Issues with Dragon's End - NOT ABOUT DIFFICULTY

[Boogiepop Void.6473]

Many people have been complaining about the difficulty of the meta. However, this is not the main issue. There are several structural issues in the map and the meta unrelated to difficulty level that are contributing to issues with participation and completion.

 

Systemic:

1. Jade Bots are needed for the meta. You need to be able to use the ziplines to get up to the final meta fight (also it's very handy to have full Jade offensive and defensive buffs). Because Jade Bot Cores are character locked, many people have only 1, on the character they did the story with. This forces them to only use this character to do the Dragon's End meta, whether it's a good character for this purpose or not. Without making Jade Bots functional account wide, people cannot freely choose which profession and spec to run the event. The costs and effort to equip possibly 20+ characters each with a core are prohibitive to most players, and juggling parts from character to character is enough of a hassle to make most people not want to do it. So many people either just use whatever they have for the meta or end up not doing the meta because the character they want to use can't.
2. Many organized groups are very dependent on using United Legions Waystations for Electromagnetic Pulses and Remote Charges. While it's not bad to see this mastery have some use outside the original map (unlike many other masteries from IBS), there are 2 issues: not everyone has these unlocked or fully unlocked, and not everyone has large amounts of war supplies (and even if they do these supplies will deplete). This punishes people without Icebrood Saga or who didn't play it that much. It effectively forces farming of Drizzlewood Coast, creating a further gate on participation in the Dragon's End meta behind doing another 2 hour meta. People who don't have the time or inclination to do this find themselves shut out or blamed for failures.

 

Map and Event Structure:

1. The range at which events are visible on the map is too short. Solo players in particular wander the map at random. Without a dedicated group calling out events in chat, it's often hard to find them quickly. Also, dedicated groups tend to clear events quickly, and it can even be hard for their own members there fast enough, let alone solo players, before they are cleared. The range at which events show on the map needs to be greatly increased for this map, possibly to map wide (with less busy callouts at longer ranges; if you are halfway across the map you just need a circle, not the entire set of enemy icons). The brief test pop-ups are not enough, since they require you to know exactly where each named enemy set is.
2. The map is difficult to traverse, with many sheer walls or other obstructions that need to be moved past. A skyscale is almost required, which shuts out anyone who either doesn't have LS4 ep 6 or didn't do the (very long) collection. The Harvest Complex in particular is hard to get to quickly without one, but it is far from the only place where the event requires finding a way around a wall or up a shear cliff.
3. It often takes too long to get to events. By the time you can get across the map to it, it's is already over. Because 3 of the waypoints are almost always locked, direct traversal is the only way to go, and the event duration make this problematic. An added 2 Waypoints further north on the east and west (near the extractor and Miner's End), would also be nice to have, assuming the waypoints are accessible at all times. Usable waypoints in the middle of the map would vastly improve the ability to reach events, and address some of the issues with shear walls blocking movement (moving the east and west WPs inside the walls of the Brotherhood and Speaker camps would also help).

 

Final Meta Fight:

1. There are serious lag issues in the fight, probably due to to the number and density of enemy mobs. Adjustments need to be made, as many say the game becomes virtually stop-motion. Perhaps mobs need to be lower detail or other steps can be taken to bring framerates up, otherwise many die to not seeing what kills them before they are dead. Currently many people have to purposefully lower all settings to minimum for this fight and still have issues.
2. There is too much visual noise. The ground is a sea of Aoe rings, obscuring friendly buffs and mesmer portals. While we want to be able to see things to dodge them, the amount is so high that many can't tell what is happening. There needs to be some cleanup here (perhaps some mob type changes so there are fewer ground Aoes). The boss tells are unique enough to be visible despite this.
3. Target locking the boss (either part) is difficult, especially for action camera users. Often people will either not be able to lock it at all, or accidentally lock a mob. This has a severe impact on breaking the boss' bar. Also, the spot on the ground that counts for hitting needs to be more obvious; many ground target effects are missed due to lack of clarity. The lock being lost whenever the boss goes down and immediately comes back up is a large issue too; lock should only be lost if the boss goes down and changes to the another mode, not when it briefly ducks and comes right back.
4. There are issues with the boss fight being too random. Some times the boss is targettable a significantly different amount of time than others, or spends far longer in some phases than others, making the difference between success or failure. This needs to be balanced so you can't just predict everything, but you have a guaranteed balanced amount of damage and CC opportunities.

 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Boogiepop Void.6473