Opinions on EoD?

[Erich.1783]

I fall into the not a fan of EoD camp, to the extent that my previous practice of buying gems pretty regularly has stopped.  I have spent no money on GW2 since EoD released.

[America.9437]

I really enjoyed it.   I only play open world and just solo and go about my business exploring new areas.  Did the Dragons End meta three times.  Got carried twice and failed once for some reason, who knows.  Got some kind of turtle egg and now it wants me to feed it way too much food.  So I abandoned that turtle grind.  I cant really be bothered spending all that time/gold on it.  But all in all, I am glad i spent the money to buy it.  I really liked the Seitung Province and New Kaineng maps. 

[Albadaran.1283]

Maybe I'm spoiled by PoF where you have huge amounts of land, with a fine variety of landscapes, fast to cross with the right mounts. Smooth gameplay. And that is what I'm missing most in EoD: no variation, and too small. It does not give the same feeling as the rest of GW2. Like it isn't part of it.

At the other hand, the design looks good and there are some interesting ideas like bots and elite specs. But its not enough to make gameplay good. Average rating for me.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

It depends what you're looking for. EoD has interesting new especs, good quality strike missions, 1 visually stunning map and 1 very nice meta event (although it takes a while to complete). That being said, 2 maps simply lack in enemies/events/map design to become interesting, the story has a slow build up and then suddenly races to the finish. Fishing, skiffing, turtle & masteries arent really fun/useable in general (fishing is great money though)

 

Right now my main use for EoD is the new especs and 4 strike missions per week. Apart from that i get my weekly antique summoning stones which gives ~25g per week. I also have a couple characters sitting at the end of a JP for a decent daily reward and do a couple of daily skillpoints to build up currency for the legendary weapons. 

[soulknight.9620]

There are some good things about EOD: beautiful soundtrack, nice maps (esp Seitung, Kaineng), nice metas (although lacking rewards). Strikes are nice too. Some really nice side stories and Ramas hat!

But... there is a lot of buts... A lot of the content kinda feels "unfinished" and "rushed", like jade bots (only one core, most addons are pointless), skiffs (which only are really used for fishing), turtle (which has no use outside of destroying siege walls etc), elite specs (a few of them are not playable even after one year of additional work). But the real horrible part of EOD for me personally is the main story. The writing is just bad. A lot of interesting plot points have been missed and destroyed. It still suffers from "Mary Sue" type of characters aka Aurene, Joon and Taimi. 

 

[zeyeti.8347]

Mixed feelings personnaly , some maps seems unfinished (néo kaineng in particular) the new métas are okey-meh  , some e-specs are good and some are badly designed , the story is average .

The real good addition of this expansion is the way strike missions works , having it tied to personal story (normal and very easy mode) and then having those as strikes missions , with a challenge mode is a good thing to me , there is challenge for hardcore players , and new players feel a bit more confident to enter a normal strike mission cause they have done the "story" version of it .

Whish they do the same to raids.

And the worst addition is , to me , Fishing ! boring , lazy , ... can't find out all the adjectives to describe it , perfect if you want to take a nap - you do 5 minutes of fishing and fall asleep , i guess it is a good way to spend time while queing for pvp or wvw (and metas when queue for it will be implemented) , but to me fishing has nothing to do in such an mmo , to think that was the first selling point of the game .... hopefully they added the jade bot who saved the day for masteries.

Edited February 28, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Jurij.4625]

Overall I like it very much.

For me the only downside is the story. Too much railroaded dialogue missions, where I just stand there and wait for all the boring dialogues to end. When playing the story I feel sometimes that I'm watching a TV series instead of playing the game. - I wouldn't mind that if story were actually interesting and engaging, but for me GW2 story is too much and too often just some techno-babble and nonsensical fantasy mumbo jumbo. But that is the weak point of the whole GW2 story. There is no feeling of exploration and freedom. No chance to develop distinctive personality for my character, no distinctive dialogue choices, no chance to act as my own character.

 

That being said, I like everything else in EoD. I love maps, all the secrets, events and I enjoy fishing and skiff driving. I also love that they gave us the options to fish and navigate skiff all across Tyria waters.

[Jianyu.7065]

My only take away when it comes to forum content is that some people have strong opinions and feel they are entitled to be heard.

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

I really liked EoD but I think it was too short. That's the only downside for me. For an expansion, it should have lasted more hours. Took me only 1 hour max to do it all, after months of waiting, which feels disappointing!

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

3 hours ago, soulknight.9620 said:

It still suffers from "Mary Sue" type of characters aka Aurene, Joon and Taimi. 

 

Can you please elaborate on why you think those fall under the Mary Sue trope? And also, do you think there are Larry Stu type of characters in GW2? 

[Jurij.4625]

40 minutes ago, Jianyu.7065 said:

My only take away when it comes to forum content is that some people have strong opinions and feel they are entitled to be heard.

You just described the purpose of the forum - sharing and discussing opinions 

[Gibson.4036]

37 minutes ago, TheLadyOfTheRings.9148 said:

Can you please elaborate on why you think those fall under the Mary Sue trope? And also, do you think there are Larry Stu type of characters in GW2? 

While I’m not fond of those labels, and think it’s impossible to even apply them without knowing the writer (because so much of the label is about how the writer is living vicariously through the character) I can feel what the poster is reacting to in all three characters. If I had to find a male character in GW2 to join their company, it’d be Trahearne.

These characters feel like “darlings” as in the common writer advice, “kill your darlings”. They are too precious to the writers to really pressure them enough to find real flaws and therefore meaningfully grow. 
 

Joon is the one I wouldn’t confidently include, though. Her writing was definitely problematic, but not to the extent of Aurene, Taimi, and Trahearne.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Jianyu.7065]

2 hours ago, Jurij.4625 said:

You just described the purpose of the forum - sharing and discussing opinions 

 

Thanks

[Jimbru.6014]

How do I hate EoD, let me count the ways...

- Terrible story. Joon is the most dislikable character in the whole game. She should have died and Mai Trin should have survived. Having Taimi, Mai, and Scarlet via Mai improvising to save Tyria would have been much more interesting and morally satisfying than fulfilling the oversized ego of a self absorbed brat. The whole maze thing in Joon's house was clearly designed just to keep players busy and frustrated.

- Speaking of which, way too much content in EoD was obviously designed just to force players to grind and kill time. I already made a thread about how much it sucks to have to do strikes to get ascended Dragon and Ritualist gear. Let's also talk about all the currencies and crafting items EoD introduced that we need too much of for different things, especially resource notes.

- NKC and Echovald are two of the worst maps in the game, period. Also , the population limits on the EoD maps are too low. The emptiness of players for events and the constant map changes are frustrating.

- Fishing is frustrating and really needs discussed in its own thread. Many problems.

- The elite specs are a mixed bag at best. Some are interesting, but others just seem designed to be complicated for complication's sake to satisfy a minority of hard-core button mashers on whom nothing should EVER be based.

[Excursion.9752]

As I sit here trying to remember when I played through nothing really great came to mind. My typical day of playing rarely makes me want to play in EoD areas. If it wasn't for me trying to make new legendary items I can't say that I would be there at all.

I like one of the new specs
The new mount is okay for memes.
Jade bots are mediocre when you remember to equip them. These should have been account bound like gliders & mounts.
Fishing., also should have been an account bound thing... I was not in their target market for this so I don't have much good to say about it. 
I understand what they were trying to do with research notes but it is tedious and not fun.

Love the game but I didn't care much for EoD and sorta sad the new release today continues in the same area. I was hoping for something new.

[wolfyrik.2017]

On 2/26/2023 at 11:01 PM, Randulf.7614 said:

I’ve long maintained it’s amongst their weakest content, but reception has been very mixed. You won’t get a definite answer since a lot of people have really liked it a lot and lots have really hated it judging by previous feedback threads/polls and there have been plenty.

Id say do IBS. The first half is pretty good and well populated. The final chapters of IBS are so bad anything you play after will look amazing in comparison and it will help appreciate EoD more.

I think I had the opposite experience. The Champions part of IBS was so appallingly bad that it taineted everything that followed. That combined with EoD's multitude of issues, broke what was left for me.

[Krexen.9057]

It was a decent expansion. The massive city was amazing, but it was devoid of life. Can't think of any complaints.

[Excursion.9752]

35 minutes ago, Krexen.9057 said:

The massive city was amazing, but it was devoid of life.

Covid Regulations, they are still quarantined!

[Perisemiotics.4579]

I'll just say it made me wish (more) that mock xpack page made by fans about a supposed underwater, Largos expansion had been real. So many good ideas there without trying to reinvent the wheel but... still during the IBS days ANet made the Skimmer also a "diver"... that was to me the beginning of the End - quite literally, you see...

[Acheron.1580]

Maps equally impressive and annoying in stature, obnoxious mob density and difficult content which would have been a lot of fun if it wasn't a ghost town. Story could have cut Annka out and been roughly the same (Don't get me wrong, I liked her as a villain but her involvement was really forced), but if they had the story would have been reaaaaally short; as a result it felt like filler. Metas in every map felt long and tedious, and pointless due to lack of rewards. The new legendary weapons are grossly overcosted, feeling like a lot of bloat to distract hardcore players from noticing how empty the expansion was, while also making it feel pointless to pursue for casuals (I ended up going back and making gen 2 and 3 legendaries). Fishing wasn't relaxing, skiffs were just badly designed, and felt like they were desperately trying to force an idea that they were "party friendly" when fishing isn't exactly an exciting enough passtime to warrant getting groups together. While on that topic, most masteries were bland, the only thing I really enjoyed was the jade bots. It's the only content I didn't try to get all the achievements done in because everything about it just felt off to me. I don't think the expansion is beyond saving, I think it could be cleaned up here and there and be fun, but I probably won't buy the next expansion if they can't demonstrate the ability to do so.

 

What would I change? Skiffs should just be indestructible at max rank, you cant even kill things while on it. Or just make the depth charges kill any veteran or lower mob instantly with no loot reward. The fishing stacks should last 1 min while off the skiff. Stop trying to make fishing parties a thing. Great for the people that are into it, but I never saw people sharing a skiff. Map metas should be scaled back a bit and rewards (particularly since you gutted jade runestone farming) should be amped up to make them time/reward competitive to the metas that get played daily. Some of the new elite specs have weird identity issues still, but class balancing is a can of worms that will never get properly addressed and here's not the place to try.

 

Edit (cause my jimmies have been rustled): research notes. If they were designed to help stabilize the market, they failed expertly. Anyone who played could have told them straight up exactly what would happen: people would band together to find the absolutely cheapest option and everything else would be ignored. But it didn't stop there, they went through and eliminated festival drops and rewards (which frankly would have been a bad exchange because they typically sold for more than the cheapest garbage you can craft. If you modify your game for an unpopular system to make things people enjoy less enjoyable, then you are bad at your job. Your entire goal is entertainment, it's like nobody stopped and asked "but will this be fun?"

Edited March 1, 2023 by Acheron.1580
and another thing

[Wesst.8736]

Gameplay was cool

Story was alright...

Politics were obvious and ridiculous

You have to literally fish for your class weapon component..

Ran the meta a few times

then quit...

[Shadamehr.1284]

Its felt like GW2's Cataclysm, remember when WoW launched Cataclysm and it was only half an expansion at launch due the devs spending most of their time on reworking the world and its questing for new players ? To me EoD felt the same, less of everything due to a smaller dev team than PoF/LW4 and no follow up content until today because they were mainly working on re-introducing LW1 for new players and those that missed out. I didn't mind them doing the latter but not for a moment did I think it would come at the expense of any new story content. Since I completed everything I wanted in EoD I rarely go back there.

[Laken.9018]

So here's my thoughts as someone whose not really played the game since the first few weeks of EOD's release and why it occurred:

Like a lot of people I was super excited for the return to Cantha especially as an Elementalist Main.
For most part I liked the areas. Shing Jea is amazing, Echovald is kinda fun once you start digging into it. Not big fan of the other two maps.
So as a fairly casual/plot player I wasn't 100% happy with all the storys choices, feeling it got weaker as time went on but could look past them.

So lets see what do we have left after that. Legendary Farming, Specification Weapon,  New armor.
Okay but a lot of it is in Strikes. One of Anets many attempts to push players into lower cost to produce content.

And then they nerfed Catalyst after about 2 weeks....and I gave up.
Seee the thing is my main character is an Elementalist. A class often nerfed and as a result kicked out of the very kind of content Anet wanted me to do and I didn't see the point grinding for the new gear if my build has to be respecced so often....and thus the desire to keep playing went.

Now the argument could be to roll up another char but the thing is due to how certain things are tied to characters. My money is in this char and I want to play them and do the content Anet gave.

Between this frustration and Anets constant carefuly worded marketing trying to hide the fact they don't have the resources to make the game anymore to the level it used to be I just gave up.
It's been the on and off story for years now and I'm just tierd of giving them chances.

So for me how do I feel about EOD:
An half made expansion done on limited resources, that feels it ignores prior lore work laid down.  Undoes a lot of what made Cantha enjoyable in GW1 and ultimately over relys on a form of content that certain chars will struggle to do.
Oh yes and I hate the Research Notes system that discourages you from playing to earn them.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Laken.9018

[jcH.7109]

7 hours ago, Laken.9018 said:

And then they nerfed Catalyst after about 2 weeks....and I gave up.
Seee the thing is my main character is an Elementalist. A class often nerfed and as a result kicked out of the very kind of content Anet wanted me to do and I didn't see the point grinding for the new gear if my build has to be respecced so often....and thus the desire to keep playing went.

Dude, what are you talking about? You realize that ele is really strong in all 3 game modes, right? I main ele as well, but what you say about not being able to do strikes as an ele is completely false. Power weaver, condi weaver, power cata, quickness cata; all of these builds are meta in raids/fractals/strikes right now, especially power weaver because they buffed weave self to give +10% damage when you attune to air.

[Sylvari.2953]

EoD is meh.

Story - 5/10, some good moments but too many boring parts and tedious tasks.
Map design - 5/10, Cantha's beauty was ruined by the jade tech stuff.
Map exploration - 5/10, Kaineng and Echovald are ridiculously annoying.
Meta events - 3/10, metas peaked in HoT, we've been on a downhill.
Elite specs - 4/10, none of them made me switch mains.
Fashion - 2/10, at this point only Gem Store items look good.
Masteries - 3/10, a couple of useful things but most of them can be ignored.
Turtle - 1/10, totally useless besides some metas.
Jade Bot - 3/10, good idea, bad execution.
Skiff - 1/10, my Skimmer does it better.
Fishing - 1/10, I don't care but I'm glad fishing fans are happy! So can we have player housing now? 🥺