Guild Wars 2: Arah - WTF!?! (SPOILERS!)

TLDR Version: WTF!?!

OK. This is a rant, plain and simple. Probably with my tone, it's clear how I feel about this dungeon/story and there will be massive spoilers (SPOILERS!). Proceed at your own risk or just stop now and call me a whiner.

The city of Arah is Guild War 2's level 80 storymode dungeon. Yes, others have exploration modes that require level 80, but I'll steer clear of those for now .... because that's another rant altogether.

The dungeon is also the culmination of both your character's personal story as well as the story of Destiny's Edge, this world's team of legendary heroes. My own personal gripes regarding the story's presentation aside, this dungeon story is supposed to be the epic climax to what was building up for 80 levels of gameplay. To fight Zaitan - one of the Elder Dragons - beings of ridiculous power that merely waking up caused massive damage to the world.

As flat as the story has been presented so far, I can't help but get somewhat excited. I was prepared for a flat presentation of sacrifice, friendship, and victory over an unbeatable foe - and the knowledge that there are 3-4 others we will need to deal with eventually. I braced myself for a fight that will require utmost group coordination and cooperation to beat.

I got none of that.

Instead, the dungeon was on par with all others - trash monsters and bosses were actually quite easy to deal with. There is a lot of friendship in the story, but the sacrifice I thought was done ended in a cop out last minute (and off-screen) save. My own character was relegated to chump in the story. In fact, considering it was through your character's efforts (albiet as a backup role) that managed to get this far, not spearheading the assault on Zaitan just felt a bit off.

And the fight with Zaitan?

Rarely in any game have I gotten so upset about a boss fight, but this one barely even qualifies as a fight. The most you get to do is kill trash that attempts to board the ship. Then you shoot Zaitan with cannons. For ~4 minutes. Maybe more, I wasn't counting. There also really isn't much to the cannons as Zaitan and the ship are stationary. You just aim it at his general direction and press the fire button. For several minutes. Then it's over.

When what should be an epic boss battle can be won by subbing in a drinking bird novelty toy, then something is just seriously wrong. Yes, I understand that epic doesn't necessarily mean we have to beat bosses ourselves, but it needs to be challenging and, most importantly, fun. The Zaitan encounter was neither.  

I have played World of Warcraft for several years. I have played other MMOs like RIFT, SWTOR, Age of Conan, DCUO, etc. and I have never seen such a badly designed encounter. I've seen bugged encounters, fights that take long to beat simply because of very small margins for error, but never one so deliberately bad. It is very unambiguous that this fight was meant to be the way it is. And it isn't even the slightest bit difficult.

It certainly didn't help that the story was also very bland and played it safe. There was some effort to make Logan's reappearance meaningful. But that's the thing, the new airship would have been there no matter what and Logan's appearace wasn't even necessary. I don't know, but perhaps Logan's legacy would have been helped by being part of the cost of beating Zaitan.

Maybe this was ArenaNet's idea of an epic encounter? I can't really see how. Perhaps they were running out of time when developing this dungeon? Now that's just cynical. Whatever the reason, this encounter has really soured my gaming experience. It's a shame because, despite several gripes, I have had a lot of fun with the game itself.

Now excuse me, since I have friends that have yet to kill Zaitan, I have to invest in a drinking bird so I can help them out. 

Highlights 

• Ever the optimist. Zaitan does have a very unique model. ArenaNet's artists have really gotten down the whole "primeval dragon of death" thing. Though I thought he would have been bigger.

On Disliking the MMO "Holy Trinity"

To make sure proper context is provided, the "holy trinity" of MMOs means having the core roles of tank, healer, and damage dealing in a group to deal with player vs. environment (PvE) encounters. A good majority of MMOs make use of this group setup and the responsibilities of each member of the group are pretty straight-forward - most of the time.

ArenaNet has been using the lack of this group setup as a major part of their hype machine for Guild Wars 2. While this certainly ramped up talk about how people are discontented about the "traditional" MMO group design, this discussion has been around for a very long time.

Group cooperation is never really an issue. No matter how a game is designed, having proper communication and planning will always be superior to just getting 4-5 random people together and just hope everyone knows what to do.

No, a lot of the talk revolves around damage dealers having trouble finding groups - because few people decide to take on the tank and healer roles.

Being a tank or healer in a group is about taking on a lot of responsibility. The tank usually ends up controlling the flow of the encounters while the healer ensures the right people stay alive long enough to finish the fight. Both roles have to make decisions on the fly and mistakes by either are the most visible and so blame easily falls on one of the two...or even both. I have personally seen the extra responsibility take it's toll on players and it often leads to tanks and healers to play a different role, refuse to run random groups, or just stop playing altogether.

So damage dealers can't find groups because of few tanks and healers. Tanks and healers get burned out easily and stop playing their characters. It's a vicious cycle, and it won't stop until people just wake up and realize they need something that is sadly lacking with the human race in general:

Personal Responsibility.

So my little gaming article now has become a social commentary piece? Online gaming has always been a social hub, whether one likes it or not. There is no doubt the worst of people can show up in an online game, but also can the best of people. You can tout all you want on how good or terrible an MMO is; terrible graphics, great game mechanics, balanced classes, etc, but the social aspect are online gaming's true heart.

The lack of personal resposibility means that the dislike of the "holy trinity" boils down to a social problem rather than a game design issue. In the past few years, games like World of Warcraft and RIFT have been putting more emphasis on personal resposibility. Concepts such as avoidable damage in encounters puts part of the resposibility of staying alive on each individual. The encounter Ultraxion in World of Warcraft is a good example as it becomes very obvious who failed to activate the ability to avoid the instant death attack. Encounters such as these are always the hardest in the game, not because the fight is designed to be hard, but because individual failures can cause the whole group to fail.

And that, in my most humble opinion, is exactly how it should always be.

Removing the "holy trinity", such as in Guild Wars 2, does the exact same thing other MMOs have been working towards for a while now.  Granted, not having a dedicated tank or healer, it becomes even more important for individuals in GW2 to make sure they do their part in controlling the encounter and staying alive. It has to be clear though, that repeated failure to do so is not about being stuck in the "holy trinity" mindset, but about not able to, or not willing to, go the extra steps to ensure the group is a success.

I suppose the question is whether I dislike the "holy trinity" myself. No. Neither will it's absence bother me. No matter how a game is designed, it will always be the player that makes a group a success of failure. Always.