Rating EoD after 2 months!

[Izzy.2951]

Hey!

Story - 9/10

So far the best experience throught the whole game. Good written, interesting characters, engaging instances, quality cinematics. Would have rated 10/10 if the Echovald/Jade Sea part had a bit more arc/content and the characters involved in it (Speakers etc) were more significant like Kurzicks and Luxon were.

Maps:

- Echovald Forest - 5/10

Being generous. The biggest letdown of the expansion for me. It lacks personality, instead of getting new assets for trees (like gw1 had) we just got Maguma jungle but coloured differently. The map have little to do with its predecessor, there are no open zones like there used to be in Ferndale everything is small paths full of Tangled depths trees. Luckily the cathedrals and some constructions stood there, thats the only reason why i didnt rate it a 4 (also the JP was great). The gangs wars feels like they are meaningless and not having the Kurzicks and their important houses doesnt help either.

- New Kaineng City - 7/10

The big star of the expansion. I was very skeptical about the modern stuff, but holy moly, it really felt great. Its very different from everything we have seen before, the Mai trim appartment and the atmosphere feels great, it really gives you the sensation of a Canthan modern nation. However, not having a "poor zone" outside like what we can see in the loading screen of the map with farm places and those typical npcs with big hats makes me not rated more (it will maybe become monotonous cos of that). A little more interaction between Npcs would have been apreciated it because it feels quiet sometimes. Also its a bit confusing how to move from lower parts to upper parts sometimes.

- Seitung - 6.5/10

It serves its purpose. It has a good atmosphere of a more traditional Cantha, however it doesnt provide anything great. In the whole expansion theres a bit of lack of unique monsters rather than having aetherblades, undeads and same enemies but covered in Void.

- Jade Sea - 6/10

The Meta is beautifully done, one of the best things of the expansion. However having a map just for an event, and on top of that, for another Elder Dragon event.. like Dragonfall doesnt feel great, specially when you are trying to forget about the whole dragon stuff. I think having the jade more kind of its orginal "blue" would have been better in the long term, and would have provide good inmersion seeing creatures from above. Again missing the luxon here too.

Features - 6/10

- Fishing/Skiffs: Its cool and relaxing, even tho its not the great addition to the game. Skiffs feels like a boat, but they could still improve how to stop them etc.

- Turtle Mount: to be honest here... a bit disappointing. It feels too slow when you use your "1" and want to move again making it tedious/boring. The attacks could have been better implemented, and having idk other skill that is a single target but can maybe destroy 50% of a minor structure with 1 hit making it more engaging/fun to use. Its very useless in general and not very satysfing, but the concept its great.

- Elite Specs: some are good, some are not. Not the best point of the expansion definetly.

Rewards - 6/10

They have been improving them slowly, however we are still missing more cool dedicated skins for Strikes or metas.. 

Strikes - 9/10

Very well developed, cool mechanics and fun to play them, definetly a selling point for the expansion. I hope that in the future they will combine well with raids!

Edited May 7, 2022 by Izzy.2951

[Sarius.9285]

21 minutes ago, Izzy.2951 said:

Elite Specs: some are good, some are not. Not the best point of the expansion definetly.

honestly the biggest selling point for me

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Story 7.5/10 Its ok

Maps 8.5/10 Beautiful

Metas 5/10  See no real reason to do them. 

Features 6/10  Their nice but I don't use them. 

Elite Specs 1/10 Most important part for me and just.... No.... 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Luthan.5236]

Story: 6-7/10
Weaker than HoT and PoF. (They wre more like 7-8-ish and my favorite story was the S2.)
The end fight was pretty boring and the whole thing with the chapter 4 as well. Liked the thing with the underwater reactor though.

Seitung: 7/10
Looks beautiful. Nice events and meta is not too hard.

New Kaineng: 5/10
Pretty boring. Hard to move around. I dislike big cities and an annoying layout. Meta ... not too interesting.

Echovald: 8/10
Some nice events and references to GW1. Interesting things to explore. Just the tech stuff ruins it ... but I that main theme of the whole expansion though.

Dragon's End: 7/10
Looks pretty boring. But the meta is interesting. A bit too hard and/or too crowded though. (I need to get a better computer for this one that probably made them increse the min requirements of the expansion compared to the core game and previous expansions.)

Overall for the maps I'd say they are far away from the level HoT was at. (Especially regarding the meta events.) Looking much better than the boring desert in PoF though. And the meta events ... it depends. (Most from PoF were a lot more boring as well though.)

So while the story is inferior ... the maps safely beat PoF at least though.

Features: 7-ish/10 or so ...
Surely more interesting than HoT - which comes out weakest here. (I'd still prefer it in total cause the maps and story are more important imo.) PoF mounts were more interesting than the turtle though. Still haven't gotten it. (Waiting for them to drop the strike requirement or until I'm in the mood to look for a group that allows for a casual player. I guess the mainly interesting thing is the health boost from the mastery line that can affect then the older mounts as well?)

Jade Bot offers some nice additions - that do not really have that much impfact though. (Except the vitality boost maybe. Which is not something "interesting" though. Just a big boost.) Fishing and skiffs might get "old" fast though.

Have not tried strikes. I only played fractals up to T2 and the 3 easy strikes from Icebrood and the information I got about them ... made it seem as if even the one required for the turtle would be harder than the easy ones from Icebrood - meaning you'd need a dedicated gear and build even if only wanting to try once as casual. (Which I am not willing to do at the moment. Have other content to play which is more important/interesting.)

Rewards: Well ... the weekly stones for legendary you can buy ... surely seem nice if you sell them - pretty easy money. At least until the price drops further. Which might happen. Otherwise I'm not too interested in most stuff. Well it is basically just more skins - where I prefer basic stuff and not the stuff that looks "too fancy". (And legendaries I only get for the convenience of stat-swapping and being able to use them on all chars cause of the armory. Do not care about the skins.)

Elite Specs: 9/10 maybe? I mainly only play an engineer and I like the mechanist so much - even willing to play it in WvW and PvP. (Scrapper an Holo I only liked in PvE.)
For my 2nd main (not really playing it much but basically the only other char where I have played all the maps as well + tried the other elite specs) I have a mesmer and the virutoso feels crap though ... compared to mirage and chrono. (Chrono feld the best for PvE survivability-wise while still being able to do a good amount of damage.)

[Hashberry.4510]

I enjoy the elite specs more than most. The rest of the xpac is just there.

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

Story: 6 at best

I thought the story was the worst we have had so far.  
Where both HoT and PoF for me had at least a very strong first half and then felt rushed in the second part, the EoD story never really gripped me at any point (start/middle/end).

Most plottwists and character arcs you see coming from a mile away ( "ahh, so that is the cynic, and this one is the kitten that will give us issues later on, and that is the idealistic one"), the first half of the story you wonder when things are finally going to kick off (in a 'where is this going/is this going anywhere' sense, where with PoF and HoT you knew this pretty much from the start when it came to questions like 'what are we doing here/who is the bad guy/what are the stakes'. You knew your A and your B, and were interested to see how Anet would move between them. In EoD I felt like A was muddy, and for far too long you have no clue about B. The first part of EoD really feels like a collection of disjointed sidequests in comparison, it missed urgency, relevancy and speed to me. Filler arcs.), then you get a middle part where things might become interesting (introduction of a new concept/idea for a big bad enemy with the void), and then we get rushed towards the end (end the void before it was even fully established basically).

It is not unlike the mystery boxes from movie director JJ Abrams (setup mysteries and riddles in a movie, which works, as long as he does not have to make a sequel to deliver on his mysteries...because then he falls flat).
Anet gives a few mystery boxes which were almost interesting half-way, only to completely bury them again before the story is fully over.

I gave it a 6 when I try to expand the rating beyond the main story and into the optional collections. The writing for those collections is what would pull the writing upwards for me, because some of those collections have some of the best writing in GW2 that I have encountered ( Marjory dealing with grief, the Zu Heltzer storyline, the fate of Zunraa, etc). If you take the collection writing away and focus on main story only, it would end up below that 6 for me.

 

Maps: 6,3 average

 

Seitung Province: 7.5 
Seitung Province feels like the best of the new maps to me. It's new, but at the same time managed to have the Canthan feeling from the first game for the most part.

 

New Kaineng City: 6
New Kaineng to me felt rushed and unfinished. A lot of re-used assets, empty, not enough NPC's or events, and nothing made me think off old Kaineng in any way. Saying 'whoops, old Kaineng is flooded so we can pay minimal attention to that' felt like a way to obscure the fact that they seemed to be running out of time.

 

Echovald Forest: 6.5
On its own this is an interesting map, the problem is that it is supposed to be Echovald, which means it has to hit a few key characteristics from the first game...and to me it does not. Not at all. I personally don't get the Echovald vibe from it, I just don't. Making a shadowy forest and dumping ruined Cathedral assets into it does not make it the Echovald I remember. Shame, if it had been a place somewhere else in Cantha I would probably have been fine with it, since it certainly does some good stuff as well (and for what it's worth I enjoyed the mini dungeons of Vaalhertz(?) and Vasburg). It's just not Echovald for me, and slapping that name on it all the same knocks it down a few notches.

 

Dragon's End: 5
 I am still firmly in the 'wtf is going on with that jade yello' camp. And for a map having to do with the Jade Sea, the amount of actual Jade Sea is very...limited to say the least. Like the map ends before actually getting there (the POI's at the edge are as close as you get. You can look at it, but that's all). It also feels very small in comparison to the other maps, but maybe that is also because its easier to traverse. The meta itself feels like a budget version of Dragon's Stand. the final meta fight is cool tho, expansion worthy.

 

Features (masteries):5,3

I give fishing a 6. It's interesting as a side activity, but it is also prone to RNG, grind heavy, and in the end fishing is self contained: everything to do with fishing, everything you can do with caught fish, etc...only serves to...get better at fishing. This could have been so much more, even just a few recipes for fish that did something else but just a vehicle for fishing power would have gone a long way.

Skiffs get a 3. Easily the worst mastery from this expansion for me, not worthy of its own masterline. Should have been merged with the fishing one. There is no reason aside from the self-contained fishing to use the Skiff, it is inferior to Skimmer for everything that isnt fishing or traveling in long straight lines (and why the hell are you not using a griffon or a teleport in that case?). It looks peaceful, and that's about it.

Jade Bot gets a 7. It adds a lot of quality of life with its mastery bonuses, but it's also needlessly annoying (having to walk to a bot station to switch modules), RNG prone (some modules only have a chance to drop from certain metas, but no guarantuee), and characterbound (cores) where you would expect accountbound.

Arborstone gets a 4. What the hell is this other than just another hub like we had so many ( Sun's Refuge, Eye of the North, every possible gemstore lounge area), it looks nice but it does not add anything new or groundbreaking.

Turtle gets a 6.5 from me. It looks and seems great...until you actually get it. And then you find out that as the driver there is nothing to do. On top of it being utterly useless outside of one event in the DE meta chain and some usage in Drizzlewood. Giving the driver access to the gunner skills when nobody is in the gunner seat would go a long way of making this mount a bit more interesting.

 

Elite Specs: 6,4

Going through the list: Vindicator gets a 7, Bladesworn a 6, Willbender a 7, Specter a 7.5, Mechanist an 8, Untamed a 2,  Catalyst a 6.5, Harbinger a 6.5, Virtuoso a 7. All in all not everything bad, but when I look at complexity and added mechanics, I feel overall they are inferior to their HoT and PoF cousins.

Rewards: 5
Right now it feels like the rewards are even worse than they were in PoF.

 

Strikes: 7
Not groundbreaking new endgame era inducing, but they are a step-up from IBS and the first CM seems like a step in the right direction.

All in all, I feel this expansion was the weakest we had so far, with a lot of cut corners and rushjobs. I still bought it and still play it because it is GW2, and meh GW2 content is still better content than anything else on the MMO market for me, but I do hope that the next expansion will be of a higher quality again on all fronts.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Wielder Of Magic.3950

[MajinSoul.4512]

1.  maps: Echovald is actually the only EoD map I actively play on. I got my commander's tag recently and have been running gangwar daily since. I really like the map. I also like Seitung Province but rarely play on it. I haven't been in DE since I got my turtle and I don't see myself going there unless they overhaul the meta event. New Keineng is simply terrible and probably my least favourite map in the game right now.
2.  specs: all over the place and it really shouldn't take so long to balance these out ...
3. strikes: very good and a step up in terms of fights and rewards compared to IBS
4. fishing: the mini game is okay and you can actually make decent gold with fishing. What I don't like is that you have to commit to fishing when you are fishing. You cannot leave your skiff or you will lose your catching streak. I often see people asking for help for certain events/HPs but I can't help them or I will lose my stacks. This system feels very anti-MMO. Another issue is the lack of a tackle box. Also screw Dawn/Dusk fishing ...
5. Jade-Bot: it's a decent addition that allows for a little bit of customization. I really enjoy using the scavenger hunt for magic trophies which seems to add quite a bit of extra material over time. Why isn't the Jade-Bot account bound though? Feels very weird.
6. research papers: they really screwed this one up big times. Constantly patching out cheap item options is simply screwing over people who didn't make use of those items early on. It also leads to a lack of clarity as to which items can be salvaged and which can't. On top of that you have to manuall salvage items one by one. Big oof.
7. story: can't say much about it since I skip most of the story in this game but the story missions (outside of that one very long elevator ride in the research facility) were solid overall.

 

In summary, the expansion isn't terrible but it's not even close to the other two expansions in terms of content and polish. It really needs a couple of patches to improve the experience.

Edited May 6, 2022 by MajinSoul.4512
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[Rollinabout.7168]

Completed the story which was uninteresting, immediately stopped play the maps because compared with HoT and PoF they are nowhere near as good looking or interesting. One of the things about the earlier GW2 maps is they looked natural but EoD just looks like they cut and pasted the same design elements all over the map. TD & AB metas are cool and the rewards are good. DS is a good meta but too long takes it over 2hrs to complete. Dragonfall is a cool meta and the build up is fun with good rewards.

IMHO EoD was a complete waste of my money.

[aspirine.6852]

Dont think I went back after I got the turtle. Nothing there interests me. 

[Zaraki.5784]

Maps: 9, I love the landscape of every map (Seitung being my new favourite map of all gw2) metas are fun too, even DE it's hard but epic, only Echovald is a no because it's bad to navigate.

Masteries: 4, the worst selling point of EoD, none of them changed the playstyle like gliding or mounts did, and I especially dislike how they made fishing.

New Specs: 8, I like most (just not all) of the new specs. 

New Weapons/Armors: 7, a few nice/particular skin but most are average. It gets 1 bonus point for having introduced the 3rd leg weapons set.

Total: 7/10.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Zaraki.5784

[Poormany.4507]

Story - 9/10

Good for the most part and felt on par with those of HoT and PoF.  The underwater reactor map was one of the best we've had imo. Only reason it got 9/10 is that the whole Minister Li/Rama subplot felt very tacked on and like it should have been saved for LWS6 when we'll probably have to deal with the Ministry of Purity again anyways. The characters were really good imo.

Maps - 7/10

Again good for the most part, but the jade tech/batteries everywhere (even in random abandoned ruins) felt tacky and out of place, especially in the Echovald where these is less civilization anyway (like the dev(s) who worked on this just went trigger happy with the copy-paste button). As others have already said, Kaineng had so much more potential than it received and has a lot of empty/useless areas that I see no reason at all to go to. I was expecting a bustling city similar to Divinity's Reach since it is the capital city of Cantha, but was really let down by how much empty space and lack of ambient dialogue there is. Guessing this is because of lack of dev time, since Kaineng was the last map previewed before launch.

Masteries - 9/10

I really liked these masteries. Skiffs and fishing are a nice way to relax and I enjoy the fishing minigame. Jade bots are awesome and provide really useful functions (the gliding one is very useful imo, haven't gotten the revive one yet, but that one seems very helpful as well). Only downside was the Arborstone ones felt a little repetitive, but were still ok and useful for a hub in Cantha.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Poormany.4507

[patton the great.7126]

PVE: 5.2 OUT OF 10- It's only at that because of going back to cantha....

 

Pvp/wvw.....Mr blutarsky....0 POINT 0

[Duglaive.5236]

Instead of being an extreme Grumpy Gus, I'll list those few things that I do like from EoD. Feel free to assume I dislike anything not listed.

 

The Jade Bot: pre-release I had a fairly negative stance on this; while there is nothing exciting about it (and the workbench mechanic is nothing but annoying), I like the vitality boost for my low HP characters, and enjoy the extra mats.

 

The DE meta: obviously hated by many, but I enjoyed it a lot. However, considering the time investment and EoD's overall miserly rewards, I don't really see myself going back as there's older content I enjoy more and find more rewarding.

 

Not that there's really much of import here, but I simply enjoy looking around in Arborstone. I intentionally did not complete the masteries as I want it to remain as empty feeling as possible. Plus, did we all really need yet another hub?

 

The only EoD elite spec I still actively play is Willbender, which is surprising to me considering I've not liked core or the other Guardian elites. I still have a couple of other EoD elites as off-specs, but overall Willbender is the only one I solidly enjoy. Except the name; Willbender? What assassin is out there bending victim's wills? Break, and dead.

 

Oh, and kirin are very cool looking. Too bad they didn't make the list of new ranger pets.

[Gladiotor.7561]

8 hours ago, aspirine.6852 said:

Dont think I went back after I got the turtle. Nothing there interests me. 

To be honest i feel the same. I finished the story, explored the maps and did everything atleast once. For me personally it was the least expansion of all 3. 

Id give a 4/10 in total. Points earned cause maps are pretty. 

[Tukaram.8256]

Story is mostly good. I just have the last fight left to do, but there is no hurry. If I do it, this will be the first story in the franchise I ever finished. It is by far the most fun story.  There have been a couple fights I did not like (the rooftop with the security dude and Joon's estate were no fun at all). The last fight looks like one I will not like it either ha ha. 

Maps are good. Except the jade sea, but it was a lame idea back in Factions, too.  Seitung is my favorite map. It is gorgeous and a lot of fun. I have replayed the island a few times already. I think the problem with Kainang is that it looks like a city, but is useless as a city. It is really just more open world, but has the event running all the time to mess it up. Exploring was easy, if you use the ziplines and teleporters that it was designed with. Echovald is a chore, I doubt I will bother with map completion on it. I have not explored the last map enough to know if I like it, the first area is ok... I went in far enough to get my turtle pet for my ranger. I have started the jade sea, and so far do not care for it, but I really did not expect to.

Metas... eh... never care for them most of the time. These are no different. If I stumble onto an event I may hang around a bit. Not a selling point for me. 

Features, I love the skiff, and the bot is kind of fun but will not be of much use on other maps. I do like that my bot tells me where treasure chests are - not sure if that will work outside of EoD maps. I was really looking forward to fishing but hate the Pong mini-game they gave us. So much for 'kick back and relax' as they advertised. A twitch game is far from relaxing. I never had any interest in the lounges, I got the Lily with my PoF purchase and forgot it was supposed to be anything special. But I really enjoy the lounge in EoD (but forgot the name).  Very pretty area, lots of fishing (I am getting used to the stupid twitch mini-game), and an unbelievable amount of travel options from the stargate. The underwater training golems were fun a couple times, but seem pointless.

Masteries are about like masteries tend to be. Ok in that area, semi-useless elsewhere.  The mount and glider masteries have been the most useful so far.  The skiff mastery is about the only thing that will travel well, except maybe the bot helping us in our downed state. So, PoF had much more useful masteries, because of the mounts. Masteries to revitalize Arborstone? Not gonna happen ha ha 

Elite Specs, I do not have any of the new ones. None of them looked very interesting so probably will not. E-specs have never been a selling point for me. 

Rewards, I do not pay attention really. I bash critters and generally sell the loot on the trading post. I think I made more gold in PoF, but I am having more fun in EoD. I know I made more gold in HoT, but hated it and never went back. Gold is not an important part of the game for me. I only have 700 gold, and 3k gems but there is nothing I need to buy - why collect more? 

 

I am playing more now than I have in a few years. EoD definitely gets the credit for that.  This has been my favorite expansion so far. Not counting gliders and mounts - I mean for playing, exploring, and replayability EoD is my favorite. Overall, because of mounts, PoF was a better release, but EoD has been more fun. They could delete HoT and I would not miss anything except the glider.  (Yes, they can get rid of masteries and elites and I would not miss them in the least.)    😎

 

[Cobra.6509]

Story 8.5/10 Fights are clean, well done, some puzzle, you learn some mechanics.    

Maps 8.5/10 Well done maps, true after all the maps this game has , it's hard to come with something unique.

Metas 3/10 No rewards, no reasons to farm them, already I have stop doing them. See you at HOT meta.   

Features 3/10  Not to much expectation so not much disappointment. True they did a good job with features but starting ideas where so bad, I mean Fishing ?? nothing good can come from fishing ...and 2 mounts in top of another 9....there that much you can milk........

Elite Specs 7/10 I am enjoying them, some are better then others, overall a solid 7.

 

When I thinking how good this expansion is  I can't stop to notice that was possible for Anet to bundle Legendary Armory with EOD and also there is a full LW to come, so yea, for me is a good expansion. 

 

 

[sergiomasako.2906]

On 5/6/2022 at 1:26 PM, Izzy.2951 said:

Hey!

Story - 9/10

So far the best experience throught the whole game. Good written, interesting characters, engaging instances, quality cinematics. Would have rated 10/10 if the Echovald/Jade Sea part had a bit more arc/content and the characters involved in it (Speakers etc) were more significant like Kurzicks and Luxon were.

Maps:

- Echovald Forest - 5/10

Being generous. The biggest letdown of the expansion for me. It lacks personality, instead of getting new assets for trees (like gw1 had) we just got Maguma jungle but coloured differently. The map have little to do with its predecessor, there are no open zones like there used to be in Ferndale everything is small paths full of Tangled depths trees. Luckily the cathedrals and some constructions stood there, thats the only reason why i didnt rate it a 4 (also the JP was great). The gangs wars feels like they are meaningless and not having the Kurzicks and their important houses doesnt help either.

- New Kaineng City - 7/10

The big star of the expansion. I was very skeptical about the modern stuff, but holy moly, it really felt great. Its very different from everything we have seen before, the Mai trim appartment and the atmosphere feels great, it really gives you the sensation of a Canthan modern nation. However, not having a "poor zone" outside like what we can see in the loading screen of the map with farm places and those typical npcs with big hats makes me not rated more (it will maybe become monotonous cos of that). A little more interaction between Npcs would have been apreciated it because it feels quiet sometimes. Also its a bit confusing how to move from lower parts to upper parts sometimes.

- Seitung - 6.5/10

It serves its purpose. It has a good atmosphere of a more traditional Cantha, however it doesnt provide anything great. In the whole expansion theres a bit of lack of unique monsters rather than having aetherblades, undeads and same enemies but covered in Void.

- Jade Sea - 6/10

The Meta is beautifully done, one of the best things of the expansion. However having a map just for an event, and on top of that, for another Elder Dragon event.. like Dragonfall doesnt feel great, specially when you are trying to forget about the whole dragon stuff. I think having the jade more kind of its orginal "blue" would have been better in the long term, and would have provide good inmersion seeing creatures from above. Again missing the luxon here too.

Features - 6/10

- Fishing/Skiffs: Its cool and relaxing, even tho its not the great addition to the game. Skiffs feels like a boat, but they could still improve how to stop them etc.

- Turtle Mount: to be honest here... a bit disappointing. It feels too slow when you use your "1" and want to move again making it tedious/boring. The attacks could have been better implemented, and having idk other skill that is a single target but can maybe destroy 50% of a minor structure with 1 hit making it more engaging/fun to use. Its very useless in general and not very satysfing, but the concept its great.

- Elite Specs: some are good, some are not. Not the best point of the expansion definetly.

Rewards - 6/10

They have been improving them slowly, however we are still missing more cool dedicated skins for Strikes or metas.. 

Strikes - 9/10

Very well developed, cool mechanics and fun to play them, definetly a selling point for the expansion. I hope that in the future they will combine well with raids!

Put a poll