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

[Kranlor Greyhelm.8417]

16 hours ago, Tiamat.8254 said:

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.

I'm not sure that describing 2 hours of "story" and a third of a map every 4 months counts as a "constant flow". Maybe if you can explain where the fun is you've been finding? Because I was bored on the new "map" by the end of the first evening of playing it.

Recycled content. Lazy storytelling. It all feels to me like they're churning out the bare minimum and expecting us to be excited by it. I'm not, at all.

[mercury ranique.2170]

17 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!

I'm not sure if this is asked for by the playerbase, but the way content has been delivered has always been a debate and seen as controversial. The essence here is money.
With GW2 you pay a fee for the game and it's expansions. If you, like me started playing in 2012 and got every release when it came out it would have cost you 225 euro's/USD
If you buy this all now in the store it would cost you 125 euro's/USD.
So in short. I paid 18,75 euro/USD  per year.

If you compare this to e.g. WoW with monthly fees, you'd pay 350 euro's each year on monthly fees and expansion costs.
Still people keep comparing the amount of content released and expect to have the same amount of quantity and quality.

If you'd want to compare e.g. SoTo with PoF you'd have to keep in mind that between PoF en EoD was a five year gap where you needed to buy new content and still two seasons of living world where released in that timeframe. (comparing EoD with Soto is a bit different due to EoD already shifting in a different release system.

I truly think that this new system is better then it was. but as we do not have to wait for several years for a new expansion, time needs to tell if it truly is better

[Shadowmoon.7986]

To be honest, EoD was pretty bad because spend all their resources on steam release and the grenth awful LS1 release (retcon).  Instead of getting a proper LS season, we got only one new map, with walking simulator story missions, a second half of the meta which pooped the bed with how awful it was.  Ministers Lee and the purist story is unresolved. Tetra and the speakers are forgotten about. All we got was a filler episode about the jade brotherhood.

[Tiamat.8254]

9 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

I'm not sure that describing 2 hours of "story" and a third of a map every 4 months counts as a "constant flow". Maybe if you can explain where the fun is you've been finding? Because I was bored on the new "map" by the end of the first evening of playing it.

Recycled content. Lazy storytelling. It all feels to me like they're churning out the bare minimum and expecting us to be excited by it. I'm not, at all.

And I imagine if they had a release like EoD you would be in the same position as your are now, except waiting 2 years for another expac. This also isn't great. There will always be people rushing through the content and those who like the casual aspect. At least you only have 3 months for the next drop. But on top of that, this system allows them to make iterative improvements regularly that just wasn't possible before. 

[kharmin.7683]

19 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

To be honest, EoD was pretty bad because spend all their resources on steam release and the grenth awful LS1 release (retcon).

Another case of not being careful what is wished for.  The forums cried and complained about GW2 not being on Steam and cried and complained about no access to LS1.  So we should now cry and complain that Anet actually listened?

[Zok.4956]

16 hours ago, Palador.2170 said:

Is it the writing? Huge YES on that one.

I agree.

16 hours ago, Palador.2170 said:

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

That's exactly the problem. As PC/Hero we have overcome the worst, most impossible challenges. A further increase in this spiral is almost impossible. That's one of the reasons why Aurene was sent to retirement. And when the story focuses on smaller things, they can seem somehow unimportant and inconsequential compared to the challenges we've overcome so far.

To do this well would require a very well written and possibly longer story. Which unfortunately doesn't exist.

[Assolador.3598]

20 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!

the...table????????

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Another case of not being careful what is wished for.  The forums cried and complained about GW2 not being on Steam and cried and complained about no access to LS1.  So we should now cry and complain that Anet actually listened?

Tbh, i doubt that's where the resources went. Redoing LS1 should not have taken the same amount of resources as doing a new LS from scratch, and yet somehow it did. So, either the resources were mostly wasted, or they never ended up there at all, and got siphoned off by something else. Like, for example, some non-gw2 related project Anet is doing silently in the background (and yes, we do know they are working on some).

[Westenev.5289]

I prefer the 60 dollar expansion + living world over 5 years. It wasn't perfect, but Lws3, PoF, Lws4 and Lws5 prologue came kitten close.

 

I feel like they need to go back to basics and rethink some design decisions. Particularly in the "do x events to do next story chapter", and this might be a hot take, but we need to get (skippable) cutscenes back. Waiting for npc's to finish talking feels awful. Also the fact that some conversations stop and branch at points, where your options are "continue talking" or "leave". If there's no illusion of choice, why not just continue the conversation? Are you just trying to captcha players, to ensure they're listening? xD

Edited March 4 by Westenev.5289

[Kiki.9450]

12 minutes ago, Westenev.5289 said:

I feel like they need to go back to basics and rethink some design decisions. Particularly in the "do x events to do next story chapter", and this might be a hot take, but we need to get (skippable) cutscenes back. Waiting for npc's to finish talking feels awful. Also the fact that some conversations stop and branch at points, where your options are "continue talking" or "leave". If there's no illusion of choice, why not just continue the conversation? Are you just trying to captcha players, to ensure they're listening? xD

I miss those cutscenes. I like how they looked, with the painted backgrounds and the close-up of your character and the NPC(s). Only two problems with them I thought: they get a bit weird when you have more than two characters involved with the conversation, and Can't-Sit-Still Steven needs to be constantly jumping and running around or he may explode... but skipping the cutscene somehow makes the story confusing for him. I really hope someday Anet finds the solution here: skippable cutscenes (with pretty backgrounds?) that still allows Steven to properly expend his excess energy.

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Tiamat.8254 said:

And I imagine if they had a release like EoD you would be in the same position as your are now, except waiting 2 years for another expac. This also isn't great. There will always be people rushing through the content and those who like the casual aspect. At least you only have 3 months for the next drop. But on top of that, this system allows them to make iterative improvements regularly that just wasn't possible before. 

Not sure that someone finishing this content quickly is rushing. I don't have to rush to cross my kitchen in a couple of seconds, its just not that large.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

5 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Another case of not being careful what is wished for.  The forums cried and complained about GW2 not being on Steam and cried and complained about no access to LS1.  So we should now cry and complain that Anet actually listened?

Anyone spending more than a month on GW2 forums knows that whatever people ask for the most will be whined about the most once Anet adds it - Fishing, LWS1 rerun, OW Legendary armor, the new Skyscale acquisition, for minor examples every change regarding the Turtle - and whatever was released latest is the worst thing Anet has ever done, the game will be/is on maintenance mode and everything before was perfect.

[Omega.6801]

21 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Anyone spending more than a month on GW2 forums knows that whatever people ask for the most will be whined about the most once Anet adds it - Fishing, LWS1 rerun, OW Legendary armor, the new Skyscale acquisition, for minor examples every change regarding the Turtle - and whatever was released latest is the worst thing Anet has ever done, the game will be/is on maintenance mode and everything before was perfect.

I choose fishing and the turtle. If it wasn't for that uninspired minigame and the useless mount, Kaineng would be a sprawling metropole with thousands of interacable NPCs and events. /s

[Astralporing.1957]

29 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Anyone spending more than a month on GW2 forums knows that whatever people ask for the most will be whined about the most once Anet adds it - Fishing, LWS1 rerun, OW Legendary armor, the new Skyscale acquisition, for minor examples every change regarding the Turtle - and whatever was released latest is the worst thing Anet has ever done, the game will be/is on maintenance mode and everything before was perfect.

And the worst part is that lof of what you said is completely true.

[Cuks.8241]

EOD was way better than this in my opinion. Much larger, more intricate maps, much better meta events and a lot better and more strikes. Don't forget we got elite specs. Some assets were reused but even if  some enemies were just reskins the textures were not just 1 texture all over the place like in Soto. We got some original enemies also. They introduced new systems and while I'm not a fan of them (I think jade bot could be just scrapped and it would be net positive for the game) they at least tried. I generally don't like gw2 story so EOD was just another gw2 chapter for me but delivery was quality in some chapters. Story maps and bosses were also extensive and well designed (remember EOD prologue, the underwater facility with Soo-won, Joon's estate, Harvest temple...). SOTO story instances are usually just open world maps with the same enemies all over the place. There are hardly any interesting fights with interesting mechanics (I remember only 1, maybe 2 fights that had mechanics, everything else was just powered through).

Cut the original EOD content in half or in thirds and you still have more and better quality content. 

I don't care about quantity or low price if it's low quality. 

[Panda.1967]

I’ve said it before and I will say it again because it is STILL true…

SoTO is just a living world season masquerading as an expansion. It was not worth the $25 price tag, $15 maybe…

the missions for each story segment have been a lot of “complete map events in the area until X is ready.” Exactly like a living world chapter.

[Panda.1967]

1 hour ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Anet has ever done, the game will be/is on maintenance mode and everything before was perfect.

Will people stop misusing “maintenance mode” already… its a very old and tired joke… this game is not now nor has it ever been in maintenance mode. Maintenance mode means no active or planned development, the game is to be maintained in its current state updated only for stability and bug fixes. We’ve had content droughts, sure, but every time we knew development was happening and an update was coming. Development has never once stopped for GW2.

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Anyone spending more than a month on GW2 forums knows that whatever people ask for the most will be whined about the most once Anet adds it - Fishing, LWS1 rerun, OW Legendary armor, the new Skyscale acquisition, for minor examples every change regarding the Turtle - and whatever was released latest is the worst thing Anet has ever done, the game will be/is on maintenance mode and everything before was perfect.

Lol this is so sweepingly dismissive. Although I do agree that the playerbase is quite myopic in its requests and some of ANet's failures have been capitulating to those requests, not all of these issues are created equal:

1. Fishing was highly requested. Fishing's primary issues are twofold. (A) ANet didn't fully deliver a fun, engaging fishing side game, it's kind of mediocre and grindy and could have used some more workshopping. (B) ANet didn't develop many other new mechanics or features for EoD (which was a more generalized development failure), which brought more scrutiny and resentment on what few new systems EoD did have to offer (namely, fishing/skiffs and jadebot). People's complaints about fishing are somewhat valid, as both derive from ANet not really delivering on the fishing promise, or otherwise not developing EoD very well, both of which are pretty comfortably fact.

2. LWS1 rerun was also highly requested. Although there are a few complaints about execution, particularly the grindiness or emptiness of some of the instances, most of the complaints aren't even about LWS1 directly. They are, again, directed at the lack of fleshed out content in EoD and a followup LW season (as well as neglect for PvP/WvW updates), because resources were diverted to LWS1. That, to me, is a half-legitimate complaint. Yes, clearly they had to prioritize where their resources went while working on the LWS1 rerelease, but I don't think that wholly excuses just how poorly developed and supported the entire rest of the game was for a year, and EoD will forever display that mismanagement as a half-baked product that was never completed. 

3. OW Legendary armor. I find this complaint fairly baseless. We requested OW armor. We got it. While it may be a tad grindier than we might hope is fair, legendaries have always been grindy so at this point we are quibbling over minor differences in economic values. There may be a few complaints about the skins themselves, but I think those are also delusional to think that there wouldn't be clipping or plasticky textures given what already exists in the wardrobe. I would safely characterize this as "whining".

4. New Skyscale acquisition. Everything about this design choice is garbage, from top to bottom. All complaints are valid, I am giving them all my universal approval.

5. Turtle changes. I do think it was a cowardly copout to add a third means of obtaining the turtle, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter as much. Turtle was designed to be co-op and increase accessibility, with plenty of inefficiencies built in, so I'm fine with it being mechanically more accessible. As opposed to Skyscale which was the capstone prestige do-everything mount that should never have been made this easy to obtain, obviating the need for most other mounts. Most complaints about turtle, even how it handles or previously regarding the Soo-Won fight, are "whining".

 

To recap: Fishing and Skyscale: not "whining". OW Legendary armor and turtle changes: "whining". LWS1: kind of in-between.

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

I’ve said it before and I will say it again because it is STILL true…

SoTO is just a living world season masquerading as an expansion. It was not worth the $25 price tag, $15 maybe…

And even that obfuscates the real question: was it worth losing real expansions for? And, at least to me, no, it wasn't.

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And even that obfuscates the real question: was it worth losing real expansions for? And, at least to me, no, it wasn't.

Well, that makes sense if you exclude all the options that are worse, like where the game just doesn't exist because the expansion business model was no longer working.

This kind of question missed the point of the change to the business model in the first place. Like somehow Anet randomly makes these changes for no reason. What is likely is that at the time they had to make the decision to change the model, keeping the expansion model was probably not a option anyways so whether it's 'worth it' has nothing to do with why the decision was made. 

 

 

Edited March 5 by Obtena.7952

[Panda.1967]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

And even that obfuscates the real question: was it worth losing real expansions for? And, at least to me, no, it wasn't.

Was it worth losing real expansions for? Absolutely not… this is literally attempt #3 of Anet attempting to not have full expansions in GW2…

attempt 1: original Living World… Living World was intended to be how GW2 story expanded originally, but updates were too sparse and the original design for them was unsatisfying and wasn’t inviting of new players… so we got Season 2 reformatting Living World into an episodic and then the first Expansion…

attempt 2: Sagas… Icebrood Saga was literally a rehash of their original plan to use living world to expand the world and story… and it failed epically… as expected… so we got a rushed ending to IBS and the release of EoD…

attempt 3: mini expansions… SotO is the first of these living world seasons packaged as an expansion… and I hope anet gets the message that we are not happy with this experiment…

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I think the mini-expansion model is here to stay as it's the best economic model Anet have come up with (free LW seasons for active players made no economic sense and big expansions every 2-5 years isn't a very steady business model either).

So really if you want this debate to be useful then you need to identify what made the "real" expansions better than LW.

And I'm not even convinced it's that simple as plenty of people seem to like LWS3 and LWS4 as much as HoT and PoF, at least from a maps and metas perspective, so the assertion that LW < real expansion isn't that straightforward.

So maybe it's the elite specs and the mounts which were the parts which made the real expansions better for you? Or is it really that everything around that period, inc LWS3/4, is better?

Edited March 4 by Mistwraithe.3106

[Linken.6345]

5 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Was it worth losing real expansions for? Absolutely not… this is literally attempt #3 of Anet attempting to not have full expansions in GW2…

attempt 1: original Living World… Living World was intended to be how GW2 story expanded originally, but updates were too sparse and the original design for them was unsatisfying and wasn’t inviting of new players… so we got Season 2 reformatting Living World into an episodic and then the first Expansion…

attempt 2: Sagas… Icebrood Saga was literally a rehash of their original plan to use living world to expand the world and story… and it failed epically… as expected… so we got a rushed ending to IBS and the release of EoD…

attempt 3: mini expansions… SotO is the first of these living world seasons packaged as an expansion… and I hope anet gets the message that we are not happy with this experiment…

nr1 also burned out the developers big time.

nr3 we know they are already working on the last half of the next mini expansion already.

[Tiamat.8254]

I did find something crap yesterday, not getting gift of inner nayos for map completion. I dislike inconsistency like this.

Edited March 5 by Tiamat.8254
Typo

[Krajtin.8956]

10 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

attempt 3: mini expansions… SotO is the first of these living world seasons packaged as an expansion… and I hope anet gets the message that we are not happy with this experiment…

This new model exists now because they are actively developing their new "unannounced" project in Unreal 5. When this project is at 80-90% of development (when they develop the last mini-expansion), perhaps they will return to the real expansions (as long as not another game and not GW3).

All this quality of SoTo is mainly due to the amount they are dedicating to this new project. It's almost exactly the same as IBS, only this time ALL players pay for this content.

We don't have new specializations, not because they are difficult to balance, but because the creativity part is in the other project. And this applies to all SoTo features.

Unfortunately we will have to wait until 2025-2026 to know the future of GW2. It's sad