Guild Wars 2

I have just finished the HoT story, and have two questions (or more like, “what the hell just happened” moments):

- First, where the kitten is the epilogue?! There was no dialogue with the folks, no running from collapsing tree, no nothing. It just kicked me back into DS so I could farm my eyes off getting masteries. That was…rushed, to say the least;

- Speaking of rushing, the story as a whole did not really convince me the PC could actually culminate into killing an Elder Dragon from inside out by messing with its mind. One thing is fighting with the Pact’s army and defeating Zhaitan through raw firepower (and magic) but this was something else entirely. Even though we went through a lot during the personal story, It’s a long stretch from everything else the PC has done so far, to (apparently with not that much effort) accomplishing what Snaff has only barely done before with Kralk. I really believe I have missed something here – even with help from DE 2.0, the PC started the last fight, and his/her will didn’t even start to bent in front of mordy’s mind. So my question I guess is: when was the transition of the PC from a great warrior to a literal force of nature bending creature?

• There is no epilogue, but there is dialogue with folks. Rytlock, Marjory, Canach, Caithe, and Braham’s dialogues in Heart of Thorns (Dragon’s Stand) is updated after you complete Hearts and Minds. But yeah, lack of a proper epilogue (and leaving the story at a cliffhanger – again) is one of the major gripes of the story.
• If you play sylvari, the PC’s mind does bend – to the point where Mordremoth becomes an ally, and your DE allies become neutral foes that you can attack. Furthermore, the addition of the mental copies of your allies (Blighted Rytlock, Blighted Marjory, Blighted Person-Left-Behind, and Blighted Mentor/Trahearne) were all meant to signify Mordremoth gaining a (temporary) traction on the PC’s mind – just as he first did to the two allies you brought in with you. But also remember what the PC has been through in fighting Zhaitan – sure, Zhaitan himself was fought via poisoning magic, but go back to when the fight began: the PC lost someone important, fought through their greatest fear, and then assaulted a land of horrors head first. The PC has always been a bit of a psycholigically unchallengeable individual – and that’s what makes the PC so unique compared to everyone else, IMO, not their physical or magical strength but their mental strength.
  And I wouldn’t be so fast to say that “Snaff barely accomplished” that – keep in mind that Snaff 1) did not have a direct conduit unlike the PC, but had to use variations of power crystals to forcibly enter Kralkatorrik’s mind, and 2) Snaff wasn’t out for a kill but for a immobilizing. If those two things changed, Snaff might have been able to succeed just like our PCs.

maxwelgm.4315:

- Speaking of rushing, the story as a whole did not really convince me the PC could actually culminate into killing an Elder Dragon from inside out by messing with its mind. One thing is fighting with the Pact’s army and defeating Zhaitan through raw firepower (and magic) but this was something else entirely. Even though we went through a lot during the personal story, It’s a long stretch from everything else the PC has done so far, to (apparently with not that much effort) accomplishing what Snaff has only barely done before with Kralk. I really believe I have missed something here – even with help from DE 2.0, the PC started the last fight, and his/her will didn’t even start to bent in front of mordy’s mind. So my question I guess is: when was the transition of the PC from a great warrior to a literal force of nature bending creature?

Do remember though, the entire “Battle within his mind” takes place at the EXACT same time as the battle with his body is going full swing. The battle is just starting (or in the towers phase) when we first start heading down, according to Canach’s dialogue. I’ve not gotten my Sylvari through to that point so I don’t know if extra lines are spoken there.

So Mordremoth is fighting us inside of his head, and the pact forces assaulting his body.

I did not realize the points about being a Sylvari player and the details about Snaff’s accomplishment, thanks for pointing it out.

However, it still sounds rather strange that individuals can overcome (even if as a group) the will of a “force of nature” kind of character; it’s like if I wanted to deny gravity simply by focusing on doing so, and should be independent of PC being psychologically absolute. Actually, it should even be independent of whether his body is being challenged somewhere else: one would think a dragon’s presence would be kind of uniform inside his domain.

Anyway, I guess it is a writer’s choice to make a “godly” character that is actually lovecraftian (then he would be arguably unbeatable and it would make no sense) or a “false idol” kind that does have a weakness. Even though I like the first option more from a lore point of view, I suppose the second is what goes better with a game like GW2.

The whole “force of nature” is just what ignorant Tyrians call the Elder Dragons. Little actually indicate that such is true.

They are powerful, magically, and they can cause widespread devastation, but that does not equate them to forces of nature. And even if they were, I’d argue a force of nature is easier to overcome mentally than a genius in the field of astrophysics.

But what is closer to the “force of nature” is not the Elder Dragons but the magic that they use/are tied to. The All, which shifts with the Elder Dragons’ waking according to the jotun (which matches our vision of The All), is tied to the Elder Dragons but they are not part of it. A norn scholar theorizes The All’s six spheres represents spirit realms – whatever they represent, it is what the Elder Dragons are tied to not are, but they’re tied to close as to be able to shift them.

Kalavier.1097:

Do remember though, the entire “Battle within his mind” takes place at the EXACT same time as the battle with his body is going full swing. The battle is just starting (or in the towers phase) when we first start heading down, according to Canach’s dialogue. I’ve not gotten my Sylvari through to that point so I don’t know if extra lines are spoken there.

So Mordremoth is fighting us inside of his head, and the pact forces assaulting his body.

The thing with the battle against the Mouth of Mordremoth is that it doesn’t just happen once. According to Laranthir’s dialogue box (whose contents change depending on if you’ve completed “Hearts and Minds” or not) the Pact fights against the Mouth at least twice, maybe even thrice (before, during and after final story mission). Here’s what he has to say about it:

Laranthir: (before completing final story mission) Our scouts believe the creature before us is feeding on ley-line energy for its master, but Mordremoth is an entity of mind and dream. That’s where you’ll have to go to defeat it.
Laranthir: (after completing final story mission) Though you killed Mordremoth within its realm of mind, the physical manifestation of its hunger still remains in our world, still feeding on this hub of ley-line energy.

The extra lines of dialogue from sylvari perspective in “Hearts and Minds” show up in the mission’s respective wiki article. Basically the extra stuff regarding the battle is that the sylvari PC understands Mordremoth’s roar as “Armies cannot stop me”, which further proves the timing of one of the battles against the Mouth happening simultaneously with the infiltration mission, and it’s the one battle that has indeed taken place canonically against the Mouth.

There’s always the possibility, however, that either of Laranthir’s statements could only be taken semi-canonically and were simply written in to clarify the context of the battle for players who had or hadn’t done the story yet so as not to spoil the ending.

The first version (lines before completing story) indicates that the PC was present in the battle before sneaking into the dragon’s lair, which contradicts events shown in “Bitter Harvest” and “Hearts and Minds” where we’re helped behind enemy lines while the Pact’s battle is distracting the Mouth. I find it unlikely that the PC, after defeating Faolain, would just leave the Heart of Thorns tree and join the Pact’s battle against the Mouth, then returning back to the tree to finish the infiltration mission. Then again, we know from a dev comment on Facebook that a section of the Mouth battle taking place within the tree was cut, so maybe that missing piece was part of a previous version of the story which would’ve forced players to first defeat the Mouth at the tree before gaining access to “Hearts and Minds” but which was scrapped for timing reasons and because Anet didn’t want to force players to finish the meta successfully just to reach the final story mission.

The second version (lines after completing story) indicates that the Mouth is functioning as the manifestation of the dragon’s hunger even after the dragon’s mind has been annihilated. Yet it’s contradicted by players hearing Mordremoth’s dialogue during the Dragon’s Stand meta (unless Mordremoth, while effectively braindead, would keep uttering its threats on autopilot). I put this discrepancy under “gameplay and story segregation” where the lines appear even after the death of the mind for the sake of epicness of the encounter.

I’d very much like to hear the writers’ statements on the order of events to clarify the matter and if we can count the pre- and post-final mission battles against the Mouth (as per Laranthir’s dialogue changes) as truly canonical or if they were done for the sake of player immersion rather than on the story’s terms.

maxwelgm.4315:

However, it still sounds rather strange that individuals can overcome (even if as a group) the will of a “force of nature” kind of character; it’s like if I wanted to deny gravity simply by focusing on doing so, and should be independent of PC being psychologically absolute. Actually, it should even be independent of whether his body is being challenged somewhere else: one would think a dragon’s presence would be kind of uniform inside his domain.

Anyway, I guess it is a writer’s choice to make a “godly” character that is actually lovecraftian (then he would be arguably unbeatable and it would make no sense) or a “false idol” kind that does have a weakness. Even though I like the first option more from a lore point of view, I suppose the second is what goes better with a game like GW2.

The thing about Elder Dragons being “forces of nature” is a misconception to an extent. Although they do possess amazing powers which makes them appear god-like eldritch abominations to lesser races, we have proof (from both in game and from the Edge of Destiny novel) that many of the EDs we’ve seen definitely are individuals with personalities.

If Kralkatorrik was a force of nature without any coherent thought, it wouldn’t have taken Glint’s betrayal as harshly as it did; after all, why would a force of nature care about its champion’s betrayal and go after said traitor personally to finish her off? If Zhaitan and Mordremoth were forces of nature, why would they turn their corrupted minions into sycophants with sickening levels of devotion who preach the glory of their respective dragon master, going so far as to make certain minions actually lie to demoralize their enemy (see the Risen priest of Lyssa claiming that Zhaitan devoured the gods)? Why would any of the dragons get angry when the Pact starts turning the tide in the war against them (see Zhaitan’s reaction after Caladbolg is used at the Artesian Waters, or Mordremoth’s increasingly frustrated lines during the DS meta and especially “Hearts and Minds”, particularly its final line “What have you done?” when the PC kills the possessed Trahearne)?

True forces of nature wouldn’t care about any of that stuff; they’d simply follow their “nature” to destroy/corrupt for the sake of it. However, the dragons we’ve seen have taken things very personally and have a bloated, selfish view of themselves which shows through the lines uttered by their minions and, in Mordremoth’s case, lines from the dragon itself.

Kossage.9072:

The thing with the battle against the Mouth of Mordremoth is that it doesn’t just happen once. According to Laranthir’s dialogue box (whose contents change depending on if you’ve completed “Hearts and Minds” or not) the Pact fights against the Mouth at least twice, maybe even thrice (before, during and after final story mission). Here’s what he has to say about it:

Laranthir: (before completing final story mission) Our scouts believe the creature before us is feeding on ley-line energy for its master, but Mordremoth is an entity of mind and dream. That’s where you’ll have to go to defeat it.
Laranthir: (after completing final story mission) Though you killed Mordremoth within its realm of mind, the physical manifestation of its hunger still remains in our world, still feeding on this hub of ley-line energy.

This sounds just like the whole deal with certain npcs having different dialogue in living story depending on how far you’d gotten with the personal story. Like they call you commander if you’ve finished it, but not if you were halfway through.

I honestly took the second line as more of a “You killed it’s mind successfully, now we have to finish the job!” and not a “Hey, this thing keeps bringing it’s head back up!” What’s the whole point of “Killing him for good and stopping him from regrowing” if he keeps regrowing?

The extra lines of dialogue from sylvari perspective in “Hearts and Minds” show up in the mission’s respective wiki article. Basically the extra stuff regarding the battle is that the sylvari PC understands Mordremoth’s roar as “Armies cannot stop me”, which further proves the timing of one of the battles against the Mouth happening simultaneously with the infiltration mission, and it’s the one battle that has indeed taken place canonically against the Mouth.

Again, isn’t it brought up that Mordremoth can merely regrow his body repeatedly, and that killing his mind ends him forever? Still makes no sense to canonically have him return if that is the case.

There’s always the possibility, however, that either of Laranthir’s statements could only be taken semi-canonically and were simply written in to clarify the context of the battle for players who had or hadn’t done the story yet so as not to spoil the ending.

The first version (lines before completing story) indicates that the PC was present in the battle before sneaking into the dragon’s lair, which contradicts events shown in “Bitter Harvest” and “Hearts and Minds” where we’re helped behind enemy lines while the Pact’s battle is distracting the Mouth. I find it unlikely that the PC, after defeating Faolain, would just leave the Heart of Thorns tree and join the Pact’s battle against the Mouth, then returning back to the tree to finish the infiltration mission. Then again, we know from a dev comment on Facebook that a section of the Mouth battle taking place within the tree was cut, so maybe that missing piece was part of a previous version of the story which would’ve forced players to first defeat the Mouth at the tree before gaining access to “Hearts and Minds” but which was scrapped for timing reasons and because Anet didn’t want to force players to finish the meta successfully just to reach the final story mission.

It’s easily assumable that Bitter Harvest talks place the same time roughly as the lanes do, because the charr pilot mentions “The work done in the lanes has allowed him to fly up.” and gives transport back.

The second version (lines after completing story) indicates that the Mouth is functioning as the manifestation of the dragon’s hunger even after the dragon’s mind has been annihilated. Yet it’s contradicted by players hearing Mordremoth’s dialogue during the Dragon’s Stand meta (unless Mordremoth, while effectively braindead, would keep uttering its threats on autopilot). I put this discrepancy under “gameplay and story segregation” where the lines appear even after the death of the mind for the sake of epicness of the encounter.

Or, another possibility. The player finished off the mind before the dragon was fully defeated, and came out to help finish him off? Or the whole dialogue with the commander directly isn’t canon? Anet explicitly stated once certain events happen a grand total of once. Verdant Brink and Tangled Depths obviously happen once, so why can’t Dragons stand? Infact, I find the reasoning for repeated battles to be confusing. So what, the trees resurged and started popping out Mordrem and the three champions, despite us killing them?

I’d very much like to hear the writers’ statements on the order of events to clarify the matter and if we can count the pre- and post-final mission battles against the Mouth (as per Laranthir’s dialogue changes) as truly canonical or if they were done for the sake of player immersion rather than on the story’s terms.

IMO, his dialogue with the player (in sense as being commander) is probably non-canonical, given how the Commander never interacts with Laranthir after the first mission. After leaving the brink, the commander hardly does a thing as Commander of the Pact.

Kalavier.1097:

I honestly took the second line as more of a “You killed it’s mind successfully, now we have to finish the job!” and not a “Hey, this thing keeps bringing it’s head back up!” What’s the whole point of “Killing him for good and stopping him from regrowing” if he keeps regrowing?

As shown with how we killed Trahearne, it doesn’t seem that we actually killed his mind, but instead killed his mental connection. So I took it as “we killed Mordremoth’s body, but it regrew due to his powers, so we killed his mental connection to the Dream isolating his mind, and must kill his body one final time where it won’t regrow ever again” with the side caveat of “have to kill any seeds he planted of his mind, like the one in Trahearne”.

Honestly, nothing really says Mordremoth is gone for good – if hiding his mind in Trahearne was his final trump card, why show his hand? The Commander was hesitant until Mordremoth showed himself in Trahearne’s body. It could easily become that he wanted to make the Commander suffer for his attempt, and that he had other seeds of his mind planted – one could have been in his regrown body, but others could be elsewhere, in other sylvari or mordrem.

Though I do recall someone saying a dev confirmed that the moment when the Mouth collapses is when the players kill the mental avatar in the Dream. I have no source for this. It is very up to debate.

Kalavier.1097:

IMO, his dialogue with the player (in sense as being commander) is probably non-canonical, given how the Commander never interacts with Laranthir after the first mission. After leaving the brink, the commander hardly does a thing as Commander of the Pact.

In the story instances, yes, but the PC is taken to the Pact camps in each zone and the instanced story runs alongside the open world events – just like in Orr – where we are meant to assist as well.

After Laranthir, we go to the central Pact camp and we’re called Commander as we establish a leader for that camp, and we rescue the Ordnance camp and give Shasoo orders to take command there. We go to the Whispers camp in Tangled Depths, and the Priory camp in Auric Basin – they’re organized so they don’t need us telling who to take command, but no doubt it’s presumed in the story that we’re doing those zone meta events all the same.

So not only do we establish Laranthir as leader of the Pale Reavers, we establish two other field leaders in two other camps, and we assist them survive the night until we move further in, in enough time, that the Pact had begun organizing itself before we get there, and we just give assistance to help them push back mordrem and make Tarir safe, or push into Dragon’s Stand.

Just like how in Orr, the personal story showed us making the first assault on places, and the events were what we do after to assist the troops getting a stronghold.

The thing is, the Verdant Brink story missions (as I remember them) were all very rapid. There wasn’t actually possible blank periods of time between missions besides the very first one, which pretty much was “Go to the central pact camp, and talk to the scouts there.” Which lead us to going to the Itzel, which then was a back and forth of us either catching up to Braham/Rytlock or running ahead to try to find out where Mordrem prisoners were. After the prisoners mission (which also involves rescuing the members of the Ordanance corp), we instantly go to Auric basin… so how do we help setup that camp if after saving the core people, we head south? :P

Some of the open world events match up with the story missions or gaps in them, but others do not. Orr suffered a similar way, but the fact of major troop movements/battles were more obvious in that one.

It’s part of a fault with Anet’s storytelling method. There is no real timeframe you can tell between missions most of the time, And sometimes the open world and instanced story simply don’t click together seamlessly.

Likewise, the story missions (again, as I recall) very rarely mention the open world events in any real manner. We go through Rata Novus, but there is not a single mention about the OoW teams working to help the various groups (and securing Rata Novus), or the lanes/cannons at the end. Infact, all that seems to happen AFTER we finish Tangled Depths section of the story and move on.

The first two story missions deal us with surviving a night, and end with us being told to look for NPCs (and I don’t mean the next story step folks – I mean the Pale Reaver scout, the Pact Camp, and the hylek scouts).

Between the first and second, you are directed straight to the Pact camp, and you cannot interact with them if it is night time.

Act 1 is far from rushed, and in all honesty gives the sensation of at least a week taking place between the prologue and entering Auric Basin – with the instances themselves taking a day (and in two cases, night) each. The other Acts feel far more fast paced in comparison, however…

Keep in mind all the story pauses caused not just by talking to NPCs in the open world, which happens between each story instance, in which you have to go do stuff if you reach the NPCs at certain times half the time, but also keep in mind the mastery gates established – it’s easy to forget those because you only do them once.

After the first instance, you have to learn how to glide. After the second, you’re told to learn mushrooms (mind you, this isn’t enforced but the dialogue matches the first to the point where it was clearly originally intended to be enforced but got scrapped after the voice overs were done), and after the first instance of Act II you got another, and another after the second instance of Act II, and another after the first instance of Act III, and, originally, yet another after the second instance of Act III.

In other words, the second and subsequent instance of every story step (be it third of the act – in Act 1’s case – or the first of the next act – in the other three cases) were all gated behind masteries. ArenaNet were “subtly” making you – even if only on the first playthrough – go and do the open world content.

Which means that where each of those mastery gates are, there is the implied “and then open world content in the map happens”.

Thus you look at it and the story order becomes:

Prologue → Torn from the Sky → Pale Reaver camp chain → Pact Encampment chain → The Jungle Provides → Jaka Itzel chain → Noble chain → Prisoners of the Dragon → Pact Ordnance chain (Prisoners contains saving the characters of the Pact Ordnance group from near death on re-runs) → Prized Possessions (this instance shows the egg activating the outposts at the end, thus before the open world) → Auric Basin outpost chains → City of Hope → Strange Observations → Roots of Terror → Jaka Nuhoch chain → Buried Insights → Bitter Harvest/Dragon’s Stand lanes → Hearts and Minds/Mouth of Mordremoth

There’s not much indication that the Pact Commander had a role in Ogre, Rata Novus, or Scar lanes – or the Gerent fight – in Tangled Depths, but there’s lines and breaks for masteries indicating that the Pact Commander dealt with the main chains of Verdant Brink one by one as well as the Tarir stuff (as part of learning to trust the Exalted). And these are established by ArenaNet making us pause from rushing through the story to grind the masteries. A poor tactic, and one that’s negated upon subsequent playthroughs, but a clear one all the same.

The fault is indeed with Anet’s storytelling methods, as they have already established times when open world events were part of the story, and could have had us do certain (or x number of) events in the maps like they had us do events in Iron Marches in S2.

> Likewise, the story missions (again, as I recall) very rarely mention the open world events in any real manner.

Torn from the Sky explicitly sets up the Pale Reaver chain, and Jungle Provides explicitly talks about the Jaka Itzel meta chain and night time threats they face; Prisoners of the Dragon has – upon reruns – as you mentioned the Pact Ordnance group.

In Act 2, Prized Possession opens us to the story of the open world Auric Basin, signifying that it takes place before those events; City of Hope begins with the PC talking about beginning to trust the Exalted, and believing Tarir to be safe, but not yet entering – showing that the PC worked with them a bit longer than just running from Faolain – this is a nod to the whole “getting Exalted Language” mastery done, by doing the events in Auric Basin (specifically reactivating the pylons). The lack of entering Tarir indicates that to the PC the Attack on Tarir meta did not happen.

In Act 3, Roots of Terror has us establishing the Order of Whispers’ camp free from hostile Chak, and the open world step after has us dealing with the Nuhoch.

In the open instance after Bitter Harvest, the pilot explicitly mentions progress in the lanes – that’s the DS meta – and Hearts and Minds talks about Mordremoth in a bit fight.

They are small, easily overlooked, ultimately treated as insignificant, but there all the same.

@The OP: If I understand you correctly, your concern is that the ending to Heart of Thorns wasn’t satisfying. The story culminated in a climax that didn’t click with you, and in the end it felt “rushed.”

I believe that you have every right to feel that way, and you are no doubt one of many players who felt that way about the ending. However, I argue that the reasons for why the ending failed has less to do with in-world believability than it has to do with story structure, and here is why.

Mordremoth was killed by a virtual Deux ex Machina. Throughout the PS and both seasons of the LS, throughout HoT, we have learned nothing about how the Dream of Dream really works. It is a mystical phenomenon that neither the Pale Tree nor any of the sylvari firstborn could satisfactorily explain. The reason the ending didn’t jive is that it felt too convenient.

Sanderson’s First Law of Magic is a writing trope that can be used to explain why the ending to HoT didn’t work. The law states that “An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.” This is why in Lord of the Rings we didn’t just have Gandalf fly a giant magical bird into Mordor and drop the ring into the volcano. If a magical system is mystical and vague then you can’t use it to resolve your main conflict. When you do, the ending will feel like a let down no matter how “cool” it may be in theory.

The purpose of vague and mystical magic is for ambiance or to cause problems, not to give your protagonist a tidy ending to their conflict. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened with Mordremoth.

http://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-first-law/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Am-I-missing-something-or-HoT-Spoilers/6005738

That link was a great reading! It actually hit me with many other stories I’ve seen other than HoT. It felt really weird because core game set up a great story arc: we had the Pact building itself and developing powerful magic/technology to take down a previously thought invincible foe. Then Mordy came and boom, we can just go into Dream and rip his metaphorical fat belly apart.

I guess that law explains a bit better (concerning me, personally) why the story felt rushed: I suppose I could go with the PC being a psychological Juggernaut, as long as I could “participate” in knowing a bit more about how PC turned the Dream itself against a dragon.

As for the order of events, I do believe better placement of story should take place here (though, I don’t know how they could have done this); Many of the relation between meta events and story events mentioned here I simply did not notice, and not out of lack of attention. Actually, my first playthrough I have not moved into a new map for story before fully completing all events inside the previous meta (e.g I’ve done all pylons in AB before moving to TD for story), and that actually hindered me from seeing these details (by the time I completed a map, the story’s already lost in translation, so to speak).

maxwelgm.4315:

I guess that law explains a bit better (concerning me, personally) why the story felt rushed: I suppose I could go with the PC being a psychological Juggernaut, as long as I could “participate” in knowing a bit more about how PC turned the Dream itself against a dragon.

That is definitely one way that they could have written the ending, but I had another idea for it that might also have worked:

They could have had us try to use the Dream to kill Mordremoth, but then /fail/. It is perfectly acceptable for characters to try to use a vague and mystical magic system to overcome a conflict, but they must fail, and their failure must make things worse for our heroes. It’s only a Deux ex Machina if they succeed.

Since we’re on the topic, I had an idea for how they could have written the end of HoT differently, and it involves a very large drill, an airship, and a fair bit of foreshadowing.

The writers knew that they were going to renovate Lion’s Arch before the expansion’s release, so they could have took out the Breachmaker’s drill head without anyone paying much attention to it. Then, they bring it back for the grand finale of HoT after we fail to kill Mordremoth and give us a new mission: drill into the leyline hub that Mordremoth is sitting on, redirecting it like Scarlet did in LA, and starving the mouth. The reason this ending works is that Scarlet already proved in LS1 that redirecting ley energy is possible.

“But how would we stop him from destroying the Breachmaker 2.0 like he did the rest of the fleet” you ask? Well, the Pact could have used the chak to eat away at the dragon’s roots like termites so that the ship would have been safe from ground assaults. .

The end result would be different, but at least it would have felt to me like we earned our victory. Mordremoth wouldn’t be dead, but dying? Perhaps. At the very least, it’s a step in the right direction. Most importantly, this ending ties the loose threads of previous acts together since we would actually be using the chak as a weapon.

Also, the “all dragons have a weakness” reveal could have been replaced by one where we discover how to manipulate the chak so that it sets up the climax. Furthermore, this ending doesn’t detract from their plans to send a surge of ley energy to the egg in Tarir since the Breachmaker 2.0 accomplishes just that.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The first two story missions deal us with surviving a night, and end with us being told to look for NPCs (and I don’t mean the next story step folks – I mean the Pale Reaver scout, the Pact Camp, and the hylek scouts).

Between the first and second, you are directed straight to the Pact camp, and you cannot interact with them if it is night time.

Torn from the sky is the first night. Then we are told to talk to the scout (right up the hill), who directs us to the Pact camp.

Act 1 is far from rushed, and in all honesty gives the sensation of at least a week taking place between the prologue and entering Auric Basin – with the instances themselves taking a day (and in two cases, night) each. The other Acts feel far more fast paced in comparison, however…

The entire story is rushed. It’s the nature of the story they made.

Keep in mind all the story pauses caused not just by talking to NPCs in the open world, which happens between each story instance, in which you have to go do stuff if you reach the NPCs at certain times half the time, but also keep in mind the mastery gates established – it’s easy to forget those because you only do them once.

But some of the mastery gates make zero sense. For example, I hit the “Exalted markings master” AFTER getting the egg. Would that imply the commander ran around the jungle with the egg on their back, instead of rushing for the city?

After the first instance, you have to learn how to glide. After the second, you’re told to learn mushrooms (mind you, this isn’t enforced but the dialogue matches the first to the point where it was clearly originally intended to be enforced but got scrapped after the voice overs were done), and after the first instance of Act II you got another, and another after the second instance of Act II, and another after the first instance of Act III, and, originally, yet another after the second instance of Act III.

While some make sense, others don’t. IE, I had to learn exalted markings to get the Tahir mission, which only appeared after I got the egg. Originally they were going to make you max out every jungle mastery IIRC.

Prologue -> Torn from the Sky -> Pale Reaver camp chain -> Pact Encampment chain -> The Jungle Provides -> Jaka Itzel chain -> Noble chain -> Prisoners of the Dragon -> Pact Ordnance chain (Prisoners contains saving the characters of the Pact Ordnance group from near death on re-runs) -> Prized Possessions (this instance shows the egg activating the outposts at the end, thus before the open world) -> Auric Basin outpost chains -> City of Hope -> Strange Observations -> Roots of Terror -> Jaka Nuhoch chain -> Buried Insights -> Bitter Harvest/Dragon’s Stand lanes -> Hearts and Minds/Mouth of Mordremoth

Problem. I’ve heard (not personally done all of the noble event chain, but I’ve heard this) that at one point Faren comments about the jungle, and somebody else points out they have been in the jungle for HOURS, not days or even a week. Prized possessions ends with you having the egg, and the exalted tells you to go straight to the city. Why would the commander run around the jungle with such a valuable, mordrem attracting item? The little post mission complete blurb even says the commander has decided to check it out, not delaying.

There’s not much indication that the Pact Commander had a role in Ogre, Rata Novus, or Scar lanes – or the Gerent fight – in Tangled Depths, but there’s lines and breaks for masteries indicating that the Pact Commander dealt with the main chains of Verdant Brink one by one as well as the Tarir stuff (as part of learning to trust the Exalted). And these are established by ArenaNet making us pause from rushing through the story to grind the masteries. A poor tactic, and one that’s negated upon subsequent playthroughs, but a clear one all the same.

I can agree the commander did some stuff in brink, but the rest of the story? Not nearly as much.

The fault is indeed with Anet’s storytelling methods, as they have already established times when open world events were part of the story, and could have had us do certain (or x number of) events in the maps like they had us do events in Iron Marches in S2.

> Likewise, the story missions (again, as I recall) very rarely mention the open world events in any real manner.

Maybe if they had actually tied it in, not so much as “Do so many events”, but instead had a step being securing the Pact camp. Admittedly this could be very troublesome with a map possibly being halfway done, and thus you don’t get any credit.

Torn from the Sky explicitly sets up the Pale Reaver chain, and Jungle Provides explicitly talks about the Jaka Itzel meta chain and night time threats they face; Prisoners of the Dragon has – upon reruns – as you mentioned the Pact Ordnance group.

Doesn’t jungle provides explicitly be our first meeting with the Itzel? <_<. Agree that pale reaver chain is heavily set up and happens immediately after Torn from the Sky. Jaka Itzel is really odd, because the mission is the first meeting and has no mention of starvation (which kinda would imply the event chain was completed), but at the same time nothing in the mission happens that would cause such devastating food loss, or nothing is mentioned.

In Act 2, Prized Possession opens us to the story of the open world Auric Basin, signifying that it takes place before those events; City of Hope begins with the PC talking about beginning to trust the Exalted, and believing Tarir to be safe, but not yet entering – showing that the PC worked with them a bit longer than just running from Faolain – this is a nod to the whole “getting Exalted Language” mastery done, by doing the events in Auric Basin (specifically reactivating the pylons). The lack of entering Tarir indicates that to the PC the Attack on Tarir meta did not happen.

Problem with this logic is it means the commander spent time wandering around Auric basin with the giant, very important, but huge magnet of Glint’s Egg on their back, instead of going straight for the city. The last bit of the journal text implies they decide to go check out the city.

In Act 3, Roots of Terror has us establishing the Order of Whispers’ camp free from hostile Chak, and the open world step after has us dealing with the Nuhoch.

We do secure that one camp, but sadly after a little bit with the Nuhoch, rest of tangeled depths takes place after the commander leaves.

In the open instance after Bitter Harvest, the pilot explicitly mentions progress in the lanes – that’s the DS meta – and Hearts and Minds talks about Mordremoth in a bit fight.

They are small, easily overlooked, ultimately treated as insignificant, but there all the same.

IMO, The lanes takes part at same time as bitter Harvest, and the final battle with Mouth of Mordremoth takes place at the same time as we head down into the lair after Trahearne.

Though, to simply shorten things… Anet does a poorish job of linking open world to the story instances, and IMO does a blah job at showing timeframe overall. I’ve seen people argue that there is the huge gap from end of living story season 2, to HoT release in lore, because of the one comment Anet did about trying to link living story releases to RL dates in timeframe.

I personally wish (and I know, anet won’t do it because of reasons like wanting players to have their own timeframes or whatever), Anet would come out with a clear cut timeline. Even something as simple as “This mission takes place this week, that mission takes place next week.” Or months.