Forearmed is Forwarned

[Zoid.2568]

When I did this mission I accidentally teleported out of the allowed map, and then I immediately reset the instance. Have to do it all over again. Why do you even do this ArenaNet? I did not even get a warning.

[Vavume.8065]

Had it happen also but in some other story instance a year ago or so, it really should have a longer timer, sometimes by the time you notice the warning you are already to far out to turn back in time, it should be a 20-30 sec timer at least.

[Blocki.4931]

If you leave the playable area by such a large amount the game thinks you have 0 way of getting back in on time so it immediately kicks. Since the teleport is 3k range and that mechanic doesn't account for such ability it throws you out

[Danikat.8537]

The same thing happened to me, except it skipped me ahead to the next step in the story and I missed a big chunk. I went from scouting and clearing space for an encampment to seeing it fully set up and everyone arrived and never got to do the bit in the middle. If I could I'd trade with you, I'd much prefer repeating it to missing part of the story.

But what would be better IMO is if they changed it so the zone boundaries don't kick you out. I've seen people suggest changing it to kill you, or simply bouncing you back like they do at lower levels and I think either of those would be better.

[Scud.5067]

Yeah, it would be a lot simpler to kill the character and have them respawn.

Death & respawns are already a thing within the Story instances so we know it can be done.

Kicking them out of the instance and resetting it to boot is just.. well, not lazy. It was a solution to a problem way back when.

Lazy is leaving it this long and still not addressing it.

[Pifil.5193]

You don't need to kill the character, just port them back to the checkpoint.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

My guildie was kicked out of Forearmed is Forewarned today (and thus, so was I), and when we re-entered we were sent to our latest checkpoint, so it doesn't always require one to redo the whole chapter/instance.

[Danikat.8537]

I'm not sure what was going on with me in that instance. I was kicked while doing the step where you build vine walls and destroy enemy siege weapons, but I was kicked to the Kourna map, not the Tomb of Primeval Kings where I started and my story was moved on to the next step (the open world part).

I tried to reset it by leaving the map, switching to another story and completing an instance, then switching back to the current story, but it didn't work - I was still on the open world part. So I left it for a few days because I was discouraged by missing part of the story and somehow that worked. I don't know when or why it happened but when I went to carry on the story the green star was back at the Tomb and I was able to continue from the part where you meet Canach.

I'm actually happier with that, even though it means I lost a little bit of progress (building 2 vine walls and destroying some enemies) because I didn't miss a chunk of the story, but I have no idea how it happened and annoyingly no sensible way to recreate it to find out. I'm hoping Anet's testers will be able to investigate to make sure things like that don't happen again.

[Hamfast.8719]

MINOR SPOILERS (sort of) FOR PATH OF FIRE! (Although it is unlikely you are reading this if you haven't made it that far already).

I was COMPLETELY FINISHED with the final battle against Balthazar... another very long storyline instance. I was at the part where I'm dropped into a dreamlike slo-mo state, watching Aurene fly off. I did my best to chase after her, and it took me right down the stairs - that earlier had been my entrance - into what was now an orange border. In slow motion, I had ZERO chance of getting back to the "safe zone" before being kicked. VERY annoying! The episode was all over except for a little NPC chit-chat, but I had to repeat everything from scratch. That was my first attempt at Balthazar, and learning the mechanics for victory made it especially long and harrowing.

---

I just said the final battle against Balthazar was very long? Well it's NOTHING compared to FOREARMED IS FOREWARNED! This could EASILY have been broken down into three parts! Who's writing these episodes? Peter Jackson?

At least THREE TIMES during the FOREARMED IS FOREWARNED marathon quest I stepped out of the legal zone. One time I nearly knocked my keyboard on the floor in my terror-filled rush to get back in time. No way did I want to replay all of that! Thank goodness I was on my Main Character. I can't see myself repeating this episode ever again, simply for the sheer time involved.

Beginning with Path of Fire, for some reason I find myself leaving the instance a lot. I never had that problem before. This is NOT a "mounts" thing. I have been stepping out of bounds while in combat. ANet is using the artificial barriers to corral you into a small zone, often closing off the area you just came from. I suppose someone decided that was a good way to put pressure on the players.

SOMETHING needs to be changed about the way colliding with the orange Instance Boundaries is handled.Suggestions:

1) Give us more time to get back.2) Push us back in, just like the "strong currents" in explorable zones.3) Return us to a starting point, like we do when we die.4) Put orange boundary lines on the ground in-game, not just on the mini-map.5) Do NOT kick us from the Instance!

Feel free to implement several of these suggestions, ANet. Especially number 5.

And for pity's sake, SHORTEN THE FREAKIN' STORYLINE INSTANCES! I need to get up occasionally to eat / pee / sleep / go to work / stretch / answer the phone / have a life.

[jway.8293]

On 7/7/2018 at 2:45 AM, Zoid.2568 said:

When I did this mission I accidentally teleported out of the allowed map, and then I immediately reset the instance. Have to do it all over again. Why do you even do this ArenaNet? I did not even get a warning.

geez Anet, fix the design!

this is really frustrating having to redo the instance.

 

reduce the teleport range, extend the instance bound, and/or place the gates / bomb target farther away from the instance boundary.

 

Also, the teleport can get my character stuck in a rock / wall.

luckily I unstuck by spamming the teleport skills to get my character out of the rock / wall

[Gehenna.3625]

On 7/7/2018 at 11:45 AM, Zoid.2568 said:

When I did this mission I accidentally teleported out of the allowed map, and then I immediately reset the instance. Have to do it all over again. Why do you even do this ArenaNet? I did not even get a warning.

When you do it via the purple star on the map, it will kick you out and reset the instance. The warning comes as you enter the instance. It says that none of the progress will be saved.

On 7/8/2018 at 4:44 AM, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

My guildie was kicked out of Forearmed is Forewarned today (and thus, so was I), and when we re-entered we were sent to our latest checkpoint, so it doesn't always require one to redo the whole chapter/instance.

If you do it via progressing the story normally, then it does save the progress in your instance. I think that's the difference.

 

Edit: to clarify. If you use just the purple markers on the map and don't follow the whole story of a chapter then your progress is not saved and it will reset the instance. The reason you would do this is that you only have to do the parts that the Return requires you to do. You don't even have to do them in order.

If you play the entire chapter then your progress will be saved.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Gehenna.3625

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't even remember that, it was more than 3 years ago.  Lol. 

[Kraggy.4169]

On 7/7/2018 at 10:45 AM, Zoid.2568 said:

When I did this mission I accidentally teleported out of the allowed map, and then I immediately reset the instance. Have to do it all over again. Why do you even do this ArenaNet? I did not even get a warning.

Just did the same thing .. I posted somewhere else suggesting to ANet they do what all other MMOs that I play do: have a HARD border to instances.

ANet have proved very adept at putting invisiwalls all over the map when they want to STOP players doing something, yet when such a mechanic to prevent players being punished Anet couldn't give a kitten it seems.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Kraggy.4169

[Excursion.9752]

I found it more fun doing the instance a second time!  ... at least that is what I told myself while I was trying not to get teed off.

[Mantis.6102]

The first (stealth explore) and second (stealth kill barricades and checkpoints) parts were ok for me. The mechanics of Blish's arm are pretty rough. The tree thing is totally useless for me; when using it and definitely not moving (I took my hands off keys and mouse completely the second and last time I tried to use it), enemies will say "Was that tree always there?" and alert. So it doesn't do what it says it does and there is zero reason to use it. The stun bolt/shock kill mechanic works fine. The teleport worked surprisingly well. The dust twister canister thing is another completely dead skill; all I could get it to do was stop a twister from moving. I would get the noise indicating that I could trap a twister using the special key, and it would stun the twister. But trying to throw the canister was always met with a message that the skill was charging. The #6 cooling skill was completely unnecessary since it seems to be impossible to overheat; the heat bar never got higher than 1/3 before it reset to zero on it's own.

 

The other confusing part was the white fields that the enemies project, which are not explained but I assumed meant the visual range of the enemy, as there were similar mechanics in past instances. But in this case, they don't mean anything, as enemies will spot and aggro you well outside of the white cone, even when the enemy is facing away from you. Another bit of confusion was the periodic messages saying "WARNING: Reinforcements departing". What does this even mean? Are they my reinforcements? That would be the only time I need a warning about them departing. But there are no reinforcements for me at this stage, and if there were, why would they depart? So it has to be referring to enemy reinforcements, but why am I getting warned that they are departing? Wouldn't that be a good thing? How about warn me when they arrive? And then there were the turrets here and there. I do not remember getting any info about these, and when I interact with them, it says don't have sufficient items to rewire them (or something like that). The turrets show up in force in the third part as well, and I never once found any items I could use to interact with them. It seems like they were put in so that you could hack them and take them over to help, but in my playthrough it was like they were a cancelled feature that they forgot to remove (kind of like the useless tree and twister skills).

 

I was able to get through the first two parts pretty easily, so maybe they tuned those up. The third part (securing the camp) is where the instance's shortcomings became annoying. It's obvious that they want at least one way to complete this is by using stealth (the "WARNING: Lack of caution has attracted reinforcements to the area" message shows that they intended for us to be able to complete this without attracting reinforcements). But in addition to the design flaws in the stealth mechanics, at this point in the instance, they all developed a 2 second lag before using. I really hope this wasn't intentional, but regardless, it made using stealth in any way successfully impossible.

 

It would have been doable if it was an actual stealth mission, with multiple small groups of enemies that you pick off. But when your only way to take out enemies stealthily is limited to groups of three (3 stun shots before reloading, using the #2 kill skill instantly alerts nearby enemies), but the game teleports 15 mobs, 3 veterans, and 2-5 turrets into the defense zone, then continuously sends in waves of more enemies before you even come close to taking care of the remaining ones, it would be pretty impossible. Add on the 2 second lag on all stealth skills, and it is fully impossible.

 

I love this game and have been playing it for 10 years. The lore writing is fantastic, the PvE open world is amazing, WvW is like no other game mode I have seen, and most of the storyline instances are fun. I am not ranting here for any other reason than I hope the devs see that some of their storyline instances have major flaws and really interrupt the fun of this game.

 

Now let's get a few posts in here from people saying how the instance worked just fine for them and I don't know how to play, cuz GW2 forumz.

[Mantis.6102]

And a little follow up: After I posted, I was still in the instance after completing it. I decided to get the achievement for stunning 25 enemies by teleporting next to them 4 times since there were still groups of enemies wandering around. While working on this, I was killed and clicked on "respawn at checkpoint" to finish it out. It went to a loading screen so I thought I broke it, but then it loaded me in at the Canach meeting place and gave me the #5 skill (again, this is after completing the instance) which had been empty the whole time until that. I thought they just didn't have a #5 skill written for this until that point (#9) was empty the whole time too, is there a #9 skill that I was also supposed to have?). Lo and behold, the #5 skill is the only way to work with the turrets, but I did not get the skill until after completing the events. Need work.