Poormany.4507

They did that with plenty of NPCs in the Eye for the Champions releases, even ones with special dialogue after the Episode ends, who only appear while the story chapter is active. Looks like just a bug to me (I'm guessing it'll be fixed in a soon-ish patch).

A lot of people (including myself) were expecting Primordus to get its own expansion (likely after EoD) since the end of EoTN, based on the depths of Tyria and interacting with the races that used to live there. Instead we got a 20 minute mini-fight where we don't even fight Primordus directly. If they did want to do a Jormag and Primordus kill each other plot like they did, there should have been at least two or three full episodes (not Champions quarter episodes) involving Primordus doing some kind of real damage and having some kind of buildup to that battle. The only buildup we got was a last second, out of nowhere decision that could have just as easily been made in episode 1 of the Saga. Really hoping they handle the DsD properly after this...

That so little care was given to the story/episode quality in that finale episode was just jarring and really disappointing to me. I waited since the end of EoTN (a decade or so) to properly battle Primordus in an epic battle and all we got was a 20-30 minute mini-fight where we don't even directly interact with an elder dragon. I really hope the expac was worth that, but honestly, even if the next expac is excellent, I doubt GW2 will keep going much longer after EoD - likely just repeatable festival-type content or a mini-LW season or something to tie up loose ends and then GW2 (and possibly the franchise) ends.

Having waited to have a proper battle against a full-sized Primordus since finishing GW1 EoTN, his 30 minute ending in this episode after showing up only twice for 5 seconds prior to it was entirely disappointing. Not even a mini-trailer for EoD at the end like before PoF. 😢😢😢

I'm guessing it will be an instant somewhere in the Shiverpeaks, most likely outside the Eye of the North, as many of us have predicted, based on the terrain similarity , where we've been rallying allies, and as a common meeting point of the three dragons. To me, the mechanics seem to be similar to strike missions where you can join a public or squad instant. Although I do wonder if they would be able to technically pull off opening the Eye of the North as both a hub and as an explorable area portion for a regular world boss type battle simultaneously, but I really doubt this would be easy/feasible to do so.

I got this without even being in combat on my human ele yesterday, just walking up a sloped surface.

I would hope for a new map for the finale. Assuming there is a new map, I would expect either the area outside the EoTN or the Dominion of Winds. EoTN: More likely scenario, as Aurene is already there, Jormag has connections to it through Bangar, and the Central Transfer Chamber is relatively close by so Primordus has some kind of access to the area. It would also line up close to the final battle seen in the trailer against Jormag. As others have mentioned, I also do expect a three way battle to ensue between the Commander + Aurene, Jormag, and Primordus, which could be similar to that GW1 mission where centaurs charge the EoTN, but in this case it would be Icebrood and Destroyers, followed by Aurene, Jormag, and Primordus themselves engaging. I think some kind of stalemate/negotiation will be reached between the three parties, but ultimately Braham will lose control, and Primordus kills Jormag, with their magic being split between Primordus and Aurene, leading us to Cantha to search for a solution. Dominion of Winds: Both elder dragons have been shown to be interested in getting in, possibly indicating there is some large hub of magic inside. The primary function would be a similar three way battle as described above, but It would also serve as a good formal introduction to the Tengu for EoD and would lead nicely into the expac. However, if Tengu are planned as a playable race in EoD, I would expect the Dominion to be reserved for the expac as a starting area.

Really love this tonic and would really like for it to be a permanent addition as well (maybe a Choyant Lens?). Don't really see any downsides to it being added permanently tbh as its really just fun to use and doesn't affect combat balance or anything.

I would really like a skip button/mote for instances that were already completed by a character. Having to repeatedly wait through 10-15+ minutes of dialogue for one or a few achievements is tedious and a waste of time. Adding motes to skip you to mid-instance checkpoints would do wonders.

I feel like they would actually have been good had they been supplements to actual living world episodes with full content/new maps or as releases in the 3-4 month gaps between regular episodes. As a complete replacement for full episodes (i.e. Champions,) big no.

I have no problem with expensive collections, but I would much rather have preferred them to remain in the Rare Collections achievements section as opposed to the meta achievements like they have been since the Saga.

I don't think DRMs will be used much, if at all, after Champions. To me, they just seem like content made purely to fill the gap until EoD is released and replaced the rest of the Saga halfway through after the expansion was given priority. I do think its more likely we'll see other previous types of content make a comeback, such as raids, strikes, LWS1 scrying pool episodes, and possibly visions of the past (or some kind of Canthan counterpart), as those seemed to have an overall much better reception with most players than DRMs did.

If they were once joined, maybe "mother" or some other really strong power could have split them, possibly to prevent them from being too powerful and keep each other in check? Just speculating :)

It was very distracting and immersion breaking when I heard that voice coming from a full sized tengu. Based on the fact that she's a messenger, I would assume she's at least a teenager/young adult, but she sounds like she's a little kid (or a skritt/asura disguised as a tengu). I think even as much as scaling down her size would have helped a lot in her case. Although, I do wonder if we'll be able to see actual tengu children if/when we go to the Dominion of Winds.

Tbh, the voice acting for Kalidris made me cringe hard during that mission. It just sounded really out of place and distracting to me the way it currently is. I do think adding in some kind of filter to make it sound more "tengu-like" would have massively improved its quality imo. To me, the other Tengu have fine voice acting as is, just in this instance it did not work as well.

Didn't really like Canach's voice change in this episode, as it sounded kind of like he was bored, rather than his usual snarky, witty self, but hopefully I'll just get used to it (Canach was definitely one of my favorite characters in previous episodes).

As long as every other enemy does not have instant knockdowns/stuns (PoF), I'm fine with anything from PoF to HoT levels of difficulty.

You answered your own question - initially, you just talked about the Saga in general terms for both the first and second statements, without any real distinction. Now it's much clearer, and I still agree with you on both counts. The expansion-like content was destined to fail from the very beginning, while the story had decent potential (that ended up wasted). As for the original topic of the thread, I have to say I agree there too. Ryland isn't really demonstrating leadership as much as he simply capitalized (or rather, let Bangar, then Jormag exploit) his popularity with a certain sector of Charr. I don't find him compelling at all, and would welcome either his permanent exit from the story, or a Braham-like redemption. Ultimately pulling off the joint Charr/Norn story in one season was going to be a steep challenge to begin with. At best, we would have seen two pretty large storylines competing for space within one narrative arc. At worst, we have what we do now, which is just... something that feels like abandonment or a rush to get things to a point where we can transition to EoD. Now, if this was exactly the way they planned the narrative to work from the start, perhaps ANet really has some deeply embedded writing problems. To me it feels like the Saga had at least half of its initial plans scrapped around halfway through when EoD development was started in full scale. Going by the season trailer and earlier stuff in the Saga, it seems like there were going to be more Visions of the Past, more Season 1 scrying pool episodes, more maps, and more larger-scale storylines (Centaurs, DsD or other water content, etc.) that would have been more expansion-like and had potential to be good content. The moment they suddenly started to imply Primordus was the "big threat" and began the Champions episodes it seems like the entire development of the Saga was given up in favor of getting to EoD as fast as possible with the Saga running on maintenance mode as filler until then.

I really doubt Aurene will be killed (or even is killable), but I do see the possibility of her absorbing too much conflicting magic (maybe even as soon as the end of the Saga if Jormag and/or Primordus are killed) in a self sacrificial type of way and becoming tormented so that we have to seek out a cure for her. This could even be what drives us to go to Cantha in EoD.

Agree that the centaur storyline probably wouldn't add much to the story at this point and would need to be too rushed. Also, if they went the route of Jormag trying to corrupt warmongering centaurs, it would have just been the exact same plot already done with the Charr civil war/Bangar. However, I do hope we get to visit more of the centaur homelands, see some of their more peaceful settlements in the Woodland Cascades, and see a conclusion to their war with the humans in the future (maybe in LWS6?).

I enjoyed them up to the boss fights on my first run throughs (haven't repeated any of them yet). The boss fights are just way too overscaled for a single player and it took me >10+ deaths to get through most of them, without dying once before them. Combined with the huge HP pool, each boss alone takes 30-40 minutes, which seems way too long to spend on a single, largely boring fight on normal mode. The one in Brisban got stuck on an environmental obstacle for me and I honestly almost fell asleep spamming it because it took so long. Imo, their HP should be cut to half, or even a third of their current one. Also agree that the start time should be scaled for solo by at least 2-3 minutes more, as I can only finish 1-2 of the three initial objectives each run before the timer runs out. Other than these annoying issues, I think DRMS do have a good place in GW2.

5/10 - The prologue was excellent, but then the Saga just seemed to go downhill for me in many ways. Bjora was an average LW map, and I haven't been back since doing a few of the achievements. Drizzlewood was much better in terms of replayability, but suffered due to the meta event being too long due to the split map. Champions just feels like filler content that solely exists to fill the content drought until EoD is released. Story and map-wise, I was expecting a full Jormag vs Primordus expac with epic maps for each dragon, including new underground content, so the Saga putting all of that into a very rushed story was a huge letdown to me ever since they made clear that was the direction they were going. If they kill off Primordus in a single episode of DRM missions without a new map, I will be very disappointed. However, if they do tie the Jormag/Primordus conflict into EoD, I do think it would be a good way to go. Gameplay wise, some of the masteries are useful outside of the Saga maps, while others (primarily the Raven and essence ones), just don't feel worth getting due to their limited use. Achievements in the Saga have been very bad imo, as the amount of grind they require makes me not want to start them. Before the Saga, I aimed to get every meta achievement and played regularly to do so, but since then, I only got the prologue one and did not even try to get the others due to boring, repetitive grind (do x event 25-50 times) or expensive skin collection achievements being required for the meta. I really hope they go back to the pre-saga achievement variety (exploration, non-material/gold gated collections, lore collection etc.) in EoD.

Now, don't get me wrong - Primordus' behaviour is definitely also perfectly consistent with just being a monster. But it is common behaviour among animals that feel threatened to lash out at anything nearby, which can become permanent behaviour if they're sufficiently traumatised to push them to permanent paranoia. Humans under these circumstances don't necessarily do so physically, but might push people away through rude and antisocial language and behaviour to stop anyone from getting close enough to hurt them again. The Elder Dragon equivalent of this would likely be sending minions out to attack everything within reach indiscriminately.I do wonder though if in the near future Primordus will be able to communicate with us, and/or start using tactics, as it is mentioned in game that Primordus has recently processed Mordremoth's magic to a further extent. We've already seen Jormag and Primordus gaining their new "hive mind" type abilities to absorb power through their minions from the dead elder dragons, so I wonder if Primordus gained some form of intelligence from the newly processed Mordremoth magic and not just being a mindless raging monster anymore. This could also tie in with the "Braham is becoming Primordus' champion" theory floating around if that's the case.

Still waiting for years since HoT launched to get this issue fixed. 100% of the time I disconnect is at the very last moment of story instances just after the final cutscene with no other disconnect issues at all in the open world. The problem almost definitely seems to be on Anet's server side, as that is way too specific to happen repeatedly on most story missions I do with cinematics at the end. For me, The Departing mission is the worst for disconnects and I am certain to get at least 2-3+ disconnects at the end before it works.

I don't think a full rework is necessary at this point in the game, as it doesn't feel worth it. However, I would be in favor of updating older graphics to match those of newer maps, as a lot of the environment in older maps is very inconsistent (and slightly poorer looking) than similar ones of new maps. It wouldn't need as much work as a full rework, but it would still be a nice update, especially for for retaining new players.