Official Feedback Thread: LWS4 Episode 5: All or Nothing

[Hybarf Tics.2048]

@Chomsky.4971 said:I was going to make some comments on the maps and content but in truth, I simply can't be bothered because the ending was so abrupt and disheartening. If I play at all now, it will be to log in for daily then log out. No heart for the game at all. If you plan to rectify the rubbish cliff hanger, you better do it fast before we find something else to spend our time and money on. Not clever guys, not clever at all.

You're taking this too seriously your character is still unconscious for the next 3 month or even in a coma. Aurene is fit as a fiddle and licking your sorry face trying to wake you up. It's a great ending Anet thumbs up and the joke is on those who fell for it. :pToo many of you are taking this too seriously it's only a dream state cliffhanger, trust me on this, you all need to just chill. B)

[Deogi.6537]

Working on the Heroic Dragonsblood Focus and I have done all three deeds, but the achievement list is showing I need to do deed 3 to move onto the vision crystal. My achievements show I did all three deeds? it's blocking progress.

[Willowsheart.7940]

@Hybarf Tics.2048 said:You're taking this too seriously your character is still unconscious for the next 3 month or even in a coma. Aurene is fit as a fiddle and licking your sorry face trying to wake you up. It's a great ending Anet thumbs up and the joke is on those who fell for it. :pToo many of you are taking this too seriously it's only a dream state cliffhanger, trust me on this, you all need to just chill. B)

I really do hope that is the case...................

[Ashantara.8731]

@Hybarf Tics.2048 said:to me what we see at the end of the 5th episode is your character's unconscious interpretation, as in her worst nightmarish scenario made manifest. I say this because it looks like the same dream state with no UI and also because she was thrown over 100 hundred feet away because of the force of the explosion.

What we are seeing there is the Commander with a serious brain concusion (hence the distorted audio and blurry tunnel vision), probably with internal injuries as well. I doubt it's just a nightmare we are having in a state of unconsciousness, sorry.

[Ashantara.8731]

Fix the kitten purple room already! Other players are constantly blocking your progress, so you lose your LoD and cannot receive the final reward chest. You have wasted time on the daily metas, lost 6g, and your nerves get wrecked over the sheer frustration of those other players not listening to your solution of the problem!

It's been a week, so do something, ANet!

[Squeak.7093]

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:I'm only past the first instance and I'm already frustrated with the achievements. Particularly Power Player. It says "Charge three crystals with the magic of veteran Branded foes." That's not vague at all. The vets don't drop crystals, so I have to drag them in? Do I have to complete the charge with the vet kill or can I kill the vet at any time before the crystal fills? Can I pull them all to any one crystal, or do I have to keep them separate when I kill them?

I hate this achievement. It demands that I somehow avoid the soft-bodied fodder monsters that indiscriminately swarm me as I slowly tick away at an immobile tank, hoping to never cleave down or accidentally kill any of the other monsters, lest I fail the achievement and have to continually log in an out over and over again. And that is assuming that I even know what to do. I'm going to have to come in to this episode specifically with a specially made build on a completely different class, because otherwise this achievement is impossible.

I swear this is RNG as hell. Trying not to die until the 10th wave of mobs before I saw the first veteran. Then another 8 waves before the second. Meanwhile my partner managed to get all three within the first 6 waves. Nice rng there, Anet.

[perilisk.1874]

@Ashantara.8731 said:Fix the kitten purple room already! Other players are constantly blocking your progress, so you lose your LoD and cannot receive the final reward chest. You have wasted time on the daily metas, lost 6g, and your nerves get wrecked over the sheer frustration of those other players not listening to your solution of the problem!

It's been a week, so do something, ANet!

Sell the plates to people that have to have everything now.

[gaelen.9185]

What are the actual requirements for "Like a Wounded Beast" achievement?

[Lupini.6938]

That ending...um. Not sure I can/want to go back to work in achievements.uses the Exalted Portal Stone

[lockheedlight.5910]

There were some cool new camera stuff that was fun. Final boss fight was interesting and fun. I disconnected during the final fight and was so happy that when I restarted the mission I had not lost much progress (props to whoever made those checkpoints). After Kralk blew branded stuff everywhere in the final fight, the camera went crazy and I had to turn off camera shake.

Now to the real reason I took the time to log in and make this post. I was really enjoying this episode. The build up to the final fight was good. I was having a great time right until Aurene got offed in the last couple moments of the episode. Really tired of character after character being killed off. I was all set up for an amazing episode. But that ending really soured the whole episode. I was going to spend the evening playing GW2, but I logged off shortly after finishing the episode. Life is discouraging enough without having a game I play for fun take such a discouraging turn too. Made me not want to play anymore (not sure how long this feeling will last). First time a living story mission in this game left me wanting to stop playing rather then keep playing after I finished the main story.

Anyways, just wanted to get this off my chest. Vent a little. Just feeling such a mixture of emotions. I realize this is longer than 50-100 words, but I figure this is ok. No one reads pasts the first couple pages anyways.

[Carighan.6758]

I'll be honest: This was pretty disappointing.

It never really connected with me, the episode had so many great moments but never did anything with them:

• For one, this was the chance to make us feel like the "Commander", not some lowest-paygrade worker going around doing menial busywork. What did we do though? Lots of busywork.
• Second, the final fight was super confusing, had a lot of technical problems and clipped me into terrain so often I think being not clipping into somewhere should be considered the bugged "non-normal" state at this point :pensive:
• There was a lot of problems with wanting to make me care about certain elements (e.g. Caithe), but due to the briefness of each episode and how they have to be self-contained, everything only ever lasts 5-15 minutes. You can't make care in 5-15 minutes!
• The new zone has pretty parts, but feels really hacked together, the sub-zones don't seem to belong with one another really.
• The hearts are - as always - uninspired and really should not be repeatable because they ask you to do some of the most boring tasks in the game, daily. Granted this is not a problem unique to this episode but again an episode goes by without either abolishing repeatable hearts or at least improving them substantially.
• The events are slightly better than in past season-4 zones, but still pretty meh. No comparison to the huge map-swinging chains older zones had. No comparison to temple event chains before multiserver mergers.
• Nevermind the two metas, they seem really lazy, and having two dailies rely on the same thing is just... :frown:
• It's super-sad that after the old way of doing living story was dropped, everything is now always frozen in time. Zoning out of the final story into the open zone which doesn't acknowledge what just happened completely kills any and all emotional impact of it. :scream:

However, there are some positive elements to it, too. For one, the new mount skill is super-fun and allows some really cool combinations. Also, that Dredge in the SW corner!

[Chay.7852]

8/10Like:

• Story
• Map (a very nice mix of caves, old ruins and "real" open world)
• Meta Events
• Puzzles (actually love the dwarven rooms - each a nice puzzle - just dont like map completition locked behind them)

Not Like:

• Map completition locked behind meta events and/or Story
• maybe just a small thing but still - while i love the skritt and the way they were implemented in this chapter, i dont like that they now talk like quaggans (no, i dont like quaggans) - the skritt didnt talk of themselves in 3rd person like the quaggans before, pls dont change them to quaggan 2.0

[Borkko.8796]

Good work as usual I think. As for the story, it is sad but to be continued, so we will see how it turns out.North meta is very taxing on my PC, not as bad as Serpent's Ire, but close second it seems.With details set on lowest you can't see AoE that insta downs you (this happens in other places too, fractals for example) so that doesn't help.Lots of visual "noise", the Brand, many mobs and plenty of players in relatively small area. Bugs have been mentioned already so, everything considered, very enjoyable episode.

[Calanthe.3857]

@Zychuu.7294 said:Episode was great, loved cinematic camera on Kralkatorrik fight, can't really say much more right now. I kinda hope for Aurene to STAY dead(Yeah I'm a monster I know D:). I liked her, but Just please don't make character death into something completely meaningless and easily reversible by plot.

One more thing... in that scene where we were discussing the last details of the battle with Rytlock and Logan at the table, and Caithe not far away, again with the team, so pretty much most of what if left of Destiny's Edge I realised how stupid is the fact that Zojja is STILL missing for some irrelevant to plot IRL reasons....

Agreed on the first point. If a character dies, they shouldn't always get a free pass out of the afterlife.

[Iyva.6354]

Some people try to farm the mobs during the Thunderhead Keep meta step “Repel invading Branded, and kill them near the charging crystals to fill the resonance crystal” and intentionally kill them far away from the crystals, which is pretty annoying for everyone who just wants to do the meta.

Would be nice if the mobs would spawn closer to the crystals and always be in their range or maybe make the mobs not drop anything if they are not close enough to the crystal (or just let them not drop anything in general during this part of the meta).

[Menadena.7482]

@Svez Poizon XD.5268 said:Let's say this is some SPOILER (Criticism about this episode)

! In the ep 4 we saw aurene's vision of future and there wasn't way she could survive that fight. Also in the end of same ep4 we got some info how Taimi is going to die bcs of her disease. Why are you so focused killing dear characters, what is point of that? New ls5 or new expansion, so let's delete old good/best stuff and make new????! Finally after 3,5 months *clap clap you did it, you finished Aurene, so when will Taimi die? We already know there will be ep6 where probably Kralkatorik gonna die 99% chance so you left us heartbroken and waiting for nothing(all or NOTHING), we already know what will happen and yeah in a 4 months because you aren't Blizzard you are Arenanet. What will be after you kill all dragons and after you kill all heros? Put your own personal real life character into the game and kill it, i would gladly play that episode!

 

Yes, I refuse to completely play this episode specifically because of how it ends. I have no wish to see Aurene die. If the same happens to Taimi odds are I will not just not complete the episode ... I will be looking for a new game. Watching dear friends (even NPCs) die is not my idea of fun.

 

[Calanthe.3857]

I for one liked the ending. It was deliciously dark and realistic and, best of all, unexpected.

Like some other(s) said, though, I was surprised the heroes decided to try to kill Kralkatorrik. It had previously been pointed out to them how hazardous killing the elder dragons is because of the after-effects. So it didn't make sense that nobody questioned this directive. Also, if killing Kralkatorrik is good, then wasn't it a mistake to stop Balthazar from doing it?

It could be that the heroes are moving into greater depths of moral ambiguity. This would be interesting.

[Calanthe.3857]

@"Ordin.9047" said:The ending made my 10 yr old daughter cry herself to sleep. Thats not really cool IMO. I c an't say that I'm itching to get back to playing GW2 for a while myself.

Section 9, part (d) of the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement specifically states that, "You acknowledge that the Game is not intended for minors under age 13, and You will not allow access to the Game, or the viewing of any display thereof, by any minor under age 13."

[Quasko.3491]

Absolutely amazing:

• New map, dwarven areas are pretty, dredge are kind, there's a lot of skritt. I even love Frodak and his awful door plates.
• Character dynamics, it feels like they are living their own lives, not just jump around Commander. It's awesome they're in Meta events now and I love victoriously fleeing for my life.
• The dragonsblood spears are really satisfying to use but they are so far from boss at the north meta. They are pretty overpowered so I suppose they can't be too common but I'd love to use them more.
• Oooh, the story sequence before final fight was amazing, talking to all our soldiers, I'm so happy Osa Ekolo is sticking around! And all those soldiers are cheering each other up, it's really heart-warming as well!
• Great idea to give the Commander the role of scouts, explaining layout of the map to the party!
• Logan's new armor
• So I complained about Zafirah before but I really appriciate her now, both her sudden help and her despair at the end. Smelling Balthie in Aurene was kinda creepy but it's fine in the end. I'm surprised though she isn't mad at her like she was at us.
• The sad cave with bear :(
• Metas are really fun, both south vacuuming and north stabbing.
• Camera at the last scene was so weird and smooth yet slow and suited perfectly

Kinda bad:

• I don't feel comfortable "nudging" skritt, I was glad there's so many of them on the new map but it feels a bit like we're just having slaves, somehow >.<
• IF I SEE GLINT'S LAIR EVER AGAIN I'M GONNA LOOSE IT
• Seriously, every time we have to go to Glint's Lair I loose my mind. It's slightly better each time, LS2 version of it was by far the most unpleasant and I suppose it's kinda improved but please just nuke that place
• The story keeps getting more and more upsetting and this is not very appealing. I'm not looking forward to playing next episode, since we ended Joko's jestering it's only been getting more and more depressing and I don't need more depression in my life. In earlier episodes characters' deaths used to be meaningful, I was really upset when Trahearne died but it was great scene, with the "Fear not this night" scene, and that we had to finish him off and everyone was reliefed after it but not the commander, it was complex and very well written. But these recent deaths feel much worse. It's like the story is trying to be sad just to be deep, but sad isn't deep, it's just sad. It seems like a cheap tactic to move the players. If you're going for the "Aurene ate Joko so she's lich now", leaving it hanging like this doesn't seem fun either, now everyone's just uncomfortable.

• Speaking of dying:
  You can't just ignore updating on Taimi now, cmon. And if you introduced Gorrik just to replace her that's really nasty

• Let me ask again:
  why did we even kill Balthazar in first place, this has been pissing me off for a while now and look at where we are. We should have let Balthazar eat Kralk, nothing would have to explode, since what's the difference if Aurene eats him or Balthazar. He could have eaten him and even help us eat the others and then fight the other gods maybe, I couldn't care less about them, it's their personal problems so I don't feel the need to interfere. It seemed like awful decision back then and it feels just as stupid now, in retrospect. Commander just wanted to have killing god in their CV or what.

• Caithe feels like those fathers who just live when kid appears but then come back after years and bring gifts and show off how amazing parents they are and it feels like Taimi spent more time with my baby dragon, checking up on her when I was doing PoF. And now you come back and expect what? I mean she did explain why she backed off but suddenly it's all fine, idk, it all felt super rushed, where have you been when my daughter was growing up!?

In conclusion:

I complained quite a bit, I hate how the story genre's changing from fantasy to depression but in the end I'm really happy with the new map.

[Dark Red Killian.3946]

Loved that we were able to have an epic boss battle with an Elder Dragon. I was excited that we were finally going to finish off Kralkatorik, but did not expect the ending at all. The final moments were intense walking the path of destruction thinking it can’t be, having pits in my stomach. Very sad, but I do have to say that while in a perfect world we want everything to turn out ok, this goes to show that there is always the possibility you will not win every battle. Otherwise, story means nothing. Everyone automatically guesses the outcome and it turns out the way they expected. Was glad to be surprised, even if it wasn’t a pleasant surprise.

Otherwise, I would like to comment on the map currency, In previous LW eps from season 3, there were usually good ascended items you could turn your unstable magic and map currency in to get, making it worthwhile to play the maps to collect the currency to get it these items. In each episode of season 4, it seems there are less and less uses for map currency, as I feel I have nothing to spend volitile magic on. The ascended items that are available are only obtained from laurels and karma, which is the same currency that laurel merchants use. Why was this changed? Why introduce new currency with very little to do with?

[Menadena.7482]

@Calanthe.3857 said:

@"Ordin.9047" said:The ending made my 10 yr old daughter cry herself to sleep. Thats not really cool IMO. I c an't say that I'm itching to get back to playing GW2 for a while myself.

Section 9, part (d) of the

Guild Wars 2 User Agreement

specifically states that, "You acknowledge that the Game is not intended for minors under age 13, and You will not allow access to the Game, or the viewing of any display thereof, by any minor under age 13."

What the frack? What would be your argument if their daughter was 13? Also note you do not have to view the game to know spoilers, or even have an account, just go to youtube or something.

[Dami.5046]

I have already said my piece regarding the Episode. I liked it.However I'm not getting the 'the story made me want to quit/almost quit/ uninstall/ not play' . It sounds like there is some kind of propaganda going on regarding this Episode and the writing.... shrugsIf anything I personally want to know what has happened. Saying all is lost I think is a bit premature.I am not intending to go off topic, but there are too many posts to the contrary of my above comment.

[Tom Gore.4035]

Damn you Anet! I was just getting back to GW2 after a long pause and now you've killed my interest to log back in. Nothing in the game seems to have a meaning anymore...

[Sardeth Wynn.9548]

First part hurt my eyes, last part hurt the heart"Praise Joko" I am guessing. <.<

[Aleaxita.2041]

@Urocyon.8239 said:

@Aleaxita.2041 said:I don't have the energy to write more than just a couple comments:

• Cinematics and sound are stunning. Mechanics are fun, aside from the charging crystals, since mob AI made it hard to get them to stay to be charged.
• I appreciate the QoL updates.
• The map's pretty (glad to see a Shiverpeaks map again), but it gives me Lake Doric vibes in playthrough (not a fan of that map, sadly).
• Killing off beloved characters is not good writing. I shouldn't expect any better, given the track record, but this is ridiculous. I'm so tired of the writing team relying on character death for shock value. It's not going to do much, but if I could even have one word with the writing team,
  please stop.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree. I had to log off after the end of All or Nothing because I was too upset. That's not why I play GW2. It's difficult enough dealing with this sort of thing (loss, grief, pain) in real life, and I am deeply disappointed in the writer's decision to kill off a beloved character, especially after building us up for so long. I still mourn Tybalt, for gods' sakes. I've given some thought to quitting GW2, which would be a shame. I've played since launch and have put hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars of real money into the Gem store. I have put countless hours into the game over the years and I've never before felt like quitting altogether until now. My son and his friends who also play say they feel the same way.

Arenanet, I hope you fix this because I think you're going to lose a lot of players who feel just like me.

Apologies for being several days late, but I'm exactly here with you. I don't play for this -- I CAN'T play for story anymore. I play for the gameplay, for my own character stories, for the community, but no more for the story. Tybalt for you is Trahearne for me. Everything else this game gives is what makes it my favorite game, but by far the writing team is killing it for me. If they were any good, they wouldn't have to rely on character death for shock value to give their stories drama. I can only hope they learn for the future... PoF gave me hopes after HoT but this killed it.