Poormany.4507

As long as every other enemy does not have instant knockdowns/stuns (PoF), I'm fine with anything from PoF to HoT levels of difficulty.

> @"voltaicbore.8012" said:

> > @"Fueki.4753" said:

>

> > How is there any inconsistency?

> > The first statement is about how Arenanet's plan to replace expansions with Sagas failed.

> > The second one is my wish Arenanet hadn't just given up on the story and instead continued to develop it properly to the end.

>

> You answered your own question - initially, you just talked about the Saga in general terms for both the first and second statements, without any real distinction. Now it's much clearer, and I still agree with you on both counts. The expansion-like content was destined to fail from the very beginning, while the story had decent potential (that ended up wasted).

>

> As for the original topic of the thread, I have to say I agree there too. Ryland isn't really demonstrating leadership as much as he simply capitalized (or rather, let Bangar, then Jormag exploit) his popularity with a certain sector of Charr. I don't find him compelling at all, and would welcome either his permanent exit from the story, or a Braham-like redemption.

>

> Ultimately pulling off the joint Charr/Norn story in one season was going to be a steep challenge to begin with. At best, we would have seen two pretty large storylines competing for space within one narrative arc. At worst, we have what we do now, which is just... something that feels like abandonment or a rush to get things to a point where we can transition to EoD. Now, if this was exactly the way they planned the narrative to work from the start, perhaps ANet really has some deeply embedded writing problems.

To me it feels like the Saga had at least half of its initial plans scrapped around halfway through when EoD development was started in full scale. Going by the season trailer and earlier stuff in the Saga, it seems like there were going to be more Visions of the Past, more Season 1 scrying pool episodes, more maps, and more larger-scale storylines (Centaurs, DsD or other water content, etc.) that would have been more expansion-like and had potential to be good content. The moment they suddenly started to imply Primordus was the "big threat" and began the Champions episodes it seems like the entire development of the Saga was given up in favor of getting to EoD as fast as possible with the Saga running on maintenance mode as filler until then.

I really doubt Aurene will be killed (or even is killable), but I do see the possibility of her absorbing too much conflicting magic (maybe even as soon as the end of the Saga if Jormag and/or Primordus are killed) in a self sacrificial type of way and becoming tormented so that we have to seek out a cure for her. This could even be what drives us to go to Cantha in EoD.

Agree that the centaur storyline probably wouldn't add much to the story at this point and would need to be too rushed. Also, if they went the route of Jormag trying to corrupt warmongering centaurs, it would have just been the exact same plot already done with the Charr civil war/Bangar. However, I do hope we get to visit more of the centaur homelands, see some of their more peaceful settlements in the Woodland Cascades, and see a conclusion to their war with the humans in the future (maybe in LWS6?).

I enjoyed them up to the boss fights on my first run throughs (haven't repeated any of them yet). The boss fights are just way too overscaled for a single player and it took me >10+ deaths to get through most of them, without dying once before them. Combined with the huge HP pool, each boss alone takes 30-40 minutes, which seems way too long to spend on a single, largely boring fight on normal mode. The one in Brisban got stuck on an environmental obstacle for me and I honestly almost fell asleep spamming it because it took so long. Imo, their HP should be cut to half, or even a third of their current one. Also agree that the start time should be scaled for solo by at least 2-3 minutes more, as I can only finish 1-2 of the three initial objectives each run before the timer runs out. Other than these annoying issues, I think DRMS do have a good place in GW2.

5/10 - The prologue was excellent, but then the Saga just seemed to go downhill for me in many ways. Bjora was an average LW map, and I haven't been back since doing a few of the achievements. Drizzlewood was much better in terms of replayability, but suffered due to the meta event being too long due to the split map. Champions just feels like filler content that solely exists to fill the content drought until EoD is released.

Story and map-wise, I was expecting a full Jormag vs Primordus expac with epic maps for each dragon, including new underground content, so the Saga putting all of that into a very rushed story was a huge letdown to me ever since they made clear that was the direction they were going. If they kill off Primordus in a single episode of DRM missions without a new map, I will be very disappointed. However, if they do tie the Jormag/Primordus conflict into EoD, I do think it would be a good way to go.

Gameplay wise, some of the masteries are useful outside of the Saga maps, while others (primarily the Raven and essence ones), just don't feel worth getting due to their limited use. Achievements in the Saga have been very bad imo, as the amount of grind they require makes me not want to start them. Before the Saga, I aimed to get every meta achievement and played regularly to do so, but since then, I only got the prologue one and did not even try to get the others due to boring, repetitive grind (do x event 25-50 times) or expensive skin collection achievements being required for the meta. I really hope they go back to the pre-saga achievement variety (exploration, non-material/gold gated collections, lore collection etc.) in EoD.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> > @"EdwinLi.1284" said:

> > > @"draxynnic.3719" said:

> Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. By Elder Dragon standards, Jormag is relatively extroverted and downright chatty. Zhaitan and Mordremoth mostly spoke through minions (apart from sylvari). Kralkatorrik and Primordus, on the other hand, have been pretty quiet - our main insights into Kralkatorrik's personality and motivations required someone jumping into his mind, and we haven't had the opportunity to do that with Primordus.

>

> Now, don't get me wrong - Primordus' behaviour is _definitely_ also perfectly consistent with just being a monster. But it is common behaviour among animals that feel threatened to lash out at anything nearby, which can become permanent behaviour if they're sufficiently traumatised to push them to permanent paranoia. Humans under these circumstances don't necessarily do so physically, but might push people away through rude and antisocial language and behaviour to stop anyone from getting close enough to hurt them again. The Elder Dragon equivalent of this would likely be sending minions out to attack everything within reach indiscriminately.

I do wonder though if in the near future Primordus will be able to communicate with us, and/or start using tactics, as it is mentioned in game that Primordus has recently processed Mordremoth's magic to a further extent. We've already seen Jormag and Primordus gaining their new "hive mind" type abilities to absorb power through their minions from the dead elder dragons, so I wonder if Primordus gained some form of intelligence from the newly processed Mordremoth magic and not just being a mindless raging monster anymore. This could also tie in with the "Braham is becoming Primordus' champion" theory floating around if that's the case.

Still waiting for years since HoT launched to get this issue fixed. 100% of the time I disconnect is at the very last moment of story instances just after the final cutscene with no other disconnect issues at all in the open world. The problem almost definitely seems to be on Anet's server side, as that is way too specific to happen repeatedly on most story missions I do with cinematics at the end. For me, The Departing mission is the worst for disconnects and I am certain to get at least 2-3+ disconnects at the end before it works.

I don't think a full rework is necessary at this point in the game, as it doesn't feel worth it. However, I would be in favor of updating older graphics to match those of newer maps, as a lot of the environment in older maps is very inconsistent (and slightly poorer looking) than similar ones of new maps. It wouldn't need as much work as a full rework, but it would still be a nice update, especially for for retaining new players.

Just suspend characters after the first time they die. It would give a new meaning to "God Walking Amongst Mortals"...

**Pros:**

Revisiting old locations was nice and didn't feel forced.

Concept of Response Missions seems like a good idea to let players choose to play solo or with other players.

Strike mission allies being helpful in combat, even taking out veteran enemies by themselves, felt natural.

Voice acting for the chapter was very well done (still haven't replayed Drizzlewood yet).

Braham was not whiny and one of the only few characters who considered the long-term effects of allying with Jormag.

**Cons:**

Bosses were too much of HP sponges and felt like they were just made like this to extend playtime, despite it being very boring.

Everyone accepting Ryland with little reservations seemed really unbelievable. I would have expected him to be attacked on sight by most of these characters, much less them openly chatting with him and battling alongside him (even as a single, easily unnecessary ally in the Brisban mission).

Much of the characters' dialogue and drama seemed unbelievable and forced. Taimi's argument seemed laughable for her to be making, and doubtful that she would so easily dismiss the long-term consequences of allying with Jormag entirely. Would have been much more reasonable for Phlunt or one of the other traditionalist Arcane Council Members. Unless Jormag's directly messing with all of these characters' minds, which doesn't seem to be the case, this just seems like forced drama just for the sake of having it.

I feel like Jormag's plan to use us against Primordus might backfire and Jormag themselves will end up dead against Primordus, with either Primordus and/or Aurene absorbing its power, and leaving Primordus without an opposing weakness. Deep sea dragon could probably help with that, since it controls water.

Alternatively, both Jormag and Primordus could end up dead, with Aurene overloading herself with their magic and being negatively affected by that (similar to Kralk) and we might have to go to Cantha to find some kind of cure or magic transfer method (Kuunavang or DsD maybe?).

Air/Mists route seems most likely to me as well - We could ride Aurene directly overseas or through the Mists (although the Mists would probably be the easier/shorter route. Alternatively, we could use airships, particularly if we do end up getting Aetherblade allies in Champions (getting something similar to the teaser art with the Aetherblade ships). Going by boat or water when there's a deep sea dragon somewhere out in the water that is known to be able to control it seems unnecessarily risky, especially if/when its revealed to be near Cantha, and would be less convenient anyways.

> @"EdwinLi.1284" said:

> > @"hugo.4705" said:

> I expect Anet to keep Allied Factions to be resonable factions we know are siding with our character lore wise so I don't expect any antagonist factions to join unless the Main Story has already established them as allies or atleast potential allies.

>

Based on the teasers and having "unlikely allies", I would not be surprised if the Aetherblades were one of the Allied Factions, despite being antagonists back in Season 1 and not receiving much attention since. As some people have already said, they may also provide passage to Cantha for the expac.

Kinda disappointed there won't be many, if any at all, new maps in the remainder of the Saga. It really looks to me like there were going to be more originally based on the initial Saga trailer, but were cut to focus on the Expac.

Agree that there should be an option to remove one or both of the buttons from the top of the inventory and re-add them to the dropdown like before.

I don't understand why this update was needed in the first place - I haven't seen a single player have any issues with the previous layout. If it had an optional remove setting, I would have been much happier about it, as it would have allowed for some convenient UI customization for players who use the compact and deposit buttons frequently, but allowed those who don't use them as often to not mess up their inventory arrangement.

This again... See the many other threads about subscriptions in which the overwhelming majority strongly opposes the idea.

If a subscription was implemented at this point, optional or not, many, if not most, players would either immediately quit entirely, or start playing much less due to having a disadvantage, making it uneconomical to implement one in the first place. If there's no additional in-game advantage like proposed, nobody would get the subscription.

Maybe if a spinoff series, mobile game, or something like that was made, it would be fine, but I highly doubt there will be any kind of subscriptions in the console Guild Wars franchise.

I also agree that it looks kind of bland, but it's probably because the devs were originally going to use a lot more new assets in the fractal but decided to save them for the expac instead, as they said on the Guild Chat iirc.

Grothamar for me as well - Had a good mix of interesting story, map, and doable achievements that did not take forever to do. 9/10

Bjora part 1 - Finished story and map in less than an hour (two or three for meta achievement) and felt very underwhelming with little reason to go back to after completing it. 2/10

Bjora part 2 - Slightly better in terms of story, but started the trend of having way too many "do x boring event 20-25 times" achievements to even bother with achievements with the future episodes. 3/10

Vision of the Past - Really fun and repeatable group content with a lot of different styles of achievements. EOTN hub is really convenient and well designed. 9/10

Drizzlewood part 1 - Decent episode with a pretty good story and map design. 6/10

Drizzlewood part 2 - Story was good, but I felt that the two metas should be separate, otherwise they take too long to do for me and I always end up in an empty map. 5/10

Really doubt we'll get as many leaks, or any at all (definitely not months before like PoF), after PoF had pretty much all of its features and maps leaked, and Anet will probably be stricter on what preview content gets released for EOD. If we do get any previews, it could be through development bugs like the Junundu model swap that happened before PoF was announced.

> @"Hesione.9412" said:

> > @"Druitt.7629" said:

> > I hated the grind for the Skyscale and Beetle. The grind for the underwater ability was not bad at all. Just play the game, basically.

> >

> > And that's the thing that we need to distinguish: 2 million XP is not a grind. It is simply playing the game. You can choose to kill mobs (eat or drink something that boosts XP from kills first), you can choose to explore maps, you can do anything you would ALREADY be doing. If that's a grind, then the whole game is a grind.

> >

> > But when getting a mount depends on doing things that hardly anybody does, so ANet makes it part of the mount collection to force folks to do it, THAT is a grind. When you have to collect a specific object that's a rare drop, that's a grind. When you have to follow really obscure clues, that's a grind. You're forced to do things that you would ONLY do because of the mount collection.

> >

> > So yea, following a bunch of obscure clues to a couple dozen locations and collecting rare drops is a painful grind. But playing the game and gaining XP is NOT a grind. (At least no more than anything else.) I got most of my 2M XP by running around and exploring the map on a couple of characters, plus some experimenting with a couple of builds and killing lots of mobs. And magically, in two or three days, I got 2M XP.

>

> Anything in the game can be called a "grind". Leveling to 80 - a "grind". Leveling masteries - a "grind". Leveling crafting - a "grind". Making weapons/armour - a "grind". And so forth. This is the least grinding MMO I have played.

>

> Mounts aren't compulsory, you can play the game without them. They are QoL.

They actually are for a lot of group content (Dragonfall meta in particular), in which not having a flying mount makes you unable to get to certain bosses by the time they're killed without having to camp each one for hours before the boss/meta resets. Locking them behind heavy (and largely unnecessary - looking at skyscale map currency step) grind excludes players who either do not have the time for it, or just aren't interested in spending days/hours repeating the same content.

Want: New playable race(s) (Tengu with a new starting area or level 80 starting point seems reasonable to me), new elite specs, underwater combat revamp (if the story goes in that direction), HoT scale map wide meta(s), Canach

Would be nice: Player housing, new weapon type(s) (i.e. polearms/land-spears), separate underwater mount

Don't want: Grindy achievements or story steps, confusing maps (really hope they don't make Kaineng or the sewers into Tangled Depths style maps), map-specific/limited use masteries, time gated content, annoying characters (i.e. Braham)

> @"EdwinLi.1284" said:

> > @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:

> > > @"EdwinLi.1284" said:

> > > Either way I expect the Ministry of Purity, or atleast a certain faction from within, to be one of the antagonist or THE antagonist for Cantha expansion.

> > Absolutely. Devs don't spend all this build up in GW1, and references in GW2, constantly hammering i nthe fact that "yes, the Ministry of Purity are evil, xenophobic, genocidal, warmongers" and then not do anything with it. If not the expansion then the associated Canthan LW season/saga at least.

>

> I honestly, also expect atleast a Elite Spec for Cantha expansion that is also influenced by the Ministry of Purity.

>

> Being a bunch of anti-Xeno people, or at least a certain faction, I expect maybe a new Warrior or Guardain Elite Spec that is about Purging the lands of enemies.

>

> After all it would be a interesting off-hand Pistol Elite Spec for Warrior and Guardian or at least a Rifle Elite Spec for Guardian. Modern issues with purging requires modern solutions and a spirit of a Space marine...I mean a Soldier from the Ministry of Purity to scream for the Emperor while calling your enemies Xeno scum.

They do mention The [seven Canthan Spears](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/03_Nemnai_1637_CC) order in the Canthan royal military in one of the letters in the fractal, so maybe we'll get some kind of land-spear elite spec or mastery.

Agree that the skimmer should be at least slightly faster underwater. I also wish that you didn't have to press a button to dive and would just be able to point downward to do so.

Playing on high speed internet, GW2's the only game that has lag issues, and it only started around late April/May on PoF/LWS4 maps, so pretty sure it's on Anet's side. I can barely play on those maps due to skill lag and cannot do group events on them at all, while almost all other maps are playable.

Really hoping this gets fixed soon.