My crew and I spent 8 hours doing Shores of Gold this morning. We never expected the finale to take so long.
We did great with the puzzles, although they took some time. Getting through the traps was a real challenge and frustrating at times. But the reason I'm writing is the final battle.
We fought that battle for an hour and a half. Most of the time it didn't feel like we were making any progress at all. At one point something strange happened, and one of our crew got sent out of the chamber somehow. I'm not exactly sure where she wound up, but it was after 5AM and she had to get up at 6:30 so she left. The two remaining members of the crew (me and my wife) kept fighting and, to our surprise, the Gold Hoarder finally fell. A door opened and the music stopped. But...nothing else really happened. We found the skull somewhere in the chamber (not where he actually died). We picked it up. We lingered a short time but nothing else happened, so we left. Not sure what to do next, we just took the skull to Galleon's Grave and sold it. The quest did not complete, nor could we complete it. It just sort of fizzled. The Shroudbreaker stayed on the ship. I even sailed back to the Shores of Gold after my partner left. It appeared the island reset, since the Gold Hoarder's coin was gone and it was no longer possible to enter the dungeons. So basically that was it. All that time for nothing.
I get the feeling the whole "boss" battle was bugged from the git go. It should never have taken so long to finish onwe battle, finale or no finale. I think the battle reset when we lost our third crewmate, and with the two of us it only took a few minutes. Something went wonky and we wound up wasting an hour and a half on that battle with no chance of completing the quest.
We've enjoyed Tall Tales immensely and always looked forward to our next session. We were really fired up for the finale. Seeing Tribute Peak for the first time was awesome. The puzzles were well done and they nailed the atmosphere. The traps got to be pretty crazy and tedious at times, more for some of us than others, but we eventually made it through. Even the battle was quite exciting and dramatic...at first. After a solid hour, though, with no end in sight...we were all pretty much over it. Then for the whole great Tall Tale to just fizzle at the very end...I can tell you, it was beyond disappointing. It was a bit heartbreaking to be honest.
None of us are looking forward to going through all that again. What a shame. :(