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Official Feedback Thread: LWS4 Episode 5: All or Nothing


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@Donari.5237 said:

@"crazyhusky.2985" said:There is an unreachable POI on this map (or an randomly time gated one)

"
" is unreachable if you don't get it a purple key.This is the 2nd day I have NOT got access to the purple room in the Dwarven Catacombs. Making it impossible for me to complete the map.Why put a POI behind something like that? It's stupid and stops map completion.

Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if it's just been taken out of rotation -- I'm on the third alt in a row doing map completion who didn't get the purple plate. It was discouraging enough I just logged out rather than work on other parts of the map for now. And to think previously I was super happy when I didn't get purple due to the bug! Now they've fixed it, I want it every time and never see it. Sigh.

I'm doing map completion too, mostly for that weapons achievement.It wouldn't be so bad but they want you use 60 branded masses to craft each weapon. (50 for Diviner's Orichalcum-Imbued Inscription and 10 for the actual weapon)With there being 16 weapons, (thats 16 x 60 = 1080) 1080 branded masses needed.Not mention if you want or need Diviner's gear for raids, so top of that it's 25 branded masses per armour piece. (6x25=150)

I feel like the amount of branded masses needed to craft items should be a lot lower. like 30 for Diviner's Orichalcum-Imbued Inscriptions for the weapons and 15 or 20 for the Diviner's Intricate Gossamer Insignia for armour pieces.Because it's hard to craft a dragonblood weapon a day, there are 4 heart vendors which give 5 branded masses, so that's 20.and of course you'll do the daily tomb run because you need the 3 jewels from the chest to craft the weapon. You normally get 5 branded masses from the same chest.Which might trigger the daily, giving you a few more.So lets say you get roughly 30-35 per daily run on one character, but you're still short by about 25-30 branded masses to craft any of the dragonblood weapons.Meaning you basically have to run through the map with 2 characters a day to craft one dragonblood weapon.

Being able to map completion helps with this, giving us 25 but knowing that I have to get 1080 branded masses for the achievement... it helps.

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! I don't think it would be de-escalating at all. It's just a matter of timing. This death can be the fuel that ignites our desire to finish Kralk off despite the possible consequences, as if we need it anyway given the fact that if left alone he'll devour reality itself via the mists and we may never get a better chance again. Then bringing her back after we make that decision and sort of fulfill that reckless abandon of our actions as Joko sort of put it, Aurene comes back. Like, seriously, why would her resurrection be invalidating compared to essentially nullifying that many years worth of story development only to swerve off the kitten rails and go in a completely different direction or have Aurene going to the mists fulfilling some role that apparently she can fill but Glint couldn't do from this mists this entire time?

You kind of ranted at me so I'll try to focus on your particular concern of how resurrection equals invalidation. If you invest that much time in developing a character to kill it then bring it back, then where does your narrative even have teeth? I don't know if you have ever watched Supernatural on television, but in that series I think they've killed every major character at least twice. We have become used to the false death in stories that involve magical worlds with spiritual ghosts and whatnot running about. There is always another cheat around the corner. We even had a cheat during the lead up to this story that we see Snaff and Eir showing up while doing battle with Glint in the Mists. So the problem with all these cheats of death IMHO is:

1) Victory Costs - If my friends come back, then the same should hold true for my enemies? Why am I fighting in the first place if everything is going to unexpectedly going to come popping back up out of the Mists? The feeling of victory against the antagonist is lost if there is the potential for the ever resurrecting enemy. Even Joko supposedly faces the final death though when turned into dragon food. Balthazar a GOD is ground up into so much energized dragon food. Mordremoth and Zhaitan are dead and their energies absorbed by other dragons. So why none of the heroes or our little dragon pet? Because we bought the plush toy that follows us around?2) Dramatic Tension - The hero cannot die in the story without being resurrected. It's a given. You can't have the story told without the viewpoint of the protagonist. The only thing you can invest in ultimately is the risk of his loss through other means: possessions, status, home, family, loved ones, or allies. But in most poor storytelling we only have something which was newly introduced ever put at risk. He walks into a town, gets a brief overview of some 2 dimensional character and their tragic struggles, then they die horribly despite our efforts as an illustration of a tragic world defying the efforts of the hero. When something so pertinent to the storyline is sacrificed such as a NPC with so much investment tied to it, you risk invalidating all other sacrifices made by the hero should this simply be undone. Especially, after making me watch as my character waddles through the darkness to the inevitable conclusion and making me wait for the cut scene. If the story tellers undo this after that much investment in selling it, then could we ever believe anything they told in the future? Wouldn't they ultimately be demonstrating that they are just pulling our heartstrings for giggles? I don't think I trust a writer that does that.

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Look at all the deep films, books and series. Look at Tolkien's Silmarillion, LotR, Hobbit. Deaths happen there too, deaths of characters we really got to like, but it is a tale of courage, good, loyalty, honor and it shows that despite the strength of evil, the good will always prevail...but it will never be easy.I am not sure why people take this so hard I mean...sure as heck it shook me but to the point to leave the game? No. It actually glued me to the game, interested to see what will happen after.

I didn't buy a plush Legolas or knightly Gandalf with gems to follow me around. Oh...and they didn't die either. Gandalf pops back to life as an upgrade following the Balrog killing him. Only Boromir, King Theoden and Sméagol died. Even the hobbits were snatched off the mountain by eagles for pities sake. Tolkien wouldn't even let them die. So...kind of limited in the examples from Tolkien there. Most of the deaths he had from secondary characters not the original ring bearers. He was dependent in all narratives to following the story from basically Hobbit view.

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Not to mention, Tolkien didn't make any of those characters absolutely vital that they survived after the destruction of the ring or the whole world would tear itself apart. Aurene was more than just a character that people got attached to, more than just another protagonist, she was also the solution to a problem that happens if you kill too many elder dragons. Now that's gone, now we have no solution to the world tearing itself apart outside of some deus ex Taimi arsepull or a cheesy resurrection.

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@Donari.5237 said:Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if it's just been taken out of rotation -- I'm on the third alt in a row doing map completion who didn't get the purple plate.

Purple is still part of the rotation - I got it yesterday. But yeah, there seem to be noticeably fewer mesmers around to port people to the purple room for the POI.

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@Gudy.3607 said:

@Donari.5237 said:Yeah, I'm starting to wonder if it's just been taken out of rotation -- I'm on the third alt in a row doing map completion who didn't get the purple plate.

Purple is still part of the rotation - I got it yesterday. But yeah, there seem to be noticeably fewer mesmers around to port people to the purple room for the POI.

We should not NEED mesmars to do this.I think they should move the POI closer to the gate or extend its range a little outside the gate like the green treasure room, so you can get the POI without needing the purple key.

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I entered this map later than the others, I completed the story just yesterday. I completed the map and I completed all the events.

I will start with the weak points:

  1. The story is somewhat contradictory. Starting from LS3 (when Balthazar needed the dragons to regain his power) we fought to protect the remaining dragons, knowing that even if only one is eliminated this means the end for the World. And now? We decided to kill Kralky. WHAT? Yes, now we have (had) a little bit more powerful Aurene, but nobody (not even the cynical Canach) never questioned Aurene's capability to absorb the magic released by Kralky and moreover, the capacity to replace it successfully.

  2. Aurene death seems (at this moment) nonsensical. It has no meaning. Not even to build up some tension. We have now no way to survive. If we kill Kralky (assuming we can) the World is destroyed. If we don't kill Kralky, the World is destroyed. I see three possible ways to continue from this dead end: FIRST - Aurene will come back after some (most probably not complete explained) ... "things" (moving from: "This was a necessary step for evolving into an Elder Dragon" to "She was not dead, the crystallized form we saw was her protecting measure to avoid dead"). SECOND - Aurene is not coming back - we still have a choice: A: we kill Kralky (with Zojja's help - is a good bonus), and the world is destroyed OR: B: We cannot kill Kralky and the world is destroyed. This will be the most original method to close the servers - not because of the lack of players, but because of END GAME. And THIRD - The Gods will take action. One of the gods will sacrifice himself (I suggest Kormir, to make room for Abaddon's return) and become what the ED is now. Happy end, Rytlock is happy, the Sunspears are happy, Commander is a little sad (The Scion is no more, but the Commander is still the Champion), Caithe is almost unable to recover from Aurene's dead etc.

  3. After the anti grinding measures in Istan, some of the achievements of this map makes no sense: The achievement of cleaning oil in the South Event - I never managed to bring more than 6 charges. Taking into account you need 250 for the achievement, that means I need more than 40 (most probably around 50) events to do this. Is this something introduced by ANet devs to NOT support grinding? Or the grinding is allowed if it is performed for small, or (if you repeat the event in the same day) for NO rewards? In the same note - you need TONS of Branded masses and the tokens you may obtain after a meta event (I never bothered to know its name) for the weapon colellection. If you gather 30-35 Branded masses daily, you will need more than 100 days of gathering, doing hearts, metaevents, (shortly - all the activities in the map) for this. And ANet claims that this is NOT designed with the idea of grind in mind? Again, it seems that if it offers nothing, the grind is allowed. In the same note - the repeatable hearts should be optional and not mandatory if you want to buy something from that vendor.

The good points:

  1. The skritt dialogues are excellent =) . I spent time in the map listening the dialogues and laughing. Brilliant and shiny lines. STOOOOP!! Don't steal the dialogues. Shiny is only a metapho....

  2. Excellent dredge community. Although we can find here the classical dredge propaganda, this particular community is not so xenophobic as the other dredge communities found in Tyria. It seems that the danger of the ED made them realize that the other livings are not their true enemy and they can cooperate fighting a common foe.

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First off, I liked it in beta when you guys had pop up questionnaires asking us what we thought about a particular event, glad to see an official post in forum but you're reaching a limited audience.My opinion on this chapter, like pretty much every single chapter you guys have ever made is the same. Going into it I already know I am going to die multiple times, get frustrated, and be glad when it's finally over with. Why? I find them more frustrating than fun. I always thought it was because I was playing a Ranger, and that I'm just a casual gamer who goes around killing world bosses most of the time. Then I started talking to others who expressed the same frustration as me who were playing different classes.Concerning "All or nothing" in particular: It was when I had to start training with Aurene and those circles started appearing around her, pushing my character back. That was when I started thinking "Here we go, this is where the fun ends and the frustration starts". At least now you either don't die when you lose your hp or when you do, you don't have a lot of back tracking to do. I guess that's a good thing but I would rather not die in the first place just trying to get though the story mode. If I'm dying multiple times I blame the Dev's for not balancing correctly and assume that you're a rock star, hard core gamer who should know better.As for this story in particular, let me just say this. I personally don't like it when characters have been around in a story for a long time as a main character just to kill them off for a dramatic effect. I don't like it when writers do this in books. For instance, when Allanon died in the third book of Sword of Shannara I was like, really? I didn't even want to read any more of his books, but that's just me. In Game of Thrones characters die all the time but I don't really care because I never liked them in the first place, but then I still can't help but wonder: Why did you keep that character around so long in the first place? Just for a dramatic death scene? Seems kinda cheap to me. Is this good story writing? I guess it just boils down to your own personal opinion.I did like the very ending when all my controls disappeared and I was limping along, knowing full well what I was about to see when I went around the corner. That was good. But you should of giving a hint at what would be next. All the story ever told us was that Aurene was going to be our savior. The others asked our character what do we do now? And our character said "I don't know." Really? I'm the commander. I should of known this could fail and have some kind of back up plan but the writing forced me into "I don't know." Was there some kind of hint of what could be next that I missed? If there was then I think that would of been better story writing.Sorry if I sound kind of negative. I really do love this game and have supported it by buying countless Gems, but hey, you wanted my opinion so....

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Chasing Tales (any and all)Please don't make achievements like these without a counter--one that pops up the little golden achievement eligibility icon on your bar would be great, with numbers next to it.Chasing Tales: Like a Wounded BeastIn addition to the counter problem (did I kill that enemy at 11% health or 9%?? does it count when downed?--it really should--how many minutes or seconds do I have left????), this is also an achievement that actually makes you angry at other players on the map just doing their thing (NO DON'T KILL IT YET, NO NO AEGIS STOP, PLEASE DON'T HEAL ME). It's a frustrating achievement at best and counter to the whole open world philosophy of the game.

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I must repeat that the Consul Tomb poi should be made available by means other than a long story step. I just asked politely in Map for someone with purple plate I might TP to and got yelled at for being a weirdo with too many alts who should just "play the game" rather than ask for it to be "boring for non-outliers."

I'm not particularly upset about this, mind you. I put up an LFG and a very nice person joined and came to let me in (and got a gold for their trouble). But it's a constant source of frustration as I cycle through my alts working on getting the branded masses and serpentite jewels and tends to push me to log off rather than continue playing when I am in a map completion mood (having a very painful arm I'm in physical therapy for makes me extra unwilling to run through Glint's Lair a million times). I can easily imagine it truly upsetting some players to get jumped on for a simple if-someone-has-time request.

So please, give the Consul's Tomb the Hammer's Hoard treatment. Thank you.

Edit: To be clear, I am running through with the plates legitimately gained via doing metas and/or buying on TP before I ask for aid. I just have had the purple plate drop maybe 1 in 5 times now and I'd have to wait another day on that alt to try again and give up a day's chance for the next alt.

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I really hope that Aurene will be broughht back to life, mainly because everything since HoT release was centered around her, and if she's completely dead, a LOT of player's effort in HoT, LS 3-4 and PoF is made completely worthless, and it will basically feel like all the time we spent on aurene was totally wasted

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@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.

Totally agree, I play games for fun and this cheap 'tugging at the heart strings' approach is not appreciated by me .. not to mention the utter discontinuity with all the NPC chatter and general 'ambience' once you're back in the world .. if the writers were intent on this kind of thing then there were more appropriate characters to die, choosing the one which the player had likely invested most emotionally was why it was 'cheap writing' IMO.

Any enjoyment I had with this 'season' was destroyed by this utterly bleak and irredeemable ending so I'll not be writing what I was planning to before I played the final part.

No, this is not a 'cool' ending, it sucks and frankly right now makes me question whether I'll bother with future episodes.

[edit]

So I just read the post above this one .. IF the writers 'resurrect' Aurene then that'll simply compound my view that it's 'cheap writing' since as far as I know there's no 'lore that could make that possible .. I guess they could make it into the generic ' .. then I woke up' kind of thing .. who knows, right now I don't care.

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I've not felt the need to post on here for years, but...yeah. First, I was not pleased with the ending of episode 5, then I noticed this bit in one of the hearts that bothered me:

We need to be able to save Gloria! Why have an Ash Legion Scout, begging for his pet to eat, and not allow us to help? Once I'd caught the script, I now pause here every time I do the heart. I've even tried numerous emotes or to heal her. Nope. It is SAD and it ticks me off, as a pet lover. In said heart, we distribute water and rally troops. You could have us comfort Gloria, raise her morale, give her lizard treats...anything. Perhaps make it an achievement.

I want to be able to carry little signs in game and chant, "Save Gloria, save Gloria!"

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STILL cannot get the Consul Tomb poi without luck (happen to get the purple plate) or the help of others (mesmer ports you in). The CHANCE at getting a purple plate is locked behind a pair of metas that can be done once a day and take over and hour and is random enough that you can do it for several days and STILL not be let in. Either make this POI accessible from outside or remove it. There should not be a case where map completion depends on luck EVER.

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I tired to complete the map today and have been unable to. As an experiment, I hung out in the map waiting to see if I could get a port. In over 3 hours, not a single port was to be found. We are already reaching the level of map population where trying to get a port into the consul's tomb is becoming non-viable. People are no longer hanging around the map in high enough concentration for it to be "worth it" (via tips) to stand around porting people. As such, getting lucky with plates is starting to become the ONLY way to get the poi. Given another few weeks it will probably be the only way period, making the map uncompletable without running the metas a large number of times trying to luck into a purple plate.

MAP COMPLETION SHOULD NEVER DEPEND ON LUCK OR RNG.

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@"Boogiepop Void.6473" said:The CHANCE at getting a purple plate is locked behind a pair of metasNo, the "key" to starting the puzzle room is available on the TP; all that is locked is saving 3-4 gold.

There should not be a case where map completion depends on luck EVER.Unfortunately, there's precedent in many of the LS3 & LS4 maps, in which POI are locked behind events, an optional feature (e.g. roller beetle mount), or the story.

I don't mind collections being gated, I don't mind if the difficulty is altered by gates. I do mind, as you do, seeing map completion gated. It's not necessarily unfair or difficult; it's just dull.

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Is it me or Dragonsblood Rifle = Heroic Dragonsblood Rifle? I mean the shine is the same. Just the stock of the rifle and middle of it have additional white lines design.Whereas the heroic version should be brighter like any other heroic, here it's smaller than the original + same brightness.

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Soooo...

On the one hand, this was the perfect difficulty level for me. No dying over and over with frustration mounting and no long, boring slogs against an HP mountain. Haven't enjoyed combat so much in ages. Great map. Beautiful visuals. Canach got to blow things up. I'm a little annoyed with Caithe, but I can overlook it.

On the other hand, if Aurene doesn't come back, I may never play this game again. Ugh.

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As many other stated before, the map just feels empty. It does not feel rewarding to explore. In fact, if you are a person that gives a crap about running around and collecting crap to get even more crap, GuildWars2 is becoming the worst possible MMO for you. Doing collections for me is no content. Quests, exploring, new fractals, that's content. Collections give me zero reason to log in.

Second, as very few have stated before, the story is just whiny. Whiny whiny whiny. Aurenes death is good, well implemented, and most of all something we have needed since LS2 and I sincerely hope she stays that way. In fact, I hope Kasmeer or at least Taimi join her, and soon. All that sentimental (Braham-) stuff makes me appreciate the story less and less. I feel like reading a coming of age-drama-love story script a 13 year old Japanese girl has written.

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