I realized one of the biggest problems with EoD final meta

[Astralporing.1957]

14 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

What would be your solution? In-game DPS meter comes to my mind. 

DPS meters would help you improve, but are not an opportunity to do so. They're merely a tool to measure improvement.

Opportunities would require existence of some frameworks that might help guide you on the way of improvement. Unfortunately, the game design makes creating anything like that to be extremely hard. The game was built with the assumption that you're supposed to do all of that completely on your own, and the game will not help you in any way - and that only other players can do that. Thus, any and all opportunities to improve in GW2  come from outside the game.

Still, some methods might have been made. Build templates system was a chance to introduce something like that. If Anet made an unrestricted template system and made it much easier to exchange builds within the game (and i mean not by a limited number of players, but all of them), it would have certainly helped a lot. For example, they could have allowed a much bigger access to available templates, and created some sort of common "template library" where players could put their builds into, that would let players vote on those, show most popular ones, or even maybe rate them by offering general stats like "the highest dps that was achieved on golem using this build".

Something that would have given an easy access to a library of good and vetted builds to anyone that would bother to look, without having to go look out for those outside the game.

Instead, Anet decided to waste that opportunity by monetizing the system to the point where most players are not really taking any use out of it.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

14 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Let's just say that i disagree with you on your way too wide interpretation of what "opportunity" means. Mere existence of a river or lake is not by itself an opportunity to learn swimming.

But it's not some wild river or lake, it's a man-made pool with gradually increasing depth, while on your way into it you get told what to do to finally learn to swim on your own pace.

...since, I guess you're into watery metaphors over discussing the actual issue you can't specify over vaguely repeating "no opportunities!".

Edited August 23, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Cuks.8241]

9 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

DPS meters would help you improve, but are not an opportunity to do so. They're merely a tool to measure improvement.

Opportunities would require existence of some frameworks that might help guide you on the way of improvement. Unfortunately, the game design makes creating anything like that to be unfeasible. The game was built in such a way, that the game can do nothing to help you in any way - only other players can do that. Thus, any and all opportunities to improve in GW2  come from outside the game.

I honestly cant imagine an example of such a framework at least not from the games I've played. I think what you are describing is a tutorial for each profession, roles, specialisation, encounter. 

I dont remember ever playing a game that was teaching or holding player's hand at so many steps and this game is already pretty forgiving.

I am not sure what you are describing counts as an opportunity anyway. A big river might not be ideal opportunity to learn to swim (even though I think it still counts as one, it might just kill you) but a shallow pool is. And we have plenty of shallow pools in the game; t1 fracs, almost all normal strikes and now even emboldened raids.  Edit: Oh almost forgot, EOD meta is great opportunity. OW, anyone can join but with just enough difficulty ramp up so players actually started to organise their squads.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Cuks.8241

[Astralporing.1957]

8 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I honestly cant imagine an example of such a framework at least not from the games I've played. I think what you are describing is a tutorial for each profession, roles, specialisation, encounter. 

I dont remember ever playing a game that was teaching or holding player's hand at so many steps and this game is already pretty forgiving.

I am not sure what you are describing counts as an opportunity anyway. A big river might not be ideal opportunity to learn to swim (even though I think it still counts as one, it might just kill you) but a shallow pool is. And we have plenty of shallow pools in the game; t1 fracs, almost all normal strikes and now even emboldened raids.

A shallow pool is not an opportunity either. An existence of a teacher nearby that you might ask for help or which may offer helpful suggestions might be, but in gw2 there's no such teacher/help except for other players.

And most other games do not need to be holding players hand to that degree for two reasons. First, their build systems are generally much simpler than the GW2 one. Second, there's much bigger impact of good gear on effectiveness, and improving gear is generally much simpler - quite often what you need to do is to simply pick up a gear with better tier and/or gear ilevel. So, quite often, even if you have trouble with buildcraft or improving your playing skill, you can just get better gear and it will cover your weaknesses to a certain degree. In gw2 this is not going to work however.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Caitybee.3614]

On 8/20/2022 at 7:40 PM, Labjax.2465 said:

Prob not the first to realize this, but it struck me recently.

People have compared it to a raid boss and I think that's fair, but in this way, it actually lacks something very important that a raid boss has. Idk exactly how raiding works in this game, but in general, in the raiding format, you take some time to clear trash or mini-bosses and then you reach a raid boss. You can now make attempts on this boss. However long it took you to get there (maybe you had to kill other raid bosses for the week to get to it) you can easily make multiple attempts in one sitting and learn from mistakes.

For a boss like this, even setting aside the prep investment time (which is a lot) you can only attempt it once within a certain time frame window. No room to immediately take lessons learned and apply them, or try some different things. And no guarantee the next time you will get a team that looks even slightly like the last one, unless you're organizing it all tightly via one guild (which doesn't match the pug spirit of GW2's open world anyway).
So even if the group you're doing it with had the patience to try again and had the knowledge and desire to learn from mistakes, you just... can't. It's over. Go home. How many people would do instanced raids in raiding games, much less in a game like this where it's less popular content, if they were like that, I wonder.

The expectations for organization of a raid with none of the design that facilitates progression in the typical raid format. It's no wonder people don't like it.

Edit: Also, AFAIK, there's not much of any DPS check throughout the prep/pres, so you can spend all that time getting to the end fight and even without mistakes fighting it, be doomed to lose from the start because you never had enough DPS.

 

This is mainly why I see dead maps now for Dragon's End. Everyone got their Turtle as soon as the buy option was available for the Egg, so no more Soo-Won for them or anyone unless you want to experience the fight. I only go into Dragon's End now to open chests for the coins because of how hard it is to get a win against Soo-Won. Big time-waster if it fails after all that effort and proper planning, sadly.

[yoni.7015]

5 minutes ago, Caitybee.3614 said:

 

This is mainly why I see dead maps now for Dragon's End. Everyone got their Turtle as soon as the buy option was available for the Egg, so no more Soo-Won for them or anyone unless you want to experience the fight. I only go into Dragon's End now to open chests for the coins because of how hard it is to get a win against Soo-Won. Big time-waster if it fails after all that effort and proper planning, sadly.

There are still several groups every evening  on EU doing the meta. It doesn’t fail after proper planning and communication. 

Edited August 23, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

but in gw2 there's no such teacher/help except for other players.

That's just a lie. But from what I've seen in other threads, you think the game should pretty much deliver full meta builds to the players, which in reality would no longer be even comparable to "having a teacher", but instead "having your parents do your homework so you can have good grade without actually learning anything anyways".

Edited August 23, 2022 by Sobx.1758