I have mixed feelings about SOTO [Merged]

[kharmin.7683]

5 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I don't know. I talk to a lot of people and many like the new zone. Of course, many people also hated Verdant Brink.  I think, for me anyway, two of the three expansion zones were fine. I'm not a huge fan of Amnytas, but I know people who like it. The same is true of maps like Lake Doric, Draconis Mons, Tangled Depths. Different people like differnet things. I think that Anet did a great job on both VB and Skywatch Archipelago. In my opinion they did a good job of capturing a similar feeling.

I would take Skywatch over VB in a heartbeat.  As much as I appreciate the design of VB and all, I really don't enjoy that map whereas Skywatch is much more entertaining for me.  So, yeah, different people enjoy different styles of content which is one of the things that makes this game pretty cool.

[enigmatic.3576]

10 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I don't know. I talk to a lot of people and many like the new zone. Of course, many people also hated Verdant Brink.  I think, for me anyway, two of the three expansion zones were fine. I'm not a huge fan of Amnytas, but I know people who like it. The same is true of maps like Lake Doric, Draconis Mons, Tangled Depths. Different people like differnet things. I think that Anet did a great job on both VB and Skywatch Archipelago. In my opinion they did a good job of capturing a similar feeling.

When I wrote that post, I was referring to the HoT meta events.  Maybe not VB's specifically since everyone just did the one boss and then left.  HoT's meta events were enjoyable as well as rewarding enough to keep doing them.  Nothing the two SotO metas that just feel like an unrewarding slog.  I can't comment about the new map's meta yet since it's incomplete and I'm really hoping that it doesn't turn into another Gyala Delve.

[Shiyo.3578]

On 12/22/2023 at 8:00 PM, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

cant believe they abandoned cantha living world for this.  The only thing I was looking forward to was the legendary pve armor, and they made it insanely grindy, its not even worth doing, might as well do raids or WVW.  THe only thing I like is skyscale combat mount mastery.

The grind isn't the issue, the content you have to grind is somehow less interactive than WvW pip afk farming.

Everyone I knew who returned excited for SoTO and it's new model quickly quit after game-destroying bugs(Fractal CM's being bugged for weeks...) and the clear lack of anything meaningful to work towards for anyone who played GW2 ever before.

The game is in a mode beyond maintenance, and has been since PoF release, but the dedicated fans are slow to admit to it.

I've never played a game where the developers actively act like they'd rather you didn't play their game, and they legit resent having to work on it. I get that here all the time.

Edited January 14 by Shiyo.3578

[Vayne.8563]

4 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

When I wrote that post, I was referring to the HoT meta events.  Maybe not VB's specifically since everyone just did the one boss and then left.  HoT's meta events were enjoyable as well as rewarding enough to keep doing them.  Nothing the two SotO metas that just feel like an unrewarding slog.  I can't comment about the new map's meta yet since it's incomplete and I'm really hoping that it doesn't turn into another Gyala Delve.

When HoT launched, the Dragon Stand meta event was fantastic, as was AB, but most of that is rewards. If it weren't for those rewards and the chance to get a very rare infusion you wouldn't see the numbers you see in AB. VB is a mess, because most people couldn't even figure out how to do it and many people don't know to this day. But no one cares much because the rewards don't exist. That's 25% of the metas. 

TD at launch was so hard that most people couldn't do it. In fact for a while there was only one guild that could do it and it got nerfed hard so it was possible. It was much harder than Dragon's End.

But the end the end of the day meta's alone don't make an expansion. The Pvp and WvW community were furious over the elite specs being super powerful and that took ages to calm down, the bunker build meta was awful for a lot of people, the story was so buggy it was almost unplayable and even today some of those bugs still exist, people complained about the other masteries besides gliding, gliding didn't work in the core world at first.

But there are a ton of people in the game who don't have legendary armor, and those people are thrilled to be getting an open world way to get it. Rifts are okay if you don't grind them, but the convergence is a decent meta, and I'm not sure why people aren't including it in what came with Soto. The zones are good.  They're maybe not HoT good, but they're better the PoF. 

But the rewards are generally geared around getting legendary armor. The game at this point has plenty to do, and this adds more to do. We dont' need more must have metas. We need other stuff as well. Shooting fireballs from skyscales is just fun for some of us. Mounting in combat is game changing for me. The ability to ride updrafts on skyscales is super cool too.  The idea that HoT was the great moment in the games history is only true for specific demographics of people. A lot of people walked away from this game because of HoT, but people don't seem to remember that.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Vayne.8563

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

When HoT launched, the Dragonstorm meta event was fantastic, as was AB, but most of that is rewards. If it weren't for those rewards and the chance to get a very rare infusion you wouldn't see the numbers you see in AB. VB is a mess, because most people couldn't even figure out how to do it and many people don't know to this day. But no one cares much because the rewards don't exist. That's 25% of the metas. 

TD at launch was so hard that most people couldn't do it. In fact for a while there was only one guild that could do it and it got nerfed hard so it was possible. It was much harder than Dragon's End.

But the end the end of the day meta's alone don't make an expansion. The Pvp and WvW community were furious over the elite specs being super powerful and that took ages to calm down, the bunker build meta was awful for a lot of people, the story was so buggy it was almost unplayable and even today some of those bugs still exist, people complained about the other masteries besides gliding, gliding didn't work in the core world at first.

But there are a ton of people in the game who don't have legendary armor, and those people are thrilled to be getting an open world way to get it. Rifts are okay if you don't grind them, but the convergence is a decent meta, and I'm not sure why people aren't including it in what came with Soto. The zones are good.  They're maybe not HoT good, but they're better the PoF. 

But the rewards are generally geared around getting legendary armor. The game at this point has plenty to do, and this adds more to do. We dont' need more must have metas. We need other stuff as well. Shooting fireballs from skyscales is just fun for some of us. Mounting in combat is game changing for me. The ability to ride updrafts on skyscales is super cool too.  The idea that HoT was the great moment in the games history is only true for specific demographics of people. A lot of people walked away from this game because of HoT, but people don't seem to remember that.

You meant Dragon Stand not Dragonstorm right?

[Shiyo.3578]

2 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

We need other stuff as well. Shooting fireballs from skyscales is just fun for some of us. Mounting in combat is game changing for me. The ability to ride updrafts on skyscales is super cool too. 

This is fun for a bit, but a MMO without long term goals and grinds is a bad MMO.

[Vayne.8563]

20 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

You meant Dragon Stand not Dragonstorm right?

I did. It's early here, and I hadn't had my cawfee yet. lol I'll edit it thanks.

[Vayne.8563]

5 minutes ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

This is fun for a bit, but a MMO without long term goals and grinds is a bad MMO.

It has long term goals and grinds. If you think Guild Wars 2 doesn't you're not paying attention.  I'm in full legendary gear, are you?

[enigmatic.3576]

10 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

But the end the end of the day meta's alone don't make an expansion.

And yet it's the one thing people constantly praise that expansion for.  Any discussion about metas always seems to go back to those. 

Most people will only do an expansion's story once or enough times to complete all of the achievements tied to it.  The metas are what keep players engaged.  How many people still do metas for PoF, EoD, Gyala Delve, or even SotO?  And before you even say it, no... I am not saying that they're dead.  They are just nowhere near as popular as the HoT metas were.

You know how often I have logged into the game since SotO?  Like once a week at most and quite often not at all for weeks.   SotO only added maybe 20 hours of content with the bulk of it tied to achievements requiring you to do the map events 2-3 times.  Nayos was maybe half that with the bulk of the time tied to doing maps events and the meta multiple times for achievements. That's their "content": achievements.  If it wasn't for my desire to complete achievements, SotO would not have been worth the price and especially considering that it only provided half the content of previous expansions for almost the same price.  

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

And yet it's the one thing people constantly praise that expansion for.  Any discussion about metas always seems to go back to those. 

Most people will only do an expansion's story once or enough times to complete all of the achievements tied to it.  The metas are what keep players engaged.  How many people still do metas for PoF, EoD, Gyala Delve, or even SotO?  And before you even say it, no... I am not saying that they're dead.  They are just nowhere near as popular as the HoT metas were.

You know how often I have logged into the game since SotO?  Like once a week at most and quite often not at all for weeks.   SotO only added maybe 20 hours of content with the bulk of it tied to achievements requiring you to do the map events 2-3 times.  Nayos was maybe half that with the bulk of the time tied to doing maps events and the meta multiple times for achievements. That's their "content": achievements.  If it wasn't for my desire to complete achievements, SotO would not have been worth the price and especially considering that it only provided half the content of previous expansions for almost the same price.  

I play Soto more than any other zone at the moment. Shrugs.

[Ashantara.8731]

19 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

The game is in a mode beyond maintenance, and has been since PoF release, but the dedicated fans are slow to admit to it.

Now, that's a bit harsh. Season 4 had tons of great content and was overall the best LW season (of course it had points of criticism, too, like every new content).

"Maintenance mode" usually means no new stuff, which is not the case here -- but I agree that the latest release comes dangerously close to that. 😉

19 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

I've never played a game where the developers actively act like they'd rather you didn't play their game, and they legit resent having to work on it. I get that here all the time.

I admit that the huge increase in bugs and the decline of actual content are irrefutable, but I don't think that ANet doesn't care. They just cannot do any better at this point (which is disappointing, yes). Perhaps their publisher doesn't provide them with an incentive, either, financially. We just don't know.

What we do know is that they said earlier this year that a lot of their current work power would go into stuff such as relics, new weapons, engine tweaks, dev design tool overhaul, ...
 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Ashantara.8731

[enigmatic.3576]

7 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

I play Soto more than any other zone at the moment. Shrugs.

Key phrase: at the moment.  That's different from what I had said.

How popular were the HoT metas four months after release?  How do they compare to SotO in that regard?  How about PoF and EoD metas four months after release?

Edited December 28, 2023 by enigmatic.3576

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

Key phrase: at the moment.  That's different from what I had said.

How popular were the HoT metas four months after release?  How do they compare to SotO in that regard?  How about PoF and EoD metas four months after release?

Hot metas are popular because of rewards. But the VB meta, 25% of the HoT meta hardly ever gets to tier 4, because, get this, the rewards are lackluster. Dragon Stand is done less often than either TD or AB.  The metas in the new zone, by contrast, are happening all the time.  You could probably do that meta more times a day than you could do AB and it would always be successful.  But the rewards drive it. People play AB because they can make gold doing it, and they play this because they can make gold doing it. They're not going to AB because it's just more fun. Hell, it's not even that fun anymore. Neither is Dragon Stand. Defending those metas because they're rewarding, even though we're OP for them now and can race through them without any effort is a pretty week argument.

There are metas that don't get done because they're long, metas that don't get done because they're hard, metas that don't get done because they're not rewarding enough. HoT has 2 that found the right balance, but honestly, I think the new convergence is probably on a par with most of the HoT metas. Seems crowded enough to me.  Because the rewards are good and people need them.

[BlueJin.4127]

Vast majority of core world bosses give poor rewards, but are done constantly by players. While rewards are an important part, it’s just a part of a bigger and more complicated picture than many players realize. I personally don’t care for the rewards from HoT metas, but I still do all 4 of them regularly because they’re fun, even after all these years. And while fun is subjective, there’s a clear difference in development effort and quality between HoT metas and SotO contents. HoT metas have a lot more mechanics, differences between lanes, less recycled events within the same meta, and unique designs between metas.

SotO metas, rifts, and convergence are mindless, repetitive, and copy and paste the same thing too many times between lanes/areas and events, with barely any mechanics. A good chunk of Skywatch meta, majority of Amnytas meta, and majority of convergence play like slightly rearranged rifts, with only Inner Nayos meta being different (and even IN has that repetitive boss that repeats the same pattern like 10 times…). It's so obvious the devs tried to drag things out as long as possible with as little effort as possible.

Also, one of the reasons SotO is popular is because it's new. Not only that, many of us are playing SotO metas only because SotO is the ONLY option for open world legendary armors; not because we like SotO contents or because they feel rewarding. The moment I’m done with legendary armors, I won’t touch SotO. I already stopped doing Skywatch and Amnytas metas only a few months after release because they’re not fun and, thankfully, I don’t have to do them any more. I wouldn't give a kitten if SotO had a good rewards/time ratio.

Lastly, just because some players do some metas less often doesn't always mean these metas aren't as good. While I do certain metas on a daily basis, I do the Soo-Won meta on a weekly basis. Guess which meta is my favorite in the whole game? The only reason I do Soo-Won meta (and DS meta) less often than other metas is because of time commitment; it doesn't mean I like Soo-Won meta less. Dragon’s End and Dragon’s Stand are my favorite and 2nd favorite metas, respectively.

Edited December 29, 2023 by BlueJin.4127

[Astralporing.1957]

On 12/23/2023 at 2:44 PM, Ashantara.8731 said:

I don't think there ever were plans for a Cantha LW.

There were. Just after Expac launched, they were talking about further maps (plural) that were to be released through living story that was to start shortly after. They were also talking as if LS1 was to be released in addition to ls6, not instead of it. They probably simply ended up with not enough working power after (again) shuffling too many devs to other projects though, so we've got what we've got instead. A pity.

[Vayne.8563]

22 hours ago, BlueJin.4127 said:

Vast majority of core world bosses give poor rewards, but are done constantly by players. While rewards are an important part, it’s just a part of a bigger and more complicated picture than many players realize. I personally don’t care for the rewards from HoT metas, but I still do all 4 of them regularly because they’re fun, even after all these years. And while fun is subjective, there’s a clear difference in development effort and quality between HoT metas and SotO contents. HoT metas have a lot more mechanics, differences between lanes, less recycled events within the same meta, and unique designs between metas.

SotO metas, rifts, and convergence are mindless, repetitive, and copy and paste the same thing too many times between lanes/areas and events, with barely any mechanics. A good chunk of Skywatch meta, majority of Amnytas meta, and majority of convergence play like slightly rearranged rifts, with only Inner Nayos meta being different (and even IN has that repetitive boss that repeats the same pattern like 10 times…). It's so obvious the devs tried to drag things out as long as possible with as little effort as possible.

Also, one of the reasons SotO is popular is because it's new. Not only that, many of us are playing SotO metas only because SotO is the ONLY option for open world legendary armors; not because we like SotO contents or because they feel rewarding. The moment I’m done with legendary armors, I won’t touch SotO. I already stopped doing Skywatch and Amnytas metas only a few months after release because they’re not fun and, thankfully, I don’t have to do them any more. I wouldn't give a kitten if SotO had a good rewards/time ratio.

Lastly, just because some players do some metas less often doesn't always mean these metas aren't as good. While I do certain metas on a daily basis, I do the Soo-Won meta on a weekly basis. Guess which meta is my favorite in the whole game? The only reason I do Soo-Won meta (and DS meta) less often than other metas is because of time commitment; it doesn't mean I like Soo-Won meta less. Dragon’s End and Dragon’s Stand are my favorite and 2nd favorite metas, respectively.

You're saying that AB isn't mindless at this point? Or that Dragon Stand isn't on standby farm. I think harder in a convergence than I do in any HOT meta right now. They're on farm. We're one shotting TD and AB half the time, just running through it like it's not even there, and your'e saying a convergence is mindless? 

The core game bosses are done all the time,  but let's not pretend they're crowded until a reward is offered for them, say a weekly or daily. Otherwise, you don't get a ton of people every day doing Shadow Behemonth. Sure there are people there, but you're not getting the same crowd as a convergence.  But more than that, the core game is free to play and for anyone not playing that's all they have.   I don't know about you, but I don't to Shadow Behemeth or The Svanir Shaman unless something says to me, you do this or you don't finish this collection or achievement or weekly.  Again, they're done for rewards.

There was a time when World Bosses trains were a thing. Now meta trains are a thing and world boss trains, when they form, aren't 40 strong squads going around for the most part. Because most people don't care about world bosses at all.

I play with a lot of people. I'm a social player. I'm almost never playing alone. And I can't remember the last time someone said to me let's do the fire ele for yucks.  Sure it's a weekly someone will say I'm doing it.  But people will say I need to do a convergence now. Sometimes someone will suggestion a EoD meta, because they're working on a legendary, or Dragon Storm because they want memories of Aurene.

If you think people do world bosses for fun, because they're great content, I don't know what to tell you. The exceptions are a few of the harder ones, and still, even those are mostly done by people who need achievements, weeklies, or a specific drop or whatever. People do stuff the first few times for fun, and then they tend to do them for rewards. If Serpent's Ire had better rewards it would be done more often. Because I find the casino coin blitz pretty boring but I'll still do it if I see it up for a chance at a rare infusion. 

[Vayne.8563]

22 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

There were. Just after Expac launched, they were talking about further maps (plural) that were to be released through living story that was to start shortly after. They were also talking as if LS1 was to be released in addition to ls6, not instead of it. They probably simply ended up with not enough working power after (again) shuffling too many devs to other projects though, so we've got what we've got instead. A pity.

According to a recent interview, there are as many devs working on Guild Wars 2 right now as there were during the height of Living World Season 4.  I'm not sure why people keep saying there are fewer people now with no evidence whatsoever.  I know that people think and believe this, but Grouch said otherwise, just a few days ago. I wish people would stop quoting their pet theories as some sort of fact.

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Grouch said otherwise

A claim such as his is not evidence, it is just a claim unless backed by evidence.

[BlueJin.4127]

Again, SotO is new. The reason you see more players in SotO compared to other parts of the game is because SotO is newer. It was much more populated near launch than it is now. And it will be less popular a few months from now. Also, again, just because players are doing something doesn't mean they like it. The ONLY reason I do rifts, Skywatch, Amnytas, and convergence is because they're required for the Obsidian armors. Once I'm done with the Obsidian armors, I won't touch these. I'd rather to half of core world bosses than these.

While core world bosses aren't as popular as newer stuff, there are still plenty of players doing them regularly, enough to complete them even when there are no daily/weekly objectives. Heck, as I type this, I see a nearly full squad of players getting ready to do Modnir Ulgoth. And while I personally don't find core world bosses fun, it doesn't mean that other players don't. And, again, there are more reasons players choose to do certain contents than you realize. It's not as simple as just fun and/or rewards. You don't know the reason why I choose to do certain contents, and there is no way you can know this for hundreds of thousands of other players. Everyone has their own reasons beyond what either of us think we know. Heck, sometimes, even I don't know why I do certain contents but not others.

As for HoT feeling mindless at this point, if someone does something enough times, it's naturally just going to become instinct. I bet there are plenty of raid players who think the same raids they've done over the years now feel mindless, especially with all the power creep that's been added. It doesn't mean that the overall design is mindless. HoT metas actually have mechanics and objectives. Much of SotO contents don't. A good way to explain this is with shooters. Shooting games often have various game modes. Some players like deathmatch and team deathmatch and are perfectly happy with just these modes. Other players don't like these game modes because they're just mindless killing with no objectives. These players like game modes like capture the flag, domination, etc. because these add strategic elements to the game.

I'm not going to argue with you which is more fun, because that is completely subjective. But if you compare HoT metas and SotO metas, it's not hard to see that HoT metas are more mechanic/objective based whereas SotO metas are more just mindless killing. It's also plain that HoT metas are more varied from each other where much of SotO contents are too similar to each other.

VB meta? You have various objectives before the bosses phase. They're repetitive and drag on too long, but the 5 bosses that spawn later are unique bosses each with their own unique mechanics. AB meta? You have 4 different lanes and a unique boss that makes this meta completely different from VB. TD? Also very different. DS? Also very different.

SotO rifts? Mindless killing. There are no objectives other than just kill stuff. It's GW2 version of team deathmatch. This is not the type of content for players who want mechanics/objectives. Skywatch meta? Gathering essence is NOT the kind objective that players who want mechanics/objectives are looking for, and they're copied and pasted 3 times. The rest is mindlessly killing the same enemies and champions you fought in rifts. There is no unique boss in Skywatch meta. The last portion of Skywatch meta is just a slightly altered rift. Amnytas meta? As I mentioned (I think in a different thread), the top portion does have something different. However, the lower platforms/islands which make up majority of the meta are like rifts and Skywatch meta... Gather some essences and mindlessly kill the same enemies and champions you fought in rifts and Skywatch. And you have to repeat this 12 times... Convergence? For players in the center, mindlessly kill the same enemies you killed during rifts, Skywatch, and Amnytas metas. Again, the essence part is hardly an objective. For players going to the champions? Kill the same champions you killed during rifts, Skywatch, and Amnytas metas... and all 4 areas are exactly the same thing copied and pasted. Only the final legendary boss has any mechanics and plays different, and the boss is only like 25~33% of a convergence. The rest of a convergence is just a slightly altered rift. Only Inner Nayos meta is vastly different from rifts, Skywatch, Amnytas, and convergence, though it's got a problem of its own. The final boss repeats the same simple pattern like 10 times.

Edited December 30, 2023 by BlueJin.4127

[Vayne.8563]

18 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

A claim such as his is not evidence, it is just a claim unless backed by evidence.

So a dev, in an interview, tells you something as someone that works there, but your theory, with nothing at all to prove it is somehow okay to spread. If you're saying the dev is lying that's one thing, but devs seldom lie in my experience, even if they misrepresent occassionally. It's very unlikely the game director is going to directly lie during an interview in my opinion. It's the best source of knowledge we have, someone who actually works in the place.
 

What you have is rumor, and conjecture.

[BlueJin.4127]

Um... as somebody who used to work in a game company, I'd take what the devs said with a serious grain of salt. Honestly, there's so much BS, I generally don't even bother to read any curated info a game company releases. And yes, a lot of times, they do give you outright lies. Many times, the devs giving you the curated info are being lied to themselves by higher-ups.

Edited December 29, 2023 by BlueJin.4127

[Assolador.3598]

30 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

A claim such as his is not evidence, it is just a claim unless backed by evidence.

yeah there's no reason to say that without showing data

[Assolador.3598]

4 minutes ago, BlueJin.4127 said:

Um... as somebody who used to work in a game company, I'd take what the devs said with a serious grain of salt. Honestly, there's so much BS, I generally don't even bother to read any curated info a game company releases. And yes, a lot of times, they do give you outright lies.

even when as big as anet? 

[Assolador.3598]

Just now, Assolador.3598 said:

even when as big as anet? 

nvm I just realized blizzard and ea exists

[BlueJin.4127]

Sorry, I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. Anet isn't really a big company. I haven't really noticed company size affecting the credibility of info as I have seen companies of all sizes spread a lot of BS. There's been so many that I don't remember specifics of many events, but there's one specific event that I will probably never forget because of how funny and liberating it was after dealing with so much BS.

The publisher I worked for is a really big publisher and the developer was a small company. Once, we submitted a game to a first party company (a first party company is a console owner like Sony, Nintendo, MS, etc.) for release approval and it got rejected because of how buggy it was. The first party company wanted a specific bug fixed. The producers and devs were emailing back and forth trying to decide what to do with the bug. In the end, they decided they didn't want to fix the bug, and the plan was to go with the spaghetti code excuse. That's when a game's coding is so messed up that if you try to fix one thing, it can have a domino effect and cause numerous other major bugs. It's a high risk, low reward issue that many in the industry understand and accept as a good reason not to touch something. Unfortunately, this means that it has also become the go-to excuse whenever somebody didn't WANT to fix something, and people not involved in the project have no real choice but to accept that excuse.

So the people within the companies all agreed to go with the spaghetti code excuse, even though it was a lie, when all of a sudden, a rep from the first party replied in that email chain, "So you're going to fix this, right?" Turns out, somebody accidentally CCed a first party rep in their email. /facepalm

The "unfixable" bug got fixed real soon after that. XD

Edited December 30, 2023 by BlueJin.4127