Upcoming Changes to "The Battle For The Jade Sea"

[Zephire.8049]

9 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

I really hope ANet looks closely not just at completion rates but also who completes it and how. 

Also how many people are repeating it, especially now. Because, anecdotally, I know no one who wants to do the meta again after beating it once just to see it done (or get the turtle pre-merchant). The only people I see running it repeatedly are people in hardcore guilds (who may or may not be getting paid to run it) and a handful of people on this forum who say they're doing so. Everyone else nopes out of there because it's not fun and/or feasible for most open world players.

If content designed to be repeated often doesn't retain, say, 95% of people who do it that heavily implies there's a problem with the content. A 5% retention rate is horrible and retention of longer-term/invested players is just as important as new player retention.

And that's not even getting into the social issues and toxicity this meta brings out.

[Zephire.8049]

7 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

Why does it bother you so much that there is one open world meta that needs a bit preparation and takes longer than 20 minutes? I mean you don’t have to play it, you can completely ignore it. You can do map completion without doing the meta. 

Longer than 20 minutes? Sure. DS is about 40 these days for the whole run. 2 hours is a lot longer than 20 minutes, though, and you can't say it's optional to do the DE meta when several achievements require you to beat the meta. The turtle was just one aspect that was the most visible (both literally and because of the heavy marketing).

Open world is more than just map comp.

If people didn't mind spending 2 hours waiting around getting the perfect group together, raids would be a heck of a lot more popular than they are.

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

There is a difference doing strikes and raids with 9 other players or fractals with 4 other players and the meta with 49 others. So having this one meta event in the game is something special because there is only this one. 

Dragonstorm and Marionette say hello.

[LucianDK.8615]

2 hours ago, Zephire.8049 said:

Also how many people are repeating it, especially now. Because, anecdotally, I know no one who wants to do the meta again after beating it once just to see it done (or get the turtle pre-merchant). The only people I see running it repeatedly are people in hardcore guilds (who may or may not be getting paid to run it) and a handful of people on this forum who say they're doing so. Everyone else nopes out of there because it's not fun and/or feasible for most open world players.

If content designed to be repeated often doesn't retain, say, 95% of people who do it that heavily implies there's a problem with the content. A 5% retention rate is horrible and retention of longer-term/invested players is just as important as new player retention.

And that's not even getting into the social issues and toxicity this meta brings out.

I am not hardcore, nor am I in a hardcore guild. Ive done DE a lot now in pugs, once getting into decent seeming groups with people capable of paying attention. And having contribution from the start with a map on all high.

Edited March 26, 2022 by LucianDK.8615

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

Just ran meta, I was commanding it. Failed at 1%.

I am done with this meta for now. keep your meta and ask for more of these content and soon, you will all be playing together with Anet going bankrupt. I am not dropping single penny on this game until Anet changes some direction of game.

Good luck. I am done with this meta until further change.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

9 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Anet already made a concession to the average player in making it easier to get the turtle. Outside of maybe adding about 5 minutes to the time, nothing more needs to happen to DE.

You add 5 minutes and even the trolliest pug group can do it now. Btw, done it 5 times in a row now (also did it pre-first nerf), all at 2-5 minutes left on the timer. And the squads weren't THAT good.

People who are complaining, get a grip now. Seriously.

Edited March 26, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[LucianDK.8615]

5 minutes ago, Yellow Rainbow.6142 said:

Just ran meta, I was commanding it. Failed at 1%.

I am done with this meta for now. keep your meta and ask for more of these content and soon, you will all be playing together with Anet going bankrupt. I am not dropping single penny on this game until Anet changes some direction of game.

Good luck. I am done with this meta until further change.

Its a player problem. When strong teams can beat with it 5+ mins left on the time, what does that say about player skill?

[yoni.7015]

21 minutes ago, Yellow Rainbow.6142 said:

Just ran meta, I was commanding it. Failed at 1%.

I am done with this meta for now. keep your meta and ask for more of these content and soon, you will all be playing together with Anet going bankrupt. I am not dropping single penny on this game until Anet changes some direction of game.

Good luck. I am done with this meta until further change.

Did it earlier today with 2 minutes left on the timer. I can understand your frustration but that your group failed is not Anet’s fault. 

Edited March 26, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

24 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Its a player problem. When strong teams can beat with it 5+ mins left on the time, what does that say about player skill?

sure,  may be Anet should make this META more dps check with more mechanics, like Dhuum CM. I am sure some people will love it.

At the end, content is always easier for some and harder for others.

Are we still talking about open world META event?

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

42 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

Did it earlier today with 2 minutes left on the timer. I can understand your frustration but that your group failed is not Anet’s fault. 

I like to see you commanding with advertising on Dragon end map. Anyone can leech from Arborstone lfg. It's not that complicated.

We are still talking about Open World Meta event, right?

Edit, I am truly done with this meta until further change. I don't have time for multiple fail on row. And, no I won't join from Arborstone on private tag for open world meta. It's not that important to me.

If you guys enjoy it,, keep it.. Just hope Anet don't go down with content like this. Good luck to all of you.

Edited March 26, 2022 by Yellow Rainbow.6142

[Cuks.8241]

2 hours ago, Zephire.8049 said:

Longer than 20 minutes? Sure. DS is about 40 these days for the whole run. 2 hours is a lot longer than 20 minutes, though, and you can't say it's optional to do the DE meta when several achievements require you to beat the meta. The turtle was just one aspect that was the most visible (both literally and because of the heavy marketing).

Open world is more than just map comp.

If people didn't mind spending 2 hours waiting around getting the perfect group together, raids would be a heck of a lot more popular than they are.

Well everything in this game has some achievements tied to it so thats not really a good argument.

But I agree that length is a problem. Even if you join a group that doesnt do prep and requires 10 stacks of buff to join its still 1h 15 mins - 1 h 30 mins long.

I wouldnt nerf the dps check and all the mechanics should stay. I would definitely do something on the prep to reduce time and reliance on the buff.

Also I would reduce the clutter in the last phase of the fight. Reduce the trash mobs and maybe number of whirlpools. Maybe limit the Thornhearth spawns to one. Its really hard to get them down fast if many spawn.

One interesting addition would be also a special action for last 20% that works in the same way as Electromagnetic pulse. Groups are to reliant on this one and players just forget to refresh it for the last phase when it gets hectic. And it is really handy for breaking those whirlpools.

Anyway I have very good track record with meta now. But I'm picky with the groups. If I see people are not investing in prep (getting 10 stacks of buff and stacking offensive and defensive protocols) its not worth to try.

[rune.9572]

Thread has gotten to 58 pages. Meanwhile, I've beaten the meta 20 times.

Clearly something doesn't add up here.

Edited March 27, 2022 by rune.9572

[notebene.3190]

This will get lost, but I'm not sure where else to put it. I've admittedly only done the meta a few times, and I'm resigned to maybe not have a turtle (if the strike ends being an issue for me), just as I was resigned not to get the 8 raid points from HoT. But I recently started "Looking Back" and was heartbroken to learn, as I was picking through the directions in the wiki, to find out the last 4 steps required a successful meta completion. It's just a story, and a little story I was really excited to get to be a part of, and now that seems squashed. How many other things like this are locked behind a successful meta?

[Kaliwenda.3428]

1 hour ago, notebene.3190 said:

This will get lost, but I'm not sure where else to put it. I've admittedly only done the meta a few times, and I'm resigned to maybe not have a turtle (if the strike ends being an issue for me), just as I was resigned not to get the 8 raid points from HoT. But I recently started "Looking Back" and was heartbroken to learn, as I was picking through the directions in the wiki, to find out the last 4 steps required a successful meta completion. It's just a story, and a little story I was really excited to get to be a part of, and now that seems squashed. How many other things like this are locked behind a successful meta?

Oh that is a shame.  I was looking forward to this one too.

[Mickey.4207]

2 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

You add 5 minutes and even the trolliest pug group can do it now. Btw, done it 5 times in a row now (also did it pre-first nerf), all at 2-5 minutes left on the timer. And the squads weren't THAT good.

People who are complaining, get a grip now. Seriously.

So that's like 10 hours of straight game play? Ofcourse no lifers have no problem. But we are talking from perspective of casual players. And no one is mentioning the real problem. Even after first successful kill there is absolutely nothing exciting to bring players back. The rewards are terrible and not worth the two hours you sink into it.

[NuggetScout.3782]

On 3/4/2022 at 2:55 PM, DaKine.2694 said:

The success rate is increasing because players are forming organized squads and gatekeeping non-meta builds. After around 8 or 9 attempts, I finally joined one of these squads and saw countless people get kicked because they weren’t quickness or alac builds. They even kicked everyone that was playing a new elite spec. Even with hours of prep work and squad organization, we only beat it with 30 seconds left. Now, the successful squads that I’ve seen are either squads that only take the role they need, or squads that require a decent kp to join.

If your goal was to gatekeep most of your average player base from completing this meta and getting the turtle mount, mission accomplished.

amen.

[Ruisen.9471]

I really hope they fix the lag, because good god the lag.   I get half the frames compared to most other large meta events.

[Gorem.8104]

Nearly 60 pages. Wonder why they un-stickied it?  
If you want us to do raid content in open world, give us Australian servers so we can actually do mechanics with good ping :). 

[SinisterSlay.6973]

This thing just fails way too often to have zero rewards.  And have terrible rewards when you win.

 

Why not have reward tiers?  Faster gives a better reward, but finishing it always gives something?  That way people can learn and adapt without wasting their time.

Edited March 27, 2022 by SinisterSlay.6973

[Erise.5614]

5 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Nearly 60 pages. Wonder why they un-stickied it?  
If you want us to do raid content in open world, give us Australian servers so we can actually do mechanics with good ping :). 

To be fair. I think they un-stickied it to only ever have 1 update post stickied. 

The March 29 update took priority. Otherwise we'd end up with dozens of stickies before soon. 

But yes. I honestly don't get why people push so hard for hard content with high failure rate. It's not like your skill has anything to do with the success rate. An excellent commander might have a considerable impact. But not all of us want to do the position like 1-2% of players have to do (and commanding a failed map is much worse than just loosing yet again). 

5 - 10 people groups are where you have to show off your skill. At 50 people it's just a test for how well equipped and skilled the general player base is.

Which is even worse because obviously my open world builds are drastically different from group content builds. I can't expect any buffs or heals 99% of the time. If I'm dead I probably failed the thing I'm doing and waste a lot of time going there again. So obviously builds are optimized for survivability and solo performance. Meaning next to no one runs support builds either. Playing support in open world is a terrible experience. The moment you're behind or alone you're quite literally useless. Doing anything takes forever. 

Open world is not a good place for these kinds of activities. It is deeply and inherently flawed. Meta events, if enough players contribute and make an honest attempt at coordinating and helping, should have a 100% success rate. It can not depend on builds or proper boon distribution. 

Edit: And if it does, it should be appropriately classified and balanced as hardcore version of raids. Because that's what it is. The same as raids with 5 - 10 times as many players. Most of the mechanics in raids aren't complicated or difficult either. It needs like 1 - 3 people doing something special and 7 people to put in exactly as much effort as for this meta. The only difference is builds, boon setups and how common food is. 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Erise.5614

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

9 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

It can not depend on builds or proper boon distribution. 

It's how the game was designed, so you're saying success cannot depend on the game being played properly. Also, these kind of events are the BEST possible content in open world PVE (Dragon's Stand, Dragonfall, Dragon's End), they feel and play out epic.

Edited March 27, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Gatz.7456]

This.....this is not challenging, it`s stupid!
Just like other players pointed out, you can prep all you want and do the mechanics perfectly, if the rng keeps giving you tails you are kittenED. And the scale on this thing......absolutely ridiculous! A 40 man team can`t even get past 20% hp but a 5 man team trashes her?
"challenging"  hah!

[Astralporing.1957]

37 minutes ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

It's how the game was designed, so you're saying success cannot depend on the game being played properly.

No. It means success cannot depend on unrealistic requirements. And if it does, the failure is not a fault of players, but of design.

[Geckoo.6018]

There is something to consider when we talk about commander tags: just because someone has one does not mean that he is ready or willing to lead an entire map to complete a massive meta event.

When it comes to dragon's end, it is expected that the person with a tag creates the squad with enough time so that everyone can get to their map and get 10 buff stacks from events, organize them in subgroups with at least quickness and alacrity in mind, assign those subgroups to different tasks during the meta and even making some calls for CC or tail during the fight.

There are some things about this meta that is just a matter of community knowledge (it happens with all meta events btw)... at this point anyone with some experience knows when to CC, when to hit the tail, how to do greens or that all platform bosses need to die within a small window of time. In this case, general knowledge about the fight is increasing, but people doing the event seems to be getting lower and player perception about this event and how a successful squad should look has already been stablished.

This means that the kind of player that doesn't really need a leader because he already knows what to do during the fight is looking for that kind of squads anyway because that player knows that to have a successful run, having that kind of commander highly increases his chances even if he has to spend 30 minutes trying to join a full map. As a consequence, this groups have a very high demand, but they are rare, so this is causing that those groups and maps are full almost one hour before the meta starts. Less experienced players arrive later and join other type of squads that are less organized and usually fail the event.

How much of this is a consequence of player perception? how much of that perception is actually justified? What can they do about it?

In my opinion the fight is pretty much okay, it could certainly use some tweaks when it comes to RNG with tails and changing sides. But there are two map elements that are doing more harm than good and are not helping to make the event more accessible. The first one is the buff from completing events and the second one is the zone preparation levels. The issues with both is that they have a combat benefit tied to them and that is one of the reasons why going to the map early is required, specially when player perception dictates that having 10 stacks and all zones fully prepared is a must.

By doing this the goal should be that a wider variety of squads have a better chance and when less organized squads with less preparation time, no subgroups for buffs and some really chaotic splits start having more success, player perception will begin to change and this meta event will be playable for more people.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Geckoo.6018

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No. It means success cannot depend on unrealistic requirements. And if it does, the failure is not a fault of players, but of design.

"Unrealistic requirements" - Fromsoftware laughs in the distance. You have multiple ways to play the game, too, btw.

They should delete this thread entirely. There's little if anything constructive in it, only crying.

Edited March 27, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054