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What are your overall positive + negative thoughts regarding EOD?


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In terms of content design, I have to say EoD is a big leap forward for GW2. 

Starting out with Combo Field, Dodge and, most importantly, Breakbar tutorials set the tone in a big way - it's fundamental game understanding a staggering amount of players are struggling with. 

Gameplay, from OW to Story, has been drastically more engaging and mechanically diverse than anything Anet has done in almost 7 years in PoF and especially LW. Boons on mobs, more diverse enemy skills and mob packs, breakbars and so on, is exactly what I wanted from OW for ages. 

The story setpieces and instances as well as the maps in general might be some of their best work yet, and although Echovald was imo criminally underutilized story wise (and I haven't gone back quite yet to really appreciate the map), it's been all a joy to discover and explore. 

As for the Map metas, while zerging isn't quite my thing and I haven't dug deep enough into them yet (or even done all of them) to evaluate them, they seem pretty fun and engaging too. Some very impressive setpieces, epic battles, especially towards the end.

 

Lastly but maybe most importantly longterm, the Strikes genuinely impressed me, namely the latter two. While they likely will become trivial over time with proper strategies, comps and experience - it's a fantastic sign that they weren't a snoozefest the first time through blind with PuG's, as the Icebrood Saga ones - and CM's are still to come. 

Again, very mechanically diverse and engaging (and even cool setpieces rather than just bland and samey arenas this time around), lot's of movement, breakbars - just good ol' proper content, easily of Raid and Fractal quality. 

These (and hopefully more in the future) are and will be a big win for the game in terms of maintaining a niche but dedicated, consistent and loyal core audience.

 

As for some of the negatives, the major let down with the expansion for me unfortunately are the player tools. 

The new Elite Specialisations, while I haven't done a deepdive into many yet since the Betas, are pretty underwhelming/lacklustre. From mechanical oversights, be it Trait interactions just missing/not working, design errors and lacking core synergies, just overall poorly thought out or lacklustre mechanics all the way to countless erroneous tooltips - there is a mountain of work left to do here. 

 

One of my biggest disappointments are things like new Runes, especially Elite Specialisation Runes, which I consider part of the Elite Spec feature set, being completely absent from the Expansion. We had them for Core Specs, for Hot Specs, for PoF specs.. and now absolutely nothing? No Runes, no Sigils no nothing? Two stat types and that's it? Very big let down that I truly hope they rectify - Elite Spec Runes at the very least. 

 

The Jade Bot, although my expectations weren't that high, also was kind of a let down. The progression through it was pretty scuffed, especially with the critical crafting for it not being in the game until hotfixes days after launch. 

There isn't really a reason for there to be 10 Levels of Power Cores for example, when your can just stick with Level 1 until the mastery is done in a few hours and then jump straight to 10 - if wanting to upgrade them at all for the Vit. It's just a needless sink with marginal number increases for exponential cost increases.

The modules likewise are imo pretty poorly put together.

The Sensory Slot basically competes for everything you'd want, including having to choose between extra loot (such as a chance for T6 mats) or extra utility (such as mount endurance regeneration), which realistically for most of us just means picking the extra loot and never getting to enjoy the Utility (or constantly feeling like leaving loot on the floor) - while the Service Chip only slots very niche utility, like Gliding Boost, Treasure Chest highlighting or Skiff speed boost. 

Imo a much better solution would have been to dedicate one Slot to a player choice of extra loot, and one to Utility - not to make them compete for one slot, and then some left over ideas for the other. 

Also maybe more slots with more choices would have been nice, with a deeper more in depth upgrade/customization system. 

 

As for Fishing and Skiffs, I honestly didn't think I'd care at all - but they are fine. It's a bit of a feature bloat for not much there, but I can definitely see some people having a blast with it, and even myself taking some peaceful downtime now and then. 

I do think Anet has to be careful with all these systems though, from Jadebots to Fishing to Skiffs - they can't add more and more of these, while fine and quaint on their own, they can't all be as shallow as puddle all while bloating the HuD, Mastery Sytsem and Hero Panel, etc.

 

 

Overall I'd say it's been a pretty positive, although mixed in parts, experience so far. Some things are genuine leaps forward for the game that I dearly hope they keep the course on, other's were deeply disappointing and I hope they can rectify and or build upon them somewhat.

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It's really solid.

 

A lot of the preconceptions that it would be a cheap tack-on, given the state of the game and during covid, quickly subsided.  The whole "only 4 zones" had me worried.

 

You can make a complaint on lack ground breaking features, like what gliding was, but overall probably their best expansion to date.

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Positive:

- Love the environment and the game design.

- Love the music.

- love the new character we meet.

- The new masteries.

- Fishing system.

- Skiffs.

 

 

Negative.

- The story was super short and too fast paced for me.

- The poor (or lack) elite spec spells visuals (Especially the Vindicator).

- To have to play Power again on some spec. while I would have prefer having the option to play Condi. (Mesmer, Revenant).

 

 

 

 

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I just found out it's possible to buy from heart vendors if you've previously completed the heart, even if it's since reset. That's a great improvement. Hearts are still repeatable so players who enjoy the activities can do them as many times as they like, but if you just want to buy something you don't have to do it all over again.

That's especially good for me because I did the heart which allows you to buy a boat yesterday, then decided I'd wait for the story step I'd heard gives you one. Today I found out that story step tells you to go and buy it from the heart NPC and that I was literally 2 lines of dialogue away from that point. So it was a big relief to find out I don't need to repeat the heart to get it.

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DISCLAIMER: This is just my opinion, so let's agree to disagree.

Positive

+ Visually, the new maps are absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. Kudos to everyone involved in making these maps, including the concept art that initiated the journey.

+ I love how big the maps are. Kaineng feels like an actual city, and Echovald feels like a living forest. Gives us plenty of room to explore and enjoy and immerse and enjoy the game.

+ To add to the above, I love how "tall" those maps are. I think these are the tallest maps to date (correct me if I'm wrong) and I love it. There are literal skyscrapers that feel as tall as the condo building I live in, and I feel a lot more immersed than ever before.

+ As a music nerd, I love the music, sound effects, and ambience. It feels immersive and fresh, and I just recently bought new headphones, too. I feel giddy just thinking about it and can't wait to jump back in today.

+ The writing and voice acting finally feel mature. In the past, it felt too safe, like it were made for younger audiences. Now the writing feels a lot more realistic. Yes, that includes the use of slang, some swearwords, etc.

+ Thank you for FINALLY having tutorials on things like the break bar.

Negative

- So far, I ran into a few story achievements that are either a little buggy or just really sensitive. Can't remember off the top of my head right now, but I am sure they'll be fixed soon.

- Despite the above positives, exploration in Echovald has been frustrating. Some POIs and Hero Points were placed what I assume was strategically, but instead, made me feel exhausted after trying to reach them to no avail. I am not sure I like the idea of certain POIs being locked behind an achievement or a dynamic event that may or may not succeed because not enough people are around.

- I barely see anyone in Kaineng and Echovald. I guess everyone is rushing to the end to farm the meta, but I feel disappointed running past map events because there's no one there to do it with me (it's either boring or just difficult doing them on my own).

- Can we please get separate key bindings for the skiff, fishing rod, etc? Having them all hide behind a skill key-binding and a small grey box is the opposite of accessible, not to mention confusing.

- The whole idea of the Jade Bot is really cool, but I still am really confused on the whole cores + chips + etc. It's not all that well documented in the game, and I feel overwhelmed whenever I talk to the NPCs.

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I haven't been able to do much yet outside of story, but I absolutely love the aesthetic of the new maps. Amazing job.

I overall enjoyed the story but there was definitely too little buildup to the finale and therefore a pretty abrupt ending. I really enjoyed the dialogue, although the german dub seemed a bit off at times. Like the emphasis of a sentence clearly being on the wrong word.

Edited by Maikimaik.1974
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positives:

  • the maps are beautiful and riddled with mastery points and events, there was plenty to do.
  • the music is beautiful and wonderful, i love it!
  • i've been having fun with my mechanist golemancer!
  • the story was pretty fun! i loved most of it, from the city detective stuff, to the epic battles.

 

negatives:

  • there is hardly any armour, and it is fairly ugly, this is FASHION WARS 2, and you're going to release an expansion without fashion?!
  • big lack of tonics! i made a thread on this, i loved the plethora of fun tonics from previous expansions, and this one has none!
  • that one story mission with the rooms and puzzles.
Edited by Liewec.2896
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When I started End of Dragons I went straight for the story to avoid any and all spoilers. Ended up finishing it within the first 24 hours of the expansion's launch (dedicated to no spoilers lol), and I just completed all 4 new maps last night.

 

My rating; 8/10.

 

Positive thoughts:

- The music is incredible, probably one of the best parts of this expansion.

- Much of the dialogue had a more up-beat tone and some cases there were fun jokes poked among the characters that made me chuckle.

- The dialogue itself in this expansion was well written and flowed nicely.

- They put in a lot of thought for newer players, with markers and arrows indicating which way to go, and what to do. Even Taimi chimes in during one of the story instances to give you hints if you get stuck.

- The graphics are gorgeous, and all the dragons were very well designed.

- The Skiff and Fishing are fun to use, however it wasn't the main selling point for me, but I'll probably use it during downtime or when I need something from it.

 

Negatives:

- I honestly don't have much to say in this regard, the entire expansion that I played so far has been incredible, and the story was satisfying.

 

This expansion had an entirely different feel to it than HoT or PoF, and I greatly appreciate the effort put into it by Anet. It has re-ignited my love for this game, and I thank them for bringing such an amazing game to the world.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

Seeing the negative comments on this thread gather the most upvotes is somewhat concerning.

Don't worry, the forums attract negativity because disappointed people are more likely to voice their disappointment than happy people are to voice their happiness. 

Outside of the forums people seem to be quite happy with the expansion, although there are some issues that need to be addressed.

Edited by Maikimaik.1974
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28 minutes ago, Maikimaik.1974 said:

Don't worry, the forums attract negativity because disappointed people are more likely to voice their disappointment than happy people are to voice their happiness. 

Outside of the forums people seem to be quite happy with the expansion, although there are some issues that need to be addressed.

At least the forums attract someone unlike EoD maps that are empty on week 1 🙃

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I just finished the story, and haven't done much else.

The story started off really strong. I really enjoyed the first few chapters. It trailed off for me towards the end, and at some point in Echovald I just wanted to get it over with. It is alright, but not amazing. There are more than a few instances of the devs inserting their politics in there which made me roll my eyes, but nothing to get upset about.

The maps look really good, and I have a lot more exploring to do. Kaineng feels a bit copy and paste, and empty, I rushed through the last 2 so didn't get a proper look.

Music was great.

Elites seem to be in the same state as the last beta which isn't good. I played through the story on cele Tempest. I tried Catalyst for maybe 3 hours but switched back to Tempest. Maybe I will play with it more, but playing it feels like work. Elite specs were the main thing for me, and at the moment I don't really want to play them in their current iteration.

Mobs seem to have a lot more hp than other expansions. I don't mind this, but thought it worth a mention.

After trying skiffs, fishing, and the jade bots I can't say I am motivated to interact with them again. 

After just finishing the story I would say it is alright, but I feel a little dissapointed. If balance patches improve the elite specs then for me personally all is forgiven.

Edited by ovenglove.9528
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Positiv

 

- The new Maps are great

 

- The Music gosh i love it ❤️

 

- Artstyl

 

- Okeii fishing is cool and give me some chill. I hate mostly such Minigames but this one is pure chill.

 

- Some Skins are pretty nice. Cool that most of them are not disco balls.

 

 

 

Negativ

- The new Specs are overall not that great. I really wanted a GS Thief.

 

- Some part of the Story. I do not like that Woke Politcal Stuff. You play a MMO also because you want to escape the Real World for a few Minutes or Hours. I simply do not like it. Also Gw 1 had much more mature storywriting and yes Gw 2 feels sometimes like a Disney Film for 6 year old enfants. Maybe i played to much Witcher, Swtor, Suikoden etc or i got older. I miss also villains like shiro and a bit more serious dramatic. EoD was sometimes more a comedyshow, lol.

 

- There is simply no Content for the PvP and WvWvW which is simply bad. Factions was a huge PvP Addon for Gw 1 and for me it is a big miss that Anet didn't add some new Content for us PvP Players beside the new Specs.

 

- Guildhall. The hall itself is great but c'mon Anet. You have a great Composer who worked hard to bring some cool tracks but you forgot to add them to the Guildhall!!? Since years we only can play the music from Core. Where is the Music from HoT? PoF? EoD?

Also they didn't add some new decor like the beautiful trees. Big Mistake when you ask me. In Eso you can even place NPC's where u can set the Pathing yourself and overall the Player housing  feature is much bigger there.

 

- Content to tiny. Yes i find that there is not that much Content. Most peoples should be finish mostly in a couple of weeks. Casuals maybe in 1-2 Months and PvP Players...well they have the same Content since years. There are  also not really new enemys with new mechanics.

 

- No new technical things for better graphics. The Water Shader could need some updates etc.

 

Overall

6.5/10

Edited by Grebcol.5984
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Positive:
+ 1. and 3. map looks really good
+ story got good introduction for characters
+ i am enjoying virtuoso in pve, pvp 
+ visual and art styles very good in all types of content

Negative:
- 2. map is very boring, empty and buildings are too tall....why?
- northern part of 4. map looks so terrible and pointless....it use to be big "sea of jade" where everything should be made of it, not just flat ground and just some part of jade....very disappointed of what "jade sea" is
- 4. map name is big spoiler "Dragon's end", from having too many options to name it....you name it that....terrible name and spoiler....like "hey we wanna let you know that dragon will die here....."
- why there is "80" number southern of 1. map? why just 4 maps and not 5 or 6? is this expansion or what is this?
- too many pointless characters in story and fast paced progression without allowing player to get emotional with some characters, later chapters of story very terribly executed
- too many unplayable new elite specs(pointing at catalyst), terrible design, no true identity, feels copy pasted homework and executed badly against community expectations
- no new fractals, raids, great meta events(not including 4. map meta event)
- masteries are pointless...there to help you to play the game, when game is already easy.....masteries use to be progression which players use to do to unlock new ways of playing the game....these tools you gave us feels so bad and insults player's intelligence
- fishing is very boring.....it felt cool first few tries then it turned to be boring on long run
- skiff looks nice, but there is not enough water to use it in cantha


Overall, i thought about quiting guild wars 2 as we all waited for this so long and we got nothing.....disappointment is so big from my side, i may keep loging in but there is really nothing to do in game....i did all strikes, did some metas...revealed maps, did story, tried all new specs..... i am very sad but it is what it is.....after this i wouldn't expect game to be any better.....and yes Arenanet had time to make it .....but the way they pushed it is just to sell expansion to earn quick money of dying game.......very sad.
 

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I can't finish the last battle against Mai Trin solo, real frustrating, I like following the storyline in games. This is with my strongest toon ( reaper).

I like EOD , fishing is ok, skiffs are cool, I played GW 1 so much that I was looking forward to Cantha, it was my favorite area in all of GW 1. I was not disappointed in it, I am probably older then most on here , so not real big on using discord, teamspeak was a stretch for me in GW 1. 

Can you have a team in the storyline to help in battling Mai Trin? I would really like to continue the storyline

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The only good thing is the scale of the huge maps. The color palette is terrible. Everything is green. Whoever was responsible for this needs to be fired! Whenever I log in, I have a headache. (I don't need to see a doctor; I've been a gamer for 35 years and play many games). The story is meh. I almost fall asleep. This is the worst Gw2 expansion!

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33 minutes ago, Svez Poizon XD.5268 said:

Positive:
+ 1. and 3. map looks really good
+ story got good introduction for characters
+ i am enjoying virtuoso in pve, pvp 
+ visual and art styles very good in all types of content

Negative:
- 2. map is very boring, empty and buildings are too tall....why?
- northern part of 4. map looks so terrible and pointless....it use to be big "sea of jade" where everything should be made of it, not just flat ground and just some part of jade....very disappointed of what "jade sea" is
- 4. map name is big spoiler "Dragon's end", from having too many options to name it....you name it that....terrible name and spoiler....like "hey we wanna let you know that dragon will die here....."
- why there is "80" number southern of 1. map? why just 4 maps and not 5 or 6? is this expansion or what is this?
- too many pointless characters in story and fast paced progression without allowing player to get emotional with some characters, later chapters of story very terribly executed
- too many unplayable new elite specs(pointing at catalyst), terrible design, no true identity, feels copy pasted homework and executed badly against community expectations
- no new fractals, raids, great meta events(not including 4. map meta event)
- masteries are pointless...there to help you to play the game, when game is already easy.....masteries use to be progression which players use to do to unlock new ways of playing the game....these tools you gave us feels so bad and insults player's intelligence
- fishing is very boring.....it felt cool first few tries then it turned to be boring on long run
- skiff looks nice, but there is not enough water to use it in cantha


Overall, i thought about quiting guild wars 2 as we all waited for this so long and we got nothing.....disappointment is so big from my side, i may keep loging in but there is really nothing to do in game....i did all strikes, did some metas...revealed maps, did story, tried all new specs..... i am very sad but it is what it is.....after this i wouldn't expect game to be any better.....and yes Arenanet had time to make it .....but the way they pushed it is just to sell expansion to earn quick money of dying game.......very sad.
 

 

The 80 South of Map 1 ist the new Guildhall Isle of Reflection.

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Positives: 

1. Story is great, has a lot of interesting moments. Best story in gw2 yet.

2. Siege turtle is a pretty fun mount and looks great. It's is terrible at travel but it's really cool that it is designed to be focused for combat. 

3 Maps look great and has plenty of diversity except for Echovald (more on this in negatives later).

4. Dragon's End meta is challenging and fun in that it throws a bunch of different mechanics at a large player group (Some negatives though later).

5. New elite specs are fun and expands on the existing classes in new and interesting ways (Some negatives though later).

6. EoD strikes are really fun and well designed, and really this is what strikes should have been in the first place. Icebrood saga strikes are boring dps races whereas EoD strikes challenges players with a variety of fun mechanics.

7. Fishing minigame is decent fun. I love that there a ton of different fishes, some of which can only be captured at specific times and places/fishing spots which is a nice challenge.

8.  I love just travelling in my skiff and looking at the view. Also love bringing people around in my skiff.

 

Negatives:

1. EoD doesn't add anything new to how players interact with the world. Jade bots was kind of hyped up to be that but in it's current state, it is just a helpful companion. I am very disappointed that Jade bots are not used more in map travel and world interaction.  The only time I had to use Jade bot to get somewhere was to access a POI in Echovald. It's especially disappointing because there is an interesting story step where the player has to use the jade bot to solve a fairly long puzzle. I haven't bothered at all to upgrade my Jade Bot from the stuff  I get from story and I see no reason to do so.

2. Bugs galore. I get that it's a big expansion and there is bound to be bugs but I've encountered bugs everywhere from metas to story steps to map exploration. I have lost count of the many times I have had to restart a story instance or have metas fail because of bugs. I don't recall previous expansions being as buggy at launch.

3. EoD metas don't introduce new mechanics, every meta is a rehash of mechanics introduced in past expansions.

4. New elite specs are nowhere near the same power level as past elite specs. In strikes and raids, most new elite specs are regarded as sub-optimal and even bad in some cases.

5. Echovald is very monotonous in it's environment design. Visually, just about everywhere in the map is the same overgrown trees and ancient ruins. It's also kind of annoying to traverse due to the ridiculous amount of tree branches, but definitely not as bad as tangled depths and draconis mons.

6. Map metas' rewards are terrible! You only get a few chests at the end of the metas for the first 3 maps. Dragon's End meta rewards a lot of chests but to max the number of chests you get, you will have to do 10 events prior to the meta. Considering that the Dragon's End meta has a very high failure rate and lasts quite long on top of the time spent doing events pre meta, it's very unrewarding for the amount of time that you have to invest into the meta.

7. Dragon's End meta is too challenging for the average group. At the moment, the only way to beat the meta is either a) have a group full of people running raid builds or b) skip the wisp phase by having 1 player stay on greens and that 1 player immediately tp back to the arena when turned into a wisp. It's a clear sign that the meta is ridiculously difficult when the only way to beat it is to either have a group with optimal dps or to cheese a major mechanic. That said, it's great to have a meta that is mechanically challenging for a large group. My suggestion is to slightly nerf the tail damage reduction and to make it possible for guilds to trigger the meta similar to triple trouble.

8. Siege turtle should not be locked behind completing Dragon's End meta. Considering that the siege turtle is a new core game element, locking players out behind a difficult meta is understandably frustrating for many players.

9. Arborstone mastery really shouldn't exist because of how pointless it is. It kind of feels that it was made a mastery simply because Anet had no ideas for masteries.

Edited by Liotrah.6459
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Pros:

- Decent story

- Beautiful Maps (during the night)

 

Cons:

- The maps actually hurt my eyes during the day. The lighting seems...off? It looks like hardly any shadows were used in the process of creating these maps. Not only that, but during the day you can see just how washed out all the colors are.

 

- 7/9 elite specs excluding Bladesworn and Spectre are very boring and uninspired. It's obvious the talent that helped create the previous elite specs are no longer with the company. These ones feel like a conglomerate of different ideas that just don't work. For example: Harbinger. Is it supposed to be an alchemist, witch-hunter, or martial artist? Pick a theme and stick with it. Even the names are terrible with this round. With Reaper, you can immediately imagine what the elite spec is. Harbinger? Not quite. This is why the HoT specs are still #1. 

 

- The maps are completely empty (part of this is a bug). It takes ages to try to complete any event solo. For example, there was an event where I had to swim underwater around a bunch of eggs and try to find which of the eggs weren't good. You then had to take the bad eggs back to a turtle. This is a simple event, yet I only had 5 minutes and every egg I brought to the turtle contributed maybe 1-3% of the progress bar. What a waste of time.

 

Mixed:

- Fishing seems pointless once you complete all the ONE-TIME collections

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Positive: maps and music are beautiful. The artists put alot of work in this. But please tone down with the colors. My asian landscapes don't always look like cesspool of pink and green.

 

Negative:  Everything else.

Notably:  They completely ignored all beta 2 feedback, did very minimal changes thus leaving alot of elite specs in some weird limbo.  They actually didn't post the note about the changes, likely in fear of backlash, I'm guessing. 

Maps are largely empty, but might get better towards the weekend.  Metas are super bugged, and/or unreasonably overtuned. These things really marred the launch significantly.  

While I agree that it's unreasonable to expect perfection at launch. But the level of flaws and mostly importantly their lack of communications are frustrating. 

Story seems rushed, one-dimentional. Voice actings are cringy, especially that of Aurene.  Whoever voiced her  went overboard with dramatic vibe. She's just unbearable during final map meta

Edited by quaniesan.8497
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Maps are pretty but very dead/empty. It's rare to even see another player. Gives me very "dead game" feeling.

Specs are REALLY hit'n'miss. Harb is satisyingly great, Catalyst is perplexingly and exceedingly terrible.

Fishing I don't care about at all.

Skiffs I don't care about at all.

Story I don't care about at all.

Copypasta legendaries close to kills the game for me, don't like the new strategy at all.

Nothing added to the content I actually play this game for (WVW) so overall the expansion is a huge failure for me, I wish they had taken 6+ months extra to get into proper shape.

I worry that EOD and its lack of long-term replayability especially around some badly-designed especs (untamed, catalyst) and lack of interesting new mechanics like gliding/mounts ala previous expansions may have killed the game.

Edited by scerevisiae.1972
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