Secrets of the Obscure general feedback [Merged]

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Darklord Roy.2514 said:

that is OBJECTIVELY untrue.

You mean subjectively.  Expac features can be a positive for you while a negative for someone else. It is all subjective.

[Taelac.7036]

Generally speaking, I really like this expansion so far. The maps are gorgeous, the music has been a nice fit, the story is the amount of engaging that I like out of my brain candy, there are NPCs everywhere with interesting lore tidbits, and so many books to read! I enjoy the map events (though I missed out on the first meta when it stalled, so I'm looking forward to taking another run at that). I can see potential in the relic system, though I wish that had been a little more finished before launch. I expect I will tire of Rift events, but they seem to scale well so far, and they'll be nice for nights I want to mindlessly merc things.

I like the reward selection in the Vault, and the fact that it looks like most people will be able to get as much to potentially a lot more out of it as they'd have gotten from the previous daily/login system. Even the login-logout nets something, and I don't really thing it's bad for that to be less than the old system, given how much better the vault rewards even a tiny bit of playtime. Having tried it through three resets, once on my main guild's weekly guild night, there are a few things I think could be improved:
 

• We found it somewhat frustrating to have different dailies & weeklies among our guild members. Guild missions haven't been updated in five ever, so we mostly would use dailies as a thing to do together, then we'd help each other with various goals that needed a group of players (think fractals for legendary collections). Having different dailies/weeklies meant we ate up a lot more of our limited time just making sure everyone got theirs finished, leaving us little time to do other things as a guild.
  • This may actually provide an opportunity to revisit guild missions with a polishing cloth and work them into the Vault somehow, possibly incorporating a rotation of existing guild missions and other group content, awarding guild commendations instead of aa, and perhaps a seasonal "completionist" chest for doing a certain number of guild missions during the season that awarded community-focused items like banners, feasts, tomes, and bonfires, or materials for guild decorations.
• The biggest issue we had was being locked into the daily selection, as others have said. More freedom of choice would be an improvement.
  • Going from "choose three of 12 and get more rewards for doing more than three" to "these are your three options" felt very constrictive.
  • The current limitations are unfriendly to disabled players, and even two more options to choose from would help mitigate that.
  • Players now have to choose between what they can complete and what they like to complete, meaning those of us who prefer mostly PvE lose out on the encouragement to dip into PvP or WvW on occasion, for example.
  • We thought that having just two "extra" dailies would help (assuming there's actually a good reason to reduce our options from 12).
  • Discussing the possibility of those "bonus" dailies coming from or prioritizing unselected game modes, there was general agreement that it could help with the stated goal of encouraging players to find and do a wider range of content by offering a way for other game modes to offer an optional reward.
  • We agreed that capping the rewards at 35 aa for the dailies and greying the rest out would be fine.
  • We agreed that we'd all rather have our freedom to choose dailies from all game modes without sacrificing options from preferred game modes back, if at all possible. Weeklies being locked into the selected game types seemed more agreeable to everyone.
• Some mini-dungeons are fine as dailies, but that the longer ones such as Spirit Vestibule would make better weeklies. Many players have limited time to play on days they also work, and some of the longer ones can really eat into that. The game shouldn't put players in a position of "well, I did my dailies and now I don't have any time left to do anything else."
• Having to click each Vault activity and also the final completionist chest in a category feels as though it is designed to trick people into not getting their rewards, and the small alert in the upper UI was difficult for at least one of our guild members to see.

That's probably enough of my rambling. I'm looking forward to finishing the story and seeing what comes next.

[Randulf.7614]

• Can we get more time after the meta in the south tower courtyard? Barely enough time to loot let alone speak to npcs and read the lore stuff. No reason it can’t be open for 15 mins
• Can we get a tool tip on the UI for the green circle mechanic on the bosses. it appears to be line of sight, but emchanics normally have explanations. This is an odd oversight
• Can we stop the constant mastery tooltips when we pass through a leyline or updraft? Once was enough, not everytime. It's annoying to have to constantly close manually
• Can we get extra things to find like the coins in silverwstes/dry tops. Or something equivalent to the llamas? The shrine guardians are fine, but it just needs a bit more reason to stick around

Think that covers my suggestions from map one

[Taelac.7036]

Oh, I forgot one thing - @Rubi Bayer.8493, can we please get confirmation that the lower-cost limited rewards will refresh each season? That's the way I read it, but some of my guild were concerned that once the lower-cost Bag of Gold (for example) were gone, they were gone forever, and then we'd only have the option of the higher-cost of the same item. I'd like to be able to reassure them on that score.  Thanks!

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Taelac.7036 said:

Oh, I forgot one thing - @Rubi Bayer.8493, can we please get confirmation that the lower-cost limited rewards will refresh each season? That's the way I read it, but some of my guild were concerned that once the lower-cost Bag of Gold (for example) were gone, they were gone forever, and then we'd only have the option of the higher-cost of the same item. I'd like to be able to reassure them on that score.  Thanks!

Well that's what a reasonable person would assume, but I'm pretty sure Anet brains are already cooking to come up with nerfs to the loot. I mean this new system make it easier than ever, no need to touch the baseline just change a number.

[zeyeti.8347]

Personnaly i enjoyed (and enjoy) this dlc , i never made a dayli again when i reached the 15000 cap , now i have a good reason to do them , i was happily surprised that the mount skin in vault is a pretty beautifull one.

Relic are a bit a mess , not much explanation on it , what range , how long the condi , how many damage , etc etc , but that kind of stuff could be easily patched and new relics added up without thinking off runes , pretty sure in few months we will have way more options for relics.

Maps were a blast to explore and are beautifull , i like it vertical and was not dissapointed in that way and fights coupled with mount jump use + mastery who allow leyline use is a pretty good addon (endboss of méta map 2 caught me off guard , didn't expected that , really nice ! )

And story ... ty anet , that was a really enjoyable one. Eager to see Febe strike in cm.

[Ashantara.8731]

Praise to map and story designers

THE GOOD

• I honestly don't get the complaints about "asset reuse" when the maps look so beautiful in this expansion. Map layout, assets and design aesthetics are top notch and show a deep love for detail. Furthermore, being able to merge all the known regions in Tyria in such a well-combined way is a rare thing and a show of great craftsmanship. And, come on, the newly added architecture looks just gorgeous!  I have not had this much fun exploring a GW2 map in ages, if ever, as I had exploring the Archipelago and the Wizard's Tower.
• I really like that most known mechanics of world travel are used here, and in a way that feels extremely homogenous.
• I love the story so far -- well written and extremely well paced and executed. I also like all the characters I have met -- a lot. Finally, some mature characters who I can take seriously. I also think that the dialogue is excellently written. And the story missions have been a lot of fun.
• I am a huge fan of seeing all these different races as members of the Ward. Now I want to play a Jotun! (Or a dwarf.)
• I agree with those who stated that the nostalgia is real for veteran players. The lore was super rich, and references to previous content (both GW1 and GW2) has been well implemented.
• I thoroughly enjoyed the music, it fits the expansion’s theme so well (and I loved hearing old pieces as well from their respective region).
• While I am not a fan of a three-months cadence for the continuation of a story (already disliked that about Living World), I think this current model is better than the frequent content drought of the past. Also, this first of four releases felt very complete and didn't leave you with a frustrating cliffhanger.
• Strikes, Fractals, CM mode – always welcome more of it!

THE NOT-SO-GOOD

• The amount of bugs outside of SotO that have been introduced with this xpac are astonishing. Examples:
  • Fractal 100 CM: Aspects that spawn on the islands tend to vanish into thin air, resulting in a wipe.
  • Fractal 99 CM: Ai becomes unresponsive for the first minute of the fight, allowing players to easily attack her without having to do any mechanics.
  • Fractal 98 CM: Viirasta is also bugged, making the whole second boss fight super short. (My teammates love it!)
  • "Daily Activities: Crab Toss" is currently broken as no one can pick up the crab! (LOL)
  • The Legendary Weapons achievement section shows weapons I have done the full collection for as "newly started" (e.g., Howler was the very first legendary I crafted from scratch many years ago, and now I have to collect expensive items for another collection for it? What?!).
• Many current choices of Relics are unfit for actual use. Like, who wants something "on using an elite skill" when either the skill isn’t recognized as "an elite skill" (e.g., the Summoned Elemental’s attack on Ele) or their profession’s choice of elite skills only offer ones with a very long cooldown? Or "on using a healing skill" when that skill isn’t recognized as one (like entering the Med Pack on Mechanist)?
• When you select only one category for Dailies, you should receive a broader choice. E.g., if you select PvE only, you don’t want to be forced to do content you don't have access to yet and don't know yet what it is (like Kryptis bounties on the first or second day).
• The Wizard’s Vault reward system’s visual design does not really fit into GW2’s old UI. It looks out of order, too prominent, and it offers no link to the still present other Daily sections of the Achievement panel.
• A lot of dialogue is triggered prematurely on map exploration on both maps.

P.S. I was aware that many feedback threads already existed, but I couldn't post up until yesterday and I wanted the devs to see this! ( @Rubi Bayer.8493 ) So excuse my audacity. 😄

Edited August 25, 2023 by Ashantara.8731

[Darklord Roy.2514]

15 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

You mean subjectively.  Expac features can be a positive for you while a negative for someone else. It is all subjective.

No, I meant objectively. People can still dislike changes even if they are undoubtedly positive for the overall health of the game.

[Mattahood.9423]

So far I think the expansion is pretty darn good.   I love the look of the new maps and so far the story, as far as I have played it, is engaging and enjoyable.  This really, to me, makes me feel a lot of hope in the future of GW2.  Challenging to get around without some masteries but not impossible and the story is well paced so far.  I like the new npcs, a lot.  To me they are much more relatable than braham et al.  I love that we get a mursaat and a jotun as npcs and i really had to laugh at the dwarfs' mini raptors. 

I do like the idea of the wizard's vault and being able to choose the rewards you want - and they are pretty decent rewards.  The implementation of limiting choice in which dailies/weeklies to do was a mis step but hopefully correctable.

I don't know about the relic system; seems a bit of unnecessary complication, especially as it was released in a half finished state.  So far I have not even bothered to pick any relics.

I love the decorations I have been able to craft so far and am really looking forward to the fix and being able to craft the rest.  What I have done so far is gorgeous.  High praises to who ever is in charge of making gh decorations!!! (just a hint though, could we have a cherry tree?)

And I don't mind the reuse of old of assets - it is well done and fits with the story.  To be honest it was getting complicated enough - I did not want new skills, weapons, etc.  But the res-use I really really REALLY love is the use of the old charr hide armor from gw1 (aka rift hunter's)  Just the other day I was trying to make something that looked like charr hide and now the game has given it to me !!!!!! YAY!

SO THANKS TO THE TEAM

 

[Ashantara.8731]

23 minutes ago, Mattahood.9423 said:

I love the decorations I have been able to craft so far and am really looking forward to the fix and being able to craft the rest.

Oooh, please make sure you post them all here on the forums! What do you have so far?

[Laughing Bat.1570]

The lack of any new weapons really stands out as the biggest downer for Soto. Using the elite spec weapons did nothing for me on this topic and it taints an otherwise excellent launch. Looking forward to the new weapons in the quarterly updates, but it really should have been here at launch.

Story: Best story since core. The return of all the extra details really stands out. Loved the new cast. Excited to see what comes next.

Skywatch: Brilliant map, creative use of existing lore and art assets. As an old school gw1 guy, I flipped when I found out about Droknar's Forge being here. 

Amnytas: Nice, but a bit monotone. A letdown after the wild variety we get in Skywatch. 

Masteries: Leyline is frustrating as always, the rest are nice. Nothing grabbing me as a game changer. 

Wizards Vault: I basically ignored the old daily system because I thought it was dumb. I like this one, I can skip to rewards I actually want. More variety in task options would be nice. 

[Curennos.9307]

My only real beef is that the rift hunting is....tedious at best. I can see what the goal was for the maps and transportation, but as someone who never did the 'original' skyscale stuff, it's been a horrendous pain in the rear trying to get to rifts to continue the story, and I don't see myself rift-farming anytime soon. Maybe after I do the meta a few times and lazily work through collecting more mastery points it'll be more bearable, but during the initial story progression it felt like everything was juuuuuuuuust out of each. There's no real indicator about overall status, either - like how far away is that rift? Are people already killing it? I had several detection whatsits (that zoomy screen that shows up for 'tracking' to show you the direction) abruptly change direction while I was omw there, which was, after scrunching my eyes and doing my best to flap-flop my way in the indicated general direction, not...a great feeling.

It gets marginally more pleasant as I acquire more points to get better skyscale skills, and a little bit more as I get waypoints around the map to quickly triangulate where exactly the rift is, but I would hope that playing the game is at least pleasant all the time - instead of requiring multiple hours, story progression, WP acquisition, etc, to be not-terrible. I haven't finished skyscale stuff yet so I can't speak as to how convenient it gets once I've got all the bells and whistles, but that will be a while because navigation is just so unpleasant. The first map was distinctly more bearable than the second, and the second map really drove it home how unfun the navigation was.

The story was good though, no complaints there. I enjoy the daily system, but it definitely needs some polish.

[Luthan.5236]

What I wonder a bit: Why are the rangers getting a new pet? (Heard a rumor that there might be even a 2nd one with the other releases.) Are they even that useful - besides maybe having 1 different skill? If they were ... it would be a bit unfair to other classes. If they were not - why even give out new pets then? (I guess it is just becaause they made mob version of that pet and it was easy to re-use it as pet?)

For other classes it always feels a bit annoying that the rangers are special in that regard. Mecha should get some mech skins at least. 😄

[sabbi.4891]

the cap on astral acclaim needs to be much bigger or removed.
I get it there so we can stockpile huge amounts but I maxed it out in less than 4 days... 
It needs to be able to hold at least one month's worth if not a full season's worth...

I was trying to get my weekly reward today and I couldn't claim it as I was too full... at 865/1300.... 4 days, not even a week in and I can't claim the chest for weekly 😫

Edited August 26, 2023 by sabbi.4891

[Dawdler.8521]

34 minutes ago, sabbi.4891 said:

the cap on astral acclaim needs to be much bigger or removed.
I get it there so we can stockpile huge amounts but I maxed it out in less than 4 days... 
It needs to be able to hold at least one month's worth if not a full season's worth...

I was trying to get my weekly reward today and I couldn't claim it as I was too full... at 865/1300.... 4 days, not even a week in and I can't claim the chest for weekly 😫

You're meant to manage your shop constantly. A couple of hours ago I bought like 15 mystic coins and 15g just to avoid "accidentally" capping it in case I got the special objectives without noticing. 

[Luthan.5236]

You could still buy later even if you did the special objective and did not notice it first. Cause you need to manually click it to then collect the acclaim. (Someone mentioned it as a possbile reason as to why the acclaim does not get auto collected.) Then shopping. Then gathering the other acclaim. But yeah: Would be more convenient I said that in one of the other threads about the dailies. I'd love to gather up acclaim and then shop once in a season (before it ends). Would not mind if left over acclaim was reset to 0 each season change though.

Other thing I forgot - for the "general feedback": I do not really like that the re-used a lot of older achievements stuff. More shrine guardians. A bit of fishing. It is not much fishing to to though lol. (One achievement for all 3 maps - last fishes still hidden in the achievement UI.) What I liked A LOT though: The different things to do for shrine guardians. That sharpshooting at targets thing. That was much more fun than the other activities.

[Healix.5819]

1 hour ago, sabbi.4891 said:

It needs to be able to hold at least one month's worth if not a full season's worth...

They could do that (let it overflow beyond the cap), but anything beyond 1300 would be lost when the season ended. The whole point of the cap is to keep you playing every season to get the newly added stuff, so they're certainly not going to remove it.

[Kranlor Greyhelm.8417]

Very little I can be positive about with this "expansion". I still haven't even equipped a relic, because I'm struggling to decide which are even worth it from the very limited selection from the boxes. But I've certainly lost something from my legendary runes that will only be fixed in 6/9 months time, which leaves a sour taste. The maps are decent looking, but there is a LOT of reused assets in there, which suggests cutting corners to keep costs down. Which is fine for LS content, but grates in a paid expansion. And only two maps, and both have a meta that feels ridiculously under-tuned in terms of rewards. I can see those going the way of the PoF metas if ANET isn't careful.

Then you have rifts, and I'm bored with them already. Just doing them enough to get the materials to progress the New Friend collection felt painful. They give precious few resources, and are utterly challenge free and without any variety. Simply just fly or port around the map, click, kill, click, done. Sure, you can do them around the rest of the world, but then you don't get any mastery XP for them.

The dailies are also a complete mess. I've unticked the WvW now, because I can't stand getting any more defend options which are still so bugged it's ridiculous. I have defended towers probably 30 times this last week, and got 5 credited. Unless that gets fixed, I'll just ignore any more WvW dailies. It's not like they reward anything relevant for WvW any more, since they removed the reward track potions. And don't get me started on who thought it was a good idea to put a PvP jumping puzzle in the mix. In fact JPs in general should have their own option in the daily list, so they can be ignored by people that don't like them. And for gods sake give us more choice. 4 options for 4 required means that they aren't options; they are mandatory. One poor option thanks to RNGesus can spoil your whole day.

And the wizards vault rewards aren't fooling me, I'm sorry. Front loading it all keeps people happy initially, I'm sure everyone thinks it's brilliant right now. But the special options won't reset for another 70 days. The weeklies only give you so much, and the dailies are a mere trickle. Once people realise that they have got months to go before they get a decent amount of resources, the shine will come off it.

The story was well enough done. But again there was no challenge in any of it. So I feel no great desire to repeat it now that I've finished.

Bottom line, this doesn't feel like much of an expansion to me. Some existing features reworked, with mixed results. Just two maps that I don't think will hold people's attention. Where is the meat of this? Where did the money go that we paid? Because I'm not seeing it in the gameplay right now. And I don't care how much we're supposed to get in 3/6/9 months. As it stands, I've lost any trust I had in ANET to actually deliver anything worthwhile.

[Krajtin.8956]

Since this mini-expansion has been developed in a year I am happy with the result.
The Strikes seem too simple to me, simpler than IBS. I would have liked the bosses to have more phases. I personally prefer EoD Strikes.

[wolonggong.3469]

On 8/25/2023 at 5:27 AM, Darklord Roy.2514 said:

No, I meant objectively. People can still dislike changes even if they are undoubtedly positive for the overall health of the game.

The overall health of a game is also subjective. You have no metric to base it upon and basically anything that makes a portion of the playerbase like the game less than they did is not healthy for a game that relies on being able to retain players.

[Dark Sorcerer.6420]

I agree, we need alot more choices for Wizard Vault.  It is now alot harder to get dalies done and not fair to those who need those dailies all the time.  It is very time consuming and usually ends up as a waste of time.  Please, put back in more choices for dailies.  4 choices and only forcing players to do those 4 choices is way too much to ask for! 😞

[Spyro.1632]

49 minutes ago, Dark Sorcerer.6420 said:

I agree, we need alot more choices for Wizard Vault.  It is now alot harder to get dalies done and not fair to those who need those dailies all the time.  It is very time consuming and usually ends up as a waste of time.  Please, put back in more choices for dailies.  4 choices and only forcing players to do those 4 choices is way too much to ask for! 😞

Ye, there is so much great things to do in the game and it is impossible to waste so much time doing daily.

[Bast.7253]

I haven't made it that far in the story yet, only the first map, but so far:

Archipelago is a great concept and I'm really appreciative to see the elder races be brought into the story. 

The map, (while extremely irritating to navigate for this rift scan crap), is beautiful and yes "reuses assets." 

But here's the thing, it doesn't really. From what I've seen during map comp most of this looks like brand new assets - sure it's the same aesthetic/textures but many of these assets look to be newly sculpted. This means if they wanted to they now have additional assets to revamp older zones or create new zones in those areas. 

The general concept of having this diverse, pulled from the fractals, islands is similar to how Jahai was with Kralk's rifts. This is actually a good thing imo. 

Mainly, not being able to access the wizard's tower outside of a certain timeframe and the rift scanning mechanic is just... annoying. If they had added something to make the rift scan create a ley line or something that would give the player a boost to getting to that location (or following some current on skyscale that gives it a speed boost and vigor refresh) then it might feel better. As it is now it's... oh great this rift is probably on the other side of the map.. wait where did the blue line rift graphic go? What direction was I going again?

 

[Darklord Roy.2514]

4 hours ago, wolonggong.3469 said:

The overall health of a game is also subjective. You have no metric to base it upon and basically anything that makes a portion of the playerbase like the game less than they did is not healthy for a game that relies on being able to retain players.

That's not how subjectivity works. Every single miniscule change that any game in history has ever made has caused some percentage of their playerbase to get upset over it. Are you telling me that if 0.1% of the player population hates a specific change, even if the other 99.9% consider it a positive change, that it isn't healthy for the game by default?

There is no such thing as change that makes everyone universally happy. Because, as we have both said, whether or not an individual person enjoys any particular aspect of the game *IS* subjective. Nobody can force anyone else to enjoy something that they don't.

This is not a conversation about getting 100% of the population to enjoy the change. That will NEVER happen, just like how 100% of the population didn't enjoy the last system. This is about the fact that, from a GAME DESIGN standpoint, giving players the ability to choose which rewards they want and how many they want is *objectively* better than giving them set rewards each day that they may or may not want.

Take this as a logical argument rather than an emotional one and it will make a lot more sense.

[Teknomancer.4895]

Please add a crafting mats slot for Essences of Despair to make them depositable. Not thrilled by the idea of more crafting mats that can't be deposited, my bank storage is cluttered with more than enough of that kind of thing already. Please allow us to store crafting mats where they belong.