Guild Wars 2

Basically, the only decent content to be released in GW2 this year was Marionette. Any chance we will ever see things like this revived in instances or even as a short time special event?

I’ve had the same idea for a long time now. I loved the marionette! I agree, we should have this as an instance somewhere. I was picturing a little base off the side of Rata Sum with a gate that you could go through that would throw you into an instance (kind of like now dungeons work) and you would pretty much go back in time and fight the marionette all over again. Hopefully, this would be permanent content that they could build of off for future. Plus maybe re-add older boss fights:))

One idea I had was turning the Marionette into a new Guild Challenge mission, the same way how large guilds can start Tequatl/Karka Queen/Triple Wurm at any time when their spawn window isn’t up.

I really hope that the Marionette is brought back as a guild boss mission.

And when Season 1 is brought back as permanent, we can have a “weaker” Marionette for the story journal. But the true fight will always be the guild boss mission.

I hope not.

marionette was my fav “raid” level world boss: clearly all the effort went into it when compaired to the wurm that came out the same update. wish marionette was the permanent boss.

Marionette was excellent. It was fun, it actually felt like we were fighting to save the world, teamwork mattered…..and it was actual teamwork, where players could adjust to the changing situation by moving lanes etc and coordinating over chat.

Not to mention the giant freaking robot and everyone getting blasted at the end if it failed – in fact, there were so many awesome things about the marionette event that I don’t even think I can list them.

It was gw2 done right – nuff said.

chronometria.3708:

it actually felt like we were fighting to save the world

See. That’s the point. If they brought it back then it would be no less different than any other the other world bosses. It would no longer feel like you were saving the world.

Well I think there might be a bit of nostalgia creeping in regarding marionette… but it does feel like it’s something ANet should and could easily re-implement if only to give us something new-ish to do.

The only thing I would change about the Marionette is that once a platform destroys its console, the walls should go down so that they can jump over and assist the neighboring platforms. That way, stronger platforms can assist weaker ones. The old way did have potential issues with players abusing other players who were weaker or more inexperienced.

I’d love to see the Marionette make a return. Out of all the World Bosses it was the most fun and engaging and a huge challenge (but in a well-designed way).

Zaxares.5419:

The only thing I would change about the Marionette is that once a platform destroys its console, the walls should go down so that they can jump over and assist the neighboring platforms. That way, stronger platforms can assist weaker ones. The old way did have potential issues with players abusing other players who were weaker or more inexperienced.

That would destroy the suspense/fear/hope/excitement/responsibility that that situation produced.

I’d be a bit fearful that “raid” sized content will not be that great once it is no longer the flavour of the month farm, and think it would be better to scale it down and put it into an instance. Scaling it down to 5 (or up to 20) players and putting it in an instance (dungeon/fractal/instanced “raid”/etc) would be great.

It was also a bit fun in a way, to try to identify lanes that had too many bearbows and such, and have a team lane hopping to try to make up for underproduction lanes.

At least Anet appears to slowly be learning that removing content is the opposite of what they should be doing.

For those who want the marionette back, think about the way you want it back and how can it fit the lore. We could use these ideas in the upcoming CDI about raids.

That’s easy enough. The Priory researchers examining the Marionette remains discover that it’s not destroyed, merely dormant. It possesses advanced self-repair mechanisms (along with its powerful map-wide energy cannon) that they want to research to see if it can be used against the Elder Dragons. So, with the players’ help, they reactivate the Marionette and have them battle it while they collect data.

@Surbrus: Yeah, I know what you mean. But I still don’t think it’s worth the toxicity and hostility that sprang up after a failure. I saw people yelling at low-levels to “get out of the map”, blaming Rangers/Necros for their pets etc. Sometimes they would even single out specific players.

I feel that if the walls came down after the consoles were destroyed, the entire group showing up to Marionette would have to underperform in order for a failure to eventuate. It also allows for better players to feel that they “saved the day” (whether accurate or not). I know that I certainly enjoy the feeling when it’s obvious I’m one of the better players in a dungeon/Fractal/PvP and it’s due to my efforts that the team is succeeding.

I have to agree the marionette was the best thing released this year by far. As far as bringing it back goes, maybe a marionette fractal wold be best? It would be a boss fractal, the 4th one in a run, and there would be the same 5 lanes with 1 person def each and one person is sent up at a time to kill their respective boss to break a chain while the other 4 players stay down.
If this is implemented though, I think so should the event as a big world boss again as well because it was the best boss in game and I know that many players would want it back as a world boss.

I disagree with turing the marionette in a fractal. These are two very different content aimed at a very different audience.

I do understand (and agree) with the idea of storing the marionette in some “mists location” since we cannot bring her back in Lornar’s Pass anymore. However, the marionette should not be turned in a fractal ever.

What was the point of Marionette anyway? Besides a cool boss… Scarlet didn’t use it in the attack at all, whatsoever. What a waste of metal!

Zaxares.5419:

That’s easy enough. The Priory researchers examining the Marionette remains discover that it’s not destroyed, merely dormant. It possesses advanced self-repair mechanisms (along with its powerful map-wide energy cannon) that they want to research to see if it can be used against the Elder Dragons. So, with the players’ help, they reactivate the Marionette and have them battle it while they collect data.

I never even thought about this. I really really like this idea to bring her back.

Also, would she be a good fit for like the big “raid” bosses, ie Tequatl, Wurm, or better for a regular world boss, like FE? And would we constantly see 80-100 people show up for the event like when it first started? I think for the World Bosses, you usually see ~50. That being said, about 2 people per platform might not be such a good idea, unless their health’s were all scaled down.

I agree, I absolutely loved her, and I would love to see her again… but I don’t know if she is made consistent content, that she would be good content in the future.

Here’s a question for you: would the marionette be done, or would it be ignored, like the legendary sand giant in dry top?

Sand Giant is not done because it is a mechanically boring fight, unrewarding, simply a big dps fest (unlike Marionette which requires coordination and many different gameplay strategies), and most importantly: Sand Giant goes on when too many other events ar happening.

Dry Top during sandstorms is basically an event-train, and Giant conflicts with it.

If there were no Skritt Queen, more people would do Giant.

Yet, they don’t do him at tier 3, when she doesn’t spawn.

Kain Francois.4328:

Sand Giant is not done because it is a mechanically boring fight, unrewarding, simply a big dps fest (unlike Marionette which requires coordination and many different gameplay strategies), and most importantly: Sand Giant goes on when too many other events ar happening.

Dry Top during sandstorms is basically an event-train, and Giant conflicts with it.

If there were no Skritt Queen, more people would do Giant.

The Sand Giant is fun to melee, and has a (I assume) unique quicksand ability. I’m conflicted on it’s time/reward ratio, in reference to other Events taking place (even without the Skritt Queen) simultaneously. You’re given three Champion bags, if I remember correctly.

Boneheart.3561:

Kain Francois.4328:

Sand Giant is not done because it is a mechanically boring fight, unrewarding, simply a big dps fest (unlike Marionette which requires coordination and many different gameplay strategies), and most importantly: Sand Giant goes on when too many other events ar happening.

Dry Top during sandstorms is basically an event-train, and Giant conflicts with it.

If there were no Skritt Queen, more people would do Giant.

The Sand Giant is fun to melee, and has a (I assume) unique quicksand ability. I’m conflicted on it’s time/reward ratio, in reference to other Events taking place (even without the Skritt Queen) simultaneously. You’re given three Champion bags, if I remember correctly.

The reason why nobody does the giant is because of arbitrage :

the giant does not give you something that other events in the area can’t give you and the reward earning rate is too low compared to other events.

If killing the giant could bump by two levels the zephyrite favor during the sandstorm, it could have some use.
Alternatively, make him a world boss and integrate it in the rotation with a massive chest in the end.

Becka Williams.4978:

Here’s a question for you: would the marionette be done, or would it be ignored, like the legendary sand giant in dry top?

I am pretty sure it would be done if it fit with the boss schedule and gave decent rewards. Even without increased rewards, it would be done just for the fun that many people think it is. It would be nice if it still gave the lockbox cyphers and you could open them in your home instance maybe, it would be nice to implement those chests again.

The Sand Giant is ignored because, as others have said, you need a sheer critical mass of players to kill him in any reasonable amount of time, and since the majority of players in a high-tier Dry Top are there to farm Geodes, it would be self-defeating to waste time fighting him when they could earn close to 100 Geodes following the usual chain.

I made the following suggestions for improving incentive to fight the Giant:

1. Killing the Giant gives out a bonus 50 Geodes. This has no limit (i.e. it’s not from his daily bonus chest).

2. Killing the Giant immediately bumps up the Zephyrite Favor level by 1 (max level is still 6). This means that even if a map fails to reach level 5 or 6 by 40 mins, they can still increase the reward level by everybody banding together to kill the Giant during the sandstorm.

3. The Sand Giant has a chance to drop Giant Eyes. (Check the TP to see how valuable these are.)

So a proposal to revamp and reintroduce the marionette fight:

one of the groups (priory/vigil) is fascinated by scarlet’s innovative design and has developed a holographic replay of the event where we play our roles and they watch to reverse engineer the beastie to fight dragons.

Take the marionette and give it a slightly holographic look – set it on the world boss clock with priory/vigil or whoever announcing its time to start up. A way for players to get some sprockets and lewt and somehow tie it into lore (preferably not mentioning scarlet ever again tho :P)

Not that I personally cared for the fight overall but I hate to see development work thrown out and inaccessible – you spent resources designing this event think of a simple way to keep it in game (SAB!) for us to continue enjoying (molten facility should have been a full dungeon added to a history-transportation-portal in the fotm lobby!).

If you break it down, it wasn’t the giant puppet-bot that made the event so awesome, it was the mechanics, above all else. the Marionette denied the ability to zerg by splitting the horde of players five ways for the lanes and then another five for the smaller arenas. Also, on a side note, having the walls lower would just undermine half of that, which would be counterproductive. They way that it was, you knew that if you completed the Marionette, everyone almost certainly did their part, at least to some degree.
I really wouldn’t mind seeing the same concept applied to future, non-Scarlet-affiliated things.

Meh. I wouldn’t mind it coming back…but the gimmickry associated with it before wouldn’t compel me to deal with that thing unless the rewards are worth it.

And no—the Marionette is not “the best thing” to have come out this year for this game, I could think of half a dozen other things that deserve that more than that glorified puppet.

Marionette was great fun. This was a prototype for whatever Scarlet had planned. Maybe there is some other area in the desert where Scarlet had more experiments. She talked of them learning, why couldn’t there be a self supporting colony of mechanical creatures rebuilding the Marionette. This would work right in as a world boss where it is rebuilt and we have to stop it.

I fully expect the Marionette to return as part of LS2 or LS3. In that case, we might have to wait for the new Marionette content to come and go before we get a final Marionette version as permanent content.

Remember that although the Marionette was good it wasn’t in the game long enough for people to tire of it. If it becomes permanent it may become tiresome and difficult to populate.

I just want to actually try that boss. Wasn’t playing at that time last year :S