[SPOILER] First impressions. The good, the bad and the inbeween...

[Omega.6801]

Disclaimer:
1) These are my opinions from playing through half the story on Harbinger, having explored the first two maps. I've done some fishing, skiffed around a bit, did some events left and right while exploring. Half a year from now, when EoD has become more of a routine, I might think differently about the things I'm about to mention.
2) I'm playing this game for the exploration, the combat, the fashion and, when a new release hits, for the story. So features that I see as only valuable for RP usually don't do much for me. You are a different player, a different person and you might like different things about the game than I do.
3) If I deem something to fall on the bad side, I will try to explain my reasoning. If said feature should be the one thing that makes you enjoy the game, please see point 2).

The good:
- Everything is so beatuful, the environments, the character select screen the music. Just as with PoF it's just greaa to explore and see the many different ambient things the devs have put n the game.
- Fishing is better than I thought, but there is bad about it too
- I like the humour of the ambient dialoge and such a lot. Found myself hands off the keyboard laughing so many times now and I'm only halfway through.
- The story so far is intriguing, with a few twists and turns. Ankka is an intriguing character and the implications of, what it doees to you when you kill your alternate selves over and over again is a new concept.
- Mob difficulty is good. Not too hard and not total pushovers. Mobs have mechanics and they live long enough for those mechanics to matter.
- Mob density is "players choice" at leasdt in Kaineng City there are many neutral mobs that you can fight, but don't have to.
- The Launch was so much better when compared to PoF. ANet has really improved on this. Game crashed only twice for me and I'm yet to encounter any bugs or stalls in story progression.
- The Meta Events look good at firs glance. Will have to see about rewards and difficulty in the coming days.
- The Hearts are fine. There are not that many and they serve as a tutorial for mechanics that players will encounter in the game. Best execution of hearts so far.
- Mastery points are plenty and have good availability. If you have something, to overcome the verticality of the maps it is easy to get most mastery points.
- I'm glad underwater content got added as I personally like UW in GW2 a lot.
- Detective Rama is just the best. Now we only need to make him team up with Canach in some way...

The bad:
- The first map needs a WP in the eastern aera outside the settlement. It would be nice if there was a WP close to the new Guildhall.
- Kaineng City suffers from the same problemTangled Depths or Draconis Mons have, that the minimap is not really helpful when it comes to vertically layered maps. I'm sure this will improve over time for me, but I got lost so many times just to find out that, yes, my marker is right next to where I want to be, but it's way above or below of my current position.
- Skiffs are terrible to maneuver and as a means of transportation made obsolete by Skimmers. I see their value, when it comes to fishing or RP, but outside of that I will always default to the mount rather than the boat.
- The drone mode of the jade bot is nauseating in tight corridors. The camera glitches around and it's hard to maneuver. Maybe this will improve over time, when I get used to. On the other hand, I don't see a use for this feature outside of puzzles. Wherever my drone goes, I can go there myself and be there. I just can't imagine a situation where a scouting function would be needed in this game.
-I wasn't so fond of the story-locked exploration between Kaineng and Arborstone. I get that these maps progress in time but I wanted to explore on my own pace.
- Fishing is still just another minigame that I will most likely play as long as there are AP in it and then will forget about. I know I will be fishing a lot, as the fishing collections and all look super tedious and grindy. I guess that's one way to make me play this mini game, but wouldn't be betterif I played it because I enjoyed the mechanics of it?
- Cores and Modules also look very grindy/expensive. Especially seeing that eachcharacter wil have to get its own cores and modules.
- The Bot as a means of transportation is made obsolete by Skyscale, Griffon and Springer. It's a nice gimmick for puzzles, but in the 5 min it takes me to search around for a Zipline or an Elevator I could also just fly there using mounts. I know not everyone has them, but for a veteran player, the bots transportation features are just a gimmick I will probably never use if I don't have to.
 

The inbetween:
- So far 'm not very excited about the masteries. Most of them feel either gimmicky(jade bot) or care about something I don't think I will care a lot about(Skiffs, Fishing, Arborstone).
- Skyscale and Griffon trivialize exploration a lot, to a point where some EoD feature are made obsolete(see above)
- Willbender still seems like a straight up downgrade to every other Guardian build available. Why should I play pDPS Willbender, when I can play DH and have not tradeoffs, why should I play heal/support WB when I can be a better supporter on FB, why should I play cDPS WB when cFB just has so much more utility and agani, no downsides? Also, and that's more a guardian problem than a thing with EoD. We've been using Zeal/Radiance with GS/scepter since launch, and it seems that with willbender, we will again, it's getting really old...
- Moutnt Taxis are a useless feature and a waste of resources. I can't see anyone using these outside of either curiosity or RP reasons. And for the latter people could just use thier own raptors and explore/travel at their own leisure. It's a feature I just don't see the "market" for.

What now?
I will contonue my first playthrough of the story and ful complete the maps on this char. It looks like I've been doing the metas if the rewards prove to be good and might get caught up in fishing nonetheless, might as well enjoy it if I have tospend hours upon hours with it to complete collections based on RNG, right...

Anyway. Thanks ANet for this great experience. The game feels fresh in Cantha and it seems like the expansion has a lot to offer and will keep me occupied for the next months at least.

Edited March 1, 2022 by lokh.2695

[Ashantara.8731]

I have progressed to Kaineng City today (which I have partially explored already) and have finished Seitung. So the following feedback doesn't go beyond that:

Like:

• dense atmosphere, wonderful immersion
• compelling story and characters
• extremely well designed story missions
• though we have modern speech again (which I am not a fan of in a fantasy game) and a lot of tongue-in-cheek dialogue, the narrative team this time managed to not make any of the characters sound like dimwits, which is a huge plus in my book; there is a lot of humor, too, snarkasm and wit (as well as side blows to the community's pre-release fears and criticism)
• great maps with tons of diverse content to explore: well-written ambient dialogues, hidden secrets, compelling discoveries, immersive events, items, new masteries, jumping puzzles, etc (I don't think I've ever stopped this often to take in everything, talk to everyone, interact with everything in any of the previous releases in GW2 history - it takes very long, but I am in no rush)
• jade bots (have not really tried them yet, but they already had me at the livestream presentation)
• fishing on skiffs is a lot more fun than I had expected (I judge it by the fact that I have caught myself pursuing this activity quite often in between other tasks)

Don't like:

• Sorry that I keep beating this drum, but I sincerely detest the extent/amount of jade tech in New Kaineng City (my "Blade Runner" comparison wasn't too far-fetched after all); I hope I won't get to see too much of it in Echovald Forest
• the color of processed jade (oof)
• jade mechs (goodness, they look awful)
• the new elite specs
• the constant dodgefest during fights; I haven't tried the new Strikes yet, but I sure hope it won't be a continuation of this boring mechanic - I am hoping for a bit more innovation (the Hidden Arcana story mission comes to mind)

All things considered, I am having a blast, even in "Blade Runner" Kaineng City. 😉 The maps I have visited so far have clever designs which basically invite you to explore more. The characters and the story are super immersive, and the humor is on point. I think this might end up being my favorite GW2 expansion to date. The aforementioned aspects alone have made it worth the wait, perhaps I will have more to add to the "two thumbs up" list once I have played through the whole thing. 🙂

Edited March 1, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[Lyssia.4637]

9 hours ago, lokh.2695 said:

- Moutnt Taxis are a useless feature and a waste of resources. I can't see anyone using these outside of either curiosity or RP reasons. And for the latter people could just use thier own raptors and explore/travel at their own leisure. It's a feature I just don't see the "market" for.

 

I'm guessing this is for people who don't have Path of Fire... perhaps as an incentive to buy it, having tested the raptors in EoD.   But I agree with you, this seems a little strange.  The achievement attached conveys a sense that there was a purpose to them, but having used them to get the achievement, it seemed a rather weird waste of time.

 

Fishing is more fun than I expected as well, but there's random bizarreness there, too, I can't figure out.  Fishing itself and the pole is shared between chars... but not lures or bait?!  And why, oh why, are the sellers for bait and lure in the places they are?!  As in... hidden far from where you learn to fish in Seitung, and not at all anywhere in Tyria, so you can't actually use fishing on alts unless you use a shared slot to pass them, or take the alt to Cantha?  Which I'd understand more if the fishing daily wasn't placed in Tyria.  I don't get the point of level scaling on fishing as well, making it extremely hard to fish in starter areas of Tyria.  I can only hope at least some of this is bugs that will get worked out over time.

 

I was surprised by how much I'm enjoying progressing through the story, as well; much more than any of the other expansions or living worlds.  And I'll say this, my daughter finally learned to dodge, gosh darn it!  😆

[LucianDK.8615]

You hit the words pretty much spot on with your assessment.

 

I believe that the skiff is pretty much the water transport option for those whom doesnt own pof.  Ive seen borrowable raptors and springers for those folks as well.

So far Ive just used the skiff for a few story sequences that needed it, otherwise totally obsoleted by skimmer unless you care for fishing, which I do not.

 

Its per character with jade bot crafting? That makes it even more terrible, given that you are heavilly dependent on Pieces of Dragon Jade, which noone knows where they come from. And people is already bidding at 40g+ a pop on tp for them.

Also the bot seems useless in OW content that does not have batteries to power it.  And if crafting for it is too difficult, then I could see it being ignored like the skiff as well.

 

Personally I do not expect much from the Siege turtle, already a big minus in my book that you need a second player to assist.

 

I

[Bast.7253]

Fishing is terrible. I'm sure it improves with masteries and is a good filler to spend points and experience so I'll fill it in last, but wow that is one stressful activity... 

Jade bots and this battery collecting nuisance just feels annoying as well. Especially knowing after logging into my rev that the jade cores aren't account bound. I guess that's good for jewelcrafters but it just feels out of place in this game. I guess you have gathering tools that are similar but the whole mastery and jade tech system interacting with terminals.. I still don't know what half of them do. 

Most of the masteries seem like filler to just spend points on and don't seem like they'll be overly integral to the game, even in Cantha, so I guess that's a plus. 

The story resolution just felt a little out of left field but I wasn't expecting anything too intricate given the timeline and the events leading up to the expansion. The final story instance was really pretty though, and the reactor was really cool. 

The maps are nice. I didn't realize how pretty they were until I played on my good pc tonight, especially with reshade on. Framerates definitely drop bad in these maps but that's understandable. 

The elite specs aren't overly thrilling but I'm sure some of them will have some fun builds in time.  

If I had to make a suggestion I'd say incorporate some of these vendors I keep collecting currencies I have no clue what to do with into the story. Too late now obviously but I just feel like the story portion spent way too much time teaching us how to use mounts and do breakbar damage and introducing these new masteries and I feel like it kind of made the story far less enjoyable for me than other expansions.  
 

Plenty to explore though. 

[ugrakarma.9416]

i like skiff more than skimmer.

 

I find too childsh ride on water on 'animal', ......, Jesus they even have a dolphi like skin.

 

The map designs see purposely to invalidate skycale, everything is acessible by water, if u try "fly" the buildings are too high. its seems they reached a formula to anulate skycale as swiss knife.

 

The fish "economy" need be more clear, vendors should have different icons, i can't memorize than, except the eastern area of map 1.

Edited March 2, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

The map designs see purposely to invalidate skycale, everything is acessible by water, if u try "fly" the buildings are too high. its seems they reached a formula to anulate skycale as swiss knife.

On the contrary. The maps seem designed also for Skyskale.  For example New Kaineng City:  Most of the buildings have small platforms/ledges/corners where you can land to refill your skyskale bar to climb higher if you read the map/environment. Sometimes you have to do small detours but it is quite easy with the skyscale to go up on the roof of the buildings.

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Zok.4956

[Tiilimon.6094]

EOD must be some of the most boring gaming I've done in my life and I'm only at the court.

 

Could I get to PLAY the game at some point? I've just spent an hour walking around in empty instances and letting NPCs have conversations with each other, is there even a game hiding somewhere or should they have released a book instead?

 

+ amazing, the next part is about clicking on boxes and waiting for them to finish talking to click another one.

 

really? is this what it's gonna be? should I just quit now or does something happen soon?

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Tiilimon.6094

[Worrbinpike.2957]

I have mixed feelings right now. The graphics are really cool, but some of the mechanics are useless (Raptor Taxis, or some of the travel options, why should i use them if i have skyscale). Yes, i get it. not everyone has the skyscale or PoF, but if you have them it feels useless.

 

Fishing is gimmick...defininately not what the poeple will love in 6 months. And, old people have problems with it because it forces you to  have reactions and a bit of skill. For me its simple and easy, but for older people 60+ it can be very hard.

 

And for the first time i'm REALLY dissappointed about the music. I admit i haven't heard all of the stuff, but what i heard until now.....no thanks. Its really the first time i feel that way. GW/GW2 with Jeremy Souls OST and the POF OST..i can listen hours to that , its epic (just by seeing a youtube video where the music is running in the background i get goose bumps)! But this OST is to much traditional of japanese/china. Sorry to the composer.....

 

And what i wonder about is how emptxy the maps are! Yesterday i was exploring in Kaineng, and hell, i thought i'm alone on the map.

[wayneericgouin.9371]

50 minutes ago, Worrbinpike.2957 said:

I have mixed feelings right now. The graphics are really cool, but some of the mechanics are useless (Raptor Taxis, or some of the travel options, why should i use them if i have skyscale). Yes, i get it. not everyone has the skyscale or PoF, but if you have them it feels useless.

 

Fishing is gimmick...defininately not what the poeple will love in 6 months. And, old people have problems with it because it forces you to  have reactions and a bit of skill. For me its simple and easy, but for older people 60+ it can be very hard.

 

And for the first time i'm REALLY dissappointed about the music. I admit i haven't heard all of the stuff, but what i heard until now.....no thanks. Its really the first time i feel that way. GW/GW2 with Jeremy Souls OST and the POF OST..i can listen hours to that , its epic (just by seeing a youtube video where the music is running in the background i get goose bumps)! But this OST is to much traditional of japanese/china. Sorry to the composer.....

 

And what i wonder about is how emptxy the maps are! Yesterday i was exploring in Kaineng, and hell, i thought i'm alone on the map.

No offense but I think you're nuts (not literally of course) the music in Eod is the best on all of guild wars and no one knows if fishing is something people will care about in 6 months because we can't see the future now can we?

[Traveller.7496]

The story feels incredibly rushed with lots of characters getting introduced and then having absolutely no role in the plot or simply vanishing after their intro. 

[Chrysaliss.8720]

I do not like EoD at all.

1) there is no interesting content in the game. Specter feels super boring to play. Fishing is probably the worst "content" imaginable. Skiffs are pointles when you have skimmer. 

2) The aesthetics are terrible. The whole futuristic jade tech breaks the immersion to the point of I just dont want to play anymore. Also the asian architecture is a turnoff.

3) Massive nerfs to the content that was actually interesting (fractals)

The whole time I was playing EoD. This one thought just kept coming to my mind: "I could just play Lost Ark instead." ... and so after about 6 hours of this painful EoD experience I did.

 

I would give EoD 3/10

Edited March 2, 2022 by Chrysaliss.8720

[Worrbinpike.2957]

2 hours ago, wayneericgouin.9371 said:

No offense but I think you're nuts (not literally of course) the music in Eod is the best on all of guild wars and no one knows if fishing is something people will care about in 6 months because we can't see the future now can we?

 

Well, thats my opinion about the music so far. 😜

 

And fishing: Do you really believe fishing with this simple mechanic will hold players in the game ? I do not have to be a magician to say that in a couple of months no one will speak about the legendary fishing adventures in Guild Wars 2. At least its just my opinon. 😄

 

[Seanchai.2640]

My take on EoD.

 

For a new player coming into the game, the taxis have a purpose of helping open the map and showing you points of interest. I think this is a nice feature for a brand new person to the game.

 

The skiffs are clunky to control but still a nice feature for someone without the water mount. Getting a party together on your skiff  for fishing adds a nice bonus.

 

I think fishing is better than most of the games I've ever played. By getting the lures and adding bait I found that fishing is actually an okay thing as it gives you the pluses that you need to catch the fish in the area. 

 

Overall the taxi and the skiff just pushed me to want to go get the previous expansions to make sure that I unlock the mounts that everybody else has.

 

So far the story has been pretty good I've enjoyed most of the voiceover and the acting that has gone along with it.

 

If I have a gripe it's about the Jade bot, it was introduced so early in the game but we can't have the resources to upgrade it yet. I feel like the Jade bot could have been introduced later in the storyline so that we had access to start upgrading it once we got there.

 

I feel like most of the things that I'm reading in this thread are talking from a perspective of a player that has been in the game for years now and has been able to collect all the things that are needed. I think what this expansion does really well is open up an introduction for new players to come along and learn things and get access to things that they've never seen before.

 

Where I feel like they missed it in the development of the game is the starting area where they teach everybody how to do combos and dodges and everything needed for combat. If a new player comes into this and needs to learn how to do combo Fields there's just not enough information there for somebody to be able to pick it up and run with it. So there's a little bit of needed work on that aspect of it. 

 

I've read a lot about the emptiness of the world and how the sever splitting is working. I hope this gets better as the next couple of weeks unfolds and they start putting more people back into combined maps so that we're not so isolated and alone. 

 

For all the players that have the big mounts and can get around really easy I think the maps are set up so that you can progress your story quickly and get into the content that you want so you can start gathering the materials that you need for your items. For the rest of us I feel like it's been progressing really well and I'm really enjoying the game and hopefully that having some new blood in the game will help grow the community.

 

Fishing - 7/10

Skiff - 6/10 controls are a little slow

 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Seanchai.2640

[Seanchai.2640]

Story - 8/10

Jade bots 5/10 not a fan of controls

 

Overall - 7.5/10 

 

I've been reading a lot about people being upset with nerfs and the downgrade of certain runes and whatnot; and I'm not totally sure how that is affecting things as I'm a newer player. But, I can say that I've played a lot of other MMOs and every expansion gets the Nerf bat or major changes or overhauls that completely change every class and I think this is something that is just kind of expected with MMOs in our modern world.

I can't speak for everyone and I won't speak for everyone but so far my experience has been a solid thumbs up on everything so far in this game.

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Seanchai.2640

[Zok.4956]

On 3/2/2022 at 11:19 AM, Chrysaliss.8720 said:

 Fishing is probably the worst "content" imaginable. Skiffs are pointles when you have skimmer. 

I have a guildie who loves the fishing in GW2 and is (mostly) now doing nothing else but fishing.  For hours. There really are players who like fishing.

When we in our guild got our own Skiffs we had some silly fun with it for a few hours. Skiffs are "nice". But after that I did not use my Skiff anymore but my Skimmer instead.

Skiffs practical use is mostly for fishing. And if a player is not into fishing then Skiffs are not very useful. 

I tried fishing in other games and in GW2. It is not my thing. As a result I will complete the Skiff and fishing masteries after I have completed all other masteries. And because I have completed the Jade Bot masteries and have not unlocked the Arborstone and Turle masteries I do now waste masteries XP.

However, if we could upgrade our Skiffs to (small) warships (fast ones with little firepower, slow ones with big firepower) and have naval battles that maybe would be fun. But maybe this would be a different game then. 😎

EoD is not bad. It has a lot of nice and fun things. Some of my Guildies that "lived" in Cantha back in the GW1 days are having a blast revisiting the old maps/locations now in EoD. 

If I would have to rate the three expansions if would give HoT a gold medal, PoF a silver medal and EoD a bronze medal.

 

[Jack Swiftclaw.9076]

I've just made it to the Ecovald Wilds. So I am in not part done with the story.

 

I'll address a few things.

 

1) Banks- I've been on 4 maps out of 5 and there is no banks.  Especially when you look at lore and the Xunlai were the banking guild.  I think it would have been nice to have a feature with the jade bit tables, which is pretty much on every map to have bank access.  Once you reach Arborstone and have the portal scroll it helps but man what a let down.

2) skiffs- I can see the use for those without PoF.  And I won't lie the cinematic coming in New Kaineng City was amazing by boat but the controls are a bit clunky.  

3) fishing- it's ok better than many games but I don't think we needed a full mastery line.

4) the mastery lines- with the exception of the siege turtle and jade bit the fishing and sniffs seems meh.  

 

The game is beautiful and I'm happy to be back in cantha but I feel a bit let down as well as some basic things like crafting and banks that we have had since launch are locked behind masteries.  This seems lazy and almost punishing to new players who don't have max bag slots or shared inventory in their characters.  Also making a jade bot core needed per character just undermines the idea of once you unlock a mastery and finished it it is shared across ALL your characters.