How would you rate EoD compared to HoT and PoF?

[aboyhazard.5047]

On 3/18/2022 at 3:53 PM, Cloudz.6890 said:

End of Dragons, but Kunavaang, Albax and Aurene are still around. NPCs also welcome in the "Age of Aurene". For as central as an issue the Void is, we really glossed over it. Aurene and party say they're concerned about her absorbing the corrupted magic, but there's never an issue. So we have an immortal, all powerful dragon who can see all the ley-lines and absorb any kind of magic. I hate the phrase, but a lot of writing seemed "woke" too. It felt like it was written as if the characters were actually in the year 2022 instead of Tyria. I thought we were gonna end in a climax where Aurene sacrifices herself to save Tyria from the Void. Instead it was just "kill another Elder Dragon and let's go home".

The maps are huge, but feel really empty. Lots of NPCs with no lines. Tons of empty spaces due to it being designed for people using mounts. Meta events seems unusually more difficult than previous metas. I know some got nerfed after release, but this is year 10 of GW2. Hoped we wouldn't retread the same mistakes.

Music and voice acting are absolutely phenomenal.

No Luxon or Kurzick armor, no dragon weapons or armor set like in previous Elder Dragon metas, pre-meta events are super unrewarding. The main rewards are for crafting a legendary gear. But what % of players actually craft legendary armor/weapons.

Anet had to rush to get this out after IBS and it shows.

I agree with basically everything you said word for word..  and it seems that a lot of other "veteran players" have this feeling, too

 

Major disappointment not having the Clan armors - even if they made a more modernized version blending the two styles, since according to the story those cultures blended over time.. 

 

I will say, very glad they added the animated cutscenes like they promised way back when .. moving out of the Beta into the Launch of GW2 I had thought all of those splash pages with the character models and text were placeholders.. guess they just needed a few years

[Salt Mode.3780]

Coming from a PvPer/WvWer perspective EoD is by far the worse expansion,

Both HoT and PoF introduced meta's that defined seasons of sPvP/ and still this day even the extremely nerfed versions of HoT/PoF e-specs they are still more used then the EoD specs this is more noticeable in WvW.

Nothing was added or changed for sPvP/WvW it is still the same if not worse. I recall PoF launch that WvW had queues to the hundreds and sPvP was I dare say more alive. As far as Alliance goes this was announced during PoF this isnt a EoD feature. 

No Sigils no Runes not even class runes. Overall very disappointed. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Salt Mode.3780

[IchbinVol.5407]

EoD is like feshly steamed brussel sprouts. It's good... but pizza and sushi would have been better. Anet did not need to release brussel sprouts. It needed to be something better. Even HoT, which was terrible imo, had better specializations. Had more interesting metas. Had less brain dead writing. Had new enemies, instead of purple colored old ones...

EoD is an embarrassment.

[HotDelirium.7984]

There are allegedly hundreds of employees at Arenanet yet it seems the product we received was made by only a dozen people under some internal business limitations, guidelines, mandates, whatever which is bottlenecking their full potential. Its obvious to me that EOD wasn't fully ready by release time but they had to release it. I don't claim they are resting on their laurels (pun intended) but cohesion, fidelity with rewards, creativity, events, and innovation seem very inconsistent; one example would be that it seems like different teams designed the elite specs. Some seem to have been invested in with a lot of effort and others (catalyst) got the short end of their attention. The last dragon hand wavey because magic and because we are mandated to end the dragon cycle leaves a spoiled taste in my mouth. You have this monumental battle and yet its all about you but- the rest of Tyria has been scarred by the Elder Dragons also..... Other cultures per Elder Dragon should have been more involved so once again it was an ending we didn't earn. Reminds me of the last season of Game of Thrones and there's nothing we can do about it but take the bad with the good and hope ANET gets another chance to wow us once again.

UPDATE: ...AND by the recent update from the studio I can say a lot of wows are coming xD 

Edited March 22, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[Thelgar.7214]

From the standpoint of maps and metas, I think LS4 and some of the other LS things were better than all 3 expansions. Cantha seems big, small, cluttered and empty all at the same time. Overall, kind of dull and a chore to play in. So a tie with the other two expansions.

 

My thoughts on classes: 

Mechanist is a ton of fun.

Willbender is OK, but compared to Dragonhunter, just that.

Bladesworn is meh.

Untamed is meh. 

Harbinger is meh.

Others, I haven't spent enough time with to really judge. 

 

Mounts: 

Skiff is meh, but I don't fish. And otherwise, there is a much more fun aquatic mount.

Turtle is straight up awesome and fun, even solo. kitten way to get it though.

 

Other Masteries: 

Fishing is meh, but there is no way they could have made it otherwise to me. 

Jade Bots are cool, but having the Tier 3 items require strike missions is serious BS, especially for things you can't even use in strikes.

Arborstone is a little underwhelming. Lots of space but little in it. I'd have preferred it to include our home instance stuff or something.

[ReV.6097]

I prefer EoD if I'm honest as it fits a lot of what I like.

But PoF was better in some ways so I won't pretend EoD is greater.

 I despise the maps of HoT but it did bring in some good things.

 

For me:

Good Story: PoF.

Aestetics and design: EoD.

Positive group challenge: HoT.

Music: EoD.

Worst Maps to glide/climb/fly in: HoT.

Annoying boss events: EoD.

Best Masteries: PoF/EoD.

Best collections: PoF

Best Armor: EoD (personal taste) most hated it I know.

Best GH:  - HoT (Though I love the look of the EoD GH, but it's small)..

Replayable Events worth doing: HoT / PoF.

Replayable Story worth doing: PoF/EoD.

Total best Value out of all: PoF.

 

Didn't count Raids as I am not into it but I am sure that EoD failed the raiding community, just as it did the WvW community.

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by ReV.6097

[Seth Moonshadow.2710]

Thanks for this post really shows at least form the forums community where EoD stands. Too bad the studio isn't going to listen to it. But I hope they do!

I found this
"We will continue to make game-mode-specific balance adjustments as needed."

But is it a false hope?

Edited March 22, 2022 by Seth Moonshadow.2710
added comments

[LucianDK.8615]

9 hours ago, Thelgar.7214 said:

From the standpoint of maps and metas, I think LS4 and some of the other LS things were better than all 3 expansions. Cantha seems big, small, cluttered and empty all at the same time. Overall, kind of dull and a chore to play in. So a tie with the other two expansions.

 

My thoughts on classes: 

Mechanist is a ton of fun.

Willbender is OK, but compared to Dragonhunter, just that.

Bladesworn is meh.

Untamed is meh. 

Harbinger is meh.

Others, I haven't spent enough time with to really judge. 

 

Mounts: 

Skiff is meh, but I don't fish. And otherwise, there is a much more fun aquatic mount.

Turtle is straight up awesome and fun, even solo. kitten way to get it though.

 

Other Masteries: 

Fishing is meh, but there is no way they could have made it otherwise to me. 

Jade Bots are cool, but having the Tier 3 items require strike missions is serious BS, especially for things you can't even use in strikes.

Arborstone is a little underwhelming. Lots of space but little in it. I'd have preferred it to include our home instance stuff or something.

Only two comes from strikes. the r3 medical bot, and the r3 hoverboost. the rest is from bounty boxes from the zone metas.

[Gorem.8104]

Ahem "Absolutely humbled by the reception for EoD" You can tell again, just how disconnected Anet is with their entire playerbase and just how pointless feedback is when you read their posts. "We failed so hard we need to bring back Lw1 cause we suck now, oh also make sure to stick around for another rushed expansion". They really do not care at all about us. Its hard to remain optimistic when they lie about the feedback they got (over 50 pages to the DE meta post until the game lost so many players that it slowed down) De meta is still a terrible experience. EoD story was utter garbage. 

Why can't they slow down and actually produce the content they have made for years? They rushed IBS, then rushed EoD. With their small team focusing on so many things at once means everything comes out rushed. With how slow to little wvw updates we get, will it launch so buggy and not get fixes for 10 years? We still waiting for a graphics fix to Red's keep after so many years now. 

In its current state, if they game released on Steam with EoD, the negative reviews would be nutz and they'd not be able to lie about it. 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[Peterson.5172]

so i think eod has its problems, DE, turtle strike, bugs, incomplete/messy bits and pieces

but i want to point out the poll looks worse than it actually is

the first 3 can be merged into "EoD is better than pof/Hot" = 37%

compared to "EoD is the worst" = 55%

and "all 3 are equal" = 8%

still more negative than positive, but it could be biased because people mostly come to forums when they have an issue with the game (i never used forums until EoD myself)

plus hot/pof had years of bug fixes, polish and LW backing them up

a better way to word the poll maybe is "what's your favorite expansion" and list the 3, see which gets least votes

Edited March 22, 2022 by Peterson.5172

[Rewan.8490]

Well reading through this left a bad taste in my mouth for sure... Is EoD perfect? Surely no. The new specs have some huge balance issues, yes the new maps felt empty for me as well at least partly (Kaineng) and yeah maybe they overdid it with the difficulty increase in the last meta. But there are so many really good things in it as well. The new strikes are amazing in my opinion, I quite liked the story, the new maps are beautiful. I absolutely loved the music.

In the guilds and communities I am a part of the reception has been much better than this thread would imply. Is that in any way representative? No, of course not. But neither is this thread.

[wolfyrik.2017]

On 3/16/2022 at 12:07 PM, Randulf.7614 said:

It isn’t as engaging as the others and is incredibly empty. The maps a beautiful, but lack a lot of content and a lot of the story world building in open world Anet used to be so good at. If it wasn’t for skiffs and fishing, I’d be having a lot less fun.

The story is much better told and scripted, but I’m not a fan of the direction it is taking so far and it lacks interesting gameplay mechanics

Its certainly not rubbish, but given how much I enjoyed the first half of PoF versus the first half of EoD, I am a bit disappointed. Even living world maps capture my interest for longer. It just feels like a departure from their core design pillars which have worked so well for most of the game’s life

I think if they inject some life into the maps that would help for me. Given the scope for bounties, adventures, collections, races, griffin runs, there’s a lot they could add.

Funny really, if it wasn't for skiffs and fishing, I'd be having more fun. I can't stand that these have been forced into many of the achievments, map activities and story.

[Thelgar.7214]

17 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Only two comes from strikes. the r3 medical bot, and the r3 hoverboost. the rest is from bounty boxes from the zone metas.

Still BS.

[jahaan.1405]

I would rate it last. I think I wasted my money. I haven't got the turtle and doubt I ever will get it, even if I could find a group to help me through certain events. So tired of trying to do things in open world and being overrun by turtles and the battle mechs. There are so many battle mechs sometimes, you can't see what you are doing, it's worse than it usually is.

[Sevetamryn.2974]

As i just played the full story line for the 1st time, start to finish, as a new player: Liked HoT the most. very happy with PoF, Icebrood Saga and EoD, the new features / mechanics feel a little artificial, just for new features / mechanics. I'm in general happy with EoD.

[Gibson.4036]

20 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Only two comes from strikes. the r3 medical bot, and the r3 hoverboost. the rest is from bounty boxes from the zone metas.

The tier 3 rescue protocol has me scratching my head the most.

The people who are most in need of a reduced cooldown on self-rez don't seem like the people who will be farming a strike mission for a rare drop.

Unless the plan is that by the time they get it, they won't need it anymore because along the way they "got gud"? 🤷‍♂️

[LucianDK.8615]

21 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

The tier 3 rescue protocol has me scratching my head the most.

The people who are most in need of a reduced cooldown on self-rez don't seem like the people who will be farming a strike mission for a rare drop.

Unless the plan is that by the time they get it, they won't need it anymore because along the way they "got gud"? 🤷‍♂️

I got the hoverboost, which is the one I wanted. Im doing just fine with the baseline unchipped rez. Which is 10mins. The r3 chip lowers it to 6min cd.  Personally I dont see the point in it, it doesnt encourage you to play better if you need that crutch. And I agree, wrong place to put it.