Official Feedback Thread: LWS4 Episode 4: A Star to Guide Us

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

Negative:

• Visual effects causing motion sickness (worst of all: The combination of mounting and visual effects in last instance of the story).
• Again an area overcrowded with foes. That's one more area not friendly for returning later to enjoy casual exploring.
• No real JP.
• Too many invisible walls in this area. We are allowed to climb up almost everywhere and get stopped... That's a bit frustrating.

Positive:

• The variety and big amount of available achievements.
• Sun's refuge.
• The Jungle Anomaly: Thanks for that bit of green.
• The dispatch of the foes is well balanced. Some zones are more difficult than others, but crossing over the area with mounts is reasonably possible (it's not in conflict with my negative point above. If we come to area for a specific activity, things are OK. Casual exploring is something different).

[TheBlueBeast.8057]

Definitely a big improvement over the last few living world updates. Really made the last few LW installments feel like completely unnecessary filler though. Jokos whole subplot didnt ..really have any impact on anything other than some npc dialog, honestly. You could cut it out entirely and not lose anything.

Only things I don't particularly care for are the armor collections and Z. The deadeye instance was fine gameplay wise, but I don't really see why my commander had these instant and crippling sympathy pains for her before their fight was even over. Z gets to murder dozens of pact members, then pulls the "we're not friends and im going to keep an eye on you" crap, then our character just trusts her immediately and doesnt even tell her to chill out a little? Not even a light scolding??

She reminds me of Livia, for bad reasons. Z might have stood around for .2 seconds in a vision but there was literally nothing to indicate that she has any tactical value whatsoever(other than Obvious Plot), seeing as how aurene still died in said vision. Our character just grafts themselves onto her like an angler fish and I had a hard time not rolling my eyes during most of the scenes with Z.

Please include some dialog options. They dont need to impact the story or be voiced but its really annoying having a blood legion charr(or any commander for that matter) that takes all this shit from randos for next to no reason, especially after the rando murdered dozens of pact members and is just generally hostile towards them. At least having the option to comment about it would be nice.

I would have liked it if each respective race commented on their own hero during the shroom scene. Like instead of everyone defaulting to rytlock they'd say something about logan/caithe/ect. I dunno, would have been a nice touch. ((this is a nitpick tho and I fully acknowledge that lol))

Also the blish "death" was painfully predictable and I agree with some of the above posts in regards to character death. It feels like anet pulls the plug on them way too fast.

Overall though, big improvement. Glad that trahearne was FINALLY mentioned. Braham was enjoyable again. the spider fight was good, there was some good humor mixed in with everything and it feels like things are finally rolling along. Map is a lot of fun and exploring it with the roller beetle is great with the stamina mastery.

this was longer than I wanted it to be and im sorry

[SkullsandRoses.5803]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Hi,

Please share your high-level feedback about Episode 4 of Living World Season 4: A Star to Guide Us. If you can provide a synopsis here, that would be appreciated, maybe around 50 words or so?

Bug reports can go into a Bug Report Thread specifically intended for the reports of any issues or bugs. It is posted in the Bugs Subforum and linked in the previous sentence.

I know I'm probably one of the last to weigh in officially on this episode but I absolutely loved it. The entirety of the episode from story to map completion and achievements is expansion worthy. One of my top three favorite LWS episodes yet! Its nice to have so much content and fun between expansions!

Thank you Anet for this!

[hugo.4705]

I loved the fact that story writers/ maps designer took in consideration the other episodes of the season, not only the previous one: Like DERVs an echo to inquest researchs on branded during episode 2 A bug in the system. Hole digger also sell you decos from the first episode,daybreak. Without forgetting breakable walls from episode 3.

Now, a little analysis, I'm sad that Joko isn't the main villain, furthermore he could have been on our side. As some stated on reddit, Joko could have sent mordant crescent in the inhabited and abandonned facility "crucible of eternity", recovering both Kudu's corpse and Subject alpha, awakening them, and use them to protect his army from kralk + commander while experimenting the plague. Kudu would have enjoyed conquering more territory for Inquest ,would have make sense with that whisper agent in rata sum "inquest is preparing something big", indeed, farhanhur gates leading near capitals.Would have make a good plot twist where those Asuras + awakened are finally number 1. After some annoyances from kralk, joko have enough of that, and ask for our help and send us some of the latest developped golems. Since he knows our plans to replace kralk and agree with it.

Ps: We are taking another path so impossible, apart through other realities/universes where joko and kudu survived possible with the rifts apearing now.... not speaking of scarlet and the infinity of possible plots.

[Moira Shalaar.5620]

STORY:The story is ok. I’m not a big story/lore person so I didn’t have high expectations with where that went so the best I can say is I didn’t hate it.

JAHAI BLUFFS:This map is awesome. it is hands down the best Living Story map we have seen since Silverwastes.

MASTERY:This mastery works well both thematically with the previous one and does excellent things for improving the usability of the roller beetle and expanding the griffon without totally breaking things.

SUN’S REFUGE:I loved having so many of the collections revolve around the Sun’s Refuge as a content hub.

ARMOR:If there is a bleak part of this release that blackens it, it is the armor collection & the sigil of Nullification debacle.

OVERALL:Overall I think this is a mostly fantastic release and a template for greater success of other Living Story episodes. If the developers can somehow repair the Sigil misstep this would be unquestionably the high point of the living story season instead of leaving players focused on what they can’t do.

[Drakz.7051]

I have had plenty of freezes and crashes during this, Cutscenes not working or taking too long, conversations not happening then meshing together with other, text bubbles not appearing at all.

It killed my enjoyment since some issue or other happened at an interesting scene (Last time I was going to a location and I crashed mid flight so I expect to be dead when I get back on)

[Zoltar MacRoth.7146]

@Genesis.8572 said:I will also add that Braham's apology has not worked with my female flatmates. At this point, they both want Braham gone.

I felt much the same until the interaction with Eir in this episode. Now I feel for the guy. It's no wonder he's messed up with a parent like that.

[Sir Black.7423]

They just keep coming up with increasingly annoying mechanics to frustrate the player and waste their time.... That deadeye thing. After 6 stupid deaths I nearly rage-quit the instance. After that it was really hard to have any care about whats-her-name that was so sad over Balthazar.

[wandererbard.6912]

I loved this episode so much! Seeing the old maps reimagined is still among my favorite parts of GW2, and Jahai was done beautifully.

The story was enjoyable, fighting the Deadeye was irritating, and the ending made me bawl. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say I'm in a similar position as Taimi, and it was both cathartic and upsetting.

Keep up the great work!

[Fiaile.8791]

As a person who generally sucks at gaming but tends to solo all storylines, everything in the latest update was simple enough to do but the jumping sequence out of the Mists. I've died like fifty times. I'm not even sure I'm exaggerating at this point. This one section makes me kind of hate the level, even though it has my favorite line about Rytlock's fur. For the love of all things good, make it possible to beat the level if you suck at jumping puzzles. Because that's all it is, a forced unwanted jumping puzzle.

[Lankester.1984]

@Sir Black.7423 said:They just keep coming up with increasingly annoying mechanics to frustrate the player and waste their time.... That deadeye thing. After 6 stupid deaths I nearly rage-quit the instance. After that it was really hard to have any care about whats-her-name that was so sad over Balthazar.

Yep - where other dev studios look for ways to make their games more fun for their players, Anet seem to be working hard on coming up with the most frustrating game play possible. I would actually say it's getting worse over time. It's like they're begging the players to leave for more enjoyable gaming experience elsewhere. And people wonder every quarter what's up with GW2's revenue going down again...

Overall: pretty mediocre story - as usual; very little to no player choice and involvement in the way the story advances - as usual; LS encounter design team hostile to their players - as usual... I wonder why I even bother with this game. Came back after a seven month break, saw that nothing has changed, so I'll be moving on again. What a bad joke.

[Tailcoat.6920]

I love having to help force opposing factions to work together and would like to see some more of that grey area stuff rather than just smashing mind-controlled baddies (having Awakened, Mordrem, Branded, and Risen seem excessive). I like seeing the Awakened try to move on with their lives, rejoin their families, and become allies. That was something that made Vabbi interesting too since I could see many people looking favorably on Joko as a way to escape death (not to mention he's a likeable villain).

I like Gorrik and Blish. Blish had this redemption arc going on. If you're going to have Taimi's illness kill her, I hope we get to help put her into a robot (I can picture one wearing a bow and feather on top, but instead of a little Blish golem, it's something big that shoots lasers!) and help her upgrade to do cool stuff on missions.

Deadeye was maddeningly bad and frustrating. Reaper doesn't seem to have any powers that help. The raptor escape was just so many deaths I lost count. What made it hard was the unexpected change in jump physics.

It was frustrating being unable to find a vendor selling harvesting tools, especially when I saw all that flax in the jungle and ran out of sickles, then had to visit another map. I don't know if I missed a vendor or what.

[Fiaile.8791]

I finally beat the level. I liked how there were eventually checkpoints to restart from for the final jumping sequence. I would suggest adding in one or two earlier than that, since I never reached one during my first 50 plummets into the abyss. Maybe place it around the giant crystal near the beginning, when you have to turn to the left instead of continuing straight forward into the crystal. That was the area I generally failed at. I would often make it around that area, but fall before the speaking sequence began. (That was also annoying. I watched a video of a complete run through and the dialogue was interesting, but as I was usually falling to my doom as soon as the dialogue started, I couldn't enjoy it.)

I find it unusual that I didn't have any major issues with the sharpshooter lady when everyone else complained about it. Maybe you had already fixed everything. Or maybe I'm just used to dying at least ten times during the final boss sequences. I didn't leave nude for once, so it couldn't have been that bad.

[Raijin Tora.3294]

I'm gonna give extra props and kudos to the VAs in the last bit of the episode for their spectacular work, as well as Lena Raine for composing that final musical piece to capture the mood of the moment.

I ran this on a female Charr, and then again as a female Sylvari. Both VAs were good but I felt something extra with Jennifer's voice as my Sylvari, especially with this line:

"He said he's sorry."

I felt my heart shatter into pieces. Ugh! So good! The way that line was delivered was a punch to the gut. Excellent work all around!

[JonnyB.1542]

Two things with the story and characters:

• I found the ending where all the bad stuff pouring on me just, sudden, without any proper leading especially when Taimi announces that she has cancer. I was like 'oh-kay'? I knew she had a rough time when she got stuck in that golem but it's gotten worse just now, all of a sudden?
• And bringing back Eir for that mission was a nice touch but what she was saying at the end: "oh i know i should have been a mother but i am selfish so no, lol".The other parts were fine, even the map it-self and the little side stories, good job on that.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

I can be a harsh critic sometimes, but one thing I REALLY love about the episode:

when the character is sucked into the tornado. My female sylvari's squeaking noises are just too cute!

Another fact, the grind to get the armor set was a lot less... annoying than anything Kourna threw at me. It is a map that I will visit even after getting everything off it.

[Infanta.7045]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

Another fact, the grind to get the armor set was a lot less... annoying than anything Kourna threw at me. It is a map that I will visit even after getting everything off it.

I sure hope you do ... in my experience, the Kournan map is probably the least populated map outside of Istan. Admittedly, my time zone finds me usually playing outside of core North American playing times, but try finding groups or squads to do anything in either of those places (except maybe the Istan meta).

Further to that comment, while I appreciate all the development of new maps and so on (despite the raft of annoying new trash items that come along with each new map - I know I'm not the only one who would rather get no drop than a low-value trash drop [coppers eventually add up to gold, but ... seriously?]), I can't help wondering if the current trend of only releasing new content on new maps maps is actually harming the game by fragmenting the player population further. Random visits to original maps simply to kill designated bosses for collections does not equate with new content on those maps. I wonder if more real content can be achieved on original and existing maps, so that new players in Tyria can find other players to group with. How can we 'welded on' players convince new players (there are such people) that purchasing expansions is worth the financial outlay and time investment if their experience is that they rarely encounter other players on most of the original Tyrian maps? I've noticed a lot of development on the world map, and fear that if all these areas open up in future expansions or LW content, the playing population will become so fragmented that the game ceases to keep new players interested enough to keep paying for content.

[Glingal.5869]

The story that was told was not your greatest ever but the gameplay was very good during the story. I really liked visiting the mists and the anti-grav feel in 'space' (you know there are dragons on the moon, right? ;) ).I love the new map and how it works. I liked it so much more than Kourna.I was waiting to see what became of the Sunspear Sanctuary all the time and you did a great job with Sun's Refuge. I really enjoy the collections and seeing how the place developes. I like it more than the Home Instances.

[Kraggy.4169]

It was a refreshing change that none of the story instances featured a fatuously long boss fight .. looking at you Fluffy as one example of a horribly over-buffed boss simply made to drag out the fight needlessly, the end boss of the chapter 2 is another. Deadeye initially frustrated me but in the end I can say I enjoyed it, it wasn't over-powered I just needed to be careful.

The final instance was annoying, not due to bugs as either they've fixed it or I was lucky to avoid them, but I hate time-limited things like this as there's zero time to THINK and if you make a single mis-step on the route you take you're guaranteed to die!

After three deaths in the second and third island phases I ditched the raptor and FLEW all the way through both sections, only just making it but I think that's the easiest way to do it in future.

The new map is kind of 'meh' .. like, we've seen branded areas and deserts already .. but the first section with the anomalies was fun, seeing a bit of HoT landscape for example.

Sun's Refuge is a great idea but I fear it feels like World of Warcraft's 'Garrison' feature, ie. it's fun while it lasts but will be a dead feature come the next LS chapter or expansion, I HOPE this won't be the case given the amount of work that's clearly gone into it and the achievements connected to it.

[Eramonster.2718]

The events in the Jahai's map is satisfying and good but few might require tweaking to scale properly. Eg. Find food in the garrison for hungry Awakened before they eat the wurms event. (impossible to be done with a handful of players, added multiple pre-meta events going at the same time.)

On another note, the event Hunt the Hunter - Collect and deliver lost supplies to Second Spear Koja (to lure out the Hydra) might need some attention. The event will spawn branded monsters continuously at few fixed areas where the event will take place which is fine for the event itself. Problem arise when it clashes with the pre-meta event - escort the DERVs to Almorra's Stand where the Shatterer event will take place. The escort DERV will stop and turn hostile to any mobs they encounter. When this two event clashes, the DERVs escort will be put into a halt battling an endless stream of minions generated from Hunt the Hunter event and ultimately failing the pre-meta event due to time limit.

[TheAlchemist.3795]

It just took me 1.5 hours to get through a Bug in the System. You need to warn players or allow us some sort of save because its just too long. And the last fight with the Golum was just plain boring and stupid. Your game mechanics can be great and yet other times the complete opposite. This was one of the worst yet.

[NaramSin.2693]

I would like really to know the idea that guide the "great design" of some things, for example sun's refuge "Door to the Past": I have to get 5 random runes to open a door with a chest that contains .. nothing special .. every day?? every day roaming killing things just to hope to drop 5 runes to open this chest.. each time?? but.. why!????Or "In a grain of sand" you need every kind of mount to reach the place but you can operate the compass ONLY with the jackal??? so you take the jackal, dismount it, go there, mount again correct the direction, dismount..go there etc. finally you reach the point with a griffon or a springer and you have to mount the jackal just to find the corrupted sand in place??? is this smart? is this funny? is this a great piece of game design?? like always...why???????

[Udolpho.1209]

Just a question. I had the quest step Storm Tracking where it said to go to Sun's Refuge. Noticed that my spearmarshal's plea had a free teleport there. Great! But it puts you in the instance and doesn't start the story because the story step thingy is outside the instance. But when I leave the instance via instance door, I'm teleported back to my original location (far away). What's the point of this free teleport?

[serialkicker.5274]

No idea why everyone is praising the map so much. It's the worst map in the game. Mobs are seriously overtuned. Map is mostly empty. I'm trying to farm currency and I'm doing events alone all the time. There are so many mobs you can't do anything. You can kill 100 of them and in a minute 200 more spawn. They keep spawning and they overwhelm you. It feels pointless killing them, because they just respawn so quickly in front of you. If map was so good, people would come back after finishing story. Map that requires zerg to rush through to do anything is a bad map.

[BlueJin.4127]

Just finished LWS4 E4 story.

All I’ll say is that I’m happy that this episode wasn’t a spam of flashing unhealthy lights like previous LWS4 eipsode. First story ofLWS4 E1 gave me severe motion sickness and I had to suffer through a headache the rest of the day. Half the story missions in LWS4 E2 took place in dark environments with constant bright flashing lights. I had to use eye drops repeatedly due to eye pain this caused. LWS4 E3 was fine, except for the last story mission where you have to spam a signet that creates yet another unhealthy flash that covers the whole screen. LWS4 E4 stories had no flashing (other than collecting Volatile Magic). Thank goodness.