Guild Wars 2

Im gonna chime in with agreement to just about everything here. The map was beautiful. Its the first LS3 map that made sense. It wasnt just random groups placed around the map; everything tied together beautifully.

The story was great. Fighting besideJenna was just awesome. The character returns were well thought out. It was just a lot of fun.

Minor crits:
- Why is the last step ‘spend more time doing stuff on the map’? It serves no purpose.
- Why is there yet another collection item. You really need to look into adding petrified wood, rubies, jade, etc… either to the wallet or to their own type of non-inventory collection. (Same with all the various key types, a non-inv keyring would be nice.)
- Knock back. Just…. no. Stop it. Once in a while is a good thing, but when you put it as a primary attack for a swarming mob? Yeah…. no.

Major crit: THE LAST FIGHT

Just…. wtf? I understand the fights are supposed to be challenging; it’s an end game for high level players. But no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Challenging; not an abattoir. It is impossible for squishy characters to move around, dodge the circles, pick up, throw, and still be able to hit the special action, which by default is the entire way across the keyboard without taking 90% damage. Which is followed by a knock back. Which then kills you. The whole thing desperately needs to be scaled back. Less floor coverage, longer react time for counter – even just those two would greatly increase playability of ele and mes and other squishies.

I play for fun. I’m a casual gamer. I work for a living. I don’t have time to spend an hour on a single fight that’s just not fun.

Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaase fix it.

All that aside, I do love this episode. In fact, it’s my favorite one yet. If this is the direction you’re taking with the episodes (bar the boss fight,) I’m salivating waiting for the next one.

So, pretty much everything everyone else has said. Some people certainly take an annoyance as ‘Everything sucks!!11@@!!@@1", but in general, they’re not wrong about the annoyances. Same with the good stuff: there’s plenty of good stuff here, but I would hardly call it a home run.

Loved the story. I know there’s a seeming split about ‘cute’ in these games, but I love Aurene. I liked the training with her. It wasn’t too hard or long, but was fun and story driven. I didn’t run into the ooze glitch others have, but certainly the ooze spam and root spam needs to be rebalanced.

Small little annoyance here, but the quest marker really should be in the right place when you’re not on that map, not in some random place so you need to wp again when you get to Hoelbrek.

And finally, the new map.

I loved the story. I loved the world building. I actually like that there are quaggan on the map; this is where they come from. I’d like to see a bit more of ‘fighting quaggan.’ I know as a society they shun their alter forms, but these are soft creatures that choose, everyday, to stay and fight. So, lets see them make the choice to fight.

Liked the Koda. We’ve been learning bits a pieces as we creep further north, and its pretty neat. Their obtuse narcissism – the belief that other races are inferior for not understanding the ways of Koda – is kind of amusing.

But, the map itself, like the last three, is just so… it leaves me wondering who put it together. You take random parts and slap them into their own sections of a very small map. In Ember, it was skritt in one place, carnival (?!) in another, jade in another, etc… And you do the same thing here: Grawl, Svanir, elementals, and mushrooms. I mean, mushrooms? Really? They live in the jungle for HoT. In neither GW or GW2 have we ever had reason to see them in the Shiverpeaks. And yet, here they are, in a small little corner and nowhere else.

Traversability. There is none. None. The updrafts serve no purpose. They don’t extend the glide any appreciable amount. They don’t get you up to the ley line. The ley line does not take you anywhere in particular. And the last remaining method of travel, the thermal tubes, don’t chain or reach the far parts of the map in any easy way.

And you need to stop cluttering our inventories. Why cant we have some type of wallet or bag for map specific currencies? We now have: rubies, petrified wood, berries, shiny ice, twigs, feathers, eggshells, suet, and while we’re at it, nightmare keys. We need an account wallet for map currencies. (We also need an account keyring: lockpicks, skeleton keys, exalted keys, crowbars, acid, machetes…. Ive actually been grateful that the new maps haven’t added new keys.) These all take up precious inventory space!

The mission mechanics, especially on the last boss, need some sprucing up. Too many high level spawn – either make a lot of them, or make them high level. But group after group after group of high level spawns is just ridiculous. The second to last boss, while not hard, really just involves kiting it around the map. Good idea, but eh… But it was certainly more intuitive than the last one. Waaaaaaaaaaaay too much floor coverage on the aoe attack, and too often, for too many other unkillable spawns, all while the instruction tell you nothing about what you’re supposed to do. Really? Get the scroll and kill the boss. Right….

And seriously, as everyone else has said: WTF is up with Braham?! We really need a mastery skill: ‘Smack Braham.’ He showed growth, almost, and then this. You may have more story for him; I hope you do. And if you were on your 2 week schedule from S2, I would, perhaps, not be as annoyed. But you have to treat a 3 month story schedule much different than a 2 week one. Especially when there are so many other loose threads hanging around: The Pale Tree, Logan and Zojja, you introduced something about Rytlock and then….?

Please: Weave a story. Stop going for shock value. Especially as we have to wait 3 months. It’s a year before we get anywhere!

And now that Ive ranted a bit… The Koda torches on this map were a great unifying concept. They could, and should, be the centerpiece of the whole map. But theyre not. They get lost in the rest of the cruft. The defend timer takes too long. No one wants to hang around for that. Especially when there’s no specific reward for it to farm (Im usually against farming, but this is exactly when it should be accounted for.) And am I supposed to just keep lighting them? How do I know when I advance? Nothing is made clear about them, and yet they should be the most obvious part of the map. (Sorry, that was meant to be a good thing…)

Overall, I liked it as a story. I liked it as a map. I was thrilled it wasn’t yet another blasted wasteland. I liked that you actually included a merchant and bank here. But without some serious balancing, I just don’t see the staying power of the previous two maps.

Same, can’t pass Into the Labyrinth. My squishy self goes down repeatedly, it takes forever without the additional firepower, and Caithe stops healing at final boss.

Don’t know the cause, but Im having the same issue: you cannot use the arrow cart to take out the swarm at the game, it will not allow targeting of the ground there.

I’ve been doing the PS on a new necro-sylvari, and at the end of Against the Corruption, the story glitched out. On defending Trahearn, I defeated 2 waves (a grand total of 4 baddies) and then it jumped to the cutscene of Trahearn lamenting the ritual failed. Upon leaving the cutscene, everyone was fighting a random risen (Im assuming from the next wave) while Laranthir was yelling about Gretchen falling and needing to kill her.

She never showed up, btw.

This is not my first (or second, or third…) time through, and Ive noticed occasionally some of the triggers (especially for npc dialog) are based on account completion, not character completion, and I dont know if that’s the case here, but I thought I’d mention it.

@OP: just found out from someone else in game (who had the same issue) that its not an item. It only shows up in the collection. You need all the items in the collection for the upgrade. They could have made that more clear.

As posted elsewhere on the forums (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Missing-Quest-reward/5656332), I did not receive (or know if it went elsewhere) the Golden Buckle upgrade reward.

I have the same issue. No buckle.

Saving the Prisoners

The game completely locks up (for me) after rescuing Eir. It’s done it to me twice now (tried again just in case first was an anomaly.) The screen changed in the way that indicates an animation is coming, shook for a brief second, then stopped. I had to kill the game process completely both times.

ETA: It did it again in the guild hall, Im now assuming its a problem with the videos (which has happened before for me when they haven’t finished downloading). A better mechanism needs to be in place to let the player now the video isn’t there then the whole game freezing up while waiting for the video file.

ETA2: After downloading everything, no more crashing. Once again, there really should be a notification and possibly an option to cancel out.

bigbobpataki.4796:

So comparing veterans to newcomers, veterans paid $50 3 years earlier than new comers and thus had access to 3 years of gameplay that the newcomers missed out on. You paid $50 at launch for the base game and had access ever since. You will even have a leg up on them forever for anniversary stuff. What else do you want?

So, the $50 for the expansion is reasonable because the previous $50 paid for 3 years? That’s the definition of a subscription, and this game is marketed as no subscription. So your position is essentially, “The price for the expansion is fine because Anet committed fraud. That makes everything okay! So stop complaining.”

You might wanna clear that with Anet before you use that as a valid position. I can’t think their lawyers will like that one…

By that argument, new players should be able to play for free as long as they don’t want to play HoT. This is not the case.

A new player can by the Ultimate version for $100. If I bought the core game for $50, and the upgrade for $50, I pay the same amount for less game.

‘But you saved by not having a subscription.’ How does that make it okay? Part of the purchase agreement was no subscription, and that hasn’t changed with HoT (we hope.) And, new purchasers still won’t pay a subscription, so it’s not a balancing condition.

I realize Anet’s job is to make money to support the game. But upsetting its fan base does not accomplish that. Some of them will leave, not spending their money. Others will reluctantly, and feeling as if they have no choice if they want to keep playing, shell out the money, and not buy anything else.

But look at it this way: let’s assume the core game has lost value. (It hasn’t, to buy it now is still the same price, but lets assume…) Call it worth $10 after the expansion. Let those who have bought the original have a $10 discount and 1 slot for the new character type, (beacause, really? $50/$75/$100 and another $8 if we want to try the new guy? It’s not like we had the choice when we made our characters…) Now current players don’t feel unappreciated, and are more likely to keep wasting spending money in the Black Lion store. Players are happy, and Anet comes out ahead.

So, if you’re willing to pay what they’re asking, you don’t see a problem, fine, don’t say anything and you don’t lose anything you’re not already willing to. But those of us that see it as disrespectful, who feel the money we already gave them should count for something compared to new players who haven’t spent that, certainly have the right to say something. And, contrary to popular belief, calming stating your disagreement with a decision so that your opinion is on record and can be taken into account, especially when others share that opinion, is not always ‘complaining.’ In fact, it’s possible that with enough discussion, an equitable solution can be reached, and you might even come out ahead on the deal – so please stop with the ‘its fine the way it is, stop complaining.’

Same mission (Romke), same problem (movie dialog sound). I thought something was wrong with my sound card. I realized on the second restart that their mouths weren’t moving.

You’re already aware of the issue, but add me to the list as well. Glad I’m not alone here.