I have mixed feelings about SOTO [Merged]

[Ashantara.8731]

After the (IMO) very decent start that SotO had (not counting the boring rift hunts and the grind experience), I was looking forward to Update 1. Can't say I am looking forward to Update 2 after the aforementioned patch. I am not expecting anything fun for the rest of the "expansion".

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I loved HoT, but let’s end the myth we got a monster level of content- even the devs said it was going to be a feature driven expac rather than content. We got four very samey maps instead of three varied ones in SoTo. We got three raids vs two strikes, a convergence and a fractal with Soto. We got prob the best set of adventures with HoT and the most replayable content, so yes it def wins. But it’s not a big leap. In fact I think if we really added it up, EOD and HOT are on par with amount of content. EoD even has a bigger story by far and SoTo has a similar sized story (albeit miles better than HoT imo whose story was rubbish)

While we do have less content by a small amount, what we are getting is less quality, less reasons to visit the content beyond legendary armour. That’s the area that needs improvement. Hot I will replay the same maps and content for years. I’m not sure SoTo will bring me back after we move to new areas

Now you're just being ridiculous.  Yeah, HoT maps had a similar aesthetic if you broadly classify them all as "jungle".  But not a single one of those maps looks or feels the same.  If you're going to ding HoT for having all jungle maps, you have to admit the first SotO map literally ripped areas and assets out of the rest of the game to create "fractals" while much of the wizard's tower and Amnytas consists of a handful of repeated assets.  But beyond that, the level of creativity for HoT was amazing.  I feel like these new maps are decent (although the metas are boring af), but they're nothing like what HoT brought us.

You're also not mentioning the addition of the mastery system including game-changing features like gliding.  The first and only addition of a new class.  Elite specs and weapons for all classes.

 

[Randulf.7614]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Now you're just being ridiculous.  Yeah, HoT maps had a similar aesthetic if you broadly classify them all as "jungle".  But not a single one of those maps looks or feels the same.  If you're going to ding HoT for having all jungle maps, you have to admit the first SotO map literally ripped areas and assets out of the rest of the game to create "fractals" while much of the wizard's tower and Amnytas consists of a handful of repeated assets.  But beyond that, the level of creativity for HoT was amazing.  I feel like these new maps are decent (although the metas are boring af), but they're nothing like what HoT brought us.

You're also not mentioning the addition of the mastery system including game-changing features like gliding.  The first and only addition of a new class.  Elite specs and weapons for all classes.

 

It would be much more helpful to read the whole post and all the context where I said HoT maps were better in quality and not stop on the first sentence. It’s the quantity that’s the key point and HoT does not have more than EoD in quantity. Only quality. And Vs SoTo, some things are on par in quantity, even if story is about the only place SoTo wins on quality

HoT is my favourite expac, but people need to drop the rose tinted glasses that it gave us more than EOD or double that of SoTo like another thread claimed. To say EoD had less content is daft. Purely daft. Less good content however I’d agree on, but that was not the claim.

I agree the level of creativity was amazing in the maps and the maps themselves were better. But quantifiably did not have more content than say EoD. They had better content and that is different. And is what I said in my post which it seems was largely overlooked - the point being quality has dropped a lot and quantity only a little. Yes HoT introduced masteries, but beyond gliding and the core set did very little with it. Itzel, poison, lore and one which allowed access to two side bosses were all filler. I’m not disputing it was a game changer though.
 

HoT was better. No doubt. But doesn’t mean it was drastically more. Two very diff things people forget. And HoT has only become well regarded in the last few years. It was loathed by many at the time (not me, I loved it)

And to the person who thinks my opinion should go in the trash. Do bear in mind everyone is allowed to have an opinion and it’s not dismissable. EoD and SoTo were both well received outside of the forums regardless of mine and others’ opinions. HoT was at the time a very mixed view which was drastically altered for PoF. 

Edited January 3 by Randulf.7614

[AliamRationem.5172]

14 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

It would be much more helpful to read the whole post and all the context where I said HoT maps were better in quality and not stop on the first sentence. It’s the quantity that’s the key point and HoT does not have more than EoD in quantity. Only quality. And Vs SoTo, some things are on par in quantity, even if story is about the only place quality wins.

HoT is my favourite expac, but people need to drop the rose tinted glasses that it gave us more than EOD or double that of SoTo like another thread claimed. To say EoD had less content is daft. Purely daft. Less good content however I’d agree on, but that was not the claim.

I agree the level of creativity was amazing in the maps and the maps themselves were better. But quantifiably did not have more content than say EoD. They had better content and that is different. And is what I said in my post which it seems was largely overlooked - the point being quality has dropped a lot and quantity only a little. Yes HoT introduced masteries, but beyond gliding and the core set did very little with it. Itzel, poison, lore and one which allowed access to two side bosses were all filler. I’m not disputing it was a game changer though.
 

HoT was better. No doubt. But doesn’t mean it was drastically more. Two very diff things people forget. And HoT has only become well regarded in the last few years. It was loathed by many at the time (not me, I loved it)
 

Disagree.  It was better content, more impactful, and more of it.  

[Randulf.7614]

 

1 minute ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Disagree.  It was better content, more impactful, and more of it.  

That’s… just what I said?

Read what I wrote. HoT was better and more creative. So you don’t think that’s correct?

[Zok.4956]

23 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

23 hours ago, Gwynnion.7364 said:

I'm sure they can do great things.  Maybe they are, working on something else.  But with this game, we're getting just enough -- currently -- to keep interest alive.

It's been like this since EoD though.

Yes, and that is a very sad realization.

[Zok.4956]

13 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Reality is, in today world. 25 Euros is basically nothing anymore. And you pay this once a year. 

Expectations should be equal to the money spend. 

I don't think this thread is about whether SotO is overpriced or not. I would pay 50 euros a year if I got more and better content for my money.

Mini-expansions whose release is spread over 12 months instead of real, large expansions (like HoT, PoF) are not my cup of tea.

[Zok.4956]

16 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Worth $25?  100%.  But you also shouldn't expect too much for the price of ordering pizza.

If I want to eat a large pizza (like HoT, PoF), it doesn't make me happy if they are no longer offered and there are only mini pizzas. And it doesn't really make it any better that the mini pizza doesn't cost quite as much now as a large pizza did back then.

[AliamRationem.5172]

44 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

If I want to eat a large pizza (like HoT, PoF), it doesn't make me happy if they are no longer offered and there are only mini pizzas. And it doesn't really make it any better that the mini pizza doesn't cost quite as much now as a large pizza did back then.

You'll get no argument from me.  If I'm going to play a game on a regular basis for years, I'm not worried about paying more for it.  I just want more of it.

I expect the problem is I'm not most players and a lot of them are probably complaining about $25/year, let alone 50 or whatever amount it would take to get a good, consistent flow of quality content into this game.

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Yes, and that is a very sad realization.

I find it sad that some people can't adapt to changing realities in an MMO, which is the case in almost every MMO, because MMOs that don't change tend not to survive. They'd rather see the game closed than evolve. I'm not one of those people. 

I truly believe Guild Wars 2, as it stood during the living world years, was unsustainable. I don't know about you, but I never paid for a living world episode. Some people just farm gold and never pay for anything in the gem store with cash.  In fact, there was no time in the history of this game when one group or another wasn't disenfranchised by changes made to the game. But the game is still here. 

So many MMOs lose their population over time.  A handful make it. Stay viable. This is one of the few that stayed viable. WoW didn't grow from it's height, it lost people. FFXIV did grow. I've been tracking relative reddits from various games for years now, and I can see patterns, even if you can't tell from those patterns exactly what game is doing the best. ESO seems someone down, SWToR is very much down, if you're looking at reddit numbers.

But Guild Wars 2 just sort of chugs along, sitting somewhere around the top 5 MMOs, just doing it's own thing.  You personally may not like any given change, and the same is true for me (and there have been changes I haven't liked). But compared to other games out there, this game is doing very well. The reality is there are many things that are sad. Amazon opening a game studio down the block from Anet and hiring away some of their top devs was sad to me. Covid and it's affect on the world including gaming was sad to me. I had a big problem with requiring people to do strike missions to get meta rewards for stories, and I said so, quite vociferously. It was a change that made the game more annoying and less playable for some of the people who like to solo and don't want to join an instance to get a zone reward (and there are plenty of people like that playing this game).

But is it sad.  I think the alternative might have been sadder.

[Ashen.2907]

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

You'll get no argument from me.  If I'm going to play a game on a regular basis for years, I'm not worried about paying more for it.  I just want more of it.

I expect the problem is I'm not most players and a lot of them are probably complaining about $25/year, let alone 50 or whatever amount it would take to get a good, consistent flow of quality content into this game.

I am in the same position. I am a gamer. This is the hobby I wish to spend money on. I am at a stage in my career and life such that I have disposable income to spend on my hobby. I married a gamer so spending money on games is expected and budgeted for in our household. Ive spent above $80k on this game to date but dont see that continuing with the current direction of the game's development.

Edited January 3 by Ashen.2907

[Linken.6345]

16 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I am in the same position. I am a gamer. This is the hobby I wish to spend money on. I am at a stage in my career and life such that I have disposable income to spend on my hobby. I married a gamer so spending money on games is expected and budgeted for in our household. Ive spent above $80k on this game to date but dont see that continuing with the current direction of the game's development.

holly hell 80k?

Im happy you among others is funding this game mate.

[Vayne.8563]

14 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I am in the same position. I am a gamer. This is the hobby I wish to spend money on. I am at a stage in my career and life such that I have disposable income to spend on my hobby. I married a gamer so spending money on games is expected and budgeted for in our household. Ive spent above $80k on this game to date but dont see that continuing with the current direction of the game's development.

That's a lot of money. I've probably spent half that over the 11 years I've been playing. Maybe not even that much. But yes, I've spent a lot as well. The thing is, I'm happier with the game now than I was a year ago, when my spending had slowed down and now I'm spending more again.  Like you, I have a disposable income and like you, I've spent a lot on the game. What is it you feel the game would need to before it was going in the right direction?

[Phyb.6704]

Yes the gem store is a amazing way to make money for anet. 
No I never paid for living world since it generally came free if you where online when it released or just farmed gold. 
To keep a player wanting to buy stuff from the gem store requires them to want to keep playing the game.
Getting bored stops people from playing. 

Living world was not sustainable. A lot of content development that people did not directly pay for through xpac price and such. People did pay for gem store stuff but many took breaks between living world content releases as many got bored during the 3 month gaps. It did not take 3 months to do everything in the new map and get bored. 
The problem with soto is its just once again too kitten slow. I see myself and others taking breaks between releases like in living world. 

The price is low but the content itself is just super super slow. Its like pre ordering a game that may just be good.... a year in advance. Who knows if the later content will be worth it.
I would much rather see content releasing every 1-2 months and have a cost to it. Even if they charged 5 bucks every 1.5 months for some new content.... in a year thats 80 40 bucks at 5 bucks a content release. Still much cheaper then a sub for something like wow. And even wow has a cash shop. Most games do.

I do apreciate how its not super pay to win however at the same time... exotic to legendary is not such a amazing leap in stats that it would really matter THAT much compared to other games that without the next teir of gear you cant do the newest content. 

I do not see why anet would not keep the cash shop but start charging say 5 bucks every 1 month to 1.5 months for new content / maps and speed up development. Many other games do well charging 80 bucks + for an xpac and stil have a cash shop. 

To be fair the problem is that all the content can be bought by farming gold and buying gems. Maybe if they made the actual content releases require real money and not a gold gem exchange........ it would be more worth it for them ?
Soto is cheap. But living world was slow as hell and had big gaps between. But I never paid for it so w/e. Free content. But soto does the same and wants money.

Edited January 4 by ohericoseo.4316

[Ashantara.8731]

31 minutes ago, ohericoseo.4316 said:

[re: Living World] But soto does the same and wants money.

If only it had the content scale of LW, people wouldn't be complaining. I can't see Update 2+3 bringing that much more to the table than Update 1, and that's a shame.

[Linken.6345]

45 minutes ago, ohericoseo.4316 said:

Snip
To be fair the problem is that all the content can be bought by farming gold and buying gems. Maybe if they made the actual content releases require real money and not a gold gem exchange........ it would be more worth it for them ?
Soto is cheap. But living world was slow as hell and had big gaps between. But I never paid for it so w/e. Free content. But soto does the same and wants money.

To be fair if noone  bought gems and traded it for ingame gold, we would not be able to by everything from the gemstore with gold to gem transaction since it would be no gems to trade.

It is the players that turn golds to gems that incentivies people to use their cash on gems to buy gold since that drive up how much gold they get for their gems.

[Morvran.8265]

On 1/4/2024 at 12:14 AM, Linken.6345 said:

holly hell 80k?

Im happy you among others is funding this game mate.

And then some people still act like GW2 is struggling because it has a gemstore instead of a 15$ monthly sub fee..

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Morvran.8265 said:

And then some people still act like GW2 is struggling because it has a gemstore instead of a 15$ monthly sub fee..

I wouldn't say it's struggling and I certainly wouldn't suggest a subscription as the solution if it were, but that they're only offering $25 of content per year is potentially a problem.  You can only expect so much from that and speaking only for myself, it isn't enough.

[Yaki.9563]

On 12/28/2023 at 3:01 PM, 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.

The reason people do core bosses and people do AB and TD are because they are one-event metas. You kill a boss, done. SoTO metas, like EoD metas, will never, ever be as popular as that type of "meta" where you get to ignore everything leading up to it and just kill the boss. Why do you think AB and TD are vastly more popular than VB and DE? First two, you show up at timer, kill boss, done in 5 minutes. The other two you have to prep the zone in some manner for 30+ minutes before fighting the boss. If no one does that, there's nothing worth doing so they are unpopular metas.

Edited January 5 by Yaki.9563

[Yaki.9563]

On 1/3/2024 at 9:36 AM, Randulf.7614 said:

 

That’s… just what I said?

Read what I wrote. HoT was better and more creative. So you don’t think that’s correct?

HoT was nearly 8 years ago. People who constantly compare everything to HoT are like those WoW players still pining for the good old WotLK days. PoF wasn't as good as HoT. EoD wasn't as good as HoT, what on earth makes you think anything they will produce will have a good chance of living up to your HoT expectations? Get over it already.

[Phyb.6704]

On 1/3/2024 at 10:40 AM, Zok.4956 said:

I don't think this thread is about whether SotO is overpriced or not. I would pay 50 euros a year if I got more and better content for my money.

Mini-expansions whose release is spread over 12 months instead of real, large expansions (like HoT, PoF) are not my cup of tea.

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I wouldn't say it's struggling and I certainly wouldn't suggest a subscription as the solution if it were, but that they're only offering $25 of content per year is potentially a problem.  You can only expect so much from that and speaking only for myself, it isn't enough.

I would agree that though the content could be argued to be worth 25 bucks its really not enough on a annual basis to keep people playing and not taking breaks which potentially ends up with players leaving.

 

19 minutes ago, Yaki.9563 said:

HoT was nearly 8 years ago. People who constantly compare everything to HoT are like those WoW players still pining for the good old WotLK days. PoF wasn't as good as HoT. EoD wasn't as good as HoT, what on earth makes you think anything they will produce will have a good chance of living up to your HoT expectations? Get over it already.

We compare to HoT because we have been impressed and respect that the company has delivered a certain quality of product in the past. Through gw1, HoT and so on. When a company delivers product of a certain quality over many years AND at a certain speed.... the consumer will have certain expectations of quality and speed. Apple and Samsung release phones every year. If they said 1 year.... yeah nevermind. Consumers would be wondering if the company is going under. When you see a sudden drop in quality or production speed it causes concern. The quality of the content they have released and the producation speed of that volume and quality of content is far above Soto. 
Wow players KNOW blizzard can produce a certain quality and maintain a certain production speed. So they will be concerned when that falls WAY below the level it has been at for years. You dont go from Wotlk and then cata to warlords and not wonder "what happened?"
I question if Soto is worth it because the quality has dropped. The volume of content has dropped. The production speed of that volume and quality have dropped. 

 

Is soto worth the money? Maybe.
Is soto enough content to justify it being WORTH constant playtime between content releases? Is it enough? 

[Zenith.7301]

I want to repeat. $25 bucks upfront for ~6-8 hours of story content is unacceptable. All the previous expansions double to tripled that time without doubling or tripling the price. And the masteries themselves are pretty uninspired. The only masteries worse than these are the IBS masteries.

[Elena.8734]

On 1/2/2024 at 8:10 AM, Vayne.8563 said:

The guy I responded to was saying Anet is incapable of creating anything anymore, but EOD was like a year ago, even if you didn't like Soto. And whether you liked it or not had nothing to do with Anet being able to create something.

Saying I don't like that they reused models is one thing. Saying they're incapable of creating stuff is crap.

Let's be honest. From an Artwork point of vue, there is not much new stuff in this expansion.

- 3sets that have the same skin, wetter being Light, Medium or Heavy (7 next patch, three being the leg Armor, one seems to be a last set from the second part of Nayos)
- 2 Weapon set with a recolor
- Two sets of environmental assets (Nayos and Wizard's Tower)
- A Set of Monster
- Two Boss Arenas.

This is pretty much it. Compare it to any expansion and its pretty underdeveloped. Metas are also pretty bare bone compared to previous ones. I'm not saying they cant do anything, but clearly, they can't do much more neither, which mean there will again be a ton of reuse next expansion. If Gameplay comes out to be great, i don't care much about reusing stuff, but it need to take a step further in it creative direction to achieve us having a ''Wow that was awesome'' moment we had with other Expacs where everything felt fresh.

In another tone, there's no new archetypes of enemies. EoD had this problem too, Kryptis are cool visually, but they are not different  from a gameplay perspective than previous expansions mobs (and they picked the easiest to deal with), which made the Kryptis kind of boring to fight. At least it's been a while since we faced Harpy archers. On this point, i really hope they'll raise the bar next xpac. Having new archetype to learn their timings was a big reason i liked HoT and PoF at start.

Edited January 5 by Elena.8734

[Vayne.8563]

57 minutes ago, Elena.8734 said:

Let's be honest. From an Artwork point of vue, there is not much new stuff in this expansion.

- 3sets that have the same skin, wetter being Light, Medium or Heavy (7 next patch, three being the leg Armor, one seems to be a last set from the second part of Nayos)
- 2 Weapon set with a recolor
- Two sets of environmental assets (Nayos and Wizard's Tower)
- A Set of Monster
- Two Boss Arenas.

This is pretty much it. Compare it to any expansion and its pretty underdeveloped. Metas are also pretty bare bone compared to previous ones. I'm not saying they cant do anything, but clearly, they can't do much more neither, which mean there will again be a ton of reuse next expansion. If Gameplay comes out to be great, i don't care much about reusing stuff, but it need to take a step further in it creative direction to achieve us having a ''Wow that was awesome'' moment we had with other Expacs where everything felt fresh.

In another tone, there's no new archetypes of enemies. EoD had this problem too, Kryptis are cool visually, but they are not different  from a gameplay perspective than previous expansions mobs (and they picked the easiest to deal with), which made the Kryptis kind of boring to fight. At least it's been a while since we faced Harpy archers. On this point, i really hope they'll raise the bar next xpac. Having new archetype to learn their timings was a big reason i liked HoT and PoF at start.

First, it was never meant to be like other expansions. Secondly, it's the first of a new system and my guess is there was little time to develop it while still working out various kinks in EoD, and adding that extra zone. My guess is EOD was rushed, because it probably was, considering how suddenly they had to do it. They've been shoring it up all along, including adding some minigames, fixing various bugs and other changes they've made. 

I strongly suspect they'll have more time for the next expansion, because they've now transitioned from the old system to the new one. And while there are few new assets here, there are some, including most of Amytas. The idea that this is that way so everything that follows will be is one of the biggest reasons why people get the future wrong. We don't have enough data points for a pattern. 

A lot of IBS was pretty solid as far as new stuff went. But it was cut short and Anet has been running ever since. During that period and the period that followed, we didn't even know who the game director was. We knew who the acting game director was, for a while and then there was someone else and we never found out who it was. Now we have a couple of guys back, and they're playing catch up and playing catch up in a creative programming situation takes a lot of time, because things have to be set up and fixed.

The fact that covid occured someone in there too means that they've been set back even further. Not all companies recover at the same rate, and they had a lot to recover from. People don't see it and some, right so, say they don't care. They're just interested in the product.

But whether they care or not, the reality is this game is still in the process of playing catch up, and I suspect that's getting close to coming to an end. Then we get to see what the current staff can do.

There's been a lot of changes at Anet and those changes will affect productivity. Stability has only been here for a very short time. I'm willing to wait to see what they do now that they've, hopefully, stabilized.

[Elena.8734]

22 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Then we get to see what the current staff can do.

There's been a lot of changes at Anet and those changes will affect productivity. Stability has only been here for a very short time. I'm willing to wait to see what they do now that they've, hopefully, stabilized.

I truly hope it will be. Still i find the lack of polish of this expansion to be unforgiving, especially when they do not fix clearly broken stuff behind (French translation, as example, is still missing half of it's voicelines for 6 months now. They're supposedly working on a fix since 3 months and the fix is nowhere to be seen. Worse, it affected Nayos too behind.). I get they are in restructuration  and probably some steps are to be refined. Still, SOTO feel like an unfinished product even before talking about the amount of content and lack there is for parts of the community.

For me it's a shame that they best content of SOTO is to play old expansion content with some new weapons in your arsenal. This is the funniest part for me.

Edited January 5 by Elena.8734