Upcoming Changes to "The Battle For The Jade Sea"

[Tails.9372]

Did another run with a pug. The commander organized subgroups and all that stuff but unsurprisingly the boss fight at the end was still about the same dumpster fire as before.

Seriously, which part of "this fight needs actual nerfs" do the devs not understand? They need to smash it with the nerf bat about as hard as they did with the self sustain traits at the release of the expansion, organized groups from hardcore guilds are not a benchmark here. This meta will never be "a stable part of the OW endgame experience for most players" as long as "it's going to fail" is the default state of your average pug.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Gorem.8104]

13 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Did another run with a pug. The commander organized subgroups and all that stuff but unsurprisingly the boss fight at the end was still about the same dumpster fire as before.

Seriously, which wart "this fight needs actual nerfs" do the devs not understand? They need to smash it with the nerf bat about as hard as they did with the self sustain traits at the release of the expansion, organized groups from hardcore guilds are not a benchmark here. This meta will never be "a stable part of the OW endgame experience for most players" as long as "it's going to fail" is the default state of your average pug.

Well, that is rather disappointing. I've given up on the zone so just gonna watch the forums to see how things are now. Yeah, not sure why they so reluctant to give it a proper nerf bat swing. Especially, as you say, they just coming off nerfing a bunch of classes out of nowhere to make their Terrible E-specs in EoD look better. 

[Nash.2681]

Had my first succesfull run yesterday, lucky me. But the effort was just insane for a open world meta.

• I joined a squad about 1 hour (!) before the event even started during prime time. 
• did some events (including Jade Maw) for the dmg buff
• loaded myself with 1,5h of offensive and defensive jade tech
• the commander encouraged everyone to do the same
• the commander made 10 subsquads and made sure there was at least quickness covered in  each, idealy quick+alac
• the commander set markers and made clear calls which sub should go where at certain stages (in englisch and spanish!)
• ppl offered ascended food
• probably the most important point: the vast majority understood the orders and was disciplined enough to execute them. So the bunch of guys not in the squad couldn't have enough impact to make it fail. We won with almost 5 mins left on the timer.

Conclusion: all in all i had to invest over 2 hours for just one meta event and had to be lucky to get on a map that was not only highly organized, but also had enough people to actually make use of the organisation. But did I consider it fun? Is it likely I'll do it again? Big NO to both questions.

Shout out to that commander though.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Nash.2681
formating

[Lonewolf.8602]

Got the turtle for my main account on my 30th attempt. Previous 29 attempts resulting in failure really burned me.

 

Got the turtle for my pseudo-main/Alt account on my 31st attempt at this meta before the changes were introduced, all because of sheer RNG luck and I landed on a Hardstuck organized map.

 

I got traumatized with the 29 fails. As it is, I ain't returning to Dragon's End to do the meta until I get feedback from other players that PUGs can now clear it. Current rewards are still not enough to justify wasting at least 2 hours to do this kitten.

[Suspicious Khani.9275]

I did the event again last night. NO idea if I just got lucky or what. I think the squad was there the whole time with the tag hidden. About 5 min before the escort started the tag "appeared" gave food & thesis. There was nothing announced in mapchat, no one invited me to squad, but we did the event and won with 4:30 on the clock. It was my second win and the diving goggles were still bugged and didn't appear. She only swapped sides 3 times and the tail only came up 3 times. First two times we were 1% off from the next phase so we just powered through. Last time was in the last 20% so we beat the tail down and won. I'll have to do it a couple more times to see if the changes made any significant difference, but it felt really good last night.

Lonewolf, my husband is right there with you and wants to be sure it's better before he returns too. The rewards still aren't great for the time investment, but I also just enjoy the end fight too.

[chronometria.3708]

I can finally report success. Its hard to judge why that was though - maybe we just had some hope finally and people brought their best play. The changes seem subtle, but soo wong did seem to behave herself this time - hoping that is a result of the change and not just good luck on our part.

[Dinova.8597]

Sidenote, is it me or apart of the turtle.. the rewards for this boss are ... kinda bad? I had like 4 green unid's gear, bits of random, but not like i say... ooooh i totaly gonna do this again for the loot!

[Nash.2681]

1 hour ago, Dinova.8597 said:

Sidenote, is it me or apart of the turtle.. the rewards for this boss are ... kinda bad? I had like 4 green unid's gear, bits of random, but not like i say... ooooh i totaly gonna do this again for the loot!

Didn't see anything exceptional there, indeed. Since the march 15th update you can pick an amalgamated gemstone or an antique summoning stone (which sell for around 16g on the TP, as long as the demand is still high since they're timegated at the merchant). Nice if you plan to craft gen. 2/3 or EoD leggies, but then again, it may be more cost efficient to do something else for 2+ hours and get that stuff somewhere else...

[Chichimec.9364]

3 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

Didn't see anything exceptional there, indeed. Since the march 15th update you can pick an amalgamated gemstone or an antique summoning stone (which sell for around 16g on the TP, as long as the demand is still high since they're timegated at the merchant)... but then again, it may be more cost efficient to do something else for 2+ hours and get that stuff somewhere else...

Two weeks ago, Cellofrag posted a video on how to make money by getting the summoning stone easily and selling them. At the time he made the video, their price was twice what it is now. I expect their price will drop lower and lower but in the meantime, you don't need to do the DE meta to get them. Cellofrag's way is much easier.

[figloalds.1274]

Honestly it saddens me that they decided to make the meta optional instead of making it playable.
Just add 5 minutes to the time limit and it will work, it's idiotic that an open world meta has Raid-level DPS check

[Ordin.9047]

Or maybe you can spare us a tail coming up when we are in the last throes dps after beating the 3 meat bag bosses.

[Oikodomos.7102]

4 hours ago, khani.4786 said:

About 5 min before the escort started the tag "appeared" gave food & thesis. There was nothing announced in mapchat, no one invited me to squad, but we did the event and won with 4:30 on the clock

 

I am this kind of comm, and i know for sure some other do the same.
For the final fight , the contribution buff does matter a lot and we want to avoid ppl going afk for 1 hour just showing activity at the final fight. You may find it a bit exagerated, but we saw pack of 15 -20 ppl afk on map's first WP before the egg could be bought.
Still, my squads are open on lfg and i don't ask for LI or nay kind of kp so you can join, just not as easy as clicking on comm tag.

By the way, GG for your turtle !

[Will.9785]

18 hours ago, morsdood.1987 said:

You were playing the game exclusively for this meta?

I've accumulated approximately 37,000 AP and accomplished everything I could ever want to as far as gearing and alts are concerned so the only thing that really interests me is the new content.

I've already maxed all masteries and done map completion in EOD on several characters and I'm not interested in fishing and I'm already bored of the strikes.  So what else is there for me to do other than the metas?  Nothing else interests me.

All of the EOD metas are just as unrewarding.  Dragon's End though is particularly bad though due to the high chance of failure and the amount of time you need to commit to doing it.

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Will.9785

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

43 minutes ago, Will.9785 said:

I've accumulated approximately 37,000 AP and accomplished everything I could ever want to as far as gearing and alts are concerned so the only thing that really interests me is the new content.

I've already maxed all masteries and done map completion in EOD on several characters and I'm not interested in fishing and I'm already bored of the strikes.  So what else is there for me to do other than the metas?  Nothing else interests me.

All of the EOD metas are just as unrewarding.  Dragon's End though is particularly bad though due to the high chance of failure and the amount of time you need to commit to doing it.

 

Aside from gimmicky crap and weird goals I think you and I are both jaded with the game at this point and I haven't even gotten a whole lot of legendary gear because at the end of the day what's the point?

[Random Wax Orc.7695]

Leave DE meta exactly the way it currently is (except maybe rewards), but call the current timer GOLD, and have SILVER be 2m longer, and BRONZE 4m longer.  Rewards can be scaled down for Silver and Bronze.

[Chichimec.9364]

Went to a Dragon's End map during the prep phase as that's a good place to rack exp for the mastery points. There were a lot of folks on the map doing the events but no one tagged up until the Escort Fire Teams stage. The commander didn't do much - no organizing into squads, no explaining the mechanics, none of that.  So this was about as rando a pug as you could get. The event failed at the Prismatic Crystals phase.

The failure didn't bother me, as I got enough exp to finish one and a half mastery points and that was my real goal and reward. Once I've maxed out the mastery lines though, I'm not sure what would bring me back to this map. Certainly not the Ancient Summoning Stone as there are much easier ways to get those. I really don't know what would bring me back to the DE map.

[Zabi Zabi.3561]

On 3/18/2022 at 11:38 AM, Dinova.8597 said:

I got my turtle, my job is done. And though even i still try to get in a group to wack the stupid dragon again, 99% of the time i end up 'map is full' problems. 

 

Yes, i managed to take him down, yes it was a organised group, yes people mostly know what they were doing.. no, i still think its a shitshow of mechanics.

At least you are honest! =D

[Lonewolf.8602]

13 hours ago, khani.4786 said:

Lonewolf, my husband is right there with you and wants to be sure it's better before he returns too. The rewards still aren't great for the time investment, but I also just enjoy the end fight too.

Yeah I enjoyed the epicness of the battle too. But the reward for it really sucks, factoring in the high chance of failure. IMHO, the rewards should be proportional to the level of difficulty to make people really want to do this. Heck, I'm better off doing Chak Gerent followed by Octovine and get better rewards (I think I get around 10-12G just by doing these 2)  for a shorter amount of time than doing this 2-Hour long kitten with unsatisfactory rewards. 😵‍💫

 

I'll see you both in DE then, if and when Anet decides to fix this kitten. 😅

[DragoTheWise.7256]

I really enjoy this fight, but the RNG is really killing me. Two full runs tonight, all CC's happened a bit after the squad was trying to knock out the tail, and in addition she was doing bite attacks after we had already phased her. This note in the patch notes-

"Updated the defiance bar mechanic of the final encounter in the Battle for the Jade Sea meta-event to be more consistent and not reliant on chance. This change should ensure more opportunities for players to engage with the defiance bar mechanic and allow for additional damage phases."

• Something hasn't lined up right. Before this patch, I had more consistent breakbars. May not have gotten all of them but at least the runs I was in were getting most of them. I would like the team to take a look at what circumstances the defiance bar is suppose to come up. Nothing like this happens in Raids where things are way more consistent.
•  

[MonsterTeddy.6135]

1 hour ago, DragoTheWise.7256 said:

"Updated the defiance bar mechanic of the final encounter in the Battle for the Jade Sea meta-event to be more consistent and not reliant on chance. This change should ensure more opportunities for players to engage with the defiance bar mechanic and allow for additional damage phases."

• Something hasn't lined up right. Before this patch, I had more consistent breakbars. May not have gotten all of them but at least the runs I was in were getting most of them. I would like the team to take a look at what circumstances the defiance bar is suppose to come up. Nothing like this happens in Raids where things are way more consistent.
•  

Adding to this,
Usually, the CC bar pops up right after the boss uses her Acid attack. Pre-update, the Acid attack was still very reliant on RNG (sometimes, we'd get 2 Acid attacks per run, sometimes 5). Post-update, during my runs, we have gotten Acid attacks more often. HOWEVER, some of the Acid attacks did not have a CC bar to break right after it. Was this intended with the update or is it a bug? It'd be pretty kitten if the CC bar appearing after acid is RNG too now. >~>

Edit: The whirlpools are much easier to break now compared to before, that's a step in a good direction. We don't have to leave ppl to their deaths anymore for that.

Edited March 19, 2022 by MonsterTeddy.6135

[Cait Sith.4650]

I have lead/participated in several successful runs, as well as unsuccessful ones, from the first week of release up until yesterday, and I personally refuse to gatekeep players from joining the squad. It's just not the way I view how the game's community should function.
The changes you have made up to the time of this post are far below what's necessary so that the meta event is challenging, but not punishing, both in terms of general enjoyment and rewards, but also of respecting the time players on average have available. There are several basic design flaws, that would never have passed if you thoroughly tested it previous to releasing the expansion. I sincerely do not believe that if your game testers and staff played the meta event in the state it was released, or even after the current nerfs, that you would succeed in the vast majority of your attempts. I can only imagine how that would be frustrating for you, who get payed to work on the game, now imagine the persons actually paying to play it. And no, I do not believe that game design should be mandated simply as a sort of pay to win/succeed, but the feedback we get from players when we run a successful meta event, is mostly of relief, and not of accomplishment and joy. In the long run, stress and burnout will make Dragon's End not a staple of your open world experience, but an empty husk of a map. As an example, Serpents' Ire was not even close in terms of length or difficulty, and look at the end result.

The changes I propose are the following:

• Add a Participation Percentage Bar to the Preparations phase, similar to the Battle Cry one in Drizzlewood Coast and all HoT content. That will both improve the rewards for that one hour phase, and help engage players in the instance. Like the Dragon's End: Hero's Choice Chest that you just recently added it is a tried and true method that worked in previous content, including the still very recent Drizzlewood Coast. That includes the Meta-event participation starts decaying after 20 minutes of not participating in any event mechanic.
• Add five more minutes to the Defeat Soo-Won timer.
• Stop the timer during the Dragonvoid Champions fights at 60% and 20%. Another mechanic you used with success previously, Tequatl being a good example, and that would enable players to have two small breathers during the overall encounter.
• Make Soo-Won's Defiance Bar non-reliant on the utilization of Electromagical Pulses. EMP's are a The Icebrood Saga mastery that should serve as a crutch in aiding players with Crowd Control, not as the standard for CC in all the maps after. It not only doesn't help players actually learn how to CC with their own skills, but also makes the entire encounter reliant on one single mastery from one Living World episode. Also the fact that it serves as a huge entry barrier to players that started GW2 with EoD.
• Make the Whirpools Defiance Bar breakable by the person trapped inside. Even if it takes 10/15 seconds to break, it's already a long period that several players have been removed from the encounter. That will also motivate more team play from players to actively work to free others from the Whirpools, in a time period that will still benefit group damage per second.
• Make the Void Thornhearts appear at certain fixed times and numbers during the encounter.
• Since you have chosen RNG as a core mechanic of the encounter, and prefer to stand by it, at least make the probability of Soo-Won swapping sides on the arena less frequent.

I believe these alterations will keep the encounter still at a challenging level, but both enjoyable and rewarding for everyone, without relying on a 50 persons Raid squad.
You already have several squads daily gatekeeping people from joining, with Legendary Insights/Kill Proof requirements, gathering at Arborstone and The Echovald Wilds, and then jumping in and out of instances until they manage to land on a new one, just so they can succeed. Of course it is their prerogative, the game enables them to do so but, in the long run, what good did that particular behaviour do to Raids as a whole? LI gatekeeping and raid selling, after all the armor and achievement hunters were done, made raiding not even a third wheel in GW2's content. And yes, I do believe we'll see new raid wings during the EoD period. They just aren't even a secondary focus for ArenaNet, and a good percentage of that is due to the very small part of the community that actually plays them regularly. That's what's going to happen to Dragon's End, and any posterior meta that follows these fundamental prerequisites. With so many meta events available that have better rewards, and provide a better chance of fulfillment/success, in a smaller time frame,  it's not even something hard to ascertain currently.

To conclude, there are players you can consider more skilled players, but because of time constraints (work, education, family, other hobbies, etc.), end up being casuals, while on the other hand you have players that have more available time, but are less skilled, because of several reasons (disabilities, poor health, old age, etc.), but can be considered hardcore players. Add the players that don't live in Europe or North America, and therefore can't play at peak hours and have more difficulties finding a full and organized instance, as well as players with more lag and low-end personal computers, in an encounter that requires a great deal of precision. With Dragon's End you're inevitably alienating most of those players, which will end up costing you dearly. I'd like to recall something another person mentioned in this very topic, several pages ago.

Quote

So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

As said in April 27, 2010, in the GW2 Design Manifesto. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/

This is one of your core tenets, try to remember them, because even if part of your staff changed over time, the vast majority of your community did not.

Have a good day, and see you in Tyria.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Cait Sith.4650

[zigzag.8159]

i been trying to do other achivements but many are hidden after you done the meta and won  same as in echovald forrest you need to do meta foe other achievements. im getting sick and tired of waiting for these metas while i just wanna enjoy doing the things i like instead im being forced to wait and pray i get a map that i can get into to do the meta and make it so i can progress in my other stuff 

[elpuellodiablo.9361]

this meta is still disgustingly unfair. last run we wasted 2 hours just to end up failing because each time the breakbar appeared, also the tail appeared. each single time. so we did not break any breakbar at all. and it was an organized group, not a pug one.

WE DON'T NEED NOR LIKE RNG FOR THIS EXCESSIVELY LONG META EVENT.

Why is it so hard to understand?

Edited March 19, 2022 by elpuellodiablo.9361

[Ok I Did It.2854]

Is the CC bar phase of this fight working correctly, we had the first CC bar then nothing for the next 10 minutes, map clearly failed yet again, hard to have a burn phase when we never get the chance to actually enter a burn phase, i can already see people have stopped with this map, with up to 2 hours wasted for no rewards, once people get that first kill they avoid the map now, for a casual game that you've been pushing for 8 years it sure turned into a play the way we want or don't bother now.

[Lonewolf.8602]

13 hours ago, Cait Sith.4650 said:

To conclude, there are players you can consider more skilled players, but because of time constraints (work, education, family, other hobbies, etc.), end up being casuals, while on the other hand you have players that have more available time, but are less skilled, because of several reasons (disabilities, poor health, old age, etc.), but can be considered hardcore players. With Dragon's End you're inevitably alienating most of those players, which will end up costing you dearly. I'd like to recall something another person mentioned in this very topic, several pages ago.

Quote

So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.

As said in April 27, 2010, in the GW2 Design Manifesto. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/

This is one of your core tenets, try to remember them, because even if part of your staff changed over time, the vast majority of your community did not.

I love this. Omg, thank you for reminding me why I fell hard for this game. Been playing on and off since 2012, and yet each time I come back, it feels like coming back home.

 

Anet, Devs, please take note that this is YOUR design manifesto. As Cait Sith said, your community is pretty much the same regardless of how much turn overs already happened among your staff through the years. Maybe it really is time for you guys to sit down and review your design manifesto and measure EOD against it.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Lonewolf.8602