15 replies to this topic

[d_fens]

Ok so this weekend I finally got my personal story completed. Those were 2 long hours (my party was not exactly pro, myself included) and I'd like to share my feelings about this part of the game. This is not a QQ post, I liked some parts of it and disliked other. I think it might be tuned and polished to give players better experience with an essential part of the game.

1) This dungeon is way too long for story mode. I realize there are groups that could do this probably in 40 minutes or even less, but less experienced players shouldn't have to spend two hours in there to complete personal story.
2) Imbalance of certain fights. Most bosses were pretty easy (as it should be in story mode dungeon). We hit a brick wall at Bloated Creeper. It took us like 30 minutes to bring that %$#%$# down. At first, we did not know what to do and let some grubs to reach him. He got some empowered bonuses, killed all Destiny's Edge and it was very hard to bring down after that. We did not know if there is any way to reset the fight and had to use "respawn and run' tactics.
3) Trash fights onboard air ships are boring. Boring. Booooring. It's not really fun to mow through 10+ waves of the same mobs. And this happens more than once
4) Last encounter was pathetic. Shooting at immobile Zhaitan for like 5 minutes is complete rubbish. I was hoping for something like Deathwing fight from WoW, but no, you spend 5 minutes clicking that 'fire' skill.
5) Rewards are really weak for dungeon of this length. First, pact weapon should be Exotic, not rare (to be on par with GW1 end story rewards). Next, loot bags containing green/blue vendor trash. C'mon, a few ectos or T6 mats in them wouldn't hurt (not much to keep game economy in good state). Some cosmetic reward would also be nice. Rare helmet I got did not even have an unique look, just plain chainmail skin
6) Cinematics are great, I really enjoyed watching them, especially the one when Zhaitan damages our super duper advanced ship.
7) Overall difficulty was OK (except Bloated Creeper).
8) There should really be an option to do this dungeon solo (with help of NPCs). On low population servers, finding a group for it is time consuming (everyone running fractals now). Also it requires Pact having control over Arah gates, so not only I have to find others to help, me, we also have to complete long and often bugged meta-event.
9) Did I mention rewards were weak? Um, I did. Give us something really nice for completing personal story. It's a shame my home instance did not change at all after I completed it. Nothing

I'd really like to complete the story on my alts, but I just can't get myself to do this dungeon again. Another piece of content biting the dust...

[Arquenya]

Did this last week. Agree with you mostly, can't remember any Bloated Creeper (I was in a rather experienced team though). You do get an exotic reward during the afterparty in Ft Trinity though. And a few Arah tokens to keep you going wouldn't hurt either (I actually think it wouldn't be bad if storymodes would let bosses give 3 tokens each).

[Mystic]

Well' its pretty obvious you have never played GW1 before (well not that it's needed or important, but you are talking about a game that is basing his basics on his elder)
1) Missions in GW1 were twice as long, and twice as HARD. You were stuck in missions for weeks just out of frustration because it was simply too hard or too long. In GW2 it was a revelation that you could smoothly do the story without any trouble (besides Arah, which is still easier than any end game mission in GW1)
5) Well again, GW1, you get no rewards at all besides end game weapon. You get more than that in Arah.

I kind of agree/ don't mind on the others. But congratulations on completing the game.

[Sandpit]

Totally agree with OP.

And wow @ Mystic if you think the GW1 missions were hard, they were a cake walk solo (with hench) for the most part. The only vaguely hard ones were THK in the early days, maybe one or two of the RoT mish, but all soloable with hench and esp. hero. And ALL way shorter than two hours.

[Mottle]

Sandpit, on 10 December 2012 - 11:02 PM, said:

Totally agree with OP.

And wow @ Mystic if you think the GW1 missions were hard, they were a cake walk solo (with hench) for the most part. The only vaguely hard ones were THK in the early days, maybe one or two of the RoT mish, but all soloable with hench and esp. hero. And ALL way shorter than two hours.

I kinda remember Tahnnakai Temple being pretty difficult and getting stuck on some characters. Getting HM/bonus sometimes required multiple tries, but then it's all relative to skill level. You may not have found GW1 hard, but I know I did, and I know I'm not alone.

[Serim]

As a dungeon group of mostly clothies, the airship was ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE.  Shoot down the dragon, ok sure! *knockback poison stun knockback* Ok, I finally cleared my almost dying-ness, lets shoot the dragon- A. Oh, he's untargetable; B. I am aimin- KNOCKBACK

The airship was by far the most annoying and tedious part of this dungeon, and completely useless in terms of trying to move the story forward.  I had to basically complete this dungeon twice, the first time we got through the airship with little trouble, but I still found it annoying.  As soon as we jumped from the airship onto the large airship it disconnected THE ENTIRE PARTY.  There went an hour and 30 minutes.

So I try it again with a different, much less experienced and geared party. We died from knockback, stun, and poisons on the airship so much that we were all naked by the end, one of our party members was bugged into the floor of the ship, and we couldnt get more than a single shot off on the dragons every 3rd try reaching the cannons because of knockbacks and stuns. So. Incredibly. Annoying.

Finally we made it to the big airship (I think this part took about an hour and a half longer than the last time). Now we were forced to body run the mobs that were attacking the ship crew, and needless to say, that wasnt fun, but possible after a multitude of attempts, unlike the previously mentioned dragon turrets and knockbacks.  During this time our stuck party member was able to move some distance on the new airship using skills, before eventually being entirely stuck again.

tl;dr The amount of CC by both dragons and mobs on the intermediate airship battle absolutely ruins the entire experience, and makes the dungeon the least enjoyable experience possible.  You're supposed to feel epic when you go to fight the dragons in the air, but instead the turrets dont shoot for 10 seconds after you target dragons and you invariably cannot fire before being knocked away from it.  And it's buggy, so incredibly buggy.

Edited by Serim, 11 December 2012 - 12:27 AM.

[Kid]

Mystic, on 10 December 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

Well' its pretty obvious you have never played GW1 before (well not that it's needed or important, but you are talking about a game that is basing his basics on his elder)
1) Missions in GW1 were twice as long, and twice as HARD. You were stuck in missions for weeks just out of frustration because it was simply too hard or too long. In GW2 it was a revelation that you could smoothly do the story without any trouble (besides Arah, which is still easier than any end game mission in GW1)
5) Well again, GW1, you get no rewards at all besides end game weapon. You get more than that in Arah.

I kind of agree/ don't mind on the others. But congratulations on completing the game.

I think the word "hard" is rather subjective. Unless they are hard mode missions, Domain of Anguish, and some dungeons in last expansion, I did every mission in Prophecies with just henchmen, and with heroes and henchmen in Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North (and it is a known fact that anyone with proper builds can solo Shiro in Factions, which was why there were runners for the last mission).

Also, end game weapons we all receive by exchanging tokens in GW come with maximum stats unlike the pact weapon given at Caer Aval in Fort Trinity. Skins are rather meh, and stats are even worse.  

As for the topic, I agree on the matter of the mission being too boring. Giving mobs ridiculous amount of hp or extra hard armor does not make the mission challenging. All it ever does is making the mission annoying and tedious to the extreme.

[Kaiarra]

Totally agree that the last part of the story line should have been soloable... not really got any incentive to finish my story, when I know that I'll be forced to wait for the gates to actually be open, spend hours trying to find a group that wants to run it on story mode, and then on top of that probably wipe for hours.

Also the comparison to GW1 is just odd - one of the things I loved about that game, was the fact that pretty much anything PvE wise was soloable if you were prepared to put the time and effort into managing your party. I would love and adore any designer who would bring the concept of heroes/henchmen into GW2, as I would then be able to enjoy the dungeon content I'm pretty much totally skipping at this stage because pugging other players can be so frustrating.

[Coren]

What bothers me most is the fact that your final story is with a party... I mean seriously??? All the way it's soloable AMD now you need to find 4 more for an overly long dungeon? Real fail there.

Loved the airship battles leading to zhaitan and everything before... But zhaitan himself? A disgrace... A complete disgrace, much like ME3 endings. You get built up to believe zhaitan is a badass and all he does is stay on a tower, getting flacked by our guns...

[Sandpit]

Mottle, on 10 December 2012 - 11:16 PM, said:

I kinda remember Tahnnakai Temple being pretty difficult and getting stuck on some characters. Getting HM/bonus sometimes required multiple tries, but then it's all relative to skill level. You may not have found GW1 hard, but I know I did, and I know I'm not alone.

Yes, but you are talking about hard mode.GW1 was doable solo, GW2 end is hard, especially compared to GW2 rest of story and is impossible solo, odd considering it is personal story and the rest of personal story is designed for solo. So it's not only inconsistant with GW1, t's also inconsistant with GW2.

Persoanlly I think ANet got lazy on the ending and used the dungeon that was never designed for story mode.

[lmaonade]

Kid, on 11 December 2012 - 04:14 AM, said:

I think the word "hard" is rather subjective. Unless they are hard mode missions, Domain of Anguish, and some dungeons in last expansion, I did every mission in Prophecies with just henchmen, and with heroes and henchmen in Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North (and it is a known fact that anyone with proper builds can solo Shiro in Factions, which was why there were runners for the last mission).

Also, end game weapons we all receive by exchanging tokens in GW come with maximum stats unlike the pact weapon given at Caer Aval in Fort Trinity. Skins are rather meh, and stats are even worse.  

As for the topic, I agree on the matter of the mission being too boring. Giving mobs ridiculous amount of hp or extra hard armor does not make the mission challenging. All it ever does is making the mission annoying and tedious to the extreme.

GW prophecies missions were hard back in the day when everyone sucked, I bought the game a few weeks after release, and was both wow'd and terrified, every major area had at least some missions that were difficult, and you have no idea how long i was stuck in the Ring of Fire, unable to complete prophecies

Edit: great, now I'm being hit by nostalgia and am missing GW1 a lot.

Edited by lmaonade, 12 December 2012 - 12:04 AM.

[Arquenya]

Mystic, on 10 December 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

1) Missions in GW1 were twice as long, and twice as HARD.

Long, yes. Hard nah, Just a few, most were (very) easy!

But well, in GW you combined your personal storyline with levelling and getting new skills - so it gave a strong sense of progression.
And I don't think it's that bad that the game made you rethink your strategy and skill setup a bit every once in a while  - instead of allowing for mindlessly zerging and having a default easy mode setting. Personally I found playing through the storyline missions of GW: Prophecies far more immersive and challenging than in GW2.  But yes I know, not everyone likes challenges.

Edited by Arquenya, 12 December 2012 - 12:28 AM.

[Kid]

lmaonade, on 12 December 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

GW prophecies missions were hard back in the day when everyone sucked, I bought the game a few weeks after release, and was both wow'd and terrified, every major area had at least some missions that were difficult, and you have no idea how long i was stuck in the Ring of Fire, unable to complete prophecies

Edit: great, now I'm being hit by nostalgia and am missing GW1 a lot.

I do not recall players were that bad during the release, and I did not finish every Prophecies missions in one go, either. I had to repeat them several times until I finally managed to get to the final ring of fire mission with just henchmen (I could say that I was a bit lucky, as well), but that was my decision to do the missions without grouping up with other players.

Still, this is where I believe Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 diverges. The first one gave us a choice to do it alone (if you logged in at the wrong time where the outpost was pretty much empty), or go with other people (still have to risk whether or not they know how to do the mission), but for Guild Wars 2, not only we have to group up to do it, but we also have to rely on more people to keep the dungeon up in our control to have a shot at doing the last mission, which can be very problematic for people with several 80 characters.

Edited by Kid, 12 December 2012 - 07:19 AM.

[lmaonade]

Kid, on 12 December 2012 - 07:18 AM, said:

I do not recall players were that bad during the release, and I did not finish every Prophecies missions in one go, either. I had to repeat them several times until I finally managed to get to the final ring of fire mission with just henchmen (I could say that I was a bit lucky, as well), but that was my decision to do the missions without grouping up with other players.

Still, this is where I believe Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 diverges. The first one gave us a choice to do it alone (if you logged in at the wrong time where the outpost was pretty much empty), or go with other people (still have to risk whether or not they know how to do the mission), but for Guild Wars 2, not only we have to group up to do it, but we also have to rely on more people to keep the dungeon up in our control to have a shot at doing the last mission, which can be very problematic for people with several 80 characters.

well I don't mean they were bad, I mean they were new to the game too so everything was a lesson to be learned and a trial and error, when i started my 2nd and subsequent characters, everything was a breeze (normal mode at least), I knew what optimized builds were and what/who to take along parties, and heroes made it a single player game haha.

dungeons in GW2 are similar to that, but still has a completely different feel to it. Missions in GW often mimicked the "open world," often taking place in the same landscapes as the regular areas, dungeons here feel like the normal definition of an MMO "dungeon," off in a cavern or enclosed space, with very few exceptions. Missions in GW1 definitely feel more story driven than dungeons in GW2, but of course that's what story missions are for, while GW2 dungeons would be the substitute for elite zones such as FoW and underworld.

However, GW2 did not carry along replacements for missions, the story missions in GW2 are nowhere near as good as ones in GW1. And a big part of it (for me at least), is that the personal story quests feel too personal, I really liked running story missions in GW1 with other people, even repeating older ones, and nothing has given me the same feeling in GW2, dungeons are fun I guess but not as interesting after the first time around. The biggest difference being that GW1's scale was a lot bigger, each mission felt like I traveled a huge distance in the world, while dungeons feel like an enclosed room :x

Edited by lmaonade, 12 December 2012 - 08:04 AM.

[Basharic]

My guild finally managed to sneak in an Arah story mode run recently. It didn't take terribly long, and we were all a little stunned at just how easy it actually was. The airship battle was mildly annoying but for the most part I wasn't overly bored.

I was surprised to see adds in the final pew pew stage on Zhaitan, they came in plentifully enough that we had to occasionally stop from pressing the same key over and over again to kill them. I didn't recall seeing them mentioned in the videos I'd watched of the dungeon.

My only really gripe besides it being way too easy, was the tons of cutscenes. But I'm impatient.

[Sword Hammer Axe]

In response, I've done this dungeon on 4 different characters, some of them twice making the amount of times I've run it so far 7.

My experience is somewhat divided. Sometimes I've run it in half an hour with no problems, sometimes it took way too long and I died way too much, mostly because of a bad group and bad strategy.

The first time I ran it, it took about an hour. We had some hard times and some easy times. None of us had ever done it before so everything was new. We had a ton of fun. I remember we downed a lot at Mouth of Zhaitan and at the dragon champions on the airship, and I remember how disappointed we all were at Zhaitan (this was back when there wasn't even any music in that fight!). Overall, except the final fight, this was exactly as I had thought that dungeon would be.

In response to your individual comments:

1: The length. I somewhat agree with you there. It's a long run and there are tons of bosses. However, even if the dungeon was short, a bad group, experienced or not, would make it take very long anyways, so it's hard to make that comparison. Still, there are quite a bunch of stuff in it, so I get your point.
2: Boss fights: Now, here I can't agree with you. It's a dungeon, storymode or not, and it's supposed to have some tough fights. Furthermore, it's the last mission of the personal story, making it even more necessary for a certain difficulty to exist. If you had too much trouble it's more likely that your group just sucked. Furthermore, you hit a wall at the Bloated Creeper? Man, something definitely had to have been wrong then. I have never had a single down at that guy in all my seven runs. There are a bunch of hints, such as text under his name, the grubs moving towards him, the grubs disappearing at him as he consumes him, etc., and his attacks are super easy to avoid. I'm not saying that having a tough time against him is impossible, but I'm saying that imbalance certainly isn't the issue here.
3: My favorite part of the dungeon! Also the most challenging part imo. But I guess this comes down to personal opinion
4: Agreed. It's way better now than it was the first few times I did it. But still, they should make Zhaitan a bigger challenge than just a sitting duck occassionally spawning evil beard tentacles.
5: Yeah, dungeon loot is still not optimal, I agree there. However, the pact weapons are there for the skin. Considering just how many, not good, but many, different rewards there are, I'm actually pretty glad they don't just give you perfect items. Think about it, you get blueprints, loot bags, at least 2 rares of which one has a very special skin, and tons of crap to sell or use as forge fodder. I see no problem with the rewards other than the usual dungeon loot problem. It's the end of the personal story, but it's not an explorable mode dungeon.
6: I like the cinematics too, at least now that the sound is in place. However, please give us more time to loot Mouth of Zhaitan!
7: Wait, aren't you contradicting yourself here? Or maybe you only had those problems with the Creeper? In that case, I'd say that point # 2 was a one time problem for you, mate.
8: Semi agree here. Normally I'd say I think it's fine as it is, but I too have had too many problems just getting in. When I'm in though, it's a walk in the forest from there
9: Yes you did, now make something else for point 9