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In the brandstorm, I spent a few seconds trying to figure out why they are invulnerable, those purple crystals on a purple pulsating light effects, I am not that sensitive with lights but this one takes the cake.In the last boss fight, taimi said I have to short circuit the two orbs in the arena. I thought I have to pull them closer. I tried...then I realized I need those conduits.. Also, on the survive the scruffy´s tantrums on the last phase, there is so much stuff going on my screen, explosions, rotating lightning balls, red pulsating aoe, timed red aoe, fires.. that my head hurt, literally and I am not even tired. Hmm, now I am wondering if I can just glide down when the last phase is happening.

But I have to admit, I enjoyed trying to figure out what was happening on my screen but not the headache.

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Positives:

  • Nice map, although map "zoning" and separation to individual "themes" is sometimes a little bit too much obvious (Modri caverns). Also probably the nicest map part (Churhirr Cliffs) is just a barely used.
  • Quite surprising story, I also liked the mass fights in some parts of the story, it was a nice difference in opposite of previous story parts. Also "certain", pretty large area off the main map was a nice surprise and it is a little bit shame it is inaccessible otherwise.
  • I liked certain collectible item which can be picked up later in the story, which looks like a book page after activation. I wish for more items like that (instead of common one line records where you must continually click "read on..." to get the whole content, like all other books, journals, tablets, etc. in the game)
  • The little details, the general flow and execution.
  • The new wallet/keychain.

Negatives:

  • Some bosses in the story instances have probably too much HP. It is a challenge, but when you are doing it too long, it starts to become rather annoying than challenging. The last phase of the last "boss" fight seemed a little bit too much. There is no clear what to do and the whole platform filled with AOEs is pointless.
  • Sometimes is happening too much at once in the story instances, for example the first story instance in Amnoon: I barely had time to see there is Aurene and I never saw her until the instance end (although I tried to spot her in the sky).
  • The new mastery feels just like "let's put something there". It makes no difference in anything (except Volatile magic collecting).
  • Just a little use for Volatile magic/Kralkatite, vendors have nothing really interesting. No real motivation to collect it.
  • Brandstone multitool feels just like something that is occupying another slot in the inventory.
  • Part of the meta-events feels they are made just for the farming.
  • Map achievements feels unrewarding (most of them gives just one point and nothing else (items, titles, etc.) ). Most of them are quite easy, so I understand there cannot be large rewards, but now it just lower the motivation to do them (even just the higher amount of points may help).

In general: I like the new addition, how it is made (story, map) and the level of polishing. But, at this moment, I doubt I will return there too often.

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I'm on the last step of the story. The boss I just fought was kinda hard, but I finally won.

LikesReally enjoy the map (wide and tall), lots of ways to move around. The grass and colors in the SW corner are great, and the ruins. Love pirates. Good mix of sunny stuff and 'emo' lands, something for everyone. The metas are fun and rewarding. The story (up to First City, I think it's called, something like that) is great. I especially love there are lots of achievements, as well as hidden achievements, so you aren't 'pinched' to get the meta done. Compared to something like Bitterfrost Frontier, where you pretty much had to do everything on the list, even if they were things you weren't so good at.

Key chain, awesome...but then...

Not So MuchPretty minor things. I find the bosses a little hard, personally. Actually, I had a good time with the first one, and was able to do the achievements okay (except 12 minutes). I failed the "don't let him heal" achievement on the 2nd (?) boss, but he wasn't too tough. The woman where you are in the personal story where that one meta takes place (the last thing I did before where I'm at now, which is First City, something like that), she was super tough. And it was maybe that I didn't understand the mechanics, but she took me a really long time to kill. I can help with breakbars, but I'm not like Captain Breakbar, and I'm just never going to make a character like that. I like the abilities I like, and the weapons I like, and apparently, that leaves me with 'some' breakbar, but not a lot, and more passive than active. Oh well.

I don't like that you made a LW4 portal tome. If you needed/wanted to 'in-game monetize' it, so it was something to work for with the new currencies, then you should have 'also' introduced a Portal Library or Portal Volume book to buy, that holds the books. Because we need 'one' portal thing. We don't need 2, and then 3, and then ?. A Portal Volume could have an entry for each book, and when you pick that, then you see what's in each book. Since it's one per expansion (at this point), I don't envision you'd end up with so many expansions they all wouldn't fit on the first page (8-10).

Other than the new tome without a volume, and still wondering why Personal Story bosses have to be so tricky, I really enjoy everything so far! Assuming I'm still breathing, looking forward to seeing the synergy the person with the new role in keeping the LW4 stories tighter brings to the table.

Update: Finished the last step of the story, and that was a really fun area, including and especially the last fight. So reflecting back to the whats-her-name fight, I guess it was all fine, and the difficulty was maybe a bit nitpicky in "Not So Much". :)

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! I wanted to dedicate a big ol' post giving the writing team huge props for what I think has, in one episode, made Joko a frontrunner for THE most frightening and compelling antagonist GW2 has seen.

! First, you guys set us up brilliantly. Outside the Bone Wall, we get an unfiltered view of the horrors Joko inflicts on the Elonian people. There's no doubt this is an atrocious tyrant we're dealing with. But then we get to Vabbi, and you gave us two months to fall under its spell, to normalize us to its myriad absurdities. The larger-than-life statues, the laughable lies being taught as "history," the people who seem genuinely devoted to Joko. We never quite lose sight of the lie, but everything's so over the top and "quaint" it's hard to take seriously. ("Praise Joko!") Even for those who don't have context for Joko from GW1 (and the general consensus seems to be he was a bit more hammy then), Joko is so clearly full of himself it all (misleadingly) diminishes his threat.

! In retrospect, too, our face-to-face introduction with him underscores this. I think it was absolutely critical that we first encounter Joko when he's in a state of powerlessness. There he is, in a cage and alternating between preening and hissing threats...but we know he got himself stuck there, and we know better than to take his offers. Of course we're smug. Of course we laugh. I don't think there was any doubt in players' minds that Joko would try to make good on his threats, but it was like... "I'd like to see you try, Palawa. So long!"

! I really appreciate that you guys followed up with Joko right away with Daybreak, too. One of my biggest heartaches with GW2 story overall is the sense that a lot of storylines are started...and then it takes so long for them to be picked up again we begin to wonder if you guys had forgotten. S3 tied up a lot of GW1 loose ends and that was great, but when it wasn't doing that the narrative jumping around made it feel unfocused at times. POF has been the strongest, staying on course with the main threat (Balthazar) while quietly setting up rich pathways for the next Big Threat. To have that payoff already unfolding - without rushing; I think it was perfect to have no actual appearance by Joko - is so satisfying. I can't tell if we're chasing Joko or if he's chasing us. Probably both.

! Penultimate point: The bread crumb trail you left for us to realize Joko was back was fantastically done. We know with Balthazar gone, Joko SHOULD be free (and the line that hints that in POF sidestepped both the pitfalls of 'easily missed' and 'we're hitting you over the head with it') , but our character doesn't confirm it so we're left to wonder. Then you take us to a region that hasn't seen Joko for even longer than on the mainland, so when we hear about "someone CLAIMING to be Joko" we feel more suspicious, but again, we can't be sure. You guys didn't just hand a confirmation to us, and the information we were given in Daybreak was in line with what the player characters and the NPCs would logically know. GW2 is seeing more and more effective "showing" over "telling" and it makes me really happy.

! I was (and still am) hyped for Joko. But when his voice came through on that comm, I felt the blood drain from my face. I love that we got stuck in a boss fight immediately after, and couldn't answer Taimi right away because of it. I've honestly never tried to kill a boss so fast before, because - beyond an actual timer counting down - time truly felt of the essence. My character and I emotionally felt very in sync this patch, as well. The last two instances were genuinely upsetting, but in that good way high quality storytelling does. I doubt anyone's laughing about Joko now!

! This has been quite the spiel, but I'm justifying it because among all the biggest antagonists we've been through - Zhaitan, Scarlet, Mordremoth, Balthazar - this is a time I've felt truly and personally threatened by one. Scared of one. Ready to take REVENGE on one. Joko is nuanced and compelling, and even when I expected him to make a move, he still managed to put one over me. Truly excellent. I'm so energized by where this is going.

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Played before the nerf.

It was easy and smoothly ( boss fights could have been difficult but it's ok i guess ), and both the map and the instances were good.The new map is indeed a good mix, and even though i still didn't play the meta ( except some events ) i managed to explore it all with my griffon.

About the story itself, i didn't like it that much for some reasons.

1.Braham random apparition with a change of behavior ( the last time we saw him it was pretty different ). It does not fix that good, and it's apparition seemed a little forced ( Batman? )

  1. Taimi's kidnap. There was no chance that Taimi could have been killed, and even if the story wanted a Deux Ex Machina in order to develop portals, there would have been plenty ways. Shortly, it was like "Oh, Taimi was kidnapped. Oh well there's no way she's going to die because reasons".
  2. Pirates which throw away they safety in order to get back their coin. The most reasonable choice would have been they bring in the commander and then wait at their base for his return. Really, it's senseless.

You can do better than this, though the map and instances are really cool!

Ps: Thanks for lowering the number of Hearts. Trust me that many players are thanking you for this.

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The amount of story content exceeded my expectations. I'm very happy with that

The keywallet is a huge improvement

Storage-slot for new materials right on launch, flawless

The new legendary focus looks awesome and clearly needs a shinier counterpart, just like Genesis is a shinier counterpart to the Entropy hammer skin

Awesome to see profession specific option return to the stage with the prison break

Also awesome that the game had a small dialogue-snippet on my character being an asura

The story was OK-ish. Maybe I'm just getting kinda sick of the commander basing so many of the decisions on Taimis research or the next deus ex machina. It wasn't as bad in PoF, but right in the first instance, when asked on how he/she is planning to proceed against Kralkatorik, the commander says he/she hoped Taimi had a clue. Instead of waiting for Agent Kito coming out of stealth to deus ex machina us a few infos and diffusing a tense situation, the commander could have gone to the order of shadows and try to gather intel from them

The first new mastery was really disappointing. Unlock to collect the new currency. A few interesting movementskills or -abilities for our mounts would have been nice: Double leap with the raptor through the air, mount your skimmer underwater and cling to it as it rockets up to the surface, double jump with the springer if you didn't charge a jump completely, stuff like that. Something that's useable on all maps, not just the new LW-map

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As always, the GFX artists in this game have produced some stunning art work,

It actually took me a minute to realise exactly where in the game world we where now ( ref GW1 noob island ) the final mission in this chapter was a throw back for sure, my group all being GW1 players had a great time going threw that map, it makes me interested to see where we are heading next.

All we need now is a couple of new classes ;) Dervish would be nice =)

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I really enjoyed the story and though I haven't played the first guild wars I like the Nightfall references. Also I'm always a fan of pirates a drinking grog.

Unfortunately what I dislike the most, is the ending boss fight. I am all for making boss fights have an intense and climactic experience to them. But these fights against legendary mobs with millions of hit points and abilities that fill the screen become very very boring after 5-10 minutes of soloing them. This was also what I disliked about the path of fire story, as I spent over half an hour on just fighting the final boss solo and it became very annoying. By comparison the champion boss that appears at the beginning took less time to beat and Aurene's appearance was used to great effect, which I enjoyed.

You have great and engaging story. Please don't lessen this experience with incredibly long boss fights.

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I thought it was fantastic. The new Mastery mechanic was a little "meh," but that's ok for now, I just wish we had a better idea of what the "theme" of the masteries will be this season. The new map is great, lots of verticality, beautiful design work, themeing, color, etc.. The story, WOW. My heart was pounding at the end of the penultimate mission, and then during the entire final boss fight I was shaking. It didn't go quite the way I thought,

 

I was worried we'd have a "Silence in the Library" situation going on, which I dreaded, but it was definitely compelling.

 

One thing that did kind of annoy me, and tends to annoy me in a lot of these encounters, is what an HP sponge the bosses are. Every boss fight overextended its welcome. I'm playing a Staff Daredevil with an Ascended weapon, half Ascended and Exotic armor, full Ascended trinkets and backpack, mostly offensive stats, and it still takes me ages to wear down boss HP. The mechanics themselves are fun, but when you have to deal with each one 5-10 times between phases it just gets a bit tedious. I wish that bosses had like 50-75% as much HP as they currently do, or even make it so that they have much lower HP, but more periods of relative invulnerability, so that it's about avoiding their mechanics and tagging them while they're open, not on having crazy DPS when that moment comes.

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I've really enjoyed the new Season so far, especially as aGW1 player! But I gotta say, the amount of CC during the Wyvern fight in the first instance is just completely and utterly ridiculous. There was no need for that amount of CC. Anet, you seriously need to tone it down with the CC on boss encounters, because the Wyvern fight was the most unfun, frustrating boss fight I've ever had in the entire game. It wasn't hard, but it was seriously annoying. Almost every single one of its attacks had a knock back or launch attached to it, along with environmental CC. Seriously, stop it.

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@sephiroth.4217 said:I like how you made Joko a sick kitten. The map is beautiful.

Why are there no updrafts? Does gliding not exist anymore?

Why Volatile Magic? Is Unbound Magic useless now?

Updraft and gliding is something hot related.Since the expansions are standalone they won't put anything that players which only own pof couldn't use.

Volatile magic is the new currency for ls4, as unbound magic was for LS3. Simply and neat.Depends the items you want to get, you will farm different zones and magic.

Praise Joko, fool.

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I enjoyed the story but the zone has one issue for me.Can we start making new weapon skins use multiple maps with the main one being the new map it was released with. Like req tokens you could get from doing events in base tyria, some karma, gold, and tokens from events in the map the said skin comes out with. So we are not just mindlessly farming one area for days on end for stuff like [&CukeAAA=]
SunscytheWhich is now 200-300g because it is only available from istan and has a low drop rate. Its not fun to just sit around farming the same event over and over for crates. Give us some variety so we get to go to a few different zones. Also making it cost tokens from multiple zones, gold, and karma..... and being purchasable not a endlessly random drop would make it feel not so much like gambling ur time away farming but instead working toward a goal much like legendary weapons are like. Of course the majority % of the tokens you need would be from events from the new map released along side said skins or gear. The skins need not be legendary but just the fact you get to go to multiple zones and have a 100% chance not some low drop chance... would make getting these skins much more fun and populate other zones that are normally quite empty.

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My impressions are very mitigated.

I found the last step of the storyline too "heavy". For an average player like myself, who has it hard to solo storylines in general, with a caster, the final fight is terribly long in time and really hard to manage. That was really crazy for me and I was exhausted when I finally finished it, after long long time (too ashamed to tell how long... :p ).

I really do enjoy the landscape of the new area. Lot of climbing possible. I do love that there is a lot of green (Elona is so dry...). I especially like that the configuration is not done to favorize one mount or the other. All mounts work well there. That's really good. I was afraid that one mount could possibly get favorized and become sort of mandatory. I am glad it is not the case.I also appreciate that the foes density is back to something fair enough and that foes seem to break aggro a bit more "normally" than in Elona.I would have liked more scavenger hunts.I had big fun at the events I did up to now. I have not seen them all yet.

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@Shirlias.8104 said:

@sephiroth.4217 said:I like how you made Joko a sick kitten. The map is beautiful.

Why are there no updrafts? Does gliding not exist anymore?

Why Volatile Magic? Is Unbound Magic useless now?

Updraft and gliding is something hot related.Since the expansions are standalone they won't put anything that players which only own pof couldn't use.

Volatile magic is the new currency for ls4, as unbound magic was for LS3. Simply and neat.Depends the items you want to get, you will farm different zones and magic.

Praise Joko, fool.

I'm too old to keep up with all the currencies, there's too many.

I've done my daily praise to Joko today already but my comment was a compliment, I love sick twisted characters.

I love how he turned her creation against her in a manner of a slow death for herself while she was supposed to watch her friends die by her very hands.

 

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I loved it.

The new map has it all! Three farms/metas (Palawadan/G. Hall/Brandstones), varied/diverse environments, memorable soundtrack, and stuff to do.

Story held some twists and surprises I loved seeing. I'm really interested in seeing Braham's character developing as we move on. Can't wait for the next episode!

Gameplay was a little frustrating at times, I guess these are the perks of min-maxing! Will try on my more durable Mirage when replaying for achievements. AoEs have the potential to be creative and defining, but most of the AoEs presented in battles were a little messy and thrown around.

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I feel obligated to mention how much better the first map of LS4 is better than most of the LS3 maps, which after a few hours turn into brainless resource farm. Domain of Istan is very similar to my favourite map - Silverwastes. There are mapwide preparations for the metaevents, chest trains, races, some resource farm - meteorites. I look forward to other episodes.

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This is the best update yet. The zone is great with a nice balance of things to do. The living story is fantastic. Everything feels like a ton of effort was put into it. This feels like a game that is really cared about rather than pushing out regurgitated content.9/10, one point off for legendary items locked behind raid bosses. I can't really raid well with satellite internet.But overall I'm more happy with the game than I have been in years. Bravo Anet!

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