SotO Feedback [Merged]

[Blazing Rathalos.1904]

1 LW episode worth of map area and story spread over 3 updates was a bad idea.  It's spread so thin that it is clearly a bad experience for players coming back to play it. In addition, it creates 3 artificial "breaks" in the both the map and storyline. That effort spent re-adjusting the metas once all three are in together? Wasted dev time. Those parts of story where we need to catch up with what has been going on in our supposed absence? Wasted dev time. Overall, I think the more or less ~3 LW episodes of content are worth the price of SotO, but the "3rd episode" could have been much better if they had spent their time more wisely.

My initial hope when I heard of the quarterly updates plan was that the third map would be released in just one or two updates. The "spare quarterly release(s)" would just involve things like the mechanical updates (new weapons), Fractals, Strike Missions (CM), expanded convergences and Rifts, updates to the first two maps, etc. Story could also have been limited to just those one or two updates, or they could have added story instances in existing maps (core or SotO initial release). The map-less quarterly release should probably be the first one, since the original two maps are still reltively fresh at that point.

I still really hope they can do this for future expansions!

 

As for the writers:

If you don't have the screentime to properly develop a plot point (and you should know this!), don't start it! (Looking at you, Irja).

[kharmin.7683]

4 hours ago, babak.3654 said:

 

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.

 

So much this for me and my friends.  SotO rewards were worthless for us as we don't care about legendary items.  I rarely go to these maps now.  I haven't even logged in to try the latest release yet.  Someone mentioned most of the map being gated behind a meta event?  If that's the case, I may not even make that effort since opening the map won't really be rewarding for me anyway. 

So, yeah, this is a disappointment.  The only map I enjoyed was Skywatch because of the different areas, but even then I often spend more time in central Tyria.  I can't even utilize the Wizards' Tower because of the janky graphics that I have to deal with there.  It's an eyesore and not worth my time to try to muddle around on that map.

Reading the comments above me, I hope that Anet really takes them to heart and makes some positive adjustments going forward.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

8 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

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.

I'm going to echo this. Focus on a strong start with 2 strong maps with strong storytelling and a few masteries, have the second update bring content goodies like Fractals, Strikes, whatever extra new features the expac is to have, then the third update be a third full map with a well fleshed out story along with a few remaining features, or even a whole mastery line.

The previous update was really just the Leggy armor update, lets be real. This last update, was just so poorly done... The past two updates could have been released together as one.

[misterman.1530]

Possible Spoilers:

So, after you start this chapter by talking (unskippable dialog for the win!), you have to do a bunch of random stuff that you've already done before to get to the next stage (so not really "new" content). Then you do a couple of generic fights. Then you face Eparch. 10 min later everything is done. The longest parts are the random stuff you have to do before you can get to the 2nd stage, and talking to everyone (some more unskippable dialog...yay!) and discover points of lore while the credits roll. That's it.

Without the random stuff to fill the green bar, this whole chapter is done in, what,. 30 min tops?

But now we have to do a meta to progress back into the citadel we just successfully attacked to get a mastery point, View point, and some points of interest.

Yikes.

[RoseofGilead.8907]

9 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? 

Yes, it's a bit overtuned (especially the CC bar) and does not try to explain the mechanics you need to do. But it quickly becomes obvious that all you need to do is DPS the boss (and CC when it's time) and close portals. I did three attempts with just random players, starting with one right after the patch went in, and all three succeeded. One cut it very close (1 minute left), but we still got it done. It's 100% doable.

[Derktarlms.6213]

10 hours ago, TexZero.7910 said:

SoTo es el equivalente GW2 de las fases 4 y 5 de MCU.

Es decir, en su mayor parte olvidable y absolutamente aburrido desde la perspectiva de la historia.

If they sell, what will prevent them from doing the same thing again.

Edited May 22 by Derktarlms.6213

[HotDelirium.7984]

10 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

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.

You also can't tell me they didn't just take a flashback instance and make that the new fractal instead of making something completely new.

[HotDelirium.7984]

38 minutes ago, Derktarlms.6213 said:

If they sell, what will prevent them from doing the same thing again.

Catch 22- you can't control how or what they release to a degree and then we REALLY can't if we stop buying them and it goes into maintenance mode. So yeah no idea about what to do.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

Catch 22- you can't control how or what they release to a degree and then we REALLY can't if we stop buying them and it goes into maintenance mode. So yeah no idea about what to do.

Don't get strongarmed into paying for the bad stuff just because you'd rather not have it even worse. If it's bad, it's bad. If you pay for it, you support it being bad (and potentially getting even worse, because now they know they can get away with lowering quality).

[Futa.4375]

14 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Don't get strongarmed into paying for the bad stuff just because you'd rather not have it even worse. If it's bad, it's bad. If you pay for it, you support it being bad (and potentially getting even worse, because now they know they can get away with lowering quality).

This is my main issue, behind what they will pretend they have learned (=PR talk), what they really have learned with SotO is that they can get away with a bad and lazy "expansion" and will attempt to do even worse next time, see how far they can push it.

[HotDelirium.7984]

26 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Don't get strongarmed into paying for the bad stuff just because you'd rather not have it even worse. If it's bad, it's bad. If you pay for it, you support it being bad (and potentially getting even worse, because now they know they can get away with lowering quality).

I wouldn't say that's entirely accurate because many of us paid a year ago and are just now seeing our...investment not live up to our hopes. Outcome is still the same I suppose regardless if we gambled upfront.

[Astralporing.1957]

3 minutes ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

I wouldn't say that's entirely accurate because many of us paid a year ago and are just now seeing our...investment not live up to our hopes. Outcome is still the same I suppose regardless if we gambled upfront.

I'm talking more about the next expansion. But, still, the warnings were visible even before SotO launch, but way too many people chose to ignore them claiming that "this time it will definitely work out". I hope noone will be so naive this time.

[Ashantara.8731]

(Source)

Oof...

Let me start off by saying that the entirety of Inner Nayos should have been a single release, not being spread thin across three mini-releases, which were artificially bloated by adding way too many time-grinding filler events and achievements that were zero fun to do only to make it look like "more content". Calling them "major updates" was a straight-out marketing lie.

On to the meta event chain:

Half of the time I was asking myself why I was doing what I was currently doing during a fight. The center and west metas are the most chaotic meta events I have witnessed in the entire game. Tons of mechanics overlapping, you are taking damage from half a dozen sources at once and have no idea how to counter them. Having to read through constantly popping up lengthy tutorial texts in the midth of all the action surely isn't a good way to teach people the mechanics (especially when those texts cover 1/5 of the screen) -- it is more likely to get players killed, and they will learn near nothing from it for the next run.

Honestly, whoever designed these has no idea how to design fun metas. It looked like they were just trying to show off how many mechanics they can cramp into a single event in the name of visual clutter and chaos. Job accomplished!

6 hours ago, HorusLt.4612 said:

Like for many others  skyscale masteries and weapon additions were the best part for me, but I'm sitting and asking myself- what's the point of getting the expac if I'm going to use those features in X year old content and the new areas just make me want to be done with achievements asap and never come back to them.

I stopped doing SotO achievements after Update 1, because I didn't see a point in continuing to waste my time on the most mind-numbingly boring map/story/achievement content in the entire game.

Even DRMs and Gyala Delve were more fun than Nayos...

_____________________________________________

P.S. The best part of what has been relesed within the past three SotO Updates were all the fine QoL features and updates. Thanks for those.

Edited May 22 by Ashantara.8731

[Randulf.7614]

One note of positivity for SoTo - Nourys of the Abyss and the final boss of the new meta are super cool looking bosses. I can't tell you what was going on during the last fight mind you, but he looked superb. Nourys though might just be my favourite looking boss in GW2 in terms of visuals

[Izzy.2951]

For me not even the initial launch of SoTo felt strong. Obviusly it was more engaging that the rest of the releases, but still.

When i entered the new maps i was blown away with the assets reuse, and the "oh, ive seen and completed this event plenty of times" (copy paste events/mechanics). Skywatch was a bit of "oh well they justified all of this cos they are fractals", Amnytas and the Wizards Tower is literally 2 textures copypasted all around really bad optimized (not really beautiful or interesting for me). Metas... were really boring. Story was interesting initially, rewards were decent i guess. Strikes were a straight downgrade to instanced content, really boring aswell (ive been here done that and with better quality).

Overall i cant find a moment where ive think SoTo was a good expansion at all. I would rather see them focus in less thigns and go back to HoT/PoF quality, even if they need to increase price to 30 euros and hire a few new devs. Also QoL updates should focus hard stuff that affects the gameplay, like LFG, raids and other different various things that would improve the experience. Honestly as cool as action camera sounds, the game is literally the same, it didnt change something sustantial of the game.

Cheers

Edited May 22 by Izzy.2951

[agnlaa.7594]

I think SotO started off good, if not truly great. Certainly not on HoT's level, but I was excited on release and very interested to see what they were going to do. Maybe if I hadn't been so optimistic initially I wouldn't have been so cynical by the time of yesterday's update, but after updates 1 and 2 the only things I was excited for were a wizard vault refresh and to be done with this expansion altogether.

Looking at it as a whole, I feel it's the worst thing we've gotten. IBS had the same problem, with people loving Grothmar and Bjora, even Drizzlewood, but hating Champions. Champions was only 5 months of disappointment, though, compared to SotO's 6.5 months over 3 updates. Nayos could've been so cool, and instead it's just awful. Champions had a lot of boring stuff, but SotO is filled with actively bad, unenjoyable content. Trash mob swarms with ridiculous HP, turrets that you have to mount to take out (but only possible every 3 minutes in combat, a longer time than their respawn rate), the constant pulls/pushes, that hilariously bad final meta we got subjected to.

Right now I'm waiting to run Skywatch meta, then I'll run Amnytas, then I'll make the last piece of medium armour and probably not touch this expansion again for a few years. I don't care about the achievements I haven't finished, I just want to go back to literally any other part of the game. I've seen a similar sentiment from a lot of people, that we just want to be done with it, and that's the opposite of how you want your players to feel less than 48 hours after a content release.

On the whole, SotO is more than bad, it's embarrassing. It's the kind of thing you leave off your resume when you're trying to get a new job in the same industry.

[firedragon.8953]

SotO started off great in my opinion. Then it became very lackluster from the standpoint of narrative and design (both assets and gameplay). Anet really has to work on their narrative structure. Additionally, reutilizing assets can be done well, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't look like a deliberate shortcut (kryptis). Maybe sticking with humans and other pre-existing race models is better than making a "new" race of creatures that feel very "old." I also miss more actual more map exploration. All the maps just seem like an arena designed for the meta. Where's the little caves, the holes in the ground that open up into caverns, etc.?
Most of of the other pain points have already been touched on my many others, so I'm going to just leave it at that for the negatives.

With the release of the final patch, there are a few things that I am happy about though. The new mastery got rid of the pain points of the arcane chest mini game. This was a good design choice since it provides a temporary challenge of novelty with the mini-game but also enables a way to prevent too much monotony since the chest unlock mini-game get's boring pretty fast. The game itself has been polished with graphics and interface settings, and since the last patch... I don't really know why but the game just seems to run and look better. Weapon mastery was an interesting addition (but traits still need tweaking for some professions, e.g., warrior utilities and trait lines, to be more than a meme/gimmick). 

Overall SotO was a 4/10 for me. It did bring some good things, but the quality of content just wasn't there. I also feel the long standing intrigue of Wizard's Tower was "wasted" and had much more potential. While much needed improvements were made to the game (honestly, kudos to that), "new content" was very poor for a paid "expansion."

[Ultramex.1506]

Ooff, it's certainly mid, not enough to declare "gAmE iZ dEAd" like a doomer but not enough to keep me around or call me back. Worst is the OW Legendary armors being the selling point but i already have full set from WvW, Skyscale upgrade was cool though, loved new weapons addition ( when will we get new traits?), wish the meta was a bit more challenging. I don't mind if the rest of the update only focus on 1 map like Silverwaste, but ehhhhh.

Edited May 23 by Ultramex.1506

[Hotride.2187]

To me it was a meh expansion at the price of a big indie game. I'd rather play the indie game at this point. Game has too many core problems for a meh expansion to do anything for me. Same with EoD btw and that one was full price.

[Futa.4375]

In the end do we even know what are the "Secrets of the Obscure"?

[Inssengrimm.7924]

13 minutes ago, Futa.4375 said:

In the end do we even know what are the "Secrets of the Obscure"?

The number of people actually working in GW2. 

[Changer the Elder.2948]

I really liked the initial expansion release – Wizards Vault was a great addition, the maps were both really cool, the new mechanics were interesting, and I still like the new expansion format (their shortened lifespan mean that the story keeps moving forward at a decent pace and we get to be free of the Kryptis after just a year instead of wallowing in the purple haze for 2-3 years like we had to with the tar pits of PoF or the green hell of Jade tech).

There's plenty to improve still though. Splitting the map into 3 parts was definitely a mistake. I would very much prefer if Nayos was split in just two, and the final update focused just on the story finale instead of also having to finetune a new meta event and map area. The biggest draw of a new map piece is exploration, and not only does this place look the same, but it's not even free to explore outside of a pain-in-the-neck-to-get-to meta event, so it's a bust for player engagement.

The final map is also nothing to write home about as a whole. Everything is the same purple. Purple floor, purple haze in the air, purple enemies, purple flowers. I grew to hate the concept the same as I was fed up of constant "brand and tar pits" of latter Path of Fire and "eyesore green" of dragonjade and overtuned grass everywhere in Cantha. I really hope that wherever we go next, there will be some interesting variety in its biome.

The story was a massive drop post the initial expansion, but mostly for the reasons present in the expansion itself. Once again, the set up was just not. there. The initial story made a massive bank on the player caring about Zojja, which is a tall order for me as I main a charr and as a commander, I literally met the character once, where I experienced her being an abrasive rude git in one dungeon instance (I know the dungeon stories are technically part of the vanilla story, so I could have experienced full on three moments of her being an abrasive rude git, but it's not like the game asks me to do those and I suspect many players, especially newer ones, haven't...). When she started berating me for not going after her, I really missed a dialogue option to go "lady, I barely know you, why the hells should I". The supposed massacre of the Ward (that was now also turned into a fractal) also falls completely flat when I'm just informed in passing that there's a few people dead, I haven't seen them or met them, I never will, but a couple of characters who literally just appeared and I don't know them are sad about it, so "you should too, player".

There's also the little things that Guild Wars constantly fails, like making its mounts a proper part of the story. There was a perfect opportunity presenting itself to keep Skyscale (the vanilla skin) unique to LS4's story and lore, and have the wizards use the widely-available Manticore variant of the mount instead. It would add a reason for those who did LS4 to do the collection again for another unique skin instead of just for completion's sake, it would give the Astral Ward more of a unique feel to them instead of a "I know we sold the skyscales as being a thing unique to Dragonfall's story, but here's a quick excuse why it was okay to just copypaste them here". I like that they're in the wild now, too, which is a step in the right direction, but I will still yearn for that golden opportunity that I see there.

And the biggest pain point are the Kryptis and their writing. We started with eldritch abomination setup of creatures that literally have to feed on raw emotion. What we got were badly designed (sorry, but if I show you a screenshot of a cluster of those, I bet even the devs who made them will struggle to tell where one of these things ends and another ten start, and that just IS bad design) and badly written human-court-type kind of drama people. They were written as purely human, as just another Krytan Queen scheme with a fleshy skin, while the story just very obnoxiously constantly touted that "no no no these are totally not human, these are horrible beings you can't begin to understand, see" and had nothing to show for it. Joko was more successful in feeling inhuman, and I don't really like that plot, either.

Oh, and there was literally no reason to trust Peitha (even keep her secret from actual proven allies!) except "the plot said so". Which is always a really dumb reason.

P.S. Reskinning existing enemy rigs is fine. Every game does that, it's a healthy thing for both the engine and the resource economy. Spraypainting the same wyvern with neon red-yellow paint and calling it done is not. Triply so when it's done three bloody times. At least adjust the model, like you did with Ignis and Aestus, for crying out loud. Ignis and Aestus are cool. Knaebalag and Sorrow are just vandalized.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

This article (in German) the author is disappointed by Soto:

https://www.buffed.de/Guild-Wars-2-Spiel-17072/Kolumnen/Story-Secrets-of-the-Obscure-1447753/

not because of the mediocre maps, or the mediocre dialogue or the mediocre pacing. It is the story. The kryptis. The characters.

Just throw google translate at it, if you do not understand the best language there is. 

 

That said: 

I was done with story in 1h. And that included vaping breaks and thinking about the good times. Back in Hot, Pof, Lw3, Lw4.

All my previous grievances were of course unadressed. Nothing new here. Of course we had to do some filler map events, because the dev team either lacked the ressources or could not be arsed to make something for the story. The story steps in itself were... a catastrophe? Listen to blabla-boring-stupid-stuff-the-game-wants-me-to-care-about. Fighting trash mobs. More-boring-blabla-by-characters-I-do-not-care-about. Fighting trash mobs. Blablabla. oh, Frode is here. Why should I care about him again? Blabla. Trash. Use the heart. Blabla poor kryptis (who were supposed to be mind boggling demons). Fight this and that. Eparch. 

At least the design of the map(s) inside of Eparch's hideout was not too bad. Lots of spaces - the show of luxus and power is wasting space for nothing - so that was fine.

f course the one I want to kick in the face shows up and saves the day. Hooray. Not. I AM THE HERO. WHY ARE YOU SABOTAGING ME AGAIN WITH 'HELP' FROM Isgarren?

Now more blabla. Lots of blabla. Unending streams of blabla.

Galtrath is his unlikeable self. A real hero would have decapitated him a long time ago. Now is the chance to verbally castrate him. And.... nothing. We just take it. WTH?

Zojja is praised - for what? Did I miss something? Why should I care about that arrogant little kitten again? I met her maybe three or four times - including the dungeons - before HoT and none of those moments were pleasant. So WHY?

Isgarren - same as with Galrath or Galrat or Ghalrat or whatever that undead kitten is called - HE DESERVES to be verbally torn apart. He DESERVES to be physically torn apart. And nothing. Nothing at all. 

Talking to lots of npcs I do not care about. 

Kryptis being cutesy.

 

This was a cf. A real cf. A perfect storm of missed opportunities and bad decisions, mixed with boring, repetive pseudo-content. 

So far I bought the deluxe edition of every expac first chance I could. I will not do this again. Soto was THAT bad.

I was very constructive last time:

but to be honest, this installment was in many ways worse. No bugs, but oh boy was it shallow, unispiring and bland. I havent done the meta so far. And to be honest, I am not feeling it. At all.

 

For the writers: being ironic and have the pc being everybodies kitten, being abused and sent on menial tasks every rando could do is not good story telling. It does not make for a compelling story to pull the players along. We play these games to feel good. Not to be some little asstards kitten. What you are doing does not pull players in, it makes players to want to quit.

Remember that for the future. 

Edited May 23 by VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.

[Edge.1653]

Isgarren coming in to Tuxedo Mask at the end of the expansion is just the poop cherry on top of the poop sundae of this story : /

[Ashantara.8731]

11 hours ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

The number of people actually working in GW2. 

Well, the credits looked rather impressive for "too few people" working on GW2. 😉 I didn't pay attention, though, whether the credits ran more than once. 😁