GW2 Personal Story: Final Instance.

[Nyraxx The Necromancer.172]

I know this is like beating a dead horse, but then they changed the Zhaitan fight from a dungeon into a personal story experience. I understand it is not feasible to completely change old content like that. But Is it possible to increase the damage that Zhaitan/other mobs deal in the instance? So that fighting the dragon becomes harder. I understand that it is more beneficial to create new content instead of focusing on older ones, but it would be amazing if somehow the fight could be made more difficult, as a matter of principle. Thanks for hearing my rant, and I of course appreciate the efforts of Anet and understand that often these changes are far more difficult than they seem.

[Airdive.2613]

The instance is too long and way too boring, but increasing its difficulty isn't going to make it any better, you'll just have to respawn more often.

[lokh.2695]

When they make it harder ppl will cry that it can't be solo'd anymore. We've been there, sorry to tell you that.

 

Edit: We like to pretend that the Zhaitan fight never happened as it did. For me it's more like a lore fact thatn a fond memory of playing the game. "Yeah, at some point we killed Zhaitan." - "How'd you do that?" - "Ouh...I can't remember every last detail of it, but I bet it was an awesome fight." Instead of wanting to change that particular piece of content I advise you to move on and leave the personal story behind. Storytelling will get better and the encounters will become more challenging and soon you will have convinced yourself that Victory or Death was an ok'ish fight, but you can't remember any tiny detail of it of course. ;)

Rule 1 of Victory or Death, don't talk about Victory or Death.

[Danikat.8537]

Bearing in mind they're highly unlikely to completely rework the mechanics - meaning you're still limited to pressing 2 to fire a cannon at the dragon - how would you go about making the Zhaitan fight harder?

 

If they give him more health that makes the fight longer but not any harder. You're still just pressing 2 to fire the cannon, you just have to do it more times. If they increase his damage that means more times when you have to break away from the cannon to heal, or get downed/killed and have to respawn but again I'm not sure that actually makes it harder, it just breaks it up a bit.

 

Would it help if they added more enemies on the deck of the ship so you have to break away from the cannon to clear them periodically? Or maybe work in clear phases like they did with the earlier dragons - sometimes you're firing the cannon, sometimes Zhaitan is out of range and you have to fight enemies on the deck. Or is there something else I can't think of?

 

Also bear in mind that for every person who finds a Personal Story instance too easy there's someone else who really, really struggled to get through it and isn't convinced it was actually built to be played solo because they found it so difficult or complicated. Even little things can make a big difference between what players can do. (As I found out the hard way getting hero points for my new Weaver - the PoF veterans I'd easily solo'd on my ranger in her mix of ascended and exotics with matching stats were virtually impossible on a base Ele with whatever random rares and exotics I'd gotten from level up rewards.) So Anet can't make base game 'casual' content like the Personal Story too difficult or they risk excluding people, including some who may already feel they can't do a lot of other things like dungeons, Fractals, or even big meta-events because they're not up to the standard they think other players expect.

[Ashantara.8731]

The whole Orr part of the personal story (everything since Claw Island actually, except for the death of your mentor) is _super boring_ stuff. Which is a shame given that the personal story, up to that point, is excellent and so much fun to play (for its variety and decisive options).

[kurfu.5623]

Why would you want to make that instance even more tedious than it already is? SMH

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

If they sped up the airship about 20%, it would be tolerable, but to actually be good it would need something that made it fell like you were actually accomplishing something. Just standing around fighting trash mobs and firing a canon doesn't feel like a final boss. The only boss-like encounter there is the one with the mouth of zhaitan, but that's only halfway through so it doesn't feel satisfying, it feels like an anticlimax. All it really needed was one big moment at the end to make you feel like a hero. Either a real final boss, or something to put some urgency in the fight.

[Hesacon.8735]

I could see reworking part of it into a fractal. Having to defend people on cannons, repairing cannons. You'd need to skip ahead to the airship parts and have three phases:

 

* Kill one champion

* kill the mouth

* kill zhaitan

 

Many fractals already require you to defend another player, like underground facility or Cliffside, so defending a player on a cannon is consistent.

 

Could be done in a similar way to the 99/100 fractals and completed in the same amount of time, but with new mechanics 6 years of engine refinement can offer.

[sorudo.9054]

the only thing i like changed is the fight against zhaitan, just some cannon fire and bubye dragon.....really?

i expected a fight where you need to kill him within an actual fight, one where i actually kill him.

now all i do is kill minions, keeping the ship clean from minor problems average soldiers can handle.......

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"sorudo.9054" said:

> the only thing i like changed is the fight against zhaitan, just some cannon fire and bubye dragon.....really?

> i expected a fight where you need to kill him within an actual fight, one where i actually kill him.

> now all i do is kill minions, keeping the ship clean from minor problems average soldiers can handle.......

 

Except all the average soldier is useless. They'll die if the enemy looks at them funny.

[Tyson.5160]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

>

> Would it help if they added more enemies on the deck of the ship so you have to break away from the cannon to clear them periodically? Or maybe work in clear phases like they did with the earlier dragons - sometimes you're firing the cannon, sometimes Zhaitan is out of range and you have to fight enemies on the deck. Or is there something else I can't think of?

>

 

I always had the idea that they alter the fight slightly by giving Zhaitan a shadow shield at 75, 50 and 25 and force you kill a champ mob on the deck. When the mob dies it would drop an orb which add a different button the cannon, breaking the shield. The fight would remain same after the shield phase with the gunk being thrown at you as well as tendrils if Zhaitan, bones tendrils etc.

 

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Nyraxx The Necromancer.1728" said:

> I know this is like beating a dead horse, but then they changed the Zhaitan fight from a dungeon into a personal story experience. I understand it is not feasible to completely change old content like that. But Is it possible to increase the damage that Zhaitan/other mobs deal in the instance? So that fighting the dragon becomes harder. I understand that it is more beneficial to create new content instead of focusing on older ones, but it would be amazing if somehow the fight could be made more difficult, as a matter of principle. Thanks for hearing my rant, and I of course appreciate the efforts of Anet and understand that often these changes are far more difficult than they seem.

 

If by increase damage you meant remove all those boring wait sections in between the 3 enemys that occasionally pop up and by harder rework some of the boring fights like Zhaitan who just rolls over and dies, sure.

 

As others have already stated, no change in difficulty is going to fix this instance, just make it more tedious.

[JDub.1530]

I've given up on Zhaitan. Just adding more damage doesn't make the fight any more fun. Only a complete rework of the fight mechanics (which won't happen) would improve it. Something like using the cannons to drive it out of the sky, then it lands on the airship, or grabs onto it somehow, and you have to attack it (or its snake heads) directly and drive it off into another cannon phase.