Guild Wars 2

Ashantara.8731:

While many of the responses have valid points of criticizing the OP, I have to agree that the OP was right on spot when they wrote:

jihm.2315:

the reason people play gw2 instead of 1 is because gw1 is ancient and is not getting updates

Obviously there are people who prefer to play GW1 even now. There are definitely people who would spend more time in GW1 than GW2. But it’s a bold claim to state that’s the only reason people play GW2 — I don’t see any evidence of that in the least.

I suppose it also depends what you mean by “ancient and not getting updates” and what you mean by “play.” If GW1 got the half-dozen devs they’d need to finish the GW Beyond storyline (parallel story to The War in Kryta and The Winds of Change), I’d play it, and never go back. I’m curious about the story and where it might have gone, but… that’s about it.

But… I still wouldn’t go back to GW1 if all that changed is the graphics. It’s a coop game and I prefer the massively-online aspects of GW2. The combat system is (for me) horribly dated in concept, so that would have to change. Movement would have to be 3D, not 2D, and they’d have to let us move while using skills (other than shouts).

In short, if I preferred the sort of game that is GW1, I’d still be playing it, updates or not. I far prefer GW2.

So no, the OP doesn’t speak for everyone and, without evidence, I don’t buy the claim that the OP even speaks for the majority of players, when they say that people prefer GW1 over GW2, except for the updates.

I agree with Jheryn that there’s no particular reason to gate lore behind elite content. On the other hand, there’s some lore in virtually all aspects of the game. When the game launched, dungeons were considered “elite” (obviously not by top gamers, but by the hordes of new-to-the-genre players that joined the community) and they have arguably critical lore, especially by comparison to raids.

So perhaps ANet would be better served by including less “critical lore” in raids. At the same time, I don’t think it serves the community well to consider redesigning raids to make the story more accessible.

One thing they could do is make it easier to see the lore in action: by offering an in-game way to read the various journals and to offer an NPC to display any relevant cinematics. I’m not sure that is worth a lot of invested time either, but it would be a lot less complicated and it wouldn’t require re-inventing the fundamentals of raids.

Moonlit.6421:

Going to be making another mesmer, (maybe 2), soon so I’ll probably set up shop at the Chalice of Tears JP in ember bay but had another quick question for you guys. If you had to pick which would be a better jp to port to, Goemms Lab or Spekks Lab?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Goemm%27s_Lab#Reward
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spekks%27s_Laboratory

Both are bottlenecks to non-jumpers finishing the JP achievement. Spekk’s is harder to navigate, because of the timing, whereas Goemm’s can be done slow & steady. So if you’re only going to place one, I’d recommend Spekk’s.

Blaeys.3102:

Yes, a story mode is definitely needed.

It’s good to see that this topic is naturally reoccurring on the forums as more players begin to realize this. Hopefully the developers are watching.

What isn’t good to see is the troll brigade that also reoccurs every time someone decides to express this opinion. Once again, we have the same people lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on anyone expressing this concern with personal attacks like “get good”, “It’s already easy enough – you must suck”, “you’re lying about XYZ”, “experienced groups can do it with 8 people, so anyone that cant with 10 is bad at the game”, etc. I know, because I’ve had every one of these (and many more – including, unbelievably, death threats) levied at me for choosing to have this conversation as well.

For the most part, it’s better to just ignore people like that. The discussion needs to continue and we need people like the OP to feel comfortable expressing this opinion.

A story mode is warranted (and no, wing 4 is not an example of one) – both for accessibility and the ongoing health of all forms of raiding.

If you can debate for or against that, you should feel free to do so. If you only know how to insult the actual posters making the points, you aren’t helping anyone on any side of the issue.

You haven’t offered an argument as to why story mode is warranted. Raids are more accessible than ANet expected; participation seems pretty healthy, even after many got their legendary armor. New training guilds keep forming, existing guilds that never tried to raid are trying it.

Raids aren’t designed to be something for everyone — they are intended as a specific sort of challenge. And because of that narrow focus, it’s easier for a smaller number of developers to keep releasing changes, which is also healthy for the game mode.

From in game, typing /wiki mini toxic warlock

Mystic Forge Recipe
Mini Armored Scarlet Briar = Mini Aetherblade Admiral + Mini Toxic Warlock + Mini Molten Berserker + Mini Mai Trin

In other words, you make the armored version by using the one obtained via BL chests|the TP.

latinkuro.7304:

Either: poison trails
Or…..
Social awkwardness
NOT: Both together at the same time !!!

Why not?

I’m not a big fan of poison trails, but only because people seem to have trouble positioning themselves to avoid kiting mobs. There really are all sorts of ways to deal with that instability.

It’s even more true for Social Awkwardness, which now has a relatively small AoE, a decent “tell”, and pulses simultaneously for everyone.

Those two instabilities seem to address the primary reason for the mechanic: to complicate encounters in a way that requires people to adapt their strategies/approach.

So, what’s so bad about having those two together?

latinkuro.7304:

I will be as polite as I can possibly be here.
And I will NOT get into any L2P, get good, adapt, point counterpoints here.

So, people should only post if they agree with you? That is an interesting definition of “polite”.

First, none of the eaters are very profitable. I know people love the eaters and I know people think it’s a waste to just delete extra ‘stuff’, but they simply don’t offer all that much.

One container, which you get from ~50 bloodstone|dragonite|empyreal (or combination) is worth about 6 silver. That’s not nothing, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to everything you earn along the way to acquiring that many.

• It takes ~60 days of eating to generate a stack.
• Stacks are worth 15-25g, depending on what drops
• Most of the value is from salvaging the greens you get opening on a mid-tier toon (~L48-53).

Sources:

• https://redd.it/31i37n
• https://redd.it/31hz1n
• https://redd.it/3nzvbu

The new expansion is coming and … it won’t include all of the 873523 features requested by people

The objective criteria is quality.

There are objective criteria for quality silicon chips; there aren’t any for art. You can get closer with food: there are ways to measure how the food is prepared, whether it is nutritious. But in terms for flavor, not so much — some people like circus peanuts; most can’t stand them.

I’m mostly unsure why you want to insist that there’s some higher principle at stake here. Surely it’s sufficient to say you don’t like how a character is written, how the actor performs the role, how the character affects the story.

From the wiki

A finisher is an action in PvP play that is used to finish an opponent while they are in a downed state. This will immediately put the enemy in a defeated state regardless of their health while downed. When near a downed enemy, the message F “FINISH THEM!!” is displayed. Interacting begins an action similar to a channelled skill which takes 3.5 seconds to execute. Moving or being disabled will interrupt this action, but taking damage will not. The finishing activation can’t be reduced with quickness.

I don’t see why that means that “rallying” will interrupt the channeling. There’s a game design question about whether rallying briefly should interrupt the stomp. My guess is that ANet didn’t encounter the scenario when designing/playtesting… so it’s not as intended nor a bug.

In ANet’s shoes, I don’t think I’d change it. I’m not against the logic that “rallying should interrupt stomping” — I just don’t think it’s worth ANet’s time to change it for such a rare situation. Arguably, if the victim is too weak to stay up during the short channeling period, their opponents ‘earned’ the stomp by downing them again so quickly.

Otherwise, you could have a situation in which it’s actually advantageous to go down and rally in exceptionally dangerous areas — you end up with an extra chance to escape, which doesn’t seem “fair” to the stomping side.

tl;dr doesn’t seem like a bug. Doesn’t seem like it was deliberately programmed either. I’m not altogether sure that it’s worth changing; there’s also an argument to be made that it’s logical the way it is.

Actually, if you look again, you’ll see that the size is nearly an exact match — the blue is harder to see against nearly all backgrounds, so it feels more subtle. To make them match artistically, they’d have to drastically buff the blue over the red (or nerf the red). (It’s even harder to see in a screenshot, which misses some of the particle effects.)

Personally, I really like both as they are and just as soon that, if ANet has time to work on effects, they pick something that isn’t already good or great.

Relevant reddit thread:
Are the new Unbound Magic tools worth the cost?

Short answer: no, not for the gold equivalent and not for anyone who isn’t farming a lot of the LS3 map currencies anyhow.

(Obviously worth it if you want the convenience and especially if you don’t own unlimited tools already.)

Ashantara.8731:

OMG, LOL! I am so sorry. English isn’t my first language. Of course, what I meant was “poison resistance”. How embarassing… Although it’s true: as of late, toxicity resistance has become a real pre-requisite for playing the game.

Lol.

Nicklelback is a great example. You can say, objectively, that they never make it to any critics top 100 lists, none of any fan-site or industry top 100 list. You can’t say that tons and tons of people hate their music so much it’s generated legions of memes and jokes. That’s all objective.

What we cannot say is that it’s objectively bad music. There’s no objective criteria for deciding that.

Astralporing.1957:

And? what does that have to do with the old tools being objectively inferior to the new ones?

On one hand you have a tool that gives you a certain QoL. On other hand you have a tool that offers you the same QoL and a few extras. The second one is just plain better.

• Cosmic pick: infinite uses, awesome animation.
• Mine-r-tron: infinite uses, incredibly annoying animation & sound
• Infinite unbound: infinite uses, meh animation, and unbound magic
• Consortium pick: infinite uses, decent animation, and sprockets
• Frostbitten pick: single use, decent animation, and snowflakes (yay?)

For me, one has a superior animation, one has a horrid one, one has a decent economic fringe benefit, one has a more useful (to me) economic fringe benefit. Which is of those is objectively superior? They are just different.

It varies, OP. Some mobs with defiance don’t have much health; you can easily DPS them down (condi builds are especially effective for this). Other mobs have stronger break bars. Sometimes scaling affects the amount of defiance, so the exact same target can be ‘broken’ by a single person in 1:1, but might take 2-3 people’s worth of CC when fighting against a small group.

Nothing substantial has changed in months. I don’t recall that vulnerability ever contributed — maybe it was a skill that applied vulnerability while also causing some CC?

+1

I like all of the suggestions.
If this were implemented, it will be hard for people to get used to. However, if this was the UI from the start, I doubt anyone would prefer us to move to what we have now.

I like how it separates account-tasks from character ones, how it better separates wardrobe from gearing up, and separates “looking for a group” from “managing a list of friends”

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Seems there are people who want others to play their way. Whether its the DPS elitists or the DPS meter haters – both are demanding that the ‘other guy’ is doing it wrong.

Well said.

ArchonWing.9480:

I am …befuddled that people knowingly join parties that are prone to this kind of thing and do so repeatedly.

It’s human nature to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again while expecting different results.

There’s a lot of internet between your computer and ANet’s servers; you’ll need to do some follow-up. Fellow poster, SlippyCheeze says it better than I do:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

It’s possible that the problem is anet, since you have eliminated various options, but the bad news is: nothing fundamental changed in their architecture in the last patch or anything like that. Traffic profile is still pretty much the same, suggesting that there is maybe some intermediate point between you (and your two ISPs) and anet that causes the trouble.

https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network has a good guide for identifying where the problem is, but if you have trouble with that feel free to post screenshots from it and we can help work out where it is.

Unfortunately, the Internet is built in a way that three to five companies handle your traffic, if not more, just inside the continental USA. There are lots of places that the problem could spring from that neither end is responsible directly for.

I recommend that you also start a support ticket and start talking to ANet about it. If the issue is on their end, they’ll need your info to track it down. If it’s elsewhere, they’ll help you figure that out, too.

Faaris.8013:

Wegloop’s Air Mask (or its light and heavy variants) is quite easy to get though:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wegloop%27s_Air_Mask

If you can enter Bitterfrost Frontier, go get it.

It’s definitely faster & easier than crafting. But it’s still a waste (in my opinion), in this case, of 6000 unbound magic and 500 berries, that could be better spent on anything else, including converting to gold via the bags sold at vendors.

There’s no underwater combat in raids. There’s only one fractal with it and you don’t need an ascended helm (or even any helm) to manage it at T4. Ascended isn’t needed for open world underwater combat.

Works for me. I started with Vicious; nothing is greyed out. I tried starting each of the other ingredients and it’s still working fine.

Can you show us a screenshot of what you’re trying to do?

Saeri.4576:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Saeri.4576:

But for immersion it would be better if everyone had a first name and a last name

Zojja & Trahearne would like a word with you.

Haha yes, I realize that for lore reasons, Asura and Sylvari don’t have last names. That’s also a decision made by Arenanet; they could have easily introduced them with last names. Sylvari could have floral-based last names, or last names that refer to the cycle they were born in, or to the purpose of their wyld hunt. Asura could be named after inventions, achievements, their areas of expertise. I think this would have improved the game.

In that case, Cher & Madonna and many others would also like a word.

I get that you have a personal preference (with strong reasons). That doesn’t mean that ANet should impose that preference on its players, who have different preferences.

Vayne.8563:

I were there today didn’t notice anything different. Of course, events do scale up if the Nolan’s Event was on, it’s hard to tell.

I think the OP’s contention is that individual mantle mesmer hit harder and faster now, not that we’re getting hit by more of them than before.

Saeri.4576:

But for immersion it would be better if everyone had a first name and a last name

Zojja & Trahearne would like a word with you.

Ashantara.8731:

Great, I opened 20+ chests before the fix and did not notice the issue. Now I can’t really tell how many did not reward me appropriately. GG, Anet.

Create a support ticket anyhow. Include how many keys you used and as much information as you can about the drops you received, the approximate times.

At worst, you’re out the 2-4 minutes it takes to fill out the ticket. At best, support might be able to figure out where you were when you opened them, which would give them a reason to estimate how many unID dyes you might have missed out on.

In other words, you don’t have to figure it out.

Clear Black.9206:

Really? That doesnt seem right to me. Considering the Yassiths takes WAY more mats to make than the Svaards when you factor in the 50 Fulgerite you need. The mats for that alone are nuts. I guess I will get the Orichalc ins and throw them in the toilet and see what I get

Thanks

That’s why people often craft ascended with core stats and forge it to HoT stats. I have other uses for my fulgurite.

(The price is otherwise comparable to crafting from scratch — you need the same amount of mats for the gear and you need to make two insignia|inscriptions rather than just one, plus the ecto.)

Thanks. I’ll take a look later. I was near Nolan’s on Tuesday (post patch) and fought a few mantle; didn’t notice anything different. But I didn’t pay attention to who I killed, since I had other goals in mind.

Djinn.9245:

That’s why I said a “massive” zerg, which I have seen succeed at times.

I meant that a massive zerg is actually sometimes worse than a smaller one — what matters is whether it has enough of a core of people who know the fight or who are willing to break from the zerg to focus on bombing and enough to get rid of the crystals.

That is, unlike other fights, it won’t succeed on brute force alone.

Djinn.9245:

I also agree that the timing is key which is why I didn’t volunteer to lead the map I was in as I know what to do but not the timing. You can tell people to kill the healing crystals but unless you know where they will appear and can mark. And can warn people that it is time to go to the marks, you can’t kill the crystals fast enough to stop the healing. Etc.

Yeah, it’s really difficult without that experience. The best I can usually help is to hold back a few people with me to be ready to glide.

Djinn.9245:

It is a shame that they made it so the Shatterer can no longer be killed by people who just show up in the map as opposed to so many of the other map bosses like Maw and Claw of Jormag.

Actually, I prefer epic fights to have a chance to fail. Clawr used to be my favorite; now it’s just a slog. When Tequatl was first revamped, people thought it impossible and there was an amazing sense of accomplishment when it was first (and even 20th) defeated. I get that feeling with Shattererererererer kills; I don’t get it from many other fights.

Mind you: I think it would be horrid for the game if all the fights were like that. It’s good to have some easy ones, some that we’ve figured out so well that it can be PUGged 99.99% of the time. It’s also good, I think, to have a few that aren’t like that.

To fight with? No, I can’t see that happening. However…

There’s another suggestion about a walk-in wardrobe

If ANet can make that happen (and that sounds like a lot of fun), then maybe they can make room for several of our characters to be on display.

(Mind you, I think both ideas are very unlikely: high costs, high maintenance, and hardly any value for a lot of people.)

There’s only one reliable source of watchwork sprockets: the pick. There are tons of ways to farm unbound magic.

There’s no in-game pick that drops watchwork sprockets; only the gem shop one. There are six NPCs that sell unbound magic tools.

There is one other set of tools that drops a currency: the frostbitten set. No one much cares, because snowflakes (special or otherwise) are worth next to nothing (huge supply, hardly any demand).

So, no, this isn’t the same as what happened with the Watchwork Mining Tool. There are notable similarities, but the differences are more important.

Anytime there’s a new map, the playerbase gets further divided. I can’t see ANet focusing the resources they have to make new maps that exclude people on anything other than which game they own.

So if they were to set up a “during Cleansing” version of Orr, they’d remove the “during Zhaitan” version we see today.

Djinn.9245:

…since Anet added the defiance bar, it is very difficult to kill him unless there is a massive zerg or someone is coordinating.

The zerg is actually not very helpful — it can easily fail with a lot of people and succeed handily with relatively few. The key elements are

• Have a good fraction of those present focused on being ready to glide — in an organized map, this can be done by the clock. With all randoms, it requires people trusting that success depends on their waiting by the jump pad rather and does not depend on their DPS being on the dragon all the time.
• Another (smaller) fraction has to be ready to break crystals, which means spreading out.
• Have a few people on siege and a few on siege defense; this is more helpful with randoms (since an organized map has plenty of other sources of CC/DPS).

If you aren’t experienced, the timing feels random — it’s hard to figure out just when the dragon will start to channel (aside from the first time). And it’s incredibly hard to convince people to wait-for-it|wait-for-it|wait-for-it when the timer is ticking down.

Unlike some other meta fights (Tequatl, SW Vinewrath, etc), you can’t ignore the mechanics by going turbo with DPS: crystals need to be broken before boss heals, people have to be ready to glide before defiance is up to drop bombs.

So it can be done with few people; it is just going to be unlikely that a random few are confident enough about how things work to make it happen.

Consequently, I’ll always use LFG for Shattererer.

For what it’s worth, I advise people not to bother with worrying about the underwater helm (unless they do underwater GvG). Masterwork breathers with any stats are fine, with a rune to match the one in your helm. (Even in T4 fractals, you can get away without the breather being ascended; if you have enough AR for other fractals, you can go without one piece for the one fractal with UW combat.)

Which White Mantle mesmers? In what map? What area? Under what circumstances? (And which “last patch” do you mean? The balance patch which altered a few mesmer skills?)

I haven’t observed any difference, but then again, I’ve only visited a map or two.

DeceiverX.8361:

That said, who really knows with ANet’s engine. Supposedly development for collections take months just to pump out a single one.

Because they have to test all the facets of the collection. It would take longer if there was any sort of Pity meter, because they’d have to implement it on the 100s of existing 1-use-only items and any new ones.

I don’t know if ANet’s code is well architected, if the configuration management is solid, if they have robust change management policies. I suspect there’s a lot of room for improvement.

But even if all of that was perfect, making small changes in Enterprise systems is a lot more complicated than making major changes in a small program. It’s almost certainly never as easy as we think it should be.

Astralporing.1957:

Just look at the results of Anet’s former fixation on esports.

That never existed; the fixation was all on our end. ANet spent some of their marketed dollars on Esports; they didn’t devote significant game-development resources.

Daddicus.6128:

Another way to ask:

There are separate tracks for WvW and PvP, even though the differences are minor.

If they had used the same logic, there should be separate tracks for PvE and Raid. PvE and Raid are much further apart in game style than WvW and PvP are.

When they first started with masteries, there was no reason, not even a minor one, to keep them separated. There was no reward for maxing masteries. Further, there was no reward for gaining XP past level 80, other than contributing to mastery tracks.

The reward was added after, because we complained that our experience was going nowhere. At that point, ANet thought that it would be better to offer the meager reward (a measly spirit shard) sooner rather than have us wait for them to figure out how to create a new mastery track.

Regardless, this has absolutely nothing to do with DPS meters or the hostility that is some have attributed to them. It is not evidence of ANet favoring raiders or ignoring non-raiders; it’s not evidence of DPS meters causing an issue; and it’s not evidence of hostility.

I don’t see any inconsistency between A’s experience and B’s. If there’s an issue, it’s in the final statement:

Mypinkbunny.4513:

you can load in to ab once a day never do the meta and get all the chests.

If that’s true, that sounds unintended.

On the other hand, it’s only 1x/day, so there’s no way to ‘exploit’ the inconsistency beyond saving 10-15min/day.

Is it worth reporting? Sure. I’m just not worried if ANet doesn’t give an official response anytime soon and fixes it quietly sometime in the far future.

I fear we are SoL on such refunds, my friend.

(Where SoL stands for “Skritt outta Luck”, of course.)

Officially, ANet has said that they won’t take action against players who use DPS meters that only display the player’s contribution to DPS as well as party boons (i.e. stuff that you could theoretically figure out from watching the combat logs or UI). Two meters are popular, ARCdps and BGDM — you should google those to learn about how they work, their limitations, and risks.

ANet has infrequently mentioned certain types of programs that are never okay to use, such as using macros to automate more than one in-game "action, auto-clickers, and of course position hacking.

ANet has even more infrequently commented about overlays being probably okay to use, since they don’t interact with the game directly. Popular ones include GW2 Timer (shows nearby events and various relevant checklists for your achievements), GW2 TACO (shows you routes for farming, JPs, scavenger hunts), Immersive Combat Mode (what it sounds like), and Overwolf.

My 8 stacks of frostbitten tools would like to speak with your 50 karma-bought unbound tools.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

At least the Devs changed the preview to show us in combat allowing animations (like with Legendary Armor) to show.

I’m appreciative of that. =)

Yes, a good start. I hope it’s just the appetizer, not the whole meal.

notebene.3190:

Astralporing.1957:

Oh kitten. Did the watchwork pick debacle teach them nothing?

I’m honestly not familiar with this, what is/was the issue?

Watchwork tools drop watchwork sprockets as a bonus item; there’s no other reliable way to farm the sprockets. This was an issue when the tools came out and sprockets were worth 4-6 silver and many metals were vendor price — that meant people could farm silver ore and still make more than someone using other infinite- or limited-use tools on certain ore.

However, this situation is different: unbound tools already exist in the game and are available to anyone with access to the newer maps. Thus the gem store is just selling convenience; there’ no extra functionality this time.

In other words, yes, ANet learned something from the debacle and didn’t make the same mistake.

I love the idea of a walk-in closet. I have no idea how ANet would implement it, without having to recode a bunch of stuff, but I can see it as being a lot of fun, especially if you could bring others there with you.

I’d settle for a proper preview window, one that shows day|night, auras, all particle effects, and how the armor appears under different lights

A sport isn’t flawed because the top players focus on things that turn it into a less interesting competition Cycling is still really interesting for the vast majority of cyclists, even if all the top competitors turn it into a combination of engineering & biology (not to mention all the doping).

The best players are always going to turn things into an efficient numbers game. The game developer is always going to try to challenge those efforts, but they are primarily going to be concerned with keeping things balanced for everyone else, too.

DeadTreeJig.6714:

Anyone else find it more enjoyable to level “organically” (I’m grimaced as I typed that word.)

It’s a common challenge in video games, sometimes called, “Living Off the Land” or “Lost & Found Gearing.” It’s often done in conjunction with Iron Man (if you die, you have to re-roll and start over).

I haven’t done it in GW1 or 2, because I’m more a fan of leveling my personal skills with a maxed out character than in game’s artificially imposed leveling process. I see why others like it; it’s just not for me.

xikira.3264:

The way the guild missions are set up it makes it extremly hard for us to lvl up our hall. The guild missions are very hard to do for small guilds. It would be cool if yall made it easier for smaller guilds to finish the missions.

I imagine it’s intentional that things be easier for larger guilds. That’s mathematically equivalent to being harder on smaller guilds, even though the intent is different.

To be clear, they are working on many, many more bugs than listed in the tracker — the “curator” choose to list those that seem of particular interest to players for any of a variety of reasons.

Aside from that, the devs rarely confirm specific bugs. It’s just faster for them to actually work on fixing them than trying to make sure that forum posts get a response.

Rikimaru.7890:

Actually it seems that you are the one who doesn’t know what a “Deus Ex Machina” is. It means “God from the Machine” which is a cheap plot device that usually saves the main character in an unexpected way. In Greece they used “divine intervention” to save the main character when they found themselves in a situation they cannot solve on their own. And the actors that played the Gods would be lifted using machines when they made their devine intervention, hence “God from the Machine”.
This plot device now refers to anything that the main characters have no control over, but allows them to find a solution to their problem. Hence the Elder Dragons having a “weakness” is a Deus Ex Machina. Same goes for putting Primordus and Jormag back into slumber, as it is a convenient and unexpected result, because it solves both problems of them eating everyone and that we can no longer kill any more of them.

There is more than one sort of “bad plot device” — it isn’t a Deus Ex Machina just because it involves a machine.

One can keep insisting that an opinion is an objective fact; it’s not.