Dragon's end Meta event

[Sobx.1758]

6 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not for the hardcore players. It's not accident that it's for the most part the same group of players defending DE/saying it's easy as those speaking exactly the same things about raids.

So... still conveniently avoiding the fact this meta is being consistently completed by pugs and that players you're talking about here are participating in lfg groups? So how does it matter whether or not anyone here is also speaking about raids somehwere else? It's nothing more than a terrible strawman attempt. It has nothing to do with this thread or what is being said here.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

4 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not for the hardcore players. It's not accident that it's for the most part the same group of players defending DE/saying it's easy as those speaking exactly the same things about raids.

You'd see more complaining if it was anywhere near the difficulty of any Raid encounter. 

But yeah, we know "I have to contribute = Raid"

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

You'd see more complaining if it was anywhere near the difficulty of any Raid encounter. 

But yeah, we know "I have to contribute = Raid"

Nah, most people stopped complaining about Raids long ago and just stopped interacting with them silently. The only reason why the raid discussion still goes on is the PvE legendary armor issue. Similarily with DE, most players just opted out of it completely, and there is nothing so visible/desirable locked behind it that would be comparable to legendary armor, so the complains are much weaker compared to raids. And would probably be nonexistent if it was a separate content type, and not placed as a mapwide OW meta straight at the end of EoD. Still, as OW metas go, this one remains highly unpopular, with only very small number of players still doing it.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

28 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Similarily with DE, most players just opted out of it completely

Again (after the "anet interprets data wrong" claim from 2 pages ago), either provide sources for what you're saying or stop repeating claims you're hoping are true. Alternatively, start pugging that meta and you'll see how it consistently succeeds in active instances/squads instead of trying to reach for a random raid strawman.

28 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Still, as OW metas go, this one remains highly unpopular, with only very small number of players still doing it.

Not really.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

24 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Again (after the "anet interprets data wrong" claim from 2 pages ago), either provide sources for what you're saying or stop repeating claims you're hoping are true.

Sure, as soon as you will hold yourself up to that standard first.

[Sobx.1758]

4 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Sure, as soon as you will hold yourself up to that standard first.

I'm pugging this meta, apparently you're not. But instead you'll baselessly keep repeating they "misinterpret data" or that everyone stopped participating when evidently it's based on nothing more than your wishful thinking.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

2 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I'm pugging this meta, apparently you're not.

You're actually wrong about it.

2 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

But instead you'll baselessly keep repeating they "misinterpret data" or that everyone stopped participating when evidently it's based on nothing more than your wishful thinking.

See above about baseless claims. Start supporting your own claims with hard proof before demanding that from others, will you.

[Sobx.1758]

21 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You're actually wrong about it.

Then you should know how easly and consistently it succeeds.

21 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

See above about baseless claims. Start supporting your own claims with hard proof before demanding that from others, will you.

Asked you repeatedly what's the basis for your repeated claims including the "they're reading the stats wrong!" and you clearly have nothing. No amount of "no u" will change that. Not even mentioning the last "look at the raiders" strawman attempt that just tries to sidestep anything written in the thread and somehow... I don't know, suggests people playing x content magically have better pug groups? How is that supposed to work? Or what point exactly were you going for there?

What I'm basing what I'm saying on? On consistently succesfully finishing this meta in pug squads, exactly like it was repeatedly explained.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Nah, most people stopped complaining about Raids long ago and just stopped interacting with them silently. The only reason why the raid discussion still goes on is the PvE legendary armor issue. Similarily with DE, most players just opted out of it completely, and there is nothing so visible/desirable locked behind it that would be comparable to legendary armor, so the complains are much weaker compared to raids. And would probably be nonexistent if it was a separate content type, and not placed as a mapwide OW meta straight at the end of EoD. Still, as OW metas go, this one remains highly unpopular, with only very small number of players still doing it.

It gets done on a regular basis via pickup groups listed in LFG and it almost always succeeds if the group is formed with sufficient time for most of the players to get the preparation buff.  I've done this meta probably in the range of 30-50 times.  That's just the reality from my experience. 

The thing I hate about DE meta isn't the event itself.   In fact, I'd say it's my favorite meta in the entire game.  I just can't stand the stupid amount of prep that is required.  It takes too kitten long to get to the fun part.

[Labjax.2465]

8 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

De is the perfect example of feedback loops. If the content is made easier, more map will succeed leading to a lower quality player attempting the content lowering the success rate back to pre nerf. If they content is made harder, the quality of player will increase, and the success rate will return. 

At this point, nothing anet does will change its success rate, minus nerfing it to the lowest common denominator like 99% of the game. I would prefer there be some type of difficult comtent in the open world. This used to be teq, then tt, then garent, and now de.

Thing is, I don't even find this meta to be difficult. I find it to be a waste of time roll of the dice doing it with pugs. There are mechanics to learn, but that's the case for most metas in this game contrary to the narrative of showing up and pressing 1, and like all metas you can respawn and come back if you die. The main "challenge" compared to other metas is it's a DPS race that is too hard on where pugs are at in DPS averages. Like there is no 99% of the game lowest common denominator. There are variations across the game in how difficult metas are and how easily and often they can fail.

So when people say they want difficult, I have to ask: what does difficult mean to you? Does it mean more mechanics? Tighter DPS checks? Does it simply mean "the meta fails more often than other metas"?

[yoni.7015]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

this one remains highly unpopular, with only very small number of players still doing it.

Did you make a survey or what source do you have for that? What does highly unpopular mean exactly and how small is the “very small number of players”? 
I know we live in the era of fake news and alternative facts and you want to push your agenda here but please don’t sell your own personal opinions as facts. 

[Labjax.2465]

4 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

Did you make a survey or what source do you have for that? What does highly unpopular mean exactly and how small is the “very small number of players”? 
I know we live in the era of fake news and alternative facts and you want to push your agenda here but please don’t sell your own personal opinions as facts. 

So are you holding that same standard to the people in this thread insisting the meta is fine because they personally do it regularly and succeed? 🤨

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I do wonder if time of day is a factor.  I've been doing this meta event every day for months now, enough to craft an Aurene weapon without buying a single statuette from the TP.  I would say I'm pugging the event... but I'm really not.  I do this event every night at roughly the same time (starting... half an hour ago, actually), and the names I see are awfully familiar.  The banter is all the same, too.  What clinched it for me was when, one day, the two people who usually host this event weren't there.  So, twenty minutes before the big meta started, I tagged up myself and starting doing a minimal instruction run.  I say this because my wrists were burning like fire, and I didn't have the stamina to textmand every single direction.  At the end of that run... we still blew through the dragon like it was a properly hosted event.  Ran this thing with the minimal competency possible, and we still had several minutes on the clock to spare.

Throughout this time, at this hour, I've seen the event fail once.  That was a bad run:  The dragon did the bite attack every other turn, quite literally, and spammed whirlpools nearly as often.  I have been on failure runs at other times, though, and it is like night and day. The other time the squad was just a jumbled mess, nobody used CC, people were dying left and right, and the DPS was utterly terrible.  This was but two hours before my usual run.  This is where my hypothesis comes from: the two disparate stories about the Dragon's End meta makes sense if we assume that they're all doing this at different times, and that these different times have a drastically different stock of players.  Then, depending on the time of day available to the player, this event is either a nigh insurmountable nightmare, or so easy it could it practically completes itself.  

Edited October 31, 2022 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[anninke.7469]

Maybe, just maybe, the possibility that even pugs succeed more often because most of  "average" players don't attepmt anymore should be considered? Because, well, that's me. I'm average at best and at the same time I'm highly reluctant to spoil others fun by not contributing enough, so I simply don't go where I think that would happen. I also think there are others like me. We're not non-existent just because we quietly got out of way and are not loud about it. I don't precisely dislike the DE meta but only because it's hard enough for me to not even try. 

[Cyninja.2954]

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

You're actually wrong about it.

Is this another one of those:"I know even though I don't actually participate in the content" arguments we see so often on the forums?

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

See above about baseless claims. Start supporting your own claims with hard proof before demanding that from others, will you.

 

That would be ideal yes, then again defending the status quo is always easier than making kitten up while asking for change.

As to the same players posting the same things, that goes both ways. We have a vocal 3-4 players who make up the regular "this game needs to be made easier, everything is only for hardcore players" complaints. Most often with little to no experience in the content they actually complain about.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Freya.9075]

1 hour ago, anninke.7469 said:

Maybe, just maybe, the possibility that even pugs succeed more often because most of  "average" players don't attepmt anymore should be considered? Because, well, that's me. I'm average at best and at the same time I'm highly reluctant to spoil others fun by not contributing enough, so I simply don't go where I think that would happen. I also think there are others like me. We're not non-existent just because we quietly got out of way and are not loud about it. I don't precisely dislike the DE meta but only because it's hard enough for me to not even try. 

Did you try the meta lately? If you haven’t tried it lately, it may be worth trying again since failure is less likely now. If you stopped when balance still was an issue, your point is irrelevant since you have not experienced it after. I know several casual players attempting it after some time not doing it. they though they would be wasting time in this meta only to be surprised how smooth the run went. 

[Cuks.8241]

Based on the prices of Statuettes that drop from EOD meta events, Dragon's End meta is the second most completed/popular EOD meta after Seitung.

Right now; Jade Empress Statuette at 2.9 silver, Jade Dragon Statuette 6.6 silver, Jade Cathedral Statuette 11 silver and Jade Gate Statuette over 1.2 gold. 

Thats the only metric I can think of but it seems pretty good comparison to me. 

I haven't had any issues with it's completion since the nerfs, see plenty of groups doing it. The prep time is annoying but otherwise I think its a nicely balanced meta.  

[Vilin.8056]

The issue with DE isn't really the difficulty but generally a few major design flaws in the player experience.

It is one of the weird meta that require players to group outside of the map to create an isolated map instance instead of joining existing map events for a successful result.

Thus veteran players knows the get-around method to ensure their success calls it easy, while players oblivious of this method suffers failure after failure. To add salt to the wound, the pre-event is simply too long and generally failing its purpose of checking squad readiness for the final battle, thus ending up wasting a lot of time on the player side.

I'm generally in favor of challenging map meta battles, but if the players current residing this map isn't ready, just make the message clear, and make it early. There are many ways in the event design to avert it, and I simply see no point of baiting players into this meta with series of casual pre-events.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Vilin.8056

[Freya.9075]

1 hour ago, Vilin.8056 said:

The issue with DE isn't really the difficulty but generally a few major design flaws in the player experience.

It is one of the weird meta that require players to group outside of the map to create an isolated map instance instead of joining existing map events for a successful result.

Thus veteran players knows the get-around method to ensure their success calls it easy, while players oblivious of this method suffers failure after failure. To add salt to the wound, the pre-event is simply too long and generally failing its purpose of checking squad readiness for the final battle, thus ending up wasting a lot of time on the player side.

I'm generally in favor of challenging map meta battles, but if the players current residing this map isn't ready, just make the message clear, and make it early. There are many ways in the event design to avert it, and I simply see no point of baiting players into this meta with series of casual pre-events.

Eh. I have never joined a squad that way. I know that happened back when this meta had some issues, but I have not seen it lately. I just join this event in lfg like I do with any other meta and it’s fine. 

[Astralporing.1957]

5 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Is this another one of those:"I know even though I don't actually participate in the content" arguments we see so often on the forums?

No? Why would you think so?

5 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

As to the same players posting the same things, that goes both ways. We have a vocal 3-4 players who make up the regular "this game needs to be made easier, everything is only for hardcore players" complaints.

Practically all of those threads are being made not by forum veterans, but by new players. This very thread is not different. And the number of veterans that defend the difficulty is not higher than the number of players complaining against it, btw.

5 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Most often with little to no experience in the content they actually complain about.

I do have the experience in the content i complain about, thank you very much.

[Vilin.8056]

42 minutes ago, Freya.9075 said:

Eh. I have never joined a squad that way. I know that happened back when this meta had some issues, but I have not seen it lately. I just join this event in lfg like I do with any other meta and it’s fine. 

That doesn't change what I just said. You will likely have a successful meta via the LFG, but if you're already farming the map for more than 30 minutes before the countdown begins, you probably end up in a failing instance.

[anninke.7469]

5 hours ago, Freya.9075 said:

Did you try the meta lately? If you haven’t tried it lately, it may be worth trying again since failure is less likely now. If you stopped when balance still was an issue, your point is irrelevant since you have not experienced it after. I know several casual players attempting it after some time not doing it. they though they would be wasting time in this meta only to be surprised how smooth the run went. 

I tried last week (or the one before) when DE events were on daily. I'm just too easily overwhelmed and distracted to be of any use in an event like this. And as I said, I really don't like getting in anyone's way so I usually leave when I see tags in this map. Tbh, I'm more or less fine now with the  DE meta not being for me. I just wanted to point out that "fails less than before" or "haven't seen it fail lately" does not necessarily show popularity/accessibility across the playerbase.

[Grinz.4560]

first things first...,

 

basics

as comander you need player on the map, in your squad, so open up lfg and search for alac dps and quick. 

(fun fact you dont need 10 alac and quick player) but it would be nice to have more player playing it so (get the gear)

 

group 1 dps  (berserk or viper gear)
group 2 alac is support (divine or ritu gear) 
group 3 quick is support (divine or ritu gear)

 

pro tip: you need dps in your squad!  So build dps groups to max the damage for every single player in it.

 

a dps group looks like 5 player only so one of  each is the best

1 guard got a low healthbar (it allways provides boons to the group to stay alive)

1 warrior got a high healthbar (it can be condi, power, or quick) and he can be top dps in the squad

1 engi..., i dont play piano but even i know (it can be condi, power hybrid alac, or quick) it shares boons

1 thief got a low healthbar (it can be condi, power and alac)

1 ele got a low healthbar (it can be condi, power and alac) it shares boons

1 mes got a mid healthbar (it can be condi, power and alac) it shares boons

1 nec got a high healthbar (it can be condi, power and quick)

1 rev got a mid healthbar (it can be condi, power, alac, or quick) it shares boons

 

(some heal skills are group heals, so you dont need a healer if you keep that in mind)

 

good dps groups are 1 alac, 1 quick, 3 diffrent dps for lets say dps and to share other boons for even more damage like might. aegis on the other side is a free block to every class with a low healthbar and some of them dont got much stability,  so dont put 3 guards in a group, because it can be aegis and stabilty for 15 player blocking the thronehearts knockdown

 

a knockdown is a damage lose, aoe knockdowns is a damage lose to the entire squad. So building stupid groups is a damage lose frome the start because of so many facts i dont even talk about.

 

now that you got your 10 groups, you need to tell them were to go. btw we dont live in china, we read from left to right and we count 1, 2, 3, 4... or read a, b, c, d...

 

so its allways at the first split:  group 1-5 east & 6-10 west (its not the other way around)

 

the second split is like escort, so it is allways group 1-3 east, 4-7 mid (south) & 8-10 west.

(first things first: keep in mind that every event scale up with player numbers. at escort you like to have less monster spawns on east & west and in the second split group 4-7 fight the stongest boss) 

 

if you make splits like group 1-3 west at escort, but 1-5 east at the first split and 1-3 west at the second split again, some player go east if they should go west, and west if they should go east. Thats why i allready said something like, we on the westside of the world allways read 1a, 2b, 3c...

 

now you got your groups and splits we need a plan of what is coming so this is about comminication

 

Bossphase:
80% green (dps only for the damage buff to make more damage. refill emp after)
60% first split (group 1-5 east & 6-10 west. bunny cc and at 10% healt, damage stop. refill emp after)
40% green again (still only dps builds because hybrid builds like alac & quick are to weak. refill emp after)
20% second split like escort (group 1-3 east, 4-7 mid "south", & 8-10 west. bunny cc and at 10% health, damage stop. refill emp after)

 

there is allways a new player on the map, or somebody not doing this every day, so explain things like what about the breakbar.  if you got your dps groups and do green, you allready deal way more damage, but if you break the breakbar aswell its even more damage. So talk to your squad to break the breakbars. tell them to refill emp after green and splits. tell them to use the bunny at the splits to break the champs bar fast and do more damage. tell them to use cc skills 

 

or

 

talk about what to do if the tail is up. are you going for the tail, or leave it, talk about it before you give random orders in the fight. because some in your squad  might be are allready dead, some others are down, some are traped and you give random orders to half of the squad and some of them are new to the meta dont know what you want them to do

 

or

 

explain basics like dead player and events scales 

 

or

 

whats the thing with the green fields, whats to do if green is up and what is it good for, who should do it  

 

or

 

why do we kill thronehearts 

 

or

 

just keep failing like a noob 

 

[Sobx.1758]

14 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

You have evidence of that? That is quite the claim to make about another user. Sounds a lot like presenting your personal opinion as fact......

In this thread alone he clearly made up a few things already which was pointed out in the previous posts. 🙄

11 hours ago, anninke.7469 said:

Maybe, just maybe, the possibility that even pugs succeed more often because most of  "average" players don't attepmt anymore should be considered? Because, well, that's me. I'm average at best and at the same time I'm highly reluctant to spoil others fun by not contributing enough, so I simply don't go where I think that would happen. I also think there are others like me. We're not non-existent just because we quietly got out of way and are not loud about it. I don't precisely dislike the DE meta but only because it's hard enough for me to not even try. 

Sure, but keep in mind that you're only representing yourself, not everyone else or a group of players. The only thing your decision to not participate in something shows is that you're not participating in it, not that a whole group of players stopped participating.

6 hours ago, Vilin.8056 said:

It is one of the weird meta that require players to group outside of the map to create an isolated map instance instead of joining existing map events for a successful result.

I didn't see that issue for a long time now, but in case someone still doesn't know how to solve "this map is crowded by people not intersted in meta" (or sth?) -after setting up a group in lfg, people trying to join will cause another instance to open up, on the first sign of someone being unable to join (even if it's just a bottleneck, irrelevant), the squad makes that new instance their target instance now. There's 0 necessity for some "organizing outside of the map".

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Practically all of those threads are being made not by forum veterans, but by new players

And that's somehow a reason to rebalance latest content -that reasonably should have an increasing difficulty level- according to someone starting the game and trying to rush through it without taking their time to learn the game?

Edited October 31, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Sobx.1758]

4 hours ago, Vilin.8056 said:

That doesn't change what I just said. You will likely have a successful meta via the LFG, but if you're already farming the map for more than 30 minutes before the countdown begins, you probably end up in a failing instance.

I mean... it does change it a little, since you've initially said:

"(...)meta that require players to group outside of the map to create an isolated map instance instead of joining existing map events for a successful result. Thus veteran players knows the get-around method to ensure their success calls it easy, while players oblivious of this method suffers failure after failure."

Meanwhile, I'm usually just joining random squads that pop up in lfg without some "veteran shenanigans ensuring we close ourselves from everyone else", which is -from what I understand- what you were saying there. If you join a meta map which is not pretty much some "auto-complete no matter what" activity, it will be exactly the same. Have people afking around or participate in an HP train and you're running a significant risk of the map hitting the cap without enough players participating in the actual meta. This is not new and joining a squad in lfg to have a map population with their wishes aligning with yours seems perfect normal and reasonable. I really struggle to understand how "but you might need to join a squad in lfg to get a meta squad" is somehow suddenly a problem here.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Sobx.1758