Echoes of the Past Begins November 4!

[Maarius]

What exactly is bad about using the environment in a battle? You still can (and should) use your profession-specific skills (I used blink, torch-stealth, etc. constantly). I still feel like a Mesmer.

In my opinion new mechanics make encounters feel more special and varied. The boss gains much more of uniqueness if there are things to accomplish which other bosses don't have. You just have to learn new mechanics (I know, not everyone can do this easily) and master them to beat the boss. Imho the best videogame bosses are programmed that way.

The one thing I don't like about the update are the boring boss-models of Glint's Lair. We have seen that enemy-model too often already, why did they just add a bigger version of that model as a boss? Why not something entirely new? I love the new Mordrem btw.

[Vizardlorde]

What exactly is bad about using the environment in a battle? You still can (and should) use your profession-specific skills (I used blink, torch-stealth, etc. constantly). I still feel like a Mesmer.

In my opinion new mechanics make encounters feel more special and varied. The boss gains much more of uniqueness if there are things to accomplish which other bosses don't have. You just have to learn new mechanics (I know, not everyone can do this easily) and master them to beat the boss. Imho the best videogame bosses are programmed that way.

The one thing I don't like about the update are the boring boss-models of Glint's Lair. We have seen that enemy-model too often already, why did they just add a bigger version of that model as a boss? Why not something entirely new? I love the new Mordrem btw.

Lucky you I guess, as a guardian after the first 2 bosses all I did was use autoattack on the black vortex thingie while running for my life the rest of the time, Imo they shouldve added a burnface after breaking it instead of deducting the hp from the boss directly when it breaks.
I love the mordrem models, and the more aggressive AI, but I hate their mechanics looking at FGS teragriffs and backstabbing wolf packs.

[lawow74]

What exactly is bad about using the environment in a battle? You still can (and should) use your profession-specific skills (I used blink, torch-stealth, etc. constantly). I still feel like a Mesmer.

But that's just it, it's ALL environment. They're not mechanics, they're an excuse for designing meaningful enemy actions. Your attacks against the third(I think, don't recall and don't really care to cos it sucked)boss enemy in Glint's Lair are MEANINGLESS. It's all 'stand in this to get buff, transfer to crystal, break crystal'. That's completely irrelevant to the boss's actions. And completely irrelevant to your class abilities.

I did not level my character to 80 using all my various skills and whatnot to play some Whack-A-Mole minigame as endgame content. There are a lot more things they could have done than this lazy bullshit. Glint's Lair was infamous for its environmental effects. Playing more on those handicapping you would have been a better twist than getting stonewalled at being able to directly damage an enemy.

To me a perfect example of this nonsense is the story mode of CoF. Where you take down the final boss by...throwing rocks at him. Not using your weapons and skills. ROCKS. That's not novel and interesting. That's insulting. Somehow my weapons and magic are unable to damage him. But picking up a rock and chucking it at him is. Well, sound the horns across the land! We don't need swords and spells to defeat Flame Legion leaders trying to become gods! Just BIG ROCKS.

[Maarius]

To each his own, I guess. I enjoyed that encounter (with the rocks) as well, one of the better bossfights imho.

[Svifnymr]

Loved Glint's lair and the first boss there, the others can burn in hell. Luckily I didn't disconnect while in the instance so I didn't have to waste over 30 mins on it. I also enjoyed the Priory's library and I read some interesting things from the books there. I'm also glad that the whole Abadon thing was only a statue and not "GW1 was only a setback" kinda thing

First night I lost progress to a DC, last night I"m on stupid second boss and lagged for a couple seconds and died. Boss resets, get the ten-minute message for a new patch. I just logged off and went to SW:TOR. It's like GW2 is conspiring to keep me from finishing that stupid long instance. I haven't even tried the new zone outside of running to the instances and grabbing a skillpoint.

- - - Updated - - -

What exactly is bad about using the environment in a battle?

My main thing (aside from connection issues) is the grindy/ repetitive use of these things. The second Glints Lair boss, kill that, grab the color, repeat until dead... why repeat? Why need to use this "mechanic" more than once or twice? What new comes from it aside from tedium and wasted time?

And that's another issue I have with these, why is the basic story instance supposed to have any challenge, really? The dragon I can see from last update, but the plant thing with the shield? Who the hell CARES! Sure there's an element of challenge for things, do it via the achievements. Did anyone find the stupid golem with little golems actually FUN?

[nevermore]

I think it's the same reason why people hate(d) vehicle fights in WoW when they were introduced in WotLK (culminating in the tragedy that was Malygos last phase and Flame Leviathan).

It takes away the sense of accomplishment when you're not playing your own character (or in this case you're not using your own character's abilities) to defeat the boss.

*shrug* different tastes I guess.


On the topic of Mordrem Wolves... OH GOD. They are the nemesis (nemeses?) of my squishy glass cannon elementalist. 1 wolf's 1 jump attack can 1shot me if I'm unlucky, so I really do love fighting more of them at once. It's usually ok because I can burn them down before they kill me, but still. Annoying.

Though that Elite Mordrem Wolf you have to defeat for the achievement (S2 E3 I think) when you open up the crates in the cave... Ugh. Nope. Spent like 10 minutes running around exploiting the creature pathing AI to kill it :/

[worprz]

I really liked using the things in the environment to kill creatures, it didn't feel so generic to me.

The glints lair boss did take too long though. Personally I would rather have those types of fights than an npc with a ton of health that I have to just smack around a lot. I hate the battles like the one where you have to just kill waves of creatures until the time runs out (or till the chopper arrives), to me that is mind numbingly boring.

@nevermore my thief is glass as well and that Elite Mordrem Wolf took me forever to kill lol.

[Svifnymr]

I think it's the same reason why people hate(d) vehicle fights in WoW when they were introduced in WotLK (culminating in the tragedy that was Malygos last phase and Flame Leviathan).

It's always hard to judge, since Mechanics can enter into it too. Malygos was horrible, as was Oculus, but I think it may have been the specific fights rather than just them taking away your abilities. Flame Leviathon was a chore, but I didn't see as much hatred towards it.

It takes away the sense of accomplishment when you're not playing your own character (or in this case you're not using your own character's abilities) to defeat the boss.

*shrug* different tastes I guess.

The sense of familiarity at least. You don't get to "see" your gear, though your gear-score still mattered for Leviathon at least. Shaking up the familiarity can be a good thing, so long as it's not done too much or for too long. As I said above, I think Season2 has just tended to making these gimmick fights "challenging" by adding length, which really is just tedious to me, rather than challenging/ fun. If the three bosses are just to teach you the mechanics of the final boss, then they don't really need to take so long.

On the topic of Mordrem Wolves... OH GOD. They are the nemesis (nemeses?) of my squishy glass cannon elementalist. 1 wolf's 1 jump attack can 1shot me if I'm unlucky, so I really do love fighting more of them at once. It's usually ok because I can burn them down before they kill me, but still. Annoying.

I love a lot of the designs of the modrem, but all of them seem a little... oddly tuned. Spinning poison insta death, wolf-leap insta death, all of these things tend to be harsh if you don't see them coming or have some lag or whatever that keeps you from getting out of the way quickly enough.

I just finished the instance without a problem, and it still doesn't strike me as fun or much of anything. The library is so neat, it's a shame it's not open without the instance. It really is stupid to have a cipher-book-code to unlock an area like that, especially given all the shelves descend... Neat enough looking, but stupid.


Also, since I was playing SW:TOR during the gap, I've been trying to spacebar through some of the conversations in GW2, which is amusing.

[Meledelion]

What exactly is bad about using the environment in a battle? You still can (and should) use your profession-specific skills (I used blink, torch-stealth, etc. constantly). I still feel like a Mesmer.

In my opinion new mechanics make encounters feel more special and varied. The boss gains much more of uniqueness if there are things to accomplish which other bosses don't have. You just have to learn new mechanics (I know, not everyone can do this easily) and master them to beat the boss. Imho the best videogame bosses are programmed that way.

The one thing I don't like about the update are the boring boss-models of Glint's Lair. We have seen that enemy-model too often already, why did they just add a bigger version of that model as a boss? Why not something entirely new? I love the new Mordrem btw.

Great you're a mesmer and got to use some very niche skills. Skills that are basically useless when it comes to "skilled play".
Other classes don't really have these and thus the value is greatly reduced. I main a ranger my spirits didn't help, my traps didn't help, my pet didn't help, my KD didn't help, my retreats didn't help,... All I did was run from one point to another and hit auto attack. Yes I used the amazing skill swoop to run faster but again this isn't something that requires skill.
It felt to me like I was literally running from one dummy to another.

Yes new mechanics are fun and what not BUT why do you have to give up everything else? The implementation of starting with one stupid shadow thingy to get further is OK. The problem is that the fight didn't build past this point. There was no difference in running the buff at the start to kill the mob as at the end aside form the fact that the boss had more health.
There was no complexity and thus no challenge. It was harder for many people to do the mini bossfight outside of Fort Salma than to clear this instance, the difference was that it took unnecessarily long.
Also don't forget that many mechanics weren't new the color thing came from scarlet and the buff thing was used before but I can't recall it atm.

I personally was quite happy with how the instance turned out until I reached the end boss and it was the same thing I had been doing for the last 10minutes all over again. I don't get how it would be such a bad thing to make the end fight exactly the same apart from where you only deal damage by killing some other minion.
I can make that fight 10* more interesting with some simple changes.

1. Boss has a gazillion health and armor thanks to a buff
=> you clear the buff by making him absorb the shield thingy
2. The room is equally divided into different colors (red/green/blue) adds appear of each color if you kill the add you don't take damage from standing on tiles with the same color, not being attuned makes it so you take damage each second.
=> the tiles rotate but can change direction (they start clockwise but can switch counterclockwise)
3. You kill the boss by attacking with your skills.

There you use the same mechanics in a much more interesting/fun way. And you can change the difficulty by changing how quickly the tiles change/mobs spawn/...

The mechanics "introduced" are fun, they're just implemented poorly.

[lawow74]

ANet needs to take a page from the nouveaux Cookie Monster. Nonstandard fight mechanics should be a sometime thing, not an all-the-time thing. Used judiciously, solving a challenge outside of your character skills can be a relief. But when they keep putting you through gimmick after gimmick after gimmick, it really isn't you playing your character anymore. It's you being a little show dog, performing tricks. Jump through the hoop, run through the slalom poles, etc.

[Vizardlorde]

The birth of the second Greatsword-carrying necromancer !!! One was not enough so anet did it again.

[lawow74]

The birth of the second Greatsword-carrying necromancer !!! One was not enough so anet did it again.

At least this one didn't weasel in and steal the spotlight the way that walking cabbage did. Pleeeeeease ANet, let me keeeeell heeeeeem.

Slowly.

With butterfat ranch dressing and shredded cheese on top.

[Lazuli]

The actual boss fights were not bad but I grew bored of farming the same thing shortly. Ofc most pugs cannot grasp anything but '1' so a lot of fails, for example the 2 boss where you have to save bubbles and pop them when they are near in cave. Such a simple mechanic.. yet... Another possible great fights for people to tackle in an instance thrown to the open world zerglings.

AI constant rushing knockdowns and wolf ganks are very deep mechanics lol.

Boss telegraphs red line/circle were fine but why don't normal mobs ever have these especially since particle effects are a big 'fuck you, can't see me!'. I would have no issues with the effects if these telegraphs were added to every mob.

[Svifnymr]

Got the three skins, but not sure it's worth re-entering again to get the achievements for the alt skins...

[nevermore]

I love how the heavy shoulders look pretty cool, but by the time the artists got to the light shoulders they were like "ah fuck it, my shift's over" and it literally looks like the most generic level 5 crap. (on male characters at least)

[Deleted]

Got stuck running in to various defend / attack events in Silverwastes. I think they captured the being under attack atmosphere really well. It feels hectic and bit chaotic, kind of reminds me of when LA got attacked.

I'm loving the story parts of this episode to bits - I just got to the priory part last night and had a jaw drop moment

[Deleted]

I am loving the new map; tons to do, not too annoying to navigate and nicely paced. Haven't done a lot of story yet, what I have seen is "eh" (just done helping Caithe on that ledge), I'm sure it gets better though since everyone seems impressed by it.

[rhandric]

So I finished the story last night with a friend. First thing that came to mind when doing the end of the find Caithe/survive part was L4D

[Deleted]

Finished story.. meh?

Environment and lore stuff was nice, hated the boss fights... just total time-wastery immune phase garbage. It's like... It's like when an easy monster just blocks all your attacks endlessly in a Zelda game for example; it's not hard, just a waste of your time. Not really looking forward to doing some of it 2-3 times to finish the achievements tbh. What's the point in being a squishy, high damage Thief when I don't get to even do any damage myself?

[Svifnymr]

Finished story.. meh?

Environment and lore stuff was nice, hated the boss fights... just total time-wastery immune phase garbage. It's like... It's like when an easy monster just blocks all your attacks endlessly in a Zelda game for example; it's not hard, just a waste of your time. Not really looking forward to doing some of it 2-3 times to finish the achievements tbh. What's the point in being a squishy, high damage Thief when I don't get to even do any damage myself?

I did it three times for the skins, but to unlock Luminous you need to do ALL the achievements. Frankly I dont think I care enough right now...

Story wise, the big reveal of Caithe's escort didn't seem to be followed up on (maybe it's part of the area and I just didn't see it yet since I didn't explore much) and frankly the entire Durmond Priory thing was tremendous waste of time. learn a cipher to unlock a staircase to find a dwarf who sends you into glint's lair to let you learn that the master of peace has glint's egg

Rather than the slightly less dramatic, yet much less nonsensical "get a letter that gives you all the info".

I loved the look and feel of the Durmond library and stuff, it's a shame they don't have that area open without the instance.

Also, a lot of the voice acting didn't match the chat transcript, and also wasn't paced very well. They did try to have some interaction among the npcs, but a lot of it was out of sync and just didn't work well for me.