What's the point of playing SOTO content?

[Kaliwenda.3428]

3 hours ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

I'm loving SotO so far.  It is the only story in GW or GW2 that I finished (still more to come).  I love the events and rift hunting. About half my time is spent running SotO just having fun, the other half of my time is with my World Boss Portal (best gem purchase ever). 

I do not know or care about the legendaries or achievements.  I am playing because it is fun.

I agree about the World Boss Portal.  I love that thing!

For the rifts I find myself getting annoyed often trying to get to them in the SotO maps.  I don't know if anyone has any advice for getting to them easier?  Half the time the big circle event markers for them don't even show up on the map for me.

[Doggie.3184]

On 10/25/2023 at 11:41 AM, Cernoch.8524 said:

I finished story today actually, I like the maps, masteries but I was also thinking about rifts, its pretty big part of the expansion but I cant see anything why they are worth doing if I already have all legendary sets. Or am I missing something?

The Heroic and Possessed Emotes. I haven't returned to the map since completing those though other than when forced to do rifts for wizard vault.

I have light/medium leggy armor and have enough wvw tickets to make heavy so don't have much motivation to grind SOTO heavy, especually when it's unfinished and can't preview. So not much reason to hang out in the xpan atm. The pay2play (with gold) Rift system to get full reward credit isn't very appealing either.

[Elricht Kaltwind.8796]

I could answer that question with just three letters, but I doubt the forum would allow a post that short 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Elricht Kaltwind.8796

[Tukaram.8256]

6 hours ago, Kaliwenda.3428 said:

I agree about the World Boss Portal.  I love that thing!

For the rifts I find myself getting annoyed often trying to get to them in the SotO maps.  I don't know if anyone has any advice for getting to them easier?  Half the time the big circle event markers for them don't even show up on the map for me.

The rifts in SotO tend to be in the same locations.  After a while, you see which direction the scanner points and you know where it is (I do not know if they open in a set rotation).  I use the nearest waypoint to get as close as I can. The rifts are so popular, and have so many players, the rifts do not stay around long.  It is very easy to show up just as the rift is closing...  I find them faster to get to if I stay in Amnytas, instead of the Skywatch map - shorter distances to travel.

It should show up as a circle on the map - but rarely does in my experience. That is a problem. 

[Pomdepin.7068]

The point is having fun?

Discovering new zones, new events, new stories, getting new armour sets, new items?

What was the point playing PoF then?

I mean, you play a MMORPG.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

What is the point of playing <insert content here>?

[Natedog.7549]

On 10/27/2023 at 1:59 AM, Pomdepin.7068 said:

The point is having fun?

Discovering new zones, new events, new stories, getting new armour sets, new items?

What was the point playing PoF then?

I mean, you play a MMORPG.

The main point of playing pof was to get the mounts and upgrade them. Then most people stopped playing pof maps.

[Tukaram.8256]

8 minutes ago, Natedog.7549 said:

The main point of playing pof was to get the mounts and upgrade them. Then most people stopped playing pof maps.

If they stopped it is because they did not find the maps fun.  I have been running the labyrinth for 2 days.  I have never made so much gold so fast... and been so bored.  I left the labyrinth to do some world bosses because... they are fun.  I rift hunt in Amnytas because it is fun.  I don't know about you, but fun is why I play. 😎

[Natedog.7549]

22 minutes ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

If they stopped it is because they did not find the maps fun.  I have been running the labyrinth for 2 days.  I have never made so much gold so fast... and been so bored.  I left the labyrinth to do some world bosses because... they are fun.  I rift hunt in Amnytas because it is fun.  I don't know about you, but fun is why I play. 😎

Most players are drawn to content that is both fun and rewarding. Most of pof maps don't hit that balance. Once people obtained their mounts or other achievement they left.

Different people find different content fun but content that doesn't reward much just isn't rewarding. If you don't care about that then good for you. Not sure why people think they are on some high horse by saying that they just play for fun.

[Gehenna.3625]

I think the problem is that SOTO is just geared towards legendaries too much and has a very flat experience otherwise. The bizarre thing is that these legendaries aren't even available yet. But GW2 has lost a lot of complexity in content since HoT. 

I see people comment about PoF where once you got your mounts/masteries, most people just didn't come back to those maps. I'm one of those people. The PoF maps are kind of annoying and aren't a matter of mastering them like in HoT. They're just full of annoying enemies that have way too long aggro ranges and also annoying attacks. I dunno, when I think of PoF, the first word that comes to mind is annoying.

Then EoD came out and though I had some fun with map completion and the story at some point, it quickly started to get boring. Well, a couple of the metas were kind of fun but at some point you wonder where is this all leading to? As in what am I working towards? And then it came down to either fishing or gen3 legendary weapons. I didn't care for either. (as a sidenote I already have a fair amount of legendary weapons and the skins aren't my aesthetic). So at that point I stopped going to EoD.

Then SotO came out and, I admit, I had positive feelings towards SotO. But it was even worse for me than EoD. Rifts quickly get boring. It also has mechanics that are annoying. Like those motivations. Just to get to do the same fights over and over. At some point, even if it's something fun to do initially, for me, it becomes repetitive and then I start looking for another reason to do them; the so-called carrot. And well, I'm already working on my third set of legendary armour in WvW, so this is not really a reason for me to go on. I even struggle to get myself motivated to get all the masteries completed, which is a first for me.

As for annoying mechanics, relics are just poorly implemented. The decision to make them exotic level and boe, well, I guess I can see why but it's just ...annoying. 

And I know that people find HoT annoying, I certainly thought so at the beginning, but the thing is that you can master those maps and then they become fun (at least for me). And there's lots of stuff to do for many reasons. And I still go back to HoT even now. I see it as the one expansion with a high enough replay value to keep going back there. 

Just my opinion/experience but there it is.

 

TL;DR : I find HoT the most interesting expansion with replay value even today and since then the replay value of the expansions has gone down with each expansion. 

Edited October 28, 2023 by Gehenna.3625

[IndigoSundown.5419]

23 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

What is the point of playing <insert content here>?

Heh... since I find 99% of PvE content in this game pointless, it didn't surprise me that that was also true of SotO.

[BlueJin.4127]

If Anet simply made it so that regular SotO events reward essences (at least on par with rifts without motivations), that alone would be a huge improvement. Events are much more varied than rifts and I think SotO events are well designed. I’d rather join an event squad than a rift squad. Cooperating with other players in a variety of events feels more like playing an MMO than just mindlessly doing the exact same rift over and over and over…

Edited October 28, 2023 by BlueJin.4127

[Dragonman.1623]

The rifts are there to give you the essence for the legendary armour achievement.