(GW2) Path of Fire
So, having completed the story of the expansion, I have to say my previous feelings stand. This was longer, and definitely includes more map space, than a Living Story release, but it doesn't feel big/new/different enough to me to really be an "expansion." Expectations are a bitch sometimes.
I'm sure I'll go back and finish more of the maps and learn more of the mount abilities in time, but I don't feel any particular rush to do so. I don't even really feel I hurried that much through the campaign (especially with work preventing play for a few nights last week outright).
My biggest complaint, however, is (also) not new to the expansion. I feel the story instances are tuned too hard, with combat biased toward more than one player whereas the plot aspects are more suited to soloing. I ran these quests in full ascended-level gear that is perhaps not perfectly itemized, but you can't get much in the way of more stats. And at that, the fights ranged from unforgiving to downright punishing. Especially the final fight(s) took somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes, wherein there was very little room for screwing up. Honestly, it stopped being "fun," "epic," or "exciting" for me after about the first 5 minutes. Instead it was just agonizingly long. And it doesn't help when you saddle a player with a new skill set for a fight like this, however "cool" it might be. That just adds the wrong sort of difficulty. I really think the people doing encounter design could use a reality check.
Maybe I'm aging out of a target playerbase or something, but I find that wearying rather than thrilling. I'm willing to engage in mechanically complex fights. I'm even willing to lose them a few times to learn things if I'm working on coordinating with a group of friends. Solo stuff, however, should have more room for error in my opinion, and really shouldn't take total focus for that amount of time.
The story itself was okay, but lacked a number of things I was hoping for. I've seen people praising it, but nothing really impressed me that much. Balthazar's entire involvement feels like a strange and brief diversion in the grand scheme of things, even if things would have played out differently had he not been there, sure. If I could spoiler-tag, I'd probably say more on that.
I'm sure I'll go back and finish more of the maps and learn more of the mount abilities in time, but I don't feel any particular rush to do so. I don't even really feel I hurried that much through the campaign (especially with work preventing play for a few nights last week outright).
My biggest complaint, however, is (also) not new to the expansion. I feel the story instances are tuned too hard, with combat biased toward more than one player whereas the plot aspects are more suited to soloing. I ran these quests in full ascended-level gear that is perhaps not perfectly itemized, but you can't get much in the way of more stats. And at that, the fights ranged from unforgiving to downright punishing. Especially the final fight(s) took somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes, wherein there was very little room for screwing up. Honestly, it stopped being "fun," "epic," or "exciting" for me after about the first 5 minutes. Instead it was just agonizingly long. And it doesn't help when you saddle a player with a new skill set for a fight like this, however "cool" it might be. That just adds the wrong sort of difficulty. I really think the people doing encounter design could use a reality check.
Maybe I'm aging out of a target playerbase or something, but I find that wearying rather than thrilling. I'm willing to engage in mechanically complex fights. I'm even willing to lose them a few times to learn things if I'm working on coordinating with a group of friends. Solo stuff, however, should have more room for error in my opinion, and really shouldn't take total focus for that amount of time.
The story itself was okay, but lacked a number of things I was hoping for. I've seen people praising it, but nothing really impressed me that much. Balthazar's entire involvement feels like a strange and brief diversion in the grand scheme of things, even if things would have played out differently had he not been there, sure. If I could spoiler-tag, I'd probably say more on that.
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