Guild Wars 2

I know. Anet’s moving on to PoF. But I remember when the Zhaitan fight was difficult/nigh impossible to solo, and then it got redone, and now it’s entirely soloable. And my guess has always been that Anet didn’t want that fight to become a barrier to people ever playing LS2/HoT.

Well, with PoF coming out, Hearts and Minds is now becoming a barrier to people who want to take their story into the new content.

I won’t ask y’all to nerf it. (Although frankly, I would not at all mind if you did.) But I’ve been through it on my main and several alts now, and seriously, Anet, you need to at least poke at doing a few things here before the floodgates open and people just want to continue their story:

• Debug the thing. I mean really debug the thing. Every time I’ve thought ‘oh, it’s been ages, surely Anet’s fixed that by now’, I’ve either tried taking an alt through or gone to help someone else through, and someone is always sidelined (sometimes nixing the whole instance) due to bugs. Just getting a bug-free run, however frustrating, is a bonus.

• At least consider putting story checkpoints in. It’s a long kitten fight. Doing it over from the beginning should be something reserved for the most beautifully aptly named achievement on this game – Migraine.

• Either recolor those updrafts or stick some bouncing mushrooms in there. The first option if you’re dead set on Not Nerfing, the second if you’re okay with a tiny nerf. People invariably die because their graphics settings don’t let them see the updrafts. (And I wish I knew what settings to call out when that happens, but I don’t.)

…Honestly, I feel if the instance were just thoroughly debugged and checkpoints put in, players would have a far, far less frustrating time of this. It’s an elder dragon! It’s supposed to be hard! You shouldn’t be surprised if you die! But negating all forward progress, and all hope of forward progress…that just leaves people frustrated.

You’ve still got – what, two weeks? At least give it a thought?

I think you’re ignoring the Living World Season 3 encounters when you’re writing this post. While there are still poorly-placed checkpoints and still too many unskippable dialogue and cutscenes, recent Story Instances have had checkpoints implemented, especially during the “final boss fight” of each episode.

In regards to visibility of updrafts and the like, I agree ANet has been lacking in that regard. The game has had accessibility issues for the last five years, whether it’s the unnecessarily thin red circles (not even going to touch on the inconsistent implementation of the new AOE indicators, or even the timings), or the lack of support for colorblind players.

You’ve still got – what, two weeks? At least give it a thought?

I think you’re a little too optimistic here. Consider that the teams at ANet are all busy rushing out the final polishes (hopefully they got all their content done) before launch, and various troubleshooting and bugfixes for the weeks or months following launch. This means that changes to fundamental design consideration won’t be for several months to come, in all likelihood.

Well. Hope can probably be defined as ‘unreasonable optimism’, yes.

I didn’t forget LS3, but you CAN go from the Zhaitan arc straight into HoT. I kind of figured that this would also be true of PoF; that if you’ve beaten HoT, you can go straight into PoF, whether or not you’ve unlocked all of LS3.

Natch, I can’t know that until PoF actually comes out, but – that was my guess.

As far as I know, checkpoints may be a thing in LS3, but they haven’t been put into older content. You screw up in Hearts and Minds, it can be a very long slog.

I don’t know if you mean mechanically, or story-wise, but one can play Path of Fire (including the Story) without ever touching foot in Heart of Thorns, and/or any of its corresponding content (Season 3). This is evident by the fact that one need not own HoT to purchase, and play, PoF.

(See the PoF FAQ for more information, if desired.)

Good luck.

The original Zhaitan fight was a dungeon with mechanics that required two people at least, and you required more than that for most people to finish.

Hearts and minds can be soloed.

Vayne.8563:

The original Zhaitan fight was a dungeon with mechanics that required two people at least, and you required more than that for most people to finish.

Hearts and minds can’t be soloed.

Did you mean, “Hearts & Minds can be soloed” ?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

The original Zhaitan fight was a dungeon with mechanics that required two people at least, and you required more than that for most people to finish.

Hearts and minds can’t be soloed.

Did you mean, “Hearts & Minds can be soloed” ?

Edited and yes. lol

Larathia.5284:

I didn’t forget LS3, but you CAN go from the Zhaitan arc straight into HoT. I kind of figured that this would also be true of PoF; that if you’ve beaten HoT, you can go straight into PoF, whether or not you’ve unlocked all of LS3.

That’s not true. The Zhaitan story arc was followed by Living World Season 1 concerning Scarlet Briar, where some of the combat mechanics have been altered and are now part of the Fractals of the Mist. Following that, there were further development, both in story and mechanics in Living World Season 2, which would further lead to the main story of Heart of Thorns.