Guild Wars 2

Leather farm – Terrible.

Wrong sort of leather. Sniper mobs all over the rocks is a terrible idea. Map completion requires getting to the very heart of it, which is causing a lot of frustration.

It’s not a farm, its pointless and frustrating.

I’d like to make some constructive comments on the story aspects of this episode (and some apply to other most recent episodes, as well).

The power spike of NPCs was really strange in this episode. For one, I find it odd that other mesmers have all these super powerful skills that we, as players, do not (at least not yet): Anise, Jennah, and Valette can all portal seemingly wherever they want, Jennah can murder people with a snap of her fingers, white mantle mind stab creates multiple attacks. I also find it strange that this episode had so many mesmers.

I’m really disappointed in the evolution of Dragon’s Watch. I loved DE 2.0, so seeing it shattered like this and seeing my character being kind of a jerk to folks like Marjory is just weird.

My biggest gripe with the last couple of episodes is the abrupt endings. Braham declares he is going to crack Jormag’s tooth. We get a cinematic of him doing just that. And then the “Episode complete” box pops up and we’re standing in a cave alone in silence. This thread is completely ignored this episode. Cracking the tooth is a big, big deal, especially for a Norn PC.
Similarly, this episode we find out Lazarus might not actually be really Lazarus. We talk about it with Canach shortly and then… that’s it, it’s over. I get that these are short stories, but, imo, the endings need some work to feel less jarring.

Great personal story tie-ins. Too much motion sickness in final instance? Thank you for no new raid-locked masteries. Why can’t we sell Cin Business items? The flavor text is cute, inventory spam ISN’T Friend of the Forest achievement requires fighting over the same lost spirits. VERY frustrating. Good update!

Final boss fight spoiled the relatively good work up to that point. As most above said, room too small, cc too frequent, timer on special skill too short etc etc. Almost every LS chapter ends with a bad boss fight. This wasn’t the worst but the bar is so low. Really can’t see why its so hard to tune these for one person of any class in basic gear. It’s core story content not some kind of challenge.

Story in general was okay. Canach was good. Anise was abominable as she always is. If she doesn’t turn out to be an arch-villain there’s something very wrong with the writing because she’s repellent. Jennah was…odd. Logan was…odd. He has an excuse though. Some interesting developments, some clunky exposition. Acceptable but not amazing.

The new map is also acceptable but not amazing. Kryta is and has always been ugly and this is no exception. Some interesting nooks and crannies but really just another Kryta map, which is not my cup of tea. Gameplay-wise I think you’re at the point of diminishing returns already with this style of map. It plays exactly as I expected and I haven’t bothered with map completion or the achievements whereas with Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay I pretty much lived there for a month or more. Bitterfrost I lasted a couple of weeks. Doric Lake I may not even bother to finish. Has a real “been there, done that” feel already.

Overall I’d give the chapter a B-. Not bad but not great.

Oh, and although I totally expected it, it was still a big disappointment that there wasn’t a full, open-world assault on Divinity’s Reach like Scarlet’s Attack on LA. Missed a trick there.

OriOri.8724:

But it isn’t locked to solo players, that’s the thing. Its entirely possible to do it solo using the shortcut. I don’t understand why you are so against this shortcut. It was purposefully added so that you can do this solo. It takes 5 minutes tops to walk from the nearest WP, find the entrance to the shortcut, figure out the path, and come out near the PoI. This isn’t like you are breaking out of the map and need to find the exact pixel to stand on. Its really easy to do it solo

I was never against the “shortcut”; I just hadn’t tried it yet when I made that post earlier. After trying the back way to get there, I still stand by what I originally said. The route isn’t difficult at all until you reach the top. However, once you’re at the top, you still have to run past several champs, elites, and veterans to reach the POI. And you’ll most likely die trying to run out. But at least you won’t die trying to get remotely close to that area of the zone.

I loved the story it is really well put together, the map is beautiful and i like how you can stop to admire how nice it is without being ganked by mobs every few steps.

I didn’t enjoy the final fight, the space is too confined and the camera goes mental especially if your a light class that needs to keep moving and use mobility skills such as a mesmer. It just wasn’t a fun encounter for me.

I feel like the final boss needs some tweaking. Imagine fighting in a cramped room where there’s always AoE that can CC you. The chaos protection feels useless because even if you use it and the boss gets stunned, for some odd reason you still get CC’ed so it undermines the point of using the chaos protection.

Oh and eventually he will spawn a Veteran Jade Bow. Yeah, that thing is a kittener all right. So you already have the problem above plus a Vet that spams CC on you as well, and if you try to eliminate it, you’ll instead be forced to fight its invulnerability phase as well. You’d end up needing to shuffle what you are doing within a small room.

And yeah, gonna echo the statement on Cleric and Mesmer enemies.

Ookamikun.6472:

And yeah, gonna echo the statement on Cleric and Mesmer enemies.

Clerics are okay-ish. The most irritating thing they do is shield block for what I would swear under oath is much more than 3 seconds. Or I’m just impatient. :P
Their healing feels kind of random. Like, sometimes it will boost them to near full, other times it looks less effective.

Mesmers… don’t behave like mesmers. Having to smack down an HP wall that has just as many as the “actual” mesmer isn’t appropriately thematic to how they work. I mean, I get why it’s done for mechanics reasons (defeat one, summon the next), but it’s mechanics that aren’t consistent with the players.
Then again, between Anise, Kasmeer, and Jennah, I’ve no idea what a mesmer should be doing thematically. >.>

I feel like if they fight like actual mesmers, you’d instead see the clones and the real thing at the same time fighting you rather than having an extra life.

Story was decent for the most part but there’s so many characters coming and going all the time that I’m starting to lose track of character motivations. There’s still so many loose ends to be tied up and I spotted some continuity errors. I only hope that the next episode starts to finalise and focus the story.

The new map has a great meta-event chain but the heart events are very uninteresting, plus some of them take far too long to complete as you end up competing with other players to put out fires or feed hungry soldiers. I think maybe the heart events should complete quicker.

That last boss fight has interesting mechanics, but the arena you’re fighting in is inappropriate. The camera kept on colliding with the wall or the ceiling and I often couldn’t see what I was doing. Such limited camera movement actually began to give me a headache especially as my view is constantly full of chaotic effects. I did like what was trying to be done with this fight, but the environment was all wrong.

Extra: I did like that there were class specific actions during the final quest. I really hope we see more of those.

First story part was good, I liked it. All the other parts until the end need work. Go to new zone. Tour new zone (which is likely to get you doing hearts and events as you go). Now, go back and do/redo a specific heart. Now, go back and do more events to fill a bar. And finally, back to actual plot movement.

That’s awful. The story flows better if you run past everything on the “tour mission”, and it’s counter-intuitive.

Final fight sucks too, others have stated why.

Sarie.1630:

I’ve managed map completion and story completion so far and one aspect of this patch really stands out for me. Something I hope gets more attention in future. Buildings you can walk around in! Lake Doric is awesome for building exploration – please keep that up.

Thank you for reminding me of this! I had meant to put it in my post as well. This too is also a very much needed thing in the game world to help make it seem just that little bit more real. Actually I was hoping that parts of Div reach were destroyed (those fake wall/buildings that seem so tiny that we can never reach and enter) just so that they could recreate them more realistically with more explore able buildings lol…

Didn’t happen but I am satisfied enough with what they gave us in the new map at least!

So far I’m finding Ep4 very interesting. And, through following Woodenpotatoes, took the liberty of entering the new Raid just to see what was there.

As for the leather farm…I found the centaurs to be a welcome open world challenge. I mean, I look at it more like an opportunity to get a squad together and raid a centaur stronghold instead of them raiding ours for a change. Got knocked into down state twice on my POI run, but found it very exciting.

The lore throwback to GW1 is awesome, as always. And the tidbit clues from E’s correspondence just adds to the level of mystery. Personally, I’m looking forward to where all of this goes in the end.

Gaile Gray.6029:

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!

Bulltet points for ease, not really a raider, so can’t comment there:

• Really sick of you guys filling my inventory with garbage (Cin’s Business)
• Moonlighting achieve bugged
• Burning villagers event requires event fail (poor choice) and lasts all of 4 seconds in any sizable group (really annoying)
• SS Pinkeen Mantle defense is infuriating and upscales badly. Skritt is good, though.
• Relatedly, having so many WM Mesmers everywhere gets old super fast. Neat gimmick, gets tiring to go through their healthbars twice, everywhere.
• Leather farm seemed good, though it’s annoying to constantly burn through Basic Kits with all these salvageable items.
• Very much preferred ‘consume all’ of Winterberries to Jade Shards
• Not enough unbound magic on map to stay for long-term
• Hearts take way too long to complete
• Many small events makes it feel like a warzone, which is awesome.
• Love how many skins there are in this patch, from tons of different sources
• Fractals team is friggin amazing.
• Overall the polish on this patch is incredible. I could praise the great things in this patch for forever, and please don’t think that these bullet points are me saying that this patch isn’t good—it’s amazing—I’m just trying to be brief for easier digestion.
  EDIT: I’d also like to thank this patch team for my first ever pre from mob drop, 6680 hours in, [Dusk] <3

Did most of the stuff yet, though missing some story achievements yet.

- The map and everything on it is awesome!
- The final boss battle in the story is not. As previously said – you get put into a much too small room with by far too many spots to avoid and a mob knocking you back all the time, then having to collect those bloodstone shards, then throwing them at the right target, then use this magic skill thing (forgot the name, lel), then fight the mob – annoying as hell.

Grate update and new map, enjoying it.

The last boss of the story mode though, Jesus Christ! In my life, I’ve played many games, many many bad games with many awful boss encounters and the end boss of gw2 ls3 part 4 is right up there with one of the worst boss encounters in a game ever, as far as I’ve played. Sorry to say that but I can see no redeeming factors in it.

Anyway apart from that all good

I loved the exciting approach, Since the ambush in the palace party, the battle against the traitor. And the 2nd mission at Caudecus mannor was also quite moving. I like the plot depth of this chapter.

Love the area and story. About being a being thrown around at end fight story. If you click that thing above your bar when it appears in time you wont be a ping pong ball. However you cant get a good view of the room beceause its to small. Finally a end boss that isnt faceroll.

The map is awesome, the events are fun to play. I love the fact that the white mantle and the seraph are fighting for places and can capture/defend their ground.

The story was cool too… Until the last chapter.
Both Caudecus fight aren’t fun to play, the first one is not that hard and can be done quite easily when you learn the mechanic, but the last, oh dear lord Grenth why didn’t you just take my soul away. It was hard, frustrating, a litteral CC orgy, hopefully there was a portal to come back once you’re dead. Please Anet, next time you think about adding more CC -> don’t
Also, that’s a really personnal thing but I didn’t like the plot twist at the end, like litterally we’ve spent 4 episodes building hype arround some characters and then there’s juste that piece of paper that says “lmao it ez naht the tru Lazarus xDDXDXdxddddd”
It felt like the plot itself was spitting at my face.

On the good point I liked the characters who were along with us during the story, good to see Logan again [and seing him getting friendzoned really hard], Faren also was a well used comic relief [and seing him getting laid was funny, especially in the Caudecus manor with that white mantle mesmer], fighting with Jennah on our sides is a nice touch and, of course, Demmi ! I was not expecting her but I was so glad to see an end to her story and her father.

Have to admint it’s globaly far better than Ep3, and the map is my favorite one.

But really, that letter at the end… Killed my greatest interest in the story.

This episode was great. The map is just amazing. I really liked the look and feel of it. The story was good, and I really liked the nods to the CM path. Cracked me up about the barn door. “Yeah, that was me. I thought it would have been fixed by now.” I really enjoyed exploreing the map too I’m looking forward to having another wander tomorrow.

The only thing I didn’t like was the last boss fight. It was very annoying, not really difficult, just annoying getting stun locked and killed by Cautious and a Jade. That is my only gripe with the episode. I’ve seen people saying in map chat that the leather farm needs a lot of people to be doing it to be able to do it. I was lucky and happen to stumble in to a zurg at the right time to do it, so it’s the only thing I can’t really come to on, and I’ve not done the maze yet. But so far, my favourite LW map by far

Stop with the kitten Portal Scrolls. I did the story on my main story character. Let my alts into the maps. It was at least minorly thematic with bloodstone fen, but now it’s just turning into a waste of unbound magic (which you need boatloads of) and inventory slots. If you want to pull this, at least give us a portal scroll wallet, but it would still be better to just stop it completely. We have access to the content, so stop creating artificial barriers.

The new map is mostly good. The leather farm can only be done with a group, but that is in line with the original description, though I would watch how it works once the population dies down a bit. I wish it had a bit more quick travel, but at least the waypoints are reasonably near everything of interest this time. The cohesiveness of the map is much better than bitterfrost; it feels like one map concept instead of 6. The enemy density and insane aggro has also been addressed. Some of the hearts do a horrible job of explaining what you need to do, though, as no obvious link is created between, for example, fishing traps and the adjacent town, leading you to think they are part of some other event. The hearts also fill at too slow a rate, getting boring long before they are done.

The Siege defense events are a major issue. They are too long with nothing happening. After the boss and the initial wave, you are only about halfway finished, but the amount the enemies deplete the bar and the low spawn rate mean you spend 5x as long as the first part standing there waiting for enough enemies to spawn in 1 by 1 to finish. It’s not fun or interesting at that point. I can easily see these events being abandoned soon, as they are just not worth the time once you have the achieves.

White mantle attack is way too weak compared to Lion’s arch.
As a pact commander, player character should involve who is gonna be next Pact marshall instead of Queen or Leader of Vigil.

eozturk.7205:

White mantle attack is way too weak compared to Lion’s arch.
As a pact commander, player character should involve who is gonna be next Pact marshall instead of Queen or Leader of Vigil.

I nominate the commander for Pact Marshall…….because we are the ONLY competent people in Tyria that can do anything right.

Logan as Pact Marshall???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Now we are going to go clean up Braham’s mess and ALSO Logan’s mess…..
I see what you did there ANET…..

The last boss fight is fine. Players just need to learn to stop looking at their keyboards while they play.

Great Job! and congratulations for this new episode 4. I had so much fun playing through this chapter. the dialogues were amazing and hilarious specially when we reunite with Canach (by far my favorite character in this season) it was even better! I hope to see more of him in the future.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

The last boss fight is fine. Players just need to learn to stop looking at their keyboards while they play.

Well, they went in and changed the Jade Bow to a different npc, gave a bit more time for us to use the Dispel Magic skill, and reduced the frequency of his knockbacks after just one day of it being live. So, apparently, it was enough of an issue to them that they found it appropriate to tweak it.

Thank you for changing the final boss, Anet. As a disabled gamer, I dreaded doing it a second time to get the cat. A few friends who have similar issues will be appreciative, I’m sure.

Any chance on making the Ghost Bandit a bit more frequent?

Ok, I just ran through the final boss for the first time since tonight’s patch (third time doing the boss total), and it’s much more manageable now. It’s still tough enough to keep it interesting, but there is way more time to react to what’s happening. If you do slip up, you’ll still get knocked around a lot, but it’s nowhere near as punishing as it was before the fix.

Overall:
The story and dialogue is top notch. Me and my guild were dying of laughter in TS during Canach’s dialogue. Continue with what you are doing, it is in the right direction.

Constructive Criticism:
1. Having cutscenes that ignore that the player would interject – such as Caucticus shooting Demi take some of the realism out of the narrative and feels like forced storytelling. I feel that the story team can do better.

2. I feel that the story is heading in a direction where Dragon’s Watch falls apart. The “Friendship saves the day” ending has been used in both the Personal Story and HoT, it should not be used again. I recommend the commander, despite being outnumbered and alone, abandoned by his/her friends in Dragon’s Watch, still fights the dragons, but suffers terrible losses because of it. Then, members of Dragon’s Watch realize that they need to group together to win the fight against future dragons and go to rejoin. When they do, Taimi berates them, perhaps to the effect of how she was the only one who stayed with the commander.
I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU DO NOT HAVE DRAGON’S WATCH COME BACK TOGETHER AT THE LAST SECOND AND SAVE THE DAY AS FRIENDS, IT HAS BEEN OVERDONE.

PaladinVII.1647:

Overall:
The story and dialogue is top notch. Me and my guild were dying of laughter in TS during Canach’s dialogue. Continue with what you are doing, it is in the right direction.

Constructive Criticism:
1. Having cutscenes that ignore that the player would interject – such as Caucticus shooting Demi take some of the realism out of the narrative and feels like forced storytelling. I feel that the story team can do better.

2. I feel that the story is heading in a direction where Dragon’s Watch falls apart. The “Friendship saves the day” ending has been used in both the Personal Story and HoT, it should not be used again. I recommend the commander, despite being outnumbered and alone, abandoned by his/her friends in Dragon’s Watch, still fights the dragons, but suffers terrible losses because of it. Then, members of Dragon’s Watch realize that they need to group together to win the fight against future dragons and go to rejoin. When they do, Taimi berates them, perhaps to the effect of how she was the only one who stayed with the commander.
I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU DO NOT HAVE DRAGON’S WATCH COME BACK TOGETHER AT THE LAST SECOND AND SAVE THE DAY AS FRIENDS, IT HAS BEEN OVERDONE.

I have to second much of this criticism. Guild Wars nowadays often feels like the plot of a 90’s cartoon in presentation and arc. This isn’t what you want if your product is a sense of another world. Then again, maybe the cartoonish feel is intentional and it’s just part of GW2’s whole style.
All I’m going to add is that please don’t overcorrect and make everything dark/edgy/grimdark in an attempt to balance it. The late 90’s also did that and it also wasn’t fun or interesting.

<3 this map It has a nice style, very beautiful. Great work! it’s my fav since xpac I havn’t played this game for a long time coz the map’s style wasn’t my taste .the plot was lack of exciting .Now I go back to play this game as an explorer

After playing more I want to update my feedback on the leather farm. It’s not “underwhelming” as I first reported. It’s basically a waste of time. I can go to SW or Bitterfrost, farm generically, and spend the gold on leather and it will be more productive. The salvage table for the bloodstone leather or whatever it’s called is terrible. It gives 80% thick leather which is already the cheapest leather. For people trying to make Elonian Leather Squares, the leather “farm” is completely useless.

SirDrygan.1823:

eozturk.7205:

White mantle attack is way too weak compared to Lion’s arch.
As a pact commander, player character should involve who is gonna be next Pact marshall instead of Queen or Leader of Vigil.

I nominate the commander for Pact Marshall…….because we are the ONLY competent people in Tyria that can do anything right.

Logan as Pact Marshall???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Now we are going to go clean up Braham’s mess and ALSO Logan’s mess…..
I see what you did there ANET…..

The Commander was offered the job first. We turned it down.

Story was good, more enjoyable than last time. Map is okay. I’ll spend a couple more days there before going back to EB :P

That final boss fight was annoying. Not difficult for my Necromancer, just annoying with the CCs artificially making the combat longer.

Haven’t played through the whole Episode 4, but on the map, I have noticed a significant change to the way NPC reacted to invading parties, in a positive ways, they don’t stand around doing nothing and are actually defending. Which is really good.

Love the new map. Hate the boss fight. Insane difficulty level and chaotic camera angles.

I spent two hours making three attempts and only took 25% of his health. I just ended up dead in my underpants. It’s not a raid. It’s story-ville and it needs to be tuned for normal players.

Minor suggestion:
Please can we have a folder/pocket/“key ring” for all the teleport scrolls we are collecting?

DoctorDing.5890:

Minor suggestion:
Please can we have a folder/pocket/“key ring” for all the teleport scrolls we are collecting?

One item could open a dialog. The same used by the teleport NPCs (Lava Lounge etc.). With the unlocked locations/scrolls only:

Hi Anet,

This episode was my least favorite so far of LS 3. The idea of a war going on for the new map is good and the map itself is nice, but there was no build up to this battle. The story was fast and very short, the boss fight at the end as many players have pointed out was cramped with camera angle difficulty in the little room. Please allow for map currencies to go into wallet. The Queen Jenna part killing people at will was silly and made me feel irrelevant.

I liked the campaign style missions and stories of GW1 more than the discontinuity with this season so far. First episode we go to bloodstone fen and fight White Mantle, second to fire islands dealing with Primordus, third episode we go to far north to fight with Jormag’s minions, 4th episode back to fighting White Mantle in a sudden large pitched battle. There was no build up because we are hopping from fighting one major enemy to another and we went from the bitterfrost frontier to fighting in a war against White Mantle in span of 1 episode. Please don’t made killing Primordus and Jormag a simple 1 episode mission using Taimi’s technology.

Appreciate all the new maps, please build with a campaign style. Thanks for all your work and effort!

Last boss fight – utter kitten

That is all

Oh and the Jade bow is still there, so much for carnival sharpshooter

Thanks for a great new map and a fun episode!

I appreciate the changes to the final boss fight. My first time through on a ranger, I wasn’t even a voting member in how it was going. Second time through last night after the patch was a success, and I was able to actually use the special skill instead of getting the ping after it was already too late.

Not So Fond:
- The pacing in A Meeting of Ministers is a little frustrating, I think partly because of all the walking with Jenna. It might have been improved if I had ever gotten around to setting a toggle for walk, but the run-and-wait to get the dialogue while she moseyed along made it feel like it dragged out.
- Heart progress in Lake Doric is fine when there are events happening, but miserably slow when they aren’t. Some of the non-event tasks could probably award a little more progress.

Like:
- Logan’s character development. Man’s been through a lot, and I’m glad to see it has changed him.
- Hidden achievements. I like that some are easy to just fall into if you’re the sort of player who goes along with your character’s impulses to bow to their Queen or visit the shrine of the Spirit they look to or pay their respects to the fallen, while others are a bit more obscure.
- The overall layout and flow of the map events. There are plenty of things to do, and they’re fairly easy to find and get to.
- The Dragon’s Watch story line. As someone who occasionally organizes events in a tiny guild, I can really relate to our character’s challenges there.

Love!
- The profession-specific bonuses in Confessor’s End. More like this, please, either profession- or race-based! It was a really nice touch, and it will encourage me to run this episode with all my characters instead of just two or three of them.
- The artwork. This is a really beautiful map, and I’m looking forward to finishing my exploration.

Thank you for nerfing Caudecus. I had to partner up to beat him previously. Which is not the end of the world, but the personal story is supposed to be soloable content that I can work through at my own pace. I like to stick to soloing most of the time because I have to go AFK frequently and unexpectedly (I have little kids), which is not very fair to my party.

I love the Lake Doric map! It feels huge, especially compared to tiny Bitterfrost, and full of Easter eggs and puzzles. The dynamic events all feel connected and progressive, instead of self-contained rapid cycles (defend a brazier! Good, you defended it! Now… defend the brazier again!) I wish there was a complete ley train loop or some thermal cannons, because I love swooping around at high speeds, but I can live without them. Overall, big improvement on Bitterfrost, well done.

Also, the story! I am seriously excited to find out what is up with Lazarus!

Pros:
- new arrangement of old assets (or new map if you prefer to sell it that way)

Cons:
- recycled content and mechanics
- white mantle mesmers who died but then did not die, especially when they are scaled as 4 gold champions because your fabulous game engine thought that there was an army of players nearby when in term of actual actions it was 2 rabbits humping against the bastion’s wall
- Badly tuned champs who always end focusing on me for whatever criteria the designers felt good about because it must be their way to say that a player is welcome (but let’s be fair, with the change they made to crossing a ley line, it prove that an adult went by, telling them they had to stop their pee-poo jokes)
- Cant skip virtual dramas in LS cut scenes
- Did not undertood why they would go all tears with scenes written for teens who never saw a dead body in real life and then add the bed mirror suggesting that Ceaudicus was jackhamming his bed partners maniac style

Mixed feelings:
- Ceaudicus manor rooms filled with environment interactions accessible only to specific professions. An idea might be interesting on paper, what will make it good and meaningfull in the end is how you implement it for the players, not just for the designers and a group of people you invited for tests, who will never say an idea is badly implemented, precisely because you invited them.
That said the tamable hound was enjoyable but i almost missed it. You should hide the interesting things more, which i believe is in your habits, anet, right ?

Absurdis Delirium:
- I still dont know why i should purchase food related recipes in the trading post when there is no desciption of what the food does
- I still dont know why i should interact with some food related drops on the floor when there is no desciption of what the food does
- I still dont know why i cant tell from afar with a simple visual code (like color changes or what not) if a siege will need to be refreshed, forcing me to aim for a little icon from close distance while surrounded by 50 dirty faces who dont give a kitten about me not being able to activate skills because of the lag in wvw
- I still dont know why i have no option to not target a wall when there are so many more interesting things nearby in wvw, like a zerg entitled to kitten the crap out of us
- I still dont know why in the silverwastes, if i pre-man a siege engine in prevision of a comming assault, the game make me quit the siege weapon as the assault begin, making me waste a long recharge skill on top of the siege one as i press fire, especially when every second count when defending alone a bastion. Was it to ensure no one can troll the siege weapons ? Let me reassure you, aside from normal people, the chest farming lemmings prefer to spam ‘1’ on the scaled champs they made spawn by error, but that they flee after realizing their error. Maybe you should put your players analitycs to good use here, which would make the game realize that for this particular player, the current inactivity timout is irrelevant. Reseting the inactivity timer on siege skill use rather than on skill chaneling start does nothing, on the contrary it makes it even easier for trolls.

and so on, and so on, …

Bry.8140:

Last boss fight – utter kitten

That is all

Oh and the Jade bow is still there, so much for carnival sharpshooter

It was a carnival sharpshooter when I did it last night. Do keep in mind that they only replaced the Jade monster that spawns in the second (and final) boss fight. The one that spawns during the first boss fight (in the library) wasn’t replaced.

Okay ill start with my full report on this episode:

Story

For this segment im only going to detail actual story parts not the map completion or mastery segments:

Jennah’s return to form was a very interesting twist on her character, one I have a personal love/hate relationship with as I liked how she finally showed how powerful she was as a Mesmer but in some respects I disliked how she suddenly became a ruthless tyrant without warning.

I get that Jennah is a very wise, pragmatic queen, I get that shes had people try to assassiante her before (season 1) but I feel like Jennah wore ALOT of plot armor this time and frankly NEEDED to get wounded to make her seem less like a mary sue.

Because of that, I was sad to see how powerful she was because she was wearing so much plot armor it eliminate any symbol of humanity in her because she just outright murdered everyone in her path, literally.

Even so, I get shes a queen, a powerful, wise and very gifted queen, I do hope if something else happens to her in future however, she cant just so easily wave it away, it makes her seem increadably overpowered.

As for the Cadecus thing, honestly I saw it comming and its a little sad to just kill him off like that in the story so quickly and suddenly. I feel like now we literally have no relatable human antagonists (Faolain, Scarlet and Caudecus being the only noteable ones) with maybe Mai Trin somewhere in the Mists still and Evon Gnashblade who isnt really a villian, just a selfish git.

As a result, I hope that A-net brings some new humanoid villians into the frey, be they champions of the dragon with alot of personality and agenda or be they characters with nefarious goals and intentions in this changing world.

Demmi’s death was quite sad, but honestly, I again, saw it comming. Im too used to the father kills his daughter thing if hes evil and frankly it was too predictable, I actually felt sadder for Cadecus when he deludedly wanted his family back than Demmi, except for the part when she saw Tybalt, that was genuinely moving.

This episode suffered alot of Episode 3’s narrative issues with an effort to tell a story in a very confined space and rushed it a little too eagerly rather than drawing it out to its best conclusion. Im noticing a pattern with this season which seems to be a reoccuring theme of Too many Subplots not enough focus on One.

As a result, it feels like the plots are going everywhere with no real purposeful direction, and I hope soon we’ll get a clearer answer as to the focal point.

Gameplay

Lake Doric is one of the best new maps to come to GW2 since the Silverwastes, granted the Silverwastes got tedious and forgettable over time but Doric does a rather good job of being a better Silverwastes 2.0

It has some genuinley interesting encounters, events and actual progression in the map that makes it feel alive with the recapturing towns theme being quite genuinley fun to do.

The actual story missions though were a hit and miss, that final boss as everyone said was a nightmare, and frankly much like the tediously boring episode 3 boss that came before it, needs to be a lesson for a-net to tone down personal story to make it more accessable.

Also, the endless veteran/elite/champion mobs in solo content is just not acceptable at all, we really need the story segments to have alot less of those since frankly you should never be fighting dungeon tier bosses alone in a personal story.

Ill go back to my favorate boss encounters in the personal story, both come from the shadow of the dragon fights in season 2, both of those fights were genuinley challenging, but not impossible to do. Thats the key to making a good personal story fight, and frankly I hope looking back at that, a-net has a way forwards.

The map is pretty nice, though after going through it once (doing all the events n stuff) I probably won’t go back to it unless it’s necessary. The story was incredibly boring, especially all of the time sink parts in the new zone. The whole Caudecus kill was lackluster, I wish it would have been more epic. The quality of the story content/episodes for the past year+ has been really awful.

I would love to say that I really like this Episode because I do really love it so far. But I haven’t done the end fight yet and from what I hear that fight will ruin the entire Episode for me. I won’t be able to finish the Episode anymore than I have finished any of the previous ones.

I’m so disappointed.

+++Things I Liked+++

• Lake Doric is a versatile map. Updrafts, ley lines, high points. Lots of back passageways and secret things, I love when a map isn’t just the bare minimum or all laid out obviously. The secret Melandru achievement for example, nice and subtle but just enough signposting so you know something’s up.

• Just because other people compared Fort Evennia to that awful sneak-based Ash Legion heart – I actually liked this mission. A situation where I can utilise skill to NOT have to fight things is something I like.

• Demmi came back! If one character had to come back for Caudecus’s demise it would be her to finish off her story from the base game. I was so happy to see her again.

• A few moments where my race/class were mentioned. Logan mentioned me being a sylvari in the Krytan throne room, and against the Manor’s beastmaster I was able to turn the dogs against their master and I THINK it was mentioned that I was a ranger?

• Really liked the humour in the final instance after Canach showed up. Barbs at Anise, sarcasm to break up the repeated fights, and joining him to snark at the weird gubbins in Caudecus’s quarters. Many chuckles. Canach is acerbic but genuine, I like him.

• Riddles! Love em. Maybe they were easy, and there were only two and I got them right without much effort, but I still felt smart because of it, so, thank you.

• The animation in the scene where Caudecus pulls a gun on Demmi deserves a proper mention. His sneering and everything had surprising quality to it. Speaking of things I’m surprised this engine did, the basement lair with spinning walls.

• Tons of callbacks to Caudecus’s Manor. Demmi asking who broke a wall, and I’m like “o yea that was me”. “Here’s the secret entrance” “ok thanks I’ve been through here before actually”. And all the collectible letters with callbacks to small past events, also showing how deep Caudecus’s treachery and corruption ran.

- Stuff I Did Not So Much Like -

• How many waypoints in Lake Doric, 3? It feels like such a struggle to get somewhere specific. Couldn’t there have been some more ley lines other than leading out from DR?

• Probably my own fault, but Logan asked me to recon points in Lake Doric. I did so, and incorporated my map completion with that. Then Logan asked me to infiltrate a White Mantle base, which I’d already done… and the NEXT part, asked me to just bum around helping out until a bar filled, but I already completed the map because I thought his ‘do recon’ section was implying I should go and see it all…!

• Demmi had to die, apparently… :/ Bringing back a character with unfinished business from our story YEARS ago and letting her take part in all this, but after all our own effort if we were in the Order of Whispers, and her being in hiding for years… she just HAD to go down too instead of being allowed to fully escape an abusive family? Kind of cruel. I don’t think minor characters need to die in main story segments just to distract from the plot armour on more vital characters, like the Queen…

• Demmi gets shot… with a gun. Literally a dramatic pistol fire. Like. Uh. In a fantasy game? A gun? I got shot maybe 50 million times in that instance. I have a skill that turns projectiles into healing, so couldn’t I.. ….A GUN Are you serious??

• A GUN?

• Seriously the WORST WAY to force a character to die in a cutscene! Something that everyone’s magic usually brushes off, but for no reason right now, is apparently lethal!

=Overall=

I liked it, exploration is one of my top priorities so I’m glad I still have things to do there and collection achievements to fill in. Story had good humour, but GOOD GRIEF it was overall depressing. A sweet old minor character dead, never able to live out of the shadow of her mad father. Two characters moving on with their own lives, turning me down for Dragon’s Watch. Some kind of new threat and priority danger for Marjory, because this Lazarus guy is apparently a fake. Divinity’s Reach saved from a threat that has infected it for years… but now in perpetual war and under a bubble shield on a new map that won’t ever be resolved or change.

Sadface.

Honest feedback?

First few bits – nice
Final Fight – Confessors end? Personally having my hand trapped in a meat blender and having to gnaw my arm off at the shoulder to release the trapped arm would be a pleasanter experience. How on earth your ‘game play’ testers passed this off as worthy of GW2 is simply beyond me. Counter Magic Icon – disappears far too quickly. Dying instantly when you have just used the Portal to get back into the fight. Having Countess Anise res you (which takes far too long) and then dying instantly as soon as you get back on your feet.

I’m still in the middle of my first characters fight as I type this – All of his armour is damaged beyond repair and I have no way to repair it in the instance.

The best bit? I’ve supposedly got to have fun whilst doing this with all my other characters – the sad part? I only have two arms to trap in a meat blender, so heaven knows what I’m going to do after running two characters through this travesty.

New zone seems quite fun and the story was ok. That said, I wasn’t a fan of the final boss encounter – it felt poor & lazy, instead of coming up with actually fun fight mechanics it is yet more of the same old tons of aoe, conditions & adds – except this time in a tiny room.