Guild Wars 2

That was waaaaaaaaaaaay too anticlimatic after all the buildup to Zhaitan.
The whole airship section reeks of terrible design choices with a conclusion that is just laughable.

After facing off the first couple of dragons, all by yourself mind you (while the whole crew just watches from within the bridge), with the most boring choice of gameplay mechanic, while getting rid of the minions that keep pestering you (and the occasional glitches that have you stuck in the falling animation and you can’t do anything until your hp gets drained), you finally meet Zhaitan for the first time in the game.

I expected an epic battle with several stages: airship, siege, ground (or something along those lines).
De facto: a one-dimensional fight with the most limited gameplay mechanics to work with that I can think of.

You basically just enter turret mode and press one button. Occasionally you dodge his attack aaaaaaaaand repeat. That’s it.

That last quest utterly ruined the hard work of building up the final confrontation and it leaves more than just a sour taste when you realise that there’s nothing more to it.

I really hoped for a false-triumph-esque moment where Zhaitan just crashes Fort Trinity while everyone’s cheering and gives the player the fight he deserves.

My hopes were shattered once I saw the credits rolling in.

Cheers.

Welcome to our pain. Here’s hoping the Modremoth lives up to the hype.

This has been a complaint from early in the game. As I understand it, the Zhaitan fight was rushed out the door to meet launch deadlines and hasn’t been tweaked since, except … brace yourself …

They nerfed it. Those few Risen coming at you on the decks? They used to be a veritable tide. Even with 5 people fighting them repair bills just kept growing (repairing used to cost coin). There were wurms sprouting from the deck to knock you off the cannons while you 2-2-2-2-2’d the dragon down.

I cheer for your ability to avoid spoilers since the wimpiness of the Zhaitan fight is ingrained knowledge in the GW2 community, but maybe this time it would have been nice if you’d had some warning to lower your expectations. I’m sorry you had that let down

On the bright side, the animation team did superb work on making Zhaitan himself. I don’t get tired of that cutscene.

Donari.5237:

This has been a complaint from early in the game. As I understand it, the Zhaitan fight was rushed out the door to meet launch deadlines and hasn’t been tweaked since, except … brace yourself …

They nerfed it. Those few Risen coming at you on the decks? They used to be a veritable tide. Even with 5 people fighting them repair bills just kept growing (repairing used to cost coin). There were wurms sprouting from the deck to knock you off the cannons while you 2-2-2-2-2’d the dragon down.

I cheer for your ability to avoid spoilers since the wimpiness of the Zhaitan fight is ingrained knowledge in the GW2 community, but maybe this time it would have been nice if you’d had some warning to lower your expectations. I’m sorry you had that let down

On the bright side, the animation team did superb work on making Zhaitan himself. I don’t get tired of that cutscene.

I would have preferred the pre-nerf over this abomination…

Purchased the game about a week ago. Saw a review back in 2013 but never got around to buying it (all I remember is that it seemed really great).

Zhaitan looked pretty rad indeed. It was a plus that you only see him at the end, suspense overload, but that kind of ruined it for me in the same aspect.

The thing that bothered me most was how incredibly stupid the dragons are.

They could literally fly into the bottom of an air ship to destroy them yet they hover right in front of the guns.

The design of arah was just terrible

The STORY was good, bu the dungeon design… just terrible.

Stick with it, Jetta. ANet learned from their errors. Season One you can’t play, alas, just see a truncated recap in LA (or find videos and wiki entries) but Season Two had vastly better storytelling and HoT looks to have even better, with our characters belting out commands real time in game etc.

Whether it will be satisfyingly better I cannot say, that is subjective, but I don’t think they’ll ever inflict a Zhaitan on us again.

I just got to the final fight in the personal story as well and found it absolutely awful. The amount of bugs – I had to do it three times, solo – hnnnng….

Nice to know it’s not just me. I mean, Zhaitan sounds DEVIOUS during the story, but makes sweet sweet gentle love to a stone pillar while I fire cannons at his face? Errrr…

Well to be fair, he’s just been megazapped and lost pieces of himself, so the broadside is more along the lines of finishing him off.

But yeah, it’s a bit of a letdown. I’m trying to remember if it bothered me my first time in. I know it was fairly grueling dealing with all his minions before they sent most of those off on vacation, and none of us in the group knew what we were doing because it was so early in the game’s life. So there was a sense of completion and difficulty at the time.

Oh, one thing I always tell people after helping them their first time through: Make sure to talk to the late arrival to the victory party, go through -all- his dialogue options. Because then something magical happens. (And I further advise, don’t talk to any NPC involved in the magic before you have your screen shots because they stop doing it). People with a human noble origin should get an extra kick out of him.

the first time i did this, almost 3 years ago, with almost full green equip with 4 other greenhorns, it was all pretty tough. i remember we arrived at the final fight in underwear.

the fight itself… is and was always very underwhelming. sad but true. it seems very rushed, like other stuff from the story and also some ingame story cut scenes, but its in this rushed state now for 3 years. thats realy sad and even knowing that anet had other stuff to do all the time, i dont get how they can mistreat the main story like this. for many people who like to play on their own for most of their time (yeah, even in an mmo), the story is a crucial part of the game and it never got to live up to its potential.

sorry, anet. i like many things you do. but not this…

/edit
reading other comments: yeah, they learned. so things got better. i still wish they had put some effort in upgrading the old main story. its so cheesy it makes me cringe once in a while.

I did this solo not long after the story changes. I never played the previous version, but as I was going through it, I had the sense that it would have been a lot more exciting if you had to have 5 people working together. Running solo, it did feel kind of bizarre. I do think it is a good thing that the story can be completed without a group, but the pacing definitely has suffered for that compromise.

I don’t know why they made the last bit a spank the monkey mini game. It’s like the one who suggested it is a sadist/masochist and he likes to torture people before killing them. Zhaitan doesn’t even fight back while we were doing it, atleast let him spit toxic ooze at the airships or something.

I don’t really think killing Zhaitan was ever meant to be a “boss fight”. It was more like an interactive cut scene. The rest of the dungeon, at launch anyway, was pretty challenging.

The issue was, it was the last step of the personal story and the only step you couldn’t solo.

People complained about it being too hard, thus it was nerfed, and then people complained about you needed a group when no other step in the personal story required one.

The general idea isn’t that Zhaitan was a boss fight. For the last ten levels of the story you’ve been consistently weakening him. You killed the mouth and the eyes. You cut off his ability to make undead. And the final weapon to kill him was a special anti-dragon magic weapon that did the real damage. You just finished him off.

Those expecting a boss fight were indeed deeply disappointed.

My words. First time Arah Story I was like WTF? What were they thinking? To be honest I am sure they aimed for an epic battle with different stages etc. But ran out of time and you can clearly see that they had to rush the game to release it before Mists of Pandaria launched.

I really hope they go for an epic several-stage boss battle with Mordremoth.

Fighting on Claw Island was more entertaining than the entirety of Arah Story. They really could have done a lazy ish fix and after you cut the tail off Zhaitan you land and fight him on the ground. Would have made it seem a bit more rewarding instead of just firing cannons until you realize “Congrats you just killed the main boss of the entire game”.

BrooksP.4318:

Fighting on Claw Island was more entertaining than the entirety of Arah Story. They really could have done a lazy ish fix and after you cut the tail off Zhaitan you land and fight him on the ground. Would have made it seem a bit more rewarding instead of just firing cannons until you realize “Congrats you just killed the main boss of the entire game”.

but he aint the main boss of the entire game just one of the big ones.

Linken.6345:

but he aint the main boss of the entire game just one of the big ones.

Splitting hairs aren’t we? In the current state of the game, he is the main boss, until they expand that with the other dragons then yes he is just one of the big ones.

BrooksP.4318:

Linken.6345:

but he aint the main boss of the entire game just one of the big ones.

Splitting hairs aren’t we? In the current state of the game, he is the main boss, until they expand that with the other dragons then yes he is just one of the big ones.

He was the main boss of the personal story, which was never really supposed to be as challenging as dungeons or later Fractals. Saying he was the main boss of the personal story is like saying the personal story is the main game, but I never felt like it was.

The PS is the explanation of the main game. His influence isn’t singular to the PS(Orr and his minions all around Tyria), however due to MMO limitations the effects don’t immediately reflect on the main game. Arah is a dungeon and fractals wasn’t added till later, but is a moot point, difficulty is also irrelevant. He is still the main boss from the current ingame lore, in the same way Mordremoth will be the next main boss once released.

Agian splitting hairs, for what is suppose to be the main boss of the current game or the PS it was lackluster.

BrooksP.4318:

The PS is the explanation of the main game. His influence isn’t singular to the PS(Orr and his minions all around Tyria), however due to MMO limitations the effects don’t immediately reflect on the main game. Arah is a dungeon and fractals wasn’t added till later, but is a moot point, difficulty is also irrelevant. He is still the main boss from the current ingame lore, in the same way Mordremoth will be the next main boss once released.

Agian splitting hairs, for what is suppose to be the main boss of the current game or the PS it was lackluster.

Okay you can call it splitting hairs. I consider Lupi who was in the game at launch, a main boss too, but harder because he was in a dungeon. The personal story wasn’t supposed to be hard.

Curennos.9307:

I just got to the final fight in the personal story as well and found it absolutely awful. The amount of bugs – I had to do it three times, solo – hnnnng….

Nice to know it’s not just me. I mean, Zhaitan sounds DEVIOUS during the story, but makes sweet sweet gentle love to a stone pillar while I fire cannons at his face? Errrr…

That’s no way to talk about King Zhaitankong.
On a serious note,I believe the moving platform tech they used for this
fight could be better,or even better,couldn’t be any worse.
Flying Warrior banners anyone?
Also,the no camera collision,and the clipping through the airship surfaces,always
gives me a headache whenever I play this fight.

P.S pew pew pew pew pew

Vayne.8563:

Okay you can call it splitting hairs. I consider Lupi who was in the game at launch, a main boss too, but harder because he was in a dungeon. The personal story wasn’t supposed to be hard.

And the point of the thread went completely over your head… The topic wasn’t about difficulty it was about how dull the Zhaitan fight was for a boss that has so much influence over the entire PS and different aspects of the game.

Ironically Lupi is a Zhaitan minion so……….

First a tip. When the mobs spawn on deck and your helpers are standing at the back of the airship there is an easy solution. Get a mobs attention and get him to follow you back to your helpers. They will then come out and help fight. When I soloed it last night, for about the 5th time, Rytlock actually stayed with me after I lured him out the first time. Ironically enough Eir’s wolf Garm stayed with me but Eir didn’t.

My main thought was one thing. They have this new and improved, bigger more advanced airship with this fancy new weapon that Zojja designed and the best she can do is shoot off his tail? What the kitten, hit that thing somewhere vital, like the body maybe, or heck right between the eyes would have made me happy.

Yea I know then people would call it even more anti-climatic but look at it this way, your job was to get the pact, and Destiny’s Edge close enough to take him out. You got them close enough and Zojja shoots him down, works for me lol

Whoa, I feel like I’m back in 2012/13.