Guild Wars 2

Ok – so this has been bugging me for a while now so I’d like to find out what you guys think – particularly the regulars of this subforum that are invested in the lore and story of the game.

As far as I see it the HoT story doesn’t make much sense for a number of reasons but I’ll list the biggest offender here: Mordremoth’s power (or lack there of).

So at the beginning of HoT – we witness Mordremoth going at it – he pulls down the entire fleet, killing a huge number of pact troops, scattering what remains of them and reducing their military capacity to all but nothing – and then nothing happens.

I find it incredibly odd and unrealistic ( and yes I realize this is a fantasy game – i don’t mean unrealistic in that way) that the remaining Pact survivors just go about their merry way and survive.

Think about it – they are stranded in hostile territory that they have very little information about, their command structure is broken, a good number of them have turned ( the sylvari), a good number are injured and tired and to top it all off they aren’t being supplied and are constantly attacked by Mordrem and other local wildlife or races.

So how come the story ends the way it does? Was the pact fleet being destroyed just there to give us a “cliffhanger moment”?

I also particularly dislike how we can just walk our way to Mordremoth’s inner lair with not much trouble.
In the previous story – the fight with Zaithan – we had to fight tooth and nail, pushing in with massive movements of troops and slowly making our way to its inner most sanctum.
With HoT we just seem to stumble into it – us the hero character and a couple of others – it just feels out of place to say the least.

I feel there’s also a lot of waste potential – Tarir and its inhabitants could have played a huge part of the story – hell – they could have been a focal point by making them the crutch the broken pact leans on to fight on. There could have been much more emphasis on rallying other races in the jungle to your cause.

Instead we meet them, greet them and move on – they play no significant part in the story except for “hey we’re here too” and seem like things tacked on in order to have a reason for the associated masteries to exist.

Am I the only one who’s noticing these things? Am I wrong to look at the story like this?
I just can’t shake the feeling that there was an incredible potential for a very strong story and instead we got something that was half bad and half rushed.

I wouldn’t say the pact just went on their merry way.

In the events around that area and in the world itself…sylvari turned, there’s mistrust around the pact.

There are pact members being kidnapped, picked off from camps by saurians and Chak, assaulted by mordrem and Hylek and local fauna, having to fight through the jungle to reunite with other survivors.

basically the entire event structure of verdant brink is you helping small groups of pact members getting together to try to hold down an area.

I also…think the Meta event in Dragon’s stand has you really breaking into where you need to be.

as far as getting to the dragon too easily…you have to remember, Mordremoth is seemingly more intelligent than zhaitan, due to his affinity with mind, the pact is also significantly better at combating dragons than it was while attempting to fight zhaitan, the training and technologies have evolved in the 2 years since the first elder dragon’s death.

But mordremoth is also arrogant, he let you get to him easily because he thought he knew everything about you, he thought he could easily dominate you, hence when he tries to use your past against you in his mind, and he was in the body of trahearne so he definitely DID know a lot of what happened to you.

but that’s just my thought.

I’m sure the exalted will play a larger role in the living world.

all in all, this expansion felt like an introduction to a new storyline, and not just a huge long stand alone story

vanderwolf.7084:

I wouldn’t say the pact just went on their merry way.

In the events around that area and in the world itself…sylvari turned, there’s mistrust around the pact.

There are pact members being kidnapped, picked off from camps by saurians and Chak, assaulted by mordrem and Hylek and local fauna, having to fight through the jungle to reunite with other survivors.

basically the entire event structure of verdant brink is you helping small groups of pact members getting together to try to hold down an area.

I also…think the Meta event in Dragon’s stand has you really breaking into where you need to be.

as far as getting to the dragon too easily…you have to remember, Mordremoth is seemingly more intelligent than zhaitan, due to his affinity with mind, the pact is also significantly better at combating dragons than it was while attempting to fight zhaitan, the training and technologies have evolved in the 2 years since the first elder dragon’s death.

But mordremoth is also arrogant, he let you get to him easily because he thought he knew everything about you, he thought he could easily dominate you, hence when he tries to use your past against you in his mind, and he was in the body of trahearne so he definitely DID know a lot of what happened to you.

but that’s just my thought.

I’m sure the exalted will play a larger role in the living world.

I wouldn’t know about that meta event – since the game never had me do it – they just had me talk to one NPC and then I got teleported to where I needed to be. Not really well done or immersive.

Press here to get there. No explanation, no reasoning – just “talk to this guy and he can magically sneak you behind enemy lines”.

The problem with “the pact is more efficient” is that there’s a complex nature to this efficiency.

The pact does have better organization, weapons and higher numbers than it did when we were fighting Zaithan – but with the way HoT began I think that’s pretty much rendered null and void.

I think that the pre-Zaithan fight pact was far superior in numbers and capacity to the post-fleet distruction part of the pact that did make it into the jungle.

As far as adapting – well the pact has been fighting Mordremoth’s minions for not such a long time ( unlike Zaithan’s minions that had been around for a while) and let’s not forget the jungle has numerous types of never before seen Mordrem that you can’t really be prepared for.

Also it feels to me that the “mordremoth was arrogant” approach – while entirely possible feels cheap.

I think the idea is that the open world map-wide meta events are as much part of the story as the instances are, and happen somewhat simultaneously (very explicit in the case of the Dragon’s Stand final battle, which happens the exact same time as the final instance).

So, while it’s admittedly not very well laid out in the single-player story instances, we most definitely did not just “walk our way to Mordremoth’s inner lair with not much trouble”, there were massive offensives going on that made it possible for us to sneak past Mordy’s defenses. Very much recommend playing the meta event content and the Dragon’s Stand one in particular for the complete story experience.

Zhaitan also had many, many, many years to build up his power and establish his base of operations. Mordremoth was asleep until very recently and the minions he was supposed to have were largely sheltered by the Pale Tree. He simply did not have the kind of time that Zhaitan had, thus why he was a comparatively easier foe to tackle.

It does feel rather odd as is. I’m thinking a better approach would be to really put the Pact in even worse shambles and frame the player’s journey as “everyone else in basically dead; we’ve gotta rush in and somehow take out the dragon before it can do any more damage,” maybe cobbling together a team of Pact survivors on the way. As is, the story is all about rescuing the Pact leadership, and you just kind of incidentally kill Mordremoth at the end. Not exactly anticlimactic…just…weirdly paced? Slightly unfocused? I dunno.

PiippoN.2056:

I think the idea is that the open world map-wide meta events are as much part of the story as the instances are, and happen somewhat simultaneously (very explicit in the case of the Dragon’s Stand final battle, which happens the exact same time as the final instance).

So, while it’s admittedly not very well laid out in the single-player story instances, we most definitely did not just “walk our way to Mordremoth’s inner lair with not much trouble”, there were massive offensives going on that made it possible for us to sneak past Mordy’s defenses. Very much recommend playing the meta event content and the Dragon’s Stand one in particular for the complete story experience.

As Konig suggested in a diff thread, this could have be explained by using the same strategy as The Marionette – ie being a part of the meta and boss in DS, succeed or fail. Then pushing onto the inner sanctum. Rather than appearing all the way across what should have been the most hostile of all the areas.

I think the biggest problem with the story was that most of the campaign was “I need to rescue my friends” when it should have been “We need to kill this dragon”. And while I haven’t done it yet, it sounds like they should’ve made us do the Dragon’s Stand event before the final instance.

For an expansion centered on the Sylvari, not much about the Sylvari was explained. They didn’t explain the Nightmare. They didn’t explain Malyck’s tree.

It was like every anchoring aspect of important Sylvari lore was just dumped on and the game said “go kill the fat dragon.”

I don’t even like Sylvari that much (I like plant people, but don’t really like how they are portrayed) but I still feel bad about their loreseeking fanbase that really just got ignored.

Way I see it, the Pact is EXCELLENT at field fortifications. The fleet was torn from the sky, yes, but they were able to dig in fairly well the following day/days.

Not a pretty setup, but they make it work. Also, remember that part of the prologue was opening up/keeping open a passage that would allow wounded to escape, and reinforcements to come in.

Don’t know if it’s been touched on, but it feels like they really wasted Mordremoth as a character. Even playing through it with a sylvari you don’t hear much from him(when it’s supposed to be almost constant), and what you do hear is just so bland. They really couldn’t come up with any better dialogue for a millenia old formless horror than “Bwahaha, you can’t defeat me >:p”? With the sylvari specifically they could’ve played into the fathership angle, or added hallucinations, something to make being mind-linked with it genuinely unsettling. I know from the fight with Zojja’s clones that they’re capable of that kind of writing(they desperately beg for you to burn them), but they just didn’t do it.

At least it was better than Zhaitan I guess.

They should’ve delayed the dragon’s death until LS3. This would’ve given them more time to explain things better and to give the current maps a little bit more meaning.

Am I the only one that thinks that Mordremoth is not dead? I do not think he really died in the final chapter…

I would like to believe it, but I think that’s that now. The last cry from Mord is *"what have you done?"*, implying a knock on effect to something else we now have to deal with.
I’m pretty sure that is him done with for good now.

vanderwolf.7084:

I wouldn’t say the pact just went on their merry way.

In the events around that area and in the world itself…sylvari turned, there’s mistrust around the pact.

There are pact members being kidnapped, picked off from camps by saurians and Chak, assaulted by mordrem and Hylek and local fauna, having to fight through the jungle to reunite with other survivors.

basically the entire event structure of verdant brink is you helping small groups of pact members getting together to try to hold down an area.

I also…think the Meta event in Dragon’s stand has you really breaking into where you need to be.

as far as getting to the dragon too easily…you have to remember, Mordremoth is seemingly more intelligent than zhaitan, due to his affinity with mind, the pact is also significantly better at combating dragons than it was while attempting to fight zhaitan, the training and technologies have evolved in the 2 years since the first elder dragon’s death.

But mordremoth is also arrogant, he let you get to him easily because he thought he knew everything about you, he thought he could easily dominate you, hence when he tries to use your past against you in his mind, and he was in the body of trahearne so he definitely DID know a lot of what happened to you.

but that’s just my thought.

I’m sure the exalted will play a larger role in the living world.

Modremoth wasn’t more intelligent than Zhaitan, it’s just that the Pact didn’t know it much.

In my opinion the background for a great story was there, but they didn’t bring it all together in the right way. For me i found that there were 7 major things that could have been changed to make the story better.

Deleven.7508:

In my opinion the background for a great story was there, but they didn’t bring it all together in the right way. For me i found that there were 7 major things that could have been changed to make the story better.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Eir’s death was a little bit too meaningless. This was a good opportunity to teach us that mordremoth was taking the best warriors to duplicate them. If we had encountered a really strong version of a mordrem Eir or a mordrem Garm right when we reached this part, it would have given us some incentive to go and quickly save destiny’s edge before an army of them was made. They did do this a bit with Faolain’s death, but it could have been played into more.

The nightmare court and Faolain were too quickly introduced and then taken out of the story. They should have devoted more time to them, explaining why they are there and what they hoped to achieve in the jungle. They also could have played a part in the final fight. The nightmare court has specialized in attacking the dream for a while now, and it would have made sense that they would be able to apply that knowledge to attacking Mordremoth’s mind.

We had no good reason for wanting to go and save destiny’s edge. If early on in the story they had given us the fact that Mordremoth can copy a person and make minions of them it would have been more understandable. I believe that Eir and Logan are particularly powerful warriors in lore, and if Mordremoth managed to duplicate them it would have been a serious problem later. Also if Mordremoth could learn what its minions knew, then saving Zojja would also have been really important, and worth doing before going straight for the dragon.

Rata Novas should have taught us something useful about taking out elder dragons. All we learned is that they have a weakness, which is an abstract fact that really doesn’t help. We could have at least learned that each sphere of power that an elder dragon had its own weakness, which would have led us to the idea of attacking that second part of Mordremoth that wasn’t initially apparent. It also would have been a place where we could have learned about ley-line energy, manipulating the chak, or the fact that an elder dragon’s energy is spread out to other elder dragons upon their death.

The chak is an interesting species, and Zildi’s idea to use them against Mordremoth is really cool, but the story doesn’t dive into the idea. If we had found a way to mobilize the chak against mordremoth, perhaps by rerouting ley-line energy and forcing a confrontation between them, it would have created physical chaos that would have legitimately distracted mordremoth while the player-character took their team in to assault the mind.

The Exalted and the egg are difficult to fit into the story, it is necessary to have them there as it rounds off the Master of Peace’s story, but getting to them still feels too inconsequential. Now this might not be a problem. At the end of the story we do see the egg absorbing a bunch of magic energy that Mordremoth was no longer consuming. Unlike Zhaitan’s death, where his energy was likely spread out to all of the other elder dragons, we might have been able to give all of this magical potential to glints egg. If this is true, then getting the egg to Tarir was actually really important, and it fits into the larger story really well. Until we have this information though, this is a problem.

The last and most important thing that i think needed to change is the story step after we save Logan and Zojja. At this point, we have accomplished our goal and we should turn back to devise a plan. While Trahern is an important figure, he was dragged in too deep. He was right next to the core of Mordremoth, and it should have been impossible to reach him. We needed a plan to kill Mordremoth before killing him, and this is the point where we should tie everything together for a fulfilling conclusion to the story arc.

I don’t think that malyck and his tree not being in the story is a terrible thing. While i think that this story should be tied off, i really don’t see how this un-tended tree could have any impact in the story.

I think the egg took way too many episodes of the story, sure it might be useful in the future but it had no use AGAINST Modremoth.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Deleven.7508:

In my opinion the background for a great story was there, but they didn’t bring it all together in the right way. For me i found that there were 7 major things that could have been changed to make the story better.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Eir’s death was a little bit too meaningless. This was a good opportunity to teach us that mordremoth was taking the best warriors to duplicate them. If we had encountered a really strong version of a mordrem Eir or a mordrem Garm right when we reached this part, it would have given us some incentive to go and quickly save destiny’s edge before an army of them was made. They did do this a bit with Faolain’s death, but it could have been played into more.

The nightmare court and Faolain were too quickly introduced and then taken out of the story. They should have devoted more time to them, explaining why they are there and what they hoped to achieve in the jungle. They also could have played a part in the final fight. The nightmare court has specialized in attacking the dream for a while now, and it would have made sense that they would be able to apply that knowledge to attacking Mordremoth’s mind.

We had no good reason for wanting to go and save destiny’s edge. If early on in the story they had given us the fact that Mordremoth can copy a person and make minions of them it would have been more understandable. I believe that Eir and Logan are particularly powerful warriors in lore, and if Mordremoth managed to duplicate them it would have been a serious problem later. Also if Mordremoth could learn what its minions knew, then saving Zojja would also have been really important, and worth doing before going straight for the dragon.

Rata Novas should have taught us something useful about taking out elder dragons. All we learned is that they have a weakness, which is an abstract fact that really doesn’t help. We could have at least learned that each sphere of power that an elder dragon had its own weakness, which would have led us to the idea of attacking that second part of Mordremoth that wasn’t initially apparent. It also would have been a place where we could have learned about ley-line energy, manipulating the chak, or the fact that an elder dragon’s energy is spread out to other elder dragons upon their death.

The chak is an interesting species, and Zildi’s idea to use them against Mordremoth is really cool, but the story doesn’t dive into the idea. If we had found a way to mobilize the chak against mordremoth, perhaps by rerouting ley-line energy and forcing a confrontation between them, it would have created physical chaos that would have legitimately distracted mordremoth while the player-character took their team in to assault the mind.

The Exalted and the egg are difficult to fit into the story, it is necessary to have them there as it rounds off the Master of Peace’s story, but getting to them still feels too inconsequential. Now this might not be a problem. At the end of the story we do see the egg absorbing a bunch of magic energy that Mordremoth was no longer consuming. Unlike Zhaitan’s death, where his energy was likely spread out to all of the other elder dragons, we might have been able to give all of this magical potential to glints egg. If this is true, then getting the egg to Tarir was actually really important, and it fits into the larger story really well. Until we have this information though, this is a problem.

The last and most important thing that i think needed to change is the story step after we save Logan and Zojja. At this point, we have accomplished our goal and we should turn back to devise a plan. While Trahern is an important figure, he was dragged in too deep. He was right next to the core of Mordremoth, and it should have been impossible to reach him. We needed a plan to kill Mordremoth before killing him, and this is the point where we should tie everything together for a fulfilling conclusion to the story arc.

I don’t think that malyck and his tree not being in the story is a terrible thing. While i think that this story should be tied off, i really don’t see how this un-tended tree could have any impact in the story.

I think the egg took way too many episodes of the story, sure it might be useful in the future but it had no use AGAINST Modremoth.

I do agree as the story is right now. If they made it clear more early on in the story that we needed something to channel Mordremoth’s energy into when he died, it would have made the steps with the egg worthwhile.

Deleven.7508:

I do agree as the story is right now. If they made it clear more early on in the story that we needed something to channel Mordremoth’s energy into when he died, it would have made the steps with the egg worthwhile.

It would still be too many episodes when the first priority was the defeat Modremoth.

Also that research was way too stupid, it took so long and gave us a laughable result “weakness”. It would have been much cooler if we can learn how to use other dragon’s power against Mordremoth, especially Primordus.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Deleven.7508:

I do agree as the story is right now. If they made it clear more early on in the story that we needed something to channel Mordremoth’s energy into when he died, it would have made the steps with the egg worthwhile.

It would still be too many episodes when the first priority was the defeat Modremoth.

That actually might not be true. If we assume that Zhaitan’s power was equal to that of the other elder dragons, and that his power was spread out evenly between the other elder dragons, each elder dragon got about 15% stronger when he died. If we kill Mordremoth without directing his energy somewhere, its going to make the other elder dragons a further 20% stronger. That is a big problem, and one could argue that if you know this information the egg should take the top priority.

Deleven.7508:

That actually might not be true. If we assume that Zhaitan’s power was equal to that of the other elder dragons, and that his power was spread out evenly between the other elder dragons, each elder dragon got about 15% stronger when he died. If we kill Mordremoth without directing his energy somewhere, its going to make the other elder dragons a further 20% stronger. That is a big problem, and one could argue that if you know this information the egg should take the top priority.

And had we killed Mordremoth during the egg quests? No, we were badly struggling, trying to find a way to do it.

Deleven.7508:

In my opinion the background for a great story was there, but they didn’t bring it all together in the right way. For me i found that there were 7 major things that could have been changed to make the story better.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Eir’s death was a little bit too meaningless. This was a good opportunity to teach us that mordremoth was taking the best warriors to duplicate them. If we had encountered a really strong version of a mordrem Eir or a mordrem Garm right when we reached this part, it would have given us some incentive to go and quickly save destiny’s edge before an army of them was made. They did do this a bit with Faolain’s death, but it could have been played into more.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

The nightmare court and Faolain were too quickly introduced and then taken out of the story. They should have devoted more time to them, explaining why they are there and what they hoped to achieve in the jungle. They also could have played a part in the final fight. The nightmare court has specialized in attacking the dream for a while now, and it would have made sense that they would be able to apply that knowledge to attacking Mordremoth’s mind.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

We had no good reason for wanting to go and save destiny’s edge. If early on in the story they had given us the fact that Mordremoth can copy a person and make minions of them it would have been more understandable. I believe that Eir and Logan are particularly powerful warriors in lore, and if Mordremoth managed to duplicate them it would have been a serious problem later. Also if Mordremoth could learn what its minions knew, then saving Zojja would also have been really important, and worth doing before going straight for the dragon.

I’ve not played the Nightmare Court part from the meta, but Faolain delivers a line that might say it all.

“We want freedom, but the yoke of Mordremoth is even heavier than that of the Pale Tree.” (I don’t know if it’s the official line, it’s a basic translation from french)

They wanted to end the dragon.

And I’m personally glad we didn’t have the horrid “backstabbing ally” thing. I don’t mind an “uneasy alliance” ala General Morgahn, but a “backstabbing ally”… ew.

Faolain was Nightmare Court. She wanted to make people suffer. Why would the Pact want to seal an alliance with such a menace ? That was one of the cool things with the prison camp mission – the music when Faolain speaks for the first time, and we realize she was with Eir. Releasing Eir means releasing Faolain. We had no other choice.

About Eir’s death : among Destiny’s Edge members, she was probably the most hated one by Faolain. Remember that a prominent trait of Faolain was her trying to reunite with Caithe. I feared that she would accept Eir’s helping hand, but she didn’t forget who she was.

Hope Eir will have a huge statue of her in Hoelbrak, ‘cause she’s the most legendary norn IMO.

The Backstabbing Ally trope would have been lame. But a mixture of Faolain & the Nightmare Court, The Pact, Malyck & what’s left of his Tree’s Sylvari, AWOL Caithe and an anti-Sylvari faction all operating for the same goal (killing the dragon) would have made things incredibly interesting.

By reducing Faolain to a character who’s first impulse is to betray the first hero she can, goes against the sort of pragmatic thinking that made her such a mastermind. By killing Eir when there are witnesses just signs her own death warrant. Not to mention that Faolain has the same goals as the rest of the group, co-operating is in her best interest until the big threat is neutralised.

You could say that she was clever in trying to use a weakened Eir to escape. But it really didn’t help things did it? If Eir was willing to save Faolain at risk of her own life, then Faolain should have exploited it. Eir being the altruistic soul probably would have died fighting to protect the injured Faolain. Faolain’s death was an example of “stupid evil”.

Mordeus.1234:

The Backstabbing Ally trope would have been lame. But a mixture of Faolain & the Nightmare Court, The Pact, Malyck & what’s left of his Tree’s Sylvari, AWOL Caithe and an anti-Sylvari faction all operating for the same goal (killing the dragon) would have made things incredibly interesting.

By reducing Faolain to a character who’s first impulse is to betray the first hero she can, goes against the sort of pragmatic thinking that made her such a mastermind. By killing Eir when there are witnesses just signs her own death warrant. Not to mention that Faolain has the same goals as the rest of the group, co-operating is in her best interest until the big threat is neutralised.

You could say that she was clever in trying to use a weakened Eir to escape. But it really didn’t help things did it? If Eir was willing to save Faolain at risk of her own life, then Faolain should have exploited it. Eir being the altruistic soul probably would have died fighting to protect the injured Faolain. Faolain’s death was an example of “stupid evil”.

Faolain saw the Vinetooth before hitting Eir. I think she wanted the beast to focus on the Norn in order to safely escape.

I don’t know if it’s “stupid evil” ’cause Eir responded tremendously to that hit.

Mordeus.1234:

The Backstabbing Ally trope would have been lame. But a mixture of Faolain & the Nightmare Court, The Pact, Malyck & what’s left of his Tree’s Sylvari, AWOL Caithe and an anti-Sylvari faction all operating for the same goal (killing the dragon) would have made things incredibly interesting.

By reducing Faolain to a character who’s first impulse is to betray the first hero she can, goes against the sort of pragmatic thinking that made her such a mastermind. By killing Eir when there are witnesses just signs her own death warrant. Not to mention that Faolain has the same goals as the rest of the group, co-operating is in her best interest until the big threat is neutralised.

You could say that she was clever in trying to use a weakened Eir to escape. But it really didn’t help things did it? If Eir was willing to save Faolain at risk of her own life, then Faolain should have exploited it. Eir being the altruistic soul probably would have died fighting to protect the injured Faolain. Faolain’s death was an example of “stupid evil”.

Faolain did exploit it. By weakening Eir to make Eir a more tempting prey.

She simply didn’t expect Eir to respond by throwing the spike into her spine.

Faolain, I’d say, likely didn’t want to work alongside the heroes anyway, and was planning on getting as far away as she could (maybe to rally the nightmare court) from that place.

And frankly, more and more factions with conflicting interests outside of “LET’S KILL A DRAGON” turns the story more confusing. And frankly, after the dragon is defeated, they’d all turn on each other.

edit: If Faolain assumed the vinetooth would behave like a typical beast, she knew it’d target the weaker person. She may not have had much dealings with Norn and thus made the mistake she did.

Harper.4173:

So at the beginning of HoT – we witness Mordremoth going at it – he pulls down the entire fleet, killing a huge number of pact troops, scattering what remains of them and reducing their military capacity to all but nothing – and then nothing happens.

I find it incredibly odd and unrealistic ( and yes I realize this is a fantasy game – i don’t mean unrealistic in that way) that the remaining Pact survivors just go about their merry way and survive.

The only people who go on their merry way is actually the nobles (although they’re generally disconnected from the complexities of life). All the rest (as seen throughout Verdant Brink) is a battle. The only thing we don’t see however are the exact moments after the Pact fleet falls, by the time we get their most of the Pact forces have already established small camps and we help them to defend / capture and secure.

Harper.4173:

Think about it – they are stranded in hostile territory that they have very little information about, their command structure is broken, a good number of them have turned ( the sylvari), a good number are injured and tired and to top it all off they aren’t being supplied and are constantly attacked by Mordrem and other local wildlife or races.

All of which is covered in the Verdant Brink events.

Harper.4173:

I also particularly dislike how we can just walk our way to Mordremoth’s inner lair with not much trouble.
In the previous story – the fight with Zaithan – we had to fight tooth and nail, pushing in with massive movements of troops and slowly making our way to its inner most sanctum.

We do, just not in the personal story. We fight our way to Mordremoth in the PvE maps.

Harper.4173:

I feel there’s also a lot of waste potential – Tarir and its inhabitants could have played a huge part of the story – hell – they could have been a focal point by making them the crutch the broken pact leans on to fight on. There could have been much more emphasis on rallying other races in the jungle to your cause.
Instead we meet them, greet them and move on – they play no significant part in the story except for “hey we’re here too” and seem like things tacked on in order to have a reason for the associated masteries to exist.

They are the crutch. A number of Pact soldier are stationed inside of Tarir and with the help of the Exalted fight back the Mordrem. Again just not in the Personal Story.

vanderwolf.7084:

basically the entire event structure of verdant brink is you helping small groups of pact members getting together to try to hold down an area.

But that’s the problem here it seems, OP is only looking at the Personal Story in a vacuum.

Harper.4173:

I wouldn’t know about that meta event – since the game never had me do it – they just had me talk to one NPC and then I got teleported to where I needed to be. Not really well done or immersive.

And again, you have to look at the story as a whole. Remember this isn’t a television show, video games are an inherently interactive medium. If you decided to skip the open world meta-events it doesn’t mean that there is no story, simply that you decided not to delve into the story.

Daharahj.1325:

They should’ve delayed the dragon’s death until LS3. This would’ve given them more time to explain things better and to give the current maps a little bit more meaning.

I honestly still think they can use S3 to explain some things. Mordremoth is gone, but the Modrem still remain, Tiami is still in Rata Novus, the Exalted are still around, and the Pact force are still busy fighting. Although the story of S3 might not be as grand as ‘we need to kill the dragon’ it can still work even thought its ‘Kill some of the remaining Modrem Champions and Mordrem Guard’ and ‘help Taimi retrieve more Rata Novus data’, ‘deal with whatever the Nightmare Court was doing in Magus Falls’ (kinda suspicious that the leader of the Nightmare Court would just happen to be in Magus Falls) etc. Then there is also Malyck’s tree, but I see that easuky tying into the Nightmare Court. We can even deal with some issues outside of Magus Falls, such as what’s happening to the Pale Tree now, or how are people responding to the Sylvari are dragon minion reveal.

Slowpokeking.8720:

I think the egg took way too many episodes of the story, sure it might be useful in the future but it had no use AGAINST Modremoth.

The egg thing did feel out of place though, especially given that so much of the PS was focused on the war with Mordy. So taking a detour to do egg stuff was odd. Well it was a plot thread that was left dangling from S2.

We had a general goal (kill Mordremoth) and a personal goal (retrieve the egg). Since the Zephyrites crashed out (egg stuff) because of Aerin (Mordy stuff), those were our objectives all along. Taking two episodes out of 16 to end the egg story is not too much. And since we had to rush to reach the general goal, our personal goal was inevitably ‘reached’ out of nowhere. They did a mistake with story instances in Dragon’s Stand, though.

Interesting meta-event at Dragon’s Stand. Have to know why a Nightmare Court duchess was there with outposts characters (Agent Zildi, I love you). I believe that doing the north path will give an answer.

I feel that so far, the HoT story (I’ve just gotten to the story about heading into Rata Novus with Braham and Taimi) is flawed because of one major reason revolving around the Pact.

In the Personal story dealing with Zhaitan, Trahearne was the Marshall, the leader. We were second in command, and often given specialized, high value missions to complete in the field. This worked out well because Trahearne handled leading the pact while we didn’t have to do a lot of that.

In HoT, WE are the leader now, and Laranthir is second in command to us. However, so far, I’ve done NOTHING to really ‘lead’ the pact. I’ve been doing things similar to the PS, high value important objectives, but the Pact is left to falter. Laranthir has yet to even appear again after the first mission (besides a random reference “FIND LARANTHIR in this confusing, deadly jungle with no directions given!”). This really makes me feel disconnected since the Commander is obviously taking charge in a few scenes, hell random dialogue in the pact encampment in Verdant Brink has a charr going “I wish the commander would stick around more…”

Another thing I find annoying, is how they’ve split the pact. The Pact as a theme is the best parts of the three orders combined into one unified, effective fighting force. Yet Verdant Brink is filled with Vigil soldiers. Auric Basin is filled with Priory, and Tangled depths with Order of Whispers. (Sure, you can find SOME order of whispers or priory people in verdant, but it’s single npcs who don’t really do anything).

I wish there was more of a mix across the jungle (Like Orr), because it kinda looks like the priory and vigil had their own ships (not mixed crews), who went down in the two regions, and whispers are just there.

edit: Another minor thing that annoys me. Seeing the ‘battleship’ type airships EVERYWHERE (The Glory of Tyria style). almost every airship wreck I notice is one of those, when before we’ve seen at most… two? It looks like the normal airships simply were a minority according to the wreckage.

Maybe there really were huge numbers of the normal airships for each of the ‘battleships’ as I call them, but their hulls got torn apart more?