Guild Wars 2

Only one problem I see with the Marrionate, DPS is essential. They made claims about trying to shift the zerker meta but this update only reinforces it. Without high dps some platforms’ success rates plummet.

I would not mind if a chain could be severed on 4/5. That or reduce the impact of a failure some on the cannon charge.

Barsimoprimo.2759:

Only one problem I see with the Marrionate, DPS is essential. They made claims about trying to shift the zerker meta but this update only reinforces it. Without high dps some platforms’ success rates plummet.

Yes, you have a point. I think this could have been easily addressed by having two or three different types of tasks for the small platforms under the Marionette instead of them all being the same, and let players pick which they are best suited for as they enter the portal. Other tasks might be as simple as having at least one party member alive on the platform at the end of the timer (good for tanky characters) or keeping enemies off an npc for the duration (good for control characters).

Absolutely agreed; this is my favorite boss fight in the game yet. It’s got just the right balance of teamwork and difficulty— you definitely need coordination, yet it is something that can be accomplished without the use of teamspeak; it’s hard, but not unforgiving. The NPCs are integrated into the scene in a useful and engaging way. The event is on a timer such that you can plan ahead in order to get your guild in for it. There are enough things to do that the whole thing isn’t a mindless zerg like the Pavilion (which I actually liked, but this is better). I wish the marionette was staying instead of the wurms!

I know that by virtue of preferences not everyone will enjoy this particular fight, but I absolutely do.

CherryChiicake.1378:

I wish the marionette was staying instead of the wurms!

This. This right here.

Marionette has definitely been the most memorable of boss events. Our server had a flawless run yesterday, but just barely. On both Warden II and Warden V, the last platform downed the regulator with less than a second to spare. We also had a very close call on a failure where the entire bar was full (one more champ = fail) and the last group was fighting Warden V. Unfortunately that was a fail, but it was still awesome.

Epic doesn’t even begin to describe it.

You know it’s a good boss when people are swapping war stories about it.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I had a super epic encounter last night where everyone in my champion ring died except for me almost immediately (we were fighting the shrieker). Then, I went on to solo the boss, killing it with 20 seconds to spare, and managed to finish off the power regulator with less than a half-second remaining on the clock. All of this was happening to the cheers in /say chat from the viewers, stunned that a Necromancer of all things soloed the boss and ultimately broke the chain. We went on to win the whole thing because of that success (we had no failures allowed left before bar filled), and it made me swell with pride to think that not only had I achieved something truly great and not only had I benefited about 100 other people, but that a group of them watched it in disbelief and cheered me on. It was nerve-wracking and absolutely unforgettably amazing.

It’s moments like these that I remember forever, and for that, I thank ANet for making such an amazing and awesome fight where I could show off my personal skill and make a difference for everyone.

I’m pretty frustrated by this event personally but I know what you mean here and yeah, that’s what it’s all about. Thanks for sharing your story.

Ya its probably one of the best Boss fight of the game and absolutely the best Open World Boss fight.

One other things great is that it need a bit of organization (like Teq or Wurm), but the fight are more small scale (25 ppl in lane and 5 ppl in rings) making you feel important because if you die you really hurt you team, not like in Teq where you are one of the 70 ppl attacking the Boss. (Don’t get me wrong I still like Teq )

Yesterday i was too slow and end ups in a overflow. But still i tag up with 2 other ppl, finally getting 5 commander before its started and we worked together to make sure each lane had at least 25 ppl in it. We fail, but not by much and it was on an overflow.

Right now i think that 125ppl are the minimum to success the events, but i’m sure we can drop that to 75-100ppl when everybody will know all the little tricks of the fight. Its a shame that this boss won’t be permanent.

I like the Marionette fight a lot, but then I like the Tequatl fight, too.

The only issue I have with either fight is that the overflow system causes finding an organized group to become a frustrating chore. The best way to circumvent that frustration is sitting in the map for an hour (or more) before the event, and that is really not fun.

Haven’t tried the wurm fight yet, but I think it’s safe to assume it has the same issue.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I had a super epic encounter last night where everyone in my champion ring died except for me almost immediately (we were fighting the shrieker). Then, I went on to solo the boss, killing it with 20 seconds to spare, and managed to finish off the power regulator with less than a half-second remaining on the clock. All of this was happening to the cheers in /say chat from the viewers, stunned that a Necromancer of all things soloed the boss and ultimately broke the chain. We went on to win the whole thing because of that success (we had no failures allowed left before bar filled), and it made me swell with pride to think that not only had I achieved something truly great and not only had I benefited about 100 other people, but that a group of them watched it in disbelief and cheered me on. It was nerve-wracking and absolutely unforgettably amazing.

It’s moments like these that I remember forever, and for that, I thank ANet for making such an amazing and awesome fight where I could show off my personal skill and make a difference for everyone.

I had a very similar encounter like this myself last night. It was awesome! I am enjoying the new content. I would like to do some of this with my server rather than OF but it’s alright to me. OF is capable of doing it too at this point and I hate it for those who don’t give OF a chance. Ya, it’s not ideal but it can be done…I’ll be the first to admit OF populations tend to disrespect one another more often than not but at least the last two days I’ve gotten into some decent OF populations. It won’t last I’m sure

Just had a full deso overflow fail at killing Warden #3 FOUR times in a row. The fight might be well designed but finding a large number of people with a brain to complete the event can be difficult.

I think I was with you in that overflow. Boss #3 can be challenging due to the fact that he hits like a brick, and has some decent HP on him. I had to solo him in an attempt yesterday with 20 seconds left to spare, managed to kill him and break the chain at the last second. If I were to declare the hardest wardens of the place, #3 and #2 are the hardest. #2 due to the fact that whoever is tanking the boss can screw up easily and not get a single bomb in, and #3 just because of his damage output.

Its a great fight, but seeing as you need ~100-125 people… Its would become just as dead as Tequatl after a few weeks.

Do love the fact that you’re actually allowed to fail a few times. Imagine if one platform failure meant event fail, lol. It would be impossible.

Can’t we make big bossfights like these (in particular if they’re temporary) permanent content in form of Guild Mission encounters with a set number of required/maximum players?

VincentDW.9376:

6) This event fosters community. Never have I seen so many map chat messages saying, “We believe in you!”, “You can do it!”, and “Go team! It’s up to us!” And if you ask me, that’s the best part of the whole thing.

Everything else you said is completely true and a huge part of why I love this boss, but THIS one especially. I love seeing supportive comments in map chat for once. You really can’t do this without everyone pulling together, and the payoff when you do is a great feeling.

I will be a sad panda when this event goes away. More like this, please!

Barsimoprimo.2759:

Only one problem I see with the Marrionate, DPS is essential. They made claims about trying to shift the zerker meta but this update only reinforces it. Without high dps some platforms’ success rates plummet.

DPS isn’t important, the problem is people don’t understand the mechanics of the champ, or they think they can just stand still and autoattack it to death.

I’ve seen so many people die within 20seconds of the fight starting.
There’s more than enough time to kill the champs without a DPS build.

VincentDW.9376:

3) Despite the large group setting

I completely agree with your post, apart from this point: there is no large group setting in the game that you need to defend. The groups should be 20-25 in size which isn’t that large (certainly not the size of the Tequatl/Wurm attacker groups). However, when you say “what you do individually matters here” I couldn’t agree more. With the pad mechanic (which even further dilutes the groups; even though it’s somewhat broken at the moment ) your actions are crucial – a single warbanner or whatever can save the entire battle.

As Mad Queen Malifide said in the linked thread: pity one of the best (if not the best) boss fights is only here for 2 weeks. Although I wonder if the content would get old – still it’s great for now: would recommend to anyone.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I had a super epic encounter last night where everyone in my champion ring died except for me almost immediately (we were fighting the shrieker). Then, I went on to solo the boss, killing it with 20 seconds to spare, and managed to finish off the power regulator with less than a half-second remaining on the clock. All of this was happening to the cheers in /say chat from the viewers, stunned that a Necromancer of all things soloed the boss and ultimately broke the chain. We went on to win the whole thing because of that success (we had no failures allowed left before bar filled), and it made me swell with pride to think that not only had I achieved something truly great and not only had I benefited about 100 other people, but that a group of them watched it in disbelief and cheered me on. It was nerve-wracking and absolutely unforgettably amazing.

It’s moments like these that I remember forever, and for that, I thank ANet for making such an amazing and awesome fight where I could show off my personal skill and make a difference for everyone.

This brought a tear to my eye.

But seriously I love this fight. When every lane is cheering on the next and everyone is working together it truly is a lot fun. The small champion fights are great too. It does suck when you watch an arena get wiped and know your battle is for naught though. That’s the nature of the game.

LOVE this boss fight. I wish it would stay instead of the wurm.

I can’t say it enough that I love that this fight breaks down the zerg mentality, and rather you feel like what you do really does matter. The cheers of the people watching the fights are really great and makes players just feel that sense of camaraderie that this game has lacked in its boss fights (either faceless zerg, or afk auto-attack so far).

PLEASE KEEP THIS FIGHT IN GAME!!!!

I’d like to be able to help other platforms if I am standing around watching, but I do sort of like this encounter as well.

You do get cheers while 1 group is in, but if they fail (especially boss 1) guaranteed you will see l2p, Noob, l2 dodge etc…..

I agree that Marionette is designed way better than wurm is. And I would prefer to see it stay over wurm. That said, group size would have to be scaled appropriately. Players do recommend 25 per lane, but there’s 5 lanes. That’s 125 people. I’m doubtful that many people will consistently show up for it several weeks or months down the road.

Only problem I have with it is it doesnt scale with people, havent got a single kill on it yet on my server, highest is 3 chains. 80 % of the time we dont have enough people to do it, the other times there is always one groups or person that screws it up

I want to throw my hat into this ring as well. I love the marrionette, it is a beautiful fight and very well designed for the open world. I truly wish this was staying instead of the wurm or Tequatl

As someone who absolutely loathes the Wurm and grinding for “Story”, I will say that the Marionette fight is really exciting.

zamalek.2154:

As Mad Queen Malafide said in the linked thread: pity one of the best (if not the best) boss fights is only here for 2 weeks. Although I wonder if the content would get old – still it’s great for now: would recommend to anyone.

I wish this boss fight stayed, and the Wurms were temporary. I think the Marionette is way better designed as a boss fight.

And it really is great hearing all these war stories. On Aurora Glade I’ve managed to lead our server to victory twice now, and it felt epic. It made me as a commander feel like a sort of hero. And it was great to sweep everyone into a battle frenzy with a rousing speech. I would tell people:

“Lets break Scarlet’s dolly and send her running crying back to her lair!”

or

“Let their mechanical screams of anguish be the anthem to our victory!”

And everyone would cheer, and yell out: “To battle!”, “For Victory!”, “For Aurora Glade!”.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I had a super epic encounter last night where everyone in my champion ring died except for me almost immediately (we were fighting the shrieker). Then, I went on to solo the boss, killing it with 20 seconds to spare, and managed to finish off the power regulator with less than a half-second remaining on the clock. All of this was happening to the cheers in /say chat from the viewers, stunned that a Necromancer of all things soloed the boss and ultimately broke the chain. We went on to win the whole thing because of that success (we had no failures allowed left before bar filled), and it made me swell with pride to think that not only had I achieved something truly great and not only had I benefited about 100 other people, but that a group of them watched it in disbelief and cheered me on. It was nerve-wracking and absolutely unforgettably amazing.

It’s moments like these that I remember forever, and for that, I thank ANet for making such an amazing and awesome fight where I could show off my personal skill and make a difference for everyone.

I really like this story. Nicely done!

I disagree.

Yes, the individual accomplishment is apparent. This means that the individual failure is equally apparent. I’ve watched time and time again as the individual failed and everyone else’s accomplishment didn’t matter in the slightest because of the individual failure. Chat is becoming toxic. It’s worse than PvP chat. I’ve seen call outs for players to uninstall and all sorts of other insults. Relying on the individuals skill in an unstructured setting is poor design.

In addition, the tuning is wrong. This is clearly tuned around a map full of highly geared max level characters. Is it in a max level restricted zone? No. It’s clearly not tuned for the level 35 characters you’ll find in the zone. Is it balanced around the fact that there may be normal players simply leveling in the zone? No. You need those players in the fight. Nor is it tuned with server population in mind. It’s already impossible to do this event on my server. There are not enough people. You must guest in order to even hope for enough players to do it.

Arena net seems to be stuck on some backwards design where they try to turn unstructured settings into competitive settings while disregarding the structured setting. They reward WvW leaderboards but don’t do it for sPvP. Now, they put this in the open world. It’s the most backwards thinking I’ve ever seen.

The mechanics of the boss are really amazing. The fight is challenging enough to not be a guaranteed win. But the fight is also forgiving enough to allow smaller errors. Especially the tower defense part is quite fun, but the arena battles are also nice. Only the dodging achievements cast a weak shadow on the event.

Ricochet Jones.2537:

VincentDW.9376:

6) This event fosters community. Never have I seen so many map chat messages saying, “We believe in you!”, “You can do it!”, and “Go team! It’s up to us!” And if you ask me, that’s the best part of the whole thing.

Everything else you said is completely true and a huge part of why I love this boss, but THIS one especially. I love seeing supportive comments in map chat for once. You really can’t do this without everyone pulling together, and the payoff when you do is a great feeling.

I will be a sad panda when this event goes away. More like this, please!

The community spirit (apart from a tiny number who insist on apportioning blame) in this event has been excellent, even in a fail. I said this event was a benchmark for future world events and this is another great reason why.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Hey, thanks everyone! We spent a lot of time tweaking the balance on this, and I’m glad that so many people appreciate our efforts. We REALLY like hearing that people are making memories and cheering each other on. Those are the kinds of experiences we make MMOs for.

I’m not surprised that the Wurm is not liked by as many people. We were making that specifically for the hard core groups that are all about the organization and figuring out the strategy and tactics. It’s really cool watching the community grapple with this puzzle and innovate as they get closer and closer to finding a winning strategy.

Understood on the Wurm. Is it wise to have such difficulty on open world though? Whilst such hardcore content needs to exist, most players wont understand you have targeted this to a niche audience and may feel alienated – thus undoing the great work you have done on Marionette.

I don’t have the answer either way on this one, but it is food for thought at least.

I agree it is a very well designed boss fight, the only problem for me is the finite repair hammers. I think it would have been better for a supply run style set up for all the defenses.

Love marionette, not sold on Wurm. It’s alot harder than teq which as an event is dead on my server, but i got on Blackgate once which is the server the event is designed for and still liked marionette more.

The split champs fights are fantastic more of that.

I’m sorry but I have to disagree.

I do not believe a fight where a single under geared group or player can fail the event for everyone as “Well designed and balanced”. This is especially true when four out of five platforms complete their Champion, only to have to sit and watch as the fifth fails without being able to do anything to help them.

This is not well designed, thought out, nor is it even remotely balanced. If the finished platforms were allowed to assist the others, I would be more inclined to agree, but as it stands, this is an absolutely huge over sight and it is ruining the experience for many, one needs to only look at the forums to see this.

so my circle against the bomb guy.

one guy dies. the other gives up/DC.

it’s only me and a guardian, panicking as we realize we won’t have time to kill it. we start dumping all the might stacks and DPS skills we can, and we get it down with 5 seconds left.

we start hacking at the generator, but the timer runs out. but it’s not teleporting us! in the end, we managed to break it down just before we got teleported… but we weren’t the last group, somehow.

them feels after being ported back (captured after the battle ended, we won the battle).

this is probably one of the best group content on GW2. so much teamwork, skill, coordination, and yet it doesn’t feel like we need to zerg, or that it’s impossible. and there’s so much cheering and rooting going on throughout the fight, it’s awesome.

Josh, the master of SAB, was behind this? Now I know why it’s so cool. Devs, don’t get a bad feeling from this, I admire work of every one of you, who was contributing on this content.

As for the downsides. I understand Worm being hard to puzzle (already tried it few times), but Marionette… I really think Devs, not Dulfy, should make a video showing basic tactics and talking about what’s going on. Most of the things are well designed, but “mine twisted” is too dependent on one guy – the one with aggro. It creates huge pressure for them. The “group one” is annoying, because they sometimes got stuck on terrain when pulling / knockbacking – making them hard to pull in one place.

And the randomness is pretty annoying – you never know which fight you’ll have to take. Make it a bit less random, just so people can compensate with they’re communication – for example commanders should be able to send everyone from their party to different boss.

People get angry not on you, but on these poor little guys, who don’t really know, what’s going on.

Don’t get me wrong here either – I’m only stating that if people might get angry it’s better if they’re angry on devs, than on the other players.

Hope my post was constructive enough.

7 victories in a row now for Aurora Glade, and one flawless victory (all 5 lanes succeeded in a row). This is just amazing fun, as long as you have enough players. What I love about this boss battle, is how everyone is cheering on the team that goes in to break one of the chains. I love how we get a message informing us that one of the teams has gone in to fight, because it always results in people wishing them good luck, and cheering when they get it done.

One point of criticism, it shouldn’t kill everyone on the map if it fails, since it is a huge map, and not everyone would be taking part in the battle.

Also, I think the issue of overflows needs to be addressed. These events require large amounts of players, and we have no control over afk players taking up spots for our instance. Either allow us to switch districts/overflows, or do not make these events hinge on such large groups of players.

I’ve been really enjoying the marionette as well, and agree the community spirit is really great. I haven’t really seen the insults in chat other people talk about. I’ve enjoyed the living story updates and so far, this is my favourite. I hope the marionette sticks around, or that we get similar encounters. Keep up the great work!

I’ve yet to be a part of a successful Marionette event, but I have to agree that it’s very good compared to Tequatl and the new Wurm boss. Everything just happens in a more logical fashion and there’s less artificial means for failure which just makes the whole event so much more fun. The fact that its success can very often fall down to the actions of just 1 or 2 individuals during phase 2 makes it extra epic. It’s also nice that a large group of people can get coordinated and separate without having to just stack and dps a massive health bar.

Depends on priorities, really. If the goal is to make an event only people perfectly prepared and gear can complete .. if they get lucky and it isn’t ruined by a handful of inexperienced players or even griefers.. then yes, it’s well designed.

For typical players? It’s a shame.

Qaelyn.7612:

Depends on priorities, really. If the goal is to make an event only people perfectly prepared and gear can complete .. if they get lucky and it isn’t ruined by a handful of inexperienced players or even griefers.. then yes, it’s well designed.

For typical players? It’s a shame.

You are incorrect. This evening we had a very poorly prepared group, and only one commander (me), but we still made it. We did not have an optimum amount of players. Most players were probably not perfectly geared, and we had to explain the mechanics to everyone in map chat. A lot of them were casual players. We did not use Team Speak.

Everyone gave it their best, and we prevailed. It really isn’t as impossible as you make it out to be. Yes, it is hard (perhaps harder than it needed to be), but perfectly doable by casual, unprepared players.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Qaelyn.7612:

Depends on priorities, really. If the goal is to make an event only people perfectly prepared and gear can complete .. if they get lucky and it isn’t ruined by a handful of inexperienced players or even griefers.. then yes, it’s well designed.

For typical players? It’s a shame.

You are incorrect. This evening we had a very poorly prepared group, and only one commander (me), but we still made it. We did not have an optimum amount of players. Most players were probably not perfectly geared, and we had to explain the mechanics to everyone in map chat. A lot of them were casual players. We did not use Team Speak.

Everyone gave it their best, and we prevailed. It really isn’t as impossible as you make it out to be. Yes, it is hard (perhaps harder than it needed to be), but perfectly doable by casual, unprepared players.

And that could come down to pure dumb luck. I had the same type of group last night and we couldn’t even get 3 chains down. Sometimes it’s 1 player on a platform and that’s basically game over. Sometimes it’s things bugging out(circles not appearing). Other times it’s group composition on the platforms as melee can’t attack at some points due to AOE or other attacks. I honestly don’t see it being doable by casual/unprepared players without a whole lot of luck.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I had a super epic encounter last night where everyone in my champion ring died except for me almost immediately (we were fighting the shrieker). Then, I went on to solo the boss, killing it with 20 seconds to spare, and managed to finish off the power regulator with less than a half-second remaining on the clock. All of this was happening to the cheers in /say chat from the viewers, stunned that a Necromancer of all things soloed the boss and ultimately broke the chain. We went on to win the whole thing because of that success (we had no failures allowed left before bar filled), and it made me swell with pride to think that not only had I achieved something truly great and not only had I benefited about 100 other people, but that a group of them watched it in disbelief and cheered me on. It was nerve-wracking and absolutely unforgettably amazing.

It’s moments like these that I remember forever, and for that, I thank ANet for making such an amazing and awesome fight where I could show off my personal skill and make a difference for everyone.

Not sure if you were a part of the fight I was in on TC or not, but something very similar happened last night in a fight I was in. I was commanding Lane 2 (Nevii Klab) and we had finished our platform and watch a necro do this exact thing on the next one over. It was amazing. Lots of cheers/encouragement from all people/lanes.

I agree that the Marionette fight is really well designed and fun to take part in. There’s only two things that keep it from being perfect, in my opinion.

1. The various Dodge achievements should be completable when you destroy your platform’s console. Holding your achievement hostage to factors outside of your control is not a pleasant experience. (It’s already tough enough getting past the RNG factor where you could zone in right as the Mari’s attack hits your platform.)

2. There should be a way that platforms who have completed their fight can assist those on the other platforms. It’s especially painful when you have like 6 players on one platform, but the one next to you only has 2. I propose that once each platform has been defeated, you can jump to the platform immediately next to you to help out.

Divus.3175:

And the randomness is pretty annoying – you never know which fight you’ll have to take. Make it a bit less random, just so people can compensate with they’re communication – for example commanders should be able to send everyone from their party to different boss.

Except it’s not random. The champs follow a specific order based on how many chains have been severed.

Distaste.4801:

And that could come down to pure dumb luck.

No, it was great teamwork. Everyone listened to the more experienced players, and followed commands perfectly. Plus I sent over some reinforcements from lane 1 to lane 3, after lane 1 had completed the chain event. I knew that lane 3 was lacking players, and that is was generally regarded as being harder. I’m not sure if this is what ensured our victory, but it could have been a deciding strategic move.

We also had good morale. Everyone was confident that we could succeed, and succeed we did.

Blade Syphon.4325:

I do not believe a fight where a single under geared group or player can fail the event for everyone as “Well designed and balanced”.

I would agree with you if the reward scheme were different, and if ending with 4/5 chains severed resulted in no rewards for anyone. As it stands, the event really has “degrees of success” rather than absolute success or failure in most cases. No one player can deprive you of the majority of the event’s rewards because they are continuously accumulating, not all locked away at the very end.

I would much rather see players trying, failing, and getting better through practice and having fun than see an event where individual actions mean little to nothing and everyone afk autoattacks for a guaranteed win. I guess I am willing to forgo a modest amount of loot for a more interactive experience.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Everyone gave it their best, and we prevailed. It really isn’t as impossible as you make it out to be. Yes, it is hard (perhaps harder than it needed to be), but perfectly doable by casual, unprepared players.

Well, again, it’s a matter of opinion.

I have now spent somewhere between 5 and 10 hours trying to do this event, which is a big chunk of my playtime over the last 3 days, and have not even been close once. I guess my line dividing between “fun because it is a challenge” and “not fun because you have to try too many times” is different than yours.