Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[PACOX]

Skyscale done. It was fun going back to the other maps. I have the advantage of knowing the currency grinds beforehand. Cutting down the timegates is really going to make it a lot smoother for everyone though.

The system for the Skyscale is actually something they previewed awhile back with a dog that was on the gem store. Hope they use the tech some more in the future.

[Svifnymr]

I got my Skyscale last night, working on the third mastery now.

The currency thing was irritating, but knowing ahead of time helped out. It also helped out that I have too many alts just standing around. Deploying a trio of guys to the Sandswept Isles to do hearts and events for a few days may not be an option for everyone...

The Istan stuff was pretty quick, and I already had the other 3 currencies.

What I did like was the snack-jumping puzzle part. I've done plenty of JP's, so it wasn't a horrible thing for me, but it might be for some. But, they also gave you a straight buy-out mechanic! I wanted to make sure to get that stage done before reset, so I actually used a snack for Shadow Behemoth of all things, since I missed the timer. (Also griffon run, ascension, and golem since I missed that timer too.) I had made like 20 of them, so sold the leftovers.

That said, this did drain my coffers by like 150ish gold I think, by the end. Grow Pots don't seem profitable, and the snacks seem to make like 1g or thereabouts now, so I'm not going to bother mass produycing them (though I should I guess, I've got a ton of Charged crystals, but I think I'll need them for guild stuff maybe? heck if I know).

The Skyscale handles nicely enough, but landing with it is a bit irritating. Circling around and stuff. I do like the dismount attack though. It is nice to have a "pause" for doing stuff though, just mount & ascend to take a break.

Also worth noting is that snagging the magic nodes in the air does return some Endurance meter, but I haven't done any of the rift-trail things yet.

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I guess you can hold 1 (or attack if you changed stuff) to descend, so there's that!

[Rogalicus]

I guess you can hold 1 (or attack if you changed stuff) to descend, so there's that!

Mount skill 2 (the button you use to rise on griffon) also causes you to descend.

[Svifnymr]

Mount Skill 1 is a little barrel roll, and I got Mastery 3. You stick to a wall and charge up your flight with Endurance via jump key, release to vault up a little bit.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Thoughts on the finale and the story overall?

[Edge-]

Thoughts on the finale and the story overall?

Finally got around to play it and...meh. Was a nice enough ending that wasn't terribly unexpected or mind blowing, but that's about it. Was disappointed they didn't leave any breadcrumbs for the next season, especially related to Taimi (who is the only character I really care about).

New zone is pretty cool though. Going to start working on my dragon mount, but I dig that they finally remembered that we have a ton of masteries that only see use in a handful of older zones. Hope they keep designing around them as an optional way to get around the zone faster, makes me feel better for grinding and unlocking a lot of the HoT ones.

[PACOX]

Thoughts on the finale and the story overall?

Its okay but I feel like they changed the old narrative to fit some new one.

Aurene should have stay dead. Her coming back 5 min into the episode negates the previous episode. Her turning into a super dragon at the end was expected. Does Joko still someone how still exist inside her because death couldn't stop him before.

Mental health (not trying to make fun of people with mental health issues) makes no sense to me. Its almost a retcon of him and the dragons in general. So was he crazy because he consumed the personalities of the other dragons? Does that mean they were malicious and not forces of nature like previously stated? But Kralk isn't benevolent because he was straight running around branding everything in his path when it was just him in his head. The only other thing I could possibly factor in is that there was another entity tormenting him as well, which would a strange thing to introduce now...unless it leads to Cantha! Also, the crystal dragon line is somehow exceptional? They have an established lineage? Before they were ancient beings with Glint (and the Pale Tree) breaking their bonds because of outside intervention. Now it kind of seems like Kralk expected a lineage...and can see time...more elements just thrown into the story.

'Mother'. Who is 'Mother'? The sea dragon? One of the gods? We landed on an island of the gods of short and still no sign of them.

I'm not mad at the epilogue because they wrapped up as if wrapping up a saga in the story. Which it is going back to the end of HoT to the end of LS4. Now they sort of have a blank canvas. Why is Zojja still brain dead? where are Kas and Maj, my boy Canach got 0 lines?

6/10 - as in average.
7/10 - as in good not great for anet
8.5/10 - for fun.

[Edge-]

After what, 3 dragons that we've dealt with now, I'm super alright with less "world ending" threats, especially if they involve dragons, for the next arc of two. Maybe not even gods, let's have some regular old baddies that we have to deal with.

I'm still holding out hope for the next expansion (since it's likely too big for a living story season) being a period of "peace" where the conflict comes with the respective races engaging in a low key cold-war as old rivalries re-emerge, and we're left to largely play politics and deal with extremists groups to preserve the broader peace.

Edit:

New patch today, apparently gear that allowed you to pick the stats on it has all been reset so you need to choose that again. All new stat-selectable gear will let you pick from any stats you've unlocked, rather than stats from the expansion it came out in, which is going to be nice.

Also, WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THERE WAS A HOT META PORTAL ITEM IN THE CASH SHOP?! Totally getting that and another shared inventory slot for it. As much as I hate the HoT zones and some elements of the events, they can be lucrative as hell and give me more stuff to keep busy. Really hoping they add one for PoF zones (or ideally just update this one to cover HoT and PoF).

[Svifnymr]

I enjoyed some of the Aurene stuff early on, but it felt forced, so when she died it was more tedious than heart-breaking for me. Seemed like a waste to a lot of build up, especially with the morose slow walk. TO have her return right away was not horrible to me, but amusing because while they play it as "5 minutes later, lets remove her body", in actuality it has been months for me. Poor dragon stuck on a spike for 4 months until someone finally thought to break the body free and toss it on the garbage heap...

I was never clear on Joko's powers being based on a magical energy source or derived from training. I suppose he found an energy source and now Aurene has it so gains his power, but it feels... flawed.

The final fight was nicely done enough I think, fighting in Kralk's mind was better than Mord's in my opinion. Glint had powers of prophecy, so Kralk likewise having it seems to fit, but if they were going for a "mind vs hunger" motif they failed.

[Edge-]

I liked the fight overall. They talked about how how they had to do some tricks with this update to deliver on what they wanted and...sometimes it shows. Spoiler tags for anyone who cares.

The shot where you're "riding" Aurene in first person is totally just them overlaying a low quality looped gif of Aurene close up on top of the camera shot. I guess they couldn't rig a camera up from the player PoV so this was the only option. It...works, but it looks hilariously bad with how low quality and pixelated Aurene is.

On the other side of that coin though, the part where you ACTUALLY ride Aurene and do and fight Kralk was cool as hell. I'd actually love to have the team do a deep dive into this update to discuss how they did it. Was that whole fight done in-place just rotating backgrounds? Was it on a short track to make each section look bigger? Was it actually that big? Either way, it was fun and probably the highlight of what I thought was a pretty "meh" ending to the story.

[PACOX]

They usually do technical reviews of episodes on their Twitch and Youtube channel. I know they've covered the skyscale, not sure if they've gone over the story instances though.

For the flight sequence it looks like they shrunk the players model and then modified Shatterers (or Tequatls) rig to create a sense of scale.

A bunch of PoF events/metas were given timers and HoT like rewards in the patch. A bit late but great addition.

[Svifnymr]

With riding Aurene in the Mists (if that's the part you're talking about), all I could think of was the SW:TOR ship missions, though they were much more fun. Someone at Anet should have played some of that to figure out how it works.

[qwerty123456]

I kinda wish the next expansion would be an invasion from another world in the mists to give us a break from the elder dragons and give us some new races/creatures.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I kinda wish the next expansion would be an invasion from another world in the mists to give us a break from the elder dragons and give us some new races/creatures.

Why not just go to one of the other continents that haven't been visited yet? There are at least two others just from looking at the map.

Agreed about leaving the elder dragons behind. I don't see how an underwater expansion would be done well, let alone embraced, and Bubbles is virtually a non-presence in the story. I can't see any other ED living up to the Kralkatorik hype either.

[Svifnymr]

I can definitely get behind a different villain than another Dragon or God, but I didn't really like Joko much either. It seemed like there should have been some limits on his power that we never really saw. Raising anyone as undead loyal to him and never dying (until, you know, being eaten) was a bit much. It'd be nice to have some enemies that don't require a pact fleet to bombard.

[qwerty123456]

Why not just go to one of the other continents that haven't been visited yet? There are at least two others just from looking at the map.

Agreed about leaving the elder dragons behind. I don't see how an underwater expansion would be done well, let alone embraced, and Bubbles is virtually a non-presence in the story. I can't see any other ED living up to the Kralkatorik hype either.

Well it's always talked about how Tyria is but one of many worlds in the Mists and us killing the Elder Dragons fucks up everything on Tyria so any of the other continents are in the same boat as us. Another world could invade us because they view us as a threat for being able to kill the gods and dragons or maybe just worried we will end up needing to flee to their world then do the same thing. Hell maybe they killed their version of the Elder Dragons and try to take shit from other doomed worlds in order to survive or maybe they are just trying to save us from ourselves.

Plus it would give us a way to get more advanced races like the Asura without wondering why the hell haven't they been helping us the whole time.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I can definitely get behind a different villain than another Dragon or God, but I didn't really like Joko much either. It seemed like there should have been some limits on his power that we never really saw. Raising anyone as undead loyal to him and never dying (until, you know, being eaten) was a bit much. It'd be nice to have some enemies that don't require a pact fleet to bombard.

Yeah, I'd prefer a more grounded set of antagonists. I find evil god like beings uninteresting; fighting a politically motivated group as Edge suggested would be far more engaging. You're no longer fighting "evil god #38523", but a group of people with their own dreams and desires. Ofcourse, that depends on ArenaNet actually investing effort into characterizing them as such (*cough* Nightmare Court *cough* White Mantle *cough* Flame Legion). Just because we may be individually powerful individuals does not nullify the threat of an organization, even if they do not have god like powers and are just normies.

Well it's always talked about how Tyria is but one of many worlds in the Mists and us killing the Elder Dragons fucks up everything on Tyria so any of the other continents are in the same boat as us. Another world could invade us because they view us as a threat for being able to kill the gods and dragons or maybe just worried we will end up needing to flee to their world then do the same thing. Hell maybe they killed their version of the Elder Dragons and try to take shit from other doomed worlds in order to survive or maybe they are just trying to save us from ourselves.

Plus it would give us a way to get more advanced races like the Asura without wondering why the hell haven't they been helping us the whole time.

I'm wary about about involving other worlds/dimensions/timelines/universes/whatever, as they usually lack stakes. Everything that happens has little to no effect on our world. The only story I feel did this right was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where a permanent wormhole was discovered that linked Federation space (the Alpha Quadrant) to a brand new hostile empire called the Dominion (in the Gamma Quadrant, tens of thousands of lightyears away), and the events that followed forever changed our world (the Alpha Quadrant and the Federation), rather than being localized to that new space.

[Jamie081]

Finally got around to play it and...meh. Was a nice enough ending that wasn't terribly unexpected or mind blowing, but that's about it. Was disappointed they didn't leave any breadcrumbs for the next season, especially related to Taimi (who is the only character I really care about).

New zone is pretty cool though. Going to start working on my dragon mount, but I dig that they finally remembered that we have a ton of masteries that only see use in a handful of older zones. Hope they keep designing around them as an optional way to get around the zone faster, makes me feel better for grinding and unlocking a lot of the HoT ones.

I quite liked the ending to LW4, it made me feel satisfied because it was all tied up very nicely. However, the ex-employee Jessica Price said that a final ending with no breadcrumbs was intended because they actually had no idea about the future of the game. I recommend reading the thread, it's very interesting and gives a lot of insight.

[Svifnymr]

There's an item in there that the corruption was the introduction of the Gods, which is interesting. Doesn't really sew everything together, but adds to it.

[PACOX]

I quite liked the ending to LW4, it made me feel satisfied because it was all tied up very nicely. However, the ex-employee Jessica Price said that a final ending with no breadcrumbs was intended because they actually had no idea about the future of the game. I recommend reading the thread, it's very interesting and gives a lot of insight.

Is that the lady that go fired? I would take her word with a nice tablespoon of salt.

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There's an item in there that the corruption was the introduction of the Gods, which is interesting. Doesn't really sew everything together, but adds to it.

I kind of hope they revisit the gods. There's a story there with Balthazar's war on everything, Kormir's brief appearance in POF, the Hall of Chains raid, where we fought Kralkatorrik. It's kind of like they are foreshadowing but don't know where they want to go with it.

They ran from the dragons. Now the dragons are sleep or dead. Aurene is now a god? There's a story there if Anet wants one.