I wish you had learned from the failures of PoF

[AliamRationem.5172]

PoF was a great expansion.  But you know what really missed the mark?  The event structure.  There are people doing achievements and map completion, but not a whole lot else because there really isn't anything else.  Metas like Serpent's Ire rarely see any participation.  Why?  It's too long for too little reward.  Compare to HoT, which sees regular activity in all of its metas.  Except one: Verdant Brink.  Why?  It's too long for too little reward.

So, what made you think long metas with few rewards were going to work this time?  Worse, EoD maps have even less going on in them than PoF did!  How much replay value are players going to get out of farming training hearts in Seitung Province?  What is up with Kaineng City's near total lack of events outside of the meta which is again too long for almost zero reward?  Do I even need to mention Dragon's End?  Honestly, Echovald is the only map worth a kitten here.

This needs emergency maintenance, guys.  I don't know what else to say.  You nailed it during HoT with the awesome story integration and chain events culminating in metas with great rewards that players can easily just show up for.  Why have you resisted going back to such a wonderful model?  I'm just really disappointed in this aspect of EoD.  I don't understand it.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I get easy full squads for the Seitung and Echo. 

Even DE Meta is played by alot of people. 

Gotta farm those tries. 

 

The only meta that I see struggle is the kaineng meta. But that's because it is Sooooo bugged. 

Never seen the meta complete. Every single time because of bugs. 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

8 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I get easy full squads for the Seitung and Echo. 

Even DE Meta is played by alot of people. 

Gotta farm those tries. 

 

The only meta that I see struggle is the kaineng meta. But that's because it is Sooooo bugged. 

Never seen the meta complete. Every single time because of bugs. 

 

People need Serpent's Ire for achievements, too.  Do you see people doing that on a regular basis?  Is VB T4 completed or do people just kill Matriarch and maybe the other bosses if somebody bothers to tag up for it?  The common denominator is lots of time for little reward.  You're seeing these metas completed now, but why would people bother with them once they get what they need out of them?  There are far better ways to spend your time once the novelty has worn off.

[Wintermute.5408]

The first 3 metas are utter garbage. DE meta is also garbage, but for completely opposite reasons. None of them give any rewards worth mentioning. None of them are fun.

At least PoF sees action due to bounty farms. There's not even that in EoD. Those maps will be dead in half a year.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

15 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

People need Serpent's Ire for achievements, too.  Do you see people doing that on a regular basis?  Is VB T4 completed or do people just kill Matriarch and maybe the other bosses if somebody bothers to tag up for it?  The common denominator is lots of time for little reward.  You're seeing these metas completed now, but why would people bother with them once they get what they need out of them?  There are far better ways to spend your time once the novelty has worn off.

About serpent ire. 

Even a month after PoF release, many people didn't know that the PoF maps even had meta events. 

Thats true even today. 

Who even knows wtf serpents ire is. 

Go ask people in game if the desolation has a meta event. 

The answer will be: De duck are you talking about? 

It's different with EoD. Everyone knows the meta events. 

Sure rewards are one thing, but I can see atleast Seitung and Echo meta being done in the future. Just for the fact how easy they are to organize. 

 

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by DanAlcedo.3281

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

9 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I get easy full squads for the Seitung and Echo. 

Even DE Meta is played by alot of people. 

Gotta farm those tries.

I wonder how it will be in 6-9 months, though, once the novelty and initial waves of EoD playthru is over.

Event density does seem kinda sparse to me. 

OTOH, I suppose you can't tune every map to be 'the' go-to map, or then they will all be overtuned. 

 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

29 minutes ago, TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

I wonder how it will be in 6-9 months, though, once the novelty and initial waves of EoD playthru is over.

Event density does seem kinda sparse to me. 

OTOH, I suppose you can't tune every map to be 'the' go-to map, or then they will all be overtuned. 

 

Both Seitung and Echo will be run for sure just for the nice easy Exp. But other then that... 

But rewards are not really EoDs strong point

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

I wonder how it will be in 6-9 months, though, once the novelty and initial waves of EoD playthru is over.

Event density does seem kinda sparse to me. 

OTOH, I suppose you can't tune every map to be 'the' go-to map, or then they will all be overtuned. 

 

Is the argument here that we should have some maps and metas that are designed to be sparsely populated with events like Kaineng to make room for more interesting maps that players actually want to spend time on?  We should have lengthy, unrewarding metas that nobody participates in like Serpent's Ire to make "room" for events like Octovine?  If so, I disagree.  We should strive for better design on maps that fall short like this.

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

4 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Is the argument here that we should have some maps and metas that are designed to be sparsely populated with events like Kaineng to make room for more interesting maps that players actually want to spend time on?  We should have lengthy, unrewarding metas that nobody participates in like Serpent's Ire to make "room" for events like Octovine?  If so, I disagree.  We should strive for better design on maps that fall short like this.

Oh no, no, I'm certainly not arguing for intentional sparsity.  I acknowledged the sparsity, and am doubtful if these maps will see much play in 6-9 mo.  if they remain as-is. 

My last sentence "OTOH, I suppose you can't tune every map to be 'the' go-to map, or then they will all be overtuned"  is to simply acknowledge that if Anet tunes up the events and rewards on these maps, then yes, it will increase their popularity, but do so at the expense of some other map(s). Anet could then try to tune up the events/rewards on those latter maps, but clearly, this just becomes whack-a-mole and a vicious circle, trying to make all maps always equally desirable. In short, I was acknowledging that popularity across maps will always be imperfect. I was not at all saying the status quo was acceptable.

 

 

[Craine.8162]

i think the reward structure will be reworked once the initial rush has worn off. it was probably designed like this to not "crash" the marked. the metas will be played for a couple weeks/months anyway, even with trash loot. once player numbers drop, there's room to improve rewards and reignite the metas.

i mean just look at the way most of the meta events are designed.
seinung, kaineng and dragons end all have some sort of lane/escort that need to be completed in order to trigger the final boss. its easy to add some chests in between (see noxious pods in dragons stand for example)

Edited March 11, 2022 by Craine.8162

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 minutes ago, TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

Oh no, no, I'm certainly not arguing for intentional sparsity.  I acknowledged the sparsity, and am doubtful if these maps will see much play in 6-9 mo.  if they remain as-is. 

My last sentence "OTOH, I suppose you can't tune every map to be 'the' go-to map, or then they will all be overtuned"  is to simply acknowledge that if Anet tunes up the events and rewards on these maps, then yes, it will increase their popularity, but do so at the expense of some other map(s). Anet could then try to tune up the events/rewards on those latter maps, but clearly, this just becomes whack-a-mole and a vicious circle, trying to make all maps always equally desirable. In short, I was acknowledging that popularity across maps will always be imperfect. I was not at all saying the status quo was acceptable.

 

 

Okay, I get you.  Obviously, there is a standard determined by what is.  Some maps are always going to be more lucrative than others and some metas will be seen as more enjoyable by the numbers than others.  There's always a "winner" and a "loser" in that scenario.  However, I think as long as players see the maps and events as rewarding beyond simply whatever achievements exist for them and see some value in coming back, those maps/metas will see play.

For instance, just because Octovine exists and is fun and rewarding to just show up for doesn't mean I never go for other events that conflict with that time slot.  And that's what you see, in practice.  There are plenty of events you could be participating in at any given time and they all see play.  The exceptions are almost always due to poor design, usually too much time for too little reward.

EoD does a bad job on that with two of the four maps having poorly designed metas that require too much time and offer too little reward while also suffering from copy/paste.  I think they ran out of time on these and should redesign to add more events while perhaps shaving some of the pre-events off of the metas to streamline them while increasing rewards.  HoT is the model I would use.  (e.g. Dragon's Stand would have been a better model for Dragon's End than the one they went with and Kaineng would have been better if there were more to do outside of the meta and the escort portion were part of that instead of part of the meta itself).

[kharmin.7683]

13 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

EoD does a bad job on that with two of the four maps having poorly designed metas that require too much time and offer too little reward while also suffering from copy/paste.

I agree, especially with the little reward point.

[Slowpokeking.8720]

Yeah, VB got many mechanics and long setup but provide ppl little reward, but at least ppl are still doing some bosses.

TD was the best example, it was so hard due to a DPS check and the toxicity only stopped when it got nerfed.

Meta are not supposed to be like that.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Slowpokeking.8720