[Major Spoilers] Discussion Episode Final of the Season 4

Hello,

I created this topic with a neutral title to not spoil people who haven't played the episode still. But, don't get it wrong, it's a topic to talk about the last episode and so of course, give spoiler.

First: The picture of the map itself is really beautiful, really even poetic, the fallen of the dragon with different environment.And the map itself is really beautiful, i was enjoying to discover the map.

Second: Aurene is alive!!! Yeah (love my little dragon so much) but you know what? i knew it that she was alive.

@Valaraukar.7652 ✭✭ January 9, 2019As i say earlier in the topic, more the time pass, more i believe that she isn't dead. She is in the mist, or her spirit in a cristal, on she is in the sanctuary of brill or other place.She eat joko, maybe she has some "new power". She has the power transmitted by brill who is secret for us. Or maybe as some people say, it's the dream of kraka.We protect her egg, learn her to be a good dragon, she saves so many times and many people! She help us with balthazar.It's a powerfull ending it's true, but i still believe that there is something that we don't know.Caithe say "she is not here", it's doesn't mean that she is death. Her spirit only!Keep believe in Aurene!

Third: the story itself: i was really enjoying the story and the final fight. And i was in same time happy to kill and give hope to Tyria and sad for Kraka.

Finally:The Future: Should we stay like that or hoping a new season (or addon?) Mmm good question: in my opinion....in fact, i don't know because i was finding this end very beautiful and perfect. The big boss is death and hope is coming back in Tyria. And you know....with some sad and tragic things who happen recently for Arena, i was thinking that ended with this episode should not be a bad thing....

And finally i would like to say thank you Arena because people aren't telling enough and are more complaining about everything.

PS: Sorry for my mistakes in english, French is my first.

I'm not going to go into any further detail on how truly abysmal I thought this story was until the official feedback thread pops up, but some feedback to add into the discussion

• The map was excellent. There seems to be an abundance of nooks and crannies to explore and the whole theme of a Dragon body as an island is exceptional. The first instance gave no scope of how big Kralk was due to the zooming out, but this map really accentuated it.

• in regards to the above, I didn't like Kralks model. It was stunted and felt small due to the camera restrictions. I could have lived with the fight being as easy as it was with more close up flights, barrelling round him.

• the final fight is for me worse than the Zhaitan one. Taking out the nonsense dialogue and ravings going on in the background, I;m not understanding the point of having a fight almost entirely obscured by such a large amount of special effects. I mean the fact that I have zero idea what I was doing or fighting and yet won outright with barely took any damage or felt in danger in what was meant to be an iconic, climax is a poor reflection on Anet. I thought the Mordy fight, whilst perhaps overtuned and long was better and from what I could tell, this repeated aspects from that fight without throwing in any chance of failure. Now yes, Zhaitan has this latter problem too and mechanically is a fail, but I got to see what was going on, so it wins out for me in comparison. The whole fight needs relooking at just to make things visible. I had a monster headache after playing it - my first from a GW2 story instance

• The SKyscale is excellent. I have no complaints here and it is a great design without diminishing the griffon.

• The Kralk spear didn't really feel very powerful at all.

• Humanising Kralk felt like dodgy fan fiction. It was out of place and if it was trying to generate compassion for a being you established as a force of nature and rage long before he absorbed new magic, it failed. Unsurprising given it was a retcon - Snaff never noticed any of this when he was inside his mind after all.

To me it feels like the GW1 prophecies story arc has finally come to a end. I like that, its been a long time.

When Aurene came back to life, my first reaction was, "OH NO, pleeeease! Not that nonsense idea! For real???"

But it was so well presented that it all fell right into place. (I have a feeling that this is how the previous episode was supposed to end, but they did not have the time to make it like that, so they took a shortcut.)

The episode had:

• humor: mission objective "Hope for the best" (ROFL), a drunk Braham ("I should grow back my hair.") and Taimi (those eyes were popping right out of her skull!)
• drama: best story-telling since GW1 (Kralkatorrik not being "evil" but corrupted took away my breath)
• presentation: the stunning cutscenes as well as everything animated and directed was top quality (like a good movie), kudos!
• great dialogue: everyone was in-character, there was nothing that felt like a modern teen movie (thank the Five!), I could finally feel empathy towards everyone (and the dragons were finally talking, yesss!!)

The map is awesome, I hope the meta is just as good as everything else (will test this tomorrow, it's bedtime here). Those trees!

The music was thrillingly on-spot.

The achievements seem demanding, will evaluate when done.

Just <3 so far.

Edit: P.S. The story part was too short, though! ;) I was enjoying it so much that I could have done with more, heh. :)

Impressed from the beginning to the end. I did like the new map a lot and i agree as above for the weak fight but that's ok by me.Overall a nice episode.

Liked it. Quite abit actually, last instance could hold back abit on the effects but other wise good.

@Seteruss.4058 said:I did like the new map a lot and i agrre as above for the weak fight but that's ok by me.

It is kind of strange how story mission fights have been rather easy since ep. 5. But I believe in this case, unlike ep. 5, the writing makes up for it. ;)

Won't go into too much detail either as I'd rather do that on the official thread but in short:

I found the story pretty bad. From the overall events, to how short it was, to storytelling.The map is pretty great from what I saw so far. At the same time I have a feeling it will be a love/hate relationship with it, similar to HoT maps. Map wide metas are fine if you wanna do the meta, when you just wanna explore though, they become annoying.Didn't unlock the mount yet but from the little I got to fly around with it, I love it.

On a side note, anet really needs to hire someone that knows how to design boss battles. LS4 is riddled with highly annoying boss battles that are not challenging at all, they just have so much AoE spam that it becomes a chore doing it on more than 1 character. Also, in before the meta rewards get nerfed.

I really liked this episode and I didn't even expect to.

Between the name and a lot of writing trends these days, I was expecting and dreading a feel-bad non-resolution that left us adrift with nothing positive to look forward to and only bad memories.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the story was willing to be positive, conclusive, and build on what came before it all at the same time. I really didn't think the Joko thing would matter, but when someone first mentioned it, I really hoped it would. I feel like I haven't seen that kind of pay-off in a story in a long time. As for the ending, we don't have any idea what's coming next and I would have liked a tease, but I'm actually okay with that for now. It makes it feel like we actually accomplished something, that the story exists for a reason, and not just to segue perfectly into the next threat.

@Jokubas.4265 said:Between the name and a lot of writing trends these days, I was expecting and dreading a feel-bad non-resolution that left us adrift with nothing positive to look forward to and only bad memories.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the story was willing to be positive, conclusive, and build on what came before it all at the same time.

Was afraid of the same thing and had a similar experience and thoughts. :)

@Angoril.2179 said:Map wide metas are fine if you wanna do the meta, when you just wanna explore though, they become annoying.

To me, the most annoying part on this map are those brand crystals that keep firing at you from several locations. It makes map completion a true pain in the behind - worse than anything people keep complaining about on HoT or PoF maps. You can't stand still for a second in certain regions to figure out how to get to a vertically challenging spot without being attacked and dreading a dismount from the borrowed Skyscale mount. Ugh... :/

I liked finishing it. But actually doing it was kind of painful. We spent last episode fighting Kralk, yet again we fought him. We had to battle him on top of Aurene, had to navigate his massive body, had to fend off his minions and had to fight his torment. Too much fighting involving Kralk for me. I had some positive thoughts too. I’ll post more about playing the eepisode when the official feedback thread is up.

The music and the map are great. The cinematics, too. No opinion on the mount yet.

And I am so disappointed with the story. Of all the ways to bring back Aurene, it had to be that. And that's just the beginning.

What a shame. The last episodes were going so well and we have to end the season with that? In LS3 at least the finale was so unimportant I can pretend it does not exist, but here that's not an option.

@"Fenella.2634" said:The music and the map are great. The cinematics, too. No opinion on the mount yet.

And I am so disappointed with the story. Of all the ways to bring back Aurene, it had to be that. And that's just the beginning.

What a shame. The last episodes were going so well and we have to end the season with that? In LS3 at least the finale was so unimportant I can pretend it does not exist, but here that's not an option.

1. LOL at LWS3 comment (and so true!).
2. As I wrote earlier, that was my first reaction about Aurene's return as well, but I liked how it was executed, so I got over it quickly. ;) I believe they did not have enough time to make last episode end this way, so they took a cheap shortcut with that "shocker" of Aurene's death. I don't believe it was intended like this, with months in between of people speculating and coming up with the most obvious solution themselves. Remember that this episode was already in the making when the previous one came out.

@Ashantara.8731 said:To me, the most annoying part on this map are those brand crystals that keep firing at you from several locations. It makes map completion a true pain in the behind - worse than anything people keep complaining about on HoT or PoF maps. You can't stand still for a second in certain regions to figure out how to get to a vertically challenging spot without being attacked and dreading a dismount from the borrowed Skyscale mount. Ugh... :/

It took me a while to realize what was hitting me the first time I got close to one of those. I was running around like a headless chicken, wondering if some enemy was glitched under the ground or something. Won't go for map completion though until I have my own skyscale.

@Angoril.2179 said:Won't go for map completion though until I have my own skyscale.

Sounds like a plan. I'll definitely get mine, too, before completing the map again, on my other characters. However, I'm afraid that the mount collection includes navigating this very map. ;)

The execution was awesome. Great music, great cinematics, wonderful map. Not even horrible bugs so far, even though it's really early. The pacing was also nice, it did not feel like there was much filler content.But still... This could have been so much better. :anguished:

I do have a few points I personally don't like, but I can see that that is just my taste and other people will have different opinions. Unfortunately, that was most of the story in this episode for me. :anguished: From the timing and method of Aurene's return, to talking Aurene, to miraculously well-prepared pact and asura (and I do like Taimi), way to easy ED fights and, of course, the elder dragon that suddenly gets very human emotions.

I'm just glad that it was short. A few comments, though:

(1): How exactly are you supposed to get the Salt in the Wound achievement? Aurene doesn't fire fast enough, and she doesn't shoot far enough, and there is nowhere near enough time to hit every single weak point 3 times. To top it off, you can't tab target the weak points, so I have to fight with a moving screen and moving points with a mouse just to click on those nearly invisible markers. There isn't even a counter to tell you how far you've come or how far you need to go, or whether or not the weak points reset after dying or exiting the instance. To top it off, if her attacks don't crit, then it takes more than 3 hits and the crystals don't get destroyed. This is just frustrating.

(2): The map is horribly bugged. I crash every time the big meta begins. IF it begins, since some of the pre-events bug and stall. Any enjoyment I would get out of its design is immediately ruined by crashes. It's just frustrating having to go back and re-do parts of the map because progress was wiped away.

(3): The map is so event dense that I have trouble discerning what is going on and where I'm supposed to take all the random stuff I pick up.

(4): The story was average. I hate all the swirling clutter around the edges of the screen. I couldn't even see that I failed one of the achievements because all of the stuff I'm supposed to avoid is the same color as that intruding border. Otherwise it is all one big deus-x. Fly by the seat of their pants, and everything magically works out.

The map event isn't really difficult and in fact look's like more as a Dragon stand 2.0.

3 Zone, 3 zone to complete before coordination between all.

The boss fight, i was enjoying as i say before because we must remember one thing, we are in his body, not his mind as modry. It's make sense that the fight is more a aoe fight than a complex fight in my opinion. After all, we fight what Kraka absorbed (balta) and the power of his "mate" (not really absorbed but maybe a legacy from his mate?). Must make him vulnerable with the lance before we can damage him.

There is a few question at the end of the episode that we don't know: Aurene will still be good? (she don't know herself). Taimi and her health and....Rox.

Rox wanted to tell something but we don't know what....

Really enjoyed the story and definitely love the new map. Looking forward to having my own Skyscale B)

I have to agree with Braham: Praise Joko! =)

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Angoril.2179 said:Won't go for map completion though until I have my own skyscale.

Map completion without the skyscale wasn't really that hard, except that one high point in the Pact area. Doing combinations of Bunny>#8 mastery>glider>griffon did the trick.

New map meta with elements of the best of HoT metas, plus glideable ley lines, updrafts, mushrooms, volcanic tubes, and even oakheart essence! Thank you for making HoT/LW3 players feel like we're not completely forgotten, even if you never add anything to those maps.

Liked the map--lots of variety, lots of stuff to do. Enjoyed the story, though the fight was too long for my taste.

Biggest buggy bit: where I was supposed to steer Aurene to avoid the rocks, neither the arrow or WASD keys did any noticeable steering. Not sure if using the mouse actually steered, or just changed the camera angle.

Thanks you for not listening to the people who said bringing Aurene back would be cheap, cheesy and trite. I wanted my little dragon back.

Biggest disappointment:Taimi-- Hey, go check out my new research assistant.Commander-- Research assistant? Oh, my, whoever could it be?Me-- Phlunt! Phlunt! Let it be Phlunt!Commander-- Oh, hi, Braham.Me-- Awwwwww.....

(Also, Zojja should have been there to see Snaff avenged.)

While I am disappointed Aurene's death was not left to stand, I am pleased with how her resurrection was handled. That was VERY clever storytelling.The new map is AMAZING.The story was really short. Good, but short.The final fights were, to be honest, poor quality. "Use Plot Device To Win" mechanics are bad. I was happy to see that there were 3 fights in the end that we could not use our OP spears of "Use your Limit Break to Win," but those fights were pushovers. Please look at adding a bit more challenge to final fights. The battles with Mordremoth and Balthazar were much more satisfying and challenging. Don't get me wrong. The release as a whole was enjoyable enough to give this a pass, but please don't do this again. This was reminiscent of the Zaitan fight. Give us fights we can actually lose if we're watching Anime on the other monitor.I am excited to see FoW, Underworld, and Melandru areas, but... Please stop repeating Marionette / Silverwastes / Auric Bason / Dragon's Stand map metas. Yes, they are nice. But I would like to see some innovation beyond lane 1, 2, or 3 in the future. There has got to be a way to do a mapwide meta that does not funnel people into lanes, or at least does so in a more organic manner. I realize this is asking for something innovative when I have no suggestions on how to do so, but there just has to be some other way to have an exciting map meta, don't you think?There are now 8 mounts and we are still missing an underwater mount that will likely bring it up to 9 at some point. Please look at some of the Radial mount selection mods that the community has made and create an official one for the game.Looking forward to seeing where this is going in season 5.

@Valaraukar.7652 said:Rox wanted to tell something but we don't know what....That shes staying with the Olmakhan, she will not be going back with us, and she didnt.

Oh it is? i miss it, thank's^^

10/10 Loved the story, the timegate on the skyscale sucks but kinda makes sense. BUT the map mobs need to be nerfed a little we had a group of 4 peeps and it was hard to get from one place to the next without literally sticking to eachother like glue, and its even worse for events.

ALSO ALSO, Did anyone else notice Kralkatorrik said "mother..." as he was passing away? We know that glint is aurenes mother and Kralk is glints father. So does this mean there is an elder elder dragon? Will we meet the mother of elder dragons???? Like how are people NOT talking about this little piece of dialogue and why didn't our character remark on it????????!!!!

Complete side note since we know nothing of season 5 so far: Will we ever meet the wizard is kessix hills in his floating castle??? Cause there is literally a whole village/town based near that floating castle and he brings people to his castle and gives the village/town elementals that keep them safe. like in the 6 years or so of gw2 we still have yet to see that wizard. Are we not concerned with this??? Also is elementalist considered a wizard? Or would a wizard be a class all on its on???? I have so many questions and theres no answers.

Yes i noticed it too that he was saying mother.

Maybe we will meet her or maybe he just say that by nostalgia.But i find interesting what kraka was saying in the battle. He was corrupted and his "good side" was seeming wise.

So from where come the corruption? Ancestral dragon wasn't maybe in the beginning killing machines.