Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Edge-]

Huh so...shorter than I expected. Way shorter. Had low expectations and kinda enjoyed it story-wise. The fight was...meh, I have memories of elder dragons the size of mountain ranges in the artwork so while I think they've done some really good "scale" battles this one just seemed...smaller for some reason. And I love Taimi and I miss her so much and she'd better be in the next expansion a ton. DAMNIT I NEED MORE TAIMI (and Gorrik is pretty cool too).

Oh wow though...I didn't realize the item only showed it if you had the buff, I thought it would just always display both. The free ascended is nice and all but like...that just feels kinda lame and like what's the point of the cosmetic? I hate sounding like I'm complaining about something we got unexpectedly and for free but like...just still feels kinda lame.

Wanted to do the group version of the fight I guess the group version is on a timer and they once again don't bother having the NPC's tell you? Mildly annoying : |

[Rogalicus]

Wanted to do the group version of the fight I guess the group version is on a timer and they once again don't bother having the NPC's tell you? Mildly annoying : |

You can go with private squad from LFG. It's not really different though, you just need to defeat both champions at the same time and channeling magic into dragon's face takes more flights, everything else is the same.

[Edge-]

Man, haven't been able to get on when the public even is running but the more and more I think about it the more and more underwhelmed I am with this update. It's basically just the single fight and even that is...ok? I dunno, doesn't feel remotely as epic as other fights we've had against single dragons, yet here we got two. It kinda feels like they just wanted to rush and wrap things up as quickly as possible?

I'm assuming they're leaving a lot of threads for the expansion or something because like...yo whatever happened with Eir's bow and shit? Wasn't that like, a huge part of the narrative for a while?

Don't really watch him, but giving the WP videos a look now since he's way more up to date with all the story stuff etc. and I'm curious about his views on it (which I know are negative) given how big of a booster for the game he is.

I really hope they have some huge things up their sleeve for the expansion, because they're not going into it off the back of a fantastically well received update/arc. If it's another S5-esque "And we also have SHIRTS! SHIRTTTTSSSSS!" event I'm gonna be sad. But I'll pick up the expansion anyways, I'm nowhere near as salty as I was post-HoT when I sat on the PoF expansion for a while because I was still pissed off at the game.

[Rogalicus]

Man, haven't been able to get on when the public even is running but the more and more I think about it the more and more underwhelmed I am with this update. It's basically just the single fight and even that is...ok? I dunno, doesn't feel remotely as epic as other fights we've had against single dragons, yet here we got two. It kinda feels like they just wanted to rush and wrap things up as quickly as possible?

It was the point of the fight, to make Jormag and Primordus kill each other. We weren't fighting the dragons properly this time, which makes everything feel rushed and underwhelming, especially since it came out of nowhere with little to no build up. Yes, they were already established as each other's weakness, but Aurene suddenly having an ability to manipulate them into coming where she wants them to be is poorly explained and even lampshading by one of the NPCs doesn't help.

yo whatever happened with Eir's bow and shit?

Bangar and Ryland stole the bow to subjugate Jormag, it obviously wasn't needed after Ryland became champion since he had no plans of killing his boss.

Don't really watch him, but giving the WP videos a look now since he's way more up to date with all the story stuff etc. and I'm curious about his views on it (which I know are negative) given how big of a booster for the game he is.

WP is salty about Primordus, because he was set up to be the biggest threat to Tyria in GW1 and WP was hoping that finale of the Elder Dragon story will be a big expansion about fighting Primordus. What we got instead is random attacks and anticlimatic death which makes the whole plot feel cheap.

If it's another S5-esque "And we also have SHIRTS! SHIRTTTTSSSSS!" event I'm gonna be sad.

Thankfully not, most of the people who announced IBS left the company, including marketing guy who is rumoured to be behind some insane insider account on Reddit.

[Edge-]

It was the point of the fight, to make Jormag and Primordus kill each other. We weren't fighting the dragons properly this time, which makes everything feel rushed and underwhelming, especially since it came out of nowhere with little to no build up. Yes, they were already established as each other's weakness, but Aurene suddenly having an ability to manipulate them into coming where she wants them to be is poorly explained and even lampshading by one of the NPCs doesn't help.

So I didn't realize they actually killed each other until a bit ago I thought they like...basically just "froze" each other more or less and we'd fully deal with them later. That's even worse of a conclusion, though it makes me hopeful we're finally done with all this dragon horse shit with the next expansion.

Just feels like a shitty, awful, no good way to wrap up what has functionally been a decade-long story arc. I get that we didn't beat them both directly but like...the fight just didn't feel "epic" at all. Zhaitan for all its flaws at least feels pretty darned epic. Kralk bursting through walls and shit felt rad as hell. Mouth of Mordremoth with the entire zone-wide event feels freakin epic as hell. This...is just disappointing

Bangar and Ryland stole the bow to subjugate Jormag, it obviously wasn't needed after Ryland became champion since he had no plans of killing his boss.

Yeah but like, Brahm was pretty hot to get it back and just seemed to eventually go, "Nah, I don't need my mothers bow anymore after chasing after it for months. Eir who? I have the spirits, sucka!"

WP is salty about Primordus, because he was set up to be the biggest threat to Tyria in GW1 and WP was hoping that finale of the Elder Dragon story will be a big expansion about fighting Primordus. What we got instead is random attacks and anticlimatic death which makes the whole plot feel cheap.

Hell, I barely played GW2 and only half pay attention to the narrative most of the time and it felt cheap as all hell. Don't get me wrong, I've been begging for them to finish up with the dragons sooner rather than later but like...I didn't think they'd take me seriously.

Thankfully not, most of the people who announced IBS left the company, including marketing guy who is rumoured to be behind some insane insider account on Reddit.

That's maybe a good/bad thing overall. Over the duration of PoF ANet lost a huge number of senior staff, including Mike O'Brien, plus some pretty significant layoffs which canceled a few unannounced projects as well. I was really hoping they'd land this update and be able to use the momentum as a platform for the next expansion reveal and go from there, but it feels like they've taken the wind out of the sales right before they're about to leave port with the next expansion. They're gonna need some bangers to hype folks up again.

I don't put much stock in "insider" accounts, especially if it's someone allegedly from the marketing team. Those are like, the absolute last people I want to hear from at Anet.

Edit: HAHAHA Oh man, just listening to WP being salty in the background and this is why I'm doing it: Being reminded that ANet claimed that IBS would be "expansion quality". Now I remember why folks expectations were pretty high for this overall and why it's been kinda disappointing overall, especially the conclusion.

Looking back, it feels like they were just about hitting that target for the first half of releases - the Shiverpeaks zone was solid in both parts and the whole charr civil war arc was pretty great. But once they hit the last set of updates...it all fell apart. The last 4 chapters being all DRM's just felt like they were pulling resources for the actual expansion and there was a skeleton crew left to try to keep the ball rolling.

Edit 2: Masteries...kek. I stopped keeping up with those after a while since honestly almost all the IBS masteries feel like pointless grinds rather than anything meaningful. Sure, the same goes for HoT (outside of gliding at least), but at least with PoF and shit it felt like they had a better handle on how to make masteries meaningful and impactful overall and not just in those respective zones. I'm at least 50+ mastery points behind but I just don't see any reason to go back and grind the XP/points to unlock them.

Edit 3: WP is on-point with how Primodus was built up over the years and...then we just kinda kill him without ever really interacting with him or anything at all. I'm remembering back to that artwork of the back of the dragon being a mountain range to give it a sense of scope/scale and...yeah, this was always a problem I had with GW2 - It can't do scale properly but relies a lot on scale when it comes to story elements. These dragons are tiny compared to how bit they're supposed to be. They're chumps considering how powerful they're supposed to be. And Jormag just straight up fighting rather than engaging in manipulation as is characteristic to her etc. is just...meh. Everything just feels so completely rushed with this. I'm glad we're done with dragons, but I was hoping for at least some sort of satisfying conclusion.

[Rogalicus]

So I didn't realize they actually killed each other until a bit ago I thought they like...basically just "froze" each other more or less and we'd fully deal with them later. That's even worse of a conclusion, though it makes me hopeful we're finally done with all this dragon horse shit with the next expansion.

That'd have been a repeat of S3 ending, which is probably why they decided to kill them for good this time.

Yeah but like, Brahm was pretty hot to get it back and just seemed to eventually go, "Nah, I don't need my mothers bow anymore after chasing after it for months. Eir who? I have the spirits, sucka!"

Being a champion of Primordus gives better fighting chance than wielding a bow that can crack fang of Jormag with some effort. Big part of story was also Braham realizing that he doesn't have to stick to some prophecy like if it's unquestionable truth.

I don't put much stock in "insider" accounts, especially if it's someone allegedly from the marketing team. Those are like, the absolute last people I want to hear from at Anet.

It wasn't really "insider" as in someone who voluntarily leaks information. That account (now deleted) accidentally revealed that MikeZ left the company and he also was vigorously defending marketing team whenever someone on Reddit shat on them. WP talked about it on one of the streams as someone contacted him and brought back deleted posts, which paint a picture of either that guy from marketing or someone close to him using sockpuppet account to take his frustration out on his critics.

[Edge-]

That'd have been a repeat of S3 ending, which is probably why they decided to kill them for good this time.

Yeah but this was just so...underwhelming. Seriously, getting the two to kill each other while we tinkered around with their stupid champions feels so narratively awful, especially after all the buildup. Kill off just one of them (Jormag pls since she actually got some development) because shit (again) goes wrong. I dunno, I feel like they kinda wrote themselves into a corner and rather than dramatically alter the story course so it'd work with the resources they had they were committed to trying to deliver an expansion-worthy narrative ending on an LWS1 budget.

Being a champion of Primordus gives better fighting chance than wielding a bow that can crack fang of Jormag with some effort. Big part of story was also Braham realizing that he doesn't have to stick to some prophecy like if it's unquestionable truth.

I thought it like...was the opposite? Him accepting that he was the norn of prophecy after initially rejecting it etc? Even aside from the power of the bow, its value as like, the last memory of his mother should be a motivating reason to get it back separately from its power.

[Theangryone]

What achievement requires you to spend gold to complete it? You don’t have to spend anything if you don’t want to.

[Edge-]

What achievement requires you to spend gold to complete it? You don’t have to spend anything if you don’t want to.

Stuff like the gryphon/skyscale mounts (which are achievement rewards). There are plenty of other skin based ones that cost gold too.

[Edge-]

"But you could craft that Mystic Claymore for the Reaper collection by saving up Mystic Coins, not spending gold!"

*stares at stack of mystic coins just sitting there because I've never bothered with mystic forge crafting*

Hey, at least I can sell them for a decent amount of gold when I'm too lazy to stash them in my bank : |

- - - Updated - - -

Shit, I totally forgot the Tengu briefly got involved in this story arc and...disappeared after that one episode. Man, it really does seem obvious that there was a big internal pivot halfway through this "saga" and they moved most of their staff/resources to the expansion and told whatever remaining team was left to figure out how to finish the story without changing anything, leaving with a piecemeal, lackluster, incomplete arc. Like, the more I'm reminded of some of the story beats they introduced and then immediately abandoned, and thinking more on ways they could have restructured things for a more satisfying arc that would have actually delivered on "expansion-worthy" living story like they promised.

[Edge-]

To be honest, the dragons stopped being interesting or believable as a real threat to the world after we blasted one of them out of the sky with the phaser banks of the NCC-1701 Enterprise.

Zhaitan? At least there was some proper buildup for that one. Primordus us supposed to be like, the "big daddy" of elder dragons, so he should have taken a lot more to take out than this, and Jormag basically just ending with a straight up brawl rather than her trademark manipulation was...damned boring. The dragon fights seemed to get better over time, I think it was the Kralk fight(s) that felt pretty proper epic and that one was the last fight before this.

Watching more WP (he's salty, I know, but he remembers a LOT more than I do) I'm fully on board with his position (similar to mine) that much more was planned but that staff and budget were pulled from IBS halfway through to work on End of Dragons. And rather than pivot with their story (potentially only taking out one of the two, or putting both on "ice" for a bit so we can deal with them later) they forged ahead and tried to do their "best" with a skeleton crew and limited resources. There were some great cinematic moments in the final fight, but damn if it didn't strip everything that supposedly made both dragons "them" away from them and just turn them into pretty empty husks just watching their champions get their asses handed to them by a few named NPC's (missing TONS in the fight) and some canon fodder.

I forgot about Zoja and shit even, though I imagine her failure to return is more of a budget/planning issue with getting Felicia Day back to record some voice lines. Ah the risks and trials of getting celebrity talent involved without longterm contracts ensuring you have access to them a decade down the road when their characters may be needed again.

[PACOX]

Man, haven't been able to get on when the public even is running but the more and more I think about it the more and more underwhelmed I am with this update. It's basically just the single fight and even that is...ok? I dunno, doesn't feel remotely as epic as other fights we've had against single dragons, yet here we got two. It kinda feels like they just wanted to rush and wrap things up as quickly as possible?

I'm assuming they're leaving a lot of threads for the expansion or something because like...yo whatever happened with Eir's bow and shit? Wasn't that like, a huge part of the narrative for a while?

Don't really watch him, but giving the WP videos a look now since he's way more up to date with all the story stuff etc. and I'm curious about his views on it (which I know are negative) given how big of a booster for the game he is.

I really hope they have some huge things up their sleeve for the expansion, because they're not going into it off the back of a fantastically well received update/arc. If it's another S5-esque "And we also have SHIRTS! SHIRTTTTSSSSS!" event I'm gonna be sad. But I'll pick up the expansion anyways, I'm nowhere near as salty as I was post-HoT when I sat on the PoF expansion for a while because I was still pissed off at the game.

The only thing I can say is that the last 4(5?) releases are one 'episode'. Remember they took the final episode then chopped it up, less content each drop but faster drops. But yeah, it's really just the one encounter...

Technically it's great. It's one of better designed open world fights...but it's hard to get over it all just being the one encounter. That might be why they gave us a free ascended and the two items you can get from achieves /a backpiece and infusion) aren't too bad.

I'm really glad it's all over. I saw a dev post that read as if they were tired of it as much as players were. The jist of it is that they've switched to EOD full time a year ago and the state of the world complicated the process to wrap up the season. It got to the point where it became a bit a chore to go back and finish but they couldn't just leave as it was.

The Season 5 reveal smelled like NCSoft trying to pull rank Anet. Things seemed to have settled down since, quite of few devs came back, Anet has been putting up good numbers. I'm thinking the expansion reveal will be like the one for POF. I simple but effective twitch stream. Anet is relatively small compared to the the games they compete against, it's a wonder they've been in the game for so long.

I recommend MigjtyTeapots video or Mukluk. Less salt while still being able to be critical. WP is good, my man is very salty though.

- - - Updated - - -

To be honest, the dragons stopped being interesting or believable as a real threat to the world after we blasted one of them out of the sky with the phaser banks of the NCC-1701 Enterprise.

"Commander you have to stop killing dragons!!!“

I'm going to kill a god, an immortal demi-god, another dragon, and then two dragons at once!"

Maybe we are the bad guy???

[Edge-]

Maybe we are the bad guy???

We are 100% the bad guys.

Also, I do enjoy how Aurene like, super conveniently solved all those super serious problems around the power of the dragons flowing to each other and shit? I was kinda down with the angle that we had to stop killing the dragons and instead find ways to continually keep them contained. At this point the dragons feel like chumps though we've killed what, 5 in a decade now? >.>

[Edge-]

I'll say this...I'm kinda back into GW2 again after this update? Like, not for the update, but like, overall. Finally played the second half of the Drizzlewood Coast map since I never actually did that and...seriously, this is by far my favorite zone in the entire game. It shits out a metric fuckton of loot, you can contribute without only engaging in combat, you move through the zone and there's a story being told as you progress, the entire keep siege is pretty rad (minus the end boss being the same one from bjora but WHATEVER).

I really need to go back and play the earlier episodes again now that they're voice and I'm working on some achieves. Might not be a bad excuse to get any masteries points I was missing, because apparently I need like another 15 to finish unlocking everything.

Weird, I'm both the most kinda "meh'd" at the content in the game game since HoT launch (which I loathed), but at the same time kinda enjoying rediscovering the game for being an excellent "passive game" where I can just either log in and do some events to rewards or I can slowly putter away at achieves.

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It's the only way I can really reconcile them going from "eternal forces of nature that are integral to the world, beings that we're not even certain we can fight, much less should" to "Oops, I accidentally Kong'ed the Gojiras so hard that two of them died at once this time. Sorry, Taimi."

This is why, even though I pay more attention to the story in GW2 than most other games (save maybe Secret World), I'm glad I don't pay too close attention. Seriously, we're averaging an elder dragon every two years. Anything you kill on a bi-annual basis (even if you cheat and get a twofer) ain't that scary in my book.

[Zmagoslav]

Judgement: What a cop-out.

After how we got to chase Kralkathorik all over the map, basically had an epic entrapment mission, which ended with him forming an island this definately feels lackluster.
Especially given how last time these 2 threathened to clash it was said it can't happen... cause it would destroy the world.

Albeit they tried to give us an "epic" visual spectacle it ended up being:
- a few DBZ-like fight scenes between the 2 champions... (as they brawl around us while we take out those crystals)
- a 10 second final clash scene... where the brainy dragon somehow completely overpowers the big beafy dragon, breathes down it's neck and by that... basically kills them both?

[PACOX]

Judgement: What a cop-out.

After how we got to chase Kralkathorik all over the map, basically had an epic entrapment mission, which ended with him forming an island this definately feels lackluster.
Especially given how last time these 2 threathened to clash it was said it can't happen... cause it would destroy the world.

Albeit they tried to give us an "epic" visual spectacle it ended up being:
- a few DBZ-like fight scenes between the 2 champions... (as they brawl around us while we take out those crystals)
- a 10 second final clash scene... where the brainy dragon somehow completely overpowers the big beafy dragon, breathes down it's neck and by that... basically kills them both?

True true, except lore-wise they did mess up the world. Half the zones are supposed to be either frozen or on fire but none of that means anything as soon as you leave the DRMs. The DRMs might as be alt-reality like fractals (lore-wise).

I was reminded that they gave us 2 keys with the patch too. TWO. They knew what they did.

[qwerty123456]

To be honest I like the way the ending for Primordus and Jormag played out although I would have preferred it be an actual map. I like that they killed each other but it would have been better if we had an event where we guide both forces to the trap.

[Edge-]

I was reminded that they gave us 2 keys with the patch too. TWO. They knew what they did.

I forgot about that! Was wondering why the random keys popped up but it makes more sense now, maybe they were looking to soften the blow of what they knew would be a pretty uh...polarizing? conclusion to an "expansion-worthy" saga that didn't seem to bring anything actually "expansion worthy".

To be honest I like the way the ending for Primordus and Jormag played out although I would have preferred it be an actual map. I like that they killed each other but it would have been better if we had an event where we guide both forces to the trap.

Lore-wise it's...pretty bad. Half the noteworthy characters from this "saga" alone were functionally MIA for this final fight. There was precisely no buildup for Primordus at all, he just kinda...shows up. Jormag loses all her character traits and doesn't even really have a voice line IIRC, the two just kinda like...sit there watching their champions fight and then kill each other in the least characteristically Jormag way possible but don't worry it didn't destroy everything because Aurene exists to fix every plot problem they write themselves into a corner on.

Remember when we couldn't kill dragons anymore because it was supercharging the others and would have made them even bigger threats? Remember when supergenius Taimi put two of them to sleep because that was the only way to handle them? NBD, now we're just gonna easily manipulate them into killing each other with zero apparent consequences.

For supposedly being the biggest baddies (and Primordus being the big daddy of them all), the dragons are pretty weaksauce chumps. For supposedly being a master manipulator, Jormag sure let herself get absolutely owned. For all Eir's bow mattered in kicking off literally all these events I guess it doesn't matter anymore. Tengu and Koda who? What's a Dragon's End and who is a part of it?

I need to replay through the whole thing (and I kinda wanna do a longer replay through everything), but it feels like they dropped so, so, so much that they were building up over the storyline just to wrap it up ahead of the End of Dragons announcement in July. I'm just hoping that the expansion will be worth gutting the second half of the "saga" : /

[Rogalicus]

There was precisely no buildup for Primordus at all, he just kinda...shows up.

There was. Jormag's motivation from the very beginning of the saga was amassing an army and powering up as quick as possible to fight Primordus.

Remember when we couldn't kill dragons anymore because it was supercharging the others and would have made them even bigger threats? Remember when supergenius Taimi put two of them to sleep because that was the only way to handle them? NBD, now we're just gonna easily manipulate them into killing each other with zero apparent consequences.

That plot point was already resolved in S4 when Aurene became prismatic dragon who can contain all the magic without going insane, and it's why Kralk's death didn't cause any noticable damage (and leaving him alive was way worse, he was actively eating the Mists and causing timespace rifts everywhere). Something that happened in S3 has no relation because situation changed. Putting them to sleep then was the best decision available then. There are consequences of letting both Primordus and Jormag die at once, Aurene let most of the magic get away to DSD and it's probably going to seriously backfire when we get to that plot.

For supposedly being the biggest baddies (and Primordus being the big daddy of them all), the dragons are pretty weaksauce chumps. For supposedly being a master manipulator, Jormag sure let herself get absolutely owned.

They were manipulated into facing each other agains their own will while their powers were equally matched. Ignoring that Aurene's power came out of the left field, I don't see what both dragons could have done to change the outcome.

For all Eir's bow mattered in kicking off literally all these events I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

How it should've mattered when it's stolen by Jormag's champion who obviously has no desire to shoot Jormag with it?

[Edge-]

There was. Jormag's motivation from the very beginning of the saga was amassing an army and powering up as quick as possible to fight Primordus.

Barely a mention, that's not any buildup at all. They tried to show some of it with the DRM's, but those were just...bad.

That plot point was already resolved in S4 when Aurene became prismatic dragon who can contain all the magic without going insane, and it's why Kralk's death didn't cause any noticable damage (and leaving him alive was way worse, he was actively eating the Mists and causing timespace rifts everywhere). Something that happened in S3 has no relation because situation changed. Putting them to sleep then was the best decision available then. There are consequences of letting both Primordus and Jormag die at once, Aurene let most of the magic get away to DSD and it's probably going to seriously backfire when we get to that plot.

I guess but it feels...lame? Unsatisfying? Aurene is basically the "I fix everything" character. Joko causing problems and you need to quickly kill him off? Aurene. Worried about Kralk's magics? Aurene. Need to hand TWO dragons at once? Aurene. I dug a lot of the earlier buildup around her and her relationship to the commander but it feels like she's the convenient mcguffin whenever they need to move the story along and don't want to actually deal with a plot thread/arc that they've started.

They were manipulated into facing each other agains their own will while their powers were equally matched.

Which feels weird for Jormag since that's like...legit her "thing"? And I'll have to double check, but I feel like even with the infusion of other magics into them from the other dragons we've killed Primordus should still have been way stronger. Hell, the shrunk him WAY down and sized Jormag up a bit just to make them seem "matched" in a sense. Primordus is supposed to be WAY, WAY, WAY bigger.

How it should've mattered when it's stolen by Jormag's champion who obviously has no desire to shoot Jormag with it?

I mean...it's Braham's mom's bow? It's still insanely powerful? It was a pretty central part of the story for a while and now that it's wrapped there's not even a mention from Braham about getting it back? Though maybe it's for the best, I desperately hope we get rid of Braham sooner rather than later.

Unrelated, man has the GW2 community been this like...kinda dumb? Discussion thread about tech updates for the game in the next expansion and if folks think they'll be coming. Lots of chatter about dx9 limitations but...apparently most folks think that's the fault of GPU makers and their drivers and now Anet sticking with two-decade old tech that hasn't been used and that almost every game has moved away from over the years?

I desperately hope we get a DX11/12 update for End of Dragons. I'm seriously getting really annoyed with my FPS dipping or staying in the 40's despite having a solid computer (32GB DDR4, i5-10600, 3070) and changing graphics settings does little to nothing. And yes, I'm on the 64 bit client. The game desperately needs performance improvements so we can actually enjoy it a bit, and maybe a bit less visual clutter so that we can actually see something in a world boss fight.