SotO Feedback [Merged]

[AliamRationem.5172]

Having completed the story and done the open world meta, I wanted to provide some feedback.

The short version is that this expansion lacks both quantity and quality.  I'll elaborate.

We started pretty strong.  The initial release had 2 full maps, a new hub, new masteries including a few that were worthwhile additions and not what I would call filler, plenty of achievements, new legendary armor (albeit with a very boring grind to obtain it).  We also got 2 strikes and a fractal which were not the best we've seen out of this game.

The additional releases is where things really went downhill.  The story is very short and seems to follow a pattern where event filler is used to delay completion and distract the mind from the fact that there just isn't much content and the narrative is very rushed.  Characters both critical and inconsequential are introduced and discarded within minutes if you ignore the time-gate filler.

The maps.  Where the initial release saw two full maps, the followups again relied on the split map design with one full map released in 3 portions.  Not only does this feel like we're getting less (raise your hand if 3 full maps with a unique feel to them sounds better than 1 map where everything looks the same!), but it creates serious problems for the event flow.

On day 1 of this release we're seeing visual bugs galore making it difficult to see what's even happening on the Eparch fight and we critical events stalling out making it impossible to even reach the new meta.  I led a full squad through the east meta only to have the west meta escort just disappear mid-event.  Now that map instance is stalled out and 50 players wasted their time without even having a chance to see the new meta.  Why?  Because due to the split map design we have to slog through both of the previous metas just to unlock our shot at the new one.  This is extremely tedious, but not doing it that way would probably mean players who need the old metas would struggle to find maps where they can complete them.  None of this would be a problem if we had a full map for each release (except for the bugs which I hope will be fixed quickly!).

In any event, I just can't say I'm overall impressed with SotO.  The price is fair, but the content just isn't there.  I'd personally rather pay more to get more and I'm struggling to understand why we're saying we have a team as large as it was during LS4 but we can't deliver as much content as we saw with LS4.  What's going on over there?

[Justforvisit.3709]

5 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The additional releases is where things really went downhill.  The story is very short and seems to follow a pattern where event filler is used to delay completion and distract the mind from the fact that there just isn't much content and the narrative is very rushed.  Characters both critical and inconsequential are introduced and discarded within minutes if you ignore the time-gate filler.
 

Soooo much this! Anet really needs to stop doing that, it bothers the hell out of me as well.

Also, what an absurd idea to, after months of waiting, adding the final piece of the map and then making 95% of it inaccessible outside of the meta so we only can explore like 5% of it.....

....not to mention that going along with the weird decision to still not granting a Gift of Nayos for 100% Map completion...really saps out the little fun that could be had on this map outside of events and metas.

Dear Anet, if THIS is how the future of "Smaller Content for a Smaller Price" looks as you once stated, please revert to the old Add On system of HoT / PoF / EoD as soon as possible.
I'm very willing to wait longer and pay a bit more to get PROPER add ons again and not a glorified and even more boring Ice Brood Saga all over again.

[Randulf.7614]

I really liked SoTo up to Nayos. I felt like the team had moved onto other things after the first two maps. Nayos, the Kryptis and Eparch failed to live up to the build in - it's like Joko, Jormag, Primordus and the overall Dragon cycle + Void - all finished off as quickly as possible in order to move on.

A three way map split can't happen again though. They barely pulled it off with Dry Top and Silverwastes, but they had the advantage of being, clear in intentions, well linked by story instances and pioneering maps. Dual release maps work better if they must be split, but they need a reason for it and clear delineation. Like Drizzlewood did.

To be fair, I think they were on the right track with everything. It was just rushed, anti climatic and lacked the dynamic storytelling in the map the game grew from. I like the idea of lore books, but too much was told through them instead of by gameplay and ambience like it used to be. I can't work out if it's a new team trying to change GW2 because they don't "get it" or just leadership not being there to guide them

I absolutely got my money's worth. It just isn't the quality GW2 set itself. The team need to look at past glories and emulate them, even if they are producing less maps and shorter stories. Sacrificing quantity should mean greater quality, but we've lost both in the latter half of SoTo and filler has superceded written, coherent storytelling. In the end, there was no sense of victory or achievement for me.

I do like the focus on QoL though. They did at least achieve that goal. Putting aside the tooltip spam widely mentioned for many months, I'd say they over achieved in this area

[Manasa Devi.7958]

It seems I can't replay Eleventh Hour for achievements. When I restart the chapter and go to the instance entrance, I only get the option to just play it from the start. This is terrible. I don't want to do all of it again just to do a few silly little achievements.

Edited May 21 by Manasa Devi.7958

[Perisemiotics.4579]

I agree to an extent on the lower quantity and quality of the expansion overall but, we knew it was going to be subpar compared to the fuller xpacks of the past, so...
on the maps, I liked Amnytas when I first went in but it quickly became extremely repetitive to me. The concept is nice and even though there is indeed some variation from bastion to bastion, the map as a whole feels like one idea plopped up clockwise over and over. Visually, it also feels very narrow and bland.

Skywatch, despite all the blatant rehashing (I know, the fractals, it was meant to be, blah blah, but still, we know it was a "nice" way to shortcut development), has an interesting concept and the Beacon and the other wizard isles spruce it up a little more than a little. Still I feel like those wizard buildings and towers are unjustified in a way, being too big and elaborate for their small, empty surroundings.

Nayos is the best map in my isolated opinion 😛 the concept and design are very unique but the map just feels.... alive. With identity. Unlike the previous two where I can't shake off the feeling they were cobbled up together with some laziness... which is funny given the fact Nayos is the split map - but that shows a split map can be good if well planned and designed in advance, which seems to have been the case here. Bjora Marches and Drizzlewood were just as good, I don't really see the problem with split maps. The "pre-metas" have been curtailed, from the patch notes, which makes sense in light of the final meta. I did one of the first runs earlier today and it went without any problems, except for some fps drops now and then.

I like the collections, mainly for the story in them. The quality of the writing of the story overall, albeit short, was very high. As for characters vanishing too quick.... it's a short story. I think people don't consider those notes and books in the open world part of the "story"? Those pieces of lore are the more interesting ones to me, as well as the casual lines NPCs throw around - often they inform about the world and narrative more than the story chapters themselves. As just one example, one note for the Frode collection, in Rata Pten, had a very funny and sensible dialogue with the Asura scholar there (even though it's a vanilla area) and that single collection reveals more about Frode and Arina than all their lines through all the chapters.

Leggy armor grind is #%@*% but I won't worry about that, that's an MMO problem I guess, not specific to SotO. Overall I'm pleasantly surprised at how this all turned out. A year ago I came here to belittle this new model but I did say I hoped to be wrong, and now I feel like I was 😛 I guess I have less time to play now, life happens and so forth, so I feel like this new rhythm fits in better - but I'll say at times the dailies, weeklies, bonus events, WV, etc. feel a bit overwhelming. Just to wrap up I'd like to compliment the team and especially the writers for a very enjoyable time❣️ (And the Asura voice actors and actresses are just phenomenal.)

Looking forward to the next one!

[yumi.5170]

1 hour ago, Justforvisit.3709 said:

Dear Anet, if THIS is how the future of "Smaller Content for a Smaller Price" looks as you once stated, please revert to the old Add On system of HoT / PoF / EoD as soon as possible.
I'm very willing to wait longer and pay a bit more to get PROPER add ons again and not a glorified and even more boring Ice Brood Saga all over again.

Exactly this. I prefer waiting then getting that half-baked mini-expansion for almost the price of a full expac...

[Sobx.1758]

I'm ok with shorter story that doesn't drag out too much. But without change I don't like that dripfed expansion release, even moreso when the subsequent releases are 1/3s of the map. That's not enough content to cut it into smaller pieces.

Edited May 21 by Sobx.1758

[Kwith.8321]

I will give ANet credit for at least trying something new. They wanted to experiment with a different content delivery method and they did it. So I'll give credit where its due. Unfortunately, I'm having to agree though, the experiment did not work out as intended.

I get the whole "Smaller expansion for less", but this just felt like another chapter of LW. I hope the next one will be a bit better.

Also ANet, we don't need some massive "end of the world" event in an expansion either. You can make an expansion that just expands on the world and introduces us to different lands and people. You can still make it a threat, but you don't need to move the world every single time.

[Valaraukar.7652]

I agree with most of what people say. (specially with Randulf.7614)

As i said at release, i love the mystic/magic/ambiance (but as i said, it's because i love magic/myesterious things etc).
Soto started really well with sky and amnytas, but as lot of people said too, split the last map in 3 and the story too is a mistake. It was giving a feeling of lack content because of this cut on inner map.  And as people said too, the final look like rushed.

I prefer to wait a little more, than having cut "content" or rushed story.

I haven't regret to spend my money for this extension and support like that the team, but i hope that in the next expansion, we will haven't that again and that the team will take in consideration the constructive feedback of players when they are.

Now, i'm waiting with curiosity the next extension.

[Teknomancer.4895]

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The story is very short and seems to follow a pattern where event filler is used to delay completion and distract the mind from the fact that there just isn't much content and the narrative is very rushed. 

I'm already put off the release for this very reason, right out of the gate. I mean seriously, maybe five minutes of inconsequential dialogue and petty bickering followed by an immediate "go do events?" It's probably even less than that if you adjust for Peitha's annooooying habit of draaaaawing oouuut her voooowels. I'll finish it eventually, but I think I'll wait to resume the story until they fix some of the bigger bugs. Sadly the story::meta imbalance is baked in at this point.

Edited May 22 by Teknomancer.4895
clarity

[holodoc.5748]

Once the end credits were done I actually had to ask in map chat if SoTo was a paid expansion, because honestly I couldn't tell or even remember anymore.

A true testament to what an incredible waste of time and money it was.

Oh well... Fool me once, it's on ANet... Fool me 47 times, it's on me.

[darksome.1697]

I'm pretty disappointed they moved to the hours-long "complete two metas to get to do the third meta" path. Especially if the third, or any of the other metas fail. Let's face it, people just won't stick around for the extended period of time it takes and spend another set of hours to do it all again. And you know, if you've already done the first and second metas 100 times before, it's just a big ... "don't do metas when they are released, go do something else and wait until the map is complete" slap in the face. It's just not respectful of people's time they have spent, or are spending playing the game.

I was happy when they actually separated east and west metas in Inner, so these could be done separately, go for the one you want or need, and not be forced together, so I wasn't really expecting they would go back to this tedious time-consuming road.

Edited May 21 by darksome.1697

[pallas.8150]

******* AWFUL.

That's my review for the last part of this storyline. Glad it's over.

Plus: We learned what happened to Zojja. ❤️

Con: Nayos. Most everything else.

[Kumbaya.4689]

Feedback: SotO made IBS look good.

[Teknomancer.4895]

54 minutes ago, Amantiel.3542 said:

I think it can no longer be denied that there's barely anyone actively working on GW2 anymore, most of the heavy hitters are working on whatever the other projects are.

IDK that I'd go that far, it's pretty clear there's plenty going on with art, map & event design and so forth. The game's functionality and performance are being actively worked on and updated. From a basic technical standpoint, it's far from being what you say.

However, they do appear to have lost every single one of their writers who had any skill at storytelling.

[HotDelirium.7984]

3 hours ago, Kwith.8321 said:

I will give ANet credit for at least trying something new. They wanted to experiment with a different content delivery method and they did it. So I'll give credit where its due. Unfortunately, I'm having to agree though, the experiment did not work out as intended.

I get the whole "Smaller expansion for less", but this just felt like another chapter of LW. I hope the next one will be a bit better.

Also ANet, we don't need some massive "end of the world" event in an expansion either. You can make an expansion that just expands on the world and introduces us to different lands and people. You can still make it a threat, but you don't need to move the world every single time.

You gota have the staff and resources to pull off yearly expansions. If all you do is reuse assets because you have to...that shows the limitations. Dev's should be creating NEW assets beyond warrior staff skill 5 ._.

Im disappointed because you can see the potential in these expansions if they weren't working on other projects. 

[TexZero.7910]

SoTo is the GW2 equivalent of MCU phases 4 and 5.

That is to say mostly forgettable and utterly boring from a story perspective.

[Heibi.4251]

That 3rd meta was stupidly over tuned. Too much going on, too many mechanics. Who actually play tests this stuff?  You created a CM level meta. I thought the EOD one was bad when it was first released. You at least fixed that one so actual normal players could play it. You've outdone yourself on this one. You'll need to actually look at what normal players can actually do. This one is not doable in its current form by a regular group of players. I wonder how many successes it has so far? 

Edited May 22 by Heibi.4251

[Chyro.1462]

2 hours ago, Heibi.4251 said:

That 3rd meta was stupidly over tuned. Too much going on, too many mechanics. Who actually play tests this stuff?  You created a CM level meta. I thought the EOD one was bad when it was first released. You at least fixed that one so actual normal players could play it. You've outdone yourself on this one. You'll need to actually look at what normal players can actually do. This one is not doable in its current form by a regular group of players. I wonder how many successes it has so far? 

Maybe you just had a bad group as your first experience? And it's day 1, so most are new to it and don't know what they're doing. I joined a random east meta squad, ended up doing west meta too, then went into the 3rd meta out of curiosity. We cleared it without issue. Some people went down, some fully died but most came back using waypoint. It wasn't super hard to clear. May just really depend what mix of player you get on your map, since skill levels can vary greatly. There's also still groups failing convergences sometimes, so sometimes you just have a bad group. It happens.

Edited May 22 by Chyro.1462

[illuminati.8453]

Yeah, so having seen it all now, I have to say that these can no longer be called expansions in the traditional sense. These are absolutely living world seasons, and they should just own that. Sell them for cash or make them purchasable with gems, but don't market them as expansions—it just feels disingenuous.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

I pretty much agree with everything here. SOTO started very strong. The new setting, maps, and story were fun and refreshing. I liked the new characters, weapons, activities, vault, and explorable zones. Then the quality of the story and maps dropped off considerably. Nayos, while a decent map, was just presented with terrible releases. The filler bars were brutal and didn't really help us explore the zone well. The mechanical updates and QOL features were the only things worthwhile after the initial release.

My advice to the devs: Start strong like you did, then don't half kitten everything along the way. Pick your focus and give us something fleshed out and developed each update.

1. Set the stage with the initial release and story with maps. Bravo. Good job there.
2. Then use quarterly updates 2 and 3 for your feature updates, like new weapons, fractals, challenges, etc. No need for story and half a map that I can do in under an hour here. Geez.
3. Save the rest of the story and last map for the final update. Give it time to fully cook, so you can impress us with good and worthwhile content all at once to finish it off.

[Laughing Bat.1570]

I'd of probably liked this expansion more If it stopped at the end of the launch content +new weapons/obby armor.

The base release felt worth the money to me, I had an absolute blast in the first two maps and loved the storyline. But it plummited after that. My take on all of the Nayos content is that it's boring at best and it killed my enthusiasm for the expansion.

Granted, I expected this as soon as I learned it would be another split map. I don't wish death on whoever keeps pushing for this awful approach,  but I do hope that everyday feels like a long Monday and that they get stuck in traffic for hours everyday until they realize the error of their ways.

[QueenKeriti.5176]

I'm kinda sad about the SoTO story because it started really well, and I was excited. The releases just...killed it horribly. My lists below also aren't comprehensive; just some stuff off the top of my head

my personal The Good:

• Expac release story was great, pacing was great, premise was great, I was interested in most of the characters, seemed to have moved past Marvel-style writing that plagued EoD and Gyala.
• Skywatch is a pretty decent map, imo. The reuse of assets made canonical sense via "fractals pulled into reality," and I felt something resembling investment in the plights of the poor fractal occupants.
• We got a ton of good QoL updates with SoTO, big props there.
• Wizard's Vault
• Most of the voice acting was pretty good throughout; Lyhr's event in Amnytas makes me laugh with the VAs' deliveries of the debaters' lines.
• Accessible legendary armor
• I enjoyed a lot of the new cinematics
• Some of the achievement names/references made me giggle
• Weapons training
• More stuff that I can't immediately remember

my personal The Bad:

• Story quality dropped massively in the updates. Still trying to figure out why I should care about the Kryptis, their plight, and Eparch, especially when there were other far more interesting characters + storylines introduced with the first part of SoTO. It also feels like entire chunks of the story are missing, and too much context was moved to random books/interactables in random parts of the world vs within the story quests themselves. I've been left with way more questions than answers, and not in a good way.
• I was initially on board with Nayos being released in multiple parts, but...3 parts was too much with so little offered, and 3 part metas just aren't fun. 
• Wyvern bosses. There are too gd many wyvern bosses. Second place would be the Forged Runner reskin mobs/bosses. I hate those.
• Some of the achievements for getting MPs were awful. Some events are way too easy to fail, and others either have unclear spawn requirements or just spawn super rarely, to where you're stuck camping your event spot for 30+ mins waiting for it. Achievements that required a specific event to be done repeatedly that were in long event chains sucked, especially if the event chains included events that were easy to fail.
• Gating map comp behind events was bad enough in HoT and EoD; it didn't need to come back in SoTO. I am glad the two troublesome lanterns in Amnytas were moved!
• Some aspects of rifts; releasing without Convergences to offset the perceived rift grind seems to have been rough for players. Rifts get very samey and boring very fast, with little variety between rifts. Very unrewarding without expensive kryptis motivators + Convergences buff. Some of the mobs spawning out in Narnia is annoying; I don't need them to all spawn right on top of each other , but I hate having to chase mobs down that spawned 15 miles away from the rift and then have to come back to the main area to fight more mobs that spawned on the other end of Narnia.
• Everything is an HP sponge.
• Relics; deleting a core functionality to replace it with another artificial grind felt very KMMO, on top of how it took functionality away from an existing legendary item (runes). 

my personal Neutral:

• Amnytas, not bad, not great. Everything is very samey in design; the Bastions are very pretty, just samey. Top most waypoint is needed for best navigational experience.
• Nayos's aesthetics didn't bother me too much overall. Not a fan of the design of the map itself.
• Some of the new class weapons are nice; others, not so much.
• Rewards from metas aren't ultra amazing but aren't the worst. Way better than the PoF metas that I haven't even looked at since 2017. Also liked Skywatch/Amnytas metas more than Seitung/Kaineng/Echovald metas.
• Convergences themselves aren't bad, but the lack of enforcement/punishment towards AFK'ers is kind of potato, especially if you're unlucky enough to have too many AFK'ers in your Convergence. I also don't know how popular Convergences will be as SoTO ages, and they're pretty necessary to make the armor grind bearable. :/

Random additional:

• I love Snargle Goldclaw as much as anyone else, but putting his books in the middle of what are supposed to be emotional scenes is kind of jarring. This one wasn't as egregious as the Gyala story one since this one is more of a side achievement vs front-and-center in the story, but it was still off-putting. The "Haha, Eparch has a Snargle smut book in his library" just doesn't hit right with what the situation was. Timing, y'all!

[babak.3654]

I felt SotO started reasonably well, Skywatch Archipelago, Wizard's Tower were nice maps, lots of (rather obvious) asset re-use but a story reason was found for it and it sort of worked. Initial story was enjoyable, meeting the wizards and the first encounter with Cerus made a good impression. I enjoyed weaponmaster specialisation, being able to equip any weapon on any specialisation has been fun even if it hasn't been so good for balance. Some of the new weapons are ok. I also ended up liking the Wizard's Vault system much more than I thought I would. Those are the pluses. I already had Skyscale from LS4 so that aspect didn't matter to me.

The negatives ... the whole thing took a nose-dive in the subsequent patches and this most recent (final) story installment was probably the worst thing I have played in some time. Eparch's palace in the story instance looked like someone designed it in Minecraft. Inner Nayos is incredibly boring to play in and I really disliked how the Kryptis were handled generally. Wizards vs nightmare demons is a fine concept but for it to work, your nightmare demons should be inexplicable, unrelenting monsters. Giving them badly written, human melodrama and motivations ruins the whole thing. The culmination of the story left me wondering why any of us bothered with the story at all.

I must comment specifically on the SotO rewards. There are going to be a good chunk of people who do not care about PvE legendary armour, either they already have legendary from another mode, or like me they've just come to the conclusion they just don't need it. It really feels like there is no value in spending more time on these maps, as not only are they less fun than previous expansions, I also don't seem to be able to earn anything worthwhile by playing on them.

I've taken some long breaks from the game, didn't purchase EoD or SoTo at launch due to them looking disappointing, but ultimately changed my mind due to (mostly) nostalgia ... there is a nice feeling coming back to a game and characters you've played for 10+ years even if the current content isn't the best. But honestly? SotO has me really pessimistic about the next 'expansion'. Either this new way of delivering content doesn't work (you can't fit development into one year so prepping the next expansion is causing you to rush the later patches to the current one) or you have a skeleton team working on GW2 (again!) and your main efforts are going elsewhere ... or perhaps both of those.

People will (reasonably) say £22 isn't a lot to pay for content, and I tend to agree, but whether it's a lot of content or a small amount of content, doesn't really matter if we what get isn't even good.

[Zok.4956]

7 hours ago, Kumbaya.4689 said:

Feedback: SotO made IBS look good.

Of course it wasn't all bad in SotO. But SotO even makes EoD look good. And I thought back then that after the low point of EOD (in which the devs worked a lot alone in the home office because of Covid-19, which affected the quality), the next expansions would be better and more consistent.