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

[Firebeard.1746]

2 hours ago, pugster.9378 said:

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. 

There's a very subtle detail i think you pointed out and is worth noting: HoT metas are only good in the context of PoF masteries and power creep. I think they tried too hard to make the metas like HoT on release, not now. My understanding is that the failure rates were much higher on release and i'm not sure people would praise HoT metas without the power creep. 

[Erise.5614]

20 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

There's a very subtle detail i think you pointed out and is worth noting: HoT metas are only good in the context of PoF masteries and power creep. I think they tried too hard to make the metas like HoT on release, not now. My understanding is that the failure rates were much higher on release and i'm not sure people would praise HoT metas without the power creep. 

Quick note. HoT now differs from HoT upon release mostly in whether the game expects you to coordinate the entire map perfectly and AFK to compensate. Versus the events being designed around relatively simple commander work and fitting nicely with how people play the game. All of the major changes were balance patches by ANet. 

The most significant power creep is mounts making rotation between lanes faster. There was no significant DPS power creep among the general player population. And, for example, most certainly not to this 3x degree that would have been necessary to beat old Octo in a similar timeframe.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Quench.7091]

1. I liked the shifting of crafting material costs a bit. Mystic coins don't cost an arm and a leg, a new weekly material to get for people who've leveled their masteries, and really cheap materials now have a use in the form of research notes. The newer legendaries cost more, but the materials that the older legendaries used the most of are now more accessible.
2. I got my hands on the new legendary 1h sword, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get the other skins for it yet. There might be some kind of content tied to them later? The interesting thing is that they didn't have some long achievement chain to get the weapon recipes for it. I'm hoping that there's some cool chain to unlock the different dragon elements planned.
3. The turtle and skiff are springer tier mounts. Useful, but limited in scope. The whole 10 mount/skiff keybinding thing is also getting out of hand. Anymore mounts and some professions will then have equal to or less abilities than we do mounts.
4. The reward structure is a downgrade! There wasn't any armor that made me go "Wow! That's quality armor!" and I managed to get my hands on it really quick. Apparently, that's not the reward that is supposed to hook us into doing the main content of the expansion. Instead, the primary reward structure seems to be based around vertical power progression. Jade bot upgrades that I really don't want to deal with!

Edited April 11, 2022 by Quench.7091

[Sparrowspoo.8209]

I just finished the story and was in no rush but it felt short. The maps seem pretty much empty and as a casual player I don't have the time for the metas. 

The mysteries seem like they take forever to fill, and the skiff is useless to me and fishing is dull.

I haven't tried the new elite specs yet I like my reaper.

Got 100% on the maps but now I guess I'll just go back to other expansions. 

So I was happy with somethings and unhappy with others.

I just don't think I'll spend much time there which is as shame.

 

[Rendalmj.3152]

I played wow every expansion, lost ark and final fantasy. But i got to say end of dragons is by far the best expansion i ever played mmo game ,there is so many content to go thru after a month i still havent done 70% of the content because there is so much content. 

 

Also the best expansion launch for expansion... no login ques just smooth. I said this all the time the launch is so smooth like the great michael jackson smooth criminal.

[Kurenai.6258]

21 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

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.

Yeah we all saw that coming, too disappointing that I dont even bother buying this new expansion. Those new elite specs are quite cringing tbh :s

[Tukaram.8256]

I am really enjoying the expansion, but it is not perfect.  Maps are lovely. The music is great.  The story has been fun. I have gone farther in this story than I ever have in any other story in GW2, but I just finished chapter 11 and am losing interest. The story is way too long, and the fights are getting a bit stupid.  I am kind of ok with fishing, but really wish it was not a mini-game.  They said 'kick back and relax' and a twitch game is not what I call relaxing.

I am playing more than I have in ages, and this was a super smooth release. My ranger loves his new pets. 😎

[AliamRationem.5172]

5 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

There's a very subtle detail i think you pointed out and is worth noting: HoT metas are only good in the context of PoF masteries and power creep. I think they tried too hard to make the metas like HoT on release, not now. My understanding is that the failure rates were much higher on release and i'm not sure people would praise HoT metas without the power creep. 

The problem with EoD metas (aside from DE) isn't the failure rate but the amount of time wasted (and for practically no reward).  Even if DE meta were easy, the fact that you have to do the pre events before you can even start a meta that takes something like 45 minutes to complete is simply ridiculous and bordering on offensive in its lack of respect for player's time.

[pugster.9378]

5 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

There's a very subtle detail i think you pointed out and is worth noting: HoT metas are only good in the context of PoF masteries and power creep. I think they tried too hard to make the metas like HoT on release, not now. My understanding is that the failure rates were much higher on release and i'm not sure people would praise HoT metas without the power creep. 

Maybe in a few months Anet will make the DE meta a little easier or maybe a little shorter for everybody to complete.  Who knows.  But is recall when HoT came out, I keep dying when trying to navigate throughout the maps makes it so frustrating.  

[Zok.4956]

3 hours ago, Rendalmj.3152 said:

Also the best expansion launch for expansion... no login ques just smooth

This has nothing to do with EoD. It's how the GW2 multiserver technology usually works. Smooth updates without downtimes and no login queues (except in WvW maps, sometimes).

[vanfrano.1325]

Quite underwhelmed, I took my time but I can't say I've enjoyed this expansion and it's the first expansion of this game I didn't enjoy.

The maps, to me, look quite bad, empty, needlessly vertical and are annoying except maybe for Seitung Province. The metas are not fun, the story is meh. The sense of fun, discovery and exploration that I was used to on GW2 is not really there, the maps don't even feel like GW2 maps.

The green looks particularly bad, all the jade bot related tech everywhere look bad.

I like the fishing, as basic as it is, it will be even better when they remove the useless "yeah!" animation every time I catch a fish, it feels like I'm playing FFXIV with the "quest accepted/quest complete" spam, we're not stupid.
 

All in all, I will now pretend this expansion doesn't exist, sadly ignore this part of the world map and go back to the way the game was before its release, with fishing unlocked as a bonus.

I am guessing the devs had fun creating this expansion without really thinking about what makes a game fun for the players.

Let's wait for the next living world episode...

Edited April 11, 2022 by vanfrano.1325
typo

[Starry Night.4560]

The most important parts for me are the Turtle Siege Mount, Skiff and Jade bots. I enjoyed some parts of the story too, but it ends eventually and we are left on our own with what we earned from this expansion.

 

Turtle Siege Mount:

First of all it is an awesome mount in my opinion which offers a chill and nice gameplay. Why? 

The basic version of turtle (without masteries),you give less damage, you have less health, less jumping height, less ammo regeneration for gunner; this may be useless. However, when you unlock Ravenous Strike from Raptor's 4th mastery level (Path of Fire), turtle mount can hit 10k-15k (I have given 20k-25k damage as well by might stacks) with defiance break:200 each hit, and it is Area of Effect (AOE). If you wear Jade Bot's Turtle Siege Skill boost with lv2 it gives 15% damage boost for gunner's 1st skill with defiance break:200. Even though I am usually alone driving my turtle, I can still kill crowded groups of creatures with one button and collect everything without getting off. In addition, I don't use my springer much anymore as my turtle can hover really high. If I have a passenger it gives speed boost and shield so we can go really fast we can generate much more ammo and give much more damage as AOE. With the last mastery level, all of your mounts have 50% increased HP. All in all, basic version of the turtle maybe useless, but by unlocking its mastery levels as well as Ravenous Strike from Raptor's 4th mastery level, Turtle Siege Mount becomes something good. When I am on my Turtle, I feel like I am in a safe tank with 60k HP with a good defence mechanism. I like it. 

(EDIT: If I'm with a friend who doesn't have an improved mount, my Turtle solves everything, we go high, down, teleport wherever we want, it makes people happy to be onboard  🙂 and easy to reach so many places. If I am alone and bored of fighting creatures over and over (as I had to), I just get on my Turtle and press only 1 button until the creatures are dead and I'm free. At times that ı don't have to fight, I just get on my Skyscale and fly.)

Skiff:

Although I don't have many friends to play this game, it is nice to have an option that I could have friends on board my skiff. I fully upgraded with mastery levels and it is nice to stop at some places, catch a fish and go elsewhere.

 

Jade Bots:

The service chips, arrays and cores are a little expensive for now but even a little chance of strenghtening the abilities is good. Also setting a manual checkpoint kind of cool.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Starry Night.4560
Additional info is given (part named "EDIT:") after I got my Skyscale.

[Rendalmj.3152]

1 hour ago, Zok.4956 said:

This has nothing to do with EoD. It's how the GW2 multiserver technology usually works. Smooth updates without downtimes and no login queues (except in WvW maps, sometimes).

Best expansion by a mmo game ever all time the goat of mmo. Other big game company need learn from anet on how to launch a expansion for smooth experience

[Einlanzer.1627]

It's pretty good, but my general opinion is that they spend too much time on what are fundamentally the same types of content (mount expansions, story instances, open world metas, maps with tediously complex verticality), and not enough on imporant "new" things like other systems expansion (races, classes, weapons, dungeons, companions, etc.), general modernization (new skill animations, revamps to the old dungeons, integration of different forms of instanced content, updates to old zone mob behavior/loot systems) and PVP/WVW things.

This is something that absolutely needs to change.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Einlanzer.1627

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

It is a pandemic/home-office victim. Each of the sub-projects were developed independantly, but most just do not fit together very well. In addition you can also see where they ran out of time in the end. The sub-projects themselves are well developed in many cases, but there are also find a few blind-spots, where things just did not work out as planned at all. 

Some classes perform better than others, some new mechanics just seem to not work out as intended or are barely implemented. From my perspective, it looks like some classes received more attention than others. May it be in the original design or the polishing.

Story is good, but suffers from a drastic resource-cut somewhere in the middle. Act I and Act II were awesome, but Act III, Act IV and Act V look like they were made in a fraction of the time. Also why was the Majory story-arc excluded? As Kasmeer developed during PoF, Majory should have developed during EoD. Not at the end as part of a tiny collection.

Even the Strike Missions look a little odd. It feels like there was at least one more somewhere during the development process, which was removed later.

The currency-system is meh. We have a map-currency for each map, that is stored in the vault. We have karma, gold, unusual coins, imperial favor, canach coins. And the two unique nodes for Echovald and DE. Some of the prices for vendor items look like they were figured out by rolling dice. Not to mention the weird Research Note situation. EDIT: Totally forgot the weirdest currency in the list, Tales of Adventure. Only acquisition method is to replay the story. 

The lore feels like a GW1 theme-park. I have not played that game and feel completely lost. Never had the feeling with PoF a single time.

But the worst part for me is the open world and meta-event situation. Everything screams competitive from a mile away. Even the patch-notes on launch day did. This was the first patch in 9+ years I did not want to play, although it was a new expansion. That is a job well done.

Edited April 12, 2022 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870
minor corrections

[ugrakarma.9416]

i lead meta events there and i have a bunch of achievments done so i consider myself "experienced".

 

- Map quality(aesthetics) is a trademark of Anet, so no complain there, specially echovald/arbostone is a lust. Granularity and variety is also another plus point, neither feels like 'more of the same'.

 

criticism i will left for later, but theres "rushed" traces, lack of deep-economics in fishing, also again poor news skins.

[xenon.3264]

research notes confirmed that you need to rush content before it gets nerfed or only those who do get the advantages.

 

it is such a stupid system that after i levelled a bot to 10 i stopped caring for other characters

[Will.9785]

In a couple of words, this expansion is basically like eating empty calories.  First you get a high from lots of sugar but there's not enough to keep you satisfied/sustained for the long term.

Now for my long winded explanation...

The thief elite sucks in open world due to having little/no cleave with scepter and you constantly getting 'you must have an enemy targetted to use that skill' when using action camera.  And the support it provides is a PITA to use with the constant target swapping that's needed and it doesn't even benefit from all of its own support.  As a thief main, I hate it and I've basically abandoned the class after maining it for almost 10 years.  I can only play Daredevil for so long.

Untamed should be named Unplayed because there's literally no point in playing it and the pet UI is wack.

The rest of the elite specs, I'm willing to give a pass to, even though I don't really like any of them.

The zones have zero replayability right now.  The metas still aren't worth it.  Dragon's End still fails the majority of the time so I'm not even going to bother with it and the rewards you get after investing 2 hours are a pitance, assuming you do manage to clear it.

I'm glad I got my research notes done early after the first round of nerfs.  They are still nerfing these.  Why?  And there's ZERO rhyme/reason as to what craftable items count as salvagable.  Plenty of expensive to craft exotics don't count, for example.

Seitung Province and Echovald are good.  New Kaineng is like a ghost city and a PITA to navigate.  Dragon's End is also a PITA to navigate.  Would it it kill you to open up the waypoint in the middle of the map during the prep phase?  You are already keeping us here for 2 hours for what will likely be a failed attempt.  You can at least make the waste of time that is the prep phase the slightest bit more navigatable.

The skiff and fishing are literally pointless.  Hell, so are Arborstone and the turtle because you need a 2nd player to make it do anything of note.  The jade bot is fine, but the system with the modules and all that crap needs to be tossed in the bin.  If you don't want us to use all the service chips at the same time (why? its literally the only good mastery from this expansion) just make them all an account-wide toggle instead of making us lug around the items. And the service bench is obnoxious design.

The strikes, especially Kaineng have so much crap going on in them its ridiculous.  I literally cannot even see my character amid the other squad members and flashy effects, let alone the enemies.  I'm surprised this hasn't given someone a seizure yet. This seriously needs to be toned down / looked at.

The art direction in Seitung Province, Dragon's End, and Echovald is top notch.  The music is also top tier.

The story was probably the most coherent and best one they've ever done.  And the voice work is really phenominal.  Props to the narrative team.

If I'm sounding negative its because I know you all are capable of something much better than this.

Edited April 11, 2022 by Will.9785

[patton the great.7126]

From a WvW perspective unanimously disappointed in this rubbish. From a fan of cantha from gw1, this was hardly worth a content patch let alone an ex pack. Game is living off of past glory. Total trash.

[Heretic.6928]

We have a saying in Farsi which roughly says "That cow that gave 9 gallons of milk". The story is, that there was this cow that could be milked for 9 gallons every day, except that at the very end, it would kick the bucket of milk and splash it all over the floor.

 

It's the story of gw2: you can buy all the expansions and it is great, until the devs take a crap on the final "ultimate meta" and then double down and sit on it too. I boycotted spending any money on this. At least my own money is not used to disrespect my time.

[Linken.6345]

24 minutes ago, Heretic.6928 said:

We have a saying in Farsi which roughly says "That cow that gave 9 gallons of milk". The story is, that there was this cow that could be milked for 9 gallons every day, except that at the very end, it would kick the bucket of milk and splash it all over the floor.

 

It's the story of gw2: you can buy all the expansions and it is great, until the devs take a crap on the final "ultimate meta" and then double down and sit on it too. I boycotted spending any money on this. At least my own money is not used to disrespect my time.

So milk 8 gallons and let the cow keep the last one every day then.

[Taclism.2406]

As far as "metagaming" goes, its better than season 2 and worse than every other paid content. Not even exagerating, S3's mastery is a billion times more useful than eod's, and everything about eod's farms / metas worth has been said. 
I also hate with a passion (the random changes around) research notes, because devs are arbitrarely displeased with the playerbase solutions to cut costs.

On the bright side its imo among the best looking areas (without no post processing), and I really liked discovering all the ambiant dialog on my first dozen hours on each map. And it provides somewhat more accessible/ cheaper legendary weapons, especially on the long run.

Basically, chill expansion, DE meta (drama) aside.
Your perspective on content will choose whether that's a good thing or not.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Taclism.2406

[Redfeather.6401]

I really liked the Zen Daijun area. There's a lot going on there and it has an interesting variety of challenges in such a compact space.

[SlateSloan.3654]

Strike Missions definately good.

Fishing big plus also.

I like the new specs of Willbender, Harbinger, Catalyst.

The rest of the specs, all the maps, story, general jade tech topic, legendary items, etc. could have been done way better and different. Having Cantha in memory from GW1 there could have been made way greater things in terms of lore and countryside out of it. 
To much annoying green colors everywhere.

Specially New Kaineng is just annoying. The maps dont feel like a company with many years of experience made them but rather people who started their game design career had a try on it. Sorry is just true opinion and not meant as a random attack towards anyone personally. The maps just feel like an unfortunately necessary holdup you need to go through to reach the end finally.

All the new currencies are also big demotivation factor. Dont want to farm this and a big part of the currencies would require me to farm them via content I dont want to redo after finishing once.

Research notes just a factor of unfun.

Unfortunately the whole gaming industry has turned into a dollar hungry monster which puts sales numbers over a proper delivery in return. It seems not to matter anymore what players want but what fits to reach that players spend, spend, spend.

Lets hope the episodes turn it around somehow.

Edited April 12, 2022 by SlateSloan.3654

[Sena.2761]

It's okay, but I don't recommend it to anyone not already playing GW2, which is nobody I know unfortunately.

 

It didn't really feel like it had that much new stuff and mostly felt like stuff for people already playing it. That and if I had to walk around Kaineng without a Skyscale I think I'd quit.

 

It's fine if you were already playing but imo not worth coming back for if you weren't, especially if you were already far behind.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Sena.2761