End of Dragons is a disappointing mess

[DragonMoon.6098]

My biggest beef so far is the desolate maps. I just tried to do an event in Echovald where you have to find invisible ritualist baddies while avoiding ghosts running around and you can't possibly do the event fast enough for the timer...when you're pretty much always by yourself on an empty flipping map....

These overland events are of a difficulty level above old maps...and you need actual population in them to get a good number of them done (some can be done alone, but not all). 

That being said, I do find the new maps to be very pretty, especially Echovald...BUT THERE IS NOBODY IN THEM. 

Edited March 5, 2022 by DragonMoon.6098

[SweetPotato.7456]

15 hours ago, Jaunty.6018 said:

No, it's not.  Repeated textures side-by-side is one thing; I can ignore those, even though the base content shows very little of that.  But you have assets overlapping and clipping through each other in the most careless way.  You can't go a few feet in Kaineng without seeing a roof overlapping another roof and the top is sticking out of it, or a stone arch with wooden planks from above poking right through.  This IS lazy design.  There is absolutely no way you can look at all these flaws and tell me that they put a lot of care into their work.  I have tried my hand at game design and I know how they did it: they simply cloned an asset on top of another asset and called it a day.  It took them mere seconds to do.  It also takes mere seconds to correct a clipping problem, but they chose not to.  It's such a game design sin to do this that you won't even find it in retro 3D games like Mario 64.  This is not prevalent in the 9-year-old base content and it's honestly sad that so many people are perfectly fine with it, and willing to fight to defend it.  In-game I have been repeatedly bullied for expressing my thoughts on this, which really sends the message that if you have any kind of eye for art and game design, stay far far away from current Guild Wars.

I rather spend my time enjoying the game vs going about checking out people's flaws - minor details, minor details.  Never in a million years would I expect to find another person more critical than me, and there you are hahaha. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by SweetPotato.7456

[Jaunty.6018]

6 minutes ago, SweetPotato.7456 said:

I rather spend my time enjoying the game vs going about checking out people's flaws - minor details, minor details.  Never in a million years would I expect to find another person more critical than me, and there you are hahaha. 

You don't strike me as very critical at all.

[SweetPotato.7456]

7 hours ago, Jaunty.6018 said:

You don't strike me as very critical at all.

That's a good sign for me, thank you. 
Edit: 
I'd rather help make the game better. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by SweetPotato.7456

[Kalocin.5982]

I think another few months were needed. There's a lot of creative ideas but it's no where near the quality PoF was. New Kaineng is a looot of copy and pasted elements which indicates they didn't have time to built whole assets properly. Think of the dwarven ruins or the sky palace in Desert Highlands. There was just a looot more detail. It's a shame, same thing for IBS: They need more time to work on these things.

[Jaunty.6018]

7 hours ago, SweetPotato.7456 said:

That's a good sign for me, thank you. 
Edit: 
I'd rather help make the game better. 

In response to your edit: you're not.  Accepting all the many flaws of the game and trying to dissuade others from pointing them out just tells the developers that their game is fine, and no changes are needed.

[Friday.7864]

I do agree it's not intuitive to get around in the city o:
The design itself doesn't even bother me, but getting from point A to point B can be such a pain

[Zok.4956]

On 3/5/2022 at 5:33 AM, LucianDK.8615 said:

And Arborstone....

An overhyped gargantuan place in multiple levels.  Why the fascination with spreading out everything so far on multiple floors that you all too easilly get lost? I thought Eye of the North was bad in that regard, but Arborstone beats it by miles.

Queen's pavilion remains the supreme place for me. Condensed with no wasted space. You know exactly where everything is, and can reach it in seconds unlike Arborstone.

Yeah. I do not know why Anet think it is good idea to waste players time and make this hubs so big and all the stations so far away. They should have learned by now how good hubs work.

If I want to craft I still use the Airship - everything for crafting is near and you do not have to run long distances. The Mistlock Sanctuary is OK too and has fractal stuff. Armistice bastion is more spread out but they added portals so you can jump instead of running.

[LucianDK.8615]

Just now, Zok.4956 said:

Yeah. I do not know why Anet think it is good idea to waste players time and make this hubs so big and all the stations so far away. They should have learned by now how good hubs work.

If I want to craft I still use the Airship - everything for crafting is near and you do not have to run long distances. The Mistlock Sanctuary is OK too and has fractal stuff. Armistice bastion is more spread out but they added portals so you can jump instead of running.

Mistlock is 'ok'. Things is mostly spaced well, but with the 4 wings, i still have to do a panning around with the mouse to find the one I want.

[SweetPotato.7456]

2 hours ago, Jaunty.6018 said:

In response to your edit: you're not.  Accepting all the many flaws of the game and trying to dissuade others from pointing them out just tells the developers that their game is fine, and no changes are needed.

I didn't say you cannot point them out, I said they are minor, and providing you with why I think they are minor, while you are still on about this topic, I've found 3 more new sellers in New Kaineng,  carpet, wooden barrels, porcelain vase sellers, and if you look at the forum, I've also already submitted a few bugs and changes to make the game better (IMHO) and found there are at least 5 different types of windows skin, which you said they are copied pasted and 4 different types of roof tiles. Positive reinforcement is better then being critical and not giving any solutions.

[Goettel.4389]

Well, I for one am enjoying it so far, but YMMV.

[DragonMoon.6098]

7 hours ago, Friday.7864 said:

I do agree it's not intuitive to get around in the city o:
The design itself doesn't even bother me, but getting from point A to point B can be such a pain

Honestly, if I didn't have the Skyscale, I would fight my way through the story once just to get the story...and then never go back. There is so much verticality to the maps that I cannot imagine getting all the HP and MP without one. 

[Kikokuma.9405]

I totally agree... after playing EOD for just a couple of days it's clear to see that the devs do not care for this game anymore. Maybe they are worried more about getting a paycheck or just having a job. But when that kind of fear takes over in the whole company no one can focus on their actual love of the game and we get stuck with garbage like EOD. I used to log in every day just to get daily log in rewards even if i wasn't really playing... now i don't even care about that. EOD made me not care about where GW2 is going as a game. 
Atleast i can still log into GW1. 

[Jaunty.6018]

3 hours ago, Kikokuma.9405 said:

I totally agree... after playing EOD for just a couple of days it's clear to see that the devs do not care for this game anymore. Maybe they are worried more about getting a paycheck or just having a job. But when that kind of fear takes over in the whole company no one can focus on their actual love of the game and we get stuck with garbage like EOD. I used to log in every day just to get daily log in rewards even if i wasn't really playing... now i don't even care about that. EOD made me not care about where GW2 is going as a game. 
Atleast i can still log into GW1. 

I know.  GW1 is like the last bastion of quality MMOs untouched by corporate greed.  Part of why I bought EoD despite it looking subpar in the previews was to keep GW1 going.  I'd be heartbroken if it ever went down.

[Jaunty.6018]

19 hours ago, SweetPotato.7456 said:

I didn't say you cannot point them out, I said they are minor, and providing you with why I think they are minor, while you are still on about this topic, I've found 3 more new sellers in New Kaineng,  carpet, wooden barrels, porcelain vase sellers, and if you look at the forum, I've also already submitted a few bugs and changes to make the game better (IMHO) and found there are at least 5 different types of windows skin, which you said they are copied pasted and 4 different types of roof tiles. Positive reinforcement is better then being critical and not giving any solutions.

I didn't say there was only one type of window or roof.  I said the assets were copy / pasted haphazardly, which they absolutely were.  It doesn't take a keen eye to see that.  I also gave plenty of solutions, many of which were self-explanatory.  I'm not going to explain all of them to you.  And please don't pretend you're so positive.  You have been dropping negative reactions on every single post here that you don't agree with.  I know because as soon as I reply to you I get one, which is funny because you claim to enjoy the game so much yet you're basically glued to these forums, and my post in particular.  Don't you have some 232323232323 to do?

[SweetPotato.7456]

28 minutes ago, Jaunty.6018 said:

I didn't say there was only one type of window or roof.  I said the assets were copy / pasted haphazardly, which they absolutely were.  It doesn't take a keen eye to see that.  I also gave plenty of solutions, many of which were self-explanatory.  I'm not going to explain all of them to you.  And please don't pretend you're so positive.  You have been dropping negative reactions on every single post here that you don't agree with.  I know because as soon as I reply to you I get one, which is funny because you claim to enjoy the game so much yet you're basically glued to these forums, and my post in particular.  Don't you have some 232323232323 to do?

It is called multitasking, I am editing screen-capture, adding caption, locating hidden chests for my video, fishing for legendary fishes, fishing for "green tier" fishes for my future turtle mount, getting achievement done, waiting  and checking on LFG to jump into Dragon's End c meta. Check WvW so enemy don't take my keep. Chat with random people online and cook 3 meals a day, does laundry, exercise. 😛 yes i do have 23232323232322 things to do. and yes I can still post and reply on gw2 forum.

[Nightgunner.2896]

43 minutes ago, Jaunty.6018 said:

I didn't say there was only one type of window or roof.  I said the assets were copy / pasted haphazardly, which they absolutely were.  It doesn't take a keen eye to see that.  I also gave plenty of solutions, many of which were self-explanatory.  I'm not going to explain all of them to you.

Would you mind posting a screenshot of the haphazardly copy-pasted assets? I haven't seen anything in the *entire* game that even begins to resemble Lost Izalith.

[Goettel.4389]

Sorry for the off-topic, but I'm actually enjoying it a lot so far ❤️

[ugrakarma.9416]

To me the textures are fine, at least inst deserts. 

one thing i dislike in LS4 was the large reutilization of silverwastes.

enough of silverwastes, enough of deserts, so EoD is fine to me because of that.

 

the maps are huge, i think they're detailed considering their size.

Edited March 7, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Jaunty.6018]

43 minutes ago, Nightgunner.2896 said:

Would you mind posting a screenshot of the haphazardly copy-pasted assets? I haven't seen anything in the *entire* game that even begins to resemble Lost Izalith.

Sure, here ya go.

 

https://ibb.co/0YPcrFy
https://ibb.co/zNgxNVq
https://ibb.co/0Y0yRLC
https://ibb.co/PG2wBZ0
https://ibb.co/j5JMByp
https://ibb.co/k6C7vXd
https://ibb.co/42JbTQR
https://ibb.co/p1wNGxB
https://ibb.co/YZxnf5N
https://ibb.co/JnM7D2C
https://ibb.co/9ZBQbFX

 

Those took me only about 15 minutes to find.   Let me know if you want more.

[yoni.7015]

On 3/4/2022 at 8:11 PM, Jaunty.6018 said:

First off, the environmental design is awful.  After playing EoD for hours I had to go visit old cities from 9 years ago to remind myself that the game is still beautiful.  New Kaineng in particular is a massive eyesore...I can't even begin to understand their design philosophy here.  All the copy/pasted windows, textures and other assets are almost deliberately lazy, and you've got these unfinished looking concrete buildings surrounding everything, overlapping/clipping assets galore, and architecture that makes zero sense aesthetically or functionally with a mess of zip lines and jade bot interactive objects littered throughout.  Some of the assets themselves look great, but they're thrown together in a way that has no regard for scene composition.  And that's if you can actually see them through the blinding post processing during the day.  I cannot believe people think this city is beautiful.  It is large for the sake of being large, a chore to navigate, and feels empty despite having so much housing.  Where is everyone?  Quarantine?

 

And why aren't the areas built around mounts, with PoF-style challenges, puzzles, or at the very least some architecture that acknowledges you have a skyscale?  Many of us have had these things for a long time now, and did so much to earn them -- I was hoping for some real content specifically designed for them.  Yet, the areas are also not built for the enjoyment of people without mounts.  The raptor taxis are cool, but the ziplines are so lazily implemented and placed (especially in Kaineng) that I just can't imagine having to suffer this expansion without mounts, or wanting to.  Especially in the Echovald Wilds, a monotonous cluster of vines.

 

Getting back to aesthetics, there's also the green screen colored jade material showered all over the continent with complete disregard for surrounding colors.  I understand it is central to the plot, but they just dump it on everything.  Across the whole expansion the lighting, shadowing, colors, architecture, and camera work are so unbelievably amateurish, and that extends to the elite class skills as well.  My new ranger spec looks like everything's covered in snot, complete with exploding booger skills.  Yum!

 

Some have argued "Well it's an old game, what do you expect?"  Really?  Go revisit Black Citadel, Divinity's Reach, The Grove, Hoelbrak, or Rata Sum.  They are still gorgeously designed.  All the vanilla leveling areas are still a joy to look at and play in.  I still never get tired of hanging around Queensdale.  It's not about the graphical technology; it's about art design.  I seriously don't understand how Anet can put out an expansion that looks more dated, and yet performs worse, than the 9-year-old base content.  Even GW1 had far better art design.  There's also a distinct lack of shadows.  If you go through various areas and turn on/off shadows you'll see what I mean.  What happened there?

 

As for the new features, the fishing is basically ripped from Stardew Valley and is too involving and annoying to be the relaxing social activity it was supposed to be.  How are you supposed to have a conversation with someone fishing next to you when you're too busy staring at two bars and typing "232323232323232232323"?  The skiffs are only there to allow you to fish, which again, is not very enjoyable; otherwise, their usability is surpassed by the skimmer.  Tying the skiffs and fishing together with one button, and having to switch between them from that tiny panel was also a mistake, making fishing on a skiff more cumbersome than it aught to be.  Moving on, the jade bots are mostly useless because most of us have griffons or skyscales.  Those who don't, again, are going to suffer.  I can't speak for the other elite specs but untamed booger hammer is absolutely the worst one yet for the ranger and I'm already back to Soulbeast.  And the turtle?  Well, I guess he's good for Ubering your SO around or walking slowly on the bottom of the ocean floor, if you're into that sort of thing.  Not at all worth the trouble to try to get one.

 

I won't comment on the story because, based on what I've observed here, I'd like this post to survive more than five minutes without a mod nuking it.  Omitting that, it might survive 20.  Maybe.

 

No actual guild wars, still.  No player housing.  No new race.  No new PvP/WvW content despite being Factions-inspired.  Lack of interesting events.  Lack of maps.  No addressing issues that players have been complaining about for years.  No anything that is remotely interesting or exciting.  Hell, they couldn't even get "Cat Island" right.  Just a few copy / pasted cats on a rock.  I expected to be assaulted with cuteness.  What a missed opportunity.

 

Lastly, I've had the game crash on me SO MANY TIMES during missions, causing me to have to repeat them from the beginning.  What in the world is going on?  I never had this issue during PoF or HoT or any of the living story content.  A crash once in a blue moon, yeah, but not over and over again.  Nothing like having a mission crash right at the end after you've done a bunch of highly intellectually stimulating Simon Says mini-games, only to do it all over again. 

 

*sigh*

 

The music is nice, at least, and it's great to have the same voice actors reprising their roles after all these years.  I will give them points for that.  The audio department did their jobs well.  But what a huge letdown overall this expansion is otherwise. 

 

I know this post will be absolutely crapped on by most everyone in this forum, and that's fine.  Many of you are happy that we're even getting new content at all.  I get that, and I'm not here to ruin your fun.  I'm not going to try to tell you that the fun you are having right now is not, in fact, fun.  I want you to have fun.  In this covid-infested war-ridden world, we all need a little escapism.  In the grand scheme of things, it's pretty silly to complain so much about a video game.  But also, we paid Anet -- they have our money, under the assumption that they would provide a quality product reminiscent of their previous work.  In my eyes, and many I've seen on this forum and elsewhere, they did not deliver.  I'm not even sure who they are anymore.  Much like Blizzard with WoW, most of the key original Arenanet devs are gone, and what we have now is a new studio with a new vision, and what appears to be either a clear disregard for the old one, or the lack of expertise to continue it.  I don't know what they're trying to accomplish here, but it's not the Guild Wars I know.  And yet still, without supporting them we get nothing new, the story doesn't continue, and the future of GW becomes uncertain.  I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that decision.  I guess they can keep my money, in hopes that they'll learn and do better next time.  But once I'm done with EoD, if I even decide to keep playing it, I'm not looking back.

 

Edit: I posted some screenshots later on down the thread demonstrating the careless environmental design.  Figured I'd edit them into my original post.  Only took me about 15 minutes to find these -- you don't have to have a keen eye or go off the beaten path to encounter them.  They're everywhere. 

 

https://ibb.co/0YPcrFy
https://ibb.co/zNgxNVq
https://ibb.co/0Y0yRLC
https://ibb.co/PG2wBZ0
https://ibb.co/j5JMByp
https://ibb.co/k6C7vXd
https://ibb.co/42JbTQR
https://ibb.co/p1wNGxB
https://ibb.co/YZxnf5N
https://ibb.co/JnM7D2C
https://ibb.co/9ZBQbFX

I really enjoy End of Dragons. It is by no means a “disappointing mess”. The devs have worked for months on this expansion so that some random dude in the forums can call it “disappointing mess” - this is very bad behavior in my opinion. 

I guess you are just toxic because you couldn’t finish the ED meta and didn’t get your turtle? The maps are really beautiful, the metas are fun. I liked the story and the new especs I played so far. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Gorem.8104]

8 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

I really enjoy End of Dragons. It is by no means a “disappointing mess”. The devs have worked for months on this expansion so that some random dude in the forums can call it “disappointing mess” - this is very bad behavior in my opinion. 

I guess you are just toxic because you couldn’t finish the ED meta and didn’t get your turtle? The maps are really beautiful, the metas are fun. I liked the story and the new especs I played so far. 

You understand that calling other people toxic, means you yourself are toxic, right? I'm confused at this concept of people not knowing how to respect other peoples opinions. Respect goes both ways, treat people badly in real life you should and will be treated badly in return. People are allowed different opinions then you have. Many people are disappointed in EoD for more reasons then its terrible end meta that is badly designed on purpose to lock the advertised Raid mount with a raid gate. Some just don't like the colour, some people can't even see Green in their world. Some don't like the story. Most that I Have seen hate the new E-specs and how not balanced they are. 

 

23 hours ago, Friday.7864 said:

I do agree it's not intuitive to get around in the city o:
The design itself doesn't even bother me, but getting from point A to point B can be such a pain

 

You need a flying mount. Griffon is great from the top WP to fly fast to anywhere and Skyscale is great for pin point area's. 

[yoni.7015]

7 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

You understand that calling other people toxic, means you yourself are toxic, right? I'm confused at this concept of people not knowing how to respect other peoples opinions. Respect goes both ways, treat people badly in real life you should and will be treated badly in return. People are allowed different opinions then you have. Many people are disappointed in EoD for more reasons then its terrible end meta that is badly designed on purpose to lock the advertised Raid mount with a raid gate. Some just don't like the colour, some people can't even see Green in their world. Some don't like the story. Most that I Have seen hate the new E-specs and how not balanced they are. 

 

 

You need a flying mount. Griffon is great from the top WP to fly fast to anywhere and Skyscale is great for pin point area's. 

It is about how criticism and opinions are articulated. Sure there are people that don’t like the expansion, but there are also people that like it. Unfortunately latter get bullied here and their opinions are declared “wrong”. 
But I guess we live in the era of the internet mob. Just look what this forums has become, it’s very sad. 
How would you feel if you worked on something for months just to hear it being called a “disappointing mess”? There are more civil and mature ways to express criticism. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Jaunty.6018]

18 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

I really enjoy End of Dragons. It is by no means a “disappointing mess”. The devs have worked for months on this expansion so that some random dude in the forums can call it “disappointing mess” - this is very bad behavior in my opinion. 

I guess you are just toxic because you couldn’t finish the ED meta and didn’t get your turtle? The maps are really beautiful, the metas are fun. I liked the story and the new especs I played so far. 

Yikes.  No one's being "toxic" here except for you.  And I haven't even begun trying to get a turtle mount.  Not sure how you came to that assumption from reading my original post, if you even did read it.

[Jaunty.6018]

18 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

It is about how criticism and opinions are articulated. Sure there are people that don’t like the expansion, but there are also people that like it. Unfortunately latter get bullied here and their opinions are declared “wrong”. 
But I guess we live in the era of the internet mob. Just look what this forums has become, it’s very sad. 
How would you feel if you worked on something for months just to hear it being called a “disappointing mess”? There are more civil and mature ways to express criticism. 

Civil and mature ways, like calling people toxic for having a different opinion?  Yes...you're clearly a master of diplomacy.