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Thanks Anet for the changes to the zone meta in Drizzlewood Coast


Vayne.8563

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A couple of months ago, I made a post about how unhappy I was with having to do strike missions to complete zone meta achievements. I still haven't finished the last two zone metas, which is something that's never happened before. And yeah I know I can. I chose not to, because I didn't want that content to become must do content to complete zone metas.

The thread had a lot of traffic both for and against, but I feel like it had a lot of support. The meta achievements from the episodes that required strike missions were some of the lowest completion rates of any zone meta, at least according to Guild Wars 2 efficiency. I said at that point that Anet would do their own calculations and based on their own metics would decide if strike missions should be part of the zone meta. This is the first time in a couple of months where it hasn't been.

Anyway I'm really happy that I can finally complete a zone meta again, so thanks Anet. I know a lot of people say the developers never listen to fans. I think we all forget that different groups of players often want compeltely different things. And since I was happy enough to make my case, it's only fair that I say thank you when that changes happens, so thanks Anet.

The zone is great, and I'm happy to be playing "my" game again.

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Yeah the strike missions weren't apart of the meta in the 1st half of Bjora either. Then they added 3 and a bunch of new achieves to do in them and those were apart of the meta. Wasn't a fan of that thread then but hey you still here and happier so that's good I guess

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@Jilora.9524 said:Yeah the strike missions weren't apart of the meta in the 1st half of Bjora either. Then they added 3 and a bunch of new achieves to do in them and those were apart of the meta. Wasn't a fan of that thread then but hey you still here and happier so that's good I guess

As I said before, if Anet's metrics suggest not enough people are doing the meta, they'll change it. I mean it's unlikely they changed it just because I asked, right? It was changed because enough people were spending less time in the zone..people that used to spend time in new zones.

Edit: There are two metas in a row I missed, from releases, Shadow in the Ice and Visions of the Past, STell and Fire, both of which require strike missions, though one of them is obviously not a zone meta. It's still a meta released with a living story chapter...or something to do with the living world anyway.

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@Vayne.8563 said:

@Jilora.9524 said:Yeah the strike missions weren't apart of the meta in the 1st half of Bjora either. Then they added 3 and a bunch of new achieves to do in them and those were apart of the meta. Wasn't a fan of that thread then but hey you still here and happier so that's good I guess

As I said before, if Anet's metrics suggest not enough people are doing the meta, they'll change it. I mean it's unlikely they changed it just because I asked, right? It was changed because enough people were spending less time in the zone..people that used to spend time in new zones.

Edit: There are two metas in a row I missed, from releases, Shadow in the Ice and Visions of the Past, STell and Fire, both of which require strike missions, though one of them is obviously not a zone meta. It's still a meta released with a living story chapter...or something to do with the living world anyway.

I doubt your thread or metrics mattered and it's one episode after 2 that required the strikes in it. Visions didn't need a full group and I didn't finish that more because the collections with JP I just don't feel like doing right now but I'll end up finishing both the latest meta's eventually. There really isn't anything in this strike to put in meta except do it 50 times which is extreme but you can easily get 22/22 w/o it if you craft the weapons. These episodes are worked on by different teams so new strikes could be in a meta again we'll see.

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@Jilora.9524 said:

@Jilora.9524 said:Yeah the strike missions weren't apart of the meta in the 1st half of Bjora either. Then they added 3 and a bunch of new achieves to do in them and those were apart of the meta. Wasn't a fan of that thread then but hey you still here and happier so that's good I guess

As I said before, if Anet's metrics suggest not enough people are doing the meta, they'll change it. I mean it's unlikely they changed it just because I asked, right? It was changed because enough people were spending less time in the zone..people that used to spend time in new zones.

Edit: There are two metas in a row I missed, from releases, Shadow in the Ice and Visions of the Past, STell and Fire, both of which require strike missions, though one of them is obviously not a zone meta. It's still a meta released with a living story chapter...or something to do with the living world anyway.

I doubt your thread or metrics mattered and it's one episode after 2 that required the strikes in it. Visions didn't need a full group and I didn't finish that more because the collections with JP I just don't feel like doing right now but I'll end up finishing both the latest meta's eventually. There really isn't anything in this strike to put in meta except do it 50 times which is extreme but you can easily get 22/22 w/o it if you craft the weapons. These episodes are worked on by different teams so new strikes could be in a meta again we'll see.

I'm relativeliy sure that going forward, strikes won't be included in the meta again. I guess we'll see. As I've said repeatedly I don't think the largest percentage of the population is interested in strikes or getting read for raids or raiding. And it's in Anet's interest to cater to the largest part of the population. This doesn't mean strike missions shouldn't exist. It does mean that it should be kept seperate from more casual/solo content.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:I'd still wait before thanking Anet for this before the second part of the map is up. I wouldn't be surprised if that included a strike in the overall map meta, like in the Bjora Marches.

Like I said we'll see. Seems a no brainer to me though. If half hte people completed the meta that required strike missions compared to any other zone meta, ever, even the lower ones, than there's an issue. I'd be very suprised if Anet didn't pick up on that.

What's the percentage here. No one is going to get mad and play less because a strike mission is in the meta. I played less because a strike mission was. I'm sure I'm not alone. So what's the percentage of including them? It's not like they have to abandon strike missions, after all.

I mean they did include the strike mission in the meta. They just gave enough other achievements to not make it necessary. I see no downside to this.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Little late to the discussion, as it takes me awhile to work my way through these, but almost there! I'm down to just needing to craft all the Stormcaller weapons. I've made 5 of them so far. Once they are done, I'll have the meta complete! I might be short on the Charged Lodestones for the core, but found if I take the crafting material coffers when they come up in the repeatable 'Glory' rotations, they have a good chance at giving me some lodestones, so maybe making one every day or two, I'll have what I need by the end (I think I could make them all now but 2 with my own materials).

Appreciated I didn't have to do the strike. Kinda wishing they through in a step for completing every single one of the special assignments as a possible option, that took a bit of time, but minor quibble. Was a bit nervous about being able to pull off Purrfect Escape, as the mobs before the big boss killed me pretty good the first time through, but saw I could replay from 'just' the escape, which was great because I could just repeat that step, and it didn't split focus between having to worry about the first part of the fight, and then concentrate each time on the run. I managed to do it on my 5th or 6th try.

And for some reason, this episode I realized I have 'no' idea how to read what rewards are given at what tiers for achievements. I thought I had my head around that, but was not getting things when I thought I would, and getting things 'before' I thought I would (like /playdead was an early pleasant surprise).

Really enjoying the map. Hope it 'sticks' for some people and groups continue to run it.

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@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Anyway I'm really happy that I can finally complete a zone meta again, so thanks Anet. I know a lot of people say the developers never listen to fans.

I think you misjudge the situation. This episode was developed last year, your comments from a few months ago had no influence on its meta.

You could be right, but I'm guessing you're wrong. We'll see soon enough.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:I'd still wait before thanking Anet for this before the second part of the map is up. I wouldn't be surprised if that included a strike in the overall map meta, like in the Bjora Marches.

It's also interesting to note that the Cold War strike mission has only ONE achievement, which requires completion 50 times.Yes, that too. I was definitely not amused by that.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:I'd still wait before thanking Anet for this before the second part of the map is up. I wouldn't be surprised if that included a strike in the overall map meta, like in the Bjora Marches.

It's also interesting to note that the Cold War strike mission has only ONE achievement, which requires completion 50 times.

One Achievement? It has 11 tiers of Achievements, and two, the first (complete Cold War once) and third (complete Cold War 10 times) reward Mastery Points. Each of the first 5 tiers reward reward 5 APs. Tiers 5, 8, 10 and 11 reward Reliquary of the Bear Ceremonial armor.

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:I'd still wait before thanking Anet for this before the second part of the map is up. I wouldn't be surprised if that included a strike in the overall map meta, like in the Bjora Marches.

It's also interesting to note that the Cold War strike mission has only ONE achievement, which requires completion 50 times.

One Achievement? It has 11 tiers of Achievements, and two, the first (complete Cold War once) and third (complete Cold War 10 times) reward Mastery Points. Each of the first 5 tiers reward reward 5 APs. Tiers 5, 8, 10 and 11 reward Reliquary of the Bear Ceremonial armor.

It's only one achievement with multiple tiers, we've had this for a long time but only in the Icebrood Saga achievements started giving different rewards at each tier of completion.

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O..k..There's also Priority Cold War Strike Mission and Daily Cold War Strike Mission.
I don't know; to say there's only one achievement is sort of like saying there's only one achievement in Living World Releases; the Meta.I suppose they could have broken it into separate achievements. Just giving names to each tier, and separating them.As long as one is rewarded with APs, MPs, and/or rewards, does it make a difference?

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:O..k..There's also Priority Cold War Strike Mission and Daily Cold War Strike Mission.

I don't know; to say there's only one achievement is sort of like saying there's only one achievement in Living World Releases; the Meta.I suppose they could have broken it into separate achievements. Just giving names to each tier, and separating them.As long as one is rewarded with APs, MPs, and/or rewards, does it make a difference?

Meta achievements require you to do different things, which is why they are separate achievements.To say that Cold War has multiple achievements is like saying Yakslapper consists of 5 achievements (all its tiers) Yakslapper and Morale Breaker are essentially the same thing, only Morale Breaker has vastly different rewards on each tier, unlike Yakslapper which has a variable amount of AP rewards and awards a title at the end. It is still ONE achievement.

Cold War has only one achievement, to complete the instance a number of times. How could they separate them and give them different names if they all require doing the exact same thing?

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@Vayne.8563 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Anyway I'm really happy that I can finally complete a zone meta again, so thanks Anet. I know a lot of people say the developers never listen to fans.

I think you misjudge the situation. This episode was developed last year, your comments from a few months ago had no influence on its meta.

You could be right, but I'm guessing you're wrong. We'll see soon enough.

Yeah, I think that they took recent feedback into consideration with these last few episodes, the way runic armour was made available through different ways, the more reasonable metas, the fact that bear armour has a guaranteed path to obtain it (sure its a long path but it's guaranteed, unlike raven armour). I feel like they're listening and it's silly to believe that they are so rigid that they can't change anything about an episode that's being developed. Particularly when that thing is the number and type of achievements required for a meta.

We'll see what the next episode brings, of course, but I'd like to think that this one is representative of the new "standard" for metas and will be iterated and improved on.

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Well, looking at GW2efficiency for my account I see this:

Prologue: Bound by Blood - 211/286Whisper in the Dark - 133/214Shadow in the Ice - 167/250Visions of the Past - 143/270No Quarter - 248/268

I'm not even going to say that Drizzlewood is a 'better' map than previous episodes, as they all had things I liked and disliked, but for me it seems, this episode made it easier to get achievements done just by playing the game, without ridiculous levels of repetition.

In case you're curious what I'm missing from the current episode:Special Mission: Apothecary 5/6Special Mission: Iron Rain 4/5Special Mission: Percussive Maintenance 15/25Special Mission: Lies and Statistics 13/50Special Mission: Communications Breakdown 1/5Special Mission: Pillage the Port 2/10Special Mission: Pillage the Fort 1/10Special Mission: Fired Up 0/5Special Mission: Pillage the Lighthouse 0/10Morale Breaker: 1/50

Now many of those Special Missions are easy to complete, but as I have meta achievement done, got the emotes and all the mastery points outside of Morale breaker, I just don't have any desire to return to the map. Maybe on a day when I'm bored I'll jump over there and finish some of them, but I'm not exactly excited at the idea of having to zone into the map and 'camp' for certain events to pop. I had the same issue with the Dragonfall map. Maybe that's something they will change for future episodes.

As for Morale breaker, every time I look in the LFG I can never find a group for it, even when it is the daily. I don't care about the Bear armor because I think it looks like kitten, and I've already unlocked two pieces via the WvW and PvP reward tracks, so all I'm missing is the Mastery Point, which I probably won't need anyways as we always end up with extras.

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@Turkeyspit.3965 said:Well, looking at GW2efficiency for my account I see this:

Prologue: Bound by Blood - 211/286Whisper in the Dark - 133/214Shadow in the Ice - 167/250Visions of the Past - 143/270No Quarter - 248/268

I'm not even going to say that Drizzlewood is a 'better' map than previous episodes, as they all had things I liked and disliked, but for me it seems, this episode made it easier to get achievements done just by playing the game, without ridiculous levels of repetition.

In case you're curious what I'm missing from the current episode:Special Mission: Apothecary 5/6Special Mission: Iron Rain 4/5Special Mission: Percussive Maintenance 15/25Special Mission: Lies and Statistics 13/50Special Mission: Communications Breakdown 1/5Special Mission: Pillage the Port 2/10Special Mission: Pillage the Fort 1/10Special Mission: Fired Up 0/5Special Mission: Pillage the Lighthouse 0/10Morale Breaker: 1/50

Now many of those Special Missions are easy to complete, but as I have meta achievement done, got the emotes and all the mastery points outside of Morale breaker, I just don't have any desire to return to the map. Maybe on a day when I'm bored I'll jump over there and finish some of them, but I'm not exactly excited at the idea of having to zone into the map and 'camp' for certain events to pop. I had the same issue with the Dragonfall map. Maybe that's something they will change for future episodes.

As for Morale breaker, every time I look in the LFG I can never find a group for it, even when it is the daily. I don't care about the Bear armor because I think it looks like kitten, and I've already unlocked two pieces via the WvW and PvP reward tracks, so all I'm missing is the Mastery Point, which I probably won't need anyways as we always end up with extras.

I wasn't looking at efficiency for my own personal stuff. I was looking at the numbers across all GW 2 efficiency accounts. I was comparing the number of people who started the episode with the number of people who got the meta event. Only about a third of the gw2efficiency population (a small percentage of the game, but likeliy to be the most serious) started the new episodes. That means people have moved on or are taking an extended break.

Of the third left, you can see the percentage of people completing the meta.

Meta completion rates were higer before strike missions were introduced, by a matter of percents. Even repetitive annoying ones like getting the Meta in Grothmar Wardowns had a much higher completion rate.

As soon as Anet started including strike missions in mix the number started dropping. It's at an all time low now. Until Shadow in the Ice I never missed a zone meta.

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@Pifil.5193 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Anyway I'm really happy that I can finally complete a zone meta again, so thanks Anet. I know a lot of people say the developers never listen to fans.

I think you misjudge the situation. This episode was developed last year, your comments from a few months ago had no influence on its meta.

You could be right, but I'm guessing you're wrong. We'll see soon enough.

Yeah, I think that they took recent feedback into consideration with these last few episodes, the way runic armour was made available through different ways, [...]

That's easier to implement/change on short notice than a whole meta. My statement stands: I seriously doubt the meta was designed according to "recent" feedback when in reality it was developed last year.

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@Ashantara.8731 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:Anyway I'm really happy that I can finally complete a zone meta again, so thanks Anet. I know a lot of people say the developers never listen to fans.

I think you misjudge the situation. This episode was developed last year, your comments from a few months ago had no influence on its meta.

You could be right, but I'm guessing you're wrong. We'll see soon enough.

Yeah, I think that they took recent feedback into consideration with these last few episodes, the way runic armour was made available through different ways, [...]

That's easier to implement/change on short notice than a whole meta. My statement stands: I seriously doubt the meta was designed according to "recent" feedback when in reality it was developed last year.

I don't think it's that difficult to, for example, reduce the number of achievements required for the meta or to increase the pool of achievements that might count for it.

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@Jayden Reese.9542 said:The Prologue: Bound by BLood was completed by 3.943% of the GW 2 efficiency population.Whisper in the Dark Meta was completed by 6.656% FO THE GW 2 effiency population.The Shadow in the Ice meta is completed so far by .704% of the GW 2 efficiency population.

There is a way to check if a map meta is just way too easy to complete, by checking meta completions of much older content than it.Whisper in the Dark meta completion is an anomaly because it has a higher completion rate than Path of Fire Act 1/3 mastery, Heart of Thorns Act IV mastery, Long Live the Lich Mastery, All or Nothing mastery, War Eternal mastery, and is 0.02% less than A Bug in the System mastery and 0.1% from A Star to Guide Us mastery. All content that was started/played by far more players than Whisper in the Dark, meaning the meta was probably too easy (or lucrative) to complete. And of course none of that content has anything to do with Strike Missions.

We'll see the new map's completion rates in a few months, it's way too early to tell now.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:The Prologue: Bound by BLood was completed by 3.943% of the GW 2 efficiency population.Whisper in the Dark Meta was completed by 6.656% FO THE GW 2 effiency population.The Shadow in the Ice meta is completed so far by .704% of the GW 2 efficiency population.

There is a way to check if a map meta is just way too easy to complete, by checking meta completions of much older content than it.Whisper in the Dark meta completion is an anomaly because it has a higher completion rate than Path of Fire Act 1/3 mastery, Heart of Thorns Act IV mastery, Long Live the Lich Mastery, All or Nothing mastery, War Eternal mastery, and is 0.02% less than A Bug in the System mastery and 0.1% from A Star to Guide Us mastery. All content that was started/played by far more players than Whisper in the Dark, meaning the meta was probably too easy (or lucrative) to complete. And of course none of that content has anything to do with Strike Missions.

We'll see the new map's completion rates in a few months, it's way too early to tell now.

I don't know that you can compare expansion and living story content. On the surface, there's a lot of similiarty but there's just far more to do when you get an expansion. The people who buy expansions aren't necessarily there for that kind of content. It means a lot of people buy an expansion, play it for a month and leave, throwing off the percentage of people who do that content regulary. Those people wouldn't then be counted in the later content, because they've already left.

For me, as a dedicated player, I'm here all year around, every year and I do map metas as a matter of course. Presumably the most loyal players are logging in every few months at least to do that new content. There's less to do in those time periods that's new so it'll be done by a bigger percentage.

I don't see value in tracking people that buy expansions, play a game for a couple of months and move onto the next game. I see value in tracking the Ice Brood Saga against the Ice Brood Saga, specifically because it's all in the same time period.

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@Vayne.8563 said:

There is a way to check if a map meta is just way too easy to complete, by checking meta completions of much older content than it.Whisper in the Dark meta completion is an anomaly because it has a higher completion rate than Path of Fire Act 1/3 mastery, Heart of Thorns Act IV mastery, Long Live the Lich Mastery, All or Nothing mastery, War Eternal mastery, and is 0.02% less than A Bug in the System mastery and 0.1% from A Star to Guide Us mastery. All content that was started/played by far more players than Whisper in the Dark, meaning the meta was probably too easy (or lucrative) to complete. And of course none of that content has anything to do with Strike Missions.

We'll see the new map's completion rates in a few months, it's way too early to tell now.

I don't know that you can compare expansion and living story content. On the surface, there's a lot of similiarty but there's just far more to do when you get an expansion. The people who buy expansions aren't necessarily there for that kind of content. It means a lot of people buy an expansion, play it for a month and leave, throwing off the percentage of people who do that content regulary. Those people wouldn't then be counted in the later content, because they've already left.

For me, as a dedicated player, I'm here all year around, every year and I do map metas as a matter of course. Presumably the most loyal players are logging in every few months at least to do that new content. There's less to do in those time periods that's new so it'll be done by a bigger percentage.

I don't see value in tracking people that buy expansions, play a game for a couple of months and move onto the next game. I see value in tracking the Ice Brood Saga against the Ice Brood Saga, specifically because it's all in the same time period.

I think you misunderstood. Less players finished those Act metas of the expansions than the Whisper in the Dark meta, not percentage, but fixed number. So players that bought the expansion but left are highly irrelevant. More players (total number) finished the Whisper in the Dark meta than Path of Fire Act 1 meta. Same with Season 4 content, with the exception of the Daybreak meta, Whisper in the Dark meta has higher or very very similar completion rate.

You can also compare the number of players that started the respective episodes to have a better comparison. The first instance of a A Bug in the System was completed by 51%, the first instance of Whisper in the Dark was finished by 33%, yet their meta completion rates are both at 8.3% (8.29% for Bug and 8.27% for Whisper) This shows that the 16.3% of those that started Bug finished the meta, while that number is at 25% for Whisper (one in four that started the episode finished the meta). Meaning the Whisper in the Dark meta was very easy compared to most other metas released so far, which is why I called it an anomaly.

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