Feedback: Official Living World Season 4 Episode 1 Feedback

[KWman.3012]

Finished both PoF and Daybreak story. I went to The Empty Quarter and bursted out a big LoL. It's been a tough year, I really needed that. Thank you very much.

[Shampanix.3928]

Tried to be as short as I could:

Story - 7/10 - it was decent, close to level of PoF release which I still consider top tier in GW2. I loved the encounters in instances, perhaps last one was a bit too long. Amnoon fight was thrilling!

Map - 5/10 - sorry getting bored of this aesthetics. Too many rocks to fill empty space. Appreciate the artwork which is always on very high level (otherwise I would give it 1/10). Less hearts - more fun. Thanks!

Events - 10/10 - holy smoke, great job with that metas. Best fun I had since HOT launch in terms of events. Finally something that gathers people and is not shutting down entire map, making space for everyone else who does not like meta maps. And there are bounties too! So - all I asked to happen, THANK YOU ANET <3

+++++ lot's of love for Aurene showing up during meta. This makes event feel more alive and characters from story more relevant - PLEASE DO MORE THINGS LIKE THIS IN THE FUTURE!

Mastery - 2/10 - ok, I've seen it before with better rewards. Tho it's only the first level so I'm hopeful for the future

Rewards - 4/10 - more stuff drops from metas than enitre PoF maps, which I like. Yet nothing special found this far to work for, which is meh.

Meteor hunt - 1/10 - tried couple of times, had no luck to get there on time. Maybe finally I'll lern how to do it, marking very low cus no luck this far. EDIT: managed to do it, it's great! Would love to know what is it useful for in long shot, new weapons set from datamining perhaps? 10/10

Keys go to wallet - 10/10 - you know I love you, right? :)))

Lore book UI - 10/10 - I love lore... add library to home instance or something, it's great!

New fractal - 8/10 - high due to being related to main story and region. We lack dungeons that would expand on current region. Such fractal is a step in good direction. Not a 10/10 cus I'm moving away from fractals theese days.

New raid - ?/10 - not playing raids, sorry. Tho I'm happy our top tier players have something new to enjoy.

Overal score I'd give it 7/10It wins me with meta events and some stuff that yet I might find like skins or something to work for. And I love new QoL changes.

[Dutchdevil.6902]

If i Dont like iT I start a discussion , So when iT is good i Also have to say iT and this was good!I only wished that The expac maps where like The Living world map domain of istan.I really loge The metas in this map and there is good loot. Thats what people want and why they come back, for The grind. Anet finally Gets iT. So inrealpy hope anet updates The expac maps with this kind of content.Story was fine. Last mission was too long. But The big fight between 2 Camps was Nice and big.Fractal and raid i havent tried yet But i Love The triple release. And Its always Nice to have new raid maps

[Gustaff.6581]

Just... just ...

WHERE IS MY JUMPING PUZZLE???!!!

! Liked the story except for the part that Taimi was abducted, like..... how she got near Fahranur before the party?, i mean, the whole objective was to rescue the spearmarshal and make him tell me how to get into Fahranur, but it seems that Taimi got the free ticket into the city.!! But what i liked, these containment chambers in the final instance, like, "subject alpa-0345x", status: ACTIVE, and the ley energy core being active for 7 years. I mean, there are some experiments unleashed in Tyria and i would like to find all of them.!! And as final words, Hey, Archon Iberu, can you stay dead this time!?!?

[saventis.1485]

I have really loved this releasethe area you have taken us to is beautiful you guys are really hitting it out of the park with the different locationsthe sound design was greatBOOKS! been waiting so long, wish there was more in them but please more of thisthe missions were great. I really love how the story is flowing at the moment (and last season) I dont know whats going to happen and for me that's amazing cause i usually watch tv and play game and can tell whats gonna happen way before it does but this keeps me surprised and interestedlove the fact your not afraid to dive into stuff that most others would save for an expansion it gives a lot of weight to these releases and makes them feel incredibly substantial and not like its all just filler for the next expansioni do wish the rewards were better but i know that must be hard (it'd be amazing if you could do zone based armour or weapons something to show ur mastery of each zone would be really cool(i mean thank you for the minipets but they are kinda boring because they don't do much and a lot of people cull them anyway)(yea i know u guys had trinkets but you cant see those and there are just waaay to many backpieces now for only 1 back)love the key ring it was desperately neededthis may not be you guys but would be awesome to get some sort of trophy room/library in our home instance cause my whole inventory is bogged down with stuff im not sure if i need (i keep alot of stuff cause i hear a lot of mystic recipes using stuff but i never know what could actually be used so end up filling my inventory with junk I have 100 inventory slots on my main character and 90 are filled with stuff i'm not sure if ill ever need as well as the three bank slot tabs i have)not sure how squeezed for time you guys get but its really awesome when you guys set up scenes in out of the way and hard to find placesit makes the map and the whole game a lot more repeatable for explorers like me who love to roam around and stumble on these things ( like the swinging kid in the tree or the cats)(may be to difficult... and i know you guys do a little of this already but it'd be awesome if there was a little more)(would be more than willing to do it for you =P)sorry if this is starting to sound like a wish listagain tho this was an amazing release guys you did really wellany gripes i have are quite minor keep in mind these are just things that would be cool if you improved upon but ultimately you guys did awesome work

[Infanta.7045]

I think some of the original 'charm' that this GW1-tragic has been missing in GW2 found its way back into the franchise with the release of PoF and LW4.

I'm not sure if it's the familiar (and so beautifully re-rendered) maps, discovering the fates of old friends (finding out the identity of the Last Spearmarshall in PoF brought a tear to my eye, as did fighting the Awakened version of an old friend LW4, and Magrid's dynasty is just plain amusing), the improved (and unobtrusive) NPC dialogue system, improved writing, or a combination of all these things. Whatever it is, I'm enjoying the look, feel and playability that PoF and LW4 have brought to these latest parts, and the improvements they've made to my enjoyment of GW2 in general - I finally feel motivated to take an alt through the entire game. My disability made some parts of HoT, LW1 and LW2 practically inaccessible for me (a buddy helped me through them), however, I had little or no trouble with soloing PoF and LW4 content, particularly with the saved progress during instances. I really hated having to redo instances right from the start in earlier chapters, when I was unable to defeat the final boss, and often left them unfinished for months. I also liked always having enough MP to be able to level skills without 'burning' XP.

It's a good thing that developers take little or no notice whether we players like particular NPCs or not. Just as in real life, there are folk who annoy you and others who go our of their way to help out - sometimes both at the same time. Personally, I have no problem with Rytlock and Brahm, other than wishing they were a little more effective in battle. Rytlock's insistence on getting my commander up from downed in some boss fights made them much longer than they needed to be ... he just ignores me when I shout "Enough with the lousy healing - let me be defeated so I can Retry from a Checkpoint"! [Maybe a shout of "Enough with the lousy Healing!" could be downed skill?]

I am bemused as to why all these new junk items have been added to the game. At least some of them are now worth toting to a merchant, but really? While on the subject of junk items, how much do you think I'd love to have a "sell all minor runes" button next to the "sell all junk" on the merchant screens?

I agree with comments that some of the boss fights are way too long, how many times do we have to repeat an action for the game to know we've worked the mechanic out? Why do we always have to beat six of these and four of those, then beat them again to get more of their drops to place here and then the others there, just to get a swing at the boss?

But those are just minor annoyances in recent content that has essentially got my GW2 mojo almost to GW1 levels ... and that's saying a LOT!

[Fluffball.8307]

I don't mean to fanboy out here, but this was some of the best content I've ever played in GW2. As a relatively hard core player, I had barely logged in for like a month, delayed playing the update, and didn't even finish it until tonight, but WOW was it good. The final instance was mechanically interesting, the voice acting was on point, the GW 1 was there, everything came together. I loved it. More like this!

Only criticism was Koss was a disrespect to himself, WAAAAAAY too easy to beat.

[Dutchdevil.6902]

After i explored all expac maps with My chars and did The achievements i Dont see myself come back there. I would if The loot Rewards are like The new map domain of istan. I really hope anet Will put new Or better events in The expac maps with same amount of loot. Otherwise i think in a half Year No one is around in The expac maps.The new map is great!

The new crafting style for legendarische is better. Instead of doing The same content over you now have to craft recipe to get The precursor. So much better this. Legendaries look Nice

Raid content is awesome. Keep that up. Just like more fractals and revamps.

I still hope for new weapons amd build templates.

[Chadramar.8156]

I'm really not keen on the 100-word format. If nothing else, I'll split mine into "map" feedback and "story"-feedback.

Map: Good first impression, due to a decent variety of locales. It's mount- and glider-friendly and quite fun to move around in as a result. In terms of atmosphere, it also does a good job underlining how atrocious the Joko-regime is with or without him. The brand-metor thing seems a bit confusing though. Thumbs down for collection achievements that just sit in my inventory afterwards; PoF did such a good job letting us "consume" such items for karma. Also for the fight with Warden Amala. I also don't like that the Sunspear caches don't have location-cues in their achievement list.

Story: Stop painting Taimi as the only brain in the world. Stop letting Braham trample all over the PC as if we didn't lose and suffer more than he did, without any of the support he got. Stop making us care so much about the NPCs who in return don't even acknowledge THAT WE DIED. Give me more of Aurene and our "bond" instead of these fake friends. I'm still annoyed we didn't get a mutually emotional reunion with her. Thumbs up for her redesign and for the profession-specific moment, down for the lack of much-needed racial dialog again. Let the Commander finally be more of a character and less of a story-vehicle and NPC-enabler.

[Noa.7490]

There are times when I wish missions would ease down on the Super Mario/Megaman mechanics and fireworks super show. It would be nice sometimes to have more mature ways of going forward in storytelling. The Baldur's Gate series comes to mind.

[Chadramar.8156]

Gotta add some more: I was delighted to see Aurene doing flybys to help us during the map-metas, just as we ask her to do in the story. That's our girl! My burning question now is, where is Caithe? She did pledge herself to protecting Aurene.

[PersoEA.1409]

For the love of god. Fix the AI of your crew, they just stand there and do absolutely nothing while I am getting slaughtered by milions of minions and the last boss fight lasts soooooooo daaaaaaaamn loooooooooong.......................

[lynspottery.6529]

@PersoEA.1409 said:For the love of god. Fix the AI of your crew, they just stand there and do absolutely nothing while I am getting slaughtered by milions of minions and the last boss fight lasts soooooooo daaaaaaaamn loooooooooong.......................

^^this. I can't tell you how many times the NPCs that are supposed to "help" just stand around twiddling their thumbs and ignoring the need for combat help. Their AI needs to be improved.

The only "help" I got in the story instance was an occasional sword swing (then they stopped and stood around while I had to dodge, search and destroy necessary crystals to make the mob vulnerable to attacks), plus the "oh, gotta rez" our player because the aoe covered the entire area and there was no safe spot to dodge to.

For crying out loud Anet, fix the dopey AI for these NPCs who are supposed to help out.

[melociraptors.9835]

Pros-Loved having the ability to ask key NPCs for some additional voiced lore, such as the First Spear!! I wish we had this in other maps, as it really gave me that extra level of sensory immersion and gave me an incentive to spend time talking to NPCs.

-When setting sail on our cutscene to Istan, I could have sworn that Aurene flying next to us was actually a griffon. Felt like that might have been an intentional wink-wink nudge-nudge to future events.

-Istan itself was lovely. I’ve very much enjoyed how lively the environments feel in Elona. I was also a fan of what the jungle in HoT accomplished in its environment design and theme, but I was worried that level of detail wouldn’t translate well to the desert. Boy was I wrong. And Istan manages to differentiate itself enough from the main continent that it feels genuinely new. You managed to pack enough care and attention to detail into every point of interest. I felt compelled to spend a lot of time in certain areas just taking it all in.

-VERY happy that the new map wasn’t the ENTIRETY of Istan. Love that extra level of mystery and anticipation for more.

-Keyring. I don’t think anyone would challenge the move to free up more inventory slots. 10/10

-Introducing meta events on these maps is an incredible way to continue the secondary story and world events of the PoF era. I think that it would have been a huge mistake to have simply set aside the awakened and Joko as a threat we would deal with only after we handle Kralkatorrik. Especially when the influence of Joko in Elona has consistently been one of the most well-rounded story elements in GW2.

-KOSS!!!

-The Nyoom Glitch has been (mostly) fixed. While hilarious at times, it got to be very annoying.

CONS-sigh And this is a big one so I'll put it under a spoiler

! Braham. While I do actually like Braham’s character and understand that he does not always have to be a good and helpful character to be an interesting one, I do think he is the most poorly written out of our buddies in recent times. The impact of his outburst at us in Crack in the Ice should have probably been revisited sooner while the wounds were still fresh. I can buy that his insubordination of the commander would have left us stunned and frustrated, leaving us to think as players that “we don’t have time to deal with this kid. We have bigger problems.” But pushing the issue off throughout the rest of LWS3, a potential resolution to Braham’s actions totally fizzled. He didn’t show up to confront us in some way regarding Jormag during One Path Ends, but he really SHOULD have. Maybe with some powerful face to face dialogue, a boss fight between the two of us (how satisfying would that be), and after we defeat him in combat, we reach a resolution to help strengthen the commander and Braham’s relationship with each other. Granted, I don’t write the story for GW2, but even I think Braham should have been addressed earlier, not after the entirety of PoF when we’ve largely forgotten about him and it really doesn’t matter. I find it even less impactful that when Braham exhibits the exact same behavior AGAIN, we don’t challenge him. I realize this isn’t the time for our character to bicker with him when there are other objectives at stake. I just feel that the time to address Braham’s behavior has long since passed with the end of LWS3, and placing it here seems like an afterthought to tie up loose ends. Unless the devs are really playing a long game with Braham’s character arc that will pay off in a major way, this encounter just seems awkward.

-I’m not usually on the side of nerfing intentionally challenging content just for the sake of making it easier, but I agree with the players who are saying that the enemies’ AOE and CC on this map is far too punishing. Enemies spawn too frequently and in too high of numbers that I find myself running halfway across the map to disengage mobs just so I can get on my mount. Clearing an area to make it “safe” enough to mount up for even 30 seconds to a minute is impossible.

-Also, in the loot stage of the Palawadan meta, after we have cleared the city, why are there still so many enemies around? They seem to multiply or come out in even greater numbers after we’re supposed to have raided the place, which makes getting around to find the Supply Chests really painful while trying to dodge a million respawning loyalists.

-While the first instance battle in Amnoon was very fun and the stakes felt high, the bright purple explosions, effects, and crystals were kind of an eyesore. It was pretty tedious trying to find the purple crystals that I actually needed to destroy to take the enemy shields down when there’s SO much other purple chaos happening. Maybe tone it down a little.

[evlover.6270]

Just wondering if the economic shift for t6 mats was intended or not.If it was, good, cause they'll drop even more in the long run. if it wasn't, you might want to look into the Trophy Shipment stuff.A few days ago when I first bought quite a lot of them, they gave back over 300% of invested gold (and that's just counting t6 mats, not even bothering about t5) and now that the prices already went down quite a lot, I still get around 250% return value in t6 mats alone. Considering how easy it is to obtain Volatile magic, t6 mats slowly moving to half the price they currently are at isn't that unthinkable and I doubt it's the intention to make t6 mats 10-15s instead of the 30s they were at.Again, if that's the intention to make legy's even more common than they already are, mission accomplished. If it wasn't, you might want to run some large scale tests on opening Trophy Shipments and adjust them accordingly ;)

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

The ending fight was absolute trash.

I hate the whiny norn and I really hate the Mary Sue BS with Taimi. Its either she has all the plans in place and a super powerful exo suit or she is a victim. Pick one. She can't be both. That fight is a waste of time since the last part of it was us having to wait her out anyway. It literally soured me on going back into that map for anything else. I might not even replay it with friends at this point its bothered me that much.

[ananda.5946]

The story was fun.The writing for the npc dialogue was bad. Canach quips, Rytlock is surly, Taimi is a smart kitten. It’s caricature. (Voice actor for Taimi was really good, though. If she were given better material to work with, it could be a great character)The new map is really lovely.New weapon skins is a plus.The sunspear marshal we save is handsome. I think he should join my character on all new missions.FPS is really low in a lot of places on the new map. Hopefully that can be fixed as it reduces desire to be on the map despite it being lovely.Poor Koss. :(A little too much was going on at the end of the final fight. Red circles everywhere and no time to look for a solution. The solutions to the rest of the puzzles in that instance were perfect.

Overall, I liked it except the writing and the low fps. Thanks!

[MFoy.3284]

Overall, I liked it. The story was well enough paced, the map is just super and the fights were fun. One last thing: Moar Taimi

[Drew.1865]

I died twice trying to open the map fighting the dragon. I got frustrated and logged out and haven’t tried it again. I don’t like the way you have to fight a mini boss to open the maps for LS. I might’ve been doing something wrong but I wasn’t having fun.

To be fair I’m bad and a clicker who plays this as a solo game lol.

[Mahou.3924]

• Loved the story
• The voice acting was great. As someone who's a huge Taimi fan,

  ! her desperate comments were heart-wrenching

• Mix of aphaty and "hate" for Blablawa Lameko.
• Boss fights were mostly alright-ish. I usually die a couple of times, and this time was probably too hasty against the final fight in LS4.
• But, I'm not too much a fan of cluttering the ground with AoE attacks in whatever form.
• I don't raid, do fractals so no comment here.

[Ashantara.8731]

Story:

• As with PoF, the story missions were the most enjoyable part... except for the one where we meet Awakened Koss (it was boring, Koss deserved a much better story implementation). My favorite by far was the prison escape (although it could have been longer, filled with puzzles).
• Whiny Taimi on the comm is 500% more annoying than usual Taimi.
• Got a good laugh out of the Indiana Jones ("That belongs in a museum!") and other references.

Map:

• Excellent design work. Not a big fan of the (once more) vertical layout; still haven't bothered to figure out what the Sand Jackal portals are for and where they lead.

Map Content:

• Events seem chaotic as usual. Where is the logical connection, where is the guidance? The same reason I haven't participated in most PoF events yet, let alone those bounties. Find a better system.
• Enemy mobs still annoying (you can't properly explore places in peace, it's always hectic), but at least most have a less absurd aggro range than in PoF.

Other content:

• Didn't find the new raid instance by myself. Where is it? (Yes, I know, I could look it up, but that's the thing: people always need to do research on their own because your game provides zero guidance for anything apart from the story.)
• New currencies, new ways of acquiring ascended and legendary gear -- I find your approach chaotic and it leaves me disinterested in the new stats and new equipment, to be honest.

[TheUndefined.1720]

Pros:

1. Koss!!!
2. Intrigue: Corsairs, Sunspears, Koss, etc.
3. Istan / environment: Varied environments, wide open spaces for mounts
4. Story - tying characters together, introducing / keeping newer Elona characters
5. Pacing - felt long enough without trailing on
6. Boss designs - Warden avatars, Koss, Wyvern
7. Hearts - felt like I made a difference

Cons:

1. Boss fights - too many back to back spam / non-uninterruptible moves / aoes, too high hp pool
2. Bad fight encounters - spam inquest zombies with useless heroes standing around
3. Not enough new story characters - too much Braham, move on from old characters stick with Kito, Zaiem, Sayida, etc..

Overall 7/10, it was entertaining, although very frustrating at times.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

Didn't find the official thread when I was searching, so I am re-posting from the unofficial thread, hope that's okay.

I would like it if they tweaked the event, 'Stop the book-burning raid on the Astralarium library.'Short Version Why: Victory conditions are very unsatisfying

This event, with its huge-health-pool mobs, seems to be set up as what should ideally be a large-goup event in an area where there are usually only a few people taking part. It is still possible to 'win' with just that handful, but...the victory timer is for how many books the Mordant Crescent has burned. So when you get to the end of it, it's like, "Well, they burned five hundred books, but I saved four. Yay, me!" It is not a feel-good ending. It's a pat on the back for us when Joko has actually won.

Possible changes, any one of which could make this a more satisfying event:

1. Change the timer to 'Time till the fire is lit' and have the books being piled or tossed into an unlit furnace or something instead of tossed directly into the flames. This gives the hero a chance to save ALL the books. Happier ending with no nerf, but would probably take some work. Maybe there could be torch-bearers we have to stop, like those annoying D.O.X. golems in Rata Novus who keep firing up the defense turrets while we're fighting the boss.
2. Lose the high-health-pool mobs. I know I am not a high-DPS player, but I have followed some of those targeted book-burners, blasting away at one from the library to the bottom of the staircase, and barely made a dent in its health bar. All a solo or small group can hope for is to use CC and delaying tactics enough to squeak by running down the timer, when almost all the books have been burned.
3. Give the event a reward that will attract larger groups of players. Currently, there is no reason to even bother with this event apart from being in the library when it happens and hating book-burners.

[lynspottery.6529]

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:Didn't find the official thread when I was searching, so I am re-posting from the unofficial thread, hope that's okay.

I would like it if they tweaked the event, 'Stop the book-burning raid on the Astralarium library.'Short Version Why: Victory conditions are very unsatisfying

This event, with its huge-health-pool mobs, seems to be set up as what should ideally be a large-goup event in an area where there are usually only a few people taking part. It is still possible to 'win' with just that handful, but...the victory timer is for how many books the Mordant Crescent has burned. So when you get to the end of it, it's like, "Well, they burned five hundred books, but I saved four. Yay, me!" It is not a feel-good ending. It's a pat on the back for us when Joko has actually won.

Possible changes, any one of which could make this a more satisfying event:

1. Change the timer to 'Time till the fire is lit' and have the books being piled or tossed into an unlit furnace or something instead of tossed directly into the flames. This gives the hero a chance to save ALL the books. Happier ending with no nerf, but would probably take some work. Maybe there could be torch-bearers we have to stop, like those annoying D.O.X. golems in Rata Novus who keep firing up the defense turrets while we're fighting the boss.
2. Lose the high-health-pool mobs. I know I am not a high-DPS player, but I have followed some of those targeted book-burners, blasting away at one from the library to the bottom of the staircase, and barely made a dent in its health bar. All a solo or small group can hope for is to use CC and delaying tactics enough to squeak by running down the timer, when almost all the books have been burned.
3. Give the event a reward that will attract larger groups of players. Currently, there is no reason to even bother with this event apart from being in the library when it happens and hating book-burners.

I think this idea is worth a review by Anet. Personally, I did this event only once and gave up when I realized how fruitless my efforts were. I've not been back and when I am in the area when this event is going on, I do other things or leave. This particular event is really a non-event in my eyes.

[Shard.4791]

MINOR RAID SPOILERSI dislike(d) the reusing of flesh golem skins in the raid mostly in b4. The skin can be used by PCs so it felt weird and it reminded of the godly gw1 skin that there was imo a chance to reintroduce. Renaming Aatxes was weird too and idk if there's an explanation for the smite crawler renaming.

Hall of chains location is one of the major things I wanted. I wished for a solo way to farm UW for valuables too and I'm hopeful we'll get one eventually.

I like how stealth can be used in the raid and I hope that aspect won't get ENTIRELY deleted.