[SPOILERS] All or Nothing's ending

! During the entire episode I felt like the characters were rushing into this way too fast. Or perhaps I missed something? I thought it wasn't a good idea to kill dragons? I know Aurene was supposed to absorb Kralkatorrik's energy to keep everything in balance but how did we even know this would be possible?! Now with Aurene's death... I have some interrogations about it. Kralkatorrik isn't dead, and if Aurene works like others dragons, her energy was released when she died. So all of Joko's and Balthazar's energy is now between the claws of the Elder Dragons (and primarly Kralkatorrik, since he was super close to the blast). Is she really dead? I'm not actually sure. Well not permanently, there must be something in the work to either bring her back or do something out of her actions.On a side note, I miss the lore we were getting on the Elder Dragons and the Ley Lines during living world seasons 2 and 3. I wish we got more of that... I want to know more about the Dragons' place in the world!

I still wished we would be left with something to do in between the 3-4 months of 4 hours of story. At the end of the day this is supposed to be an MMO, not a tv show.

Yes it feeled rushed, yes the story feels overall forced. Why? Well, as I said, this is not a TV series. For an MMORPG the story in GW2 is good.

Sadly that's the only thing this company had its focus on for the past few years, while other MMOs have also a story but put their focus also on making sure there's enough character progression and always new mechanics, systems, rewards and other stuff to do for longterm players.

The last season was 6 episodes, so do you think this one will be that long? I mean I was afraid that it wouldn't end this episode, seeing as it's only 5, but they got my hopes up, then shattered them...The Kralk story has been really cool, and the fight was super epic, but I am ready for it to end. Kralk needs to die, and we need to move on. (to Cantha XD)

Hmm Better idea for this post as a seperate post

@Adenin.5973 said:I still wished we would be left with something to do in between the 3-4 months of 4 hours of story.

4 hours? I wish. I finished it today, including map completion, on two more characters, which altogether took about 4 hours. This episode was extremely short storywise, and the OP is right: it all felt rushed.

@DeaglanW.1673 said:The last season was 6 episodes, so do you think this one will be that long?

I don't care at this point, I just want the story to move on as it feels extremely unsatisfying to finish on that note and have to replay that ending over and over again with each character to be ready for the next episode. I honestly hope it won't take three months for the next episode to launch. :/

For those thinking the commander made a rushed and unwise decision by setting up an ambush with hopes of defeating kralkatorrik well just remember this:

In "Lord of the rings" movies, legolas doesn't agree with aragorn he's upset with all the situation because they are outnumbered with no chance of defeating saruman forces, while preparing Helm's deep defenses aragorn then shouts something like "there's no more men" he fights with the men and resources he has, there's no more, of course later we see how rivendell armies arrive to aid in the upcoming battle and finally how the rohirrim charge destroys saruman's army but aragorn and helms deep didn't know any of this so they had to try no matter the odds.

In "game of thrones", the "battle of the bastards" depicts almost the same situation, where there's no more man, allies or anything and the enemy is clearly superior in strength and numbers , jon snow army was defeated and its remaining forces slowly butchered but the day was saved by a huge Arryn army that destroyed bolton's army. he knew victory was kinda impossible, still he went there with his little army and prepared to face the enemy because doing nothing or waiting longer would increase the enemy power.

Again in Lotr movies, before the battle of the pelennor fields, gondor desperately seeks rohan help, when they realise its too late with mordor armies at their doorstep they defend the city with just his own forces they didn't have more time to reach other allys or get help elsewhere nor wait for rohan armies.

In "Edge of tomorrow" tom cruise has lost the "alien power" to reset the day (time travel), he can no longer wait for any other solution but now he knows where's the "alien boss" so what does he do next? assembles a team to reach the "alien" sanctorum and deliver the final blow to free humanity from the alien threat, it's his final attempt, knowing that if he fails then we are doomed there's no other option no more time left (aliens are preparing a huge strike on London) so he must do the job with the available resources and without his power to go back in time, it's one shot, the last one, he must do it.

Saving private ryan is the same, in the last stand the soldiers didnt have decent explosives they had to use socks with grease for the bombs lol, set up an ambush and pray to stop the german incursion from capture the bridge, they lose ground and welp it doesn't look good at all, many died and when all hope is lost boom, US army arrives and rekts the nazis.

I can keep going, the point is, there was no other option, Kralka was devouring the mists , destroying Elona and chasing aurene, from Desert Highlands to Jahai bluffs there's plenty of kralka corruption, he's getting bigger, better, faster & stronger so leaving this massive elder dragon become much more powerful by "waiting" and doing nothing wasn't an option. It would reach the point of no return where he could go and corrupt major cities in central tyria and brand more territories making of Tyria a purple apocalypse. I've been reading lots of LWS4 episode 5 topics and it almost looks like people doesn't pay attention to living word stories or the whole Tyria situation, the world is pretty much !"#!$@ the "zhaitan" pact no longer exists, the factions gathered at kralka battle were already weakened forces, the olmakhan fought the inquest, sun spears are few due centuries of being slowly exterminated by Pala Joko and i don't think the awakened were many, they suffered great casualties fighting balthazar, the commander and kralkatorrik corruption, and pirates, oh our beloved corsairs, when you rely on pirates for doing the job the pact fleet should have done well thats when you know Tyria is very damaged.

It's been a long time since we saw the mighty pact armies going 1vs1 with elder dragon minions, the massive fleet was destroyed in one single mordremoth attack, then at Jahai bluffs we saw 2-3 pact ships destroyed, most likely the shatterer did that, so even the Vigil's leader, Almorra Soulkeeper and the new pact marshal Logan thackeray couldn't bring enough forces for the kralka battle, i bet the result would have been totally different having a fleet throwing bombs and firing huge laser beams at kralka bodys while trapped inside the mountain but wops, that no longer exists, again, Tyria is weakened so people are being mean with the commander decisions in LWS5, they waited long enough dealing with the Inquest and palawa joko threat, still people say "lol he rushed, dumb commander why didn't he wait longer for a better plan".

So you either wait for aurene resurrection like gandalf the white or something (hmm i find the death of gandalf against the balrog very similar to what happened with aurene) or the quaggans mighty army whos been hidden in the depths, tengus finally leaving dominion of winds and joining the fight, human gods regretting leaving tyria alone and coming back to help against kralka or a massive cantha surprise counterattack coming from south elona with a huge army, like when the Eyrie saved jon snow or rohan destroying sauron forces, maybe naval fleet heading to kralka, if nothing like that welp tyria is doomed lol my english is trash sorry.

@"locoporesa.2864": While you are correct in theory, there was still more built-up in your examples than we had here, plus the presentation was much more serious (!), while the dialogue in this GW2 episode was totally calm and more like, "(shrug) We don't have the time to do this and that, so hey, let's strike now. We will definitely win, so no worries." There was no real drama to the situation compared to your examples. It felt pale in comparison, and in retrospect somewhat stupid and unreal.

I feel people play this game still as connect the dots (or green stars) Walking in a straight line to the next thing and then the next.

Do you guys even take the time to fully experience the new map and story in conjunction of eachother?

The first two hours I didnt even leave the cave. Talked to NPCs, tried out the heart tasks and try to find our way up, to seemingly a place with treasure and some story.

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:I feel people play this game still as connect the dots (or green stars) Walking in a straight line to the next thing and then the next.

Do you guys even take the time to fully experience the new map and story in conjunction of eachother?

The first two hours I didnt even leave the cave. Talked to NPCs, tried out the heart tasks and try to find our way up, to seemingly a place with treasure and some story.

That's the overall issue,people rush to do everything as fast as possible without thinking about the story and lore behind the release and then they wonder why they have nothing to do...

The biggest problem is that the players have no idea how a MMO is actually made, and the time it takes to make new content is orders of magnitude longer than it takes the players to go thru the new content.They then complain there is nothing to do.What they really mean is that there is nothing to do that I want to do.

The Commander explicitly stated that they didn't have the time they'd normally need due to Kralk's having a field day at the Domain of the Lost in order to recover from the damage up to that time. And with Aurene being mentally prepared to give it her all, they were using all the resources they had available, and the resonance crystal idea was as good as it could get given the ED's (to whatever degree) damaged state. In retrospec, it may have felt a bit weird that everyone was too focused on Kralk's vision of a world without him than Aurene's multiple visions, outside of the short "We didn't consider how you felt about it, didn't we" monologue.

The sudden ending, i. e. being kicked out of the story instance, felt also weird but that could have also been A.Net's intention.