Upcoming Changes to "The Battle For The Jade Sea"

[ReferMadness.5283]

This Meta is garbage. Fix your game. 

[MonsterTeddy.6135]

Still needs some fine tuning, or fixing if it's due to bugs.

Did the post-update meta 3 times today

1st run was with a decently organised pug run, half the squad had boonshare and good dps. Got to 80% before 19:00.
However, after the first wisp phase, Soo Won's AI went crazy with about 18+ swaps throughout the fight, so there was barely any window to dps her. There were 4 chain swaps (2-3 times), some when tail was up. CC bar and tail overlapped about 4-5 times as well. Failed at 20%.

2nd run was with a cobbled up pug run, divided into subs but not really optimised with boons. Dps was lower than the previous run but would have been tight if squad was more actively responsive to calls. Got to 80% around 18:40. Soo Won swapped 8 times throughout the run, chained twice. CC bars overlapped with tails about 3-4 times as well. Failed at ~18%.

3rd run was with a squad organised 1 hr before the meta started, most of the squad made it into map 30 mins before the meta started. Very responsive and had good boon distribution for each sub, and nearly everyone had the map buffs. Got Soo Won to 80% around 19:10. She swapped about 6-7 times throughout the run, chained once. CC bars overlapped with tails 2 times but our dps was enough to gloss over that disadvantage. Cleared with 5+ mins left on the timer.

 

The difference between these 3 runs are staggering, and it pretty much shows that the meta is still very prone to fails by RNG instead of through organisation/player skill/mechanics. If the squad in round 3 had encountered round 1's conditions, it would have most likely been a fail. If the squad in round 1 were given round 3's conditions, it would have most likely been a success. Perhaps if the RNG was limited to a smaller range instead of these extremes, it might be more fair to everyone running the meta. It's really aggravating to see how RNG is involved in declaring a success or fail.

There might be other issues to address as well, but this was what happened for my runs today.

[Malus.2184]

2 hours ago, MonsterTeddy.6135 said:

Still needs some fine tuning, or fixing if it's due to bugs.

There is no RNG in Ba Sing Se Dragon's End. You just need to git gud /s

[Kaliwenda.3428]

I got my first win tonight!  So happy! 😀

I switched to my Vindicator and was just running around doing events and working on map completion.  I decided to stay there to get the True Ending achievement. 

We had a squad leader, who got us into groups for the lanes and reminded us to get the def/off buffs a few times as things went along, and we had waystations and lots of food.

There weren't any build requirements that I was aware of, and while it seems funny to say, the whole thing had kindof a mellow vibe to it, no pressure, no yelling, just people doing their best to get thru it.  I didn't see how much time was left on the timer but it wasn't flashing so not down to the wire.

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Kaliwenda.3428

[Ruisen.9471]

14 hours ago, MonsterTeddy.6135 said:

 

The difference between these 3 runs are staggering, and it pretty much shows that the meta is still very prone to fails by RNG instead of through organisation/player skill/mechanics. If the squad in round 3 had encountered round 1's conditions, it would have most likely been a fail. If the squad in round 1 were given round 3's conditions, it would have most likely been a success. Perhaps if the RNG was limited to a smaller range instead of these extremes, it might be more fair to everyone running the meta. It's really aggravating to see how RNG is involved in declaring a success or fail.

There might be other issues to address as well, but this was what happened for my runs today.

 

Did it again today, boss switching sides seems to have dramatically increased this patch.   

Nerfs seem to help though, I guess if you can't fix the boss, just nerf it so that the bugs don't matter.

[daninumbers.4036]

13th attempt, I was there since the very beginning with an organized squad. The changes were emmm... to be honest, not really much noticeable. It felt really got at the beginning. We'd be getting breakbars by just 2 - 3% before phase mechanic though. And yet again I have no clue how just that 20% was again the worst. Swap swap swap. Whirlpools everywhere. TAIL. Why just 2 minutes left when we were doing well? And so it failed at 15% or so.

I just stayed to see the changes hoping it'd be doable by pugs. Regretting the almost 2 hours wasted for nothing.

Oh by the way, something I've noticed, what's with this supposed instability one of those champs has? https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tear_Instability . Supposedly that's a raid boss mechanic only or the wiki hasn't updated it. Was it added to bounty and bounty-like enemies? I had no clue what I needed to do and the description there doesn't really say much. I can't close more of those but really, if I get a big green skull on my head all I can think off is "I'm poisoned or something and I must do something before it oneshots me". I haven't done raids for years and not interested anymore, why this obsession with shoving raid and strike stuff into open world? Bounties added those I guess to make every encounter unique and relying less on actual unique enemy mechanics. Some suck really bad when they happen together. So specifically that one, bug or intended?

[jamesg.7128]

On 4/1/2022 at 7:27 PM, InfamousMrMike.4768 said:

I've been trying to do this meta so I can get my turtle egg.

You can buy the egg now. From the vendor near the northern WP.

[Chichimec.9364]

17 hours ago, daninumbers.4036 said:

...why this obsession with shoving raid and strike stuff into open world?..

That's a question I've been asking on this forum since EoD dropped. So far, no one from Anet has deigned to answer it. In reading their post about the future of GW 2 it seems to me like they plan on continuing down this forced raid/strike road. I hope I'm misreading that but we'll have to wait and see how the future of GW 2 actually unfolds.

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Chichimec.9364

[ReferMadness.5283]

Jade sea  meta is not fun. The loot sucks. Takes too long just to fail. I’ve never spent less time in an expansion.

[Chichimec.9364]

16 minutes ago, ReferMadness.5283 said:

Jade sea  meta is not fun. The loot sucks. Takes too long just to fail. I’ve never spent less time in an expansion.

Yet Anet still refuses to acknowledge the depth of the problems in this expansion.

 

Quote

From the outset, we designed the final boss of the Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons Jade Sea meta-event to be more challenging than most of our existing open-world experiences. It’s the epic finale of a story arc told over the course of 10 years, after all.

Over the past month we’ve been making incremental balance adjustments to the meta-event’s final boss, with the goal of making it more accessible while still retaining an increased difficulty level. Between the mechanical changes we’ve implemented and the community’s willingness to rise to the challenge, we’ve seen the number of successful clears increase dramatically in recent weeks.

"Community willingness to rise to the challenge?" Have they even bothered to read all the threads like this one? It's actually more like the epic fail of a story arc told over the course of 10 years. I'd like to hear the real numbers on how many people have given up on the Jade Sea meta in particular and on EoD in general like I mostly have. My very favorite thing about EoD is the Jade Bot junk recycling that clears so much garbage out of my inventory. And I like both the mechanist and the specter classes. Other than those three things though, I haven't bothered with EoD in weeks.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Chichimec.9364

[Sylvari.2953]

Is this meta really that difficult? I did it once with my Cele FB for the Turtle egg, I didn't even get downed. We finished it without issues (had a very good commander though).

Edited April 15, 2022 by Mea.5491
typo

[Necrosian.1359]

1 hour ago, Mea.5491 said:

Is this meta really that difficult? I did in once with my Cele FB for the Turtle egg, I didn't even get downed. We finished it without issues (had a very good commander though).

And here i have done this 20+ time and maybe 2-3 successes.

[Chichimec.9364]

1 hour ago, Mea.5491 said:

Is this meta really that difficult? I did in once with my Cele FB for the Turtle egg, I didn't even get downed. We finished it without issues (had a very good commander though).

It's been weeks since I've bothered with this meta so I can't say what it's like now. If you really want to know what it was like earlier though, read through as much of this thread as you want to see what other folks were experiencing back then.

While I was still doing the meta, I know one of the biggest griefs was the random nature of the fight. Some highly organized groups were getting wiped by the rng while rando, disorganized pugs were blessed by RNJesus and beat the meta easily. I know that's true because that's how I got my turtle. After the second or third "fix", I was in such a rando pug that won the fight with plenty of time left on the clock. No commander, no organization, just sheer random luck, while other, well-prepared groups were still failing time after time. That kind of thing was talked about a lot in this thread.

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Chichimec.9364

[Zephire.8049]

Like Chichimec.9364 I haven't tried the meta for weeks but it took me 27 times before I was in a successful run. Not for lack of trying, either, on my part or the part of the groups I joined.

Hopefully it genuinely has improved because it never should have been considered acceptable at launch. The encounter itself is fine, it's just RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG for whether someone's run is successful and that's not fun as it's a large time investment and it's not a nice feeling to fail through no fault of your own with no way to quickly retry. And it sounds like there's still an RNG factor in even getting into a good map to begin with.

[Sylvari.2953]

27 minutes ago, Chichimec.9364 said:

It's been weeks since I've bothered with this meta so I can't say what it's like now. If you really want to know what it was like earlier though, read through as much of this thread as you want to see what other folks were experiencing back then.

While I was still doing the meta, I know one of the biggest griefs was the random nature of the fight. Some highly organized groups were getting wiped by the rng while rando, disorganized pugs were blessed by RNJesus and beat the meta easily. I know that's true because that's how I got my turtle. After the second or third "fix", I was in such a rando pug that won the fight with plenty of time left on the clock. No commander, no organization, just sheer random luck, while other, well-prepared groups were still failing time after time. That kind of thing was talked about a lot in this thread.

 

 

Thanks for the info, sounds like I got lucky, lol. I only did it once and I don't feel like going back because it wasn't fun enough for my liking. I still enjoy HoT metas the most. 🤩

[Zephire.8049]

That seems to be the biggest issue: Most people don't find it fun enough to keep running. They get it done for achievements or to see what it's like and then don't return before going back to other content that they do enjoy.

I think people would be more willing to come back if the prep phase was cut in half (or more) and they upped the map capacity even by 10-20 people. There would still be a chance of failure but more people would share the DPS burden, so to speak, so there's a better chance at success. Plus the entire map isn't punished as harshly if a few people are fishing, doing map comp, are AFK, or crashed when the map's locked to any new players trying to get in.

People don't tend to enjoy 1-2+ hours of boring content for a 60% (though possibly lower, depending on how the data's composed) chance to get 15g in their leisure activity. More can be accomplished in less time in practically every other part of the game, including raids, so what's the draw supposed to be for DE that keeps enough people coming back to keep it an active meta rather than have it peter out?

[Zok.4956]

5 hours ago, Mea.5491 said:

Is this meta really that difficult? I did it once with my Cele FB for the Turtle egg, I didn't even get downed.

It depends on what you call "that difficult".

If you are on the right map all it takes for you is just some afk hitting Soo-Won and then you can continue with whatever you were doing in the map (fishing, achievements, etc.) and only be back on the platform to collect the loot after the fight.

If you are on the wrong map you could execute all mechanics perfectly and do very high DPS and it is still not enough for a win.

If you are in a pre-made and highly organized squad/map where every sub-group is fully buffed and has alac and quickness boons and all players are doing very high DPS and execute the mechanics the success rate will not be 100% but it will be very high.

If you are in a guild or social community that is organizing it this way, or be able to join such groups at the right time, you will think that this event is easy and always doable. But if you are "just" an open world player on a random map with 30-50 other players your chances for success are still very low.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Zok.4956

[Malus.2184]

I made this reply in a seperate thread. I think it bears repeating here

Quote

The DE fight is horrible and an average group even with good organization are dependent on the RNG to be with them to have a chance of success, The fight needs to be redesigned from the ground up. The physical models already exist and it would be massive undertaking to design a new  set, so this suggestion will use assets that already exists.

Narrative of the fight:

Soo-Won has lost control to the Void and needs to be supressed in order to win control back.

Practical layout of the fight:

You fight Soo-Won, her being corrupted by Void is only shown by her having a shadowy hue and summoning the minions of the other dragons. It's also heavily RNG dependent on the order and appearence of her three RNG abilities. It's especially fatal of the Break Bar appears at either 61% and 41%, it did both times in a run I had, all damage is reduced to zero until the bar disappears. If broken it offers at most 5-sec on increased damage. The group lost 50-sec of increased damage. And the squad was by all account an average pug-group that had good organisation.

General overview of my suggested changes inspired by the HT encounter.

1. She only uses her three abilities a maximum of two times each. At certain health tresholds she's unable to use the Defiance Bar one until the next phase with her attackable begins.

2. Her health is increased to counter that she'll no longer flit around the place.

3. If her tail appears while the Exposed effect is active the tail inherits whatever timer is left of it.

4. Killing a tail will shave off some of Soo-Won's health. Her health is increased to offset this.

5. The real meat of the RNG will come from what offensive ability of the six dragon energies she'll use.

- Fist or tail slam. Both needs to have the tsunami effect since the tail slam is pretty much "whatever" right now. This would be the Soo-Won option.

- Fire patches taken from Primordus as inspired by that sequence in HT only no big one and the smaller one appear underneath a random player.

- Giant tendril in the middle from Mordremoth. Sends out a shockwave that if it hits yeets the player hit off the platform regardless of where they stand and inflicts huge damage. In that order so all that awaits people if they go down while in the air is a long fall.

- Branded Strips ala Kralkatorik in HT. This could cover half the platform, similar to when Soo-Won moves.

- Sky lasers ala Jormag in HT.

- Zhaitan should have fields similar to those that target players randomly in HT that they then have to run away from the main group to drop. The damage on them should be so horrendous that if they're dropped in the group it's GG.

This is a kind of random people can stomach as it represents something they can react to and do something about to avoid instead of the game going "kitten you!" and giving them RNG that will cause them to lose.This also compliments the narrative of the players needing to beat some sense into her before the final confrontation.

The RNG that would be put in would be something where if a player falls prey to it they can work on becoming better at avoiding failing at that again. Right now, there's nothing any player can do other than pushing bigger DPS if she decides to move several times in a row and thus completely negate the mechanic by having a high DPS. And then people are succeeding despite the mechanics instead of because of them, and that's an extremely bad design situation to be in.

As it is now you effectively needs to by highly above average in playing in order to offset the RNG instead of being able to use it to their advantage. This sets an artificial barrier of entry for the encounter that the average player feel they would be unable to pass. While this is only anecdotal several people in my guilds have said that after they got their eggs they've never set foot in the zone ever again. Aside from a few dedicated groups that are self-selecting as they only attract above average players Jade Sea is effectively dead content as it stands right now. No amount of reward increase could ever bring people back. What people ultimately want is a fair challenge instead of more bling, and right now DE can be extremely unfair due to the RNG that are outside the players' control.

The rest of the fight can remain the way it is right now without any issues with RNG cropping up as those phases are, while they can be hard, ultimately fair. If players fails at them it's because of their abilities. They have an influence on those and can improve upon what they can do if they fail at them. In short, they have influence over the conditions that led to their failure. And that is a lot more important for people's desire to do the encounter than any increased reward. Even with it giving an Ancient Summoning Stone a lot of people are still "kitten this!" Again. This is anecdotal, it's just a sentiment I see a lot. It's also one that I feel myself and I fall into the category of above average players.

 

[Ombras.2853]

By the way, if you’re playing Celestial gear on the meta, what you’re doing isn’t being smart cuz you survive better, but holding other people down DESPITE having better survivability.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

6 minutes ago, Ombras.2853 said:

By the way, if you’re playing Celestial gear on the meta, what you’re doing isn’t being smart cuz you survive better, but holding other people down DESPITE having better survivability.

Which is still better than dying every minute.

[Ombras.2853]

2 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Which is still better than dying every minute.

Yes, and dying every minute means that you should really learn mechanics to be honest.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

24 minutes ago, Ombras.2853 said:

Yes, and dying every minute means that you should really learn mechanics to be honest.

Learning mechanics in OW? We don't do that here.

[blp.3489]

38 minutes ago, Ombras.2853 said:

By the way, if you’re playing Celestial gear on the meta, what you’re doing isn’t being smart cuz you survive better, but holding other people down DESPITE having better survivability.

If a player does more total damage and healing and provides more boon uptime by wearing Celestial then they are being smart.  Celestial gear won't save you from the mechanics anyway.

[Malus.2184]

 

7 hours ago, Ombras.2853 said:

By the way, if you’re playing Celestial gear on the meta, what you’re doing isn’t being smart cuz you survive better, but holding other people down DESPITE having better survivability.

Some build works best by using Celestial Gear. An example is the Mechanist Condi Boon Support build that uses Celestial since it needs a little bit of everything.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Malus.2184

[vanfrano.1325]

They should consider infusing this map and meta with fun and replayability, adapted rewards that can benefit all active participants and actual good, well thought-out game designs. Then consider doing the same thing for the whole expansion.

I am starting to wonder if the surprise 4th expansion announcement was meant for us to look the other way while they deliver the most underwhelming expansion to date, by far. As they will clearly never admit that the expansion is underwhelming and that Dragon's End meta is a failure.

Welcome to Anet's Square Enix era where they will shower us with dev updates and PR stunts while pretending to care about and listen to their playerbase and lying to us in the face at the same time.

Edited April 15, 2022 by vanfrano.1325
format