Need more clarity around 60% success rate in DE meta

[mezuzel.4987]

54 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I hate it when you guys do this.  The thread is clearly in response to something, but there's no links to what it is responding to.

Yeah, me too.

This is what they're talking about: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/arenanet-studio-update-april-2022/

[Daniyyel.3428]

@ OP,  I run with a group 4-5  times a week.  8:30 central time.  We are on our 48th run  with one fail. A bad run for our group is having less than 3 min left on timer when we get the win.   We had one tonight.  People were joking around and playing around on discord so ended up winning with 2.5 min left.  But at least people are having fun.   I need to say,  we have a group of 15-20  that usually shows up every run.  Of those that are regulars, yeah most run raid builds/gear.  The rest are people from LFG.  I strongly encourage people who refuse to come back after getting the turtle to give it another shot.  Before I found this group, I was like many.  I figured it was a,  get turtle and get out to never look back. IMO  Anet has significantly watered down the meta.  I think people would enjoy it now.  I know we sure do.  Like someone mentioned in an early post.  The time investment is the downside.  We arrived about 15 min before prep stage. Find a map that has low on both north and south.  We don't  rush the map from Arborstone.  As far as Anet's numbers.  I can't say anything about that except anyone whose been around long enough knows to take what they say with a grain of salt.

[Zaxares.5419]

While the increase in clear rate is pleasing to see, I agree that without the full picture/data, it could also be misleading. Has the clear rate gone up, but the overall number of DE attempts gone DOWN? That would mean that the increase in clear rates is due to many players simply giving up and leaving, which is NOT good news.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/arenanet-studio-update-april-2022/

 

Found it.  Apparently there's a studio update that didn't have a forum thread or a launcher announcement tied to it.  Now, as I read it, that 60% number probably means the total number of maps that have progressed to the point of reaching the boss.  This includes organized groups, and disorganized mobs that just happen to bumble their way forward throughout the meta.  This would be good news, because if we assume that random disorganized groups tend to fail by a large margin, then groups organizing tend to succeed at the event by an even larger margin.  This means that players who make a serious attempt at this meta succeed.

I've been doing the Jade Sea meta on every one of my toons, for achievement reasons.  Of the 8 toons, 5 of them succeeded on the first try, and 3 of them succeeded by the second.  None needed a third.  This puts my current record at 8/11, or 72% success rate.  This is pretty good, considering I basically just show up a random map and either join the commander there or join whomever is taxying 10 minutes before the event begins.  The organizing can be extremely slapdash or well structured, because honestly that doesn't seem to matter much.  The three big indicators for how well a map is going to do are these:

1. Do people listen to the commander when they call for CC, Tail, and Waypoints?
2. How many people die on the first slam?
3. Does the boss bug and spam the bite attack over and over again?

The third one is out of our hands, and is planned to be fixed next week.  But the first and second are the really big tells.  Even on successful runs I still see 1/3rd of the squad die to the slam attack.  Worst case scenarios over half the squad dies to the first fist slam.  Also worst case scenarios nobody will go to the tail no matter how much the chat screams at people to do it.  Partly it is a L2P issue, but when the same people die to the fist slam over and over again, it reaches a point where it is just laziness.  As much as I hate wasting my time, I don't want to reward bad behavior.  If a player spends the event eating kitten every time the boss says "An ocean of void awaits you", then do they really deserve the awards?

[Erise.5614]

25 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

The third one is out of our hands, and is planned to be fixed next week.  But the first and second are the really big tells.  Even on successful runs I still see 1/3rd of the squad die to the slam attack.  Worst case scenarios over half the squad dies to the first fist slam.  Also worst case scenarios nobody will go to the tail no matter how much the chat screams at people to do it.  Partly it is a L2P issue, but when the same people die to the fist slam over and over again, it reaches a point where it is just laziness.  As much as I hate wasting my time, I don't want to reward bad behavior.  If a player spends the event eating kitten every time the boss says "An ocean of void awaits you", then do they really deserve the awards?

I even kinda agree with the point. But I still consider it poor design.

It should not punish the entire map for the failure of a few. It should have tied rewards to not dying / to contribution then. Or at the very least added a mechanic near the beginning to gauge how it's going before spending ~40 minutes. 

Compared with the poor reward structure it's too high a risk for a bad time with too little incentive when it does succeed.

(And just to clarify. When I say poor reward structure I mean too few account bound mats and too large mat supply on the TP. Meaning it's genuinely faster to keep running drizzlewood to unlock most EoD rewards. The design of DS with machetes, crystalline ore & black diamonds felt more interesting and engaging. Having to play all maps to convert map currencies into the final map keys to slowly grind towards specific runes, new legendaries and new skins. Relying on this account bound chain of currencies as key reward track while offering secondary TP mats alongside it. Creating a real incentive to learn and run the content)

Edited April 15, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Ygomogad.1836]

I've seen groups clear it with no commander

[Tukaram.8256]

5 minutes ago, Ygomogad.1836 said:

I've seen groups clear it with no commander

Other than a title, and an icon on the map... what is a commander for?  Is there an actual use for it? 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

12 minutes ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

Other than a title, and an icon on the map... what is a commander for?  Is there an actual use for it? 

Yes.  That Icon is good at guiding players.  The squad message can be used to beam organizing instructions into the chat of every player that joins the squad, and is readily accessible to anyone who wants to see it.  The commander has access to the broadcast option, which puts gigantic text on top of everyone's screen to make seeing orders much easier.  The commander also has the option to organize squads for efficient boon and heal distribution.  

[Linken.6345]

4 hours ago, Ygomogad.1836 said:

I've seen groups clear it with no commander

You sure the commander was not hidden?

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Ygomogad.1836 said:

I've seen groups clear it with no commander

And i have seen seemingly well-organized and quite good (as far as OW goes anyway) squads fail consistently with single digit percentage of HPs left (last day's attempt - sub 1% - the best i have seen so far).

That the map can rarely clear it without visible organization (with the emphasis on "visible", because it could have a had hidden squad on discord and you would not even know it) is of absolutely no help for anyone that wasn't on that map at that time.

The reality of 60% is that the highly organized squads push for 90%+ success rates, while pug squads keep failing with great consistency. Or just plain do not try at all.

I don't see it as a success, but rather a complete failure of that design.

[Tukaram.8256]

4 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

which puts gigantic text on top of everyone's screen

Hmm... I have never seen that. 😎

[Raizel.8175]

I still see around ~10 squads per DE iteration during prime time in LFG on EU. EoD is very popular in EU. Maybe this is a NA-problem?

[Fueki.4753]

When only the minuscule amount of players, whom the meta is meant for, remains, seeing the 60% is not too unrealistic.

However, the majority of players, whom the meta objectively isn't meant for, already leaves the meta well alone, so the 60% effectively means nothing.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Due to the length of the meta, it would make sense that the better groups are going to have more attempts, and also more opportunity of attempts. On the other hand, less organized or weaker players have probably made fewer attempts and given up. And then there's people like me that haven't even made it to the last map to see this xD This is where being below average comes in handy.

For example, I feel like I've done Tarir quite a bit since I played it back then and had to farm it for The Shining Blade and should be familiar with that fight. In reality though, I have only saved Tarir 27 times which is honestly pretty weak.  But you have organized groups that do it every day and are going to account for most of the attempts. If they did it since HoT, they could have had 2000+ clears.

It also could be that many people are just really bad at the game as being dead weight is rarely punished in most content, and so this would highlight it a lot more. Certainly, I have witnessed those that are extremely vocal about complaining regarding difficulty in many aspects of the game, and am very happy I will never have to group with them.

The all or nothing reward system is a pretty big turn off too. So people may avoid it unless they feel they have a good shot. If you waste 15-20 minutes, it's whatever. If you waste an hour trying to be sweaty when you can just do some Drizzlewood, then why bother? A lot of the harder stuff in this game gives consolation prizes, and even Teq does, so why is this like that?

Edited April 15, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[mythical.6315]

42 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Due to the length of the meta, it would make sense that the better groups are going to have more attempts, and also more opportunity of attempts.

Can you clarify this part of your post? The meta occurs 12 times per day (every two hours) regardless of the quality of your group. 

[Firebeard.1746]

14 hours ago, danielrjones.8759 said:

@ OP,  I run with a group 4-5  times a week.  8:30 central time.  We are on our 48th run  with one fail. A bad run for our group is having less than 3 min left on timer when we get the win.   We had one tonight.  People were joking around and playing around on discord so ended up winning with 2.5 min left.  But at least people are having fun.   I need to say,  we have a group of 15-20  that usually shows up every run.  Of those that are regulars, yeah most run raid builds/gear.  The rest are people from LFG.  I strongly encourage people who refuse to come back after getting the turtle to give it another shot.  Before I found this group, I was like many.  I figured it was a,  get turtle and get out to never look back. IMO  Anet has significantly watered down the meta.  I think people would enjoy it now.  I know we sure do.  Like someone mentioned in an early post.  The time investment is the downside.  We arrived about 15 min before prep stage. Find a map that has low on both north and south.  We don't  rush the map from Arborstone.  As far as Anet's numbers.  I can't say anything about that except anyone whose been around long enough knows to take what they say with a grain of salt.

This is a good clarification. I might not like this design decision, but it's good to understand raid comps are req'd and to not even bother on maps without required roles. I understand maybe not everyone on your map or group is, but i'm sure some of the randos you are with are too so i'm guessing a raid comp for at least half the squad is required. 

 

Screw build and stat diversity! Make leggies and build/gear templates useless!

 

I was hoping anet understood the diversity of play styles in this game when they said they were releasing strikes and strike cms. I was hoping they would capitalize on it further and make less binary pass/fail content too. Meh. Okay. 

[ArchonWing.9480]

46 minutes ago, mythical.6315 said:

Can you clarify this part of your post? The meta occurs 12 times per day (every two hours) regardless of the quality of your group. 

Well I was assuming they're not counting the attempts when there's 5 people on the map in dead instances but who knows? 60% seems really high if that were the case.

All I do know is that organized groups run it regularly and that would skew the success rate towards them.

Edited April 15, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Mickey.4207]

On 4/15/2022 at 4:12 AM, Ruisen.9471 said:

My guess is that alot of people who are still willing to play the meta are people who 

a) like hard content

b) are willing to put effort in order to do said hard content

c) have joined public discords with other like minded people to do this.

I only ever run DE with public discords, and the average DPS in VERY high (a dozen or more people doing 20k+ during burns) for a pug group of randoms, these are people doing enough DPS for strike missions.  

I don't think they have much of a choice for this though, if they want this content to be hard, it will only attract people who like hard content.  

Map cap is still a big problem though.

People forget the biggest problem it's takes 2 freakin hours and even if you win the meta the rewards are terrible for the amount of efforts it takes. I can get much better rewards in HOT maps in terms of time : rewards ratio. 

Edited April 23, 2022 by Mickey.4207

[Raizel.8175]

1 hour ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

This is a good clarification. I might not like this design decision, but it's good to understand raid comps are req'd and to not even bother on maps without required roles.

This is just wrong. Just did the event with a severely unorganized squad. Luckily, the commander was open for suggestions since it was his/her first time and thus at least split the squad for the major lanes. Other than that, at least 1/3 of the squad constantly died to her instakill AoE, only a few people did her tail and the DPS was rather bad. Nonetheless, we - even if barely - managed to successfully finish the job. Admittedly, the RNG wasn't horrible, but it feels like we're almost at the point where 2~3 handful of people with decent builds and decent DPS can carry the squad. ANet also already announced that they're going to fix the frequency of her bite attack in the next patch, meaning there will be even less problems in the future.

At this point, if the event fails, the majority of the people simply want the event to fail since they don't want to listen to explanations, do mechanics, etc. It does suck for the people who really want to play the event though.

39 minutes ago, Mickey.4207 said:

People forget the biggest problem it's takes 2 freakin hours and even if you win the meta the rewards are terrible for the amount of efforts it takes. I can get much better rewards in HOT maps for in terms of tim:rewards ratio.

It may sound stupid to you, but "fun" is also a reward in itself. I do enjoy more engaging events like DE over braindead meta events where I just wait till I can do my damage rotation on the event boss - and I'm saying that even though HoT meta events belong to the stuff I do daily.

[Taclism.2406]

Its not badly made per say, but if you don't know at leasts the basics of T3+/strikes movement, boons & rotation/gear, and solely play story / other open world metas, you most likely dont belong there.

If you're gonna ask this much of the average player, improve the learning experience first. Otherwise, lower the dps requierement so that it can still be somewhat carried in pugs ...

Edited April 16, 2022 by Taclism.2406

[Silent.6137]

4 minutes ago, Taclism.2406 said:

If you're gonna ask this much of the average player, improve the learning experience first.

They did try with the Training Grounds in Seitung. Combo, Dodge & CC. It forced you to learn the very basics, which if everyone paid a little attention, will know which skills to use and when to use.

However, many at these metas still do not dodge and totally ignore defiance bars. Combos? Fuhgeddaboudit.

[Hesione.9412]

It's not possible to extrapolate one's personal experience (or even that of a couple of people you know) to get a feel for what is happening in the average meta.

[jamesg.7128]

If the average success rate is 60% and many organised guilds etc that do it regularly are boasting 90+% success, how many other groups are failing in order to bring it back down that low?

Edited April 16, 2022 by jamesg.7128
Grammar

[koxsos.6258]

On 4/15/2022 at 12:20 AM, Wielder Of Magic.3950 said:

It's simple really.

 

Good players -> Succesful Meta. 

Bad players -> Failed Meta. 

Bad players upon seeing good players doing the meta succesfully: We want that too, let us in your group! 

Good players: okay, but to prep we'd like you to- 
Bad players: Stop telling me what to do toxic elitists!
Good players: But-
Bad players: Carry me, it's open world,  I don't have to do kitten, go find others with your attitude if you don't like it! 
Good players: Sigh deeply and proceed to disappear into Discord communities and continue to clear the meta.
Bad players who are now left to their own devices and will not get carried: Why does nobody do the meta anymore Q_Q

 

So many people have tried, so many trainers have tried, so many public commanders have tried...

I can testify this actually happens.

More or less same bs everytime, they want someone to command but they won't listen nor read and having them take on a group slot and a group role is just outside the realm of possibilities.

I stopped trying. And I also stopped going. Since the rewards are not that interesting.

[jamesg.7128]

Had a try and fail today. Not even close with close to 20% remaining. 

Rng was pretty bad with consecutive bites and side switching. We lost a lot of time chasing from one side to the other.

However, there were so many people going down. Every wave, stomp etc so many were downed. The first pair of champs also took way too long and dps seemed really low. We didn't even make the second champ phase.

Even if rng had been better we probably would still have failed. 

To make it worse, with a couple minutes to go people started leaving, even the comm.