Meta + Strike Missions = Turtle. No thank you.

[Grishnaakh.2143]

Just want to say that the story and locations for EoD are fantastic, love them, but requiring, for the moment, to run the Meta then Strike Mission to unlock the Siege Turtle really just turns me off to the rest of the game at this point.

[yoni.7015]

Thanks for letting us know. After Tuesday you won’t need to do the meta anymore. And can I ask why the strike mission turns you off? Did you try the new strike missions already? They are fun and not that difficult. 

[Grishnaakh.2143]

Just now, yoni.7015 said:

Thanks for letting us know. After Tuesday you won’t need to do the meta anymore. And can I ask why the strike mission turns you off? Did you try the new strike missions already? They are fun and not that difficult. 

No I haven't tried them, I have watched Mukluk's video on them, and they don't look appealing to me.

[yoni.7015]

Just now, Grishnaakh.2143 said:

No I haven't tried them, I have watched Mukluk's video on them, and they don't look appealing to me.

I think you should at least give them a try.  

[Sobx.1758]

You were ok with playing the game without the turtle, but now that there's more content and you don't want to do small parts of the expansion rewarding you with the turtle... it somehow kills the whole game for you? I've seen this claim before and I still don't really get it.

 

 

Noteworthy: almost 2 weeks later, after having 27 people super confused about this post (and -for comparison- 30 positive reactions), I still received 0 responses that explain to me how that works. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Gibson.4036]

I was confident the meta would get adjusted, and people would adjust to it, so I expected my daughter and I would probably persevere through it.

It's unlikely, though, that she will be welcome in a strike mission group, no matter how "chill". If ArenaNet had been more open about what it was going to take to get it, I would have made sure she knew before she spent her money on End of Dragons. Instead, we had the warm reassurance of the guild chat preview. I wish I had been keener to notice at the time that Nick caught himself about to say it would be "easier" than skyscale, and changing it to "simpler and faster" instead. That should have been a warning.

It still seems bizarre to me that an open world novelty mount requires instanced content to unlock. Especialy "a staple piece" and "one of the main features we're shipping for this expansion. It's one of the back-of-the-box features..."

My daughter quickly moved on. She loves her new celestial mechanist. I'm still bothered on her behalf, though, and uncertain about our family's future in GW2.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[yoni.7015]

2 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

I was confident the meta would get adjusted, and people would adjust to it, so I expected my daughter and I would probably persevere through it.

It's unlikely, though, that she will be welcome in a strike mission group, no matter how "chill". If ArenaNet had been more open about what it was going to take to get it, I would have made sure she knew before she spent her money on End of Dragons. Instead, we had the warm reassurance of the guild chat preview. I wish I had been keener to notice at the time that Nick caught himself about to say it would be "easier" than skyscale, and changing it to "simpler and faster" instead. That should have been a warning.

It still seems bizarre to me that an open world novelty mount requires instanced content to unlock. Especialy "a stale piece" and "one of the main features we're shipping for this expansion. It's one of the back-of-the-box features..."

My daughter quickly moved on. She loves her new celestial mechanist. I'm still bothered on her behalf, though, and uncertain about our families future in GW2.

Ah your daughter again. Why don’t you take her with you and you make a group, communicate the situation? I am pretty sure you will find other people you can do it with. There is no timer during the fight so you don’t even have to hurry. You can play it safe. Even if your daughter dies (her character of course!) you can still easily finish the strike mission with nine. 
It’s not really bizarre that they combine two elements of the expansion, the turtle and the strike missions. 

[Gibson.4036]

12 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

Ah your daughter again. Why don’t you take her with you and you make a group, communicate the situation? I am pretty sure you will find other people you can do it with. There is no timer during the fight so you don’t even have to hurry. You can play it safe. Even if your daughter dies (her character of course!) you can still easily finish the strike mission with nine. 
It’s not really bizarre that they combine two elements of the expansion, the turtle and the strike missions. 

Yes, again. Well, not again, still. Am I supposed to have a different motivation over time?

It is kinda bizarre, given the history of the game. It's been pretty good about letting people play in the areas they like to play, with some exceptions like requiring world completion and GoBs for legendary items. Both things that continue to rub some portions of the population the wrong way, because it doesn't feel great as a player.

Of course, those are legendaries, which have always been one of those things that are for people who really want something to chase. None of my family ever expected to get a legendary. It's only getting close to within reach for me personally at this point because of playing since launch and ArenaNet dropping a precursor on my head.

This, however, feels different. Expansion mounts were a way to play the expansion before, not the reward at the end of the expansion.

I'd say a good deal of the grief around EoD is because ArenaNet decided they wanted to merge players who play different content. They wanted open world players to encounter the kind of challenge that instanced group players like to encounter, hence the DE meta. They want to nudge people into strike missions who don't enjoy them.

Instead of offering more of the pizza that the pizza eaters have come to love and more of the ice cream other players love, they dropped pizza a la mode on our tables and now here we are telling each other "this doesn't taste good to me" and getting the response "you know it's not that hard to just choke it down".

Edited March 11, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[fourhim.3584]

Just to offer some support to the OP - you are not alone.  I am a casual gaming parent myself, and neither myself nor my son would have bought the expansion had we known the Turtle was locked behind a nigh impossible luck-fest meta and a Strike Mission.  They told us it would be like getting the Roller Beetle - they lied.  You don't need to explain why you don't like what you don't like.  I was encouraged by my guildies to try Dungeons with them, when I watched videos as you did and decided I would not enjoy it.  I did two dungeons with them and still hate them.  I tried about 5 fractals with them and hated every single one, despite them patiently walking me through it on Discord.  Some people (maybe even most GW2 players) just don't want to play harder content after an already hard day at work, school, or raising kids.  Sure wish ANET would realize this.

Edited March 11, 2022 by fourhim.3584

[SexyMofo.8923]

I bought this game for my cat to play with me. Now they will never get to ride the turtle. 

[Gibson.4036]

Just now, SexyMofo.8923 said:

I bought this game for my cat to play with me. Now they will never get to ride the turtle. 

You know, if your cat had been able to unlock all the previous expansion mounts just fine, that would be a shame.

[yoni.7015]

5 minutes ago, fourhim.3584 said:

Just to offer some support to the OP - you are not alone.  I am a casual gaming parent myself, and neither myself nor my son would have bought the expansion had we known the Turtle was locked behind a night impossible luck-fest meta and a Strike Mission.  They told us it would be like getting the Roller Beetle - they lied.  You don't need to explain why you don't like what you don't like.  I was encouraged by my guildies to try Dungeons with them, when I watched videos as you did and decided I would not enjoy it.  I did two dungeons with them and still hate them.  I tried about 5 fractals with them and hated every single one, despite them patiently walking me through it on Discord.  Some people (maybe even most GW2 players) just don't want to play harder content after an already hard day at work, school, or raising kids.  Sure wish ANET would realize this.

It is like getting the roller beetle at least it doesn’t take as long as skyscale and isn’t as expensive as Griffon. You have to do some events and collection. Just like what we had to do for the roller beetle. The time it takes to get the turtle is the same it took to get roller beetle. 

Edited March 11, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Grishnaakh.2143]

1 minute ago, SexyMofo.8923 said:

I bought this game for my cat to play with me. Now they will never get to ride the turtle. 

I'm sorry to hear that, my cat actually prefer's SWTOR and he's pretty unhappy about the boneheaded moves they made recently.

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, yoni.7015 said:

It is like getting the roller beetle at least it doesn’t take as long as skyscale and isn’t as expansive as Griffon. You have to do some events and collection. Just like what we had to do for the roller beetle. The time it takes to get the turtle is the same it took to get roller beetle. 

Same time, but the roller beetle didn't require instanced group content.

[yoni.7015]

Just now, Gibson.4036 said:

Same time, but the roller beetle didn't require instanced group content.

Yeah that’s the only difference. To get the turtle is much more like getting the roller beetle than getting griffon or skyscale. 

[Desh.7028]

1 hour ago, Grishnaakh.2143 said:

No I haven't tried them, I have watched Mukluk's video on them, and they don't look appealing to me.

 

The strike missions are very good and unlike the meta the tuning is quite lenient.

You do need a proper group composition unless your a masochist though but we had 4 people dying in Kaineng and made it by simply not standing in the bad. It was LFG but with full boons for the squad and some quick mentions about mechanics at the start (and the more difficult and specific ones worked perfectly, the "don't stand in red or orange circles" is what did them in, the much more complex and specific number mechanic nuked 2 people the very first time and then no one for the rest of the fight).

 

If you don't pick up on mechanics quickly a video guide should be under 8 minutes and executing is pretty straight forward.

 

The great irony is the enrage timer, which is relatively tight considering the reduced DPS uptime on Soo-Won and simply non-existent in the EoD 10 man content.

[Hotride.2187]

The strike is a snooze fest. Its a dumb requirement, yes, but not even remotely as bad as the DE meta requirement (and especially the meta on EoD release).

Now... if you remove the meta as a requirement, it wouldn't hurt to remove the strike as well. The only other mastery track I had to do instanced content for, was the raid mastery track. Which 100% made sense.

Personally it doesn't bother me to join a LFG group of 10 people and spend 10 minutes in a (very) boring instance. But for players who don't do instanced content daily (and have no characters for it) things might be different.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Alcatraznc.3869]

One day people will realize if you are able to complete DE meta event, then Kaineng strike is just a formality

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

My daughter quickly moved on. She loves her new celestial mechanist. I'm still bothered on her behalf, though, and uncertain about our family's future in GW2.

So she quickly moved on and still loves playing her mechanist and yet you're "bothered on her behalf", basically using it as some justification for the content -along with the rewards- of the expansion to be easier? Unless I misunderstood something here, I find this sentence/justification rather weird.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Peterson.5172]

3 hours ago, Grishnaakh.2143 said:

Just want to say that the story and locations for EoD are fantastic, love them, but requiring, for the moment, to run the Meta then Strike Mission to unlock the Siege Turtle really just turns me off to the rest of the game at this point.

as someone who does advocate for easier meta, and no strike, i don't think anet will remove it any time soon, if at all.

anet sees the new strikes a fresh chance at getting people into instanced content, first normal version, then cm, and their hope is, eventually into raids

 

and as someone who won't touch raids with a ten foot pole, i can honestly say the new strikes are quite do-able with (mostly) random groups.

I was trying out a new elite spec and went with a non-meta group, took about 30mins but we did it in one go

generally a meta group with your alac/quick/heal will do it in 10-15mins

[Grishnaakh.2143]

7 minutes ago, Peterson.5172 said:

as someone who does advocate for easier meta, and no strike, i don't think anet will remove it any time soon, if at all.

anet sees the new strikes a fresh chance at getting people into instanced content, first normal version, then cm, and their hope is, eventually into raids

 

and as someone who won't touch raids with a ten foot pole, i can honestly say the new strikes are quite do-able with (mostly) random groups.

I was trying out a new elite spec and went with a non-meta group, took about 30mins but we did it in one go

generally a meta group with your alac/quick/heal will do it in 10-15mins

That's great to know, still not going to bother. I don't think the mount should have been walled off in the manner it was walled off. Everything else that I experienced with EoD was great, aside from the Meta being a tad bit much. Then finding out that even if I had managed to complete the Meta I would still be forced into content I have zero interest in just really killed it for me. I'll just not have the secondary reason I purchased the expansion, at least I got the enjoy the primary reason for the purchase.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Grishnaakh.2143

[yoni.7015]

7 minutes ago, Grishnaakh.2143 said:

That's great to know, still not going to bother. I don't think the mount should have been walled off in the manner it was walled off. Everything else that I experienced with EoD was great, aside from the Meta being a tad bit much. Then finding out that even if I had managed to complete the Meta I would still be forced into content I have zero interest in just really killed it for me. I'll just not have the secondary reason I purchased the expansion, at least I got the enjoy the primary reason for the purchase.

So the turtle was the primary reason for you to purchase the expansion? and you are not willing to spend ten minutes in a strike mission to get it? You are standing in your own way here. Like you wrote before you haven’t even tried them. The time you spent here complaining, you could have easily done the strike mission. 

Edited March 11, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Grishnaakh.2143]

Just now, yoni.7015 said:

So the turtle was the primary reason for you to purchase the expansion? and you are not willing to spend ten minutes in a strike mission to get it? You are standing in your own way here. Like you wrote before you haven’t even tried them. 

Secondary reason, I corrected my statement after noticing the errors I made. Primary reason was the story.

[Sobx.1758]

20 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Out of curiousity, are you a parent?

Also to note, it’s not a justification. It’s a report of my experience. I know how you like to debate. I’m not looking to score points, just share my perspective.

Yes, it's a report that's saying: Someone understood the situation, is fine with it and moved on still enjoying the game, but I've decided to "be bothered on their behalf". You're not exactly sharing your perspective here, you're trying to speak for someone, despite that person moving on and playing what they want anyways. It is what it is.

And you've said you wish she'd wait with the purchase -but I wonder why exactly? She enjoys the espec she plays anyways and the ow zones look good, there's plenty to do in the expansion. Does she regret the purchase? Do you regret her purchase? Or what was the point of mentioning that? I'm just curious.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Linken.6345]

2 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Same time, but the roller beetle didn't require instanced group content.

It did require serpents ire meta that was hardly run at the time and still aint run alot after nerfs.

Edit

If I dont miss remember it with another collection that is.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Linken.6345