Lance Coolee.9480

100% definitely. Those are absolutely great delivery vehicles for challenging content. But if we want to consider new creative approaches to providing challenging content, a (probably) low implementation cost option could be to also provide instanced open-world metas that are higher difficulty. Tons of content to reuse there, and we also get to deliver content like the initial DE meta safely without asking casual players and more hardcore players to have to play in the same sandbox.

Instanced wouldn't be open world, and would hit some of the basic criteria I think is needed for challenging content: 1. Allows players to specifically opt-in 2. Allows players to control their organization and composition. 3. Allows players to fail fast / recover quickly / repeat the content.

Keep an eye on LFG, there are guilds that do TTT routinely. Haven't checked since EoD launch, and wouldn't be surprised if they're on hiatus for a bit through EoD. I'll also keep an eye out and if I find they have a schedule, I'll dm you.

tl;dr - a weekly rotation of higher difficulty, instanced, open world map metas. --- Context: I'll bet that someone at ArenaNet has a pie chart that depicts where players spend the most time. I'll also bet that these player metrics are used to determine in some way where capital improvement investments are made to the game. I suspect that casual play content is the lion's share, and challenging content has a slimmer budget. So I'm sure the trouble with delivering challenging content is directly impacted by available budget, and any opportunity to share content between these two categories of personas is welcome. Opportunity Statement: The risk of trying to bring casual and hardcore players onto the same playing field is that they just want different things and trying to deliver a solution for both instead delivers a solution that works for none. Delivering explicitly unique content for each is directly bound to budgets that are determined by consumption, and inherently favors one group over the other. Proposal: Reuse the same open world content to deliver a weekly rotation of instanced challenge-mode Map metas. Incentivize through achievements and higher value loot. If the meta for a given week is a bit over or under tuned, adjust for its next challenge rotation. Increase difficulty as desired. Potentially use this as an opportunity to safely expose new encounter ideas and gather feedback that can be worked into new expansions, raids, strikes, etc.

These metaphors are getting seriously tangled up. Dropping difficult content in the open world DE meta is like dropping expert level mountaineering right in the middle of the sightseers trails - some will buckle in and get through it, if not just to get to the other side, others will abandon the hike and rightfully argue this isn't the hike that was advertised. I agree with you more than you may think that this game should have more challenging content. However, the largest argument here is that the DE meta isn't the right venue for it, for numerous reasons - it breaks all the necessary conditions for difficult MMO content to be enjoyable and successful, like the ability to selectively opt in, to directly control group composition, and to be able to fail/recover/repeat quickly.

100% this. There are all sorts of ways to enjoy the game, and various ways of being social about it! Guilds are great! So are pugs, random social encounters, playing with your kids and family, etc. Open world content, or other players for that matter, trying to force one specific social design is 1. Bad for all, and 2. Just outright narrow minded, elitist, and I'll be honest - being a borderline j*rk about it.

Your line of thinking is critically flawed here. Every piece of content in this game can be done socially. Nobody is stopping you from grabbing your guildies and steam rolling ANY of the open world content. Dragonstorm even has private instances! The approach you take with your thread is inherently EXCLUSIVE. The claim here is that the ONLY way DE SHOULD be enjoyed is through your socially prescribed approach. Many folks, myself included, want these bits of the game to be enjoyed INCLUSIVELY - by casuals, solo's, pugs, and guildies alike. Again, that's YOUR perspective, and I apologize to be the one to burst your bubble, but that's NOT the only or even main reward. I came to DE for a turtle that I can taxi my daughter around in.

You may want to be careful here. The implication with this post is that YOUR idea of fun is the ONLY way to have fun. I come here for varieties of reasons - all of which are beautifully recognized in this game and have a venue. On school nights, I come here to kick it w/ my 8yr old daughter. Sometimes we do hearts, sometimes we kick Mordremoth's butt. As of yesterday, I get to taxi her around in a turtle. When she goes to bed, I like to mindlessly zerg out with pugs on LS4 meta trains, dragonstorm, world bosses, etc. Sometimes I do it for loot, sometimes for shards, sometimes just to decompress from the work day. On weekends, I dig raiding and WvW. I'm also in a guild that routinely schedules missions, raids, fractals, trains, achievements, the gamut. ALL of these are wonderful ways to enjoy the game, most can be done with or without the strict social requirement you describe in your post.

The sentiment is appreciated. Hardstuck has also been driving folks through the meta as well these last few days. But that's not really the point. There is a venue for challenging content and a venue for relaxed content. OW content has typically been the place for chill play. Like I said earlier, I play with my 8yr old daughter in a lot of open world content, Mordremoth included. I can't play with her in the DE meta, and had to fight like hell to get a turtle they was advertised as a centerpiece of this expansion, just so I can taxi my awestruck kiddo around in. When I want hard content, I tag up for it, I opt in to it, and I focus on challenges that are form-fitted for it. And to repeat myself from moments earlier... 1. Groups aiming for difficult content need to be able to firmly control their team composition. The open world is a terrible place for this (as is evident with groups now trying to form in Arborstone ahead of the META to try and mitigate this). 2. Groups aiming for difficult content need the opportunity to fail/recover/repeat quickly. I don't think I need to explain why the time investment for this META substantially hinders this.

I was today years old when I learned she has her own wiki page.

Not sure if calling GW2 staff out by name is allowed, and I certainly don't want to get hit by the ban hammer for ignorantly doing so. That said, thank you. EoD is a big release. Some of us career developers and development managers can empathize. There is always a ton of work behind the scenes that isn't often shared or well communicated. There's a lot of good in this release that is getting drowned by the sour bits (as is too often typical in software development). Personally, I trust you'll get this right. I'm sure you're constructively noodling on solutions to these real problems. Your success is ours. GG and keep your heads up.

The way ANET posts release notes is a bit confusing. They post build updates on threads that initially published the major/minor release notes, but those threads are titled by date... So you'll get a 3/8 build update where the release notes are posted as a comment to a forum thread titled "Game Update Notes: February 28, 2022". -

I appreciate the callout, and certainly recognize that "open-world content" covers some fairly wide ground; however, I do firmly stand behind my position that open-world content, even major map METAs, should be as widely inclusive as possible, given its base story-telling and atmospheric nature. Here's why open world METAs are terrible places for this type of difficult content: 1. Groups aiming for difficult content need to be able to firmly control their team composition. The open world is a terrible place for this (as is evident with groups now trying to form in Arborstone ahead of the META to try and mitigate this). 2. Groups aiming for difficult content need the opportunity to fail/recover/repeat quickly. I don't think I need to explain why the time investment for this META substantially hinders this. Now let me share a different perspective. I'm 40yrs old now (nuts, I know). When I started this game, I was dating. Since then, I've bought a house, got married, and had TWO kids. I wish I could share with the world the sheer awe in my now 8yr old daughter's eyes when she fought Mordremoth for the first time and WON! She is now a hooked gamer (among other amazing things), and all because of the community and amazing story-telling nature of this games' open world content. THAT is what I'd like to fight to preserve here. I never once said this game shouldn't have incredibly challenging content, just to push it through the right medium.

So I finally got my turtle egg... Hats off to HS guild and their discord for helping lead many folks through the META. We had a well-disciplined comm organizing groups. We had the entire map doing events for 10x participation buff and 5% map dmg buff. We had ZERO discord noise aside from comm directing phases and transitions. We had all the buffs. We had all the DPS. All of it. We were a well choreographed, raid ready group. We beat the event with mere seconds to spare. I didn't see the number but it was legit less than 30s. All of this so I can get a mount that I can gleefully taxi my 8 yr old daughter around in. Let that sink in.

Strict event timers don't only serve as an encounter mechanic but can sometimes be necessary to keep the map moving along. Dry Top, SW, VB, AB, and TD are great examples of maps that need to keep moving players through the Meta timely enough for a scheduled reset. That said, I think the easiest and most impactful change ANET can make is to increase the timer on this encounter by at least 5 if not even 10 minutes. Much like Dragonstorm, this map is much more tolerable to deviations in completion time because the entire instance is discarded after it completes. Tension won't be largely impacted as there's already enough going on in the fight to keep players on their toes.

I do remember HoT release - and that contributes specifically to why I find it a bit nutty how this open world encounter was released in the state that it is. HoT shipped over 8 years ago. There have been FOUR major releases sense then! I fully expect they'll balance this so that it's as achievable as all other farmable METAs, but for it to ship in the state that it's in and then only to hear Anet chime in on some small tuning changes feel like they're just not getting it.

I truly believe ArenaNet lost sight of what purpose Open World content fulfilled with the Dragon's End META. I'll be bold - Open world content should be achievable BY ALL, regardless of skill level. Open world METAs are the sight-seer's trails, the amusement park ride that both parents and children can enjoy, the low-intensity entertainment that is widely inclusive. And to the try-hard elitists who argue this game needs more challenging content - I won't argue against more difficult puzzles, but open world content isn't the venue for it. Challenges need to be opted in and need to be form-fitted for audiences purposefully seeking it out. Challenging content has low participation for a reason - it is selective and more demanding. Force-feeding that content to the general public isn't going to get greater adoption, it's going to outcast those who aren't actively interested. UPDATE: Anet posted some improvements they're making to the encounter and an alternate access path for the turtle:

soo... shorten the entire event down to a challenging boss fight? if only there were other content in the game that took that approach *cough* raids *cough* strikes.

100% this ^

I'm super perplexed why ANET decided to veer away from the working formula. I certainly appreciate difficult content and challenging puzzles, but public METAs just aren't the venue for it. For difficult challenges to be enjoyed: 1. Groups need to control their composition 2. Groups need the opportunity to fail/recover/repeat quickly Large group content is a terrible place for trying to control composition (serious legacy WoW-40 vibes). Public METAs are a terrible place for fail/recover/repeat due to the time investment. You can deliver a crescendo moment through story telling without need for difficulty gates.