How Guild Wars 2 Should Have Ended

How Guild Wars 2 Should Have Ended

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Posted by: Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

Since Anet apparently doesn’t like petition threads, I’m just gonna flat out tell you how I think Guild Wars 2 should have ended.

No spoilers yet (those are for below) for people who haven’t done it yet, but for those of you who have, you know what I mean.
The way Guild Wars 2 SHOULD HAVE ended was a final confrontation with Zhaitan in his lair. They’ve even got a spot for it on the map. I honestly feel like the end of the game was thrown together last minute because it wasn’t ready. It doesn’t live up to the standards of ArenaNet games, and it SURE AS HECK doesn’t live up to GW2.
Here’s how it should have ended, and due to spoilers, I’m gonna put it in a spoiler box…


The final dungeon was fine to begin with. Original strategies, boss fights, good use of team work, really well done. However, when Zhaitan is forced to land, landing on the outside of a tower just to have this giant evil dragon stare at you harmlessly while you shoot turret shots at him slowly in 3 directions ONLY (left right or forward) and you can’t even tell if you’re hitting him, all while you talk about how bad this is, is a laughably poor ending at best.

The only tolerable way that I can imagine to end Guild Wars 2 to a full ArenaNet + Guild Wars 2 quality is to have the dragon land in his lair. You then dock your airship on a perch on the outside of the lair, dismount the ship, and head inside for a final confrontation with the character that THIS ENTIRE GAME HAS BEEN ABOUT. Now upon entering the lair, the dragon sits in the middle, ready to fight to his last breath. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m picturing some giant chamber with a central atrium, and three balcony levels surrounding it, providing strategic placement of your party to maximize damage and minimize threats.

Now that we have 3 levels, we have the ground level, where people can rush up and attack the feet at will, all while dodging his steps, and wings flapping around, as well as the occasional additional dragon head that drops down to take a bite out of you.

On the second level, we have view at his heart and chest, and more specifically, the wings, which are flapping around, dealing damage and wreaking havoc on anyone standing on the level.

On the third level, we have the direct view into Zhaitan’s face, where you attack his head with ranged attacks, or use melee to attack and defend the many additional heads that will be reaching out to attack anyone on that level.

And with these 3 levels, comes 3 different possible objectives, now instead of defeating this boring boss one time with stupid little cannons, we get to fight 3 parts of the dragon, defeating his legs/wings/and head, turning him into (bad pun incoming) dragon stew.

THIS, will leave me feeling content at the end of the story. THEN I’ll feel like a hero. You could have just let the NPC’s finish the game for you and let me explore the ship more. At least exploring the ship would have felt more rewarding than that ending.

If you read the spoiler, let me know what you think of my alternate ending, if you haven’t beaten the game, BEAT THE GAME FIRST, then come back here and leave your comments/opinions/feedback of any type.

Also, I’m a Game Design major , so any constructive criticism would be great as far as experience goes. Thanks guys!

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Posted by: Lonami.2987

Lonami.2987

What happened with the previous thread you made? I wrote a really good answer there :S.

No way to recover it? Did they delete it instead of just locking it? >_<

Elonian elite specialization ideas: El: Dervish
M: Bladedancer – N: Scourge – En: Occultist – Ra: Swampstalker
T: Sharpshooter – G: Sunspear – Re: Hierophant – W: Corsair

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Posted by: Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

Yeah, they deleted it because it said “petition” in the title

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Posted by: Lonami.2987

Lonami.2987

Couldn’t they have just edited the title? :S

Anyway, how did you recover your post? Is there any way I can recover mine?

Elonian elite specialization ideas: El: Dervish
M: Bladedancer – N: Scourge – En: Occultist – Ra: Swampstalker
T: Sharpshooter – G: Sunspear – Re: Hierophant – W: Corsair

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Posted by: Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

when it was deleted it showed me what post was deleted, so I was able to copy it out of there, unfortunately, it didn’t show me any of the replies that were written

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Posted by: JayDoG.6149

JayDoG.6149

Zhaitan crashes into the ship, Rytlock and Eir gettin injured and u fall into some kind of maze, where zhaitan can just randomly come out of the wall – Meanwhile your group is searching for each other (all seperated). Zhaitan appears the first time when all of ur 5 party members are united, second time after logan carrys rytlock at some time and another tome when Mr Sparkles carrys Eir – you have to protect them AND kill Zhaitan. But every ending is better then THIS one for sure.

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Posted by: Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

lol, as confusing as that was to read, yeah, I can agree, anything but this

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Posted by: Tom Gore.4035

Tom Gore.4035

I wasn’t aware GW2 ended already…

One – Piken Square

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Posted by: Shael.4703

Shael.4703

I wasn’t aware GW2 ended already…

Same here. So I’m confused as to what is with the “this is how it should have ended”.

My blog/sites: gameshogun & Tomes of Knowledge

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Posted by: Kronaxx.2789

Kronaxx.2789

Look, many people just look at how the fight goes, but forget about the lore/story all together. Zhaitan is made of undead dragons (since they embody magic, I presume this is done by magic). So as you saw hitting him with the big cannon dropped 2 dragons, basically the crippled him slightly there.

They knew he was made around magic (they found out) and used beams to cripple his right wing, rendering his flying useless. He then crashed into a tower. Killing him off with cannons. He is INCAPABLE of fighting physically. He is made of dragons, HELLO, DRAGONS, what is he doing to do? Throw his toe at you?

He uses magic to control the risen, they do the fighting for him, he apparently has no eyes on his body, Eyes of Zhaitan do that for him (you find out who they are through the story line, pretty cool actually). He apparently has different tongue, but the Mouths of Zhaitan eat for him. See… Basically he just exists based on magic.


Who says we killed Zhaitan? I see him drop down into nothingness, I don’t see his dead body anywhere! We’ve lifted his curse upon Orr, We’ve saved the ghosts of Orr. But the dragon dead? I see no evidence. They say in the story line they DEFEATED Zhaitan, not killed. Big difference! I think they rendered his magic useless and put him back a few years. He has his wing to recover + find a whole new army to control.

(edited by Kronaxx.2789)

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Posted by: Keziah.2653

Keziah.2653

Wow. GW2 ended? So the other Elder Dragons went back to sleep..?

Keep in mind that you can’t actually KILL an Elder Dragon. You can only defeat them (as in, they go back to sleep to reawaken another time — check the GW2 wiki). They are, after all, older than the gods of Tyria. I’m thinking mortals CAN’T kill them… just maybe knock ’em out for a few centuries or so.

There are four named Elder Dragons and one unnamed deep sea dragon. The threat is on-going. The defeat of Zhaitan appears to be more of a “part one: complete” arc than a “game over.”

Kiz Nyx (Ele) | Kressida Nyx (Guar) | Phaedra Nyx (Mes) | Ylva Nyx (Ran) | Ghanima Nyx (Nec)
[GCI] Calamitous Intent | Sanctum of Rall

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Posted by: Eeeee.3048

Eeeee.3048

Edit: I don’t get what’s wrong with my post. Another forum bug. Ignore the repeated lines.

Well…. Zhaitan is dead.. At least ingame items say so..
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shards_of_Zhaitan
“A small piece of Zhaitan, forever dead..”
Ogden says he’s dead too, I think.

So.. You’re saying he can raise an entire continent out of the water, animate an endless army of undead and all he can do to defend himself is throw mud at us?
So we hear from NPCs that he knows fear. K.

So.. You’re saying he can raise an entire continent out of the water, animate an endless army of undead and all he can do to defend himself is throw mud at us?
So we hear from NPCs that he knows fear. K.So ok, maaaybe he’s just a powerful necromancer and he can’t defend himself, that’s sort-of fine. So…. Why doesn’t he just drop into the water and swim away? Why does he grab onto his precious tower and takes our cannon fire to the face? Did he throw(spit) the wrong type of mud at us? He hoped it would kill us? Just mind boggling.

Anyone would be able to see that this has obviously been rushed. Shatterer, Tequatl and Claw of Jormag(and many others) are much more interesting and I’m sure Anet is well aware of all of this. I just hope they can go in & add things to the final battle once enough people complain.
Game launching 1 month before Mists of Pandaria is not a coincidence.

(edited by Eeeee.3048)

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Posted by: Shael.4703

Shael.4703

@Eeeee.3048

I doubt it was rushed. Zhaitan being the first ED we hunted down obviously tells us that he is not much of a challenge as compared to the other EDs. All the knowledge provided by the Whispers and Priory could have helped in deciding “let’s hit Zhaitan first” (of course, we don’t have a choice as players here, ANet decided for us technically speaking).

Add to that, Zhaitan was the most active one currently. Attacking the three orders, the cities, etc. So obviously, he’ll be the first target lore-wise, for the heroes.

I wouldn’t be surprise if Primordus is the last ED we’re going to face. So far, he is depicted as the oldest of the Elder Dragons. Primordus “the first”; “beginning”.

Primordus: the first; beginning
Jormag: the serpent
Zhaitan: Satan
“Bubbles”: no official name released yet
Kralkatorrik: ???
6th Dragon: — which we have no other information other than the fact that there is a 6th dragon, no nicknames were given yet that people can agree to

So, Zhaitan first. Probably Jormag is next. Then Kralkatorrik. Then Bubbles, then the 6th, then last, Primordus.

weakest to strongest
dumbest to wisest
most war freak to least war freak
power hungry to “I’ll bid my time”

But all 6 EDs only want one thing – destruction and domination.

My blog/sites: gameshogun & Tomes of Knowledge

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Posted by: Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

Vhang Fail Flagger.2985

my complaint is, dead or not, easiest or not, the final battle was poorly handled, even if he is going to come back, you make a game for the sake of the game, not the sake of the sequel

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Posted by: Ennarian.4620

Ennarian.4620

Game launching 1 month before Mists of Pandaria is not a coincidence.

You do realize that Blizzard announced their release date after Anet did. Blizzard also planed to have their content patch the day of GW2 launch. Blizzard waited to announce things because they knew that if they did it before, they would be ignored.

The Dead Collector: “Bring out your dead!”
Zhaitan: “Challenge accepted.”

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Posted by: Ennarian.4620

Ennarian.4620

Well…. Zhaitan is dead.. At least ingame items say so..
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shards_of_Zhaitan
“A small piece of Zhaitan, forever dead..”

That item is forever dead because it was a part of Zhaitan. It’s not saying Zhaitan is dead.

The Dead Collector: “Bring out your dead!”
Zhaitan: “Challenge accepted.”

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Posted by: Moth.1468

Moth.1468

My biggest problem with this is that you believe we should draw our swords and charge at an overwhelmingly large creature described best as a literal force of nature.

I really can’t see that being possible, ever.

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Posted by: Turial.1293

Turial.1293

Moth, in war, there are casualties, and it is usually the guys that run in swords swinging for a dragon. If they want to leroy an elder dragon then let them but let them die, harshly. That should get them to learn the word strategy and to know that running at a dragon is not a good option, this is provided of course that Anet can offer a challenging end boss.

“Some of my best friends are heterosexual”

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Posted by: Emma.2018

Emma.2018

To be quiet honest Designers should have made last encounter with Zhaitan not 5 men but 10 or 20 men raid instance with 10 different bosses before main boss and better tier gear drop that would give people who actually enjoys solving bosses tactics and killing stuff an end game aim since atm ones u finish killing zhaitan in couple hours all you have to do in game is pvp 24/7 and even toughest of people will eventually get bored of this no matter how much designers will upgrade last dungeon it wont bring any pve lover end game. There should be some rly hard dungeons that u actually will have to spend weeks to clear trying to crack bosses tactics. Atm there not even point in being in guild since you can do all dungeons just pugging or with friends. So plz add something hard that will be actually a challenge and not less than 2 h dungeon, ty vm!

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Posted by: nilzardo.4321

nilzardo.4321

I actually like the current “ending” better than your cliché hit-the-dragons’-toes-(or chest, or head, what ever)-until-it’s-dead-scenario, even though the mechanics are quite bland right now. The thing is, I couldn’t care less about game mechanics when I’m about to witness the fall of a frickin’ Elder Dragon while standing on an airship flying over Arah, but that’s probably just the lore nerd in me.

Edit: What I mean is that the current ending feels more realistic and is way better storywise.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

Keep in mind that you can’t actually KILL an Elder Dragon. You can only defeat them (as in, they go back to sleep to reawaken another time — check the GW2 wiki). They are, after all, older than the gods of Tyria. I’m thinking mortals CAN’T kill them… just maybe knock ’em out for a few centuries or so.

The wiki’s out of date ever since the game was released.

Nothing says the Elder Dragon’s can’t be killed, just that – to our knowledge – they haven’t prior to Zhaitan. And he gets killed.

@Eeeeee: Remember the personal story? Once you land on Orr, you’re doing nothing but weakening him. By the time you fight him, he’s weak – very much so. Weaker than when he rose Orr. His means to create undead crippled, his means of eating is gone. He’s literally starved by the time we get to him – you try fighting a swarm of birds while starved. Kinda the same thing.

Though I haven’t fought him yet so I don’t know how lame this fight is. I think I’ll give it a few more weeks before I do too, just in case he gets buffed. Just so long as I’m not hacking away at toenails to kill him.

@Emma: No, please. It’s sometimes hard enough to get 5 folks on at the same time from my guilds or friends list. I’d rather not have to get 10 or, worse, 20 people to do Arah – story or explorable mode.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)

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Posted by: Sunpeece.3590

Sunpeece.3590

I think any re-work would be good.

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Posted by: Yata.8932

Yata.8932

I didn’t mind the end too much, I just didn’t feel like i was in any danger at all while we were pew pewing him since we had cleared all the mobs off of the deck first. I think maybe some of us were supposed to shoot while the rest handled the mobs so it felt a bit more chaotic, but the big bad himself doesn’t actually attack so we just let him sit there while we killed his minions. /shrug

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Posted by: Tevesh.1265

Tevesh.1265

They knew he was made around magic (they found out) and used beams to cripple his right wing, rendering his flying useless. He then crashed into a tower. Killing him off with cannons. He is INCAPABLE of fighting physically. He is made of dragons, HELLO, DRAGONS, what is he doing to do? Throw his toe at you?

If a 30-ton dragon landed on your face, you would be VERY DEAD, trust me. So yeah, he could do just that. Or just stomp you flat. Or just destroy the building you were standing on and bury you under ruins. What do you do when you kill insects? Pretty much this.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

I didn’t mind the end too much, I just didn’t feel like i was in any danger at all while we were pew pewing him since we had cleared all the mobs off of the deck first. I think maybe some of us were supposed to shoot while the rest handled the mobs so it felt a bit more chaotic, but the big bad himself doesn’t actually attack so we just let him sit there while we killed his minions. /shrug

In other words, there’s 2 solution routes (both can be used)

Endless, but perhaps fewer, mobs (maybe regular (read: non-silver circle) mobs – depending on amount).
Give Zhaitan some more attacks.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.