Whats next..!? more of the same !?

[Holmindeboks.3490]

On 2/28/2024 at 3:05 AM, Rvoltpt.8453 said:

Im sorry if i come in sounding like bit negative... but i played this game for over 18k hours in the past 7 year or so... and it saddens me to see  how repetitive this game is becoming...

WIll try explain as best as i can on how i feel about it...

Game is bassicaly map complete > do meta events > craft legies /get looks or qol from gemstore...  This last xpac had no real end game content..just more of what we already had. more maps to complete with sily non challenging metas.... gets tedious....  strike missions are  ok but quite short... i really wish we had more raid wings or dungeons..

I seriously would like to see anet trying something new... give us a new game mode ...some guild vs guild  or something... fix pvp... get the wvw going.... more mini games, more guild activities ...  something you know... guild wars 1 had so much more end game /pvp stuff going on.!

Its nice you give ways to new /casual players to get legies and stuffs, but you catter to much to the casual player you loosing every body else... if only you finaly fixed pvp and give us more game modes, something diferente, likee capture the flag... or even for pve had more beetle racing, or stuff of the sort.. ... but no its just another pve bs map to compleete some crappy masterys to xp up and thats it... more copy pasta of the same bs we already had.... farm map get mats _ craft stuff  or buy from gemstore get bored / quit go play something else....

whats the point of getting fully legi if then theres almost no content to flex thouse legies aftr!

Thats what happens to me every time i finish a legi i just quit game for a few months cause bored.. nothing new to do or a game mode that is engaging to me no more..

So yeh again i would like to se more content in game but not just story and maps to complete..... they are fun / ok 1 time but second time arround its just feels like a shore...

Either way srry for the rant , i just wish you guys would be a bit more creative  and sort out the issues alot of us been complaining for a long time... i stil enjoy or am trying to enjoy the  game but its getting hard... and it sucks cause fpr  long time this as been one of my favorite games.  I wanted it to b my favorite game again ... thats all 😉

 

Wont happen. If all ppl are willing to spend hundreds of cash on the gem shop. Why would they create other content then skins in store? If you compare skins vs gameplay… there are often new skins. Mount skins, aurene weapon skins. Gemstore skins. Mounts also patterns but for a different mount. Skins from store give money. A new raid wing takes months to create. Gives nothing. And players beat it within a few days because horizontal progress. Their builds and everything is already maxed out. 
 

maybe anet must make an upgrade to legendary’s. Bigger stats. And lvl 100 armor/weapons. And then players have to craft a basic legendary. And then new other tasks for every stat to add to the gear. Not like it is now. When you create a legendary you get all possible armor stats available instantly. 
this way ppl have more new tasks. And ofcourse witu a HUGE gold sink. 
because the players are too rich in the game. 
they want a challenge. They can have a challenge. 

[GBEW.5947]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:18 PM, Linken.6345 said:

Well only thing to do then is leave and come back late 2026 when last mini expansion we know of releases so you have 2 years of content to blow through.

Should take you about 2 months at the high end.

this comment reminded me to take my anti depressant. Thanks. 

[Zoid.2568]

We don't get enough content worth of an expansion, the "expansion" is split into parts of releases over a long time. Did GW2 playerbase ask for this? No. We want real expansions with quality content that brings new stuff to the table. I could play the real expansions and have fun in them for 1-2 years. SOTO I had fun for maybe 1-2 months. Bring back real expansions with real content!

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

i don't know, it seems pretty good for $25 usd for yearly expansions compared to $60 (cost of heart of thorns) once every 4-5 years? i mean, if they took nearly half a decade to develop secrets of the obscure like they did the other expos, of course it would be much better because that's just what time does.

 

path of fire was the only exception and even it took two years which means it would have twice the content automatically. on top of this , while the mount system was praised the maps and the elite specialisations are regarded as overall lower quality by a significant chunk of the playerbase, as well as its hard-left curve back into super casual gameplay when we had finally escaped it after the first expansion released.

 

it feels to me that players not only got spoiled by pof quick release schedule, and the free living world seasons, but also want something that is physically impossible. meanwhile they'll wait for years for a single-player game to come out with a whole 8-12 hours of gameplay for $70.

Edited March 3 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Tiamat.8254]

I'm really preferring this to EoD. Feels much more solid. I like the constant flow of content. Again mastery is a bit of a let down but beyond that the most fun I had since heart of thorns.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

33 minutes ago, Zoid.2568 said:

We don't get enough content worth of an expansion, the "expansion" is split into parts of releases over a long time. Did GW2 playerbase ask for this? No. We want real expansions with quality content that brings new stuff to the table. I could play the real expansions and have fun in them for 1-2 years. SOTO I had fun for maybe 1-2 months. Bring back real expansions with real content!

Asking for real content and listing PoF, despite the fact that the only good part of the PoF era was S4 just screams "new bad old good". What was real content in PoF? The boring bounties? Or maybe digging around in the sand or collecting coins that is being called meta events?
If you could play EoD and PoF for 1-2 years then you certainly could play Soto for atleast a year with standards that low.

But, generally, just because you don't like new content it doesn't mean there is no new content, it's like when the PvP and WvW community cry that Anet is not adding anything to the game, because it's for a gamemode they don't play/like. Ostrich policy doesn't really work here.

 

[Dark Red Killian.3946]

Soto is so much more of a grind than other expansions. Makes me wonder what the future yearly release can do to keep players engaged in those expacs. Once you are done with the armor, what else is there to do? Weaponsmaster is one time expac “feature”. Rifts should not be duplicated. Skyscale acquisition is one time thing, and legendary armor cannot be another feature for future. Other than releasing more trinkets with new effects, just about all we got left is underwater items. Legendary breather, 2nd gen legendary underwater weapons could sustain one expac, then you’re good. If they can keep a cadence of new legendary items that interest players with worthwhile skins/effects, I would say just keep releasing new legendaries, but if they repeat the eod legendary cycle then I would say no.

[Grimegg.1297]

1 hour ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i don't know, it seems pretty good for $25 usd for yearly expansions compared to $60 (cost of heart of thorns) once every 4-5 years? i mean, if they took nearly half a decade to develop secrets of the obscure like they did the other expos, of course it would be much better because that's just what time does.

 

path of fire was the only exception and even it took two years which means it would have twice the content automatically. on top of this , while the mount system was praised the maps and the elite specialisations are regarded as overall lower quality by a significant chunk of the playerbase, as well as its hard-left curve back into super casual gameplay when we had finally escaped it after the first expansion released.

 

it feels to me that players not only got spoiled by pof quick release schedule, and the free living world seasons, but also want something that is physically impossible. meanwhile they'll wait for years for a single-player game to come out with a whole 8-12 hours of gameplay for $70.

Guild Wars 2 at release in 28.08.2012 - 59.99$ (Standard Edition)
Heart of Thorns expansion at release in 23.10.2015 - 49.99$ (Standard Edition)
Path of Fire expansion at release in 22.09.2017 - 29.99$ (Standard Edition)
End of Dragons expansion at release in 28.02.2022 - 29.99$ (Standard Edition)
Secrets of the Obscure at release in 22.08.2023 - 24.99$ (Standard Edition)

I am not trying to bash the game, but it's not hard to see that the amount of content we got is definitely objectively not up to par to at least the last 2 previous expansions, considering the difference in price being only 5.00$.

As for the quality - everyone can draw their own personal conclusion and have a subjective opinion.

Edited March 3 by Grimegg.1297

[Antycypator.9874]

It's better to get maps one by one and experience them being alive for more than 2 days, than getting 4 empty maps, just like EoD, because people are always rushing content.

[Ashen.2907]

I expected less from SotO because ANet stated up front that they would be delivering less. I had hoped that the reduced size would make it possible for ANet to provide better quality, but that seems to not be the case.

I do believe that the amount of content at the price point of previous releases (PoF plus LW4 plus IBS) was unsustainable. I would have paid far more than the cost of just PoF for all that was included in the expac plus follow up seasons. In a way I did as I spent a lot of money in the gem store precisely because I felt that the content at that time (except Champions) was a fantastic value. SotO is the first time I actually regret spending money on the game. Not because of the price tag but because of the actual content included. 

Edited March 3 by Ashen.2907

[Palador.2170]

SotO is dissatisfying.

Is it too small? Yes, and no. Too much was given out right at the start, and not enough in the updates. We should have started with the first two zones, then done the third in the first update, second in the second update. We're not slamming into the "No Content" wall, but we're stubbing our toes on the "No Content" table leg every few months.

Is it the lack of an Elite spec for each class? No. We've gotten expanded weapon options with all classes, so we've still gotten some added stuff to play with there. It won't work for the next expansion, though.

Is it the writing? Huge YES on that one. This story has the commander not just carrying the Idiot Ball, but using it as a suppository. And despite all the Commander has been through, done, and accomplished; most of that is being ignored. The Commander is being written as if they've just come out of the personal story, when they've got a decade long history of doing the impossible and bending the very fate of the world around them. And they brought Zojja back! ...only to have her

Spoiler

join a cult-like group and offer herself up for a lobotomy to deal with her past trauma. The Zojja walking around now is no longer the person we knew back in the personal story, that person is gone, erased by her own choice.

There's so much that could have been done here. So many old plot threads to resolve, so many old faces to revisit. That's all gone, just thrown out to give us a "new" threat that's really just a remix of old threat ideas we've already dealt with.

Edited March 3 by Palador.2170

[Qys.5937]

I couldn't get past the first zone with all the floating islands. I'm horrible at controlling the skyscale hence why I've yet to unlock one. I went in got to the point I unlocked weapon master then left. 

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i don't know, it seems pretty good for $25 usd for yearly expansions compared to $60 (cost of heart of thorns) once every 4-5 years?

Money per quality is not something that scales linearly. I vastly prefer to shell out 60 EUR for a really good content than 30 EUR  for mediocre one. And for trash tier content i'd not only consider 15 EUR to be too much - i'd fully expect to be paid myself for playing something so bad.

So, yeah, i'd really, really prefer HoT level content for 60 EUR to what we've got recently.

[Batalix.2873]

6 hours ago, Zoid.2568 said:

We don't get enough content worth of an expansion, the "expansion" is split into parts of releases over a long time. Did GW2 playerbase ask for this? No. We want real expansions with quality content that brings new stuff to the table. I could play the real expansions and have fun in them for 1-2 years. SOTO I had fun for maybe 1-2 months. Bring back real expansions with real content!

EoD was crap compared to HoT/PoF. SotO is just even worse.

It's not even the size/amount of things that is the problem (although it is an indicator of just how much capital is being put into development). It's that so many of the "new" features aren't even new, just cannibalizing old aspects and eroding the pillars of what made GW2 good: i.e. the horizontal progression of masteries, and the compartmentalized niche fantasies of especs.

But all of that started with IBS/EoD, SotO is just *more* of the sort of lazy non-design.

Edited March 4 by Batalix.2873

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

EoD was crap too mang. Don't kid yourself. 

[leila.7962]

I was annoyed by SoTO's format before the release, I'm stiill annoyed by it now, and I'll probably still be annoyed at the end of it. I am definitely not buying the next one when it releases, simply because it was announced that it will be just like this one: pay full price and have it delivered over a year. If only the 4 updates were juicy but they were not. The first one was ok with the amount of content but the last two were kitty. And by kitty I mean, story wise, maps wise, content wise, mastery wise.

I hope that with SoTO they can see that they can't fit a good story and juicy content in 4 deliveries over 12 months, not to mention that character development went to kitten really. I read comments about the story here and on reddit and the general response is that it's hard to connect to the characters the way it's been delivered until now. By cutting off LWS they said they are giving their teams a better QoL when in fact, making them have to produce stuff to fit the 12 months in every expansion seems way worse than before. The crunch is so loud that I can hear it from here.

 

Edited March 4 by leila.7962

[Jumpin Lumpix.6108]

I agree with OP EoD and PoF were way better

Edited March 4 by Jumpin Lumpix.6108

[DarcShriek.5829]

Well, in case you haven't been to the grocery store, bought or rented a home, inflation is an issue these days.

[Jokuc.3478]

It's not "crap compared to eod pof hot" ...it's just crap.

Why do I think it's crap?

Stupid story that makes no sense, copy paste assets, copy paste animations, copy paste map areas, horribly designed maps, horribly designed mobs, boring convergences, boring rift hunting, not enough instanced content, unbalancing mounts. Soto had some nice characters in the story and new weapons is nice, but that's about it.

The story is stupid because it silly that these wizard people have been there all along hunting monsters ...but nobody ever noticed or found out? The entire reason for the monsters to exist in the first place is stupid and I don't understand why they didn't just get inspired by the story from gw1 and put us into the realm of torment. That was all I was hoping for and they didn't give it to us, very sad.

Copy paste is the main theme of the expansion. The entire story is just an excuse for them to be able to copy paste assets to create the new maps and monsters. Let's be honest, that's probably why they did it. All the monsters are just retextured, all the buildings and trees and rocks are things we've seen before. It doesn't feel like we're exploring something new. Fighting a weird looking flesh blob that I can clearly tell is just a big toad feels awful.

The maps are poorly designed because they are awful to traverse and they all rely too heavily on the skyscale. If they wanted one sky map that's cool but having all of them be skyscale maps is extremely lame. Furthermore, there's no sense of exploration in these maps. No hidden areas, no easter eggs, nothing cool to find or new non-combat activities to enjoy like in pof/hot. Hot and pof maps are filled with cool little things in them to do, just take Desert Highlands for example with the dwarf mines. Awesome stuff. While the newest map has a cool theme, it feels very empty and unfinished, and looks the same everywhere. The only thing you can do there is to do the meta event that not only is boring but also runs way too frequently, effectively turning all the maps into 24/7 event zones. Personally I prefer the map to be a zone that meta events can occur in, not a 24/7 war zone like more recent maps anet have made.

The rifts were promised to be the big main content of the expansion. But turns out they are just PoF bounties but 100 times more boring.

The skyscale is now op and I feel forced to use it everywhere.

I really don't understand how people can defend this. Soto is an embarrassment of an expansion in my book. I am convinced that anet needs to hire some new folks at the studio if they intend to do something good like hot/pof ever again. LW4 was way better than Soto and it was free at release. I would rather pay 2x the price of HoT for a HoT-quality expansion, than paying half the price of Soto for a Soto-quality expansion.

Edited March 4 by Jokuc.3478

[Smurfiness.3714]

SOTO is just a lazy extension. Only good thing is the fireball skyscale and able to use updraft. I don't use Mastery Points beyond updraft. 

[Batalix.2873]

10 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Asking for real content and listing PoF, despite the fact that the only good part of the PoF era was S4 just screams "new bad old good". What was real content in PoF? The boring bounties? Or maybe digging around in the sand or collecting coins that is being called meta events?
If you could play EoD and PoF for 1-2 years then you certainly could play Soto for atleast a year with standards that low.

But, generally, just because you don't like new content it doesn't mean there is no new content, it's like when the PvP and WvW community cry that Anet is not adding anything to the game, because it's for a gamemode they don't play/like. Ostrich policy doesn't really work here.

 

PoF had raptor, springer, skimmer, and jackal. It had four very solid maps.

And even if that wasn't outstanding, S4 at least brought it all together with all the additional related content that encouraged deeper exploration of those maps.

EoD sucks because it never got a S5/6 to properly flesh out the maps and worldbuilding.

SotO will suck for the same reasons, although moreso because even though fishing and jade bots weren't *amazing* nor built out in a followup living world, they were still at least totally new subsystems. SotO hasn't really introduced anything new.

[Doggie.3184]

I just wish the Kryptis were cooler looking which takes away my excitement for visiting a "demon world." They're mostly reskins with floaty disconnected parts and nothing like the Infernal Envoy outfit like I expected. Cerus looks awesome but the rest are meh. Hoped Eparch woulda been an ever cooler version of Cerus but he looks like a Warframe I wouldn't typically care for.

I also don't care for the new direction of receiving whispers/pm's constantly either for storytelling.

The Wizard stuff is fine but seeing more Cantha zones would have been more interesting, which is a sad aspect to the 'new xpan' over living story' method.

Waiting a year to receive all the stuff you paid for isn't appealing. Then that stuff can end up disappointing when it arrives like how I can't enjoy my new Thief Axe due to the painfully loud sound effect that came unexpectedly since it wasn't in the beta experience.

I don't care much about making the legendary armor after finally being able to preview it in game so I'm not sure what to do with all the account bound resources~ not much for non leggy crafters to do in SOTO maps. EoD provided the most progression content with the Aurene variants and the fact you can sell the weapons and materials to use the gold for whatever you want.

Otherwise I like the moving away from Dragon's Watch cast direction and the more serious tone that isn't spamming cringe jokes constantly.

Edited March 4 by Doggie.3184

[GBEW.5947]

10 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Money per quality is not something that scales linearly. I vastly prefer to shell out 60 EUR for a really good content than 30 EUR  for mediocre one. And for trash tier content i'd not only consider 15 EUR to be too much - i'd fully expect to be paid myself for playing something so bad.

So, yeah, i'd really, really prefer HoT level content for 60 EUR to what we've got recently.

pretty much exactly this is my sentiment as well. id even be fine with waiting 2 years for it. 

[Gehenna.3625]

Everything has gotten more expensive but for some reason video games have kept to their price points for the last 2 decades or so. Something had to give eventually, so I don't mind paying 25 bucks for this expansion.

It has the same issue as EoD for me though. I don't really care for the legendaries (not that they're ugly but they're just not my aesthetic) and if you don't then the point of a lot of the content becomes moot.

I haven't rushed the story, I'll finish it today but then I'll get to complete the mastery points going from 530 to 536 and then I'll be done. Only did one strike once. Haven't touched the convergences. EoD was the same for me (I also didn't care for the fishing mini-game) but what I felt with EoD is that they rushed that expansion and didn't put a lot of stuff in. Still miffed about the Kurzicks not getting at least a new zone with some story and I hate that everything is just about Jade, and Amber was just an afterthought.

So that's why I prefer SoTO over EoD but it's a close call. There's just no replay value for me in either of them.

[Krajtin.8956]

The problem with SoTo is that I and surely many players wanted a HoT / PoF but with a reduced level. That is, if HoT had 4 maps, I thought that SoTo would have 3 maps of the same quality as HoT. But it's not like that.

So what is SoTo? It is a LW with small characteristics of an expansion (Legendaries / Weapons).

Does SoTo have a price of €25? Yes, definitely.
I've paid real money for LW3-LW4 and I don't regret it because SoTo has a lot of things that LW does:

- Recycled enemies
- Recycled assets
- 3 maps (For each year)

The only thing SoTo is worse than LW3-LW4 (3 chapters) is the way the story mode is played:
- Character speaks --> kill demons --> character number 2 speaks --> kill demons

I'm also angry because I thought SoTo was going to be HoT but with 3 maps.

Will I buy the next mini-expansion (LW)? Yes, because I already know what "mini-expansion" means