Feedback: Official Living World Season 4 Episode 3 Feedback [MANY SPOILERS]

[Thiazi.1250]

Well, I finished the beetle masteries and story, so here's my feedback!

 

>! The first instance did a good job of setting up the story here, and in hindsight, foreshadowed the ending as well ("cheating"). As a human noble though, I was disappointed by my interactions with Faren, given that he is canonically my old friend. It sounded more like we were distant acquaintances, which persisted throughout the episode. While I understand that making and recording dialogue for one race/background combination is probably unreasonable, it was still quite jarring.

 

>! The second instance was... well, enough has probably been said about the bugs, so I'll focus on the content itself. The first part of the instance, assassinating the Awakened in the village was really fun. It was a bit easy, but that's probably good for those who aren't enthused by the gameplay change. In the rest of the instance, my only complaint is that the trebuchets have way too high a sight range and didn't seem to be affected by stealth at all.

 

>! The in-map story seemed to be more of a way to get people to explore the new map, but I don't have any problems with that personally. I appreciate that it didn't involve completing hearts, because those are pretty much always tedious in story steps (the repeatable ones tend to be tedious in general, really).

 

>! The final instance's puzzles were good, though teleports could let you skip most of them. The special action key was implemented terribly though, at least in my opinion. It has a 12 second duration on a 13 second cooldown, with no cast time or other cost. This means that there's literally no reason not to use it off cooldown, which meant it boiled down to pressing an extra button frequently-- basically busywork. I loved Joko's performance, my favorite bits being the dialogue for dying to traps repeatedly where he becomes annoyed at the commander. I liked the ending (an anticlimactic death seems like exactly the kind of thing Joko would hate most), but I feel like we fought him too early in the season-- there should have been more narrative build-up.

 

>! Overall, it felt a bit short, but high quality (ignoring bugs). As someone with a low-end computer, I appreciate that this map doesn't have lag like Sandswept Isles does.

 

>! It was hard to tag some of the events/creatures needed for the beetle (Steam creatures, Toxic Spider Queen, and Alpha Beetle), but those should become reasonable later once the initial rush dies down. That said, the collections overall were enjoyable to do, though I did speed through them.

 

>! The beetle itself is fantastic. It took a bit to get the hang of it, but feels great rolling around at the speed of sound. I appreciate that it also doesn't strictly outclass the other mounts (namely raptor and jackal, its main competitors), instead having a niche of long distance/downhill travel. That said, I think it could stand to start with more endurance, maybe 50% or so? The first 10 or so seconds waiting for the boost to charge are inconvenient, though I understand it's to make it less attractive for short periods of use.

 

>! Our Herald revealed themselves, totally unexpected. Are they the same character for each race, or do we all have the same one?

[Infusion.7149]

Obtained the beetle as soon as possible to have the story experience count towards it , with Bronze chest in the "adventure" that introduces jumps and drifting. We could probably use a PvP / WvW oriented mini-expansion pack (DLC) with alliance battles and roller beetle races as the highlight. We're missing Cantha from the original GW1 (Tyria, Cantha, Elona) so there's a whole continent untouched.

 

The story itself was alright, but the intermediary steps between *Forewarned is Forearmed* and "Be My Guest" that occur in Kourna could be better laid out in the UI. It isn't clear which part you are up to sometimes, unlike prior Living Story steps.

 

When I attempted it yesterday before several patches , it wouldn't progress without crashing after hitting enemies with the first two skills from Blish's arm. The first story step was also buggy and required relogging to progress the dialogue with the two queens & Taimi.

 

Also, some the achievements have some sort of "FTT" tag in front of them that is likely not supposed to be shown player-side. The same FTT thing is seen in the story instance on the Inquest turrets. Unless the codes are to make the achievements sound more technical (plausible).

[Nimon.7840]

We'll. I didn't play through all the content yet so i won't read everything here just to check if the thing a want to say already came up.

 

There is a new stat combination introduced. Plaguedoctors.

 

Mainstats: vitality and condition dmg

Minors: healpower and concentration

 

WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

It could have been such a good stat combo to make support scourge for raids more viable.

 

Change vita with healpower and there you go. Almost perfect stats for support/healscourge

Now you would have to swap vitality with expertise and it would be amazing stats. Even Condi druids might get more viable with this

 

We'll you need like all of these things to make a good healscourge:

Power for vampiric presence dmg boost

Healpower for barriers and healing from VP and transfusion and regeneration

Maybe concentration for better might and regeneration uptime.

 

But condition damage would favour the scourge more than power...

 

 

 

 

[Verthurnax.2784]

I will refrain myself to explain why i hate this episode so much, because every time i comment negative feedbacks i get warnings and comments removed. So i will tell you anet that after this living story episode with the map that came out i decided that i wont put any more effort in playing the game like i used to and will not buy any more future expansions. The only positive thing that came out with this episode is the beetle mount. This was the worst map and story anet managed to deliver, just my toughts..

[michelada.2947]

Congrats, you reached a new Quality level with the last chapter.

[SunTzu.4513]

After doing the story of this episode with my second main an char rev i got few new negativ points comming up.

 

The firetrap laser puzzle is a torture with an little bigger sized char. I don't know why the dev's came always up with stuff like this but in my opinion a lot of players will struggle with this puzzle. Also the ring extra button wich needs to be triggert on cd at the same time while jumping around an monitoring lasers and traps adds an extra level of difficulty. In my fl i got a lot of players wich have not this fast reactions to do all of this stuff at the same time. So like in other LS episodes we will carry them trough this part of the story because they will never get it done on their own. Imo this could not be the intention of all this puzzle stuff. I mean it's story and everyone should get it done on his own. Also these mechaniks can get cheesed by a mesmer by using blink. For me this is an unfair disatvantage for classes wich does not have an teleport.

Also the length of the storyparts needs to be cut in shorter ones for the future.

 

Positiv thing on my second playtrough:

 

The boss difficulty is well balanced this time. Normaly i struggle a little bit with my rev on the last bosses but this time the mechaniks were easy to get and fair executed while overall less punishing than on the last LS episodes.

[TheQueenofScots.1307]

I just finished the episode and I sorta expected more (?), it felt super rushed storywise.

Also, would be nice to have all POI's available regardless if you have the new mount or not, it's like you're forcing people to get the new mount before exploring the entire map..

 

Otherwise.

Meh.

 

Again, I expected more.

 

Tho it's nice to have a new map.

And the ending is great.

[eldrin.6471]

In order to get any xp from the new living world season 4 episode 3 we first have to finish a collection. locking content behind a time gate like this is just wrong.

[Blocki.4931]

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> We'll. I didn't play through all the content yet so i won't read everything here just to check if the thing a want to say already came up.

>

> There is a new stat combination introduced. Plaguedoctors.

>

> Mainstats: vitality and condition dmg

> Minors: healpower and concentration

>

> WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

> It could have been such a good stat combo to make support scourge for raids more viable.

>

> Change vita with healpower and there you go. Almost perfect stats for support/healscourge

> Now you would have to swap vitality with expertise and it would be amazing stats. Even Condi druids might get more viable with this

>

> We'll you need like all of these things to make a good healscourge:

> Power for vampiric presence dmg boost

> Healpower for barriers and healing from VP and transfusion and regeneration

> Maybe concentration for better might and regeneration uptime.

>

> But condition damage would favour the scourge more than power...

>

>

>

>

 

I think the set is meant to be a nice supplementary stat line instead of a full set. You can mix and match an ideal combination perhaps

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Scourge this, scourge that.

 

I see plaguedoctor shining for revenant, both condi ventari as well as healer renegade.

It's definitely better then seraph, since precision is almost useless for condi setup (few more ticks of torment from passive trait), while vitality provides some genuine survival, coupled with healing power. Combine that with revanant's strong passive damage reductions and active defenses (staff, shield etc), and you got really good combo for support revs that also wanna do damage.

 

Also this set is a good reason to grab rune of scavenging, with all that vitality and condi theme in it.

[Ashantara.8731]

**Info: This "comment" was a thread of its own and has been merged into this one. It was written after I finished the story.** A more detailed feedback can be found several posts below.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

There will be an official feedback thread eventually, so I am just going to say this: The story missions were **the best content** the devs have ever released for GW2. :+1: Especially the final mission blew my mind - I was finally feeling that I was playing classic RPG content (trapped dungeons, a Ring of Dispel Illusions, excellent dialogue,...).

 

Also, the humor was just right - not childish, not overdone. I cracked up on several occasions (especially when Aurene feasted on Joko - that was hysterical!).

 

The movie sequence work - especially the cutscene of Joko's final monologue - was superb, it really got under my skin.

 

So, in spite of the technical issues that constantly interrupted the excitement of playing this episode, I still have to say WELL DONE to everyone responsible for this episode's content. Please keep up the good work and level of quality in plot and dialogue. You have made this little camper very happy. <3 <3 <3

[Chazz.6709]

the story was interesting , but ended somehow ... strange and we may go probably back to .... our classic enemies.

 

However those crashes were really annoying , BUT(!) i was really happy , that the progress got saved atleast.Also it was cool , that we didnt got forced to do hearts for story .

Talking about hearts. They were nicely done. Didnt took too long or too short for my taste they were perfect.

 

The map currency was easy to get without much of a struggle , which i wont deny, however ( havent explored the full map or every certain merchant) i think there is nothing else except hearts merchants who require that currency.

 

The map itself is nice. I liked the splitt up between less crowdy area and more crowdy also how different the map looked on each side.

 

The collection for mount was a mix between aids and misleading , but also not too hard. We had some timegated stuff and no events that required certain events to fail/succeed, but i think you guys said by exploring further the map we unlock the mount and that explains ... why we had to do the world boss mkII ? a bit strange.

Also really neat was that we didnt had to do the WHOLE story or something like that no daily crafting. Felt cool or not another money sink like griffon kinda.

 

After some time it was able to finish the collection ,which we finished with some "sweat" . We got our mount. Having a blast .... well after 10 seconds endurance refilling...

That's one problem with the mount. It need faster Endurance regeneration and full endurance at the beginning.Also may increase it's standard rolling speed ?

Also with t3 mastery it's kinda focused or made for Kourna . Let us do tricks on land to gain endurance back would be easiest way and start with full endurance at the beginning and may allow us some better handling with it. Mastery t3 could be like

 

Option1:" You can perform tricks on Land and on air to regain endurance , while you are boosted.You start with full endurance and improved your handling"( just an idea to make it viable easily for other maps , while pleasing our eyes and watching our character do more tricks.)

 

Option2:"You and your beetle had quite along time of practicing and training , which pays out in faster regeneration of endurance and let you start with full endurance at the beginning."

 

Mastery t2 doesnt seems to have much of an use atm , which is kinda sad too. like so far i saw it only one place to use it.

 

"what about other maps ? like flat maps ?"" .... but but ... Raptor and jackal will be useless !""WRONG! It can't pull together like raptor doesnt cant leap over some cliffs to skip some stuff neither does it provide barrier or can be used in tight areas .Also what about skimmer on land ? He can only shine over water :c poor creature :c

 

Also thats another problem. YOU DONT WANT TO USE IT IN MAPS WITH ALOT OF ENEMIES,which sucks ... it really need better endurance management.Also that roll out skill feels strange . CCwise strange bunny superior :^) ... maybe this could be used for our endurance management another option to change endurance management ?

 

Overall i really like this mount and it's fun to use,however in it current state it's abit unsatisfaying and less fun to use it unless you find a calm spot without any enemies around and enough place to get some air time to have fun .Please change the endurance on beetle. Make it more fun to use.

 

Over and out !

[Rauderi.8706]

So, yeah, committed to doing some exploration and found that, as if no one's learned anything, areas are blocked off by metas and masteries. Y'know, *the stuff we were mad about with HoT?* That stuff? Yeah. **Stop doing that.**

 

Also, if there's going to be multi-layered collections to do things vital to a map, we really need some better way to organize our achievement/collection lists. By speaking with 2 NPCs, I got bombarded with **six (6)** collections.

And that doesn't count the [FFT surely looks like a bug but isn't] collections that don't really detail how many Spare Parts we're going to need to repair all these ruddy turrets.

[BlackBullWings.2734]

**Story**

Very well done, delivers nicely. Although it felt a bit short in a way, but that's probably due to having to wait for certain instances that were broken. Overal nicely done, and a good way to get to the next chapter.

 

**New Mount**

Obviously awesome, I wasn't even expecting that there would have ever been a new mount. Handles greatly and really shows how the game can be pushed so much further with its content. Amazing as always!

 

**New Region**

This is imo the worst part. It genuinely feels empty and that there's nothing to do at all. I think the biggest issue is that it gets overshadowed by the amount of content the previous maps (sandswept isles & domain of Istan) offer. The meta event is incredibly lackluster, it feels like a void, and as if it could have easily at least have had 1 more meta event, or its current meta event expanded much further. I think the saddest part is seeing that amazing castle in the distance, only to find out that you will enter a very small part of it, where you will just fight some incredibly simplistic mobs. It's kind of strange, because sandswept isles was messing around with a lot of new concepts such as abilities that move you around (such as the elementals), but this map doesn't bring anything new to the table at all. In terms of exploration there's not much either. It feels as if a large portion of the map design's budget has been cut for the mount. Very sad on this one since new maps are generally my favorite thing. But this map is just... well... Boring!

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

> @"Rauderi.8706" said:

> > @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > My initial impressions aren't great.

>

> Same.

> I waited until the post-reset build to start, so my play time was limited, but I'm.. not content.

>

> Story is progressing smoothly.

> Not happy about the re-replay nature of some of the achievements.

>

> The stealth toolkit was actually pretty grand. (Possible upcoming Thief Elite with kits? :3)

> ...it's just a shame most of my problem solving got blunted by hyper-active AI able to see me do every tiny thing, and trebuchets I couldn't do anything about until I was *allowed* to. Bad conveyance. Bad.

> Kinda the same for keeping track of Canach. His little target marker and the tiny green bomb squiggle weren't very visible.

>

> **Conveyance is critical**

>

> Also, real talk, if we're going to have high places that require springers, *please stop putting things directly over our heads*. We *cannot look up*. Again, conveyance. And the mastery point that was supposed to be a weird springer cavern climb? Bad. It was stupidly cramped, ledges overhead, slippery terrain that doesn't read well.. Again, conveyance was desperately required.

>

> Jacarundas and Ibogas join the CC-parade, again. I suspect that once I'm done, I'll be avoiding big chunks of this zone, just like Istan. Seriously, the CC and condi barrage is a big problem throughout the entirety of the game that needs a permanent fix, right down to revising original design philosophy for enemy creation.

>

> **Bug: Can't put the new scroll in the book.** C'mon, ANet, this is *basic* stuff by this point. :(

>

> And *another* Condi/healing set. Why? Can we get a decent Power/Conc/Heal or Power/Prec/Conc/Heal somewhere? Please?

>

>

>

 

We already have power/conc/heal right? Actualy i want to see something like condi/expertiese/concentration

[Chrisco.5732]

So I have now completed the story, map and beetle collection.

 

The story felt predictable and was really short, yet at the same time felt like it was dragging on and on. Within the entire story there was really only one moment to remember which concludes a HUGE aspect of lore in 2 seconds. Moving on to the new area, it felt generic and honestly not worth visiting after doing it once. The meta event is possibly the worst content i have seen in years. The "meta boss" is a golem sponge that does no damage at all. The moon fortress also felt like it was a conclusion to gw1 lore in the worst way possible. But hey the beetle is cool, i'll probably rarely use it!

 

Hopefully on to bigger/better stories. Now to do a looot of achievements.

[PookieDaWombat.6209]

Not reading thread to avoid spoilers. Just wanted to chime in really fast with a small gripe. The Herald. Aside from the worry that Anet is going to turn around and say they are also "E", I really hate that they come across so capable and knowledgeable in their letters to you through core game leveling and when you meet them, they are basically a teenage fangirl. Its kind of obnoxious as a character portrayal.

[Cynder.2509]

I have some good feedback about the roller beetle collection: Good job in involving older content like world bosses or the ley line anomaly! That's the right way to make older stuff still look attractive and reasonable to still play it!

[Randulf.7614]

Worst possible episode

 

pros

- great dialogue

- cool mount

- no stupid mechanics not suitable for team work

- interaction between Joko and us in final cutscene was exceptional. Obviously utterly ruined by what came next though

 

cons

- Joko being killed off so soon when we had barely built the story yet. Where was the lore on him? I cannot believe an entire team signed off his ending so soon and in such an awful, awful way. Killing Joko should be built up over a season not thrown in just to get it over with. You guys need to start respecting the lore and also storytelling in general. Listen to the feedback over the last 3 years and realise players have been asking for well rounded, complete stories. Not throwaways.

- bland, uninteresting map. Compare it Doric which is built round the same idea, yet does it so much better.

 

This is the first drop of content which has me questioning why I still play and I include LS1. I want good solid storytelling, built and delivered. You were doing so well in showing you were listening to our feedback, with strong, well thought out storytelling with ls4 and 2 episodes in, you throw it away by rushing a killing an iconic villain in an early, rushed and ridiculous way.

 

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

* Map is not as good as Sandswept Isles

* Story Instances are to long

* 2nd story has nothing to do with your profession. silly and boring stealth mission

* Bountys are kind of easy

* Champion Awakened Abomination is OP. 9k + 2x 6,8k hits in 1 second

* Meta is to short/easy/unrewarding

* Joke ending is ... silly? i dont know i expected more

* Collection 3 for the bettle is bit pain. over farming slow spawning enemies

 

i have not played the new fractal. maybe this weekend.

 

[Blocki.4931]

It's funny that people don't know that Junundu spawn in more places than just at the jackal WP. The Junundu Hatchery has like 7 at all times and they keep spawning smaller ones that also drop the item. Steam creatures are the only ones that are slightly annoying. No idea about the cave wurms because I got the item first try and as of 2 hours ago not a single person farmed them.

 

I have one big gripe with this release: You really managed to create a map that is worse than the previously worst map to ever exist, Sandswept Isles. That one at least has a better excuse for an interesting event with the Specimen Chamber. The Djinn meta event is an ever so tiny amount better than the Gandara attack we got on this map. Though it needs to be said that only the wave defense event is relevant. The specimen themselves take forever to kill for regular champion loot and the pitiful map event reward.

 

Why am I saying that? Because fighting an uninteresting boss that doesn't even damage you is extremely uninteresting and yet it seems to have become the norm. It's a target with a ton of HP, it's boring to fight and you get either barely any reward because you don't get to loot the 6 chests at the end or you fall asleep before the boss dies. Again, I understand that Istan is the farm map and that new releases shouldn't overshadow it, but I believe it's time anet threw us a bone here. The home node is the biggest waste of money besides the 1k gold title you can buy and I seriously hope this is not working as intended and is supposed to award more than 1 shard a day. It's pathetic. There isn't any other word for it and I say that with the utmost respect as you may be able to tell from my previous replies.

 

If you really want to continue releasing maps that will be abandoned faster than the dungeon development then you can feel free to do so. I will expect absolutely nothing for the next map

[rrusse.7058]

**Story**

Kudos to the writing team and all the work that they do. This was a solid episode and I was super excited to see what would happen next. I won't deny that I am a little disappointed by what the final instance means as that suggests we will not be getting any back story on certain events and characters and seemingly closing that door for good.

 

Still I did not know what was going to happen going in and coming out of it. Honestly I vocalized during the end of that one and I can't recall getting that surprised by a Living World episode since at least Flashpoint.

 

**Beetle**

It looks and feels great. I am still unsure what colors work best with the shell but that is a cosmetic thing. I would like to see some possible dye channels for the saddle at some point if possible. The feel and use of it is fantastic and I have been skipping out on using way points on the original maps just for fun.

 

**Domain of Kourna**

I was super excited to hear that we were returning here to see all the good stuff from Nightfall days. Aesthetically it makes sense that the map looks the way it does, but a lot of the map looks a little washed out and majority of it does not pop out so it is not the prettiest map to be on. However getting to the spring suddenly turns all that around as though it were a new map altogether. I wish there was a little more lore to find around the map as this is an area we have been to before, granted I have only had a day or so to see what the map has in total so there could easily be more I haven't seen.

 

**Map Events**

It's hit or miss here. The weaker parts would be the PoIs that are locked behind events and the big one is having collections that require players to fail or succeed the same events. Please Arenanet, communicate with the various teams that having collections and events like this is not fun and not healthy for the game. I literally had to watch and take part in an event where half the players were yelling to succeed and the other to fail all for the same collection. Please stop designing collections that ask players to fight among one another.

 

Meta initiation is well done imo as it is what I have been on about for years at this point. That being that meta events should be player driven just as it is in the Silverwastes. Players have agency and depending on how coordinated players are and how well the map works together the meta event can start earlier or later. No more event timers, no need to keep map hopping looking for what you want or being unlucky and logging into a dead map due to the timer.

 

Here we turn in the parts, the more players that come together, the sooner we can begin. Great.

 

However, the event itself and events in general leave something to be desired. I didn't even realize the meta event had ended as it seemed like there was more and the UI prompts didn't have much to say in the first place. A large number of players and myself included were fairly confused on how to even access the room with the chests. I may know that now but other players may not and some are even reporting that they are not getting access cards to reach it. Event cut off points, hearts and how far they reach out or the effective area is unclear. Some events are required to access certain PoIs and some sections of the map, particularly Gandara are left untouched which makes it seem like there was cut content.

 

The new map is not bad by any means but it feels like it is a little lacking in identity and feels similar to Istan but with less cohesion.

 

**Final Thoughts**

 

Overall its a solid episode with a great story, voice work and writing but a somewhat confusing map in terms of how the designs and functions are executed. Do keep up the great work though Arenanet. Hopefully that nasty bugs (except the beetle) hasn't ruined the experience for too many and we all keep moving forward on to even better things in Tyria.

[Rauderi.8706]

> @"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:

> We already have power/conc/heal right? Actualy i want to see something like condi/expertiese/concentration

 

Harrier's okayish. I would've hoped more for Pow/Conc; Heal/Prec.

I could see ANet mimicking Vigilant with Condi/Vit/Exp/Conc at some point.

 

...But it really does highlight how terrible the GW2 stat system is in actual delivery. We're languishing here waiting for stat combinations instead of having a much simpler and direct method of making our builds. And each generation of stat sets gets more and more convoluted in acquisition.

100 Flax for a gear piece?

Brandsparks?

It's all a tremendous nuisance that should've been hammered down years ago.

[irondog.4830]

I LOVED it! I myself had to problem using the arm skills at all. I did have to take time to look and try them out, but I was able to figure it out and use them easily. I was able to get the achievements but for the one you have to annoy the enemy 1st time. I love the creativity of the Forearmed and Forewarned, and the whole story. GW2 keeps getting better and better! Also, even though I had to wait another day before things worked out, I"m not the least bit upset about it. Things happen and I knew it would be fixed and fine. I had a lot of fun playing it and look forward to running my other toons through it. No complaints.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

Hi,

 

We do have an official feedback thread, so please feel free to comment [here](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/44850/feedback-official-living-world-season-4-episode-3-feedback-may-contain-spoilers "here"). Thank you for your kind words!