The amount of filler content in story is out of hand

[Teknomancer.4895]

2 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

This is a very silly argument. What are you trying to say?

What I'm trying to say is that THIS IS A VERY SILLY ARGUMENT.

Why do you insist on keeping it going?

Actually never mind, don't answer that.

Just stop beating a dead horse.

For once.

[Vayne.8563]

7 minutes ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

What I'm trying to say is that THIS IS A VERY SILLY ARGUMENT.

Why do you insist on keeping it going?

Actually never mind, don't answer that.

Just stop beating a dead horse.

For once.

Yeah, admittedly, I like to argue. Not one of my best qualities. But you know, I need something to do on load screens. lol

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Yeah, admittedly, I like to argue. Not one of my best qualities. But you know, I need something to do on load screens. lol

I feel you on that on mate 😆 

Have a good one.

[Astralporing.1957]

12 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Renown hearts are just a way to give some flavor to the maps, they're almost always "help out the locals."

If there are no non-hostile locals to help out, it makes sense there would be no renown hearts. Just imagine that in Orr:

Help the Putrefiers slay the living?

Feed maggots to the undead fish heads so they puke out more Risen?

Not all hearts are about helping the locals. Some are about helping pact/vigil/priory/whispers (or some other group) to pacify the locals. In Orr they could have been done at the Pact forward points (i.e Wren camp) with you helping the pact establish yourself in the region. Lack of hearts was not due to them being implausible there. It was purely a design decision.

[Yaki.9563]

OP would hate FFXIV. 95% of that "story" is pure, tedious filler.

[GBEW.5947]

On 3/4/2024 at 6:24 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

I know I have said this in a couple of other places, but thank you for sharing your feedback on this topic. Constructive criticism is good stuff and always welcome--I appreciate you each taking some of your time to talk out what you felt could be better, why it didn't feel great, and what you'd like to see done differently. 

Okay, I have personally seen you say this exact statement many times on this forum, Will these actually be considered for the next expansion, Are we going to receive a quality product or will the next expansion simply be another way to cater to new players while only giving your loyal fans one fight to progress through? 

[CoffeePlease.3082]

The story this expansion feels extremely clunky with their new rollout structure. I can deal with the fill the bar stuff, but having 30 minutes (maybe) of story content several months apart just takes me out of what is otherwise so far a very nice story. 

It almost feels like it would be more fun to play waiting for the expansion to be over and then play through the story at that time so you can just do it all at once instead of this weirdly dished out piecemeal. 

[Sarte.7158]

On 4/15/2024 at 3:22 AM, CoffeePlease.3082 said:

The story this expansion feels extremely clunky with their new rollout structure. I can deal with the fill the bar stuff, but having 30 minutes (maybe) of story content several months apart just takes me out of what is otherwise so far a very nice story. 

It almost feels like it would be more fun to play waiting for the expansion to be over and then play through the story at that time so you can just do it all at once instead of this weirdly dished out piecemeal. 

Yep,  agreed .  I feel duped paying for this expansion. It is bare minimum ,  makes me lose respect for the company tbh.

[Linken.6345]

27 minutes ago, Sarte.7158 said:

Yep,  agreed .  I feel duped paying for this expansion. It is bare minimum ,  makes me lose respect for the company tbh.

This is true but they were extremly upfront that it would be like this before said mini expansion even released, so I find it odd you lost respect for the company.

[Sarte.7158]

18 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

This is true but they were extremly upfront that it would be like this before said mini expansion even released, so I find it odd you lost respect for the company.

Yes, they were upfront about it being mini xpac. I guess I did not expect it being so little in it. I should have maybe said I lose faith in the company instead.

[Gehenna.3625]

1 hour ago, Sarte.7158 said:

Yes, they were upfront about it being mini xpac. I guess I did not expect it being so little in it. I should have maybe said I lose faith in the company instead.

btw, if you ever consider playing SWTOR, then don't. They have even smaller expansions.

[Poormany.4507]

On 4/20/2024 at 2:20 PM, Linken.6345 said:

This is true but they were extremly upfront that it would be like this before said mini expansion even released, so I find it odd you lost respect for the company.

When they said they would be making mini-expansions, me (and many other players) assumed it would be the same amount/quality of content as regular expacs, just spread out over multiple releases so that we don't get expacs every 2 or 3 years with long wait periods between. Instead we're currently getting less/lower quality content than Living World with only one or two expac-quality maps in the whole expac. SotO maps so far: Skywatch Archipelago (~Living World quality, mostly reused assets), Wizards Tower (Expac or LW hub quality), Amnytas (Expac quality meta map), Nayos (< Living World quality, mostly filler content). If they released 2 expac-quality maps and 1 LW-quality map per expac cycle, I think that would be enough imo. The problem with the new model, as myself and other predicted, is that they're rushing the content/maps to start work on the next expac, resulting in a drastic drop in quality compared to before when most of the PvE team was working on one or (maybe) two LW or expac patches at a time.

Edited April 21 by Poormany.4507

[Linken.6345]

26 minutes ago, Poormany.4507 said:

When they said they would be making mini-expansions, me (and many other players) assumed it would be the same amount/quality of content as regular expacs, just spread out over multiple releases so that we don't get expacs every 2 or 3 years with long wait periods between. Instead we're currently getting less/lower quality content than Living World with only one or two expac-quality maps in the whole expac. SotO maps so far: Skywatch Archipelago (~Living World quality, mostly reused assets), Wizards Tower (Expac or LW hub quality), Amnytas (Expac quality meta map), Nayos (< Living World quality, mostly filler content). If they released 2 expac-quality maps and 1 LW-quality map per expac cycle, I think that would be enough imo. The problem with the new model, as myself and other predicted, is that they're rushing the content/maps to start work on the next expac, resulting in a drastic drop in quality compared to before when most of the PvE team was working on one or (maybe) two LW or expac patches at a time.

Sadly you thought wrong and I feel for you.

There is a reason I still have not bought Soto waiting for a sale since I had a gut feeling this would be the case.

We cant even trust what they say anymore since they can have a internal meeting after telling us something and then not update us when things change like the resent legendary relic debacle.

[Dragenstein.2671]

Dead game.  8 months since SOTO.  I only finished what there is of it with 2 chars because it is so dreadful.  Now they only run the same handful of events every year that weren't even worth doing the first time.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 4/20/2024 at 8:20 PM, Linken.6345 said:

This is true but they were extremly upfront that it would be like this before said mini expansion even released, so I find it odd you lost respect for the company.

No, they weren't upfront about it. They tried to present it as if it was just a repackaging - giving the same overall quality and quantity of content, just spread over a bit differently than before. Of course, anyone able to read between the lines saw immediately that some content drops were unavoidable, but that does not mean it was ever clear how big the content drop in quantity - and, even more, in quality - would be. And so it turns out it was bigger than even some of those called "doomers" then expected.

10 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

We cant even trust what they say anymore since they can have a internal meeting after telling us something and then not update us when things change like the resent legendary relic debacle.

Oh yes, that was really bad. And their reaction to just shrug it off (instead taking that mistake on themselves and going along with what was actually announced) was even worse.

Edited April 22 by Astralporing.1957

[Sobx.1758]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No, they weren't upfront about it. They tried to present it as if it was just a repackaging - giving the same overall quality and quantity of content, just spread over a bit differently than before. Of course, anyone able to read between the lines saw immediately that some content drops were unavoidable, but that does not mean it was ever clear how big the content drop in quantity - and, even more, in quality - would be. And so it turns out it was bigger than even some of those called "doomers" then expected.

Oh yes, that was really bad. And their reaction to just shrug it off (instead taking that mistake on themselves and going along with what was actually announced) was even worse.

Nope, they were pretty upfront about it. We knew what we were getting and in how many pieces it will be cut into.

[Astralporing.1957]

Just now, Sobx.1758 said:

Nope, they were pretty upfront about it. We knew what we were getting and in how many pieces it will be cut into.

How many pieces, sure. But pieces can be of different size and quality of make. There was absolutely nothing about how "meaty" those pieces would be. All the info we were given was about the number of maps (and even that was not in the original info about change to the delivery schedule, but only later, in SotO specific reveals).

[Sobx.1758]

1 minute ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

How many pieces, sure. But pieces can be of different size and quality of make. There was absolutely nothing about how "meaty" those pieces would be. All the info we were given was about the number of maps (and even that was not in the original info about change to the delivery schedule, but only later, in SotO specific reveals).

If you expected them to release less maps (because that's what they said they're doing), but increase their size and content to cover the previous higher number of maps then that's your baseless wishful thinking you chose to believe yourself.
Those "later soto specific reveals" that were made way before the release? And that's bad because what, you had to pre-order the moment the pre-order option became available? I really don't get the line of argumenting you're aiming at with what you just said.

[Gehenna.3625]

7 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No, they weren't upfront about it. They tried to present it as if it was just a repackaging - giving the same overall quality and quantity of content, just spread over a bit differently than before. Of course, anyone able to read between the lines saw immediately that some content drops were unavoidable, but that does not mean it was ever clear how big the content drop in quantity - and, even more, in quality - would be. And so it turns out it was bigger than even some of those called "doomers" then expected.

It was exactly what I expected as far as the amount of content was concerned. Not sure why anyone expected more. Perhaps I'm jaded enough to be able to read between the lines. 

Edited April 22 by Gehenna.3625

[xDumplinx.7983]

The story started off well, but rapidly (imo) got boring, possibly due to the lazy use of filler bars instead of actual story.

Maps were OK, but after Skywatch were tiny and uninspired.

I suppose my expectations were too high and I fooled myself into thinking ANet would deliver any sort of acceptable quality

[Izzy.2951]

The amount of filler content in GW2 in general is out of hand since years. Wish they could make quality content and new stuff for their 3 gamemodes.

Edited May 2 by Izzy.2951

[Mistwraithe.3106]

On 4/22/2024 at 6:24 PM, Astralporing.1957 said:

No, they weren't upfront about it. They tried to present it as if it was just a repackaging - giving the same overall quality and quantity of content, just spread over a bit differently than before. Of course, anyone able to read between the lines saw immediately that some content drops were unavoidable, but that does not mean it was ever clear how big the content drop in quantity - and, even more, in quality - would be. And so it turns out it was bigger than even some of those called "doomers" then expected.

Oh yes, that was really bad. And their reaction to just shrug it off (instead taking that mistake on themselves and going along with what was actually announced) was even worse.

Quality is subjective so I won't debate you there, and I haven't played all the way through it myself so can't really give my own opinion (which would be subjective too).

But I question whether SOTO is quantitatively less then the average. If you go back to the peak production period then it appears LWS3 and PoF released significantly more content per year than SOTO does. You could perhaps also argue that LWS4 was more per year too, but its pretty close.

I would say SOTO has quantitatively more content per year than LWS1/LWS2, Icebrood and EOD.

So the period 2015-2018 probably exceeded SOTO for content produced per year but SOTO generally matches or exceeds the yearly content produced in the other 7 years outside of that time period.

I think your real problem is that you don't like SOTO, for whatever reason - note that this isn't unusual, it appears there were vocal people who didn't like all GW2 releases at the time of their release, regardless of how popular they are now.

Edited May 3 by Mistwraithe.3106

[Anyandrell.6238]

I didn't find the filling the bar part annoying.

What I did find extremely annoying was the amount of time you have to just sit around through interminable dialogues between the NPCs. All that stuff could have been condensed, not be the irritating long time waste it is. I understand that they're trying to give you the story part, but sheesh! get to the point faster!

[Gazrul.3086]

The only complaint I have so far is the fill the bar step, because it just feels arbitrary and it breaks the flow of the story. And well, it feels a bit lazy, to be honest. 

[Player.2475]

SotO is just terrible, like Dragon Response Missions levels of lazy. Not to mention that the content quality and quantity pales in comparison to LS3-L4 for a higher pricepoint.

LS1 and LS2 are excusable because some parts are still relevant today and they were still figuring out what they wanted to do with the game inbetween expansions and living story  AND they made attempts to improve parts of them.

Meanwhile SotO just feels like a slap in the face in terms of everything... maps, story, replayability of the content, rewards etc. If it was not for the blatantly pay-to-win weapon master and expanded weapon proficiencies, there would be next to no reason to ever play through SotO unless you are a new player and want to skip the LS4 Skyscale grind OR an extreme open-world-only-and-nothing-else player that would rather do the same boring event 2000 times than raids, PvP or WvW for the legendary armor.