to fill up unless there is a massive event nearby. Everything just rewards so little progress to the heart bar, even killing white mantle. And honestly this repeatable heart nonsense is starting to get on my nerves. I don’t agree with continuously having to unlock 3, 4, 6 vendors in these maps even after I already did the heart to unlock them. If we are going to continue getting repeatable hearts, can the vendors stay unlocked after the first time you do the heart at least?
  • Defend events take for kittening ever. The events are actually pretty easy to complete, they just drag on and on. You would kill a white mantle or 3 and the bar showing how many white mantle forces were left would barely even budge, maybe like 0.5%. If the number of white mantle you need to kill to complete these events could be slashed by 25-33% it would be awesome, and you could even make more of them elites to keep the difficulty about the same, just make the events not take as long

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Posted by: Odetodeath.6834

Odetodeath.6834

Story was fine, however I’m disappointed with the rewards, after what we’ve experienced lately. The previous instances allowed us to get new ascended trinkets with the currency, i.e amulet and ring with blood rubies. This one provides nothing new in that aspect, not even a way to change stats like the bloodstone items. Furthermore the reward track and meta reward are 2 helmets, which we’ve already gotten from previous reward tracks, and is a shame when boots, legs, or chest would have synergized so much better with what we have.

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Posted by: Nova.2890

Nova.2890

I also feel like it’s tuned for more than 1 person, I’ve not formulated my entire thoughts on the details of what I think yet but I do have a title, ‘Emotionally Charged Situations’ should never result in a battle that’s unwinnable or even sets the player to be killed, downed sure but killed no, it ruins the flow of battle and taints the player to be less than heroic, I had to pug the last mission I knew what I was supposed to do and how to do it but as a light feathered paper weight I was utterly ruined to the point of nakedness it then just became a case of respawn dmg, respawn dmg, respawn dmg, win, that room is far to small I was simply (alone) turned into a ping pong ball.

puging anything but personal stories is fine, but when you have to for part of what is supposed to be a personal thing it ruins the experience.

nb: this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered the situation where it’s a war of attrition of how long you can put up with respawning and being naked.

Pretty much everything you said, i don’t mind hard, but kitten near impossible without more than 1 person in “PERSONAL Story” is absurd

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Posted by: Lucentfir.7430

Lucentfir.7430

One of my favorite little details about this patch, catching a white mantle woman having a fake conversation with a rich swordsman behind closed doors. It was hilarious. :]

Reth Grimrazor – Charr Guardian – [GWB]Grim Warband – Tarnished Coast
Redgen Furyblaze – Charr Guardian – [SHD]Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast
Lerious Warhowl – Charr Warrior – [SHD] Shade Warband – Tarnished Coast

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Posted by: Chewablesleeptablet.3185

Chewablesleeptablet.3185

The zone looks great. Feels alive. The Story missions were a little on the short side. The last boss was easy to learn in seconds and the revive crutch helped from all the damage that was unavoidable after using up evades.

Good job. Needs more elaborate story though.

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

I’m sitting here, on my revenant, after even swapping to marauder/cavaliers gear and accessories with vit food, being treated like a kittening pinball.

This is horrendous encounter design. Being stringed CC after CC because your character is knocked down and can’t avoid subsequent CC is asinine.

What’s worse, you put this endless CC fest WITH a JADE CONSTRUCT. One of the worst mobs to exist, stunning and knocking you back far more frequently than you can stun break or have stability available. Stun, knockback, stun, spin knockback, while dodging the sprinkling aoe circles that also knockdown, while boss peppers you with conditions.

This encounter is unspeakable.

Do you playtest your own game? I can’t even use my special action button to counter caudecus’s charge because I’m already being pinballed by other mobs.

CLASSES THAT ARE NOT GUARDIAN OR WARRIOR DON’T HAVE EASY ACCESS TO STABILITY.

TL;DR

1- CC spam mobs are not fun. Not every class has short cd stunbreaks or easy stability.

2- You make toughness builds completely pointless with the condition spam. Confusion+poison+ cripple all day everyday.

Again, not every class has god condi clear.

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Posted by: Alga.6498

Alga.6498

Why is this thread here and not in the LS section???

Anyway,
The whole map was really beautiful and awesome made.
I loved that you actually went to CM dungeon mansion to the story, really nice touch!
I am a huge fan and I love the White Mantle, so I was superexcited they returned once more!
Storyline was also really fun and awesome done, love humans lore and you totally nailed with the ministers, White mantles, etc.
The ending for this episode was also bad@ss, sad and great.

10/10 for me!

|GW1 2008~|GW2 BETA player|Separatist|Nightmare Court|Ebonhawke|Ascalon|White Mantle|71 characters|

(edited by Alga.6498)

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Posted by: SyllyReth.2495

SyllyReth.2495

I really enjoy the design of the map. It’s interesting, the events flow well, and it’s easy enough to figure out how to navigate it. I found a good mix of things that I could solo, things that I could easily escape/avoid solo, and things that I could join in with a group effort if I wanted or needed to. I actually abandoned the story for a while to simply explore and enjoy events. It was a pretty good experience.

I am with other comments that this map would lend itself really well to guild events and that we do need more of those added in. We need fresh content to really encourage guilds to play together, even better if there could be an alliance system implemented so different guilds can work together and get credit. There’s a lot of potential here. It would also be a good map for new dungeon content, which I would love to see.

The story was good. A few characters surprised me, and it kept me engaged the entire time I played it. The final fight was punishing in a really annoying way. I felt challenged for a little bit, and then I just felt annoyed. The constructs were little above and beyond necessity.

Overall, though, I am really happy with this installment and can’t wait to get back in to work for some of the rewards I really want.

Unbridled Dynasty [UND]

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Posted by: Jokubas.4265

Jokubas.4265

The reveal about Caudecus’ wife was completely unnecessary. He can be a villain because he’s gone too far, not because he’s just evil and crazy.

Jennah and her secret police that suspend the rule of law at the drop of a hat need more than just Canach calling them out.

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Posted by: sachimokins.7180

sachimokins.7180

I really love the new zone and the story was great. My main complaint was the last fight in the story. As someone susceptible to motion sickness, I got a wicked bad headache and nausea from the spinning room. That fight was really hard and I kinda wanted a new Caudecus’ Manor dungeon path, but hey, I still liked the instance method.

Edit: I also caught that Steven Universe reference in the achievements. Way to be real subtle, huh?

(edited by sachimokins.7180)

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Posted by: Atlas.9704

Atlas.9704

The constructs were little above and beyond necessity.

Agreed, remove the constructs and the mission gets more challenging without losing the fun. Either that or they should increase the size of the room.

I tried again, third time, with consumables to help increase my health and reduce knockdown damage. I was doing fine against our insane Minister when it was just him and the White Mantle. My current best attempt so far was him at 50% health. The moment those constructs came in, it became a knock down/spectral agony/knock down/now you’re instantly dead.

Rinse repeat and frustrate.

To top it all off, I was flailing button presses like a spastic monkey and accidentally hit “return to Lake Doric” because my action cam icon was just in that spot as I frantically hit my buttons last minute.

All that progress lost, I don’t think I’ll be attempting this again until adjustments are made. It stopped being fun.

Elona, Land of the Golden Sun….and undead…and poison. The travel brochure lied okay?!

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Posted by: Vegetation.6419

Vegetation.6419

Story was good and all, but I didn’t like how my character was bootlicking the queen. I mean, I agree with the White Mantle and the separatists (in real life I mean). At the same time, I do understand that storywise you can’t really make the player chose sides, but I don’t like playing a diehard loyalist. Maybe I would have liked being more neutral? I don’t know really.

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

The hearts progress so slow that I’m tempted to not even bother doing map completion on another characters.

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Posted by: Masculus.4817

Masculus.4817

I didn’t like it. The map is barren and boring. The hearts, again, boring and poorly explained. The first part of the quest was good; Confessor’s End was godawful. The Jade Bow is already ridiculous, now you put one in a chamber where the camera doesn’t work, with a boss shooting kitten everywhere (these bullet hell fights are getting old) and with a window so short for using special action, that a high ping rate is enough to get yourself manhandled by the him.

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Posted by: Smooth Penguin.5294

Smooth Penguin.5294

I’ve noticed my bags are constantly full. It’s not just from enemy drops and harvesting nodes, it’s from all the random collection items in Lake Doric. I have max bag slots, and that’s not enough to hold all the droppings. I think the Devs really missed this problem on the beta testing. Because I’m not sure what I need and don’t need, I’ve been keeping every single trinket in case I need it for some secret item thingy.

In GW2, Trading Post plays you!

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Posted by: Raap.9065

Raap.9065

So, as a player who drops back into this game every so often (in other words I’m playing GW2 like a dirty casual), I cannot help but wonder how much better everything could have been if the raid development resources were put into something more than what a very small percentage of your audience plays.

I completely fail to see the logic in making what are essentially private-club PvE maps, when those maps could be "open world raids" similar to Dragon’s Stand. You’d also be able to reveal more of the story to your entire PvE audience and not just the smaller raiding sub-culture. I hope thought is being given to opening up raid content to the entire playerbase, as you’re just not spending development resources efficiently right now, in my opinion.

As for the content I do have access too, it was average. It had a lot of filler, not much lore progression, and only really raised more questions than that it provided answers. The design for the final boss environment was quite solid though, even if the rest of the content was made up of re-used assets.

Edit: "Less than 50 words TLDR": Put more development resources into content all players got access too, so I feel encouraged to play your game more often and longer, and therefore increase the likelihood I spend more money.

Swift Mending – Guardian
Thorny Scrub – Thief
Desolation

(edited by Raap.9065)

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Posted by: Mea.5491

Mea.5491

I really enjoyed the story except for the last boss fight which was frustrating: too much cc, too little space, etc. I like the new map aesthetic and exploring-wise, I haven’t tried many events yet but the ones I ran into were fun. The Hearts should “fill up” faster. I’m happy with this episode but some improvements here and there would be appreciated. (Sorry for my bad English).

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Posted by: Heibi.4251

Heibi.4251

Tons of fun on the new map. Love the story. Felt like I was playing GW1 again.

Leader of Central Anime(CA)
Tifa Ran/Ranger with a Pet
Commander WvW – Henge of Denravi

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Posted by: Xenon.4537

Xenon.4537

The final fight with Caudecus is frustrating in a bad way.

  • The room you fight in is really small
  • Caudecus never stops spamming the floor with little aoe bombs
  • Caudecus sometimes randomly knocks you down for a good 5 seconds resulting in massive damage from aoe spam
  • The camera jitters around a lot due to it scraping the edges of the room geometry which induces headaches and further frustration
  • There’s a veteran jade bow on top of all this who deals massive damage
  • There’s lots of little bloodstone suicide bomb adds
  • I think I saw some white mantle hammer guys at one point
  • There’s so much aoe, particle effects, and projectiles flying around I can’t see what I’m doing.
  • The room is too small to see what is going on with all the effects piled up and enemies running about.
  • I broke all my armor suicide running into the room because Caudecus would sometimes just 1-shot me the moment I loaded in.

Honestly I’m not epileptic, but this was the worst case of sensory overload I’ve experienced in this game. This fight needs a bigger space and the mechanics need better conveyance. There’s no telegraph for Caudecus’s stun attack. There’s so much going on it’s nearly impossible to keep track of my footing while dodging the jade bow shots and grabbing bloodstone shards to break the shield. Too many mechanics. Too many adds. It’s just a circus of colorful spastic crap filling my screen.

Personally I feel the fight designs have been going downhill recently. The last time the living world story actually had a solid boss fight was the Shadow of the Dragon in the episode Point of No Return before HoT. That was a really great experience not just because of the space, the pacing of the mechanics, etc. It was great narratively as well because even though you get separated from Braham, you still feel like he is part of the story and the fight because he helps you from outside with shield spells which play into the mechanics. Despite my team mates being in the same room with Caudecus I didn’t feel like they were even there. They offered no gameplay input and no narrative input during the fight, so they might as well not even be there. It would actually help with the clutter if you removed Anise and Canach from the room during the fight.

I write this only as constructive feedback so hopefully Anet can design better boss fights in the future.

Inb4 git gud

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Posted by: Xenon.4537

Xenon.4537

Story was good and all, but I didn’t like how my character was bootlicking the queen. I mean, I agree with the White Mantle and the separatists (in real life I mean). At the same time, I do understand that storywise you can’t really make the player chose sides, but I don’t like playing a diehard loyalist. Maybe I would have liked being more neutral? I don’t know really.

Haha I agree with this. Down with the queen! Seriously I would love to see war break out between the humans and charr. I miss the racial tensions that used to exist back in GW1. It makes cooperating with allies more important when there’s a societal stigma against each other.

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Posted by: midnight tea.3681

midnight tea.3681

The final boss fight of this patch actually made me physically ill. Mostly due to the very confined space causing camera hiccups, the spinning walls and being constantly launched by the boss and enemies (Jade armors seem to be the culprit). I also had an incredibly hard time soloing the final encounter because I would sometimes enter, be launched three times in a row and sent through enough AoEs to be immediately defeated. It was very demoralizing and took away from the (eventual) triumph of victory. It did need at least one repair canister before my armor started breaking.

Also either counter-magic doesn’t always seem to work, or the window of time needed for me to move my hand off the mouse to push the “-” button is too short.

(edited by midnight tea.3681)

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Posted by: aerial.7021

aerial.7021

<snip>

1- CC spam mobs are not fun. Not every class has short cd stunbreaks or easy stability.

2- You make toughness builds completely pointless with the condition spam. Confusion+poison+ cripple all day everyday.

Again, not every class has god condi clear.

Not all of us want to tinker tamper with the way we’ve built our characters either, the problem with CC and all the rest of the man fangled stuff is it was just thrown at us, some of us braced it others rejected dealing with it, mainly because it’s never been (in game) properly explained. The personal story encounters should be scaled to your class not some generic one size fits all.

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Posted by: Zavve.8205

Zavve.8205

Love everything about it! The map is great and I am really into the story. The politics were super interesting. Some of the secrets in the story were both cool and hilarious.

The jade construct things kicked my butt at first but I got em in the end!

Oh, and I really like how the friendly NPCs can actually fight now! It is pretty cool seeing them actually killing the white mantle. It makes me care more for them when they need my help.

I also love how there are parts that look back on things you have previously done in the game. That old hidden room in CM that I thought was just a glitchy test room years ago actually being where you fight the boss was so cool.

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Posted by: Cyniscythe.5947

Cyniscythe.5947

Everything else was fine; but, as everyone else is saying, the extravaganza of the boss fight was uncalled for. Playing a squishy nuker staff elementalist was a complete nightmare, and it took me the better part of an hour to realize that using lightning overload after disabling his shield was basically the only way to damage him while also being able to use counter-magic at the same time. Possible fixes would be disabling the jade bows/armors and allowing maybe half a second’s more breathing room for counter-magic. Again, the rest of the chapter is fine (the Lazarus spoiler, especially), but the final instance nearly made me tear my hair out.

(edited by Cyniscythe.5947)

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Posted by: Xenon.4537

Xenon.4537

I really think the devs ought to study dark souls if they want to design challenging solo boss fights that are actually rewarding. It’s difficult to design such a fight. The key is to exaggerate telegraphs and keep the pacing of the mechanics tight, but within the limits of the player’s ability. For example you can’t expect the player to dodge more than twice in a short period (daredevils excluded). If the enemies can do enough continuous heavy damage to kill you despite dodging and popping defensive cooldowns, then you obviously put too much in there. The difference between the Caudecus fight and the Shadow of the Dragon fight is that when you die on Shadow, it’s your fault for missing a telegraph or dodging too late. When you die on Caudecus it’s because you used up all your dodges and have no more cooldowns and yet he is still hammering you.

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Posted by: aerial.7021

aerial.7021

Story was good and all, but I didn’t like how my character was bootlicking the queen. I mean, I agree with the White Mantle and the separatists (in real life I mean). At the same time, I do understand that storywise you can’t really make the player chose sides, but I don’t like playing a diehard loyalist. Maybe I would have liked being more neutral? I don’t know really.

Haha I agree with this. Down with the queen! Seriously I would love to see war break out between the humans and charr. I miss the racial tensions that used to exist back in GW1. It makes cooperating with allies more important when there’s a societal stigma against each other.

Oh that tension still exists, I hate the Charr and I hate even more being forced to being one (one certain fractal does this), I have 1 charr on my account I’ve just not figured out a really demeaning way to use it yet pack mule is just too much of a reward.

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

I’ve had a lot of fun with the story and the new map. It’s really large and full of nooks and crannies, I have not finished it yet (I mean in exploration — achieves and viewing all the npc banter will take much longer). Part of that is due to my wanting to get the story under my belt to be spoiler proof. Anyway, the map detail is tremendous, back to the level of some of the original maps.

Story: some real zingers in there, tons of meat to chew on for RP spinoff tales (especially what the Queen told the Ministry). I’m a bit sad DR itself remains pristine, and maaaay allow as how there’s some internal city damage going on as well. Wish there were PR-duped civilians rioting in the streets, for instance.

Final fight: Room is too small for all that’s going on. I figured out the mechanics right away, but still lost all my armor at least twice despite having many blocks, dodges, and stealths (on squishy daredevil) before I focused down the jades and returned to pitching crystals at the boss. I got him down anything from 0% to 5% per death of mine. At least Anise was kind enough to rez me over and over, between stuns — it was easier to wait for the rez and keep track of the room’s action than to checkpoint and port back in to the mess.

Sorry, way over 50.

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Posted by: Donari.5237

Donari.5237

And sorry, double post, here is a quick bit of feedback on something that actually did impact my enjoyment: At the end, going through the chambers, I followed Canach up to find the way in. That dumped me right by the desk, and examining that triggered the dialogues to finish up. All the other green star items I could have examined disappeared. Given the amusement of that mesmer and her, ah, partner, I imagine there may have been other fun tidbits in there.

I was very disappointed to lose the chance to see what the other items would have told me about the boss.

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Posted by: dragyn.5706

dragyn.5706

Im gonna chime in with agreement to just about everything here. The map was beautiful. Its the first LS3 map that made sense. It wasnt just random groups placed around the map; everything tied together beautifully.

The story was great. Fighting besideJenna was just awesome. The character returns were well thought out. It was just a lot of fun.

Minor crits:
- Why is the last step ‘spend more time doing stuff on the map’? It serves no purpose.
- Why is there yet another collection item. You really need to look into adding petrified wood, rubies, jade, etc… either to the wallet or to their own type of non-inventory collection. (Same with all the various key types, a non-inv keyring would be nice.)
- Knock back. Just…. no. Stop it. Once in a while is a good thing, but when you put it as a primary attack for a swarming mob? Yeah…. no.

Major crit: THE LAST FIGHT

Just…. wtf? I understand the fights are supposed to be challenging; it’s an end game for high level players. But no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Challenging; not an abattoir. It is impossible for squishy characters to move around, dodge the circles, pick up, throw, and still be able to hit the special action, which by default is the entire way across the keyboard without taking 90% damage. Which is followed by a knock back. Which then kills you. The whole thing desperately needs to be scaled back. Less floor coverage, longer react time for counter – even just those two would greatly increase playability of ele and mes and other squishies.

I play for fun. I’m a casual gamer. I work for a living. I don’t have time to spend an hour on a single fight that’s just not fun.

Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaase fix it.

All that aside, I do love this episode. In fact, it’s my favorite one yet. If this is the direction you’re taking with the episodes (bar the boss fight,) I’m salivating waiting for the next one.

(edited by dragyn.5706)