What do you think of the new Living World: Champions? (spoilers inside) - [Merged]
Aaralyna.3104
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What do you guys and girls think about the new Living World: Champions (part 1)?
My personal take:
Honestly I did not expect much from this episode based on the trailer but I didn't realise it would be this bad.
First of all, the download for this patch crawled by with 1 mb/s and lower (while my net is fine, glass fiber and all, location EU if that matters) and I was not the only one. Some had it even at a lower speed.
The episode part 1 literally took me 2-3 hours tops (did it partly in duo and partly solo because my friend basically quit midway).
The story was extremely predictable and seemed written for the target group of kids.
The dragon missions were terrible. Copy paste all 3 of them. Pure punchbags without tactics. They took ages to kill coz of high defence and HP while the fight was boring. I expected at least some tactics. Because they were so boring I thought it would be better by going with pugs. In public I could not play with my friend along and when I entered, the event was already failed with that low timer and at best 2 mobs killed. Tried to make my own LFG. I could only make a party under "champions tab" in "icebrood saga" which requires you to have a squad... BUT these missions only allow 5 ppl..... Squad filled before I could even say 5 ppl only and went into a private map asap hoping all could enter. Nobody was able to enter mine and I was not able to join any others map... Big fail.... Also, when you enter a mission the timer instantly kicks off so setting it up inside is also no option... No group play with friends like with strike missions 
. Eventually I had to solo the whole mission as there was simply no way to play it with semi organised succession in an MMO.
Eventually you hit a part that you have no clue what to do... Talk to an NPC, something bout alliance troops... Then I noticed that community event bar..... 6 days waiting, fill the bar with tokens... I literally wasted all my currencies I got to figure out which "tokens" were meant. It wasn't the defense thingies, it appeared to be them crystals (neither were called tokens). Consistency is far sought.
The masteries seem useless. Just some stat buffs that you will only use inside these missions. But truth be told... After doing them once I already saw enough of them and they are not interesting to actually repeat.
I am really curious about what others think of this release.... For me it was the worst one we ever had so far.
Comments
About what I had expected. I figured that they had pulled their living world teams to work on the expansion so this was a low effort way to provide content until it releases.
I came here looking to find out how to continue about the alliance troops thing... read your post. I agree 100% with it.. What a boring grind, once I've finished I won't be back to repeat.
I enjoyed the story and dialogue.
The missions were dull with bosses far too much of a HP sponge. They emulate the Forged with Steel mission without any of the interesting design that went with that excellent mission. Plus these don't (appear to) scale. Saw no reason to do CM outside of achievements
All in all, I'm actually surprised it's even more bare bones than expected and that the story/dialogue outclassed the gameplay itself. Not sure delivering a quarter of an episode every 2 months is wise, esp given episodes were already reduced content
The only good thing is I can commit my time to other games now this isn't going to demand anything from me
What sleep is here? What dreams there are in the unctuous coiling of the snakes mortal shuffling. weapon in my hand. My hand the arcing deathblow at the end of all things. The horror. The horror. I embrace it. . .
Another thing that I noticed is that you need 30 of those prismaticite crystals per weapon. At around 20 min on average, and only getting one per mission, this means it’ll take 10 hours for one weapon and 150 hours for the rest. The recipe achievement gives you enough material for one weapon.
There's the home instance node too. Which (as if they couldn't figure out enough ways to aggravate players) only drops 1 crystal per gather over the entire node. i.e., got the prismatic crystal on first strike, butsecond and third strikes gave junk items - one gravel, one stone.
But good grief, those missions were snoozers. Boring grind isn't content.
What weapons are you talking about?
It's ok. The drm tho are just tanky golems for 5 man and not exactly fun just 5 man strike missions that take 20m with the 5m beginning like fs. I mean I'll do the dailys and it''ll be fast for the 16 recipes then take forever for the weapons to craft. It almost forces you to consider the 50g node which I've never bought from any episode to cut time off. Idk I did 6 reg missions and there's challenge mode so I can't imagine the hp of those golem sponges
I didn't expect much and at least it was not disappointing in that regard.
I actually like the change of format compared to the usual LW episodes. And good job, VAs, working from home?
The dialogs were fun and this time the cast is larger than normally, isn't it? However, I'm concerned about the story itself. Smells like retcons looming just beyond the horizon... I hope the dragon story will not be cut too short.
A little short chapter but i'm not suprised since they are working on the new expansion.
That the difficulty isn't high isn't a problem for me since these episode is for all and not only the elite.
So it's good that the level isn't "too high" like that people can enjoy even if they aren't the elite.
I didn't play the challenge mod for now, but i imagine that it will give some challenge for the elite. For the other, they can play normal without crisis on their keyboard ^^
I must admet that i was thinking that some event was in the real map and not only in instance. A little (very little)
by that.
The things that i didn't understand as many at first it was "token". They should rename it in the actual currency requested for the actual phase of collecting.
Happy to hear Aurene again btw
The daily seems bring us to all meta and it's a good things like that, meta in older map aren't dead and it's a really good things in my opinion. People can do in same time some achievement that they haven't too etc. So it's a good things for me.
But in general, i'm not disapointed, it's normal. These chapter bring us to the next expansion.
It is as bad as we feared. My only concern going forward is, what does this low quality content mean for EOD?
Luckily Shadowlands is right around the corner.
👻Legendary Ritualist Stance - Invoke the power of the legendary ritualist Master Togo.
I was excited at first but once I've seen the AQ gate I was just simply disappointed.
I think that sums it up perfectly.
Yeh, Season 5 has already set the bar low, but this episode was the worst.
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It's okay. It didn't blow me away and it didn't disappoint me. I noticed that the enemies were HP sponges, too, so I started to look for any strategies to bring them down quickly and found the following: The first boss goes down a bit quicker if you borrow a golem from the golemancer, stun the boss, do some damage, rinse/repeat; it still didn't do much more damage, but it made it a lot easier to keep things in check. Skill 2 interrupts the enemy, making its break bar go down quicker. The second boss is a bit easier because the fern puppers drain the break bar (i think) and do a set amount of damage. The third one was a grind and I really couldn't find a way to bring it down any quicker than I was (I'm playing a Healbrand, so I ended up just cheesing some of it by reflecting the damage back at it when it was doing its AoE. It's possible that the fire tornadoes may damage it, but I don't know how. I soloed the instances because I wanted to see what I need to do before I went in with a group.
Also: I wouldn't judge an expansion by an episode you don't like. I don't know why people love to jump conclusions. I swear to the gods you people can be so overly dramatic.
"How so big the sea hills how so deep the blue beneath.
Hail from the main and comest thou home."
Sigrdrífumál
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Will work for hugs and head pets.
Also food.
Similar for me: 1 crystal and 2 gravel.
Was super hyped for this release, actually thought the missions were going to be meta events in the old maps, not instances that don't allow squads..
The missions take too long, boring without mechanics and not rewarding. Steel hum all over again..
The volcanic weapons are more cloud than skin and again just a recolor of an existing weapon with some effects on top. Crystal bloom axe looked sick in trailer, like an elven executioner axe. While in-game it's a woodchopper axe..
Overall, the update felt like copy and paste with a lot of potential but wrong execution..
The story itself was ok, but there's a few things that I didn't like.
First off, the incorporation of instanced multiplayer content in storyline is a trend that I extremely dislike.
I want to play the story when I want, where I want, how I want and with whom I want.
The fact the 3 missions are implemented in the story was a HUGE dissapointment for me.
With no friends on to form a proper party, I either had to wait, or play with strangers in public mode
I am a FIRM believer that story should be SOLO content with the OPTION to do in party.
The second thing are the bosses.
They are merely DPS sponges. It didn't feel like I was fighting a boss, it felt like I was trying to tear down a wall with a toothpick. Very easy shortcut design.
Thirdly too many loose ends.
If the rest of the story is similar, that it's sorta instanced group content you MUST do to progress... with NO SERIOUS option to play solo as you EXPECT in story...
Then I hope this grindfest ends QUICKLY.
Give me PROPER STORY!!!!!!
NOT public group content!!!
It's a shame, because it could've been so much better.
I hated when that one strike mission for story demanded playing with a squad, I hate this one demands playing with a party.
(We all know the 1 to 5 means forget about 1... not happening)
I login, downloaded it, did raids with my static team, and left the game till next week clear.
I wont touch this "content" if people actualy call it like that.
The ones for the achievement.
Also unsurprisingly enough, outside of the achievements, doing the CMs for these don't appear to be worth it as the loot is pretty much the same.
I had fun but I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed.
I know there's more to come in the coming weeks but If it's focused on the response missions then I've kind of lost interest. The Missions themselves I don't see myself doing again, They're fun to do once for the story but that's just it, they're a repeatable story instance that to me are quite boring to replay and are not rewarding.
My hope is this is all just a kind of prologue building up primordus in the Chapter for a much bigger finale.
You're going to have like seven more response missions as things to unlock so be prepared for more of the same.
a shame, a disaster, a total boredom.
6 months to put up with this kind of content ... cantha seems far away
Damage spongy enemies, and bosses so dull I actually played dead through the third mission and went off to do something else. I'm going to have to do the third one over, because I apparently took a perfectly logical shortcut to Ascalon Settlement and missed the mastery point. Le whee.
Somehow they made something even more boring than the original strike missions.
There is one thing though: the writing was obnoxious enough that I've developed the same detestation for the NPCs that all of my guildmates have.
Good idea, bad execution, too tedious.
Bosses felt like Taida's door. Too much HP, no mecanics, just hit for 5 mins. Masteries are useless, we can't even grind the exp for next next lvls since they are locked.
I'm not surprised since they are working on expansion.
I've only completed the first mission so far...
and I agree with giving a proper story...the writing for gw2 has never been good. I could give a number of reasons why, but its mostly because of a lack of understanding how to make a good story.
This story is very much a soap opera drama. The dragon's and their conversations with us and each other undermine what they were really intended to be at the beginning....massive and Lovecraftian forces of nature. We shouldn't be so buddy buddy with the all the dragons and their tiny problems...it doesn't make sense. Half the continent should be annihilated by now, and the player characters should be scared of them...Characters shouldn't be arguing about which dragon to kill next after they have a little tea-party with their friend and groan about their relationship with their comrade...they should be arguing about abandoning the mission to save their own families...or killing each other over limited resources...food...for self survival.
Now i havn't played the entire chapter yet, so i won't go much further than that...but these are problems that arise from a poor understanding of creating stories. Not that the writers themselves are bad writers...i just think the writers are trying their best with what's basically a steaming pile of cats, and their doing the best with what they got...when really what they need is a complete rethinking of what the story is about.
I liked the idea of the group aspect of the content here...but the content isn't engaging enough for people to actually speak with each other. I also don't like the idea of forced grouping because that's inauthentic, grouping should happen naturally not artificially like how it's done here.
You can do this solo.
I assume there is no new map. Correct? I have not played in a while and was wondering if there is a new map.
Yep, no new map.
Carcharoth Lucian/Mini Chibii
Ruin of Surmia world
PvE : [CdL] Les Chasseurs De Légendes
WvW : [MIMs] Mobile Ingénieuse Et Marteau
Was hoping for at least some new varieties of destroyer, the new masteries seem potentially interesting I guess. Just seems very low effort.
The mission is 1-5 people tho so just got private by yourself.
2 post above yours disproves your forget about one.
I'll cut out the important part.
Anet have recognized that the bosses are hp sponges, appearently a bug. The latest build fixes it.
Being forced to do strike missions that are extremely boring isnt my idea of fun. Every single one I have been in already has afkers doing nothing to help out, and there is nothing on the report feature that allows to report for afking/leeching) This release has been nothing but a huge let down. 2/10 (and the 2 is for the raptor skin cause the strike missions are a flop and time gates suck) At least Assassin's Creed Valhalla is out cause I cant be bothered with this stupid grind
By far the most rushed content in the game.
I do not buy this story that they are committed to expansion, if its the case, it was better to delay the expansion.
once i complete the history, i would prefer continue farm the Drizzlewood for gold.
main pvp: Khel the Undead(power reaper).
This sucks... I think this season is shaping up to be the worst.
This episode was quite disappointing for me. No new content, a 3rd redo of Stormcaller skins, plus another weapon set. and some more useless masteries that you won't be able to use anywhere else in the game, except the Dragon Response Missions that no one will play.
Can we get masteries that will improve our characters on all PvE modes? Some sort of progression?
Can we get new armor sets? They were doing so well with the more simplistic armor pieces such as: Norn Shaman Armor, Charr, Dragonrender and Khan Ur helms and the Stone Summit armor. Right now we just have so many weapon sets that are way too flashy.
I was hoping that they would be improving some core maps, so we would have some incentive to go back there. Putting the mobs from the Dragon Response Missions into the core maps wouldn't hurt the game since those are places where you find destroyers anyways. It gives good contrast and also would make the Dragon Minions feel like an actual threat in open world.
The dialogue was okay, but they talked about stuff we already knew. No new interesting subjects were brought up.
I feel bad about complaining about these things since it is a buy-once-play-always-for free game. I just don't want to see it go downhill just yet.
The Sunday after each Living Story drop, my guild gets together to enjoy the new large group (25+) open world content together. It is the thing I (and many) look forward to most. This is the first time in a long time that we will have nothing new to do together - and for that reason alone, this is my least favorite living story chapter ever. GW2 is about what I can do in large open world groups (not instanced) with my guild - without that, it really isn't appealing to me. Hopefully this isn't a new trend.
They should have put a party LFG under Living World: Icebrood Saga. People were trying to set up squads because they did not realize you could only do these in parties.
Where is the volcanic stormcaller weapons comming from?
This chapter is almost a insult to the release concept, the missions dont have the little silly achievements we all love, the rewards for doing challenges are not worth it and are tooooo long, the lfg system doesnt work for party size, you can complete everything in less than 3 hrs, the mastery line is there but you cant keep upgrading it (and so far mastery gives you nothing), the weapons are meh and the mission tracker is stuck at some point.
I wasn't happy, to be honest. The concept initially shows promise (open world pandamonium), but just boils down to "follow the npc, kill enemy camps, fight the health sponge knockdown spam boss 3 times"
I think they should have expanded on the opening concept - a 5 to 10 minute war where you have to save as much property/life as possible, while assisting the hero with their mission while you can.
I agree it's underwhelming, even with my expectations low. There's just not much here, the missions are boring, the story lines are childish and don't advance much plot, the achievements are grindy, there's no reason to have the wait for ebon vanguard rewards, and the weapons collections are ridiculous in time (way too much prismaticite compared to what you can get) and/or investment (is the volcanic stormcaller box really just a random drop?).
I'm an achievement hunter and there's a certain amount of grind and investment I'm prepared to deal with, but really there's just nothing here BUT grind and investment.
From the trailer I was hoping for a dungeon style instance with long term replayability. I guess it is sort of like that but I dont feel it delivered on what I hoped for.
My main criticisms:
No problem, now I have a use for my 53 bags of Icebrood Saga Materials
Aurora Glade Diamond Legend [VV]
Ultimate Dominator
so... unlike the vast majority of responses I have read here?
I actually enjoyed the content.
I enjoyed the fact that Anet was trying to do something different.
I enjoyed the fact that there were voices that i could hear attached to the speech boxes I could read.
I enjoyed the inclusion of instances in Rata Sum, Gendarren, Metrica, and Brisban, and I enjoyed the fact that while the instances were placed in an open world setting, they did not interfere with other players that have not gotten that far with the Icebrood Saga, which from a lore perspective, makes a bit of sense.
I enjoyed how they explained Primordus' awakening through the usage of the minions. I enjoyed the pulling together of different factions from all over Tyria to face a much bigger threat than Jormag.
I enjoyed the plot twist of us siding with something we originally intended on putting "back to sleep".
Regarding the Combat, I actually like the way the fights are staged and set up with a champ at each end, and each champ having separate mechanics to them. Could they have been better? I cannot answer that. I am not a Game Developer, and I have Zero Knowledge on how to create a combat system in an MMO. Therefore I do not have the right to judge those that can do something I have no knowledge of.
I had fun playing a game. I enjoyed the game I was playing. I will likely play the game some more.
What I will not do... Is pass judgement on things I do not have the technical knowledge of, nor will I attempt to criticize Those that can do a job that I cannot do.
If I was so bold to pass that form of judgement, I would be a bit hypocritical... as I am playing the very game I am passing judgement on.
I am stating my opinion. Agree with it... disagree with it... you are welcome to do both or neither.
I happen to like playing Guild Wars 2.
so there.
Strikes died for this ;-;
It's just bad, to express myself heavily censored.
The Story itself so far has just been a bit of talking to an NPC, one actual story mission and three almost exactly the same group instances.
To top it of, the continuation seems to have been postponed a week by an arbitrary timer in the hope of stretching content that already is minuscule.
Another Mastery point is looked behind a grind (the Red Stormcaller weapon collection).
Dragon response missions are just boring and private instances didn't work with squads.
That means, assembling a group via the LFG tool didn't work, as group automatically are converted into squads.
To me, this definitely wasn't worth four months of development.
Random loot from dragon missions apparently...
Carcharoth Lucian/Mini Chibii
Ruin of Surmia world
PvE : [CdL] Les Chasseurs De Légendes
WvW : [MIMs] Mobile Ingénieuse Et Marteau
Very happy to see the voice acting added to the previous 2 episodes. This was the first thing I did: Review of the conversations with Bangar and then the previous 2 episodes. This and the Dragon Banner change to WvW were the only good things I have found in the patch and they could not out-weight all the bad, I am afraid. The rest is just plain disappointing; two thumbs definitely down for the whole patch, for all the reasons stated above.
My "lowlights" (things that stand out as especially disappointing):
1) No new map.
2) It seems the designers listened to the "we want Season 1 back please" people and designed a series of episodes of a similar style. "Next best thing" approach, I suppose. Sorry, bad idea.
3) The home instance node drops "greys" worth less than 10 copper. kitten?!?! For 50 gold and 245k karma ... kitten?!?! I feel ripped off. No home instance node should ever drop greys/whites unless they have some minor value like say, 50 silver (total; per node). But the game probably does not need more riches, so why put junk items in a home instance node? It feels so unnecessary, like a slap in the face to those who engage fully with the content you produce.
4) Story too short and not very engaging. One cannot help but get the feeling that resources for LWS5 have been nerfed to the level of WvW resources :-(
This new direction in story content is leaving me feeling very uncertain about the future of GW2 and/or my future in GW2. This has undone much/all of the goodwill and optimism I felt after the announcement of EoD and leaves only uncomfortable questions in my mind about the direction of the game.
What do I think? It's all a bit boring, just those 3 near identical missions. I won't be contributing much to advance the progress bar. Here's hoping the next few weeks will be adding some more interesting and substantial stuff.