What happened to respecting the customer's time?

[Tails.9372]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Honestly, i have no idea why i have that much, because i don't buy them at all.

You might have gotten them from the Ley-Energy Matter Converter as it lets you take one for free every day which then easily pile up over time.

[Rasimir.6239]

8 hours ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Dragon's End IS too long, I personally think that Dragon's Stand is roughly the max length that a map meta should be.

Do you realize that it took month if not years after HoT release until Dragon's Stand meta got to the point where people (outside of maybe a few dedicated communities) could consistently beat it in less than 90 minutes? I remember that map and its meta being virtually inaccessible to me back then, even though I had more time to spend gaming than I do today, quite unlike DE now.

[Naxos.2503]

5 minutes ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

Do you realize that it took month if not years after HoT release until Dragon's Stand meta got to the point where people (outside of maybe a few dedicated communities) could consistently beat it in less than 90 minutes? I remember that map and its meta being virtually inaccessible to me back then, even though I had more time to spend gaming than I do today, quite unlike DE now.

There is a bit of difference between both metas too : In Dragon Stand, you can join mid meta, and still handle as well as everyone else. In Dragon's End, lacking the buff is a pretty big deal, to the point that if a large quantity of players lack it, the meta has increasingly high chances to fail. And unfortunately, it is increasingly commonplace for people to experience DE's meta while the map is not full, and people enter it as meta is starting or has started, try to join, and end up under powered. DE's meta balance Does take into account the buff, otherwise it might as well not be there, so lacking it means you're handicapping yourself. 

I believe that's a sticking point to many attempts failing, though not responsible for all of the faillures.

[Khisanth.2948]

6 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

There's been a few meta events that take an hour or more before this, Dragons Stand is the main one I remember. It's often quicker now than it used to be but it's still a big time commitment for 1 event chain and like the EoD meta it's on a timer so you can't just start it whenever you feel like it.

I treat those like any other hobby: when I want to do it I make time for it. If I want to go swimming I don't just hope one day I'll be passing the pool with my kit and some time to kill. If I want to play a board game I don't just hope one day I'll have an hour or two (or three or more!) free and a group of people to play it with. I find a day when I can give it the time it needs and make it one of my priorities for that day.

In this case that means knowing the event is going to take 1 - 1.5 hours and starts on a timer, so I'll look it up on the Wiki to see what times it starts and pick one which will be convenient for me, then make sure I get there early and use the LFG tool to find a group. It's more hassle than normal events, but I enjoy doing the big event chains, so I don't mind making time for them every so often.

DE is worse than both DS and DF because of the stupid decision to have players preparing to prepare.

1. join DE, do events for stacks/increase preparedness level

2. 20 minute timer shows up expecting you to go do events for stacks and increase preparedness level .... except you already did that so there is 20+ minutes of thumb twirling

3 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I see.

 

So, for the 30 minutes spent in DS to be rewarding I would need to first spend a much more significant amount of time farming the keys. Again, not defending DE rewards because I dont find that meta rewarding, but having to spend hours, days, or more farming to get machetes before DS will be at all rewarding does not sound better. Sounds much worse to me.

A key difference is that the problem for DS eventually goes away as long as someone who bought HoT continued playing in HoT due to the accumulation of the different currencies. The problem for DE never goes away.

[Erise.5614]

35 minutes ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

Do you realize that it took month if not years after HoT release until Dragon's Stand meta got to the point where people (outside of maybe a few dedicated communities) could consistently beat it in less than 90 minutes? I remember that map and its meta being virtually inaccessible to me back then, even though I had more time to spend gaming than I do today, quite unlike DE now.

And to point that out. The expansion is much less focused around DS.

They didn't lock gliding behind a successful DS. They didn't have half the specialization collections associated with DS. They didn't have story achievements complete DS before story. They didn't even make the map accessible unless you beat Gerent. While still providing rewards multiple times along the way.

All of which comes together to DE being a much more frustrating and time wasting experience.

[Khisanth.2948]

7 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

And to point that out. The expansion is much less focused around DS.

They didn't lock gliding behind a successful DS. They didn't have half the specialization collections associated with DS. They didn't have story achievements complete DS before story.

 

Gliding isn't locked behind a successful DE either. Turtle egg can be purchased.

Only Virtuoso and Vindicator(currently buggy so even a successful DE may not give you the item) collections require DS. After completing the story once the Feat items for the collections can be purchased.

The achievement still counts even if the DE run fails

13 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

They didn't even make the map accessible unless you beat Gerent.

This doesn't make any sense.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

16 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

And to point that out. The expansion is much less focused around DS.

They didn't lock gliding behind a successful DS. They didn't have half the specialization collections associated with DS. They didn't have story achievements complete DS before story. They didn't even make the map accessible unless you beat Gerent. While still providing rewards multiple times along the way.

All of which comes together to DE being a much more frustrating and time wasting experience.

Except nothing's locked behind the meta anymore, only Virtuoso and Vindicator need successful DE and imagine the complaints how beating whatever difficult meta would be required to even enter Dragon's End.

Also, the Machined Weapons require you to do Dragon's End for the Machetes for a chance or finish it for a guaranteed drop.

Edited June 4, 2022 by IAmNotMatthew.1058

[Erise.5614]

11 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Except nothing's locked behind the meta anymore, only Virtuoso and Vindicator need successful DE and imagine the complaints how beating whatever difficult meta would be required to even enter Dragon's End.

Also, the Machined Weapons require you to do Dragon's End for the Machetes for a chance or finish it for a guaranteed drop.

It was initially and even still all of those are still directly associated with DE attempts.

Avoiding DE entirely means finding out prices and conversion and then spending about a month of farming and daily conversions. These are designed as pity system so you can get it after a handful of failures. They are not intended as a way to avoid DE. 

Locking extra hard content behind previous success is good as it guarantees a progression and familiarity. The point isn't that there should have been more DE like metas leading up to it. Obviously the story, reward structure, achievements, etc. would have to also clarify how optional the event is and not tie into it as strongly. 

With the current design it really seems like ANet wants everyone to play the meta at least a couple of times. Which does waste a lot of time. Especially if you fail and do not enjoy your time there. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Donari.5237]

47 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

This doesn't make any sense.

I think they meant inaccessible, which fits much better in their context.  I've noticed that while not everyone does this, there is a notable frequency of typos that involve leaving out the negating part of a word or sentence, resulting in it meaning the exact opposite of the writer's intent.  So I've learned to mentally edit in the negative part when it's obvious they meant it that way.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

21 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

It was initially and even still all of those are still directly associated with DE attempts.

That's correct, but as it turns out that didn't make much sense, so they changed it for the better.

41 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Avoiding DE entirely means finding out prices and conversion and then spending about a month of farming and daily conversions.

I'm confused, what requires you to farm for a month if you don't do the DE meta? 

44 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Locking extra hard content behind previous success is good as it guarantees a progression and familiarity. The point isn't that there should have been more DE like metas leading up to it. Obviously the story, reward structure, achievements, etc. would have to also clarify how optional the event is and not tie into it as strongly. 

With the current design it really seems like ANet wants everyone to play the meta at least a couple of times. Which does waste a lot of time. Especially if you fail and do not enjoy your time there. 

It makes sense to gate difficulty, look at Fractals, even if we throw out AR it introduces new mechanics and instabilities, changes existing mechanics as Tiers go higher and the difficulty increases smoothly. Applying the same method in OW would just lead to people complaining about being forced to do <insert meta here> to enter Dragon's End. 

[Erise.5614]

4 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

I'm confused, what requires you to farm for a month if you don't do the DE meta? 

Writs of Dragon's End for Turtle. Either you fail the event repeatedly or need to convert 22 days of daily mat conversions or months worth of jade silver or a combination of the two. 

9 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

It makes sense to gate difficulty, look at Fractals, even if we throw out AR it introduces new mechanics and instabilities, changes existing mechanics as Tiers go higher and the difficulty increases smoothly. Applying the same method in OW would just lead to people complaining about being forced to do <insert meta here> to enter Dragon's End. 

The flaw is the difficulty curve. Not the inaccessibility. If you believe an optional side meta can not be implemented without frustrating players and without causing a large amount of complaints.

Then this kind of difficulty just can not exist in OW and must be instanced. Fine with me too. Though some do appear to really enjoy the fact a more challenging meta exists in OW. 

I don't believe that basic idea is flawed. Just the way most players get funneled into the event and how it's presented like any other event with no indication that more is required is a problem. As it has players run unexpectedly yet head first into a brick wall. With no ability to react or get the relevant information's, do the relevant adjustments in time before the meta. Even assuming players try to help with that in chat. Which is very rare from begin with. 

[yoni.7015]

13 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Writs of Dragon's End for Turtle. Either you fail the event repeatedly or need to convert 22 days of daily mat conversions or months worth of jade silver or a combination of the two. 

You also get them from events on the map or from PvP and WvW reward track. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by yoni.7015

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

Do you realize that it took month if not years after HoT release until Dragon's Stand meta got to the point where people (outside of maybe a few dedicated communities) could consistently beat it in less than 90 minutes? I remember that map and its meta being virtually inaccessible to me back then, even though I had more time to spend gaming than I do today, quite unlike DE now.

I didn't like DS back then either, but at least it doesn't bore you to death with copy/paste pre events for 30 minutes before you can even get started.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

15 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Writs of Dragon's End for Turtle. Either you fail the event repeatedly or need to convert 22 days of daily mat conversions or months worth of jade silver or a combination of the two. 

  It took me 4 days to get to 311, that's very far from a month. But, as I said, the game allowing you to skip doing an event and buy the reward straight up is not a pity mechanic. Here's an example for a pity, Lost Ark's honing, you throw in a week's of loot, fail, repeat until your Artisan's Energy fills up and you are guaranteed to succeed with honing. 

Other than that, Dragon's End has a bunch of events. They are awarded from WvW, PvP Reward Tracks, even though not a lot. If you. Besides, even if you do no events and only convert it takes 20 days. Canach Coins, Karma, Imperial Favor and other 3 map's Writs.

17 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

The flaw is the difficulty curve. Not the inaccessibility. If you believe an optional side meta can not be implemented without frustrating players and without causing a large amount of complaints.

Where did I say anything like that? I said that if you require people to do some meta before entering Dragon's End they would complain. 

19 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Then this kind of difficulty just can not exist in OW and must be instanced. Fine with me too. Though some do appear to really enjoy the fact a more challenging meta exists in OW. 

This perfectly applied to DE on release, nowadays this is applying your past difficulties to the current.

19 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

I don't believe that basic idea is flawed. Just the way most players get funneled into the event and how it's presented like any other event with no indication that more is required is a problem. As it has players run unexpectedly yet head first into a brick wall. With no ability to react or get the relevant information's, do the relevant adjustments in time before the meta.

That's why we've been saying that years of easy OW content has lead to people struggling with - at this point - the most basic difficulty increase, but as others have been saying give it time for it to become a meta that is being farmed. 

22 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Even assuming players try to help with that in chat. Which is very rare from begin with. 

The first week of doing the meta I've seen people in a subgroup's party chat literally correcting the build for others so they can have an easier time. "Change Trait Y for Trait X, use Specialization Y instead of X", etc. People on the forums have been - and still are - giving tips, suggestions, builds to people still struggling with the meta. If you ignore people trying to help it will certainly seem like noone's trying to help.

[Firebeard.1746]

10 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I think somewhere along the line, GW2 had a bit of an identity crisis.

Basically this. I don't think the current devs care much for the manifesto or original intents of the game. And I feel like it's made the game feel very bipolar at this point: core tyria is a joke, but obviously casual friendly, but if you buy the expansion and go straight to DE meta you'll get blasted in the face without watching a ton of mighty teapot videos to even know how to approach it XD.

I feel like they need to focus on content that delivers a cool RPG experience, but have knobs with more rewards for more hardcore players. And even within game modes there's a lot of inconsistency between difficulty level. Kaineng is too long for a strike mission and HT is practically a raid. 

I mean I guess the devs know how I feel already but probably don't give a crap. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Firebeard.1746

[Gorem.8104]

4 hours ago, Naxos.2503 said:

There is a bit of difference between both metas too : In Dragon Stand, you can join mid meta, and still handle as well as everyone else. In Dragon's End, lacking the buff is a pretty big deal, to the point that if a large quantity of players lack it, the meta has increasingly high chances to fail. And unfortunately, it is increasingly commonplace for people to experience DE's meta while the map is not full, and people enter it as meta is starting or has started, try to join, and end up under powered. DE's meta balance Does take into account the buff, otherwise it might as well not be there, so lacking it means you're handicapping yourself. 

I believe that's a sticking point to many attempts failing, though not responsible for all of the faillures.

I still wish they'd just remove the pre entirely already, not need to make the three area's ready for it or require the buffs, just re-balance the fight and remove the buff requirements. Imagine if we needed to arrive 2 hours before TeQ to do events and make sure we get on-map all to prepare the zone and stack multiple buffs like the jade bot buff and the participation buff. Right now if I want a TeQ kill I could even show up during the fight and be able to help get a kill.

Can't do that in DE, if a map is going to be successful its usually capped an hour or more before the fight even happens. Of course it still doesn't help that they have kept their reduced player count per maps for all Cantha zones. It would be nice to get a quick Soo kill by using the world boss portal device and just portaling to the airship and jumping down to fight. But that would be the game respecting your time and allowing you to have fun 🙂

Usually escorts like in DS allow you to get a lot of stuff for doing them, not only do you get a lot of chests to open (And more currencies to do so by doing all the events leading up to the final boss, which for now I always pick the pact crate to get tons of HoT currencies and machetes) but you also get loads of champion bags that are affected by magic find. DS showers you quite nicely with different events in each lane, in the escort in DE, they are all the same. Even the bosses you fight in DS all have different mechanics if you are not running around and preventing the sacks spawning. Have any of you checked what's inside the champ bags from DE? Its all rubbish. The Escorts need a huge overhaul in DE to be anything like DS. This is making me want to go do DS now.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[Gorem.8104]

3 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

It was initially and even still all of those are still directly associated with DE attempts.

Avoiding DE entirely means finding out prices and conversion and then spending about a month of farming and daily conversions. These are designed as pity system so you can get it after a handful of failures. They are not intended as a way to avoid DE. 

Locking extra hard content behind previous success is good as it guarantees a progression and familiarity. The point isn't that there should have been more DE like metas leading up to it. Obviously the story, reward structure, achievements, etc. would have to also clarify how optional the event is and not tie into it as strongly. 

With the current design it really seems like ANet wants everyone to play the meta at least a couple of times. Which does waste a lot of time. Especially if you fail and do not enjoy your time there. 

There is one way around, funnily enough, to get your Turtle: 
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/End_of_Dragons_Expedition_Contract

It drops the currency needed for the Turtle (if you pick DE), so if you buy the contract, you can just login daily to get what you need. Slower of course as it is only 3 a day, but I do find it funny how there is a gem option. 

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

And to point that out. The expansion is much less focused around DS.

They didn't lock gliding behind a successful DS. They didn't have half the specialization collections associated with DS. They didn't have story achievements complete DS before story. They didn't even make the map accessible unless you beat Gerent. While still providing rewards multiple times along the way.

All of which comes together to DE being a much more frustrating and time wasting experience.

Gliding is needed to progress in the story or get through certain points of the map, it's pretty much a ciritcal mechanic to unlock, while the turtle is extremely far from that. It was a bad comparison shortly after the release and it still is now.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Erise.5614]

2 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

 It took me 4 days to get to 311, that's very far from a month.

If you farm map events efficiently you might be able to do 15-20 or so per hour. And I somehow doubt you were farming those for 15 hours straight. Scratch that, 30 hours straight as you'll get interrupted every hour for one hour. 

You must have done the escort and likely the boss fight as well. Which is the point. Next to no one will avoid the event entirely. The design of the expansion leads as many players as possible into DE and makes sure as many players as possible play it several times. 

2 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Here's an example for a pity, Lost Ark's honing, you throw in a week's of loot, fail, repeat until your Artisan's Energy fills up and you are guaranteed to succeed with honing. 

As I said. It is theoretically possible but extremely convoluted. It takes 22 days of converting all available daily materials. Plus maybe a handful of additional conversions via jade silver if you craft that module. Completely avoiding it is very unlikely to happen in reality. Extremely unlikely. Unless you also avoid most of the rewards and reward structure in the expansion. 

So in reality, the buy option acts more like a pity system. Where if you fail X times in a row, you can just buy it instead of having to succeed.

2 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Where did I say anything like that? I said that if you require people to do some meta before entering Dragon's End they would complain. 

Then I don't get the argument. I'm saying in principle hard metas should be separated and clearly labelled. And that DS was, for example, doing a better job at that than DE is. Which went the opposite direction. Associating much closer with story, achievements, collections and other non hardcore content. Instead of setting itself apart. And that this is one of the main flaws of DE. It either needs to distance itself from other metas or be adjusted to be in line with other metas. 

2 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

This perfectly applied to DE on release, nowadays this is applying your past difficulties to the current.

I'm running it almost daily to complete my data set. Logging everything from DPS meters to phase durations (validating and correcting the DPS readings I'm getting). And since recently also the chat plus account name and guild of all participants. Aiming to analyze it for clusters (aka, how many players join as PUGs and how many run as guilds / communities or very regularly with the same group).

And just no. It's nowhere close average and entirely depends on hardcore guilds or hardcore communities hosting runs. This is why the meta has declined in activity so sharply and why it doesn't pick up again. There are no solo comms and non organized runs fail the vast majority of times. It doesn't need a lot of players with raid level performance. But they are mandatory to have a chance at success. 

2 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

The first week of doing the meta I've seen people in a subgroup's party chat literally correcting the build for others so they can have an easier time. "Change Trait Y for Trait X, use Specialization Y instead of X", etc. People on the forums have been - and still are - giving tips, suggestions, builds to people still struggling with the meta. If you ignore people trying to help it will certainly seem like noone's trying to help.

I'm recording chat logs along with my run data. Just looked it up and can report a solid 0 times of build support being offered or given in map, squad or say chat. Out of 6 runs where I did log everything.  Nor can I remember any in the past two months. Though I don't have the recordings to know for sure. 

This suggests to me that maybe you are sharing anecdotes that sound lovely but are very rare. I believe you that you have witnessed it before. But it seems to be extremely rare. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Erise.5614]

14 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Gliding is needed to progress in the story or get through certain points of the map, it's pretty much a ciritcal mechanic to unlock, while the turtle is extremely far from that. It was a bad comparison shortly after the release and it still is now.

The comparison is made because the turtle is the key feature that was used in promo and advertising. There's no cups with skiffs on them. There were no cups with bouncing mushrooms. 

Though, fair enough. Let me point out the same thing but the other way around. Nothing advertised was directly associated with the event. No story, no story achievements, etc. You did not have to run it to get access to everything advertised.

And let's go a step further even. Extremely few things were locked behind a successful DS run. The key currency, the key draw of the event was drip fed along the way. Success was genuinely optional. A bit more rewarding. But not necessary to make serious progress towards the rewards associated with it.

[Blude.6812]

Players can argue and discuss the merits of this topic, both pro and con, but the bottom line is Anet doesn't care.(IMHO only).

 

 

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Blude.6812

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

Do you realize that it took month if not years after HoT release until Dragon's Stand meta got to the point where people (outside of maybe a few dedicated communities) could consistently beat it in less than 90 minutes? I remember that map and its meta being virtually inaccessible to me back then, even though I had more time to spend gaming than I do today, quite unlike DE now.

Yes. There was a rework of all metas like half a year after HoT launch that changed a lot of stuff, made all the metas (with the possible exception of VG) much more popular, more rewarding, and upped the success rates for them. I don't remember what exactly changed for DS then apart from the rewards, though.

[Rasimir.6239]

4 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

They didn't have half the specialization collections associated with DS.

As a matter of fact you need machined weapons for every single HoT specialization collection, and at the release of HoT you could only get the plated weapons that unlock the associated machined weapon collection from a vendor that was only available at the end of a successful DS meta.

 

When they did the big HoT rework about half a year after release, one of the things they did was add vendors to the start of DS that sold the same stuff as the vendors at the end of the meta, including plated weapons and specialization inscriptions. The HoT collections also did (and still do) a noticable amount of crystaline ore to complete, which I remember being a lot more difficult to farm without meta back at HoT release than writs of Dragon's End are today (since you get those easily from the pre events without the need to actually do the meta).

[yoni.7015]

4 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

They didn't have half the specialization collections associated with DS.

True, they did have all the specialization collections associated with DS at the beginning of HoT. 

[Rasimir.6239]

13 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes. There was a rework of all metas like half a year after HoT launch that changed a lot of stuff, made all the metas (with the possible exception of VG) much more popular, more rewarding, and upped the success rates for them. I don't remember what exactly changed for DS then apart from the rewards, though.

From what I remember, gameplay didn't really change a lot for DS, if at all. I encountered failed tower phases way beyond that. It wasn't until the condition rework and/or PoF specialization power creep that I noticed the clear times significantly shortening.

 

What they did do for DS with the big HoT rework, as far as I remember, was mostly making the vendors accessible that used to be locked behind a successful meta at release.