How do you rate "A Star to Guide Us" in scale 1-10? [spoilers]

[Umut.5471]

It's the best release after istan. Istan still lives because it has metas worth doing, hope this lives as well.

[Purgatori.3645]

I haven't finished the personal story but am 3/4 of the way through, got map completion, got my Desert Fox and all mastery points. So far 10/10. Great story and map. Great content. This is my favorite of Season 4.

[Randulf.7614]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> I have to agree it's great, probably the best in season 4, but i don't think it's a perfect 10, probably not even an 8.

> I loved a lot of the stuff they did, the mists part was amazing, especially the final part...

> Sun's refuge was a bit underwhelming, so far at least, i hope that they keep iterating on it, but apparently the word is they won't.

> The books collection could have extended further, so we could finally have a personal library. But i'm still doing collections, so i'm willing to wait and see if it actually does evolve some.

> The story felt too short, and although i enjoy cliffhangers now and then... I think they finished with too many loose ends on this episode, and three months is a bit too long for the cliffhangers to pay off...

> The map is pretty great, i liked the nods to HoT masteries in the jungle area and the 'shrooms area is hillarious...

> I think they could have dived a bit more on the Invasion of Orr part give us a bit more lore, and the Shatterer fight is kinda meh... It has some nice elements, but honestly, it's more like Shatterer 1.5 than 3.0. The new reworked Shatterer in Blazeridge feels much more epic than the new one. Especially if you consider that this new one would be Almorra's revenge vs big K.

> I liked the episode, it felt like the best release they've made in a year, it just lacked some upkeep. There's too much issues being left behind in the game, a ton of hanging plot points and loose ends since Season 2 (like the fate of the pale tree), there's a lot of parts of the world that need revisiting, and its disappointing to see that the devs keep dismissing their opportunities to go back and work on that.

> This release was perfect for that, since they could have easily had us do stuff back in Ascalon and other places in core to create the tracker instead of snuffing out a character that we barely had time to grow attached to because the thing didn't have a decent battery... (Also i know that you want to create a reaction from people, but way to pile on the emotional moments, seriously, not forced at all, all that was left was for some random girl start wailing about her dead puppy in a corner of the Refuge... seriously).

> The compulsion to make the episodes so contained in their new maps robs a lot of potential for the story, and so much of the rich back story is left unexplored, and what is explored always leaves a bit of a "Deus Ex Machina" feel to it...

>

> Anyway i liked it, didn't love it. Sadly that's also the best i've felt about a release in 2018's GW2.

 

I kinda agree on Shatterer. For what was built as Almoras revrnge, she featured very little in it. I expected more map story using hearts or events or collectiond in someway. Im also not a fan of the look. The green magic doesnt give it a death and decay feel. I had hoped for something more crossing a Teq and Shatterer.

 

On the plus side, it is essentially a new World Boss which we have asked for. Anyone know if it drops the guild hall trophy pieces like otiginal shatterer dies?

[Blude.6812]

The Storm Tracking part of the story lowered the score to 2, regardless of how good the other parts are and the map is.

 

[Griever.8150]

9/10

 

Had a lot of fun, actually wish it was longer. The Deadeye instance was pretty fun as a Deadeye main myself. Even liked the corny jokes (the part about Rytlock's fur for example :p, specially since my character is a Male Charr, lol).

 

But yeah overall great production value, as far as the story goes anyway, haven't done much in the map yet, just hope its worth spending time in it this time.

[Blocki.4931]

> @"Arden.7480" said:

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > 9.5/10

> >

> > Would be a 10/10 if the sacrifice wasn't so kitten obvious!

>

> I didn't expect that... I was imagining Blish in the Current Events helping us with tracking Kralk...

 

I was yelling at my friend from the start. The way he talked Gorrik into letting him go it seemed to me like he was aware of what was going to happen, idk

[Keriana.9635]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

 

> There's too much issues being left behind in the game, a ton of hanging plot points and loose ends since Season 2 (like the fate of the pale tree), there's a lot of parts of the world that need revisiting, and its disappointing to see that the devs keep dismissing their opportunities to go back and work on that.

 

This. What is happening with the Pale Tree?

 

 

[Fenom.9457]

9/10. It’s all phenomenal, the only thing is big ol’ pee-pee rock in the middle of Jahai, super ugly and disconcerting. Even if we can’t go to it, please fill in the space. It’s not like it’ll be part of any other map (even something between Jahai and vabbi wouldn’t use it)

[ugrakarma.9416]

**10/10.**

 

Despite a bug in the instance in the fight in the mists, it is clear that the developers put blood and sweat on it.

Also the trailer didn't do justice to the episode.

 

This episode become **a star to guide Anet to a new quality pattern**,.

[Klipso.8653]

There's something really wrong with the loot on this map. Almost none of the trash mobs during events drop anything.

 

As far as farming goes this map is no good.

[Lexi.1398]

9/10

 

Though that may be higher than it should be, because i didn't like last map at all so it's good only relative to that.

 

Story: It's nice having a break from fps destroying, visual clutter intensive, long drawn out mechanic, armor destroyening boss battles for once. Rift stalker in story instance was easy to learn and not that long of a fight - highly appreciated. I'm not a big fan of time trials but i was pretty proud when i finally managed to outrun the storm in the third part, and i guess my pride outdoes my hatred for time trials. xD There were many tears re: eir snaff blish taimi, not gonna lie i know why some people despise what happened with braham, but i'm all for the corny dialogues : P. Glad to see that bit- i mean blish caithe again, if only zolja would return too.

 

Map: LOVE IT. Wish the jahai fortress PoI wasn't locked behind story or a race that constantly glitches, but that and the fact you need to raptor run forever to reach half of the map are my only complaints. HoT is in my opinion superior, so naturally, it gets a 10/10 from me for calling back to that, i loooooove the ??? area, the big tornado is even more fun with the screaming xD Despite the big bubbles everywhere they're actually way nicer to my fps than most of the awakened magic related effects in the previous maps have been, bless you anet for leaving us poor peoples fps alive this time. I was thrilled to know the wurms even have names...! xD

 

Achievements & Sun's refuge: I did all but three of the collections in the story achieves before guides even existed, i have a grudge against one riddle for memorabilia (north of wurmhaven..why didn't y'all just imply the fortress instead? I thought the lack of mentioning the fort meant it was between the fort and wurm camp) but all the rest of the achieves were awsome fun to do. I LOVE readathon so much, i'm not sure whether the archon's primer, the terrible choya or lets hug koss is my favourite book but i love ALL of the books. Aurene gets a musical skull! The desert fox is absolutely ADORABLE and i'd kill to protect it. I got Joko's staff already and it's highly amusing on my daredevil to use it (especially considering RP wise, she's from elona lol).

 

Shatterer: There's something missing...I can't put my finger on it, but something missing from the fight that makes me disappointed in it.

The fact launch pads do nothing but still make you vulnerable to lightning? The fact gryphons take a good minute to reach from shatterer because good luck mounting mid fight, making their spears useless- I can deal well over 5x the dps the spears do to riftstalkers in the extra time it would take me to run to gryphon and back to riftstalkers (and that estimation is way lowballing it) compared to just going to riftstalkers normally. Might as well not bother. That after a lot of fights I still don't know why we should protect the junundu. That it's rewards are meager for the amount of effort put in...at least normal shatterer has achieves and a backpack.

 

Also- i wish they would add the wurm protection and DERV escort events to it's meta zone somehow, or if impossible, at least give an indication in the meta zone status...like "Wurmmarshal Ekolo needs help preparing seige junundu for battle" "The vigil is escorting DERV golems to the site", something along those lines. It took a while before I realised those events even happen because despite being shatterer related events, they don't show in the meta zone unlike EVERY single other meta related event in the entire game.

[Westenev.5289]

8/10

 

I loved the episode and definitely thought it was the best this season, but some bugs kept me from enjoying it (like the out-of-zone bug during the raptor run). I wasn't a big fan of the Deadeye fight either; that was definitely one of the fights I would have appreciated CC or even an active break bar over a dead break bar. Not all classes are designed for up-front melee's with a juggernaut. I also wasn't a fan of the follow mechanic durring the awakened escort either, it just felt clunky like I was trying to escort 10 Glenna's on my own; why couldn't we use something similar to what we used in the kormir's temple in PoF?

[Rauderi.8706]

7/10, which is considerably high given past LW episodes and other content. Lots of grind and busywork packed into a thankfully busy map. The writing is decent, if super-tropey. Enemies are still mostly nuisance with new nuisance (sticky branded crystals, boo) on top. But overall, I still feel relatively positive.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

8/10. there is always a way to improve

[Zola.6197]

I really liked this episode! 10/10

 

Map is on point, story was engaging and genuinely surprised me a few times. Loved seeing old heroes return, loved Koss, and LOVED Zafirah/sniper mission.

 

The Aurene cinematic made me a lil emotional. ;A;

 

Biggest complaint is the AoE hell that boss battles have become. It just hurts my soul at this point. It felt less egregious than past story content, but still...

[brenda.9723]

 

I really like this episode. :)

8 out of 10 (-1 points bc of killing Blish :cry:)

 

The Good:

1: I liked the beginning: it was fun to see the people of elona arguing about the death of joko and mistrusting aurene. Thanks for the aurene heart animation, those make me always so happy :3 . And Koss saving us was really nice <3 .

2: The shatterer "fight" was awesome. I really like the detail that one NPC (I believe an awakened) was completely crushed. Also the animations of the shatterer were really cool. I am happy we did not fight the shatterer, bc I often do the world boss the shatterer, and killing him easily on my own would be a bit unbelievable for me.

3: OMG The doctor who/strange plot with time and space shenanigans was completely crazy. I love it! Kralky felt this patch so unbelievebly scary :scream: !

4: Yeeh, I really liked to see eir and snaff. The talk between eir and braham was well done. I am happy that Braham finally knows how much of a KITTEN he has been in the past.

5: I really like walking in open world with Blish :3. The new map is really nice, mainly the ???-part

6: Glint`s return was nice :).

7: I played this whole patch with a scourge support build (so my dps is a bit lower), and I was happy to see that there were often NPs I could support. So my build was still quite usefull :smile: .

8: The new home instance is nice.

 

Well done. But please stop breaking my heart:

1: Why did you kill Blish :'( ? Why?

:heartbreak: He was such a fun, cute and nice character. It made me always so happy to see him. He was one of my favorite characters. Blish was such an adorable little robot and I really liked him . Please bring him back. It would make me so happy to see him again. Please let us put him back together, or save him from the mists :'( .

2:The Aurene cutscene was very beautifull and nicely done. But the ending with the glass breaking animation and the sad sound Aurene made.... Poor Aurene. :cry:

3: I had to cry when I told Taimi and Gorrik about the death of Blish. It was already so painfull, and then they tell me that Taimi is dying. OMG Arenanet, are you trying to break me? Why are you doing this to me?

Please safe Blish :heartbreak: !

 

The Bad:

Sorry, but I am not a fan of Zafirah. Her boss fight was really annoying me. And she has kind-of the same secretive vibe as caithe, but then less believeable and fun. Secondly, I did not really understand why the pc is following the future of aurenes vision, bc she does not want aurene to die, right? Sparing Zafirah bc she was part of a possible future in which aurene died, seemed illogical to me. Bc you dont want that future to happen, right? Right? :/

[Verthurnax.2784]

2 out of 10. A crap of map just like all maps since POF came out. Single-player focus only in a mmo is the worst thing to do. Forgetable story and big map with no events at all plus trash collection all over again, just logged in once did story and all map in like 2 hours of content and since then i don't need the desire to log in again and i am back to just annoy me in old content like hot maps and pvp. People like me want from an mmo to be an mmo not a trash single player look alike game ... just look at how map is empty just as kourna, 0 comms becuase there is nothing on it, since all can solo most of it.

[Arden.7480]

> @"Verthurnax.2784" said:

> 2 out of 10. A crap of map just like all maps since POF came out. Single-player focus only in a mmo is the worst thing to do. Forgetable story and big map with no events at all plus trash collection all over again, just logged in once did story and all map in like 2 hours of content and since then i don't need the desire to log in again and i am back to just annoy me in old content like hot maps and pvp. People like me want from an mmo to be an mmo not a trash single player look alike game ... just look at how map is empty just as kourna, 0 comms becuase there is nothing on it, since all can solo most of it.

 

0 comms, because they pop up when there is a meta, the same thing happens in Dragon's Stand/Auric Basin/Domain of Vabbi etc etc.

 

This game has timers (maybe if you are a new player, you don't know it yet)- the timers when a lot of players are gathering for the big events- it's been like that since the very beginning- like the whole bunch of the World Events on Tyria like Shadow of Behemoth or Claw of Jormag have timers.

 

Don't expect the people when you shouldn't, ask ppl on the map when there is meta, and join them. You can start the group if nobody wants and start LFG, I am sure the people will join in.

 

It's up to you, you create the group, you build up the community, the game doesn't do that for you- this is how GW2 works, and if doesn't fit your expectations and you rate one of the best episode so far 2/10, then you should really search for something new. That's just a friendly advice, don't force yourself to play and get disappointed over and over again, it's just not necessary, the game is for you, not you for this game. :)

[Dante.1763]

Gonna rate it at a 7/10.

 

**The Good.**

1.) Story was wonderful, outside the sniper instance wish we could have had some more background and a much longer side quest to make us want to work with her, but the cutscenes where good, the surprises that showed up that i wasn't expecting also good.

2.) The Map was absolutely amazing, good variety inside the map and the use of rifts and such to add in places that shouldnt be there was a plus. So to was the nonbox like and more organic transition to the map below it on the large map.

3.) Suns Refuge was/is a delight to work on.

 

**The Bad.**

1.) The Sigils required for the armor, dunno who thought that was a good idea but it wasnt.

2.) Suns Refuge not going to be used past this season was sad to hear, i was genuinly hoping it would be used as a content hub for the lower area of the map, and eventually would function as a sort of "mini town" should enough effort be put forth into finishing off the instance.

3.) *ALL* the collection items being added to your inventory, just *WHY* was this even thought about being at thing.

[Ferus.3165]

Map looks phenomenal, the idea with the Sunspear Sanctuary is quite interesting even though some things could be a little different but that is personal preference. The problem we have here are the same we have with every ls map. You see it once and there is no reason to go back there. Please make more Dry Top and Silverwastes again.

 

The story is actrocious as has been the entire ls season 4. I don't know why and how you could drop so much in quality since PoF. I actually thought you were on the way back to a great story. Don't get me wrong, PoF was not perfect (far from it) but it was enjoyable and most important we had some logical strings it followed 'till the end. The only thing that ls 4 does right is the diversified mission gameplay. We get something new each chapter and that is really nice.

The ls 4 itself is bland and riddled with gigantic plotholes and ex machinas. The Commander follows along the rest of his npc masters and does everything exactly as she/he gets told to. We have absolutely no choice anymore (started with ls) and the commander is actually an idiot (there is not the slightes hint of a personality left, the commander is a lifeless and meaningless puppet that follows orders without questions) and this is most notable when you do not agree with the decisions the npcs (anet) make for you. Whoever is the scriptwriter for these episodes should be fired right now imo.

 

Like, there are moments when you think the story is "saveable" like with the speech of joko shortly before his demise. And then the super random ex machina dragon flys in and simply eats/instakills him??? What a waste of a good character. Same with Lazarus and the randomness that is Balthasar becoming a raging idiot who is not capable of coherent thought (biggest weakpoint of PoF).

 

As the "story" goes on we gather more and more useless and despicable npcs around us, like the evil sniper lady zafira who killed dozens of pact members but we have to let her in our team like nothing ever happened. Or like the two inquest asura that were not really evil but had nothing against the torture/murder (and even participated in such activities) of other sentient lifeforms before they met the ex machina asura taimi. We were supposed to feel sorry for the robot asura when it died this episode? It was the best part of this desaster of a story.

 

edit:

Map 10/10

Story 1/10

[Rio.4259]

For me it would be like....6/10....or "ok".

 

-Shatterer is the highlight, for me, by far.

 

-Story was ok, I guess. The sniper part felt random and we should have just killed her. "You killed so many of my allies. But...maybe you'll be useful. Let's be pals!" The "feels" at the very end felt shoehorned in. In general the LW story hasn't been doing much for me. The cycle of re-introducing old, amazing characters from Guild Wars lore, only to have them killed off in an anticlimactic or silly way is getting stale. I also feel like I can predict its ending. "Aurene flies into Kralk's mouth and there's a magical explosion. Aurene flies away. Everyone celebrates. Taimi over that annoying speaker thing says Aurene flew out of tracking range, also all the other elder dragons died from magical imbalance and Aurene is now the only elder dragon. 'Stay Tuned for Expansion 3'".

 

-Sun's refuge is pointless.

 

-Fetch collections. Fetch collections, everywhere. Complete the collection for a bag of materials and 1AP. But hey, it's..."stuff to do", I guess.

 

Anyway, for me it was....ok. In my opinion, Season 3 was way better. Rising Flames was the highlight of Living World, for me, and it's been slowly declining since then.

 

6/10

[Sazukikrah.5036]

New map 10/10

Story 2/10

[Dami.5046]

7/10. Bonus point for those child's books. I haven't the heart to delete the Koss one. 6/10 for the map. Nice to see some old GW-ness. Don't want to rate the story.

[Kitty La Boom Boom.4065]

> @"Klipso.8653" said:

> There's something really wrong with the loot on this map. Almost none of the trash mobs during events drop anything.

>

> As far as farming goes this map is no good.

 

I think you must be out of favor with the RNG Gods. This is the first map since Silverwastes where I have to stop to empty out my bags after every meta, and with the Karmic retribution I give this map a 10/10 for karma farming. Nearly every single mob gives me a 100 karma chip. I've never loved being mobbed by Branded so much in my entire GW@ career, lol. Round 'em up, spawn a sand-monster, fear and squish for 500-700 karma a pop. Unidentified loot bags are yielding more yellows than usual for me here, too. So many yummy ectos!

I'm sure it the ride will slow down sooner or later and I'll be coming up empty for a while too, but it happens like that.

 

Try switching toons for a bit and see if things get better.

[Poormany.4507]

9/10 - Really liked the story and how they made the map have a lot of recognizable GW1 areas and terrain, unlike most of the POF and LWS4 areas. Map felt larger and alive than previous maps because it has more content and less empty space (especially compared to Kourna). Ending and cinematics after the raptor jumping were really good and had emotional impact. Also felt like the dialogue in general was much stronger in this episode, with less random forced jokes every few lines. Only things I thought were wrong were that sparing the deadeye felt very forced (I did not even notice her in Aurene's vision) and the final instance raptor jumping was very frustrating due to too few directions/map arrows. The final instance did not give the impact it was supposed to because I was trying to find a guide on where to go after being frustrated for 20-30 minutes on that part.