Dragon's End is still massively overtuned and random

[Cyninja.2954]

3 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

Hmm

 

Kozumi.5816 said:

This game is kept alive by it's casual player base who enjoys easy open world content. Dragon's End is the polar opposite.

 

Cyninja.2954 said:

Again, the games financially weakest time was while the studio was focusing on only easy open world content, during a time where the dcontinued development of the game was at question

 

Moron-Me said:

Activly when the where releasing Wing 2-4 amist the expanion- focusing hardcore stuff .... had the longest drop in revenue .

 

So conclusion , having hardcore stuff dont increase the revenue .

 

I am really not sure where you are going with this. Post HoT was not this games weakest revenue period, not by far.

 

The games best revenue periods where when a variety of content and difficulty of content added was given. That is not the same as saying only hardcore "stuff" generates revenue or only easy content generates revenue. It's literally saying: all content types are needed. 

 

I'm just going to bow out here because you seem unwilling to do even the least amount of basic research and I really don't feel like feeding a troll once again. 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Kozumi.5816]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

When pairing and tracking the revenue generated with content delivered, your claim does not hold up.

You are free to keep believeing what ever you want, just saying that looking at quarterly reports for multiple years, this claim seems untrue.

The game has done best financially when it was delivering more than just easy open world content. That's also why the studio has been trying to find a way to deliver multiple types of difficult content wise for over 3-4 years now, starting with IBS strikes and ending with EoD so far.

Again, the games financially weakest time was while the studio was focusing on only easy open world content, during a time where the dcontinued development of the game was at question. We literally have developer quotes supporting this situation (and a season 4  finale without cliffhanger to show for).

That is not to say that easy open world content has no room. It certainly makes up a large part of this games appeal. It's just not the backbone on its own you might want to believe.

This is a casual OW MMO. It has the worst instanced content in the genre on the slowest instanced content update cycle in the genre. 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

22 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I am really not sure where you are going with this. Post HoT was not this games weakest revenue period, not by far.

 

The games best revenue periods where when a variety of content and difficulty of content added was given. Thatvis not the same as saying only hardcore "stuff" generates revenue.

 

I'm just going to bow out here because you seem unwilling to do even the least amount of basic research and I really don't feel like feeding a troll once again. 

So hardcore instanced content and easy OW for the casuals?:P

That we had in the past and had the most revenue ?:P

Edited December 25, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Cyninja.2954]

11 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

This is a casual OW MMO. It has the worst instanced content in the genre on the slowest instanced content update cycle in the genre. 

 

No, that's what this game was turned into during post PoF (again while the studio was considering ending the game). This statement is not true for the release period of the game all the way to pre PoF, all the while the game was doing far better financially.

Nor is it true for post IBS and EoD where the game has slowly recovered revenue wise.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Kozumi.5816]

1 minute ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

No, that's what this game was turned into during post PoF (again while the studio was considering ending the game). This statement is not true for the release period of the game all the way to pre PoF, alm the while the hame was doing far better financially.

Nor is it true for post IBS and EoD where the game has slowly recovered revenue wise.

GW2 was always advertised and marketed as a casual open world MMO. Since alpha.

[Cyninja.2954]

7 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

GW2 was always advertised and marketed as a casual open world MMO. Since alpha.

 

No it wasn't. The games open world was pretty difficult on top of that, especially Orr. As where multiple reworked world boss fights.

Even if it was, which it wasn't, revenue wise this didn't work and never has. Hence why the developers changed gear (and tried multiple times to incorporate more challenging open world content, overdoing it with HoT).

You might wish for this to be true, but the game has always benefitted from a mix of open world easy and challenging content. Some of the most beloved and still played areas in the game, HoT, can not be considered "easy" (though they certainly became a lot easier thanks to power creep).

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

22 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

No it wasn't. The games open world was pretty difficult on top of that, especially Orr. As where multiple reworked world boss fights.

Even if it was, which it wasn't, revenue wise this didn't work and never has. Hence why the developers changed gear (and tried multiple times to incorporate more challenging open world content, overdoing it with HoT).

But hardcore stuff, dont offer revenue . Core was simply easy , so they changed gear.

HOT HITTED HARD and people died, they didnt need extra dps/use LI builds to meet the requirements , beofre the timer ends .

 

(the only good part about HoT it that tought people to use Celestial ... one gear set for every gamemode ...regardles of balance issues... Like a pseudo-Legendary...Which if they dont a real Legendary they will not waste more money to get change gear anytime...so we should not force them either to do so , ci vu plai )

Edited December 25, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

9 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Yes because doing solo instances completely alone is also fun and engaging content, also best mmo content evar!

Hopefully , the community will vote for chalenging bosses to be created in the OW (somewhere in the corner where the majority can avoid) and stop releasing instanced content .

That way none will eat each other resources , by demanding hardcore/easy content in OW+ instance (double the amount ) , while the part of the community that didn't ask it , get punished

 

Edit: But in the same time the hardcore OW boss will exist in OW (20-30 people) and by a guild panel/unlocked achiv stone (from story mode... "dont get hit" + "kill the boss under 30 sec") can be used to acess the 10man instance (open world  have an Star icon for the entrance of the Instance-like Guilds Rush) ... Essentially nothing will change , but technically "hardcore OW events-bosses" will exist .

Edited December 25, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[BnooMaGoo.5690]

I've been thinking about this for a while & I really do think that the rewards at the end really need some adjustments
Getting salvageable fallen branches as loot?
WTA

Edited December 25, 2022 by BnooMaGoo.5690
spelling

[Silent.6137]

6 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Since a lot of people seem to think "just a little bit of extra effort" is enough to succeed in this meta, here's a fail from today:

There's nothing I could have done to turn this from a failure to a success. We had good organization, a decent number of squad members knew what to do, we even had okay dmg honestly, but we didn't have good cc, shotcalling was too indecisive, and we had no stab, add control, or decent healing.

On top of that, we had bad RNG with the mechanics.

 

5 hours ago, LadyKitty.6120 said:

 Of all the CCs, only one was successful and esp. around 70% and 18%, tail was up for 100+80 seconds (that's 3 minutes) which led to losing 120 seconds worth of DPS compared to going for it right away (and in successful runs, you only ignore the tail if boss is within 3-4% from phasing (6% is doable IF the squad successfully CCs) and squad is doing good DPS). If people had gone for the tail right away in both cases, it would've been a successful run.
And if there's Thornhearts up, they must die ASAP. No questions asked.
And third thing is: being clear about splits makes things faster.

Watching that video, first thing that struck me was the Commander knows the meta but is not that experienced. Commander has to be one of the first person to move or switch sides. Always a sizeable portion of a squad will just stick to the tag. If Commander is slow to react, others will react even slower except for those who knows the fights well.

Other points from video, and addressing some of the things mentioned from the quotes:

• Bad RNG? - Not really. Bite attacks always occur in 2's. Takes too long to phase or didn't break defiance bar, will see more Bite attacks. 6 Bite attacks at 60%+ because Tails not taken care of.
• Shot-calling - Below average.
• CC - A problem if too many not broken as it'll affect overall DPS.
• Tails - Usually can ignore it up to 10% from phase depending on group DPS. Huge problem ignoring it in this video because the DPS simply wasn't there. And Tails appear at  more than 10% twice and about 10% once. A total of 4:30 (including last phase) lost.
• Thornhearts - 3 at last phase which should be killed first or they'll just bounced everyone around preventing anyone from doing any sufficient damage.
• Whirlpools and Bubbles - Too many trapped in them and no one tried to get them out from bubbles. Failure from those trapped in whirlpool to break out, let yourself die instead of pressing 1 to stay alive.
• Splits at 60% and 20% - Should always assign splits beforehand as at 60%, many had no idea where to go and flooded the East side. And at 20%, directions were upside down (SW, SE and N instead of NW, NE and S) leaving many seemingly confused and on platform for a while. Then too many decided to just follow the crowd to the South.

All in all, it wasn't surprising that event failed. Too many non-calls making a winnable meta into a total loss.

The squad I joined tonight cleared the meta with 6 mins to spare despite 6 Bite attacks at the final phase. Now, that was bad RNG as they occurred one after another. And this squad didn't even bother with the 5% Enhancements (typical of some groups).

Note: The video was of rather poor quality making the review somewhat difficult. The above points may make the meta seem overly complicated but it really isn't. Just need one person, the commander, to make timely calls or give very brief explanations to those newish to the meta.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Silent.6137

[Cyninja.2954]

8 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

Since a lot of people seem to think "just a little bit of extra effort" is enough to succeed in this meta, here's a fail from today:

There's nothing I could have done to turn this from a failure to a success.

 

and since this is a great example of someone believing they could have not done more when in fact they could have, let's actually go through what one could have done personally (besides the mess of failed mechanics, which was already well summarized and I will not repeat. This is about personal accountability):

 

1. you are at 8 stacks, not 10. (okay okay, let's move on to the actual stuff)

 

2. where is your waystation? CC is of primary importance, one side has no waystation! You could have helped by dropping one yourself instead of relying on others to do so. You also fail to reacquire EMP charges at 6:00, which leads to you running out of EMP charges at 6:40 (and not having waystations on each side means you have no way of getting more). At 10:55 you are starting on the wrong side, even calling out the waystation (which will get ignored by far to many players because it's on the other side of the platform and away from the boss) instead of dropping your own. This alone is a HUGE red flag. Don't worry though, you are not the only one saving on using a couple of copper consumable, the rest of the squad did too.

 

3. Why are you not running Moa? You are preferring personal dps over useful group utility here for a very important mechanic in the fight. After failing the first breakbar at 5:35, you should have swapped out in favor for more cc post split phase at 60%.

 

4. Why is 1 of your signets not Mantra of Concentration? Stability is useful to have even if you have a firebrand in your group. Or you could have brought Mantra of Distraction for daze application and more CC (I prefer Conc personally but will swap to more cc if I believe it's needed).

 

Would all of these things have changed the outcome? No. Would all of such minor tweaks changed the outcome if multiple players (or in case of the missing waystations only 1) had done them? Probably.

Great example of one of the main issues. Lack of personal responsibility or even knowledge of what one could have done. Lack of experience with the meta in order to know what to prioritize and how to help out his fellow players.

Now do I think it was unfortunate that the run didn't succeed? Sure, there was some aspects of organization present. Was it on you that it failed, not really, you were doing your job as dps and even calling out 1-2 essentially mechanics. Was there "nothing" more you could have done.... that is not correct.

EDIT:

As a side note, since the waystation comes up and is probably an integral reason why this fight went the way it did. I personally dislike the approach of having an EMP and a waystation "necessity" in the game. I get that the developers were going for an easy all accessible CC which many players might understand, but it also creates these situations where content needs to be balanced around EMP presence (which if covered by usually 1 player per map is fine, still if it's missing there will be issues). I am unsure though if it's better to remove it, or keep relying on some players bringing them along in open world content.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Silent.6137]

58 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

1. you are at 8 stacks, not 10. (okay okay, let's move on to the actual stuff)

2. where is your waystation?

Gotta say you have a very keen eye to even spot the stacks. That makes me wonder if the rest of the squad have at least 5 stacks before Escort. It makes a lot of difference between 8 stacks and 10 stacks: +8% vs +20% outgoing damage.  For the uninitiated, at 10 stacks, you get +20% HP and outgoing dmg. Won't make much of a difference if it's just one person but if too many did not have full stacks, that may explain the lack of DPS.

I did noticed the one waystation, which was placed on the North side and was going to mention it but it slipped my mind. If just one waystation available, it should be on the South side where the fight always start at each phase. There's where you head to after each splits, load up and engage Soo Won. The ideal spots will be at the 12:30 and 6:30 positions where the squads will be standing at. Instead, it was placed at the 3 o'clock position, which is a little too far to easily recharge and re-engage.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Silent.6137

[Sobx.1758]

8 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

This is a casual OW MMO. It has the worst instanced content in the genre on the slowest instanced content update cycle in the genre. 

You're taking parts of the game and then try to build a claim that this is not what this game is because you dislike those parts. 🤦‍♂️ And if "the game is casual" then one harder meta event doesn't do anything about suddenly making it not casual. Also instanced content was around basically since the launch of the game so... so much for your "casual OW MMO" take?

 

8 hours ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

But hardcore stuff, dont offer revenue

And your source for this claim is... what exactly?

 

5 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

" A factually accurate statement that completely ignores why the meta itself exists to begin with"

It doesn't ignore anything if all you have to say about it in the first place is "I want to do it because it's culmination of the story". If you want "the culmination of the story", play story instance. If you want to see how the event goes then participate and try succeeding in it. If you want something farmable you personally find fun, there's plenty of things and metas to choose from already. Including the ones you basically "show up and succeed no matter what". I don't get what you're going for here when you somehow try to say you need to farm this event specifically because... it's a culmination of the story? How is one relevant to the other?

And speaking of "ignoring why the meta itself exists to begin with" -whatever reason you might be thinking about here, it sure won't be "to faceroll through it and succeed no matter what", which apparently is your issue with it.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Ultramex.1506]

At this point, the only thing i want Anet to fix is make pre-events part of the meta when it start OR start the meta immediately when all zones are high, having to get in 1h early will push away people who afraid of failure and time wasted. Sure i know you only need 5 stacks, believe me i have been in such group before, 1 group failed because once again no CC and not going for Tail, comm being quiet

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I am really not sure where you are going with this. Post HoT was not this games weakest revenue period, not by far.

Yes, IBS revenue drop has been brought up many times over as an argument for "difficult content is important". Problem is, it ignores why exactly was the revenue dropping. And it was dropping mostly due to Anet announcing there will be no expansion anymore, which (alongside stuff like layoffs, and known names leaving left and right) made a lot of people believe the game was in its last throes. Notice, that introduction of strikes did absolutely nothing to impact that revenue decrease trend. It was the announcement that the expansion will be in works that started the reversal.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Sirius.4510]

There are plenty of easy metas in GW2 already - it's OK to have one that's a challenge. Especially since completing the DE meta successfully is no longer required for major content.

The time commitment does keep me from running DE as much as I used to, though.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, IBS revenue drop has been brought up many times over as an argument for "difficult content is important". Problem is, it ignores why exactly was the revenue dropping. And it was dropping mostly due to Anet announcing there will be no expansion anymore, which (alongside stuff like layoffs, and known names leaving left and right) made a lot of people believe the game was in its last throes. Notice, that introduction of strikes did absolutely nothing to impact that revenue decrease trend. It was the announcement that the expansion will be in works that started the reversal.

I'm not referring to the IBS revenue drop, which was significant and was most likely due to a lack of expected expansion announcement (probably paired somewhat with lack of new content besides open world, like elites specializations, etc).

I was referring to the continued decline of revenue while season 4 was releasing. Which was before the IBS and lay-off issues. Towards the end of season 4, before the lay-off drama and the IBS announcement, the game had its lowest revenue period ever. (EDIT: small correction time wise, hey it's been 4-5 years, it was moving towards it's lowest period ever. Not yet there in 2018 but it hit lowest revenue at the end of this time period)

I attribute that to lack of engaging content for part of the player base. No new fractals, raid releases becoming more scarce and longer in-between, no content for spvp or wvw. Pretty much NOTHING besides: here is your next story step, here is your new map to farm, here is your new currency and home map node. That was it. It was also not due to lack of quality of story or map content, the season 4 story and maps where overall well received and even had a ton of extra content like the roller-beetle and skyscale.

In retrospect, this made a lot of sense for a studio which was planning on ending the game then and there. Finish up the story, invest as little resources as possible. Done.

Just for reference, here is a chart of all the revenue up to 2022Q2: https://i.redd.it/2m6pvf7y47h91.png

The period in question is post PoF. Notice how the 2nd last raid release was 3Q2018 (wing 6) and the last significant revenue before a massive drop and continued decline with another large drop after 3q2019 (and wing 7 release in June of that year, without any further announcements in regards to raids or fractals). Also yes, this second period was also post lay-off announcement, but the revenue decline started in 2018. It merely culminated in the disappointing IBS announcement. Yet even with that announcement disaster, IBS actually saw growth in revenue even before the next expansion was announced early 2020.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Linken.6345]

21 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

You know what, you're right. i misread the posts when responding about time frames, and it was completely valid for me to respond to your point about doing it in PI from so long ago. Let's have some chronology:
Post you actually said was so long ago:


 

Other posts in between:

Nothing to respond to here, just asking to a response of the above.

You claiming I'm dodging. So at this point, I should be responding to the post from so long ago. 

You saying that you're not talking about doing it in personal instance, when, following your own conversation, you wanted me to respond to that point, that you made, that I should be doing it in personal instance. It's really hard to follow you. My bad. At this point, the fact it was 40 minutes ago shouldn't matter, because according to you, you wanted me to respond to that. Conversations like this are why I can't take you seriously.
 

Yes what Sobx.1758 saying is if you want to do the story you do the personal story 1-5 people.

If you want to do the epic fight that is the culumination of the story arc do the meta event, but it wont be an epic fight if Anet nerf it like you say you want so its a pointless thing to ask for.

And about it being not being repeatable I guess you should go yell at the people doing it every day that they are doing the impossible.

[soul.9651]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, IBS revenue drop has been brought up many times over as an argument for "difficult content is important". Problem is, it ignores why exactly was the revenue dropping. And it was dropping mostly due to Anet announcing there will be no expansion anymore, which (alongside stuff like layoffs, and known names leaving left and right) made a lot of people believe the game was in its last throes. Notice, that introduction of strikes did absolutely nothing to impact that revenue decrease trend. It was the announcement that the expansion will be in works that started the reversal.

Ibs was probably the worst period of games history. I hated DRMs, hated how they started doing strike mission's instead of giving us more raids or fractals, no wonder revenue dropped at that moment..

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, IBS revenue drop has been brought up many times over as an argument for "difficult content is important". Problem is, it ignores why exactly was the revenue dropping. And it was dropping mostly due to Anet announcing there will be no expansion anymore, which (alongside stuff like layoffs, and known names leaving left and right) made a lot of people believe the game was in its last throes. Notice, that introduction of strikes did absolutely nothing to impact that revenue decrease trend. It was the announcement that the expansion will be in works that started the reversal.

It's a good thing we have your magical feelings to determine cause and effect in trends.  You could make a lot of money with that talent of yours, you know?

[Ashen.2907]

8 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

10 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

 

" A factually accurate statement that completely ignores why the meta itself exists to begin with"

Except that my statement not only does not ignore the why but specifically focuses on the why and explains it.

The meta does not exist as the culmination of the story. It exists to provide a more challenging version of the encounter after the story has already had its culmination elsewhere. Directly addressing a point is the exact opposite of ignoring it.

[Kozumi.5816]

3 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yes, IBS revenue drop has been brought up many times over as an argument for "difficult content is important". Problem is, it ignores why exactly was the revenue dropping. And it was dropping mostly due to Anet announcing there will be no expansion anymore, which (alongside stuff like layoffs, and known names leaving left and right) made a lot of people believe the game was in its last throes. Notice, that introduction of strikes did absolutely nothing to impact that revenue decrease trend. It was the announcement that the expansion will be in works that started the reversal.

IBS announcement was so underwhelming most of my friends quit.

IBS turned out to be a lot better than they advertised imo.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Kozumi.5816]

3 hours ago, Sirius.4510 said:

There are plenty of easy metas in GW2 already - it's OK to have one that's a challenge. Especially since completing the DE meta successfully is no longer required for major content.

The time commitment does keep me from running DE as much as I used to, though.

It's not ok to 180 the games entire direction, actually.

Especially in a game that hasn't gotten a real content update in over a year.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[vares.8457]

23 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

It's not ok to 180 the games entire direction, actually.

How does one event change the games entire direction? It doesn’t. Three of four meta events in EoD are loot piñatas. It seems you just can’t accept that there is something in the game you failed while others have fun doing. But that is not a game problem, that’s a you problem. 

Edited December 25, 2022 by vares.8457

[AliamRationem.5172]

28 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

It's not ok to 180 the games entire direction, actually.

Especially in a game that hasn't gotten a real content update in over a year.

One event is changing the entire direction of the game, huh?  Seems reasonable...