Upcoming Changes to "The Battle For The Jade Sea"

[chronometria.3708]

I see the topic has been unlinked as if the issues are fixed, job done. That is a real shame, there is still a lot to do. The event is either made easier or it stays as it is and the rewards are increased. If they want 2 hours and heavy organization, it needs to be rewarded accordingly or its just not worth the effort and the whole thing becomes a ghost town. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by chronometria.3708

[cherrie.8907]

3 hours ago, chronometria.3708 said:

I see the topic has been unlinked as if the issues are fixed, job done. That is a real shame, there is still a lot to do. The event is either made easier or it stays as it is and the rewards are increased. If they want 2 hours and heavy organization, it needs to be rewarded accordingly or its just not worth the effort and the whole thing becomes a ghost town. 

 

Let's not forget the 7 achievements, including 2 mastery points, that require this event to succesfully complete.

Such a shame the "pinnacle of open world design" will indeed become a ghost town.

 

 

[Sjentra.3409]

So about the only positive thing i've seen in this thread is that FFXIV is more casual friendly than GW2 now?!?

On the plus side i saved $25 on the march sales because i was going to buy the extra shared inventory slots, but then remembered that the apparent new norm is 50 man raids in open world instead of in a raid instance.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Sjentra.3409
Formatting

[Gibson.4036]

I lucked into a map with a commander last night and was part of a successful run. The commander gave some helpful prompts in map chat, but didn't lead to the point of organizing people into subgroups and managing every little moment. Since this is the first time I've made it all the way to the fight, I have no basis of comparison as to whether we got lucky with the order of phases or not.

I haven't watched a tutorial on the meta, because I really wanted to experience it as the game gives it to you.

I was surprised by how many people are downed by what, to me, are some of the most obvious and avoidable AoEs. I did get downed once with a tail slam because I was fresh out of dodges from other attackes, too deep into the orange indicator to run out in time, and hesitated slightly before trying my shadowstep.

I got chosen as a wisp in the first green circle phase, and though I knew I was supposed to "climb the tower" from reading about this event, it wasn't clear to me where to go. This caused enough hesitation that I ended up dying a little before reaching, what I think, would have been the top.

I had a little confusion in the pre event with the orbs to charge the various dragon crystals. I think I figured it out, but it was hard to tell at first what I was supposed to be doing with the orbs.

My biggest confusion of the whole thing was being left on the platform with the crystals and not seeing anyone else around. Are people locked into those crystals if they aren't wisps? Why wasn't I a wisp but not a crystal?

The biggest problem I had all through the fight was the culling of other players and their name plates. I had my settings down low to avoid problems, and I realized how much information I get from what other players are doing when I'm in an event for the first time. When they are all invisible, and there are just a few nameplates, I lost that information.

So, now that I've done it once, I think I will go find a tutorial video so I can understand the parts that were baffling to me.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Hrothgarwilly.7386]

On 3/5/2022 at 12:25 AM, Hrothgarwilly.7386 said:

did it after patch with one second to spare :), but now ive realised i have to do a strike mission as part of the turtle process rip😰

I found a group and did it id say it was harder than a normal mode in ff14 but not quite extreme tier. We did it first try with 2 deaths not sure i did good damage but it was a decent time. Would prefer if it was all doable in overworld in future but its def doable in a group. Youtuber has a guide up for it and i didnt die lol and i am noob. Everything else for turtle is mostly painless small bit of gold sink.

[LucianDK.8615]

People are needlessly scared of the kaining overlook strike, just because its instanced content. Unlike the ibs strikes there is no timer at all.

[Caid.4932]

I kind of wish they'd put this in a separate instance like dragonstorm. The hour and half worth of events before the boss is just a bit of a bore to the kind of group that's going to beat the boss., tagging enemies before they die is the primary challenge. And it kind of encourages you to go out of your way to exclude random players outside the squad to ensure you get everyone on the map. You start gaming the instances to find an empty one and other shenanigans that isn't especially healthy from a community pov.

I really enjoy it as is to be honest. Its one of the few instances in the game where theres an element of jeopardy and you'll be checking the timer often and really trying to maximise your damage and what not. But i really dont like how it excludes weaker players some of which have disabilities that make it very hard to contribute, i just wouldn't feel good about pushing for something that would lock them out.

I just feel they can offer a better experience to both groups of players by sticking it in a separate instance as is and nerfing the open world version down to a more forgiving level. Put a challenge mode version in a seperate instance and really go to town on the difficulty level too, that could be a lot of fun.

Edited March 24, 2022 by Caid.4932

[Kaliwenda.3428]

On 3/23/2022 at 1:43 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

I lucked into a map with a commander last night and was part of a successful run. The commander gave some helpful prompts in map chat, but didn't lead to the point of organizing people into subgroups and managing every little moment. Since this is the first time I've made it all the way to the fight, I have no basis of comparison as to whether we got lucky with the order of phases or not.

I haven't watched a tutorial on the meta, because I really wanted to experience it as the game gives it to you.

I was surprised by how many people are downed by what, to me, are some of the most obvious and avoidable AoEs. I did get downed once with a tail slam because I was fresh out of dodges from other attackes, too deep into the orange indicator to run out in time, and hesitated slightly before trying my shadowstep.

I got chosen as a wisp in the first green circle phase, and though I knew I was supposed to "climb the tower" from reading about this event, it wasn't clear to me where to go. This caused enough hesitation that I ended up dying a little before reaching, what I think, would have been the top.

I had a little confusion in the pre event with the orbs to charge the various dragon crystals. I think I figured it out, but it was hard to tell at first what I was supposed to be doing with the orbs.

My biggest confusion of the whole thing was being left on the platform with the crystals and not seeing anyone else around. Are people locked into those crystals if they aren't wisps? Why wasn't I a wisp but not a crystal?

The biggest problem I had all through the fight was the culling of other players and their name plates. I had my settings down low to avoid problems, and I realized how much information I get from what other players are doing when I'm in an event for the first time. When they are all invisible, and there are just a few nameplates, I lost that information.

So, now that I've done it once, I think I will go find a tutorial video so I can understand the parts that were baffling to me.

This was very helpful to read, thank you. Congrats on the successful run!

I'm at the point now where I'll be trying this out for the first time over the weekend.

I got to the Jade Sea yesterday and decided to go ahead with the story without waiting. (I have another character that's a little behind on the story that will wait to do the meta first for completeness' sake).

Pretty nervous about this, tbh. 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Kaliwenda.3428

[Razadune.9260]

On 3/23/2022 at 12:43 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

I was surprised by how many people are downed by what, to me, are some of the most obvious and avoidable AoEs.

    

There's so many ground effects that it's hard to see what's even going on. I also had trouble keeping my camera adjusted so that I could see the whole battle, which led to some problems.   

     

I was lucky enough to finally finish it tonight (we won with seconds left, I actually thought it had failed at first). I guess I don't have much to say about it other than I was glad it was over by the time it was done. I have no desire to do it again and probably won't even attempt to.

[daninumbers.4036]

So... this is how it ends? The promised epic finale staple meta? I stopped after my 11th failed one. I was around fishing and farming some events but there wouldn't be enough people even to start the escort. Today I landed into a map with lots of people, tag and such. Failed before getting to the boss lol. That's even sadder than running out of time, you don't even get to try after who knows how long those guys were getting it ready. And I can see LFG for every other meta but usually none or 1 at most for DE. If you Anet are unpinning this and calling it a success idk, you are very out of touch with your main playerbase. I even noticed that in those messages they took the side of those that like it, quoting that thing about those other metas and bosses that weren't defeated for days after release.

The problem is not needing it to be done by someone to prove it's doable, it's that a staple meta has a high success rate, especially with the huge amount of time it takes, otherwise people won't bother. And I really shouldn't need to get on discord with some randoms for open world or show LI or whatever, or need several support classes when most people roam around in their dps builds and it's all they have.

There are those that like raids and strikes, but not everyone. Also that's what they mention in I think still their last post, whether you like pvp, wvw or endgame group content. Pve and open world is not in their plans, it's just strikes and more strikes. And I don't know you guys but I like playing an mmo going around in open world maps, I come and leave whenever I want, rather than joining groups, getting into instances... It's fine from time to time but not my main kind of playstyle. Even I prefer wvw since it's pretty much pvp openworld.

Anyway, there goes the death of DE, achievements and mastery points related to it for me.

[EzyQzy.8620]

On 3/24/2022 at 1:43 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

I lucked into a map with a commander last night and was part of a successful run.

yep. this meta more of a "git lucky" instead of git gud map.

[Zephire.8049]

I take a break only to come back and find this unpinned so I guess we can assume the "nerfs" to the fight and "buffs" to the loot are all that's going to happen. Can't say I'm impressed.

So many of us want this meta to be fun and a success, not gated off until it joins the PoF metas to not be done unless a guild deigns to organize a run so the average player can do it. One of the reasons the HoT metas are done to this day is because a map can organize amongst itself as long as 2-4 people know what they're doing. Another is there's still a good chance at success provided those 2-4 people can herd cats and half the people doing the meta can read chat—even trolls are a minor (if annoying) issue because the map population cap is high enough to compensate for that. Plus they're fast and the loot is good.

With DE? You need to use LFG (something the game never teaches you how to use) and hope to get in a map that's both organized and doesn't have a handful of people on it who aren't going to participate because there's very, very little leeway due to the small population cap. All so you can spend a couple hours on it for a chance at ~15g of generic loot.

This whole debacle really killed my interest in the game. I couldn't even get excited over the recent news of LW1 and another expansion because if DE is the type of content the studio's interested in putting out now, it's not for me. I'm an adult and don't need to be told to "try out" content I've tried and don't particularly like (especially if it's forced) and I'm not interested in putting 2+ hours into something that's reliant on multiple levels of luck to have a ~15% chance of succeeding.

The fight itself is cool but everything else is hardly "epic", particularly the lack of communication.

[BlackRoseFFX.4061]

Wow they unpinned it, I guess ANET really doesn't like critical feedback. Well since ANET has decided to kill this meta, I guess its time to go join one of those guild organizing it. Cause I'm not pugging this crap anymore.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

On 3/23/2022 at 10:59 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Usually they unpin topics when they want the discussion to die. And i honestly doubt they did do that this time because they're still concerned about the issue.

It's as always - every now and then they talk a lot about communication and listening to players' feedback, but ultimately they never do.

There is no issue. The DE meta is well doable even by average players, now. They just have to A) not keep on repeating same mistakes over and over, B) listen to the commander and C) learn to play their builds somewhat properly. I saw a couple dozen ppl down on the very first tail spam yesterday, yet we still managed to finish the meta with 2+ minutes to spare.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

44 minutes ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

There is no issue. The DE meta is well doable even by average players, now. They just have to A) not keep on repeating same mistakes over and over, B) listen to the commander and C) learn to play their builds somewhat properly. I saw a couple dozen ppl down on the very first tail spam yesterday, yet we still managed to finish the meta with 2+ minutes to spare.

 

I mean, if you like spending 2 hours to prep for something that a few average players might ruin, then sure, no problem. 

I've been in one successful run and one that failed with < 1% on the boss, both runs were equally well ran and came down to RNG with CC phases.  The latter seems like an utter waste of time (outside of XP you get for mastery track) because RNG caused failure. 

That to me isn't really 'fine'.  

Edited March 25, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Kaliwenda.3428]

Today was my first time trying, I was in a group that was doing the Captain Fa portion, we did everything successfully and moved on to the next phase, my group and the others all seemed to be rolling along fine, and the next thing I know, we got a "very few players on the map" popup and then the whole map closed.  Never even got to the Soo-Won part.

So that was fun. Does that happen often?

Hoping for better luck over the weekend.

Edited March 26, 2022 by Kaliwenda.3428

[Linken.6345]

17 minutes ago, Kaliwenda.3428 said:

Today was my first time trying, I was in a group that was doing the Captain Fa portion, we did everything successfully and moved on to the next phase, my group and the others all seemed to be rolling along fine, and the next thing I know, we got a "very few players on the map" popup and then the whole map closed.  Never even got to the Soo-Won part.

So that was fun. Does that happen often?

Hoping for better luck over the weekend.

 

it happens if you on an overflow map yes.

[Gibson.4036]

20 hours ago, tclark.8956 said:

    

There's so many ground effects that it's hard to see what's even going on. I also had trouble keeping my camera adjusted so that I could see the whole battle, which led to some problems.   

     

That is true, there are a ton. I totally got downed during the fight, and am not surprised people get downed. But some of them were pretty clear, and I was surprised by how many went down to them. As you mention, this may have to do with cameras and getting too close in while playing melee, which can make it a lot harder to see things coming.

[Erise.5614]

1 hour ago, Gibson.4036 said:

That is true, there are a ton. I totally got downed during the fight, and am not surprised people get downed. But some of them were pretty clear, and I was surprised by how many went down to them. As you mention, this may have to do with cameras and getting too close in while playing melee, which can make it a lot harder to see things coming.

Sometimes indicators don't appear at all on lowest settings. I think it is / was a culling issue that they try to address every now and then but meta bosses still turn invisible and have all indicators disappear frequently for me. I mean, Soo-Won itself remains visible. But hit markers don't always. And bosses like Seitung also have a tendency to turn invisible entirely on those settings. 

Or, on the other hand. If you have your graphics settings dialed up a bit they may be playing a 5 - 10fps slideshow and react slowly because of that. 

I'm honestly surprised ANet doesn't dial down certain settings automatically during those fights while also making sure the main elements of the fight are guaranteed to remain visible at all times.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Mickey.4207]

After God knows how many tries i finaly got the kill thanks to a pre-made group that i got really lucky with. I logged in and someone was looking for couple of random dps to fulfill a pre-made squad.  I jumped at the opportunity. Two hours of preperation for underwhelming rewards and encounter which is impossible for casual players. I got the mastery points and that's all i cared for. No way i am spending that much time again on open world meta which feels more like hardcore raiding.

If i wanted to do raids i would go play WOW. That's not why i started playing  GW 2 in first place. My main draw to GW2 was it's open world content which is accessible to all casual players no matter if they have hour or more to spare on gaming. If that's the direction ANET wants to go in future they are going to alienate a lot of their playerbase. And i know I am not the only one who feels this way when i say that once you done with meta you are just done for good. There is no motivation to go back and do it again. As more and more players will reach Dragon End two things will happen. They will keep trying and the repeated failure will make them quit or if they manage to get the kill they will still quit because rewards are just terrible for the effort.

The expansion is still new so lot of players are just reaching the end game. But after another couple of months this is going to be dead map. Lot of groups are already advertising as "only doing pre meta events" because all they want is the egg for turtle mount. 

And since ANET has unpinned the topic so from their side matter is settled.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Mickey.4207

[Ashantara.8731]

On 3/11/2022 at 10:04 AM, Dinova.8597 said:

Maybe they just should split the 2 up, the whole preparing part as 'just a map' and the final bit give it the own map, so everyone comming to that map is dedicated to the same shared goal. The first 3 times i was at that map i had no intend to join that whole meta, had to get my mastery, my hero points, my way points, unlike Dragon's stand where all that stuff you easily can do AFTER the entire fight (30 mins map?).

Or they could simply lock the map instance in time, like Dragon's Stand.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

I tried again tonight, got into a map that had a squad just forming, and made it to the big fight!

I didn't die as much as I thought I might. Got turned into a bubble a few times and also into a wisp.  Killed one of the champions.

We did not succeed, so I'll have to keep trying.

[daninumbers.4036]

The indicators not appearing thing is true but as I could see to me they seem to do it if you are away from it when it's going to happen. I was trapped into a whirlpool during the last attempt and when I came back on the griffon there was no marker and I was downed by the oneshot attack. Same shadowstepping to come back from tail.

That reminds me of not long ago when they changed something about aoes my game disabled them on its own. I thought it was some kind of bug or the intended change and I spent some time playing without the circles, just some effects, until I looked into it and realized. It makes me think if there are people out there that are playing without any markers and that's why they won't get out of the way. Either that or also the huge amount of effects going on and not very good pcs many could be using. I don't have anything impressive but when I started to play with my old one I was doing Teq at 10 and even 3 fps with everything at min. And now with tons of infusions, shiny backpacks and armor, mounts etc it's even worse for many that can't upgrade.

Is it the actual problem? Part of it maybe, besides people in open world aren't raiders, but the rng too. A lot of stuff and events in this expansion look like they decided to add randomness and to the latter, also tight timers. Like the event at DE spawn. I got 13 (thirteen) corrupted jade samples in a row. The timer is unknown but very tight to reach the max and adding that pointless randomness I couldn't contribute much to the goal. Really, the loot being random and those super rare drops is enough rng. Or add it and loose those timers.

If this is what the 3rd expansion offers and the tiny communication we normally get (is nobody in charge of the forums and social media full time or just to say "We are looking into it" for days, weeks?), I wonder if the announcement of the 4th one won't be taken skeptically and less people pre-order if buy it at all.

[Gibson.4036]

4 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

Sometimes indicators don't appear at all on lowest settings. I think it is / was a culling issue that they try to address every now and then but meta bosses still turn invisible and have all indicators disappear frequently for me. I mean, Soo-Won itself remains visible. But hit markers don't always. And bosses like Seitung also have a tendency to turn invisible entirely on those settings. 

Or, on the other hand. If you have your graphics settings dialed up a bit they may be playing a 5 - 10fps slideshow and react slowly because of that. 

I'm honestly surprised ANet doesn't dial down certain settings automatically during those fights while also making sure the main elements of the fight are guaranteed to remain visible at all times.

Good points.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

8 hours ago, Mickey.4207 said:

But after another couple of months this is going to be dead map.

Excellent, that makes the cape a premium skin.