Now that you've really got to experience EoD, what are your thoughts?

[Aodlop.1907]

How would you describe the expansion so far?

[Diovid.9506]

Fine, enjoyable, brought me back for a while. Not the greatest expansion ever but there are things between trash and amazing (unlike what the internet sometimes seems to be believe). 

[Omega.6801]

It's fine because I didn't expect much and that's sad. I've played through the story seven times now, completed all maps on six characters unlocked and played around on all Elites, went fishing, did the strikes and metas multiple times, unlocked all masteries and did maybe two thirds fo the side quest achievements.

1) The Good
The maps are beautiful, the first two thirds of the story are good fun, the music and voice acting is great (I don't know why, but it makes me smile everytime I hear someone shout "FOR THE FOREST" on the top of their lungs), out of the new Elites I find six to be fun to play, the Strikes are a lot better than the IBS ones and involve less "randomness", there are lots side quests/schievements to do after the main story.
2) The Bad
The Turtle is useless outside of situations explicitly designed for it to be usefull, Skiffs are useless outside of fishing and that one event where the depth charges come in handy, the last third of the story feels rushed, Kaineng City is a mess when it comes to the routes you have to take going from A to B (a "problem" I had with Tangled Depths as well that mostly comes from the fact that the ingame map does nothing for you when it comes to vertically layered maps), Harvest Temple takes too long and has a mechanic at the end that a) needs really good coordination and b) will wipe your team if it fails, the fishing achievements are super grindy for a pure RNG thing, two of the remaining Elites feel very clunky and unnecesary complicated.
3) The Meh
The Jade Bot is a nice-to-have gimmick, fishing is just the same as in most games (a low effort RNG-gindfest minigame), one of the new Elites feels lackluster to me it's probalby a viable option but won't make me play it over existing specs for the class, Dragen's End is a map that doesn't know what it wants to be (a map fully centered around a big meta event or a map that tells story through events), although having underwater content (one event that's crammed into each and every colection to make sure people do it lol) some of the new elites are just useless there because there probably was no time/effort to implement UW functionality, much of the collections feel samey, making map completion repeatable is probably a good thing for some but Idon't see myself doing it ever again after the first one.

All in all, I'd love to love it more. From the moment features were revealed I knew that this one wasn't for me, that I would play the story, complete the maps, grind the achievements and be done with it. Most of the new features are nice-to-have gimmicks at best, useless filler at worst. 

6/10

[Tachenon.5270]

Soggy in the middle with a thick skin on top, dark splotches, and the crust is burnt around the edges. Wait, no. That was my first attempt at baking a pumpkin pie. See also: second, and third, and...

Um.

Okay, got it. EoD is like a 6-piece chicken nuggets happy meal with only 4 nuggets and the baby yoda toy is missing an ear. The 4 nuggets are still mighty tasty and you can of course still play with the toy, but it's just not as happy a meal as it should have been. Especially when what you really wanted was two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

 

PS: Tengu, Tengu everywhere, and not a playable one in sight.

 

[Ziegrif.5964]

The content has been enjoyable but I went back to HoT content due to profit. 

Also most of the hats look really silly. Heavy jade helmet looks like the unholy union between a bicycle and a spike trap. 

[Hashberry.4510]

Its amazingly poor considering they trashed IBS in order to get on with this. What a reckless choice. A gamble like that needs a great follow through, something that Anet has never been good at.

[Farohna.6247]

The more I play it, the more I like it.  The maps of course beautiful, I like that not every mob on every map aggros to you from across the world.  I would like if there were a few more events on each map and more people on each one but I find that minor.  I really like the little shrine guardian puzzles, just something fun for open world. 

I like the fishing and skiff more than I thought I would, and I'm enjoying the achievements.  The turtle is delightful and I have fun finding new uses for it on old maps...it's a niche mount, not meant to keep up with a raptor, and that's ok, I don't bounce around on a springer except when needed either.

I like the new back items, most are very lovely.  Some of armor I'm not that crazy about, just kind of meh for me but some individual pieces are alright.  The new legendaries I'm enjoying slowly working on.  I really only play one character so not jumping into repeating the story over and over.  

I'd like to see better rewards from metas, or at least an extra incentive to encourage people.  

Overall I'd say once the new wears off, I'll probably spend equal amounts of time in each expansion.  Some weeks I play in one more than another just depending on interests.  

[Cuks.8241]

Its what I expected. A decent expansion but not ground breaking. 

The maps look good, metas are decent. Maybe they could add a few more interesting event chains. And I still have a feeling that player cap is a bit low.

The elite specs seemed lacklustre at the start but with some tweaks and and once I got used to them I feel like they are fine. Not much different to other expansions at the end. A few gems and a few mehs. But if you look across all game modes all find a place at least in one mode. Only wvw squad play seems to be completely unaffected by the new elites.

The new strikes are really on point for me. Both mechanic design and difficulty wise. You have 3 relatively easy one but all have a few mechanics you cant just power through and keep you awake. And harvest temple is a proper encounter with proper mechanics that are well designed, it looks like cant be cheesed through and decent length. The only downside is there are only 4. I hope they add more, at least with the new LS chapters if not earlier.

[Funky.4861]

The maps are lovely.

The enemies are generally well-tuned.

The strikes aren't an intro to raids but are mostly fun (apart from harvest temple, my god...).

It's very gimmicky with add-ons which are mostly useless- fishing, skiffs and turtle. Jade bot is fun and fire-and-forget.

The story npc's illustrate anet's dream of a gynarchy; all the positions of power and influence are held by females (draconic and otherwise) and men are bad, untrustworthy and incompetent. I'm sick and tired of the feminism in this game and was hoping that it would be more balanced after PoF/IBS.

The masteries seem to be taking far more exp to complete, making me think that we are chained to cantha if we want them.

I like most of the elite specs but my main is a necro so... 🙂

I think Arbourstone is a good idea and am very glad that we got a portal book.

[Fueki.4753]

The story is fine, I played it three times. It's not a jewel by any means, but at least it's not as terrible as the Icebrood Saga or WoW: Shadowlands. It feels like the story is far easier on condition builds than power builds, but that could be due to Renegade and Harmbinger being over-tuned.

When there is no jade trash or radio active flora around, it actually looks fine.

The verticality on the maps is too much, but I can handle that with the Skyscale.

The biggest negative points are the elite specializations and masteries, but we knew that beforehand. Outside of Harmbinger, I don't use any of the new ones.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Bobzitto.8571]

Maps:

 

The maps are visually stunning and really pushing the engine to its limit (in both good and bad ways). There's some clipping here and there but you can ignore it for the most part. I wish New Kaineng had a darker vibe to it (like Cyberpunk's Night City). Still, New Kaineng doesn't feel as lived-in as one would hope with its size.

 

The metas are OK. Worse than HoT, better than PoF (the xpac metas, not what came after). I wish DE could be more organic, like Drizzlewood Coast or Dragonfall, rather than on a fixed timer. 

 

Story:

 

Frankly, I didn't like it as a whole. I like Ankka, and I like Mai Trin's redemption arc (which doesn't work that well for anyone that didn't play S1), but there's way too much happening without a shred of logic or reasoning behind it (like Aurene constantly doing stuff without thinking because plot armor). The "villain" at the end feels super tacked on, and it would have been better if it had appeared way earlier when we noticed how killing Elder Dragons screwed with the balance of magic. Or if it hadn't appeared at all. 

 

Music:

 

Awesome pieces, and it's great to know they used traditional korean instruments in it. Would have loved to hear biwas, shakuhachis and shamisens but we can't have everything. Not as much variation as what we get from a certain japanese composer who loves breaking the mold but still great. 

 

Masteries:

 

It would be nigh impossible to top the glider and mounts, simply because of how their implementation changes the way players interact with the maps and traverse the game world. There isn't a single better mount system in the genre. What we got were some self-contained masteries and a bit of utility. Fishing and the Skiff are there for each other, but I don't like how they did Fishing in the game. It feels like a one-off gimmick for achievements, but I frankly don't know what they could have done instead. The Skiff exists for fishing almost exclusively, as any body of water will be crossed faster on a Skimmer. The Arborstone works as a hub and I like the architecture of the place a lot. I also like that it becomes a serviceable hub without draining player resources like EotN. Good for newcomers. My favorite, though, has to be the jade bot. It is the only one that really brings utility outside of its little bubble, with the vitality boost, the self-res, extra utility and farming resources with the chips (or whatever they're called). 

 

E-specs:

(This is PvE-related as I don't generally engage in PvP or WvW)

This is where I feel things were rushed. Not from a design standpoint, but from the sheer amount of reused assets for some of the specs. Design-wise, Anet does a great job opening up roles and allowing for more variety in what has been established as the  meta (quick/alac providers, dps, occasional heals). 

 

    Vindicator:

    - Vindicator GS is basically a reaper copy and GS5, which had the chance to look amazing, is probably the most visually bland skill in the entire game. 

    - I don't like the choices we got for our legends. The duality of it feels weird as a build that uses one side rarely has any reason to use the other. Also, we all know Nika is the one who carried these two buffoons to victory. 

    - The dodge mechanic is a bit clunky and I've had my fair share of issues not actually dodging stuff while in the air. 

 

    Virtuoso:

    - Cool skill effects, a great streamlined glass-cannon build for mesmers. The dagger attack sounds get very annoying very quickly. 

 

    Specter

    - Scepter AA animation is the same as warrior's axe.

    - Can feel a little clunky at least in action cam, with you suddenly targeting allies you moused over. 

    - Other than that, the class feels great.

 

    Catalyst

    - With the most recent changes, feels really good to play. 

    - Hammer 3 orbs need to stay after hitting block/immune enemies, specially since they're the crux of energy generation for the weapon. 

    - Could do away with energy in its entirety, TBH. 

    - Auras as a mechanic don't feel as fun.

 

    Willbender

    - You now know what happens when you give guardians coke. 

    - Feels fun and fast, but your F1 is clunky with the delay between you dashing and you dropping the fire attack. The good part is that it can follow your target and drop in weird places to hit them, but it still feels clunkers.

    - MH Sword is completely antithetical to the design of the spec. 

    - Whenever you mount/dismount, you get the Aegis passive from F3. Unsure if it was fixed recently or intended.

 

    Bladesworn

    - Feels like a 'love it or hate it' spec. 

    - The blade weapon skills feel 'meh'. Pistol is nice.

    - Very risky, not sure the rewards are worth it with the current balancing.

    - Still a bannerslave (to be fixed soon?).

 

    Harbinger:

    - The glass cannon for the necros. Amazing damage, at a very hefty survivability cost compared to the other e-specs of the class.

    - Elixirs and the blight mechanic can be fun to play around with. 

    - Elixirs are almost mandatory for the blight mechanic to flow well.

 

    Untamed

    - Very much tamed. Bad damage, the ability to control your pet skills feels more like a detriment if you can't put them on autocast. 

    - For how much work it is to proc them, ambush skills feel underwhelming. 

    - Does nothing a soulbeast doesn't do better.

 

    Mechanist

    - Any time you join a meta group, there's a 90% chance 50% of the group are playing mechanists, and thus I rest my case.

    - Dye mechas when

 

 

 

 

 

    

    

[Turin.6921]

Pretty good. Probably better than HoT and PoF at their launch states. It has some rough edges in some of its systems but i would say a solid 8/10.  

[Zok.4956]

8 hours ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

How would you describe the expansion so far?

EoD feels rushed and mediocre in a lot of ways. Some things I like, some I don't, but overall the expansion is not bad (I still would buy it). When I compare the masteries and mounts, the especs, the level of little details and the liveliness in maps and how maps are fleshed out,  EoD is not as good as HoT or PoF. 

 

[Ember.6478]

I love the maps, the music and the fishing. I haven't been able to get into the meta events on a daily basis like I do with other metas, I find them very long. The story I found way too short but I look forward to whatever comes next.

[SandraSolace.7682]

8 hours ago, Aodlop.1907 said:

How would you describe the expansion so far?

It made me search my house for my old GW1 code cards ! When I find them (I know I have them somewhere) I'm gonna try to get those accounts back. 

I play for me and I have played EoD with a couple of my chars. I love and hate it.  But I get to go fishing without actually getting wet or sitting in a tent. I'm good. Just need more sushi.

[Ninanthe.8524]

I am barely playing this xpack.

4/10

[Ledi.9742]

i absolutely love it. i spent my first few hours just climbing all over the place, and staring and admiring at everything, the maps are just so beautiful and fun to explore (i especially like all the "collectibles" hidden across maps, because it makes me feel rewarded for being so curious about the surroundings). the story was fun and exciting, and left a good taste in my mouth, i am waiting eagerly for future story content! i still have not got yet try all the elite specs i want to try, but that side seems promising. also i really love fishing. it makes it worth while to go back to old maps. i still dont have the turtle unlocked, but i want it just so i can carry my partner's character around

i admit that there is room for tweaking and improvement and bugs to fix, but i still think its excellent expansion, and worth the money i spent on it.

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

Not as bad as I expected it would be, but I still feel it to be a step down in quality from earlier expansions. 

I rated HoT at 8.5, PoF at 7.5, and EoD is a 6.0 for me.

[Firebeard.1746]

Annoyed:

1) Difficulty/experience of content released isn't consistent with previous OW/strike experiences. To the point where the major Meta isn't something I want to touch, I feel like I have to juke other metas with particular mechanics (which ruins the freestyle fun of OW for me). I don't feel like Kaineng city or HT are actual strikes. Kaineng feels like a damage sponge and very drawn out, HT feels more like a difficult raid enounter. I was fine that IMO WoJ and Boneskinner were at parity with easier raids in terms of mechanics because a few strong players could help balance out some bad ones, and the amount of mechanics wasn't that overwhelming. In HT the cardinality of mechanics is fairly overwhelming for a strike mission and I'd prefer to do it with raiders I know, making it not a strike imo. And I just don't like Kaineng. period. Aetherblade and Junkyard are okay, but I honestly just do either for the weekly so I can buy a summoning stone. I don't find either of them particularly exciting. 

2) Why are they showering us with extra luck and karma in map reward tracks? I feel like either of these is easy to get and coverting them into something worthwhile is tedious. i'd prefer they revamp PSNA completely so I'm not spending 5-10 mins of loading screens every day I feel like converting karma. For luck, i'm already beyong annoyed I had to hoard luck for over a year to convert it waiting for the blasted festival. not to mention that converting either of these is non-obvious to new players, essentially discouraging them from playing, or wondering what the heck they were doing even playing when they got rewards. I remember when i first played during LWS3 hearing my character say things like "that's valuable" when getting a rare and wondered why. I didn't understand ectos and didn't think the greens/blues I was getting was worth anything so I vended them when i first played. That's probably one of the biggest issues for new players is not understanding the value of items and the reward structures of EoD are VERY non-obvious. This was a terrible expansion for bringing people back for both of the reasons I've mentioend.

3) Why is my prismaticite node worth more uncoverted by not having IB masteries now that we have recyclers? Please give an exchange for prismaticite crystals to items/currencies offered by recyclers to fix this abominable scenario where something is better off not progressed. At least that's what I assume as I get jade slivers from junk from other nodes. 

There might be some things I would have enjoyed about this content if they hadn't fast-tracked me into more annoying aspects of the expansion from the get-go with the mastery structure and tying it to the story. 

[Shining One.1635]

While I don't hate it, it is the worst release for me. My preference order: Heart of Thorns > Original Release > Path of Fire > End of Dragons. There are things I like and things I dislike. I find myself having to drag myself to play through the story on my various characters, something I did not experience with the previous releases.

 

This will be likely the last ArenaNet product I'll "blindly" purchase prior to release, similar to how Mass Effect Andromeda ended my blind dedication to Bioware. I had purchased Factions, Nightfall, Eye of the North, Guild Wars 2, Hearth of Thorns, Path of Fire, and End of Dragons on or prior to release.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Basically 4 Lw episodes in a bundle. 

Thats OK. 

What's not OK is the lack of new runes/Sigils and very mediocre Elite Specs. 

If you just play Wvw, you wouldn't even notice that an Ex Pack dropped. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

Not great.  I find myself spending about zero time there.  The masteries are mostly irrelevant.  I don't really care for most of the elite specs.  Metas are long and unrewarding.  Events outside of the metas are too few and don't feel very interesting with many simply recycled one-offs.  Not much for solo player challenges (i.e. no champions on demand).

I feel like they had a model that worked great with HoT and for some reason they tossed it out the window with PoF and then did even worse with EoD.  It's like PoF's irrelevant maps all over again.  No replay value.  Poor rewards.  But it lacks the game-changing features in the mastery system that PoF brought as one of its greatest strengths.

[pugster.9378]

I have to be fair that in terms of the launch time, HoT was the worst because I find that it is extremely difficult to navigate thru the maps when mounts was not available at the time.  However, with all the mounts and stuff, HoT turns out to be the the best expansion because the metas are good.  PoF is nice because it makes navigating maps much easier but metas are not so great.  EoD is probably somewhere in the middle as the metas are time consuming considering that there are better rewards in other expansions.  I think that there is a change of philosophy for Anet not cater to casual players when EoD came out because the metas are taking too long. 

[Alcatraznc.3869]

The story is arguably the best among all the stories they made. 

 

Maps are pretty good but I have to feeling it's a bit lacking. Like there is one big meta event but if you're not doing story mission, hunting HP or preparing for the meta, it feels like there's nothing to do.

 

Fishing is fun but I dont find myself fishing more than needed. Also fish bait and lure dont have a dedicated inventory slot which doesnt really make me want to fish actually. Same thing for the jade bot, though I havent even started upgrading its core. Oh speaking of which, I think Anet should have given all character a T1 core but made that T1 core character bound and only usable to improve for a normal T2. 

 

Espec are either great either bad depending on your main gamemode. If you're a PvE main, then pretty much all Espec are great however for WvW you have god tier Espec like Specter and trash tier Espec like Mechanist that just doesnt work. 

 

Special mention to DE event which is one of my favorite event in the game since it requires a bit of coordination and people bringing good build. It is basically a test of weither you know how to build and how mecanics works. 

 

Overall I would give it a 7.5/10. If it had more stuff to do on the map, I would easily give it a 8/10.

 

[Mahou.3924]

- Story was fine

 - Music was lovely

- I enjoyed most elite specs on a "feels" level

- Metas and strikes are whatever.

- Dragon End meta is at first glance quite athmospheric once the prevent and waiting slog is over. Did it once by pure chance and probably not again, but that's personal preference.