GW2: Crack in the Ice
Living Story update! Yay!
Total redirect from Primodus to Jormag! Okay...
Braham being a bull-headed dick! Uhh...
Taimi being Taimi! Yay!
New Shiverpeaks zone! Okay, though not nearly as interesting as Bloodstone Fen was.
Orca quaggan! I'm down with that, sure.
So, the play experience is okay in general. I'm not a huge fan of the zone's torch-carrying mechanics. It's nowhere near as interesting as Bloodstone's gliding, and is a little annoying as a hotbar-replacing skill set that has limited uses. The story doubles down on elements of the dragon mythos that I'm not fond of, but that's to be expected at this point. It's painful to see Braham in a headlong rush, still mourning Eir. Aurene is cute, and provides some levity during the training missions at the beginning (though that slime maze gets a little annoying).
For all that, what stands out most is the last instance. I get breaking up a walk through the caves with combat, but a couple waves of Svanir, then several waves of wolves, then several waves of spiders, was really dragging - not dangerous so much as dull and repetitive. I thought the final fight would be a relief, and I picked up on the basic mechanics of how to maneuver and use the boss' charge almost immediately. Then the game throws in scattered, random damage throughout most of the room. With knockdown. So if you get hit, you're knocked down, run over, take more damage, usually end up downed, get run over and take some more damage, then have to restart "from checkpoint." I'm thankful someone made the "checkpoint" exactly where you are, so you don't have to restart the encounter, but overwhelming the player with that sort of unrecoverable situation drains all the fun and accomplishment out of it. I think I won more by virtue of being able to respawn-and-zerg the fight rather than any skill, and it seems like encounter designers should really be able to do better by now. So, thanks to that, the chapter ends on something of a sour note for me.
Total redirect from Primodus to Jormag! Okay...
Braham being a bull-headed dick! Uhh...
Taimi being Taimi! Yay!
New Shiverpeaks zone! Okay, though not nearly as interesting as Bloodstone Fen was.
Orca quaggan! I'm down with that, sure.
So, the play experience is okay in general. I'm not a huge fan of the zone's torch-carrying mechanics. It's nowhere near as interesting as Bloodstone's gliding, and is a little annoying as a hotbar-replacing skill set that has limited uses. The story doubles down on elements of the dragon mythos that I'm not fond of, but that's to be expected at this point. It's painful to see Braham in a headlong rush, still mourning Eir. Aurene is cute, and provides some levity during the training missions at the beginning (though that slime maze gets a little annoying).
For all that, what stands out most is the last instance. I get breaking up a walk through the caves with combat, but a couple waves of Svanir, then several waves of wolves, then several waves of spiders, was really dragging - not dangerous so much as dull and repetitive. I thought the final fight would be a relief, and I picked up on the basic mechanics of how to maneuver and use the boss' charge almost immediately. Then the game throws in scattered, random damage throughout most of the room. With knockdown. So if you get hit, you're knocked down, run over, take more damage, usually end up downed, get run over and take some more damage, then have to restart "from checkpoint." I'm thankful someone made the "checkpoint" exactly where you are, so you don't have to restart the encounter, but overwhelming the player with that sort of unrecoverable situation drains all the fun and accomplishment out of it. I think I won more by virtue of being able to respawn-and-zerg the fight rather than any skill, and it seems like encounter designers should really be able to do better by now. So, thanks to that, the chapter ends on something of a sour note for me.
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