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.
No comments:
Post a Comment