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

[Junkpile.7439]

1 minute ago, Notaheal.9841 said:

quite frankly we're doing them a favor

But think how loser you feel if you haven't done it in hard mode

[Notaheal.9841]

1 minute ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

But think how loser you feel if you haven't done it in hard mode

Not really a mode though, is it. Especially when most of the difficulty comes from jank, not design.

[Erise.5614]

Excellent summary! Thanks OP! 

And ignore Junkpile. As mentioned in the footer, it's just trolling. 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Notaheal.9841]

Just now, Erise.5614 said:

Excellent summary! Thanks OP! 

 

 

...I have a hard fight telling whether you're serious or sarcastic...

Given how it's phrased kind of awkwardly he's probably at least partially joking.

[Erise.5614]

10 minutes ago, Notaheal.9841 said:

Given how it's phrased kind of awkwardly he's probably at least partially joking.

Yeah. I just read their footer. 100% trolling. So better to just ignore.

 

The event itself is beautiful but after 10 attempts I can't see any of that anymore. It's pure frustration with the poor design and excessively annoying onboarding that increases chance of failure and requires to spend even more time on maybe attempts. It's not just 1h. You should also be there early and stack up the map buff. Your chances increase a bit by doing full 2 hour loops.

Even well organized it fails due to minor and dumb things. Like not switching to tail fast enough, too slow CC, not enough DPS on the map. Not even consistently. Mess it up once or twice and the map fails. 2 hours wasted. No possibility to self select. And the last phase has just an absurd amount of side swapping and not enough opportunity to DPS. No CC bar, no obvious mechanic to prevent it. We spent 4 minutes on that phase last night. Just the very last DPS phase. Mini bosses done at around 4:35. So decent speed overall, mechanics all working fast enough. And we only managed down to 5%.

One explicit mechanic I wanna point out is that CC requirements are much too high. Not all classes have that much available. It's easy if you use waystations. But that's locked behind living story that needs to be purchased separately and a significant amount of mastery points. And due to so many special skill mechanics (which remove your EMPs) and the amount of stuff on screen it's super hard to find the station, select it and buy EMPs again. So it's really more of a dirty fix that semi works sometimes than a viable strategy. 

ANet must have known it wouldn't succeed the first days / weeks. Putting the turtle behind it is just an kitten move, bordering on false advertising. 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Zok.4956]

7 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

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.

 

I agree that parts of this fight are implemented badly. Even if there are a few inexperienced players in a map meta, the event must not fail because a few players made some errors. And green fields in the game are usually a sign of "stand in here, it will help".

But skipping the green fields completely is not a good option. You don't get the damage buff. Best strategy is, ONLY THREE players (in every phase, so 6 players in total in the fight) set up a personal jade bot waypoint on the platform beforehand and go into the green circles. When they were transformed and send to the ground they wait around 10 sec (else the event could be bugged) and then port back to the platform. With this only the JP part is skipped.
I do not like this kind of skipping/cheesing, but it is a workaround until Anet fixes the fight.
 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Zok.4956

[lain.3148]

16 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

 

I agree that parts of this fight are implemented badly. Even if there are a few inexperienced players in a map meta, the event must not fail because a few players made some errors. And green fields in the game are usually a sign of "stand in here, it will help".

But skipping the green fields completely is not a good option. You don't get the damage buff. Best strategy is, ONLY THREE players (in every phase, so 6 players in total in the fight) set up a personal jade bot waypoint on the platform beforehand and go into the green circles. When they were transformed and send to the ground they wait around 10 sec (else the event could be bugged) and then port back to the platform. With this only the JP part is skipped.
I do not like this kind of skipping/cheesing, but it is a workaround until Anet fixes the fight.
 

the issue with this is that if any player not aware of what the squad is doing - which is common in open world - stands in the circle and doesn't jade wp back up it will make the whole skip fail or take way longer.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

17 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

 

I agree that parts of this fight are implemented badly. Even if there are a few inexperienced players in a map meta, the event must not fail because a few players made some errors. And green fields in the game are usually a sign of "stand in here, it will help".

But skipping the green fields completely is not a good option. You don't get the damage buff. Best strategy is, ONLY THREE players (in every phase, so 6 players in total in the fight) set up a personal jade bot waypoint on the platform beforehand and go into the green circles. When they were transformed and send to the ground they wait around 10 sec (else the event could be bugged) and then port back to the platform. With this only the JP part is skipped.
I do not like this kind of skipping/cheesing, but it is a workaround until Anet fixes the fight.
 

The Jade Bot Waypoint isn't an option anymore.  Those waypoints get disabled during wisps.

[battledrone.8315]

23 hours 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.

the green-red switch is particularly nasty, and they clearly chose this colour on purpose.

we are way past machiavelli, this is experimental surgery just for the lulz....

and the few new players, who actually DO succeed will be trained in the wrong colours too.

OFC teapot already got his. with good help from his 40 alt accounts.

[Zok.4956]

5 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

The Jade Bot Waypoint isn't an option anymore.  Those waypoints get disabled during wisps.

Yeah. Anet is doing a good job with this. 😠 Instead of fixing the fight Anet fixes the workaround.

[Sevens.9452]

On 3/3/2022 at 1:53 AM, Notaheal.9841 said:

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.

well said, and personally i'm limiting to 3 a week until there's some kind of change (already done since day 3 of release).

 

for some reason, eod mobs/bosses are tankier in general but deal less damage vs hot/pof, this might be one of the core open world issues.

[Borked.6824]

I literally just got to Jade Sea last night so I only got the beginnings of this controversial meta (it does definitely seem to be nervracking), but I'm wondering if removing the timer tether from this event would allow a preservation of the mechanics as they are.  What I mean is that, I think wiping is good.  Teamwork is good.  Failing is good, but failing on an almost irreversible monumental scale is demotivating.

Just remove it from the fixed daily timer and let people wipe on it until they succeed.  Gives people time to learn things like green circles with lessened severity, and build a knowledge base and muscle memory that isn't basically at gunpoint.

[Avanijade.5620]

I would like the chime in currently the End of Dragon meta event is currently unbeatable and im pretty frustrated. I haven't heard of anyone who has completed the event.

 

Some issues incl:

1. Green circles/wisp phases are a complete mess. Currently the whole map can't avoid the wisps as the whole map isn't coordinated enough to listen to comms and avoid green circles. In the same breath they also arent coordinated enough to do the intended mechanic.

 

Please fix this mechanic so if a few people fail the mechanic the whole meta doesn't fail.

 

2. It takes a long time, between 1- 2 hours. And everything in the meta other than the final chest (which noone has achieved yet) is not worth the effort put in just for the event to fail. You could add 10 minutes to the boss timer/ fix the tail mechanic there's a clear target and a bit more time to kill it.

 

I'm pretty disappointed I just want to get the turtle mount 🐢

[Necrosian.1359]

RNG needs to be removed.

"Go get the tail" > "Watch out shes getting hungry" > "Watch out for her head" > "Shes getting hungry again" > "Watch out for her head" > breakbar at 61% so helpful!

[VirtuesOfSin.1305]

You forgot to add the sheer amount of reliance on RNG luck. Even if you got lucky with a good group, do the mechanics perfectly, kill every tail and hit every break bar - it doesn't matter if the boss resummons its tail 5 seconds after killing it, it doesn't matter if the boss never gives you a valid break bar, and it doesn't matter if the boss spams her invulnerability cross-platform attack several times in a row. Literally saw a run fail at 4% because the boss spammed its invulnerability attack 7 times in a row.

 

Potential Fixes that would help resolve a lot of these issues without having to nerf the boss:

- (1) The Break Bar shouldn't occur while the Tail is alive:: The Break Bar appearance with the "30 seconds of bonus damage" gives an illusion to players that they're doing the right thing by attacking the head while the tail is alive. Mind you that damage increase is completely nullified by the damage reduction the boss receives from the tail. Removing the possibility of the Break-Bar triggering while the tail is alive will reduce the confusion players have.
- (2) Less Frequent 'Stalling' Boss Attacks:: I'm sure everyone here who has been doing the mechanics as they spawn have encountered this at least once. The tail spawns so we go to attack the tail. The tail ties so we return to the head, only to get a prompt that the tail has spawned again and the boss has received damage reduction again. Or that the boss will spam their cross-platform invulnerability attack 7-8 times in a row, making DPS impossible. It's entirely possible for the boss to be invulnerable outside of phase transitions than not.

- (3) More Quality of Life than RNG but...:: Stop deleting our equipped special actions skill every time Aurene gives us something to use every phase transition. I don't want to spend 25 Charr Salvage EVERY phase just because we MIGHT have good RNG luck with the Break Bar. 

[Necrosian.1359]

Five switches in a row on last 5% what kind a kitten is this? Who though this was a good idea?

 

[Iva Na.5740]

On 3/2/2022 at 8:53 PM, Notaheal.9841 said:

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

Lol…. WORK is the key word. Game should be fun. I already have a job. Thanks for taking time to write the post. I sign after each point you made. 

[RoadRunner.9253]

/rant on/
So, I just did this for the fifth time because I heard there was an update to this meta.
The first 4 times I did this were before the patch, and I swore to never do this again, until something's getting changed.
So something's got changed, but it literally made no impact.
The best I, or we, have gotten, was 15%. Those 15% were a breeze. The dragon was sitting relatively still and we had relatively long damage phases for some reason.
Now, 15 minutes ago (we failed at ~23%) it was actually the worst run of all of them, people were going insane.
The boss literally swapped position in 10-30 second segments, most of the time closer to 10. That HAS to be looked at.
It can't be, that we have to do a mechanic, so that we are able to deal damage to the boss, that in itself is almost impossible to do sometimes, when the mechanic keeps swinging all around the Arena, and everyone is just busy running across the map.
The coolest thing was, when we had just defeated the Tail. The boss changed position, we did 10 seconds of DPS, just so that the Tail could respawn almost immediately after trying to kill that tail for 20 seconds!?
The problems aren't the phases, the problems are that the phases themselves are so overloaded with cluttered mechanics and RNG and inconsistencies.
On top of that you have new players, who also HAVE to do this meta for the first time at some point, and the "DRAGON'S END META COMPLETED!" videos don't match what happens on screen.
Yeah no shart you did it, because the boss was sitting on a plate for you to kill it.
All that will do is discourage players to never touch this content ever again.
And so won't I.
I've done the pre meta 2 times. Along with the meta (each one hour long), that's 7 hours of pure focus and trying to not mess it up for the others.
I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. Yeah I'm salty, but it's honestly supremely upsetting, when your own mechanical skill and experience is worthless, and your destiny is in the hands of randomness, for the most part. We have Sandstorm and Canach's Casino for that part of the game, the latter being actually fun though.
/rant off/

Edited March 6, 2022 by RoadRunner.9253
typos

[cubed.2853]

this meta event is just awful. i don't understand how to have fun here? it's pure chaos and a single strobe light. on top of that, this expansion is a joke compared to the previous chapters. the story is good and better, but the scope is very manageable. obviously, some priorities were to offer a long grind instead of fun.  

[Barbarian Tuga.9053]

One thing I'm sure, 90% of people after getting the egg won't do this meta again, and in my opinion not worth the effort and the time, and just a reminder to the DEV'S and to ANET we are talking about PVE here, not strikes not PvP and not WvW,  hard does´t mean stupid and confusing, hard can be fun, but this hard we talking about here is a bloody mess, this is my kid's opinion and mine nothing else, tank you for your time.

[somsom.5201]

1 hour ago, Barbarian Tuga.9053 said:

One thing I'm sure, 90% of people after getting the egg won't do this meta again, and in my opinion not worth the effort and the time, and just a reminder to the DEV'S and to ANET we are talking about PVE here, not strikes not PvP and not WvW,  hard does´t mean stupid and confusing, hard can be fun, but this hard we talking about here is a bloody mess, this is my kid's opinion and mine nothing else, tank you for your time.

Yeah that whole map is just going to be dead in a couple months time. It's a time consuming, boring, RNG filled, kitten fest.

[ugrakarma.9416]

40 minutes ago, somsom.5201 said:

Yeah that whole map is just going to be dead in a couple months time. It's a time consuming, boring, RNG filled, kitten fest.

i feel pity for late-comers, will be like serpents ire.

[Matite.9543]

Gating the turtle behind this annoying kitten festival was a disgusting thing to do.

[quaniesan.8497]

Anet is too naive and idealistic in what they expect from the players base.  They think everyone will do their part, there isnt' a single bad apple but there's always a bad apple, either a slacker/afker or griefer. They think  everyone will learn and "git good", but there is such a thing as people who never learn, otherwise pvp would be full of scary skilled people running around now, but that's not the reality. And this event is the sort of event that one mistake is way too many to win.   They are decade in this business, and still make the basic mistake in mmo design.  

[dreamfast.2489]

Horrible (and I know it) even after the fixes (coming up to 10 attempts) - gating the egg behind a PVE Open World Meta designed  with such exceptional difficulty has ruined what has essentially been for me a well conceived and delivered expansion. The time investment genuinely is stacking to be not worthy of the reward. There will be many who won't touch this  for eons once they do luck out and finally get their egg; and the cycle will perpetuate for new players unless ANET makes changes.