Guild Wars 2

You could have made the Zhaitan fight so good, yet you decide to make us defend a laser and let Zojja completely turn him into a half dead kitten hanging on to a building like King Kong hanging on for dear life?

Couldnt we have actually killed him? As in the PCs? Nothing in the story feels like our axhievement.

Having literally JUST played that mission for the first time, infamous cannon fight and all, I think I finally understand it.

The final showdown with Zhaitan ISN’T a fight. People all get disappointed because they’re expecting to fight him, but think about it: when was Zhaitan ever a fighter? All along, he was a chessmaster, using a large and varied stable of minions to put pressure on the heroes. Once you defeat all the pieces, he’s nothing but a helpless King. He can move one space per turn and he loses automatically the second you corner him.

The final mission isn’t a ‘fight’ with Zhaitan. It’s a chase scene.

That said, I am totally expecting we will be ‘fighting’ Primordious in the traditional sense. If that one isn’t a Warrior I don’t know who is. And I SWEAR TO GOD if they give us another “throw rocks at the boss” battle I am going to be super irritated.

That’s an interesting way to put it and I think I agree.

Zhaitan is a corruptor, not a warrior. He enslaved an entire nation and was creeping into the Tyrian coastline regions, but did he do it in person?

I think Jormag will end up being one that we fight personally because the norn are definitely not going to accept the possibility of that thing dying without putting a couple hundred stabs of their blades each

DaMunky.6302:

Having literally JUST played that mission for the first time, infamous cannon fight and all, I think I finally understand it.

The final showdown with Zhaitan ISN’T a fight. People all get disappointed because they’re expecting to fight him, but think about it: when was Zhaitan ever a fighter? All along, he was a chessmaster, using a large and varied stable of minions to put pressure on the heroes. Once you defeat all the pieces, he’s nothing but a helpless King. He can move one space per turn and he loses automatically the second you corner him.

The final mission isn’t a ‘fight’ with Zhaitan. It’s a chase scene.

That said, I am totally expecting we will be ‘fighting’ Primordious in the traditional sense. If that one isn’t a Warrior I don’t know who is. And I SWEAR TO GOD if they give us another “throw rocks at the boss” battle I am going to be super irritated.

This actually makes a lot of sense…but at the same time, it’s very poorly designed to have to sit and spam 2 for the final epic scene. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have been able to put up some sort of a fight to actually make it fun. After all of the great Guild Wars 1 endings, I can’t believe how badly ArenaNet messed this up.

The problem with that idea is that all the elder dragons are corrupters and simultaneously the most powerful things in the whole GW universe. Remember that the reason the elder dragons were asleep for 11000 years wasn’t because they were beaten back, it was because they won and ran out of food as a result. The first thing Zhaitan did when he woke was demand Orr to rise, and Orr and all its dead rose to serve him. To have this unfathomably powerful thing get shot down by fricken laser beams and 22222 spam from one airship is just weak.

Like you said, though, when they ran out of food they go into hibernation. Well, it would seem that if they are asleep for that many thousands of years it takes a pretty serious appetite for them.

The presentation of it was a bit weak, but we did just spend all that time starving it. If they handled the characterization of Zhaitan differently, you would almost feel sorry for something that requires sustenance on the suffering and corruption of others.

There are definitely things they could have handled better, and I’m not saying I agree with their gameplay decisions. They could have made the chase more exciting, certainly. All I’m saying is I agree with it being a chase as opposed to a fight.

Here’s how I would have LIKED to see it end:
(1) Same chase / laser cut-scene fight as usual. Laser overheats / breaks after Zhaitan is shot down. Cannons fail to do fatal damage. He regenerates and starts getting ready to fly away again.
(2) In a desperate last-ditch action, we fly that big airship directly into his neck, impaling him. All the players run down the ship and must spam melee to literally chop his head off. (How do we kill zombies? Remove the head!) During this whole process we have to dodge breath attacks and fight off summoned minions.
(3) Airship is toast, and we need a new way out. Run across his decapitated body INTO that building he was clinging to, and you fight your way down through different Risen-infested floors to reach the ground before the whole tower collapses.
(4) Fight your way across Orr to an extraction point. (Those helicopters are way too cool to not use as an emergency escape vehicle.) The death cries of Zhaitan have drawn HUGE swarms of undead you need to fight through.

Special bonus: If they want to bring Zhaitan back later, we just hacked his head off is all. Who knows where it landed when it fell, or if that actually killed him for sure.

I think this would do a better job of empathizing that Zhaitan is not the real problem. His ability to summon and control huge hoards of dangerous minions is the problem. At the same time, it would be way more exciting and involve far more actual fighting than what we did get. (I like my version way better. I am rewriting it in my head. That is how it actually happened, as far as I’m concerned.)

The Eternal Grace.3157:

DaMunky.6302:

Having literally JUST played that mission for the first time, infamous cannon fight and all, I think I finally understand it.

The final showdown with Zhaitan ISN’T a fight. People all get disappointed because they’re expecting to fight him, but think about it: when was Zhaitan ever a fighter? All along, he was a chessmaster, using a large and varied stable of minions to put pressure on the heroes. Once you defeat all the pieces, he’s nothing but a helpless King. He can move one space per turn and he loses automatically the second you corner him.

The final mission isn’t a ‘fight’ with Zhaitan. It’s a chase scene.

That said, I am totally expecting we will be ‘fighting’ Primordious in the traditional sense. If that one isn’t a Warrior I don’t know who is. And I SWEAR TO GOD if they give us another “throw rocks at the boss” battle I am going to be super irritated.

This actually makes a lot of sense…but at the same time, it’s very poorly designed to have to sit and spam 2 for the final epic scene. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have been able to put up some sort of a fight to actually make it fun. After all of the great Guild Wars 1 endings, I can’t believe how badly ArenaNet messed this up.

Honestly? It’s poorly designed that the end to your personal story requires dragging along 4 other people. The rest is just things making it worse.

I think it makes sense that the last level was a dungeon, because otherwise how can you kill Zhaitan at both the end of the story and the end of the dungeon levels? But that said, they should have made it scaleable down to single player solo runs.

Ugh, you people make me not want to finish the game…. like, ever.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

After all of the great Guild Wars 1 endings, I can’t believe how badly ArenaNet messed this up.

Remembers every single final boss in every GW1 campaign, and remembers how disappointing they all were.

No, Zhaitan for all his failings is way better than those fights.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The Eternal Grace.3157:

After all of the great Guild Wars 1 endings, I can’t believe how badly ArenaNet messed this up.

Remembers every single final boss in every GW1 campaign, and remembers how disappointing they all were.

No, Zhaitan for all his failings is way better than those fights.

I enjoyed Abbadon and whatever Destroyer in Eotn was fight so I have no idea what you’re talking about.

DaMunky.6302:

That said, I am totally expecting we will be ‘fighting’ Primordious in the traditional sense. If that one isn’t a Warrior I don’t know who is.

Maybe, but I think he’d have an elementalist secondary professon. Remember, he predates GW2, so he can have a secondary profession if he wants one. Secondaries didn’t go extinct until after the Eye of the North expansion.

And I SWEAR TO GOD if they give us another “throw rocks at the boss” battle I am going to be super irritated.

Please, not the super irritation! Spare us!

I do like your rewrite, though. I love the way we worked together with the members of Destiny’s Edge to get everyone out alive. And the floating hyenas were a nice touch!

Zhaitan deserved an epic end battle. What we got was a dragon that doesn’t do much at all. The music is epic, the concept of a battle on board an airship is epic… but the execution is disappointing. It feels like this was a rush job during GW2’s development.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they release a mini dungeon with a proper end battle against Zhaitan. Preferably in his lair.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ugh, you people make me not want to finish the game…. like, ever.

At this point, the game is making me not want to finsh the game, ever, since I’m going to be roadblocked by a dungeon rather than a decent mission every time.

oh my god Anet. Zhaitan could have been a much cooler battle. I think they got caught up in how cool the model of Zhaitan was and forgot to add in a fight. Seriously that was terrible, even GW1 had better end bosses. At least you actually got to /fight/ them

I just did this dungeon last night. The final laser 222222 fight was indeed a surprise. I remembered the dragon fights that have truly rocked—the end of Dragon Age: Origins, for example—and I thought maybe because the fight with the minion on Claw Island was more that style they wanted something different. Zhaitan is HUGE so we couldn’t really make a dent with my flamethrower and elixir gun.

This dungeon is also still story mode so it was meant to be easier, right? I’m not making excuses for it, but I’m trying to understand the design.

I seriously get the impression that they couldn’t finish it on time. The whole airship bit seems pretty exciting, and well balanced… give or take a few bugs that can cause you to fall through the airship.

But then you get to Zhaitan himself… and it’s just a couple of cut scenes that really are connected end to end rather weird. Like they were all stitched together as a last minute idea to finish this unfinished battle. And Zhaitan himself doesn’t do anything. I was so hoping to see something as epic as the Claw of Jormag, but alas.

Anet, please consider revisiting this boss at some point in GW2’s development. Zhaitan deserves better.

I just finished this fight today and while the final battle was quite clunky, it was very visually impressive and it told the story in an effective manner. I have to say that I even found myself accepting the NPC Trahaerne at the conclusion. It was nice to see that GW1 touch of NPCs you previously encountered in the game being there for the last set-up and conclusion (although there were bugs with my character running into NPCs they never met).

I’ve heard that the Arah/Zhaitan dungeon was nerfed considerably from when the game was first released and I am actually very pleased to hear that. If a fight with those kind of mechanics had the party wiping continually, it wouldn’t have just been clunky but extremely annoying as well.

Now before people start jumping down my throat, I’m not saying there should not be challenges in the game. I do Fractal of the Mists and Explorer Mode dungeons when I want and they are fine. But IMO the point of Personal Story missions should be to effectively present the story, not repeatedly wipe the party.

Difficult challenges offer rewards like gear and skins, the reward of a story should be the story. Presenting the story in the best way possible should take precedence over offering challenges that can be found in other places of the game. I’m very glad I waited this long to do the mission so ArenaNet could adjust the entire dungeon to keep it from becoming an annoying experience.

What I can’t understand is why MMO developers don’t offer difficulty scales for story missions like that. Single player games have done that for decades allowing the story to be easily scene by those who want to see it while also allowing for those who want a challenge (and get correspondingly greater rewards). Clearly GW2’s engine has scaling capacity, but strangely this was never used on the PS. I still have hope that eventually it will get applied to the Living Story.

Vulpis.8063:

Honestly? It’s poorly designed that the end to your personal story requires dragging along 4 other people. The rest is just things making it worse.

I have to agree there. Needing to go along with 4 other people was extremely disappointing. And I went with an excellent group of players. Inevitably people had disruptions during dramatic moments (through no fault of their own, pets and such) and this was very distracting from the effect the story was supposed to have. And being forced to watch another character talking to Destiny’s Edge when my character was supposed to be the one who brought them together was very, very, very lame.

As much as I liked the final conclusion celebration, the entire experience would have been vastly improved if it could have been my character’s personal story, rather than a grouped dungeon. (Again something that difficulty scaling could provide if only it was implemented).

What I find such a colossal let down, is that moment when the npc’s shoot down Zhaitan during a cut scene. It’s a pretty long cut scene as well, where they blast Zhaitan and bits and pieces of him are blown off. All the while I’m fiddling my thumbs, wondering how much cooler it would have been if I had been the one that got to fire that canon. The epic boss of the entire game is blasted from the sky, and I’m not even involved.

Personally the Zhaitan “fight” was the-most-anti-climatic final boss fight of all games I played.
It may sound good on paper story wise and there may be some logic behind this, like Zhaitan is crippled already at that stage and so on but from a gameplay perspective the final phase was…well….I had a strange feeling of shame.

Maybe because I advertised GW2 to my friends and at that moment hoping they will never see the end of “their” personaly story.

The buildup is well done and during the fight where the risen overrun the ship attacked by the minor dragons I thought “now we are talking baby, cant wait to be grinded into ground by papa-dragon…but I will be back and prepared!”….

I never went back trying to forget about Zhaitan.

Zhaitan should have been a world meta event final on a whole map only dedicated to that final fight and you would only be ale to enter that map if you have done all previous story quests ofc.
And the Zhaithan meta only activates when all temples are free for example….you know, add some kind of “epicness”. ;-)

Secretly I was still having hope…that something is just bugged or not finalized.

I didn’t think it was that bad to have a dungeon and take 4 other people until I realized that if we’re all doing it for the first time, 4 of us are not actually going to see themselves in their last mission. They’ll see the first person who entered the dungeon as Commander. That seems odd.

With my group, we did the dungeon together then split up to go back to Fort Trinity so at least part of the last bit would be personal. And then there’s a Box o’ Fun in Fort Trinity, obviously designed for a group. This is a good idea for groups who stay together, but, er.. I don’t know. It was meant for a group but it was meant to be personal. It just seemed a bit confusing.

I havent even finished the game because so many people in Orr told me that it was such a let down. From all stories it looks like they are right.

The odd thing is, it must be really easy to simply have all the party members in a cut scene together, like they did in GW1.

There is just this dissonance in the experience. One moment you are experiencing the story as a group of friends, and next you are ripped out of that adventure, and placed in a cut scene with 5 of the most boring characters in the game.

The game knows what the character of each player is, through the choices they made in their personal story. But doesn’t use this information to allow other party members to fill in the roles in a cut scene. What a missed opportunity.

Dafomen.7892:

Zhaitan should have been a world meta event final on a whole map only dedicated to that final fight and you would only be ale to enter that map if you have done all previous story quests ofc.
And the Zhaithan meta only activates when all temples are free for example….you know, add some kind of “epicness”. ;-)

Forget about it. Look at every big boss in the game, it’s pretty much “press 1 and make yourself a tea” lagfest. Fighting Zhaitan in the dungeon was the best they could do, we just need more epicness during the battle.

You guys can gloss it over all you like…but it’s still standing at a sparkle gun…Pressing 2 repeatedly until king kong Zaitan falls off the building…

Got to say the most lackluster ending i’ve ever witnessed… I Agree with above posters Guildwars 1 endings were far far better..

Don’t forget only 3 players are able to use the guns…

DaMunky.6302:

Having literally JUST played that mission for the first time, infamous cannon fight and all, I think I finally understand it.

The final showdown with Zhaitan ISN’T a fight. People all get disappointed because they’re expecting to fight him, but think about it: when was Zhaitan ever a fighter? All along, he was a chessmaster, using a large and varied stable of minions to put pressure on the heroes. Once you defeat all the pieces, he’s nothing but a helpless King. He can move one space per turn and he loses automatically the second you corner him.

This is an excellent point, but it’s also the reason this ending fails.

Simply put, the further the Personal Story goes, the less it is about the player. In the beginning, the dialogue is all personal, with each line delivered like a member of the player’s race. When they join the orders, this personalization goes away, and suddenly they are a generic member of that faction. When they join the pact, even that goes away, and they’re just another mook.

The problem with the final fight is that you, the player, do nothing significant. You spend half the dungeon trying to get into the air to join a battle that is already in progress. You fight a few champions, just like several other airships seen in the distance. You secure one troop movement path in one section, which has no further impact on the battle. And finally, you watch as the new Pact airship slays the dragon. Remove the player from this battle, and the outcome would be exactly the same.

Likewise, Destiny’s Edge was completely useless. Logan cut a rope. Zojja took over firing the cannon from someone perfectly qualified to do the job. No one else accomplished anything, rendering every personal story dungeon pretty much a grand waste of time. In the end, a bunch of NPCs killed a really big NPC, and you got to watch. The culmination of the Personal Story is the great lesson “You are irrelevant to this story.”

In a way, it makes sense. As you said, the dragons rely on corruption and the war against them was a battle of attrition. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that it is a pathetic excuse for a Personal Story finale. And I agree with you, if the next battle is anything like this I will likewise be extremely irritated.

Don’t take a party of five. Seriously. Don’t. Just did this last night with 3 other guildies for a party of 4. None of us had done it before, and it was the first time since Prophecies in GW1 (we’ve played together for Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North, almost 8 years), that the 4 of us were able to team up. (We could get 2 or 3 of us together a lot, but not 4 due to scheduling conflicts as some of us grew older, got married, and had families.) It was epic just to have the 4 of us together, but for the last step of the personal story- taking down Zhaitan? “Epic” is too small a word.

Having said that, the 4 of us all agreed the whole thing was epic! “Spam 2”? Seroiusly? That’s all you did? Undead swarming EVERYWHERE while we’re trying to, yes, hit skill 2 on the cannon during the giant’s gauntlet, and minion dragon fight, but if you weren’t also using skill 1, especially on the dragon minions, you were looking at a wipe. Trying to man the cannons, clear the deck of Risen, rezzing downed players, getting “feared” off the cannon platform (try it, or jump off, just for the view!), all before Zhaitan even shows up. The four of us were on cannons, firing away at Zhaitan, while the rest of the NPC’s were dead (even the ones on the lower deck). The mega laser gets destroyed after wounding Zhaitan (notice it’s gone along with the upper deck of that oh-so-cool ship), so we felt we HAD to man the cannons or face possible failure. And I’m pretty sure all 4 us us were on cannons. Because of this, we got the sense that WE killed Zhaitan, or at least finished him off after the mega laser couldn’t finish the job. Speaking to the NPC’s afterward, they specifically give your toon the credit for getting Destiny’s Edge back together (maybe this meant more to me because I read the book “Edge of Destiny” before buying the game). So it’s not like you don’t get any credit for anything.

If I had to nit pick, my only gripe would be that Destiny’s Edge doesn’t rez downed players like Rox and Braham did, nor did they fight as enthusiastically.

Sinbold.8723:

If I had to nit pick, my only gripe would be that Destiny’s Edge doesn’t rez downed players like Rox and Braham did, nor did they fight as enthusiastically.

That’s probably because Anet didn’t think about it until someone (I guess) suggested in on the forum so they could implement it in the future content.

I don’t understand it either. From what I heard the Elder Dragons are by far stronger than all of the Human Gods. If the Dragons are that weak what’s the point in having Human Gods that are weaker than elder dragons but apparently a ragtag band of soldiers/spies/scholars can down an elder dragon.
Hell, Destiny’s Edge nearly took down a dragon on their own. Just six people.

I found very disappointing when I fought vs zhaitan and poff, 1 hit and he’s almost dead … This is powerful dragon ? I fought moobs stronger than this 90% of time. Elder dragon most dangerous creature in Tyria is defeated in 2 min… Ending sucks to the max.

DaMunky.6302:

The final mission isn’t a ‘fight’ with Zhaitan. It’s a chase scene.

No, it’s unfinished content.

…I hope we get a DLC fixing this ending like Mass Effect 3 did with Extended Cut

Zhaitan could’ve just fallen down. I mean… it’s not like we’ve seen his corpse. Really though, I hope we only fight one of his little aspects and it’s going to be a really gloom and depressing moment when we find out that real Zhaitan is the size of a mountain and much stronger than that… and then we start a new campaign to defeat the full-power Zhaitan, which results in Logan and Trahearne having to die or sacrifice themselves when defeating him, giving us a bittersweet, but satisfying ending, only before being faced with a threat of another dragon, which turns out to be older and even more powerful than Zhaitan.

I had this dream once, you see.

It’s underwhelming, terribly if I might add.

Here we have a dragon so powerful he can rise an entire land from the depths of an ocean, and yet ALL he can do is fly by and take down the upper 1/4th of a small airship?

I did it in a group of 5 with people I’ve never met, and… it’s underwhelming. Destiny’s Edge didn’t even do anything during the entire match.

I don’t know, I expected us to finish him off in a way we finish Sin off. As it stands, Zhaitan is less Sin and more Yu Yevon: sounds dangerous but actually useless