Guild Wars 2

Have to say I agree with all that’s been said here.

I must have had way too high of expectations for this game. I was hoping that DEs would actually change the lands around it for a significant amount of time. I was hoping for something more dynamic, world changing, permanent…centaurs rallying troops to take over an entire zone, pirates marauding and pillaging everywhere if left unchecked. But we’re not there yet. Is that technology, funding, staff, management? I realize it’s hard, and extremely difficult, but I still have hope that some gaming company will get there…

Side note: Eluveitie, love that band.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Broadicea.8294:

Part of being mature is admitting when you’ve been proven wrong…

I don’t think you have proven my points wrong at all (except the camera issue, you may be correct, but I have yet to test this).

As for you personally managing to DPS the boss to death. Great job. Does that mean it is just as easy for a necromancer? Not really. Last time I checked the necromancer sub-forum, every necro was complaining about how obviously the gauntlet does not favor necros (again, this has to do with the DS overflow issue, thanks to Pax).

When you say “the gauntlet does not favor necros”, do you mean the entire gauntlet without gambits? I’m a mediocre skilled necro with a weird custom bunker/heal/condition build (0/20/20/30/0) using full Apothecary rares (tough/heal/condition), scepter/dagger and staff. I think I died 3 times before Liadri, and beat every boss before her on at least the second try, if not the first. I didn’t even use DS all that much; certainly never in a live-or-die situation, and only used Dulfy to look up the Norn/hound fight (I didn’t realize you could pick up the food, thanks ANet for the great visual feedback as usual). Also defeated Deadeye in the first go-round. And really, I’m not a great Necro player; I’m a casual in the very sense of the word (look at my build again, it’s something I concocted immediately after hitting 80 and is in no way efficient).

Heck, after beating my head against the Liadri wall in 30 tries with my bunker/heal build, I beat her within one ticket after getting the appropriate gear (mix of soldier+zerker) and speed/damage build, thanks to woomera’s guide.

Honestly, I can’t tell you why “on the whole necromancers are struggling in the gauntlet”. I didn’t think it was hard at all until Liadri. With access to regen, blind, stun, cripple, and DS (even with the spillover), on top of the dodges, I have no idea why necros would be struggling.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

THIS is a good boss fight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRsCBnuk0Xs

No insta-kills. Just understanding the mechanics, the moves, and keeping the right distance. Also notice how there are no red rings of death. Because Demons Souls does not need red rings to indicate danger zones. Everything is perfectly visible without some band aid like the red circles. Every attack is perfectly telegraphed, and has unique sounds as well.

Just wanted to quote this to say that GW2 has always been terrible with feedback and it hasn’t gotten any better. That’s one thing ANet really needs to sit down and improve.

Slanderous.2586:

Zhavari.7190:

Slanderous.2586:

I find it hilariously sad that one would subject themselves to such levels of boredom for something as simple as game gold. If you’re that desperate for game gold… buy it. In other words, get a job.

According to GW2 Spidy, currently it costs $0.55 for 1g.

If you can farm gold at 20g/hour, you’d need to find a job that pays more than $11/hour net pay in order to make it worthwhile. Minimum wage right now is $7.25/hour gross pay.

Assuming a vaccuum where you have the choice between working a job for gold or farming for gold, farming the arena is actually the more efficient method unless you can make the breakpoint salary.

Also, don’t take this as me defending the OP. (S)He’s a jerk like the rest of the farmers who yell at people to “stop ruining my area”.

I understand your point, and happen to make well over 11 dollars an hour as base wages, plus overtime, so I also understand it’s a bias on my part regarding that. What I don’t understand is if one needs to farm the gauntlet in order to obtain gold because it’s the only viable way to do it while reaching a maximum amount of profit, why would they take precious time away to complain about it on a forum. Bad business sense all around. Find a better job, or farm more effectively. Complaining one way or the other about unfair economies or the stress of having to wait for a queue confounds me.

Oh yeah, completely agree there. Plus, and I haven’t tried this, can’t you guest to another server to use their Pavilion zone? If you were running into crowds, I imagine you could just pop into a lower density server to find “your arena”.

Regardless, verbally abusing someone for playing the game as intended is a jerk move. (This, of course, isn’t directed at farmers who politely ask for people to try another arena, nor to those who actually stick around to rez and help with tips. You people are cool.)

Side note: Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was a bit surprised with the cash to gold ratio. I figured you could get more for your dollar.

Slanderous.2586:

I find it hilariously sad that one would subject themselves to such levels of boredom for something as simple as game gold. If you’re that desperate for game gold… buy it. In other words, get a job.

According to GW2 Spidy, currently it costs $0.55 for 1g.

If you can farm gold at 20g/hour, you’d need to find a job that pays more than $11/hour net pay in order to make it worthwhile. Minimum wage right now is $7.25/hour gross pay.

Assuming a vaccuum where you have the choice between working a job for gold or farming for gold, farming the arena is actually the more efficient method unless you can make the breakpoint salary.

Also, don’t take this as me defending the OP. (S)He’s a jerk like the rest of the farmers who yell at people to “stop ruining my area”.

So I can finally join this club.

First, a big thanks to woomera for the guide and video.

After ~21 tries in green Soldier’s gear with 30/20/0/0/10, axe/warhorn + staff, and 3 times getting Liadri to 5% health and not downing her (ran out of time all 3 times), I broke down and bought some ascended zerker WvW gear and exo zerker weapons last night, then went to bed.

Tonight I downed a few bosses to get some tickets, then for the first time this patch I bought 20 more tickets from the vendor for cogs + money. With 23 in hand, I went back up to the dome to prepare for another decently long run at it.

First fight of the night, I cruise through Phase 1 and ready myself for phase 2. Popping Spectral + Lich, I target Liadri and start wailing away….before Lich even runs out (~25 seconds), I’m the owner of a Liadri mini. Talk about overkill; but hey, at least I have some farming gear now.

Bovinity.8610:

One hit knock outs aren’t challenging, they’re frustrating and feel cheap.

Then ask ANet to remove the dodge system or do something else with it. In a game where, “Avoid ALL the damage!” is actually a pretty reasonable goal, about the only way to make encounters threatening is to make the damage completely overwhelming when it does manage to land.

I’m going to quote your reply because it was the last one about this; others have made the same point that OHKO damage is necessary, in various threads, so please don’t think I’m singling you out for any reason.

Obligatory disclaimer: I enjoy that this fight is challenging, and I’m glad people are fine with the fight and think it’s fun. I enjoy most of it as well, and I’m enjoying the challenge of defeating her (got her to 5% 3 times and ran out of time all 3), but I believe the fight can be better and more varied.

With that said, I’m still on the side that says one-shot mechanics are boring design. It’s uncreative and an easy/quick way to add challenge when you’re on, say, a 4-month design schedule like the LS teams are and can’t QA anything new properly (not a knock on the teams, btw, it’s just reality). The dodge system has nothing to do with it.

What’s a more creative solution? The arena already has gambits, so how about this: Every time you’re hit by one of Liadra’s (former) OHKOs or her visions, you’re given an uncleansable random gambit (or could be a pattern, like burning first, less damage next, etc). This will allow enough leeway for people to continue on while punishing players for not moving out of the red or avoiding the kamikaze visions and rewarding players who do. This would also make the fight more palatable and give it less of the “RNG” feel that players are, falsely, experiencing.

Another creative alternative: Every time you run into a vision, it morphs into a player class. So instead of fighting just Liadri, you now have to take on, say, a guardian NPC. These extra NPCs can’t be insta-destroyed by the light pools, so you’re essentially giving Liadri an army the more you get caught running into her visions. As far as the OHKO rain of death, it’s solely used in phase 1. The catch: every time it lands, it “poisons” that area of the floor, so every time you step on it you take DoT damage. The DoT strengthens with every “fall” of it, so the longer phase 1 takes, the more damage you’ll take throughout the fight. Essentially, you could have 1/4 of the floor dishing out 50hp/tick, another part 200hp/tick, and a 3rd 400hp/tick. Perhaps running the visions into a light pool will cleanse that area of the arena by 1 notch?

The orbs are perfectly fine, and I like their inclusion in the fight. Without the OHKO mechanics, they would also feel less “cheap”. Plus it’s nice you can use them for rallying.

While these may not be perfect solutions, they’re something I came up with in the past 2 minutes. My point being: There are creative alternatives that can be implemented; the issue is ANet has no time to play with anything different during their 2-week release schedule. The 4 month time limit these teams have is insanely fast, and what we’re experiencing is the growing pains of trying to develop MMOG content in a completely new way.

Which is also why feedback for these fights is necessary. The LS teams are trying to build a vault of various games/mechanics and will refine them as they continue along. We’re essentially the guinea pigs during this first year.

The problem with Liadri isn’t the difficulty, it’s the creativity. Once again it’s a fight that’s completely dull and devoid of imagination.

I mean, if this is what you guys think of as challenging and fun, more power to you. I don’t find it as either, and this 2 week content schedule is shaping up to be fairly bland to me.

SpeedFiend.4521:

Adam Chattaway.6418:

Like the title says, this is ridiculous. We must have tried this over 100 times now, please nerf this even if just on the last day so we can get it.

I like a challenge but this is way too over the top from the amount of mobs and their HP.

Looks pretty doable to me from where I’m dead at.

Just curious, how many non-Plunderers did your group kill?

Alur.7510:

@Zhavari.7190
Thank you!
What do you mean by Gold Zhavari, 50 kills?

You’re welcome. Yes, I was referring to the 50 kills mark. I noticed you were at 28 by the end and assume that hitting 50 would be quite an uphill climb.

Alur.7510:

@tencoderiot.6430 It is not impossible.

Done with a normal setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEMynZ-prUY&feature=youtu.be

Guardian, Necromancer, Engineer, Thief and Mesmer. No Zerker Warriors or similar groups alike.

Is all about coordination and knowing the ‘synergies’ of the classes in the group.

Nicely done, Alur. I was wondering if anyone would post a group video without abusing the aggro leashing. Nice to see a highly coordinated team can get this done.

Do you think your group could ever get to Gold? Or are the Vets’ hps way too much?

Here’s my story: I solo’d T4 Kiel on a level 46 Ranger. I used solely the LB and bought some level 45 Strong gear, throwing some power/precision runes into them and a 30% chance to chill sigil.

I actually forgot to switch out my skills pre-fight, so I only had the frost spirit for use. I used the Eagle Eye trait (extended LB distance) and stood on the rocks on the right side of the spawn area. Kept my pet on passive, that whole thing.

Since I forgot to switch out my CC skills, I had to start killing the Plunderers right away, and I ended up beating it with 500 supply left. Towards the end I had to send my pet out to kill the Plunderer that spawned on the right side, which aggro’d the enemies in the middle; however, with the new change to LB #3, I only had to invis and aggro was lost completely.

Because of my location, I assume, the Mortars never fired. They just stood there, enjoying the view, reminiscing on better days and wondering if they wanted steak or shrimp for dinner evening. Was that a Charr that just ran past? Do we have enough oranges?

In contrast, I tried it the night before legitimately with 3 different 5-man groups. We stuck near the spawn, but tried to kill enemies that came after us (instead of running behind the rock to break LoS and aggro). We pretty much got destroyed; at one point after we died I counted 10+ veterans with 2+ uniques (named Vets, I assume?).

Now I know how it feels to be the Shadow Behemoth.

There is no Evon, only Kiel.

—blinks—

Calmthestorm.1479:

Just wanted to give a big thanks to everyone in the community in sanctum sprint who after winning the title are waiting at the finish line in first so someone else has a chance for the achievement and title.

You’re very welcome!

I don’t even run to beat the other players, mostly; I just run to beat my previous times. Best I’ve finished so far is with 4m to spare.

I also sometimes don’t start until 5m are left to see how far I can come back. I enjoy making personal mini-games out of these events.

I’m glad to see so many who also enjoy this! This is by far my favorite thing about the game: roaming around, adventuring, and finding little flavorful events in the unlikeliest of places.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

This almost didn’t make it into the game. The song, in particular, was a one of a few voiced-over lines that were recorded early on, before the map was fully designed. By the time I found out about it, Bloodtide Coast was already pretty far along. Needless to say, I felt it was a top-priority to get it in the game and in a place where you could definitely see it if you were paying attention. Henceforth, the friendly Penzan pirate faction was born and we designed a renown heart and a couple of events around it. Fortunately we even had a chance to have that actor come back in and deliver some additional lines to support the character.

Getting that stuff together was definitely some of the most fun I had working on the game. Devon gets a big shout out for his help there. He was building the Priory events around the same area. The tie-in with Penzan was an excellent feat of collaboration.

Please give Devon a big thank you for his help at getting this in there. I’m so happy it didn’t get cut; it made me laugh out loud and have one of those, “Did they just do that?” moments. In fact the whole chain is pretty darn awesome.

Let me also throw some support for giving the Pirates of Penzan their own living story segment. The whole thing would be hilarious.

Mkalafut.1273:

What’s the reference here? :o

It’s from a musical called “Pirates of Penzance”, a comedy by Gilbert and Sullivan. Technically a comedy opera, but people always assume one thing when you say the word “opera”.

Check the song out here

Jack of Tears.9458:

Isn’t he great? What’s funny is that barrel of rum you drop along the way (you drop it in that quest, right? Not pick it up and take it? Been awhile, either way: ) shows up in another event later on while following some drunken guards. It was a nifty tie in for someone what did both missions and paid attention to the dialogue.

I used ta pop in there every once in awhile just ta hang out with the Captain and crew … would be fun to get some scurvy dog PCs in there for a party sometime.

Oh that’s fantastic. I’ll have to see if I can catch that event. I remember him dropping the ale, but I couldn’t interact with it and thought it would just disappear.

I’d rather have the 20-year old cognac myself!

So I finally venture over into Bloodtide Coast to complete the map and I run across this little area called Moriarity’s Hold. I’m breaking up fights, stealing rum, and throwing water on passed out pirates.

I’m ready to leave the area when what do I behold? The very model of a modern pirate general! What a sly little easter egg; I wonder how many players understand the reference. It makes me wish I could have “birthed” my character on February 29th.

Well played, ANet, well played.

Edit: And after following him with his First Mate to fetch some gold, he is now my favorite NPC in the game. Such decorum, such propriety!

I was lucky enough to get in a race where the first 3 players hung out at the finish line to let someone else win (which was myself one race). After that, if I was ever in the top 3 by the end, I’d hang around until other people finished first. Pay it forward, I say.

One thing I’ve been doing: If there is a line of 3-4 bags close together, I’ll run through all of them to pick up all the powerups at once. You will lose maybe a second or two because you’re not running forward, but it might be the edge you need to get ahead of the pack. Especially if you’re near the back; I went from 11th (out of 12) to 4th after picking up two of those insta-ports-to-next-checkpoint one after another.

Katreyn.4218:

Donari.5237:

Had any of your characters done the dungeon, Katreyn? I talked to her on my main since he’s my story guy but he’s not my dungeon guy. Still, I had the dungeon finished on an alt so my account has credit. It would be nice to know for those who haven’t done the dungeon at all if they can get this achieve.

I finished the dungeon my main. But randomly decided to talk to Mai when my alt I just made yesterday got to Lion’s Arch. But I don’t think it really matters.

It seems to not be tied to any achievements or story progression (maybe finishing the instanced story with the attack at the most).

I’d say go try it out if you haven’t finished the dungeon or even done the dungeon. Doesn’t hurt to try I suppose.

I have not stepped foot in the dungeon on any of my chars, and I was able to speak to her and get the achievement. Also gave me the meta since I was getting ganked in the Obsidian JP.

Let me just add another voice that finds it annoying this achievement is in Obsidian Sanctum. I’ve been avoiding the puzzle because I dislike RPG PvP, but decided to give it a try during a dead time on our server since I have one achievement left for the meta. Jumped in, jumped down, and instantly died to two thieves coming in.

Ok, that’s fine, maybe they’re moving on. So I WPd, moved out, didn’t see them and started moving in. A few minutes later I come across them again, and die. Ok, maybe they’re having a rough time getting through it and caught back up to me after falling. So I WP back, get a little further than before, but then they pop down from a cliff (where they were hiding) and killed me again. Laying there, I watched them jump back up the rocks and wait to kill another person who ran past.

I really just have one question for the devs: Was this your grand vision of this achievement? PvPers ganking PvErs?

I suppose this is what happens when you have such a short timeline for releasing content.

Disclaimer: I’m a solo MMOGer. I like roaming by myself, sometimes with my friend, but I don’t dungeon run or do FotMs. Which is why the personal story instances are great. They’re not perfect, no, but the scaling is nice in that I can bring more if I’m so inclined.

Having said that, even though I’m a solo player, I am disappointed that ANet has not found a way to utilize their scaling system, regardless its effectiveness.

Also I wrote more than I wanted to, but oh well.

TLDR: I believe ANet’s quality control and creativity is stifled by short deadlines. What could be cool, world changing events is turning into fetch x/kill x quests and uninspiring solo instances

Sorry Vayne, the quote syntax messed up on me for some reason. But you mention this:
“So is it really worth messing with for a ten minute instance for two weeks. That’s my question. I’m thinking no. And they could have intended to do it, and simply run out of time.”

Culling the reply for the sake of space, the bolded sentence is what I want to focus on. I think this is the issue that people have in the back of their minds, even if they’re not eloquently stating it in this thread. Murphy touched on it a little bit with the last few comments.

I believe it will become an issue because, plainly, they seem intent releasing content on a near-monthly schedule. If they simply “run out of time” with this update, who’s to say they won’t continue to run out of time in the following months?

This brings up the main, underlying issue with their innovation of providing a constant stream of updates: Are they sacrificing quality and care to meet a strict timeline? Even though you can’t quite call single player instances a trend yet, I can see this Living Story updating as more of a burden than a blessing. ANet is expected to churn out content on a massively quick time schedule, one that hasn’t been tried in any MMOG prior (that I’m aware of), and I think the longevity of the game suffers because of it.

They are hitting their monthly deadlines, yes, but the content so far has been short, uninspiring and bug-ridden. From F&F through SouthSun and now with Dragon Bash, I’ve only enjoyed the F&F dungeon (and I’m not even a dungeon runner) and the SouthSun Instigator loot piñatas (from a pure loot drop Diablo perspective). The rest of it has been, in my opinion, quite bland.

More to an unbiased point: They’ve produced scaling instances before. Why are they not continuing with this? Is it because of time/money/management? It’s not something they will come out and say, but it’s worth wondering where the future is going. Are they still feeling things out? What sort of feedback are they being given through players actions in the game vs. posts on the forums? Will these stories actually change the world in significant ways, or are they mainly one-offs with seemingly very little substance tying each other together?

Ultimately, neither I nor anyone else is privy to their management meetings and NCSoft expectations, so perhaps they’re doing the best they can with the time, money, and personnel that’s been allotted. I would just like to add my voice to the group that’s disappointed in these updates. I reply because I care, and I reply because I know ANet can do a much, much better job than has been shown in the recent months.

And who knows, they could come up with something in a month that blows everyone away. All I can comment on is what I’ve seen so far, and outside of the F&F dungeon, I haven’t had much fun with the Living Story.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Zhavari.7190:

William Fairfield.1428:

Tigg’s conversation does warn players that if they leave the area they forfeit their bet or any possible winnings. I’m sorry that you experienced a disconnect after playing a bet.

Ignoring the empty PR reply of, “It’s working as intended”, here’s more to the point: Why is it so important a player is in the area for the end of the race?

I’ve often wondered this myself. It’s a fact of all events. If you leave the area before the end of an event you forfeit the event. I don’t think this should be so. If I was there for everything and acheived enough to be concidered part of the event, whether I leave the zone or not I should get credit for it.

You know, I never think of it, but you’re right. I completely forget that it works this way for all events in the game. I do wonder why you don’t get credit for it: I suppose it’s a programming thing. I don’t have any experience with coding/working with databases, but it would be nice if you gained credit for the event if you helped out with it, regardless where you are when it finishes.

I suppose it could be exploited a bit for farming, but couldn’t they just attach DR to it? shrugs I don’t know.

William Fairfield.1428:

Tigg’s conversation does warn players that if they leave the area they forfeit their bet or any possible winnings. I’m sorry that you experienced a disconnect after playing a bet.

Ignoring the empty PR reply of, “It’s working as intended”, here’s more to the point: Why is it so important a player is in the area for the end of the race?

Aside from limited coding time and unforeseen bugs you couldn’t fix before the event, there’s only one reason to prevent refunds from disconnecting or leaving the area, and that was mentioned earlier in the thread. The fix to that is simple: The bet is already in the system, so pay out or keep the money depending on the result of the race. No need for the player to hang around, the results (win or loss) can be mailed.

Why is this an issue? Personally, I’ve experienced more random disconnects playing GW2 since Dragon Bash has been live than I have since GW2 has been launched. It’s not my internet connection, as I can flawlessly stream Netflix and load up any webpage quickly. I also have no issues playing online FPSs or any other MMOGs. Because of this, I don’t really want to bet on these races and lose 50s due to a disconnect. I suppose I can wait to see if they clean up their network code, but an answer of “It’s working as we planned it, sorry for your loss” just doesn’t cut it for me. sighs

Edit:

Sorry, that does suck, but I’m unclear how your networking and connection issues are ANet’s fault? 8 months of forum posts from people with unstable connections also doesn’t put it in their hands. Most people I know, including myself, don’t even have lag, let alone stability problems. If it was on ANet’s end there wouldn’t be any way to avoid it, which means it can’t be.

This came up while I was writing my reply. Sometimes it’s not our connection’s fault either. As I stated above, I’ve rarely had disconnect/lag issues playing GW2 from launch until Dragon Bash. After DB went live, I disconnected 3 times within 30 minutes while running around popping holograms, with 15-20 second skill lag. Wondering if it was my system, I pinged a few random servers, tracert’d, etc, and found no lag in my connection. I even loaded up a couple FPSs and MMOGs: no lag.

A few nights later, I jumped back into GW2 and started, in a completely different zone, to pop holograms again. Same thing: disconnected twice within about 15 minutes, laggy skills, etc. I then switched zones and ignored the holograms: no lag, no disconnects for 45m to an hour of playtime. I went to a few holograms, popped them, and the skill lag started up again.

I can’t tell conclusively who’s completely at fault, but the evidence I have so far suggests that this Dragon Bash event is the cause for a lot of my lag/disconnects.

0 tickets in about 10 crates, which were all found. In fact, there was only one chest that didn’t have solely shells/flowers, and it gave me a breathing mask. About the most worthless non-standard item I could have received.

No reef rider either, but I have 3 Settler’s rings. Wish I could exchange one for the pet. >.>

ghost.3208:

Right now I’m filling a support ticket to Anet, I didn’t got my achievement for reading :’(

Well thanks for reading! I hope you get your achievement sorted out. This was another disappointing thing with Southsun; it seems that the finale was released in a buggy mess. Luckily I gained my Queen achievement last night, so I don’t have to worry about it.

Here’s another good question: Why do we fight NULL in the explorable?

According to Kiel: “This place should have been sealed up. Canach left behind a golem that observed and learned from the trouncing of its boss. Take Canach’s golem out before it can cave in his former lair around you.”

Why go back into the cave in the first place? Canach has already been apprehended, and NULL isn’t doing anything but sitting there in a minefield. If we don’t go back into the cave, we don’t have to worry about NULL pulling it down around us. So why go back in the first place?

Let me propose an off-the-top-of-my-head re-design of the instance:
Upon escorting Canach out of the cave, Kiel hears a muffled explosion in the back. You, your group, Kiel and an Asura engineering guard re-enter to investigate. NULL is there with a co-conspirator (co-c) of Canach, and you observe him trying to blow a hole in the wall to escape for some reason.

Here you start a two-phase fight: Phase 1 you battle both NULL and the co-c through use of flipping the mines to friendly and your class composition, plus maybe one more mechanic. During the fight the co-c tosses bombs at the wall he’s been trying to get through to open the hole. Your party can stop the first few, but eventually he succeeds.

This leads to Phase 2, where the co-c overloads NULL to turn him into a suicidal berserking machine and uses the distraction to slip through the hole and get away. The co-c collapses the wall behind him, and you’re forced to disable NULL. After the battle ends, the Asura re-configures NULL and uses it to punch a hole back in the wall which allows you to chase after the co-c. The path eventually leads you to the harbor where the ship is docked, but there’s no sign of him/her. The instance ends with Kiel wondering who it was, what they were doing, and promising to investigate.

Flash forward: Kiel has reported the findings to Noll, and promises that the ship was clear, the co-c nowhere to be found. You escort the Dolyak per usual, the contracts are loaded, and the ship is blown up. Noll is suspicious to what happened, Kiel says she swears she didn’t find anything, and the player is left wondering a few things:

1. Did she blow up the ship or was it Canach’s plan B if he got captured and the wildlife didn’t pan out?
2. Who was the co-c, and did he/she get away?
3. Did Kiel find the co-c on the ship planting the explosives, and in one dastardly decision find the solution to getting rid of both the contracts and the co-c? (tying him/her up on the ship, etc)

Anyhow, I’ve written too much, and there are plot holes galore, but I think the explorable mode would have been a great way to propel the story and introduce a possible new plot thread to the LS chapters.

Cross-posting a link for my (extremely long) Southsun feedback from another thread.

A quick summary
I hope that the Living Story and fluid content being created can catch up to the quality of the art in this game. I feel that the chapters so far have been static, unengaging, and more lackluster than it should be. ANet has a lot of talented people but I think this potential has so far been wasted, whether that be to time, budgets, or manpower restraints. There’s creativity to be tapped into, and short of the MF dungeon, I have not seen it.

I understand this is all new and growing pains are to be felt, but moving from the slow-starting F&F through the epic dungeon fight of the Molten Facility on to the chaos of Southsun and the rushed denouement of Canach and the Queen does not inspire confidence for future updates.

I’m hoping the next chapter (after Dragon Bash) is a step in the right direction.

(Part 3)
Lastly, I do want to thank ANet for taking a risk and attempting to bring dynamic content to the MMOG scene, all for the nominal fee of “whatever you donate through the gem store”. It’s a monumental task, and I think it’s lost on some players about how challenging and time intensive it is creating even a static dungeon, much less events that are story-propelled and affect an already established world. I’ve always wanted a changing, living, breathing world, and while it currently isn’t as I’ve envisioned, I’m still hoping that one day we can get there. Baby steps and all that, I suppose.

If you’ve made it this far, I thank you for taking the time to read through my drivel. Happy adventuring!

(Part 2)
Instances (not dungeons)
Canach’s Lair…I don’t even know where to begin with this. Firstly, they’re not dungeons as they were presented to be. Secondly, they’re barely worthy of being called instances or content in general. Thirdly, the area in front of the instances is disproportionately challenging to the content within. I had a harder time making it into the instance than I did capturing Canach and fighting NULL when I finally did zone in. It felt more like A Night at the Roxbury’s Inside/Outside Club: What should have been inside was outside, and vice versa.

I’ll be completely frank: Having played MMOGs from the dawn of Everquest, these two instances are, by far, some of the worst designed areas of a game I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been trying to come up with positives about them, but anything glass-half-full eludes me. So here’s a simple list of the main points I didn’t like:

Story

1. Only one room and one boss: While not inherently terrible, the utilization was poor.
2. Two NPCs thrown in at the beginning: They don’t help you capture Canach and only one is needed to describe how to use the mine item.
3. An entire fight against an invulnerable boss: Meaning, you don’t play as your class and instead use a gimmick the entire fight.
4. The sole mechanic for the fight is a buggy mess: There are mines that didn’t explode when Canach ran over them and mines that reverted back to red without a visual or chat clue from Canach.
5. Regen/Confusion builds made it trivial: I only mention this for the following – The one reason I can see for taking away a player’s class skills is to make the encounter more about the mechanics than about who’s “OP”. As a warrior with a regen sigil, I could kite Canach to the entrance and just wait out his attacks as I ran him over the two mines near Kiel. I’ve heard of Mesmers using confusion clones so he kills himself, and I’m sure there are other builds you could mention.
6. Overall: It’s a poorly developed and extremely rushed instance: Perhaps it was a reply to players whining about F&F ending in a forced group setting?

Explorable

1. Once again, only one room and one boss: Same layout and reusing of assets, while not inherently bad, makes this feel rushed and thrown together.
2. Simple and barren content: If I were a dungeon runner or a group player, I would find this a bit insulting. Flame and Frost’s dungeon was fantastic and a good mix of crawling, adventure, fighting and taunting (from NPCs). Canach’s Lair was the complete opposite.
3. The story is a stretch: If he’s there to cave in the lair, why does he make no effort to destroy the walls? Also, why are we going back into the lair after capturing Canach, if all NULL wants to do is destroy the lair around you (which you wouldn’t have been there in the first place)?
4. Stemming from #3, this is a perfect opportunity to add more story that links in to the next chapter. Maybe you need to go back into the lair to scrounge around for future plans? Maybe there’s a recipe for the venom/potions/whatever that made the wildlife crazy, and you must retrieve it before someone else does?
5. Overall: It’s a slightly better fight than the solo instance, but pales in comparison to what ANet has already proved they’re capable of doing. A straight-up fight with uncreative mechanics and a last minute story leads to a shallow, disappointing group instance.

Conclusion
I enjoy this game, and I still play it because I’m still having fun. I’d like to give an extra shoutout to the art team: They’re second to none, and in my humble opinion the greatest strength this game has and one of the top art teams in the MMOG genre right now. The game is gorgeous and immersive.

I can only hope that the Living Story and fluid content being created can catch up to the quality of the art. I feel that the chapters so far have been static, unengaging, and more lackluster than it should be. I see a lot of potential that so far has been wasted, whether that be to time, budgets, or manpower restraints.

I understand this is all new and growing pains are to be felt, but moving from the slow-starting F&F through the epic dungeon fight of Molten on to the chaos of Southsun and the rushed denouement of Canach and the Queen does not inspire confidence for future updates.

If there’s anything to take away from my post, it’s that I feel ANet has a talented team and it’s frustrating to see such lackluster living content. I hope they incorporate a more widely sweeping story line into future updates, more creative use of skills and game mechanics, and instead of piecing together separated sandboxes of zones there will be a more epic journey that truly changes the landscape of Tyria over the course of multiple months.

(Part 1) I had to break this up into three parts; I talk too much it seems
I’m not even sure if I can write anything coherently about my impressions from Southsun, but here it goes. As always with forum posts, these are my personal opinions. This is going to be very TLDR, so skip it if you’re not in a reading mood. If I’m being honest, this is ultimately more for ANet’s feedback than anything else.

Story
The story felt scattered and topical, with little depth at all. Apparently these events are loosely connected with the Lost Shores meta (of which I had no participation and no knowledge), but there was no lead-up or effort that I saw to tie the two together in-game. If I hadn’t read anything online (forums and blog), I would have had no clue who Canach was or what his role in the world of Tyria has been. I feel like this could have been explained better in-game.

As an aside to this: I hope ANet gives these Living Story chapters more forethought and creates more involved content across zones. As it is right now, the chapters feel restricted and contained to their own little sandbox (Southsun, Wayfarer/Hoelbrak, Diessa/Black Citadel). A more evolving and sweeping story line that takes players from one zone to the next would feel more living. I understand this type of content takes time, effort, and money to create; but if this whole temporary event mechanic continues down the current path, it will be disappointing. As it stands, I feel they’re one-off temporary events that are neither unique and minimally engaging and barely immersive.

Crabtoss
I’m not a fan of Crabtoss, but others enjoy it. I played it a few times and haven’t touched it since launch; not my cup of tea but I can see the appeal. I do enjoy mini-games, so please keep releasing them.

Mini Events
The Instigator zerg train was humorous, and a much welcomed cash boon (casual player here, so it allowed me to jump from 10g to 33g, get two exos a day before daily DR kicked in and fully outfit a MF character). The gameplay wasn’t very engaging and it was more of a loot piñata.

Finding the samples was ok. A few areas had mobs that wiped me pretty well, but I just went after the samples at the wrong time. It would have been nice if the mini-map pinged an area of where the samples were located instead of blindly wandering around looking for graphical effects or a Lone Cyprus object. I’m sure there’s a better way of leading players to the right areas other than making them read the achievement descriptions.

The jumping puzzle was a bit frustrating but still fun. The challenge was nice, but the annoyance was having to wait for the spouts to shoot the rocks back up. Also, I missed having a checkpoint. Overall it’s not a JP I’d like to do again. For a comparison, I like the puzzle in Metrica where you can press a button to start it, and your progress is saved via checkpoints along the way. (Sorry, I don’t recall the name)

The egg event was ok as well. Nothing new, but it was fairly easy. Much easier when you learn that eggs spawn at the base of the plateau and you don’t have to wait around for the 3 spots near the camp to respawn.

The random attacks by the wildlife and settlers were fun and a challenging enough. I always enjoy attacking a swathe of monsters and collecting my loot after.

Karka Queen
I can’t comment on this yet, as I haven’t yet coordinated my time in the zone with her spawning. It’s been frustrating feeling the need to stick around a zone with no idea of when she’ll spawn again, other than asking in /shout and receiving answers of “think she was killed 10m ago” followed by “killed about 20m ago”. I’m not sure if there’s a time check for her on any site or not, but I’ll have to check into that.

It would be nice if the karka assaults on the camps more closely coordinated in time her spawning. Also, the camp assaults seem over tuned for the players who are nearby to help out. As has been said in various other posts already, they spawn out of nowhere in mass numbers and do a good job of cleansing the humans/norn/sylvari/charr/asura from their land. While it’s funny seeing 10+ corpses wiped out instantly, the novelty quickly wears off and it gets tiresome to run back. More warning would be nice to give players a chance to fight for their lives or run away until more players show up. I don’t mind that camps are overrun, but it would be nice to have a quick heads up to give you a chance to run or fight. All I ask for is a chance.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

he wears the Molten Factory gloves because he raided a Molten Factory. Something Anet told us in the Forums and what counts as “supplementary” and not worth to be in the actual game.

Out of all the things that bug me about the Living Story content so far, this is at the top of the list.

@ANet: Assuming you created this content concurrently, why would you not add Canach as an NPC in the Molten Facility? He wouldn’t even need to be part of the story. He could make a quick cameo, run off, and leave your character and the NPCs wondering “Who?” or “Why?”. Perhaps there’s a little investigation to find out who this was, and the NPCs in LA can peg a few characters: Canach, and a couple others (who then become part of the following Living Story updates). Etc, etc.

The main point being: It would be extra nice if some of this story was hinted at or alluded to during previous Living Story chapters. It’s mentioned on the web that Canach has raided a Molten Facility, so these two events are loosely tied together. He could have easily made a shadowy cameo in the dungeon that would leave players trying to figure out things.

This does two things:

1. It ties the Living Story chapters together a bit more
2. It gives the players a puzzle or riddle to speculate upon while between content releases

I understand this is all new and you’re working through the kinks, but I hope that more thought will be given to tying these stories together with more in-game clues and events.

Obviously, if these stories are being written as content is released, this entire reply is moot.

I’m one of the players that enjoys the game for what it is and doesn’t interact on the forums.

It’s a fun, beautiful game (the best art team in the industry right now) that many playstyles can enjoy. However, it is not the innovative, unique, and living world that I was hoping it’d be after watching ANet’s Manifesto.

I’ve long given up hope that this game will become the living and breathing world I wanted it to be, so I just enjoy it for what it is.

So I just ran into a bounty NPC wandering around.

Is any guild on Sorrow’s Furnace looking for Short-Fuse Felix? I found him in Diessa Plateau, near Sanctum Way.

Also is there a site set up to call these out? Or is there a global chat I can use?