Guild Wars 2

Coffietire.2783:

For some reason, I am facing some performance issues in some spots on the map, specifically in the area around Sorrow’s Eclipse and the frozen lake surrounding it. Reducing the game’s resolution and toning down other graphics options does not seem to increase performance.

It’s not as bad under water and I have no performance problems around the rest of the map or the game in general (excluding crowded areas).

I’m, experiencing the same. Seems like the graphics aren’t fully optimized on this map in certain areas.

Just wanted to say that I’m personally enjoying the new LS (except for Braham, he got on my last nerve) and my only complaint is that they don’t come out fast enough! Also I love the new enrichment Koda’s Warmth, looks great with my revenant’s look. May I make a quick suggestion for it, make it slightly brighter (more how it looks when you’re next to a Koda brazier torch) and give it a little light aura on the ground for more effect. Thanks again Anet!

Another pile of story achievements and still no return of the challenge mote?

My feedback:

Precocious Aurene: I liked the idea of bonding / training Aurene. I didn’t like the idea of treating her like a pet. If she’s capable of fighting enemies, she should be treated with more respect. If she’s a toddler, she shouldn’t be trained in fighting / danger. Period.

The Ooze portion is very difficult depending on your profession / build.

The final fight with Aurene is very buggy. I had to try twice because the first time the white circle would appear and I would move to it but the special attack would never activate. The character would encourage Aurene but never got the special attack. There were also times the character would encourage Aurene but the white circle hadn’t shown up. I was using a top-down perspective to avoid missing the white circle. It is also too long to wait between white circles. On a positive note, I’m glad that this fight wasn’t as difficult as most Living Season boss fights. I finally finished a boss fight on my own. Of course it was a pretend fight so I don’t expect it to happen again

Bitterfrost Frontier is a nice zone. I think the combination of falling snow and lots of flame from the braziers creates a good deal of lag. But its a good story and visually very nice.

3 Major dislikes:
-The warmth elixir: I don’t know who decided to make it end at reset but it was a terrible idea. Why make it so people can make the elixir right before reset and then lose it? Make it last 24 hours and pause when the character is logged out. Fix it.

-Since the map isn’t that large, there are a too many mobs packed into that space. It seems everywhere my character goes it is attacked by a pack of at least 2 vets and several trash. And since they all have cc, its almost impossible to get away.

-Braham. While his petulance might be entirely plausible behavior, I DON’T CARE. This is Heroic Fantasy – I don’t want people who are supposed to be heroic in my story to be whiners. Let them be flawed in other ways that are still heroic like Logan, Rytloc, etc.

What I liked:
1.) Aurene mission was fairly well done from a lore perspective, although from a gameplay perspective, it was boring waiting for the AI to decide to attack the last boss.
2.) The new map is amazingly detailed. Kudos to the map design and art team.

What I disliked:
1.) Braham. His attitude towards us while understandable , grates on me. I know people who talk like him in real life and I stay away from them. I don’t interact with them as much as humanly possible in real life, please don’t make me interact with them in game. I don’t like the way my character, who has led the Pact to victory two times against two Elder Dragons, responds to him.

Your mother died? So what? I lost my whole warband (which to a charr is their family), my mentor, and even the Pact Marshal! Depending on what race we were, Trahearne was either our close friend or even our oldest brother. If we were sylvari, our mother is in a coma. If we are human, it is possible both of our parents are dead. Where is the continuity? Where is the comeback? Commander Doormat indeed. We let him walk all over us and for what purpose? To lead a charge that will possibly kill even more people? This is a drastically different person than the take charge type of player character shown in Heart of Thorns.

I would have liked the option to smack him over the head for mouthing off or any option to talk him down from his actions. This is different from good character development. We haven’t seen Braham until this instance since HoT and this switch around in his attitude towards us feels more like character derailment.

To quote someone from above:

- Not enough WP’s, or useful Ley Lines and Tubes.
- Daily reset of Cold resistance is irritating.

Both of these are terrible. Add to that the fact that you don’t have spare achievements, and all things considered this is by far the weakest episode of LS3 yet.

Got stuck in the ice waterfall today and because of missing WPs I had to walk the whole way back. Just terrible.

Things like the elixir kitten void all the good work you do with these maps because instead of having fun people get frustrated and instead of playing more you risk alienating them. I thought GW2 was all about not artificially trying to make life complicated for the players..

Edit: I really don’t get how you could release two of your very best maps with the previous releases and then drop something like this that feels like it was created by someone who thought the first versions of the HoT maps were not quite annoying enough and who learned absolutely nothing from the feedback in those days.

i have disconnected twice during the roleplay after the frozen beast in the story chapter “frozen out.” i dont actually lose internet connection. I really don’t want to go through that a third time to disconnect again. Its good content but im not interested in repeating over and over.

JakeMagnus.4035:

I thought GW2 was all about not artificially trying to make life complicated for the players..

Edit: I really don’t get how you could release two of your very best maps with the previous releases and then drop something like this that feels like it was created by someone who thought the first versions of the HoT maps were not quite annoying enough and who learned absolutely nothing from the feedback in those days.

I get the impression there are two factions in the GW2 development offices.

One, the benevolent souls who give us quality of life improvements like the wardrobe, deposit materials/trading post sales from anywhere, and shared inventory slots. They are the stewards who fluff our pillows so we can enjoy our flights of fancy.

The other, sadists who take joy, our joy, and rip it from us with exploration-block maps, 5-second stuns on 3-second cooldowns, nuisance storyline items, non-conveyance jumping puzzles, and daily storyline elixirs. Their eternal quest is to annoy and rankle us while they sneer in their dominance of our game world.

I imagine that, when there is a conflict between them, they have a company softball (or disc golf) game to sort out which of their policies will make it into new content. I also imagine last game’s score was 2-8 in favor of Lion’s Arch Lashers.

I may have an active imagination.

That “Elixir Addiction” daily would work just fine if people, while doing the story, gained a permanent way to deal with the bitter cold instead of one that ends at daily reset.

That way, people would be able to go anywhere in the area and do whatever they want after completing the story, including brewing another elixir for the daily even though they don’t actually need it.

Brewing an elixir for the daily isn’t such a great deal to begin with, by the way. The reward hardly justifies the cost.

The voice acting of the quaggans was distractingly bad! Its bad enough I don’t want to run any more characters through the story just so I can avoid having to hear them (yeah, I’ll turn off the sound for them if I do go through again).

That cutesy dragon is eye rolling, but I get that you have to sell things on TP.

The token male member of the ‘b’ team takes an out of character turn for the worse.

Rox still rules. Thanks for not messing her up.

The map is nice to explore at least.

I would like to see a reason for making the elixir and going back into the bitter cold area (some interesting event with a reward that makes it worth it).

I would also like a reason to use the svanir armor to go back into the Svanir hive other than to talk to the heart vendor. Once you buy what you want from him there is no interest in going back. It would be fun to use it to do a special event such as enough folk sneaking in within period of time can trigger a bigger event that could give a nice reward. Folk who worked to get the armor and got in get the extra reward.

I have yet to see anyone trying to do the quaggan event in the spiral to raise the temperature in time. Usually folk just let it fail and then take out the icebrood to reset. It seems to be easier to do that than trying to get enough folk engaged in saving the quaggans. It seems on the pointless side. Also once it ends quaggans stream out towards Sorrow’s Eclipse. It would have made sense to have an escort for them I think since they seem to pass unharmed through the same mobs we had to fight to get into the area.

A quick feedback note… Braham’s behavior is terrible. I get it… he lost his mom… and it’s a traumatic experience. I don’t think anybody on this forum would deny that. But the way he treated the player in the latest story mission defies logic.

He blames us for things we had absolutely no control over. And wouldn’t you think that he’s spent enough time with the player, members of Destiny’s Edge, members of The Pact, etc. to know that a good strategy… not brute force and bullheadedness… is the way to take down a dragon… much less two dragons active at the same time?

Come on ANet… Braham needs to have a heart to heart with Rox and the player in the next episode to make up for his ignorant behavior in this episode.

Wrote to support and they adviced me to put my question on forum, so i hope this is the right place to do. Why we can’t choose anymore from list to finish the meta-event just like other times? I am trying for days now and won’t be able to finish it because you need to do the Jp in The Springs for that. I am very bad at JP’s and you need it to finish the meta achievement, In the past you had the option to choose between more options. You needed for example 20 out of 25 achievements to get the meta-reward. People who want to finish all achievements get separate rewards anyway for each one they complete. This way everyone has the chance to complete the the meta-event without getting to much frustrated.

Bitter Cold and Wayward Caverns both have the issue that they are dead-end areas with nothing going on other than a story instance. There is no reason to go to either of them except for map completion. We have seen this before, on Dry Top, but in that case rather than have these areas as part of the regular map they are walled off, so you only have to worry about the during the story. I realize that on a smaller map like Bitterfrost, they may not want to wall off almost a quarter of the area, but if they aren’t then there needs to be something going on in those areas.

All that is there right now are lots of enemies, and this is actually a discouragement to go back there (even discounting the extra legwork needed to get to Bitter Cold), especially since large segments of the community do not care about XP, the main reward for fighting random enemies, due to having already maxed out their masteries (or hit the raid lock) and not caring about spirit shards.

What ends up happening is that neither area has any repeatability or anyone in the areas except those doing the story and those map completing, and for map completion it’s actually better to run through the areas (or for bitter cold, tube in) and run past everything grabbing the POIs, then let yourself die.

Sensoria.7096:

Wrote to support and they adviced me to put my question on forum, so i hope this is the right place to do. Why we can’t choose anymore from list to finish the meta-event just like other times? I am trying for days now and won’t be able to finish it because you need to do the Jp in The Springs for that. I am very bad at JP’s and you need it to finish the meta achievement, In the past you had the option to choose between more options. You needed for example 20 out of 25 achievements to get the meta-reward. People who want to finish all achievements get separate rewards anyway for each one they complete. This way everyone has the chance to complete the the meta-event without getting to much frustrated.

Because Anet has decided that they will tell you how to have fun instead of letting you choose.

The overall feel of the episode is great and the sheer amount of content is as well. The only annoying thing is the meta achievement.

The final boss needs a reset mote and we should be given a choice of what achievements to complete.

Took a break from my other game (maintenance time) so i decided to play GW2 new living story episode.

Started game, went to Tarir, used multiloot to get into open map, started story.
First parts, pretty easy. (oozes are annoying as F., not fun at all)
Boss fight starts, didn’t know what to do at first, then i got the gist of it somewhat.
Boss gets damaged, boss gets health back up.
Did that 3 times.
ALT-F4.
Not coming back. I’d rather swallow some poison, and slit my thoat whilst jumping out of a 15 story building just to make sure, then play that crap.
If GW2 still exists when i feel like trying again, maybe, very very maybe i’ll take a peek again, but until then you can stuff LW where the sun don’t shine.
Enjoy.

• The map completion reward for Bitterfrost Frontier is sad considering the number of Black Lion chest keys it took.

• The bitter cold area in the NE corner does not reward grinding mobs enough, either. I would like an area where a small group can grind tough mobs like elite and champion class but that corner is only fun for one and the loot is very poor for the effort.

• What can I do with all the suet I collect? I can stop collecting shiny ice, feathers, and sticks but not suet (or egg shells).

Add some variety to the racial dialogue, not everyone who is a commander is going to react the same. Example being how the Norn and The charr handle Braham which is seemingly kind cheesy, due to neither being really well willing to take that earfull. Make it dependent on our characters beginings, make the text be based on those choices.

Example: If im a Charr from blood-legion, and I chose to handle everything with Ferocity im going to get aggressive fast. Im going to get my point acrossed one way or another, and he is going to listen.(( Norn would be the same, Ferocity = agressive nature which means they would be quick to anger, quick to act.))

Vs

Human who chose to be more diplomatic and handle everything with more of a huamne outlook, would probably take in brahams words and let him go. They would try to reason with him but to no avail, even an agressive human would attempt. Humans, sylvary and asuran even if they are using the ferocity option would only get angry, I doubt it would change much outside of their tone.

Norn and Charr though? Threats, maybe even escalating into full on little physical spat. These races are known for their unique cultures, both of which have an Pack mantality in which we are the alpha. We as the Alpha got challenged, and as such its our job to make out position understood.. even if that means force. DO NOT MAKE OUR CHARACTERS BE THE MARY SUE IM NOBLE NO MATTER WHAT. If those of us who chose charr or Norn wanted noble, im sure we would of chosen sylvary or human. Considering their entire race and way of doing things is very close to Knights and King Arthur esq scenes are their thing.

Doam.8305

In Brahams case he was never close to Eir at all so it literally doesn’t make sense in fact out of all the people that have died it seems the ties between him and Eir outside of being biologically related are the weakest of them all.

It is hinted at during Season 2 that they got closer so i say it is quiet understandable it hit him that much harder.
The mother he only knew as an idolized legendary hero through stories, and at the same time a homewrecker since she left him with his fater alone, became a person that cared for him, probably taught him some stuff in the time it took them to get to the svanir keep in frostgorge.

I think it makes sense for him to react the way he did.
It’s childish, it gets on my nerves how irritating he is but he is griefing and considering his and Eir’s backstory quiet a lot.
I’d still punch him in the face for his behaviour, don’t get me wrong here, but outside of the story i see where it’s coming from.

Clearly the weakest of the three new maps.
*Icestorms? What is the purpose of them if not just to slow people and entice them to make the mastery? A very weak mob and even more anoying than sandstorms.
*One achievement is just a gold sink.
*I wonder if the Exalted have a challenge ready if you want to go to their bathroom too? They do their best to make your live miserable and complicated even after you have killed their biggest foe.
*Collect stuff. This is my biggest gripe with the map. Why do you have to farm the same stuff over and over if you just want to go there or there? I am usually not adverse to grind, but this could also happen in any true grinder game.
*Quaggan in a bubblebath weathering out crazy Icebrood and other killer creatures nearby. I can basically smell how heroic and world changing this Quaggan dance troupe is.

i LOVE THIS EPISODE SO FAR; JUST WISH THERE WAS A WAY FOR MY DRAGON HUNTER TO KILL THE OPPONENT IN BITTER COLD. aS FAR AS I KNOW DRAGON HUNTERS DON’T DO PLANT MAGIC OR DEATH MAGIC; SEEING AS THIS MOB IS INVULNERBLE TO MOST DAMAGE EXCEPT THE PREVIOUS STATEMENT.

quidnunc.4239:

i LOVE THIS EPISODE SO FAR; JUST WISH THERE WAS A WAY FOR MY DRAGON HUNTER TO KILL THE OPPONENT IN BITTER COLD. aS FAR AS I KNOW DRAGON HUNTERS DON’T DO PLANT MAGIC OR DEATH MAGIC; SEEING AS THIS MOB IS INVULNERBLE TO MOST DAMAGE EXCEPT THE PREVIOUS STATEMENT.

In case you didn’t know, there aren’t really “magic” types as far as attacks go, and there aren’t any mobs (that I’m aware of) that won’t take damage from certain types of attacks. As for hitting the boss for that step, you have to get him to follow you to the groups of grubs. Once he's next to you and next to the grubs, kill the grubs; doing this will damage the boss. Keep doing that until he's dead.

RoseofGilead.8907:

quidnunc.4239:

i LOVE THIS EPISODE SO FAR; JUST WISH THERE WAS A WAY FOR MY DRAGON HUNTER TO KILL THE OPPONENT IN BITTER COLD. aS FAR AS I KNOW DRAGON HUNTERS DON’T DO PLANT MAGIC OR DEATH MAGIC; SEEING AS THIS MOB IS INVULNERBLE TO MOST DAMAGE EXCEPT THE PREVIOUS STATEMENT.

In case you didn’t know, there aren’t really “magic” types as far as attacks go, and there aren’t any mobs (that I’m aware of) that won’t take damage from certain types of attacks. As for hitting the boss for that step,

Just an added comment. Spoilers need an empty line between other text in order for them to work. Without the space they'll be a black bar only.

hide spoiler

you have to get him to follow you to the groups of grubs. Once he’s next to you and next to the grubs, kill the grubs; doing this will damage the boss. Keep doing that until he’s dead.

One of the worst maps in the whole game. It looks great, but that’s the only positive thing about it. Navigation is pretty bad, only two waypoints, while map is filled with annoying mobs. All mobs are the same, farting chill non stop. If you stop to fight mobs you’ll end up with 10s of chill easily. Aggro is terrible. Mobs AI is terrible. Majority of attacks from mobs are CC on repeat. Berries are guarded more than any prison. Events are all the same. Map doesn’t provide anything but those berries. Once people get them, they’ll never come back to this map.

Story was weak. I really liked first part with Aurene, the rest was boring and the end just total fail with Braham turning into emo. I’m not even gonna go into details because I have already done that in other topics.

Precocious Aurene

I share opinions with someone that was above me.
+ I liked getting to play and work with her! She’s cute, and her character interactions were great!
+ Those missions. Very interesting.
- I did NOT like HOW we interacted with her. Aurene is a dragon. She is not a pet, she is not an animal. I would have liked if we could have established if she was a “child” or a “naive young adolescent” or something. I felt that our characters were a bit too harsh on her. I certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed being spoken to the way my character spoke to her. I don’t know why we’re treating her that way.

Finding Braham (just going to lump the rest of it here)
+ New area! Cool! Freezing actually but it’s open, it’s tidy, and there’s lots of neat stuff plus a new kind of skill! Also everything’s trying to kill us!
+ So much loot! It’s great!
+ Taimi’s research. This is actually so cool. Suddenly the “Eternal Alchemy” is starting to make some modicum of sense! It’s great to understand Crazy!
+ Braham’s character development!

- Braham’s character development! It’s great that he’s showing that not everyone is reacting well to the events but OMG HE MAKES ME MAD!

Ahem. That is to say, I sincerely wished we, as Commander-characters, could have reacted a bit more violently towards Braham. This is really unlike how we were behaving before, even earlier in the episode. If we’re going to be this mellow, I hope you have an explanation for us as to why we’re suddenly so docile in the face of a grieving, angry, angsty adolescent.

- The Elixir. Can we get a vial to use as we need to please?
- A couple more waypoints would be nice. But then, I have a horrible sense of direction, even with a map.
- That cutscene. Not sure what I was expecting, but a bit more follow up with the implications of that cracked tooth would have been nice.
- Also this is a Living World season, not a large Personal Story installment. Can little updates appear for those bearing the “episodes complete” flag?

So. I’m doing the story in a small map CRAMMED with enemies, I reach the point I have to deal with the abomination in the cave and while I try to figure out how am I suppose to kill it I die.

The really interesting part is not that my character died, but that when I clicked “retry” I found my character being at the start of the instance BUT barred out of the cave, with no apparent way to go in again, because some “genius” thought to “imprison” us during the battle.

When I walked out of the instance the loading screen sent me to the Sorrow’s Eclipse Sanctuary, instead of leaving me in the same area. Which means that IF I decide to retry the story instance I’ll have to run across half the map.

ArenaNet, do you honestly think that such game design decisions are fun and appealing?

Played through this and really enjoyed it.
- Story, very interesting looking forward to how this unfolds, voice acting was pretty good but you need to fix the pauses between conversations as this breaks the story especially if there is an argument taking place.
- Art, new art for location was good, some nice touches with the mood. The huge trees felt a little out of place and not very grounded, more like an asset just dumped there. The caves all felt a bit empty and the ravine you cross with the wonky planks felt unfinished. I am curious if you have world art supervisors?

Looking forward to the next part.

Cheers.

the next new map, hope can have hero point too
make ppl has some reason go that map

and pls make Bitterfrost Frontier has meta boss

almost everything about this episode is really up with the rest of Season 3s quality(in other words, quite high) but either the mastery based map navigation should be fixed up a bit or at least add a waypoint added to the hotsprings(and maybe rebalance the hotspring event? not sure if it’s just a lack of people or the event being too hard since I never get much help with it) otherwise though, keep up the great work! I’m seriously loving season 3 so much! I hype with my friends about each episode both before and after they come out XD

DreamyLove.8947:

the next new map, hope can have hero point too
make ppl has some reason go that map

---

and pls make Bitterfrost Frontier has meta boss

Not every map should have a meta.

Bloodstone Fen was cool, Ember Bay was neat… This map? meh… I find myself procrastinating to go back and finish it.

and pls make Bitterfrost Frontier has meta boss[/quote]

Not every map should have a meta.[/quote]

Why not, exactly? Verdant, Auric, Tangled, DS, Bloodstone did, and they gave it a sense of purpose. Ember Bay, I don’t think there’s a meta, but there’s various different/unique champs that pop up, get called out, and people go to them.

Bitterfrost – Does anyone even really care about the events at all? I sure don’t. I don’t even understand them. I just see Orange circles on the map. I don’t see any call outs saying “So and so big monster is up – please help.” I’ve seen Champions, like the Svanir camp one, just sit there forever because no one is interested. Everyone’s just berry picking.

In other words, there’s really no “story” or drama here (despite the difficulty), AND its not like players can get around the map quickly to help out even if they wanted to. I just feel they really dropped the ball on this one.

I like the new map, especially the treed area and the hot springs area, and I like the chests and using the torch to open them rather than have a new set of keys to hang onto. That’s A+++.

Stuff I didn’t like:

- The Bitter Cold
Once you make this elixir, just have it last for your character forever. Gating a part of the map behind such busywork as remaking the elixir is annoying and discourages play in this map.

- Frozen Out
Why, oh, why have you designed this story step with so many trash mobs with buffed health bars??? This is never the kind of play I think anyone wants to do: long sections of grinding along with no reward. Snoozefest.
If you’re going to have achievements at the end of such a long snoozefest, put one of those nodes in the instance where you can restart the boss fight and reset your eligibility for the achievements, rather than make people run through all those trash mobs again.
With Braham’s kittening, there literally is nothing fun about this whole instance. You know, if you want to write in a character story with this much whining, you could make the whole thing fun if you made the player character actually stand up to him after a while and ask him what he’s got wedged so far up his kitten that he has to act like that. As others have pointed out in this thread, grief doesn’t make kittens of us all. Only those who already have that gift. Give the player character a little bit of satisfaction.
The boss fight is okay, but hard to enjoy with everything else.

Oh, and I’m sick of seeing achievements designed just to make you burn off gold.

And as a norn, I was really hoping to get to be the one to break that tooth. Like, literally since the game began, I was hoping to have the chance to do that. And after all this time, yet another NPC runs off with all the glory…. It’s a frustrating continual writing and design choice.

The Bitterfrost Frontier map plays like the design leadership was out to lunch. If it is temporary, that may be acceptable. Compared to core L60-80 areas, it is unsustainable.

Bitterfrost is not well balanced and sub-sections are not self-sustaining. Aspects like the accumulation of “key” items, small-area ecology / events, strange gating mechanisms like that horridly expensive and unrewarding Vista, and disproportionate rewards in some areas versus others make me think the map design was poorly led.

The story was fine. I am okay with Brahm acting like a child versus Taimi’s playful maturity. I thought it a foil for angry 12-year olds demanding “meta” like saying OP is a right for their profession.

The map, itself, is little more than a frostberry and loot farm. Players will learn to only dodge mobs and open chests. The map ecology requires an update.

1) Either the repair anvil needs to be move from up on the ship to down near Sorrow’s Eclipse WP, or (my preferred option) the WP need to be move up to the main deck of the ship where all the services are. It’s a pain climbing up to the top of ship whenever you die.

2) The Cold Resistance elixir recipe needs to be unlocked account wide as soon as anyone of your toons progresses to that part of the story. As it is, all the work you folks put into that area of Bitterfrost frontier is going to waste. As it currently stands, most people will only go to that area once. Then ignore it forever. Better yet, unlock the Cold Resistance effect permanently (account wide), after you make the elixir once on one toon. It’s too much of a hassle to make the elixir just for the daily, or if you want to go up there just to kill stuff or explore.. Just remove that daily and make the effect permanent after you get it one time.

I think the map itself is pretty, well except for that really cold area. I do wonder what makes winterberries so special that they have to be guarded by overlapping mobs. There are some inconsistencies with the currency of the last three zones that are odd. All in all I don’t think that I’ll be repeating this episode with all of my charcaters because the story is just not that good, in my opinion.

Rod.6581:

Remember how we wanted option to skip dialog?
Forget that. Give us option to skip whole story and just get to new map.

Story is… I wished I could just kill that kitten ugly dragon and get over with this crap you make us play.

Another vote for the first part. Yay it is now connected to another zone but boo that it is still story gated. I like doing stories when I want to do them. Maybe that is the week of release, maybe it is half a year later when I am bored. The stories this season are getting increasingly vexing before zones, I was only able to figure out the final monster before bitterfrost with a ‘phone a friend’ … NOT a good trend!

As to the second part. Would I hate how she looked if one of the first things I did was get her mini?

Bieeanda.3781:

I blew three Mastery points on the torch, and I don’t think I’ve used one since, hours of play later. It seems pretty much irrelevant, outside of being a key for iced-up chests. It gets in the way when I go to fight, I have to go back and pick it up again, and it needs to be recharged at specific places on a map that is -notably- short on waypoints and other forms of fast travel.

At some point I will look into its skills but I just use it as a key …. and WHAT a key! Tons of blues and greens to salvage and I got two exotics (with previously locked skins) yesterday.

Ashantara.8731:

• Aurene miniature (too small in size, please fix, since it was costly to craft!)

I concur! I finally got everything together for it this morning and was disappointed. It is not like she is large at full scale so just WHY???

Don’t ever, -EVER- lock story content behind daily grinds again. Having to re-do the thaw elixir crap for achievement runs is bad enough, but having to re-do it because I thought it was safe to log out and continue the story the next day is a massive screw-up on your end.

And seriously, enough with the quaggans!! Who keeps thinking these kittened blobs are interesting? The game could do with a lot less cringe and those guys are the main source of it.

We need a “Quaggan voice on/off toggle” switch as a future QoL improvement. I used to like quaggans, but the ones at the hot springs are insufferable with their irritating and far too frequently repeated drawled utterances.

“Quaggan is not dead?”

Trust me, I’d kill you myself, with great glee, if the game would allow me to.

So by not fixing the issues with Bitter Cold with today’s patch you are telling us this is how you intended it to work and you don’t really listen to pages and pages of complaints. That’s.. not unexpected. But once again a lack of communication and weird decisions leave a bad taste in my mouth. How could this kitten elixir system possibly benefit you or any of your players? Just.. why?

This episode is typical Anet.
A great release being nullified by some strategically inserted and very carefully supplied doses of kitten.
Besides the elixir inovation where you have to travel to the other side of the map to get a buff each time you play,because if this was in the form of potions that you made and kept in your inventory the game would explode obviously.
There’s the last boss fight.
Defeating the boss relies on a mechanic that is not even hinted to the player before,
and players are expected to replay this instance like a dungeon to discover the mechanics.(?)
And then there’s the clunky boss AI,the charge attack that never happens,the friendly NPCs holding aggro,all shorts of pathing issues,and what a cluster kitten if I may say.
If anyone out there is listening,please keep this short of boss mechanics discovery in fractals and raids,and at least spend some more time polishing such fights.

Pros
+ another new map. Nice :-). And a very athomspheric one. It projects the icy climate very well.
+ The Aurene part of the story was cute and fun to play.
+ Interesting lore of Kodan and Quaggan (although I do not like Quaggan. Too cutsey).
+ Braham:
To me his character development is on the pro side. It makes the story interesting and it feels more realistic that not everything works perfectly all the time, especially within a group of people.
And sometimes people behave irrationally. I feel reminded of Destiny’s Edge. I am curious how this will continue.

Cons
- the daily reset of the thaw elixir and the fact that you can only buy one firestone
per account per day.
- I start to dislike the repeatable hearts. It feels frustrating. You put time and efford into completing a heart
and when you come back, all the progress is gone. And stuff is locked behind hearts you have to repeat yet again (thaw elixir).
- a lot of new items cluttering my inventory. Like Svanir armor parts, ingredients of the elixir and so on.

Unsure about:
- Quite a lot of the story takes place in the open world and involves some kind of grinding, very few instances. Instances are usually a lot more insteresting while the open world parts feel a little bit like “padding”.

- Major minus: Still nothing about Trahearne’s death
I am still waiting that somebody else besides Taimi (I love you, Taimi) mentions Trahearne’s death. Come on, he was pact marshall, close friend to the PC, who had to kill
him, and if you play a Sylvari he was kind of family. We get a memorial ceremony for Eir but nothing to remember Trahearne at all? Despite his dramatic death he was basically kicked out of the story. It still annoys me.

Alright, I overall enjoyed this release, but there are a few complaints I have that really sour it:

1. The lack of WPs, no one likes making their way all the way over to the hot springs area where the event procs, you die, then have to walk back. I understand you want us to use other methods to travel, but the thermal tubes are inconvenient and the leyline is annoying and inaccessible to people who don’t have the expensive, time consuming mastery.

2. Speaking of that event, it’s disproportionately difficult. I have never seen this event succeed. You need an organized group of a lot of people to finish it, and that shouldn’t apply to anything that isn’t a meta world boss. The event also procs distressingly frequently.

3. The Elixir Addiction daily is not worth doing. The main reason players are in the map is winterberry and magic farming. With the Elixir Addiction daily, we spend 5 berries to get 2 berries back and 25 unbound magic in return. It’s a waste of our time that produces negative profit. Even worse, we get suet and eggshells we will never use clogging our inventories. At least let us vendor these items, but better yet just get rid of them if you’re not going to fix the daily.

4. Having to remake the elixir daily is terrible, especially because it lasts until reset and not a fixed amount. It should be a permanent buff for players who completed the story step.

5. The aggro range of Veteran Corrupted Elementals is ridiculously huge for no reason. They’re one of the most annoying enemies to fight too.

6. The Svanir heart vendor is terrible. Making us get 3 disguise pieces with fairly low drop rates just to access him is awful. It also doesn’t even make sense. We talk to him, he aggressively tells us to get out and never speak to him then…he gives us berries and buys our junk items? A kodan standing near the area should be the vendor. After all, it’s the kodan who thank us after completing the heart.

7. I understand the reasoning behind what as done Braham’s behavior, but…it feels extremely forced. We see him get his revenge for Eir in Heart of Thorns. We see him come to terms about her death in the very last instance. So suddenly he’s upset and angry? If Eir is his primary motivation now, why did he not attend her memorial? He was also completely friendly towards us during the entirely of HoT, so why is he suddenly blaming the commander for her death and why is he suddenly doing it NOW? I have, in the past, been reasonably impressed with the writing for the (very few) characters who don’t mindlessly worship the commander and the ground they walk on, like Medic Ceera, but if you wanted to write a character who’s upset at what happened in Heart of Thorns and wants to blame the commander, Braham was a poor choice. I am not upset at the concept of an NPC who hates my character, I am upset at the implementation of it. It would have been better to introduce a new character who holds these types of feelings. Sure, it doesn’t have the same oomph as an already established character, but Braham’s character just took a wild, nonsensical direction.

8. Where is Kasmeer and what is she doing? Of course she shouldn’t be joined to Marjory at the hip but…she also shouldn’t be completely absent. It’s been three episodes and we have no clue about what’s up and she’s been offhandedly mentioned a grand total of two times. You would think she would be just as concerned, if not more, about the White Mantle as Anise and Canach are! After all, Queen Jennah seems to have singled her out as a potential member of her inner circle.

Tuesday update did not address the problem areas and nerfed one or the reasons for players to return.

N.E. Corner is unrewarding for its effort.

Too much valueless junk going into inventory.

Underwater is boring as a Quaggon that does not move or say anything interesting.

No jumping puzzle

Cave is a waste of time

Hot spring death trap is also a waste of time

Tree tops are a waste of time

Etc

The only two things in the map players enjoyed coming back to were frostberries and the frozen chest farm.

Please do better next time.

Okay first of all the maps dont as feel immersive as se2 and hot/vanilla maps were, they dont feel like theres anything to hold you there for more than the time it takes to collect the map currency and do the dailies and our player char so far agrees. In each episode after he/she has done his/her job on the map then moves on to the next and never looks back (so far), while we keep going to the hot maps like tarrir and ab (taimis place) because theres strong longlasting importance to this places unlike with the new maps that are bursts of importance that last for very little and then the map becomes purely mechanicly worth( currencies/items ). I’d lke at some point to get to expieriece the kind of se2 maps again like sw and dry top where multiple episodes take part and generally us and the pc have a reason to stay there for more tha the period between of each lw release
Long story short the maps feel like the instances for the personal story they served their purpose added to the narative theres no point now to look back at themboth lore wise (atm at least and dare i say fun wise? (because tbh i had fun everytime i did the meta in sw and generaly ran around and i dont geet the same feeling as strongly with the new maps)) .
With that being said i like the concept of farm maps, maps that purely serve the purpose of farming to get rewaded i enjoyed that in wow too, but i wouldnt like that to be the defining similarity and factor of each one of the new maps of lw s3.
Over all really pleased with the quality of what we geet but i wouldnt get mad or feel betrayed if we got a release in like 3 or 4 months and the maps it brings stays relevant longer and not only as a farm map but as an importand map (story wise and event/mechanically wise).
p.s. i hope i made what im trying to say here clear and not caused any confusion.
extra p.s. i’d like to add that the best hibrid of a farm maps and event map you ahve done inho is sw and you should ty a bit moree to stay true to that while you change the narative and the thematic to make the feel diff from eachother and unique.

(yes yes, late to the party, but official feedback thread is official feedback thread and I want to give feedback!)

Likes:
1) Aurene is the. cutest. thing. ever.
2) The new area is really cool, I like that the three new areas so far all really have their own feel despite some shared mechanics. Also, I am a huge Quaggan fan and mostly play with my partner who is a huge Kodan fan so basically we are biased but happy people.
3) Overall story is interesting, keeps moving forward, happy with it.

Neutral:
1) The plot (or rather, the different plot lines) has now reached the point where stuff has to start getting resolved, or existing stuff needs to get worse, but no new stuff should be added because it is in danger of becoming overly complicated.
2) Some bugs. I was playing a sylvari, and at seemingly random moments she would recite the male Charr half of story conversations I wasn’t to have later.
3) We haven’t really explored the functionality of Koda’s flame yet, but the first impression is that it isn’t very useful/a bit of a waste of unbound magic. This may not be the case as we return to explore the area further! But just wanted to report the first impression.

Dislikes:
1) Braham’s behaviour. Apart from the spineless way the Commander deals with this, it also just seems… lazy writing. Like, he is a Manly Man who lost his mother and this is the Greatest Pain anyone has ever had to endure etc etc. Completly disregards that in this world, probably very many people have lost their parents and they presumably had as much right to be upset over it. Not to mention your own history, or your party members’. Marjory lost her sister and had to fight her ghost. Caithe had to fight the reanimated, mutilated corpse of her former lover and was prepared to commit genocide against her own people to kill Mordremoth, which in the end was achieved by the sacrifice of her brother. And somehow they are not so incredibly emo over it. Braham’s “development” here is very cliché and was a big disappointment.
2) I’m not a fan of needing 21/21 achievements for the meta achievement. I prefer 20/21, like in Bloodstone fen, so that if there is one that just isn’t working out for you you can still get the meta achievement. It should be challenging, but not impossible.