Why the dragon's end meta is horrible (and you probably know it)

[Notaheal.9841]

The Dragon's end meta event is truly one of the most unpleasant gaming experiences I've ever had in my life, and I have finished ninja gaiden, got halfway through ghosts 'n goblins and have had the misfortune of being spammed by barbarians in civ 6. In short I've put up with a lot of painful gaming quirk but this one really takes the cake.

 

First off let me disclose this before all you capital G Gamers try and bring it up in the comments: I do not have a problem with difficult games. I finished Ninja Gaiden and got halfway through ghosts and goblins. I',m an S-Tier medic main, finished doom 2016 on ultra nightmare, and agree that a lot of overworld bosses are kind of a cakewalk. Playing a game like surgery can be fun. But it doesn't apply here, for reasons I'll point out below. I'll also try and make this as entertaining as possible, but after having done this all day my patience with this event is at its end.

 

For the sake of making this structured, I'll start with addressing the most common arguments I see when people point out how much of a mess this is.

 

First off let me ask you this: Without any context, would you know what I mean when I say "The best counter to a wall is a status or setup sweeper." ? Unless like me you enjoy a pokemon battle every now and again, that probably came off as an unhinged, nonsensical sentence. Keep this in mind as you read further.

 

Argument number 1. "It's good we finally have a map that's more than just standing there, auto-attacking and not much else. That's why it should stay this brutal."/"It's a learning curve, people will learn the mechanics eventually."

Refute number 1: Arguing besides the point - While I agree that difficulty is fun, that's mostly beside the point in this situation because foremost this is less of a skill issue/"learning curve" as some people have been calling it and more that it's comically vulnerable to being sabotaged either by accident or just some random fedorian who wants to ruin the day of others. The failing is generally due to people ruining the green circle strat (which is confusing on its own because so far people are conditioned to stand on green circles). Coaxing new players who don't use Meta builds, people who don't speak the language or just trolls who are trying to ruin it all does not involve skill, in fact it's purely luck based.

Refute number 2: You don't get to speak for everyone else - If you enjoy this difficult HAMBURGER content, that is totally fine, I do too to some extent, but I haven't met a single person in my time playing this event that actually had a good time. In fact, I'm not sure if I can say this on a public forum, but someone in my squad once posted a number to an anti self-harm hotline when we lost (though this could easily have been a really edgy joke). So clearly people aren't enjoying it. In fact, I don't mean to point the finger, but this usually comes from people who already have the turtle/whatever it is people do this event, so it reeks of crab mentality.

Refute 3: Lingo shmingo - "Stay out of green circle, DPS the tail and CC the front. ADS is a problem. Don't res, just use WP when you die." You and I both know what this means because we're likely both long term players. But to a new player this likely sounds as deranged as "The best counter to a wall is a status or setup sweeper.". Point being, even if we do communicate with some of the newer players, they likely don't know what it is we're talking about. "But NuttyHeelorz, if they new and noob, why they in LV80+ area?" you say with confidence. Well call me crazy but I think it has something to do with the fact that every pre order pack had a max level boost included.

Refute 4: How do I learn mind control? - Most of the problem is that it is in fact not a skill issue here. The world limit, luck based matchmaking, painfull actual boss mechanics and stats; and several things inherent to the game like models getting in my way just come together to make something truly irritating. It is not because I don't understand what the boss is trying to get me to do. At the top of my head, how do I learn to coax unco-operative players that's died to respawn at the waypoint rather than wait for revival? Because he's just going to keep laying there and won't listen to me or anyone else. Or how do I learn to join a world that has a place for me that people won't abandon 5 minutes later? A lot of the frustration isn't because of how I play, it's how the game and the boss function as well as the fact that I'm one of many players.

 

Argument number 2. "It's like a raid/strike"

Refute number 1: It's not either of those - Comparing this to high effort end game content is a functionally illogical argument for the simple reason that it's something players are required to do to obtain something that was pretty central to its advertising (more on that later). So strikes and raids are difficult content that require a lot of communication, skill and insider knowledge, which you sign up for knowingly. Meanwhile, this is an overworld meta event where, unlike strikes or raids, kicking people who are ruining the whole thing is not an option. In fact, since it is a large group of 50+ strangers, setting up a call for communications like a raid is not easy.

Refute number 2: Colossal waste of time - To further illustrate the idea that this shouldn't be compared to raids at all, it should be noted that for a raid you don't spend 10+ minutes refreshing squads hoping that their world has space for you. And if by a lot of luck you do end up getting in; you still have to wait around 45 minutes to actually have a shot at what you came for. Then you better hope that the people that had space for you are actually willing to co-ordinate an effort. There's no matchmaking, getting into a group that's willing to work with you is based on pure luck.

Refute number 3: Nacho business, nacho raid clan - When you enter a group, it's already dependent on luck whether people are willing to work for you. I've been doing this meta all day and very rarely are people on the same page. This meta event has a difficulty that leaves little room for error, which on its own is not a problem. The problem is that no one has any control over who joins their group, and that's just a guarantee that 9 times out of 10 it will fail.

Refute number 4: Difficulty/preparation is not the concern - As mentioned before, most people don't mind preparing and planning out a raid, but this isn't a raid, this is base content that should be pretty accessible. On top of that, difficulty is not the issue, the issue is that if one person out of a full map messes up it could ruin over an hour of preparation and effort and because it's such a big group that they can't be kicked out of there is no accountability. Let me put it like this: If I spent a full day ruining raids for people either intentionally or by accident I would be kicked and eventually reported all the time. But I could do this all day on the meta and not face any repercussions, even if players could spot that it was my tiny asura messing up the plan out of the monsoon of charr with wings and norn with robes. And yes, I've had people deliberately ruin the plans of the map today.

Refute number 5: Full house - Raids don't have 50 people, so it's not actually as difficult to select the enemy you wish to target. This very much is the case with the meta event because there is over 50 people on a small platform attacking the same enemies, and often other enemies will get in your way. Disabling model count only does so much, unfortunately.

 

Argument number 3: "The game shouldn't be easy, crybabies can leave as they wish."/"If the turtles are just given away then there's no joy in finally beating the challenge."/"Griffon is also a pain to get, why shouldn't the turtle be?"/"You're just crying because you keep losing."/"If we make it easier now it diminishes the effort the ones who already did it."

Refute number 1: How does the inside of your colon smell? Because you're pretty far up there. - This is mostly directed to arguments resembling the first sentence. I'm not sure how inclusive this game generally is, but considering there's a literal pride march in-game, I have to assume that inclusion is one of the traits Anet wishes to hold up. Excluding players over a lack of skill (which in my case is pretty ridiculous) is probably not the right attitude to have, especially when there are fundamental issues with the event. Additionally, a lot of people, myself included do have work and don't have the time or energy to attain god like skillz. When a game feels like a chore and it's base game, that's no fun.

Refute number 2: Bait style marketing. - Yes, this is about the turtle for myself and a lot of other people. The issue with this argument is that the siege turtle was pretty central to why people bought the game. Comparing it to the griffon is not really a logical argument for the simple reason that the Griffon wasn't central to Path of Fire. This is closer to if the raptor was extremely difficult to get, because both the raptor and turtle were a pretty big pull as to why people got the game. It can't even really be compared to the skyscale or beetle, because again those weren't full expansion packs where they were the main draw to tons of people.

Refute number 3: Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know this was the weapon X program. - This is one of the dumbest arguments I've seen today, because it acknowledges that the boss is way harder than it needs to be in a sense, but let's keep it "because It was a pain in my WHOPPER so it should be for everyone else too.". I do believe that is a form of crab mentality? But really, I think this is sort of a weird thing to say. Especially since as I pointed out before, someone that toiled for this turtle might have been able to do so simply because they ammassed the skills and time required to do so in addition to being lucky enough to run into the right squad and world. But that's not fortune everyone else have. At the root, a lot of people have a dayjob and other activities, and at the top of the tree there's still the issue that running into a co-operative team that has place for you is very luck based.

 

Argument number 4: "Do you really think Anet is going to remove an entire boss phase because YOU have a problem with it?"

Refute number 1: I'm not asking them, I'm telling you - First of all when someone is complaining about the event that's usually because they're frustrated due to having failed several times in a row. I'm not expecting Anet to do anything at all, let alone cut out an entire boss phase and I don't think anyone else is either. But that doesn't mean the boss is flawless and can't be criticised/complained about. Hard games are fun because you can try and try again and eventually you beat it and it feels like you climbed a mountain, but it never feels like a chore. Here you have to do at least an hour of prep, deal with the nightmare that is finding a world with a squad that has place for you and even then you better hope some troll isn't going to sabotage it just for the funny. It's not a skill issue, it's just little wrinkles of game design that come together to make something truly infuriating. Unlike with a fun hard game, I'm not excited to try again. I just want to get it over with and I've seen this sentiment from everyone else I played with.

 

Those are the most common arguments I've seen trying to defend the event's difficulty all day. Now let me move on to why the event is way too difficult and what should be adjusted as well as why. Though keep in mind that when it comes to game design I've only done art direction and funding.

 

Number 1: Too many cooks spoil the broth - I don't think I need to point out that trying to wrangle no less than 50 people onto a certain objective is a job that should quite honestly be paid for, but just visualize how many people that is. You'd likely struggle to get 20 people in the study/bedroom you have your computer in, let alone 50. And that's not even mentioning the fact that that's 50 people you don't get to choose, some of them might not speak the language, might not have chat on (in a co-op event mind you) or some might even be looking to ruin your day just for the funsies. Making the event into a dungeon or a fractal would make it a lot more enjoyable, especially since then you are knowingly signing up for it. Another fix would be to tweak the green circle mechanic a bit to only punish the people who step on it, not the whole group and turn avoiding the thing into an intended mechanic rather than the repercussions for failure just potentially being quicker. Making it into its own instanced thing is a lot of effort, I know this.

Number 2: Turtle removal - If the artificial difficulty of the meta event really is that much of a selling point, detach it from the turtle that all low to medium effort players are there for. There's no real reason it should be attached to that event specifically, they could just make it a story completion thing. "But Notahealurz, w/ the pepl just trying to get the turtle gone, there would not be much people participating in teh evend! we won't haev enough peopol" I hear you moan as you lean back into your chair. And yes, you will no longer have the general playerbase there complaining and just generally not having a good time, leaving you with only the people dedicated to doing the event and seeing it to the end who are willing to co-ordinate efforts and such. In short, what seems like a loss is actually a win for everyone. You'll no longer have to deal with people who don't have their heart in it, and I won't have to want to beat myself with a stick when someone messes up over an hour of effort again. Plus it is my understanding you need to do this meta event for legendaries anyway, so there's still high tier commodities to justify the effort without the turtle.

Number 3: Mandatory speedrun - Another core issue with this event is that you get exactly 20 minutes, and  you're working with people who may not necessarily be using meta DPS builds, so it is bound to take ages. I've done runs where we did nearly everything according to plan and got most of the people to follow it, and we still came like 2 and a half minutes short, and mind you we nearly had raid style communication here. Adding like 5 more minutes would still make it challenging enough to be enjoyable (I still think the event would fail the majority of the time) but it would at least be doable without setting up your own world. It would definitely make stuff a lot less painfull.

Number 4: Damage sponge - Listen, I know that if everyone is running some top tier DPS build this boss who i will refer to as wongburger to avoid spoilers wouldn't be a bullet sponge at all. But you need to understand that this is a group full of randos who may just be running stuff they find helpful and not consider stuff that's meta. Example: For the longest time i hailed defiant stance as one of the most effective healing skills ever, because you can get a full heal from poor timing. Problem is, berserkers use their heal skill to extend berserk. I know that, but the average person playing that might not. And that is assuming they're fully specced anyway.

Number 5: It's nerf or nothing - A last resort, because the boss would be enjoyable if it weren't for all the BS surrounding it. But the splitting up into groups to attack tail, jump to avoid a wave, kill bosses to progress the actual boss, it's all a bit much for an overworld boss and honestly feels like it should be a fractal. Reducing wongburger or any of their minions' health would also make this a lot more bearable, even if that would be kind of lame.

 

Something else that I just thought of at the top of my head. Given how packed these servers are, what if someone disconnects while the fight is ongoing, does he just have to frantically have to find a squad in a world with space for him or does he just miss out on the turtle? The problem here really is a combination of a lot of things:

1. It's a lot of time and effort for something that convinced a lot of people to get it.

2. If one guy messes up it's 1 hour of work down the drain in one go.

3. One of the strats literally revolves around intentionally taking a less because the punishment is faster than just doing it.

4. You have to wrangle over 50 people who may not be willing or capable of talking to you.

5. You can't just try again, you need to do the whole prep work and sit through every bit of dialogue, it's exhausting. And that is assuming you can find a group with space for you.

6. It's novel and all, but having to do it over and over again is no fun.

 

I'm aware forum posts are about as effective as an angry tweet, but the post is less directed at Anet themselves and more the people who are so zealously arguing in favor of the difficulty of this specific event. There's a lot of bad faith arguments I've seen today just in the game, and I've read a few forum posts specifically directed at Anet devs that bordered on being cringey as they read as a child's open letter to the president to stop world hunger or something. I'm open to counter arguments, of course because I'm not that much of a numbnuts, but I have made sure to list the arguments I have encountered so far and refuted them to the best of my ability. From this it should also be pretty clear this isn't a rage post, because the event is enjoyable. I just think it's a bit ridiculous there's people who have done 11 attempts in a row with no fruition.

 

I'm probably going to limit myself to 3 attempts every day until I get it. I really do hope Anet eventually provides some way out of this but I wouldn't bet the farm on it since so many people are acting as if this crapshoot of a boss is like their child or something. Most people complain about these things but there's always those few god gamers that want games to be painful, and it just creates a really toxic environment in groups where you already need to co-operate. I know I'm blessed to be in a position where I can play video games in my free time and all, but quite frankly this meta event was kind of exhausting, and someone in my guild I've now seen angry for the first time. I just wish it was a bit more bearable and people were a bit more understanding of that.

 

Anyway, I hope this makes sense. I've tried to make it an entertaining read, but you know it doesn't always work. Let me know what you think.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Notaheal.9841
some embarrasing typos, also I know funnier words to use as a censor

[Ausar.9542]

kitten we came close, but somebody stepped in the green on the second round of it.  We dont know who. Change that green to a different color please. 

[Teratus.2859]

There's a lot of factors at play with this one that I noticed.

First of all everything said about new players is something I do agree with, this is Gw2's third expansion, near 10 years after the release of the core game.
I am sorry but i'm just going to say it.!
We are well past the point where new Gw2 content should be catering new content to new players.. there is a whole game with almost a decades worth of content for them to get their feet wet in.

So personally I am glad to see new, difficult open world and even story content come with this expansion and I hope that this continues post End of Dragons.

With that said though it is still important that such new content is balanced around the average player and not the minority of "hardcore" players.
Mechanically I think Anet has overall done a good job with this in End of Dragons.

However I have noticed that a good few enemies in EoD are bordering to much towards the absurd when it comes to being a health sponge..
Just pumping enemies with tons of health doesn't make them difficult, it makes them tedious and annoying, remember that.
To some degree this particular meta does qualify although the worst culprit from my experience was a certain big boss creature in Echovald Forest whom has far more health than it has any business having.
Oh and all those nice turrets you can spend battery points on to activate to help in the fight.. yea they do absolutely nothing to it, and I mean literally nothing, they don't even fire at it lol

As far as the whole "don't stand in the green circles" thing goes..
I am actually to some degree glad that so many instances are being screwed over because of this.
Anet specifically said they wanted to discourage skipping and cheesing mechanics in End of Dragons and this one should NOT!! be an exception.

Commanders who are encouraging their maps to skip this mechanic instead of teaching people how to actually do said mechanic deserve to get screwed over for doing so.
Being encouraged to skip in combat mechanics to cheese a big boss fight is something I really hate in video games.. in fact I'd even go so far as to flat out call it cheating.

Now, we can absolutely have a conversation about the mechanic itself being a mess and needing to be tweaked or a discussion about it being a bad mechanic in general..
But I will never condone skipping it entirely and I will never support any talk or methods of "punishing" players who want to play this content AS IT IS INTENDED! when the rest of the map doesn't.
The players who are standing in the green circles are not the problem here, everyone wanting to skip this mechanic are.
This in my eyes is nothing more than a rare occasion where the right people are being punished for trying to cheese mechanics which is certainly a nice change of pace from them being rewarded for it as they often have been in the past.. Boneskinner being one very good example of that.

And just for the record.
No I am not "one of them players" who has been intentionally screwing it up for people.
I've only done the event once and I genuinely thought I was supposed to avoid them because of the chat who's only advice for the entire event was "follow commander, attack the tail, green = bad" 
We still got it down to under 10% though so it was a good run.
Had we actually done the green circle phase successfully though it would have been a kill, so largely I blame the map's commander and those calling to skip that mechanic for the fail.

Lastly I will agree that the prep time for this event is absolutely ridiculous.
I must have been casually completing events for a good hour while exploring the map and nothing big actually happened during that time.
When the meta was due to actually start though, there was something like a 30ish minute timer we had to just wait through.. and I mean waiting, the entire map just went to one spot and waited for half an hour for this thing to start.
That is just horribly excessive and unnecessary.. 7-8 minutes tops would be more than enough if you ask me.

Lastly, regarding the turtle collection being locked behind the meta.. honestly I don't really mind this.
Although I do agree that it is likely having a negative impact on the success rate of this meta event.
That said though I circle back to what I said about people skipping the green circle phase, this is where I place most of the blame.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Teratus.2859

[Shiroi Sennin.7935]

6 hours ago, Notaheal.9841 said:

The Dragon's end meta event is truly one of the most unpleasant gaming experiences I've ever had in my life, and I have finished ninja gaiden, got halfway through ghosts 'n goblins and have had the misfortune of being spammed by barbarians in civ 6. In short I've put up with a lot of painful gaming quirk but this one really takes the cake.

 

First off let me disclose this before all you capital G Gamers try and bring it up in the comments: I do not have a problem with difficult games. I finished Ninja Gaiden and got halfway through ghosts and goblins. I',m an S-Tier medic main, finished doom 2016 on ultra nightmare, and agree that a lot of overworld bosses are kind of a cakewalk. Playing a game like surgery can be fun. But it doesn't apply here, for reasons I'll point out below. I'll also try and make this as entertaining as possible, but after having done this all day my patience with this event is at its end.

 

For the sake of making this structured, I'll start with addressing the most common arguments I see when people point out how much of a mess this is.

 

First off let me ask you this: Without any context, would you know what I mean when I say "The best counter to a wall is a status or setup sweeper." ? Unless like me you enjoy a pokemon battle every now and again, that probably came off as an unhinged, nonsensical sentence. Keep this in mind as you read further.

 

Argument number 1. "It's good we finally have a map that's more than just standing there, auto-attacking and not much else. That's why it should stay this brutal."/"It's a learning curve, people will learn the mechanics eventually."

Refute number 1: Arguing besides the point - While I agree that difficulty is fun, that's mostly beside the point in this situation because foremost this is less of a skill issue/"learning curve" as some people have been calling it and more that it's comically vulnerable to being sabotaged either by accident or just some random fedorian who wants to ruin the day of others. The failing is generally due to people ruining the green circle strat (which is confusing on its own because so far people are conditioned to stand on green circles). Coaxing new players who don't use Meta builds, people who don't speak the language or just trolls who are trying to ruin it all does not involve skill, in fact it's purely luck based.

Refute number 2: You don't get to speak for everyone else - If you enjoy this difficult HAMBURGER content, that is totally fine, I do too to some extent, but I haven't met a single person in my time playing this event that actually had a good time. In fact, I'm not sure if I can say this on a public forum, but someone in my squad once posted a number to an anti self-harm hotline when we lost (though this could easily have been a really edgy joke). So clearly people aren't enjoying it. In fact, I don't mean to point the finger, but this usually comes from people who already have the turtle/whatever it is people do this event, so it reeks of crab mentality.

Refute 3: Lingo shmingo - "Stay out of green circle, DPS the tail and CC the front. ADS is a problem. Don't res, just use WP when you die." You and I both know what this means because we're likely both long term players. But to a new player this likely sounds as deranged as "The best counter to a wall is a status or setup sweeper.". Point being, even if we do communicate with some of the newer players, they likely don't know what it is we're talking about. "But NuttyHeelorz, if they new and noob, why they in LV80+ area?" you say with confidence. Well call me crazy but I think it has something to do with the fact that every pre order pack had a max level boost included.

Refute 4: How do I learn mind control? - Most of the problem is that it is in fact not a skill issue here. The world limit, luck based matchmaking, painfull actual boss mechanics and stats; and several things inherent to the game like models getting in my way just come together to make something truly irritating. It is not because I don't understand what the boss is trying to get me to do. At the top of my head, how do I learn to coax unco-operative players that's died to respawn at the waypoint rather than wait for revival? Because he's just going to keep laying there and won't listen to me or anyone else. Or how do I learn to join a world that has a place for me that people won't abandon 5 minutes later? A lot of the frustration isn't because of how I play, it's how the game and the boss function as well as the fact that I'm one of many players.

 

Argument number 2. "It's like a raid/strike"

Refute number 1: It's not either of those - Comparing this to high effort end game content is a functionally illogical argument for the simple reason that it's something players are required to do to obtain something that was pretty central to its advertising (more on that later). So strikes and raids are difficult content that require a lot of communication, skill and insider knowledge, which you sign up for knowingly. Meanwhile, this is an overworld meta event where, unlike strikes or raids, kicking people who are ruining the whole thing is not an option. In fact, since it is a large group of 50+ strangers, setting up a call for communications like a raid is not easy.

Refute number 2: Colossal waste of time - To further illustrate the idea that this shouldn't be compared to raids at all, it should be noted that for a raid you don't spend 10+ minutes refreshing squads hoping that their world has space for you. And if by a lot of luck you do end up getting in; you still have to wait around 45 minutes to actually have a shot at what you came for. Then you better hope that the people that had space for you are actually willing to co-ordinate an effort. There's no matchmaking, getting into a group that's willing to work with you is based on pure luck.

Refute number 3: Nacho business, nacho raid clan - When you enter a group, it's already dependent on luck whether people are willing to work for you. I've been doing this meta all day and very rarely are people on the same page. This meta event has a difficulty that leaves little room for error, which on its own is not a problem. The problem is that no one has any control over who joins their group, and that's just a guarantee that 9 times out of 10 it will fail.

Refute number 4: Difficulty/preparation is not the concern - As mentioned before, most people don't mind preparing and planning out a raid, but this isn't a raid, this is base content that should be pretty accessible. On top of that, difficulty is not the issue, the issue is that if one person out of a full map messes up it could ruin over an hour of preparation and effort and because it's such a big group that they can't be kicked out of there is no accountability. Let me put it like this: If I spent a full day ruining raids for people either intentionally or by accident I would be kicked and eventually reported all the time. But I could do this all day on the meta and not face any repercussions, even if players could spot that it was my tiny asura messing up the plan out of the monsoon of charr with wings and norn with robes. And yes, I've had people deliberately ruin the plans of the map today.

Refute number 5: Full house - Raids don't have 50 people, so it's not actually as difficult to select the enemy you wish to target. This very much is the case with the meta event because there is over 50 people on a small platform attacking the same enemies, and often other enemies will get in your way. Disabling model count only does so much, unfortunately.

 

Argument number 3: "The game shouldn't be easy, crybabies can leave as they wish."/"If the turtles are just given away then there's no joy in finally beating the challenge."/"Griffon is also a pain to get, why shouldn't the turtle be?"/"You're just crying because you keep losing."/"If we make it easier now it diminishes the effort the ones who already did it."

Refute number 1: How does the inside of your colon smell? Because you're pretty far up there. - This is mostly directed to arguments resembling the first sentence. I'm not sure how inclusive this game generally is, but considering there's a literal pride march in-game, I have to assume that inclusion is one of the traits Anet wishes to hold up. Excluding players over a lack of skill (which in my case is pretty ridiculous) is probably not the right attitude to have, especially when there are fundamental issues with the event. Additionally, a lot of people, myself included do have work and don't have the time or energy to attain god like skillz. When a game feels like a chore and it's base game, that's no fun.

Refute number 2: Bait style marketing. - Yes, this is about the turtle for myself and a lot of other people. The issue with this argument is that the siege turtle was pretty central to why people bought the game. Comparing it to the griffon is not really a logical argument for the simple reason that the Griffon wasn't central to Path of Fire. This is closer to if the raptor was extremely difficult to get, because both the raptor and turtle were a pretty big pull as to why people got the game. It can't even really be compared to the skyscale or beetle, because again those weren't full expansion packs where they were the main draw to tons of people.

Refute number 3: Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know this was the weapon X program. - This is one of the dumbest arguments I've seen today, because it acknowledges that the boss is way harder than it needs to be in a sense, but let's keep it "because It was a pain in my WHOPPER so it should be for everyone else too.". I do believe that is a form of crab mentality? But really, I think this is sort of a weird thing to say. Especially since as I pointed out before, someone that toiled for this turtle might have been able to do so simply because they ammassed the skills and time required to do so in addition to being lucky enough to run into the right squad and world. But that's not fortune everyone else have. At the root, a lot of people have a dayjob and other activities, and at the top of the tree there's still the issue that running into a co-operative team that has place for you is very luck based.

 

Argument number 4: "Do you really think Anet is going to remove an entire boss phase because YOU have a problem with it?"

Refute number 1: I'm not asking them, I'm telling you - First of all when someone is complaining about the event that's usually because they're frustrated due to having failed several times in a row. I'm not expecting Anet to do anything at all, let alone cut out an entire boss phase and I don't think anyone else is either. But that doesn't mean the boss is flawless and can't be criticised/complained about. Hard games are fun because you can try and try again and eventually you beat it and it feels like you climbed a mountain, but it never feels like a chore. Here you have to do at least an hour of prep, deal with the nightmare that is finding a world with a squad that has place for you and even then you better hope some troll isn't going to sabotage it just for the funny. It's not a skill issue, it's just little wrinkles of game design that come together to make something truly infuriating. Unlike with a fun hard game, I'm not excited to try again. I just want to get it over with and I've seen this sentiment from everyone else I played with.

 

Those are the most common arguments I've seen trying to defend the event's difficulty all day. Now let me move on to why the event is way too difficult and what should be adjusted as well as why. Though keep in mind that when it comes to game design I've only done art direction and funding.

 

Number 1: Too many cooks spoil the broth - I don't think I need to point out that trying to wrangle no less than 50 people onto a certain objective is a job that should quite honestly be paid for, but just visualize how many people that is. You'd likely struggle to get 20 people in the study/bedroom you have your computer in, let alone 50. And that's not even mentioning the fact that that's 50 people you don't get to choose, some of them might not speak the language, might not have chat on (in a co-op event mind you) or some might even be looking to ruin your day just for the funsies. Making the event into a dungeon or a fractal would make it a lot more enjoyable, especially since then you are knowingly signing up for it. Another fix would be to tweak the green circle mechanic a bit to only punish the people who step on it, not the whole group and turn avoiding the thing into an intended mechanic rather than the repercussions for failure just potentially being quicker. Making it into its own instanced thing is a lot of effort, I know this.

Number 2: Turtle removal - If the artificial difficulty of the meta event really is that much of a selling point, detach it from the turtle that all low to medium effort players are there for. There's no real reason it should be attached to that event specifically, they could just make it a story completion thing. "But Notahealurz, w/ the pepl just trying to get the turtle gone, there would not be much people participating in teh evend! we won't haev enough peopol" I hear you moan as you lean back into your chair. And yes, you will no longer have the general playerbase there complaining and just generally not having a good time, leaving you with only the people dedicated to doing the event and seeing it to the end who are willing to co-ordinate efforts and such. In short, what seems like a loss is actually a win for everyone. You'll no longer have to deal with people who don't have their heart in it, and I won't have to want to beat myself with a stick when someone messes up over an hour of effort again. Plus it is my understanding you need to do this meta event for legendaries anyway, so there's still high tier commodities to justify the effort without the turtle.

Number 3: Mandatory speedrun - Another core issue with this event is that you get exactly 20 minutes, and  you're working with people who may not necessarily be using meta DPS builds, so it is bound to take ages. I've done runs where we did nearly everything according to plan and got most of the people to follow it, and we still came like 2 and a half minutes short, and mind you we nearly had raid style communication here. Adding like 5 more minutes would still make it challenging enough to be enjoyable (I still think the event would fail the majority of the time) but it would at least be doable without setting up your own world. It would definitely make stuff a lot less painfull.

Number 4: Damage sponge - Listen, I know that if everyone is running some top tier DPS build this boss who i will refer to as wongburger to avoid spoilers wouldn't be a bullet sponge at all. But you need to understand that this is a group full of randos who may just be running stuff they find helpful and not consider stuff that's meta. Example: For the longest time i hailed defiant stance as one of the most effective healing skills ever, because you can get a full heal from poor timing. Problem is, berserkers use their heal skill to extend berserk. I know that, but the average person playing that might not. And that is assuming they're fully specced anyway.

Number 5: It's nerf or nothing - A last resort, because the boss would be enjoyable if it weren't for all the BS surrounding it. But the splitting up into groups to attack tail, jump to avoid a wave, kill bosses to progress the actual boss, it's all a bit much for an overworld boss and honestly feels like it should be a fractal. Reducing wongburger or any of their minions' health would also make this a lot more bearable, even if that would be kind of lame.

 

Something else that I just thought of at the top of my head. Given how packed these servers are, what if someone disconnects while the fight is ongoing, does he just have to frantically have to find a squad in a world with space for him or does he just miss out on the turtle? The problem here really is a combination of a lot of things:

1. It's a lot of time and effort for something that convinced a lot of people to get it.

2. If one guy messes up it's 1 hour of work down the drain in one go.

3. One of the strats literally revolves around intentionally taking a less because the punishment is faster than just doing it.

4. You have to wrangle over 50 people who may not be willing or capable of talking to you.

5. You can't just try again, you need to do the whole prep work and sit through every bit of dialogue, it's exhausting. And that is assuming you can find a group with space for you.

6. It's novel and all, but having to do it over and over again is no fun.

 

I'm aware forum posts are about as effective as an angry tweet, but the post is less directed at Anet themselves and more the people who are so zealously arguing in favor of the difficulty of this specific event. There's a lot of bad faith arguments I've seen today just in the game, and I've read a few forum posts specifically directed at Anet devs that bordered on being cringey as they read as a child's open letter to the president to stop world hunger or something. I'm open to counter arguments, of course because I'm not that much of a numbnuts, but I have made sure to list the arguments I have encountered so far and refuted them to the best of my ability. From this it should also be pretty clear this isn't a rage post, because the event is enjoyable. I just think it's a bit ridiculous there's people who have done 11 attempts in a row with no fruition.

 

I'm probably going to limit myself to 3 attempts every day until I get it. I really do hope Anet eventually provides some way out of this but I wouldn't bet the farm on it since so many people are acting as if this crapshoot of a boss is like their child or something. Most people complain about these things but there's always those few god gamers that want games to be painful, and it just creates a really toxic environment in groups where you already need to co-operate. I know I'm blessed to be in a position where I can play video games in my free time and all, but quite frankly this meta event was kind of exhausting, and someone in my guild I've now seen angry for the first time. I just wish it was a bit more bearable and people were a bit more understanding of that.

 

Anyway, I hope this makes sense. I've tried to make it an entertaining read, but you know it doesn't always work. Let me know what you think.

Thanks! your post pointed out perfectly what i've been trying to tell everyone this whole time and even more, in an easier and better detailed way.
In my honest opinion, this meta should had been split in 2 versions: one as an open world mode for the casual, less skilled players who just want to get their content done and move on, and one instanced with challenge mode for those who want harder content.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Shiroi Sennin.7935

[Hotride.2187]

My biggest problem with the fight is that you have no idea when you can deal damage. Sometimes the tail shows the target symbol but cannot be damaged, a lot of the time the boss doesn't show it but can be damaged (in true gw2 fashion). Combined with how much the boss moves, I have 0 clue when and where to cleave.

I'm sure I'll learn with time... if I give this meta time. I.e. if its even worth doing. Wouldn't surprise me at all if it isn't.

Does look pretty cool, if a bit overdone.

[BobVonBob.8096]

At this point I honestly don't think it needs much to make it into a much less frustrating experience, but it definitely needs something. The biggest problems in my mind are:

1. Green circle/wisp phases are a complete mess. The current best strategy is cheese where you do the opposite of what you do every other place those indicators appear in the game. When that inevitably fails because people are understandably doing what the indicators show, even a single person that doesn't know what to do or deliberately fails it means 60-90 seconds lost per phase, usually leading to a failed map unless the group has huge dps. Requiring 100% of the people in an open world event to know what they're doing and (unfortunately) not be a troll doesn't work.
2. It takes a long time, between an hour and a half to two hours, and everything in the meta other than the final chests is worth very little. Other hard-on-release events were either relatively short (Chak, Teq, TT) or were still rewarding even if it failed in the end (Dragon's Stand). This meta combines the worst of both of those.

Basically, the whole event is a perfect recipe for blaming players trying it for the first time for wasting your entire evening, and I don't think that's a healthy thing to have in the game.

[Eros.6801]

I like this meta and i don't think it should be nerfed but fixing. More than half of player based are still catching up and learning new things so by the default understanding they stand in green and that is completely normal up until the point where everyone knows how things work.

The second i recommend is being nice to each others, everyone has their own experiences and things to get. I was in a squad that the tag kindly explained everything and others tried to give advices, everyone knows that alot is still learning and even though we failed everyone is perfectly fine. On another meta instead of being nice, the explanation is still given but when things went down hill a few starting to yell at each others, blaming, calling someone else a noob or learn how to dodge all kind of bad stuffs. Peoples come to learn and no one feels great looking at the chat with all salty and angry players yieding at them and in doing so they make others feel bad, salty as well. We are just a few days into EoD and ppl need time to adapt, its really sad to see this everywhere.

We all get what we want in the end, even in real life no good coming from rushing so just stay calm and be nice, it's not that hard.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Eros.6801

[Ototo.3214]

Haven't read through everyone's replies, but I agree that the meta event is way too hard for an open world meta event.

And I'm saying that purely because I believe that having a meta event that's too difficult like this is simply bad for the expansion in the long run. Meta events are suppose to help keep players returning to maps for extended periods of time.

When HoT launched, metas like the Gerent in TD were way too hard to consistently kill. So they nerfed the difficulty. And it was still hard, it still would fail sometimes, but it was doable with a decent, prepared map of people. And people still flock to the HoT maps to do metas for their rewards to this day. The PoF metas? I'm pretty sure most if not all of them were both nerfed AND given increased rewards after a while because they were too difficult to consistently clear and weren't as rewarding to even complete compared to just doing a HoT meta that happened at roughly the same time. And despite the difficulty nerfs and increased rewards some of them are still hard to clear because they just aren't worth the time compared to their HoT counterparts.

 

Now look at the Dragon's End meta. It has one of the mastery lines tied to it. For now, that will help draw people into trying to clear it, since they want to unlock their turtle. But what happens after they unlock the turtle? Will they come back to try and do the meta event that will most likely fail every time they attempt it? Probably not. Most players will just go back to doing more rewarding content that will actually succeed. Maps with metas that are easy enough to clear with just a full squad of randoms and a little coordination tend to be the maps that continue to see play well into the future. And I don't think most players are going to be coming back to Dragon's End to fail the meta again if it remains this difficult to clear.

 

And I will clarify here. I do like this meta event with the way it currently plays out. My main gripes are that you often have to wait 30+ minutes, sitting there doing nothing, after you've gotten the 3 areas prepped for the final fight and that's no fun and a waste of time. And the final boss is...saying it's too difficult probably isn't the right word, but the timer/HP amount is too tight and leaves almost no room for any error from even just a few players sometimes. I also think the green circle mechanic is a bit counter intuitive since most other instances of green circles in the game are places you want to stand and you can't expect every single one of 50+ people to be reading map chat. But other than that I do kinda like how she moves around a lot and you have to pay attention to more than just the boss's head sitting there on the edge of the platform.

 

But as is, I don't think it's a good thing to have your big meta of the expansion be too difficult for most casual players to regularly get a clear on.

Edit: I also wanna add that I agree with the sentiment I've seen many people express, of how this meta event takes way too long for the rewards you get. I don't mind a meta event like Drizzlewood South and North taking a while because that entire meta event is quite lucrative just by the way rewards are distributed. II can break off from doing it at any point and still feel like I at least got something for the efforts I did put in, even if I didn't have time to make it to the end. But from what I've seen of Dragon's End, it's spending 1.5-2 hours getting almost nothing and continuing to get nothing for your efforts at the end because it likely failed.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Ototo.3214

[mrstealth.6701]

Anything open world where a small number of players can ruin it by standing in the wrong spot (intentionally or not) is just a bad idea. Making that area GREEN in a game that's spent a decade training players to avoid RED might be an even worse idea.

 

Make succeeding mechanics like this more rewarding or just more efficient. But having it able to easily cause a complete failure is just  a recipe for pointlessly frustrating everyone. 

 

This kind of "do the mechanics or fail" stuff belongs in raids/etc, where you can actually control who you are playing with and make sure everyone is on the same page. You're not going to get a herd of cats to all go along with it. Whether that's do to language barriers, not paying attention, not caring, being braindead from the previous hour of the meta, or whatever.

 

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's part of why the raids are done by only a small part of the playerbase, but "mechanics" like this just make my eyes glaze over. Three seconds after figuring it out, it's just tedious and boring busy work. I can't imagine I'm alone in not wanting to deal with contrived/cheap mechanics, especially not at the end of something that takes hours to complete. If you want it to be a challenge, actually do something to make it harder.

[Gyousa.5609]

I think the meta is great, just in need of a few tweaks.

Most obviously is the green circle skip, I don't think it's intended for us to interact with these mechanics like this. I think this is just a poor execution of the idea.

Second is the timer. I love that the fight is mechanically engaging, but the timer causes a lot of groups to fail who otherwise could struggle through with just another 2-5 minutes. I think that leaves the fight in a healthy spot where failure is still a possibility, but it's less strict.

Your analogies to other games just come off as odd, it's okay to be frustrated by an event that needs a bit more time in the oven but basically every thing you've presented as a problem goes away with a handful of number changes, bug fixes and re-implementing the green circle mechanic. You don't need to ramble out an essay which pre-empt counterpoints. I think most people agree the event needs a few changes.

[Notaheal.9841]

24 minutes ago, Gyousa.5609 said:

I think the meta is great, just in need of a few tweaks.

Most obviously is the green circle skip, I don't think it's intended for us to interact with these mechanics like this. I think this is just a poor execution of the idea.

Second is the timer. I love that the fight is mechanically engaging, but the timer causes a lot of groups to fail who otherwise could struggle through with just another 2-5 minutes. I think that leaves the fight in a healthy spot where failure is still a possibility, but it's less strict.

Your analogies to other games just come off as odd, it's okay to be frustrated by an event that needs a bit more time in the oven but basically every thing you've presented as a problem goes away with a handful of number changes, bug fixes and re-implementing the green circle mechanic. You don't need to ramble out an essay which pre-empt counterpoints. I think most people agree the event needs a few changes.

I did suggest a couple of things, but given that we're on a game forum, I think it's a bit foolish to suggest in depth mechanics. When my post here is like a complaint mixed with a review. I actually do second that just 5 minutes would make it more than possible for casual players without a system where if you mess up once the whole thing is doomed. I actually like the fight itself, it feels like a natural progression from mordremoth.

 

Bringing other games into this is just to point out I'm not short of patience. I can sit down and struggle through something that's challenging. It just served to illustrate that this difficulty is mostly unintentional and if it isn't, it's absolutely overkill.

 

To your third point, these are things I wanted to put here because both me, my guild members and a lot of users I spoke to had these arguments flung at their heads, so I took the opportunity to nip it in the bud while also using it to interject my brand of humour into it. There's a lot to talk about, and I wanted to make it entertaining instead of just a typical vent post.

[Notaheal.9841]

2 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

There's a lot of factors at play with this one that I noticed.

First of all everything said about new players is something I do agree with, this is Gw2's third expansion, near 10 years after the release of the core game.
I am sorry but i'm just going to say it.!
We are well past the point where new Gw2 content should be catering new content to new players.. there is a whole game with almost a decades worth of content for them to get their feet wet in.

So personally I am glad to see new, difficult open world and even story content come with this expansion and I hope that this continues post End of Dragons.

With that said though it is still important that such new content is balanced around the average player and not the minority of "hardcore" players.
Mechanically I think Anet has overall done a good job with this in End of Dragons.

However I have noticed that a good few enemies in EoD are bordering to much towards the absurd when it comes to being a health sponge..
Just pumping enemies with tons of health doesn't make them difficult, it makes them tedious and annoying, remember that.
To some degree this particular meta does qualify although the worst culprit from my experience was a certain big boss creature in Echovald Forest whom has far more health than it has any business having.
Oh and all those nice turrets you can spend battery points on to activate to help in the fight.. yea they do absolutely nothing to it, and I mean literally nothing, they don't even fire at it lol

As far as the whole "don't stand in the green circles" thing goes..
I am actually to some degree glad that so many instances are being screwed over because of this.
Anet specifically said they wanted to discourage skipping and cheesing mechanics in End of Dragons and this one should NOT!! be an exception.

Commanders who are encouraging their maps to skip this mechanic instead of teaching people how to actually do said mechanic deserve to get screwed over for doing so.
Being encouraged to skip in combat mechanics to cheese a big boss fight is something I really hate in video games.. in fact I'd even go so far as to flat out call it cheating.

Now, we can absolutely have a conversation about the mechanic itself being a mess and needing to be tweaked or a discussion about it being a bad mechanic in general..
But I will never condone skipping it entirely and I will never support any talk or methods of "punishing" players who want to play this content AS IT IS INTENDED! when the rest of the map doesn't.
The players who are standing in the green circles are not the problem here, everyone wanting to skip this mechanic are.
This in my eyes is nothing more than a rare occasion where the right people are being punished for trying to cheese mechanics which is certainly a nice change of pace from them being rewarded for it as they often have been in the past.. Boneskinner being one very good example of that.

And just for the record.
No I am not "one of them players" who has been intentionally screwing it up for people.
I've only done the event once and I genuinely thought I was supposed to avoid them because of the chat who's only advice for the entire event was "follow commander, attack the tail, green = bad" 
We still got it down to under 10% though so it was a good run.
Had we actually done the green circle phase successfully though it would have been a kill, so largely I blame the map's commander and those calling to skip that mechanic for the fail.

Lastly I will agree that the prep time for this event is absolutely ridiculous.
I must have been casually completing events for a good hour while exploring the map and nothing big actually happened during that time.
When the meta was due to actually start though, there was something like a 30ish minute timer we had to just wait through.. and I mean waiting, the entire map just went to one spot and waited for half an hour for this thing to start.
That is just horribly excessive and unnecessary.. 7-8 minutes tops would be more than enough if you ask me.

Lastly, regarding the turtle collection being locked behind the meta.. honestly I don't really mind this.
Although I do agree that it is likely having a negative impact on the success rate of this meta event.
That said though I circle back to what I said about people skipping the green circle phase, this is where I place most of the blame.

To be quite honest, the whole xpac was already really trying my patience with the abundance of CC applied to the player. It's a pet peeve of mine when games slow down things more than needed, I.E by taking control away from the player. Also, in light of me playing the meta event it's hard to imagine i ever complained about the goblin pirate being an annoying boss.

 

Unfortunately, players finding exploits is always a staple of game design, because as far as i know rocket jumping used to be a bug and the tf2 spy was made because of a bug where players would often appear as members of the opposing team. Though I'd like to clear up: I don't feel strongly about the strat, what I think is important is that everyone is on the same page. I actually did suggest to my map commander a few times it might be better to cut our losses and just do the event, because people keep ruining it either way. Another reason I brought it up though is just to illustrate how broken this fight is. If you manipulate it, it's faster to fail something rather than just do it. If anything it just means a fix is guaranteed to come out, I just hope it's soon because every time I fail I want to beat myself with a stick.

 

About the turtle, the only reason it being locked behind the event is a problem is because the event is astronomically difficult to complete while being a major selling point. If it functioned anything like Mordremoth or even that big kitten naked man in the shiverpeaks I wouldn't mind too much.

[Notaheal.9841]

1 hour ago, mrstealth.6701 said:

Anything open world where a small number of players can ruin it by standing in the wrong spot (intentionally or not) is just a bad idea. Making that area GREEN in a game that's spent a decade training players to avoid RED might be an even worse idea.

 

Make succeeding mechanics like this more rewarding or just more efficient. But having it able to easily cause a complete failure is just  a recipe for pointlessly frustrating everyone. 

 

This kind of "do the mechanics or fail" stuff belongs in raids/etc, where you can actually control who you are playing with and make sure everyone is on the same page. You're not going to get a herd of cats to all go along with it. Whether that's do to language barriers, not paying attention, not caring, being braindead from the previous hour of the meta, or whatever.

 

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's part of why the raids are done by only a small part of the playerbase, but "mechanics" like this just make my eyes glaze over. Three seconds after figuring it out, it's just tedious and boring busy work. I can't imagine I'm alone in not wanting to deal with contrived/cheap mechanics, especially not at the end of something that takes hours to complete. If you want it to be a challenge, actually do something to make it harder.

That feeling where the novelty of something wears off, and it just becomes annoying is a little thing I like to call the FNAF effect. A lot of horror games but FNAF in particular have it where you eventually get over its main gimmick, and you want to progress now. I definitely wouldn't be against a fractal or raid version of this boss because it seems pretty intuitive could I just exclude deadweights.

And to your latter point, I've seen some  of these basement-dwelling no-social-interaction-having lobotomites with the eyesore fractal wings unironically call other people normies and casuals as if it's a perjorative or something. Again because everyone just wants this chore over with, and people that have been playing this since launch will take it out on the newer players because they just kind of drop in pants or not and start slashing at wongburger.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Notaheal.9841
hit enter too soon

[lain.3148]

Just ran it with a pre-organized 50 person squad with all meta builds and comp, ie, 10 subgroups each with meta supports. we were all there the entire three hours, so we all had the 20% buff, but it still failed because the single person not in the squad messed up the wisp part both times. literally 50 people's 3 hours of time wasted because of one mistake one player made.

Edited March 3, 2022 by lain.3148

[lain.3148]

also the entire getting 50 people all doing the event into one map through lfg in order to keep ppl not doing the event/noobs out of the map instance feels like exploiting the instance system's player limit and in general this meta event i feel has really shown the weaknesses of gw2's lfg system

(sorry for the salt in the last post, its just pretty frustrating. and great post OP)

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by lain.3148

[lain.3148]

I think, even if the green circle skip was removed it would keep failing bcs the wisp part is not obvious right away how to do it / it might be difficult for a lot of people who haven't done it before, and a lot of people are selected to do it, maybe like ~18? but if any of them mess up at all it will subtract from the timer and maybe fail the entire event if they take longer than 2 minutes, which is completely possible. heck it probably takes at least a minute or two for someone to read their skills and figure out what they're actually supposed to do.

and if there is a troll they could just sit on the ground the entire time and make the event fail. so i don't really agree that trying to do the skip is the issue that's causing many groups to fail. if a map couldn't pull off the skip i don't think they could pull off doing it the right way either.

Edited March 3, 2022 by lain.3148

[Alaia Skyhawk.5064]

One thing I think would really help is if the main timer stops during the whisp and the side-platform champ phases. The same way that the main timer at Tequatl stops during the battery phases. Doing that would at the very least prevent trolls from ruining the wisp phase to ruin the whole run. At worst it would add 90 seconds to the run for wisps and a couple of minutes per champ phase, but it wouldn't destroy the group's chances of succeeding.

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, lain.3148 said:

 heck it probably takes at least a minute or two for someone to read their skills and figure out what they're actually supposed to do.

and if there is a troll they could just sit on the ground the entire time and make the event fail.

There are also players that are not very good at JPs and they, after they understood what they should do, could not do this in time.

Yes, I know, it seems easy to fly back to the top from the ground as a wisp. But for some players it is not.

[Tukaram.8256]

11 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

There are also players that are not very good at JPs and they, after they understood what they should do, could not do this in time.

Yes, I know, it seems easy to fly back to the top from the ground as a wisp. But for some players it is not.

I cannot do jumping puzzles at all.   There is no depth in a video game, so I can never see what/where to go.  I have not played to the end yet, but lighting the lanterns with the jade bot was way harder than it was supposed to be!  Height and depth?  Forget it ha ha 😎 

[wondermuffin.9680]

I haven't reached the Dragon's End map/meta yet, but so far I'm really scared to. Been reading horror stories...

[Alaia Skyhawk.5064]

@wondermuffin.9680Hopefully by the time you get there Anet will implement a patch that either reduces the boss health or extends the timer. Either would improve the success rate dramatically since most runs fail just before 20% and the 2nd split-boss phase. An extra 5-10 minutes, or just 20-25% less health on the boss, would help.

[Widowmaker Z.4802]

2 hours ago, lain.3148 said:

I think, even if the green circle skip was removed it would keep failing bcs the wisp part is not obvious right away how to do it / it might be difficult for a lot of people who haven't done it before, and a lot of people are selected to do it, maybe like ~18? but if any of them mess up at all it will subtract from the timer and maybe fail the entire event if they take longer than 2 minutes, which is completely possible. heck it probably takes at least a minute or two for someone to read their skills and figure out what they're actually supposed to do.

and if there is a troll they could just sit on the ground the entire time and make the event fail. so i don't really agree that trying to do the skip is the issue that's causing many groups to fail. if a map couldn't pull off the skip i don't think they could pull off doing it the right way either.

I can't do the wisp part at all, so at this point I would rather die and respawn then turn into a wisp.

[Yolanda.8416]

I think he make nothing 
 

[Junkpile.7439]

Yes nerf meta before most of players even can try it. Nerf ankka fight too because i did have to adjust my build first time ever in story. 🤦‍♂️

Edited March 3, 2022 by Junkpile.7439

[Notaheal.9841]

7 minutes ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

Yes nerf meta before most of players even can try it. Nerf ankka fight too because i did have to adjust my build first time ever in story. 🤦‍♂️

quite frankly we're doing them a favor