What's some ways the developers can bring life to Cantha expansion region?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

SPOILERS FOR HEART OF THORNS AND END OF DRAGONS

The map caps need to be raised in the first three maps, even if that means optimising them more.

 

New Keining needs to feel more like a city. There needs to be reasons to go there, like group events. My primary suggestion for this map is to add two separate, rotating meta-events like Thunderhead Peaks, (I don't count Leviathan). Just adding an area with some crafting stations (like in Ebonhawke) would work wonders as well, and more NPCs in general even if some kind of client-side phasing technology has to be used.

 

Echovald is good, its the best map of them all.

 

For Dragon's End, we should remove the timer from Soo-Won. I know this isn't consistent with other metas in the game, however it takes far longer build up and far more effort to complete, so the timer phase should be moved from the boss onto other phases. This is how Mordremoth worked; once you cleared the Blighting Towers you were free to take your time on the final boss and it feels much better. This would also provide oppertunities to make the boss more difficult (timers aren't true difficulty).

 

For the entire expansion I recommend making the Hero Challenges harder so there's a reason to do HP trains here. Path of Fire had the same problem, and its the main reason HP trains only run in HoT. However unlike PoF, End of Dragons doesn't even have bounty trains.

 

Fishing Tournaments also need to be more common, and be advertised map-wide. Maybe even show a leaderboard to get players really competing.

 

One big thing I noticed: Cantha isn't included in dailies, while the other two expansions are. This is a good design for new players, but its a bad design for older players. Instead, what dailies you get should be based upon your story progress, instead of being excluded entirely. Either that or all expansions should have their own set of dailies that give 2g when completed.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[SinisterSlay.6973]

I generally agree with everything here.

My issues with the maps is they are shallow.

Buildings cannot be entered, (especially new Keining )

Few NPCs (especially new Keining )

Little to no events in areas (especially new Keining )

Few waypoints makes the map a chore every time you have to do anything (especially new Keining )

New Keining appears to be entirely focused on the 1 meta event.  The entire map is blank otherwise.  For what should be the best map, it turns into the worst.

There's one part of the story, you are to do events around the docks in new keining.  There is 1... 1 single event in the area.  Where you kill dudes and collect stuff.

You can go across the water and find one more event, an escort.  This is the entirety of all events in that area.  And you repeat them on loop 4 times to finish the story.  This is terrible.  A city like this should be overflowing with events.  

Put bounties on the maps.  I have no idea why they were omitted but they should be there.

Add the maps to the regular dailies.  Again no idea why these were missed.  This would cause players to have to come back.

[Izzy.2951]

Performance, EoD maps perform much worst than any other map despite having lower player cap and less npcs. And some doesnt have that many asset compared to other maps (except new kaineng)

Edited January 11, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Mistwraithe.3106]

10 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

One big thing I noticed: Cantha isn't included in dailies, while the other two expansions are. This is a good design for new players, but its a bad design for older players. Instead, what dailies you get should be based upon your story progress, instead of being excluded entirely. Either that or all expansions should have their own set of dailies that give 2g when completed.

I agree totally with this about dailies, the HoT and PoF dailies should be triggered by story progress and/or whether the player has any characters who have visited the maps. As a player still working through the Core story, buying the HoT/PoF expansions was a step backwards for me because suddenly the dailies started wanting me to go to HoT/PoF maps which I've never heard of.

Sure I could find them but I don't WANT to, I'm enjoying the story and I'm not skipping ahead 30+ episodes to do a daily. It's very poor design for the dailies to include these maps from so far ahead in the story.

[kharmin.7683]

11 hours ago, Ausar.9542 said:

Not if the Canthian hub city zone is public to all during the event. 

How would that be possible, technically?  There is no real hub city zone in Cantha.

[Cronospere.8143]

On 1/7/2023 at 1:25 PM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

Definitely not skiff and turtle events because skiffs and turtles are the least fun mounts we have.

That is why they should be added. 

If nice twists are in the event (speed boosts or targets indeed) it would make them more fun. 

[Izzy.2951]

For the people spaming the "passive-aggresive" emojis that performance is not an issue with EoD maps. Just go do a meta in EoD and other map and you will see the difference in FPS. But you dont even need to do that, just to into New Kaineng in the hall where the last boss appear and look back to the water and the building behind and youll see the lag, go into the strike mission of kaineng and look back and see the lag, go into seitung bell zone go into the water and out and youll see the lag.

You dont even need tons of people/npcs for EoD maps to lag in quite someplaces, its even more noticable when theres a meta, but regarding performance i would rather do any other meta than metas in eod just cos the performance.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Izzy.2951

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

Add multiple side stories. Post EoD content that adds more need to settle into a map or connect the stories of  between Tyria and Cantha. Arborstone felt like only a start with the horrid downside that you can NEVER play the content ever again.

[anninke.7469]

Maybe they could add a local variety of Treasure Mushrooms. For those of us who'd still kill to have the invi-footwear (but not pay... ehm...) 😅

[HowlKamui.5120]

IMO more spread-out rewarding events like how Auric Basin does it.

[Ausar.9542]

22 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

How would that be possible, technically?  There is no real hub city zone in Cantha.

By making a hub city area? is that impossible? nope

[kharmin.7683]

2 hours ago, Ausar.9542 said:

By making a hub city area? is that impossible? nope

So, not just move the festival but have the devs create a special area just for that?  I'd rather resources be spent elsewhere.

[ekkio.4578]

On 1/7/2023 at 8:13 PM, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Make some festivals add stuff in Eod maps too. 

It's especially odd to not have Lunar New Year stuff, even partially, set in Cantha imo.

Then again, we also need more permanent content in Cantha, the most active zone is Echovald Wilds because the meta is fast-paced and fun (despite the low/uninteresting rewards).

Edited January 12, 2023 by ekkio.4578

[kharmin.7683]

IIRC anything Cantha was scrapped from way back at launch (see Divinity's Reach: Queen's pavilion) due to issues sensitive to a certain demographic.  It's only after continual begging/whining/complaining for Anet to develop and release Cantha that we got EoD.  The festival was never intended to be in Cantha because Cantha was never envisioned to exist in GW2.

[Gemini.6432]

29 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

IIRC anything Cantha was scrapped from way back at launch (see Divinity's Reach: Queen's pavilion) due to issues sensitive to a certain demographic.  It's only after continual begging/whining/complaining for Anet to develop and release Cantha that we got EoD.  The festival was never intended to be in Cantha because Cantha was never envisioned to exist in GW2.

 

It would still be nice to at least have some seasonal decorations during the festival, at least at some parts of the Canthan maps, and a maybe some NPCs letting you travel from Cantha to the festival location.

 

And this festival is the smallest anyways, so it would be a nice opportunity to expand on this festival and have something in a Canthan themed map only accessible during this time. It doesn't have to be a new map, just an instanced section for an activity, that is also available for f2p players so they can actually get a preview of the new maps this way.

 

 

[Duglaive.5236]

There's an old saying ... "Back to the drawing board".

EoD/Cantha was, and is, (IMO anyway) a great deal of resources spent to sell gem store items. Such things do appeal to a lot of people; and to others, not so much.

[Sirius.4510]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:06 AM, kharmin.7683 said:

IIRC anything Cantha was scrapped from way back at launch (see Divinity's Reach: Queen's pavilion) due to issues sensitive to a certain demographic.

I remember that talk, but I'm not sure it was ever true. People routinely brought it up to explain why Cantha would never happen; clearly, they were wrong. Either the demographic eventually got less sensitive, or they got ignored in favor of making other fans happy (I would have expected an outcry somewhere in that case though), or it was never really that controversial in the first place.

 

Closer to original topic: Thinking about why I don't spend that much time in Cantha (Arborstone excluded) at the moment... I imagine if the EoD dailies were worth doing, that would change. I still have a bunch of map achievements on my "to-do" list but haven't yet gotten around to them due to being busy with festivals, strikes, raids etc - will probably spend more time there when I get to it. The other thing is the metas... they do rank decently on profitability (https://fast.farming-community.eu/open-world/meta), but they're all a pretty big time investment compared to their competitors. That and there's no handy inventory item like there is for AB/TD, so I don't think about them as much...

[Svarty.8019]

On 1/7/2023 at 10:54 AM, Luthan.5236 said:

Increase the rewards.

GW2 Cure-all = Moar rewardz! 

 

These snake oil clowns, man.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Sirius.4510 said:

I remember that talk, but I'm not sure it was ever true. People routinely brought it up to explain why Cantha would never happen; clearly, they were wrong. Either the demographic eventually got less sensitive, or they got ignored in favor of making other fans happy (I would have expected an outcry somewhere in that case though), or it was never really that controversial in the first place.

They've actually removed most of the original stuff that made the GW1 Cantha so controversial to some. Specifically, the main issue was that the architecture and culture was a mix of chinese, korean and japanese elements. This time they've not only removed the mixing, but also watered down everything by adding significant dose of "modern" look and jade tech. They've also butchered most of the original Cantha history by the convenience of having a cataclysm and revolution that removed most of old things and replaced them with new ones.

So, basically, the Cantha people asked for truly never happened. What we've obtained was "nuCantha" - something new that is only very loosely based on the original thing.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 1/8/2023 at 12:11 AM, Hindenburg.3415 said:

Dunno I like EoD metas.

They feel like a proper events not like HoT 3-5 minutes faceroll.

All we need is a little bit more players doing it.

EoD metas don't hold a candle to HoT metas. They are just boring mob slaughtering for most part, and not much else, and the rewards are not good enough to waste my time on them beyond the items I needed to farm currency for.

As much as I loved the DE meta at first, I am no longer doing it, because 1.5 hours for such abysmal rewards are not worth it.
 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Ashantara.8731

[Kozumi.5816]

Long term goals and rewards that aren't legendaries.

[Kozumi.5816]

On 1/7/2023 at 9:13 AM, Farohna.6247 said:

And increase rewards.  They feel stingy.  Getting ambergris, jade runestone, etc is great but I'm using all of those in crafting, give me something to make some good with.  The metas feel like they're some of the most unrewarding in game.

Yeah nothing released since EoD rewards players, at all.

Remember when Anet said they wanted to make EOD all about highly replayable content? Remember when the director posted on these very forums that he wanted to make EoD metas as long lasting and rewarding as HoT metas?

Good lies.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Kozumi.5816

[Septimus Prime.6743]

This game is now 10 years old!

And I think it is time to add more options to acquire Legendaries as final achievement rewards!

To make any meta or map alive is actually very simple - just add for example 300x repatable achievements with 1 legendary piece selections chests (rings, amulet, accessories, any armor weight selection + infusions selection) as final completion reward, and make them also repeatable! And all maps and metas are alive at once!

[cyberzombie.7348]

Most of this is a list from a different post but it can be applied to other parts of Cantha as well.

 

- Mech fights/races in NKC, with an underground ring in  Echovald.

-Taverns/pubs

-Music shows like in Amnoon or Grohman Valley but with their own take of music.

-More lesser groups and fractions, it could be different martial arts schools, racing crews, crafting guilds, or even NKC street performers. Each with their own unique events.

-The ability to purchase Xunlai, or sketchy jade tech from Brotherhood peddlers as consumables.

The ability to buy Mai Trin's apartment, or even a more upscale one.

The option to read about elite spec's lore more in-depth at the library.

-The option to debate with the hatemongers rather than just giving the a hostile indicator.

-Raptor races and skiff drag races (both sanctioned and underground as a PvE/PvP mini game).

- Getting side remarks from the locals about me being an outsider.

-Drunks in night time

-Martial arts tournaments and sparring rings in Seitsung as a PvE/PvP mini game.

-More variations on what you can buy, like in Divinity's Reach and Amnoon.

-Pirate radio stations since Cantha known about the tech for a while.

 

p.s. It makes no sense with all the noodle stands and can't even buy a single bowl.

Edited January 14, 2023 by cyberzombie.7348