Homestead's Wild?

[Alpacasso.5284]

With the new expansion around the corner and more information we get about the Homestead feature, I'm growing concerned about the upcoming Janthir's Wilds: Will the Homestead become so central to the developers that other features, like Raids, new PvP modes, storytelling, and overall gameplay, become neglected?

This concern isn't baseless. It's easier for developers to focus on content they believe most players will enjoy. Given that 50% of the discussion on the JW forum revolves around the Homestead, it's likely Anet will put their resources on this feature. Will we end up with another "fill-the-green-bar" story gameplay and a final boss that barely moves but takes an hour to kill? Will the new Raid just be a harder copy of the Story, similar to Strikes?

Many of my friends loved the first part of the SOTO Story but were disappointed by its storytelling development. While the Homestead is nice, it's a minor feature for most players and shouldn't become the main focus of this expansion. I hope my concerns are unfounded and JW ends up great.

[Danikat.8537]

Have you seen the article about the story and setting of the new expansion: https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/the-bear-necessities-a-peek-at-the-lowland-kodan-and-the-story-of-janthir-wilds/

One important detail that's relevant here is that it's written by two people whose job titles are Narrative Lead and Story Design Lead. That tells us at least two people are purely responsible for the story telling and unlikely to have anything to do with homesteads. That's almost certainly how it works with raids, PvP and everything else - they're being developed by different teams, not competing for time and attention with homesteads.

[Parasite.5389]

30 minutes ago, Apacasso.6971 said:

This concern isn't baseless. It's easier for developers to focus on content they believe most players will enjoy. Given that 50% of the discussion on the JW forum revolves around the Homestead,

what other information do you suggest we discuss?  because right now we have a lot of information about homesteading and a little information about the kodan; we've so far had nothing about the new Raid, changes to the Warclaw, or other narrative information about Janthir as a whole.

you're concern is pretty baseless

[Alpacasso.5284]

3 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Have you seen the article about the story and setting of the new expansion: https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/the-bear-necessities-a-peek-at-the-lowland-kodan-and-the-story-of-janthir-wilds/

One important detail that's relevant here is that it's written by two people whose job titles are Narrative Lead and Story Design Lead. That tells us at least two people are purely responsible for the story telling and unlikely to have anything to do with homesteads. That's almost certainly how it works with raids, PvP and everything else - they're being developed by different teams, not competing for time and attention with homesteads.

yes im aware that there are teams working independently, but that is was more likely also the case for Soto. its fair to say that soto was the first attempt of their one year expansion format, but one can clearly see that they focused more on strikes and WV above anything else

[Alpacasso.5284]

7 minutes ago, Parasite.5389 said:

what other information do you suggest we discuss?  because right now we have a lot of information about homesteading and a little information about the kodan; we've so far had nothing about the new Raid, changes to the Warclaw, or other narrative information about Janthir as a whole.

you're concern is pretty baseless

they are teating Homestead like the big feature to come, and barely released any information about other topics. Maybe they will in the next week, and prove me wrong.

[yoni.7015]

48 minutes ago, Apacasso.6971 said:

it's a minor feature for most players

How do you know that? Isn’t the fact that so many discussions are about Homesteads that this isn’t a minor feature for players? 

[Alpacasso.5284]

22 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

How do you know that? Isn’t the fact that so many discussions are about Homesteads that this isn’t a minor feature for players? 

only few of the players in my guild and of all players i know and heard are interested in decorating their home and most of them didn't bought the expansion just for Homestead. I myself am hyped for the new home, but if thats at cost of other content, then i don't see a point. Just my two cents.

[Quench.7091]

27 minutes ago, Parasite.5389 said:

what other information do you suggest we discuss?  because right now we have a lot of information about homesteading and a little information about the kodan; we've so far had nothing about the new Raid, changes to the Warclaw, or other narrative information about Janthir as a whole.

you're concern is pretty baseless

I'm fully expecting a warclaw overview. Not just for their abilities, but there are some mysteries about the warclaw itself. Multiple cultures throughout history had touched the warclaw armor design and the Priory has not been able to locate the origin of the beast. They've been used in ancient mist wars and eventually got lost in time. Janthir might contain some clues as to their origin.

[Alpacasso.5284]

warclaws also have good synergy with the spear, cant wait to see how they implement that into PVE.

[b k.1648]

The discussions around homesteads only started after the feature was announced. Two months before release, the content for JW has to be over 90% done to make the deadline. So, what we say now is way too late to have any effect on the scoping of features in this expansion.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

To me, most of the discussions are about the new Spear weapon.

Also, how can the Devs think Homestead is a 'minor feature for most players' and also what 'most players enjoy' so that's where their focus lies?  And...is it really the way Devs develop the game by working only on one feature (Homestead) at a time?  If the Devs had released more information on the Raid, or the Warclaw and most threads/posts would be about those, would there be the same concern? 

[Omega.6801]

5 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Have you seen the article about the story and setting of the new expansion: https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/the-bear-necessities-a-peek-at-the-lowland-kodan-and-the-story-of-janthir-wilds/

One important detail that's relevant here is that it's written by two people whose job titles are Narrative Lead and Story Design Lead. That tells us at least two people are purely responsible for the story telling and unlikely to have anything to do with homesteads. That's almost certainly how it works with raids, PvP and everything else - they're being developed by different teams, not competing for time and attention with homesteads.

A Narrative Lead and a Story Design Lead dev are not the people who come up with mechanics for a raid boss or the pacing of an open world meta event. Afaik those are the people who write the story, set story beats and maybe have a say in the rough design of story steps and instances.
They are the people who write "and then the Commander will fight an army of Kryptis alongside of their new ally, general Nephus". They are not the same persons who answer to that "sorry we don't have the resources to realize an army Kryptis in this shor amount of time, we can give you three groups of five".
Narrative Leads and Story Design Leads are visionaries, they imagine grandiose and epic things, which is why they are perfect for such a video. But they are not responsible for implementing them.

So unless I've seen something else, I fully expect this "expansion" to be 75% about Homesteads with everything else being an afterthought. I think it willl be like the Legendary Armor in SotO. Probably the whole reward structure of the "expansion" will be designed around Homesteads and if you like this key feature, you'll be fine. If you don't however, well, rewards will feel boring and useless. Like in SotO. The "fill a green bar"-steps will most likely return as well, not because of Homesteads, but because of the new distribution model that leaves no time to develop actual gameplay, aftre all, people are probably already working on next years "expansion", so no one has time for anything. Got to churn out those "expansions" every year now, you know.

[Danikat.8537]

2 hours ago, Omega.6801 said:

A Narrative Lead and a Story Design Lead dev are not the people who come up with mechanics for a raid boss or the pacing of an open world meta event. Afaik those are the people who write the story, set story beats and maybe have a say in the rough design of story steps and instances.
They are the people who write "and then the Commander will fight an army of Kryptis alongside of their new ally, general Nephus". They are not the same persons who answer to that "sorry we don't have the resources to realize an army Kryptis in this shor amount of time, we can give you three groups of five".
Narrative Leads and Story Design Leads are visionaries, they imagine grandiose and epic things, which is why they are perfect for such a video. But they are not responsible for implementing them.

So unless I've seen something else, I fully expect this "expansion" to be 75% about Homesteads with everything else being an afterthought. I think it willl be like the Legendary Armor in SotO. Probably the whole reward structure of the "expansion" will be designed around Homesteads and if you like this key feature, you'll be fine. If you don't however, well, rewards will feel boring and useless. Like in SotO. The "fill a green bar"-steps will most likely return as well, not because of Homesteads, but because of the new distribution model that leaves no time to develop actual gameplay, aftre all, people are probably already working on next years "expansion", so no one has time for anything. Got to churn out those "expansions" every year now, you know.

That is an example. I am not suggesting those two people are making everything in the expansion except the homesteads, that would clearly be absurd.

The point is game studios are not a uniform mass of people who all do bits of everything, there are different skill sets and specialisations, so just like they have people whose entire job is to lead a team working on the narrative and story design there will be teams of people working on raids and open-world events and each of the other things in the expansion.

We have not yet had detailed articles about their work, likely because Anet want to space out the promotion throughout the time until the expansion is released, but that's no reason to assume they don't exist and no one is doing that work.

[Randulf.7614]

15 hours ago, Alpacasso.5284 said:

they are teating Homestead like the big feature to come, and barely released any information about other topics. Maybe they will in the next week, and prove me wrong.

They've barely discussed Homesteads despite the fact this is a huge feature. It will be the biggest thing (and amongst the most requested ever) that will sell the expac over anything else announced so far. We've heard more about Spears than anything else - even had a BETA for it

All expacs tend to have a feature they build around that's bigger than anything else. HoT was the mastery sysem and esp gliding (although I concede it did have a variety of strong features given it was laying groundwork). PoF had mounts which was a complete game changer. EoD is a bit more broad and that was heavily criticised as no feature felt like an expansion seller (it sold around Cantha more than anything else). SoTo sold around the Skyscale. JW is selling around Homesteads. So only EoD is the anomaly since it sold around setting and not features.

Spears and Warclaws aren't big expansion sellers. Raids aren't coming straight away so that's not a big feature to build on either. Homesteads definitely is a main focus and we have barely heard much about them (not necs a bad thing though)

[quake.9023]

there needs to be more things to talk n hype about, its 36days left.....and the JW post is only reached 3k today..... with soto n eod at 19k n 14k. this train needs more fuel... and fast

[Omega.6801]

5 hours ago, quake.9023 said:

there needs to be more things to talk n hype about, its 36days left.....and the JW post is only reached 3k today..... with soto n eod at 19k n 14k. this train needs more fuel... and fast

They're doing land-spears too. Are you hyped-up now?

[Pifil.5193]

11 hours ago, quake.9023 said:

there needs to be more things to talk n hype about, its 36days left.....and the JW post is only reached 3k today..... with soto n eod at 19k n 14k. this train needs more fuel... and fast

I think SotO held more uncertainties for people, I think we know far much more about what to expect in Janthir Wilds and how it will be delivered right now than we did about SotO this time last year.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

What was the post count on SotO or EoD at 36 days out?  Hardly fair to compare posts a year or two after creation to one so recent, no? 

[Pifil.5193]

50 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

What was the post count on SotO or EoD at 36 days out?  Hardly fair to compare posts a year or two after creation to one so recent, no? 

I'm not sure how many there were but I just had a quick look at the SotO forum. There are a whole lot of posts about the removal of the old Daily Rewards, the introduction of the Wizard's Vault, about splitting the sixth tier Rune effect onto Relics, about the Legendary armour with a lot of to and fro.

I'm not surprised that there's are fewer posts here as Janthir Wilds it's much less controversial. 

[Danikat.8537]

9 hours ago, Pifil.5193 said:

I'm not sure how many there were but I just had a quick look at the SotO forum. There are a whole lot of posts about the removal of the old Daily Rewards, the introduction of the Wizard's Vault, about splitting the sixth tier Rune effect onto Relics, about the Legendary armour with a lot of to and fro.

I'm not surprised that there's are fewer posts here as Janthir Wilds it's much less controversial. 

This is a good illustration of how forum posts aren't a good gauge of overall opinions. It's much easier to generate conversation about something controversial (or confusing) than something everyone likes because "this looks good" "yes, I like it too" doesn't encourage much of a response, it's much easier to get a discussion going when people have different opinions.

That usually makes the overall sentiment of any forum seem negative, but it's rarely accurate. Most people won't spend much, or any, time talking about something they genuinely don't like or care about. You'd have to have a very sad life with nothing else going on to waste your time doing that, so most people who complain about whatever the subject of the forum is obviously do like it enough to devote time to discussing it, even if most of what they want to discuss is the parts they don't like.

[Zera.9435]

You're not wrong in that the homestead is the selling point of JW, but rest assured that they have different people dedicated for each main feature. Raids are not something new to them, nor is pvp. As far as why they haven't released more details about those things yet, well they can't give everything away can they? Besides, they already said that the pvp stuff is coming in one of the later release chunks, not initially. I expect the same thing for the raids. Expect to wait a couple of months for more details on the raid and the pvp.

[Kelly.7019]

On 7/14/2024 at 4:35 AM, Alpacasso.5284 said:

With the new expansion around the corner and more information we get about the Homestead feature, I'm growing concerned about the upcoming Janthir's Wilds: Will the Homestead become so central to the developers that other features, like Raids, new PvP modes, storytelling, and overall gameplay, become neglected?

This concern isn't baseless. It's easier for developers to focus on content they believe most players will enjoy. Given that 50% of the discussion on the JW forum revolves around the Homestead, it's likely Anet will put their resources on this feature. Will we end up with another "fill-the-green-bar" story gameplay and a final boss that barely moves but takes an hour to kill? Will the new Raid just be a harder copy of the Story, similar to Strikes?

Many of my friends loved the first part of the SOTO Story but were disappointed by its storytelling development. While the Homestead is nice, it's a minor feature for most players and shouldn't become the main focus of this expansion. I hope my concerns are unfounded and JW ends up great.

well they already made it before they "gauged" the player reaction. "Given that 50% of the discussion on the JW forum revolves around the Homestead"

I'd assume homesteading will replace rifts this time around that does seem to be the prime focus, but also because (i assume) homestead are tied to all other areas (to collect recipes) I mean one would imagine this to be the case.

"Will we end up with another "fill-the-green-bar" story gameplay" again already designed and maybe if pushing out 1 xpac a year means less time to develop things.

"While the Homestead is nice, it's a minor feature for most players" its not minor for most players based on the reaction and volume its talked about. for some sure it is a minor thing for others its end game content. <<< and by this i mean its how you look at it. will it just be a place for you to stop by and collect nodes and bail like guild halls? I' don' think that is the point of this place btw. or will it be a place you spend lots of time in decorating. I can already tell you more so that. I've already spent hundreds of hours of my life (heh) in guild halls. but Homesteads from what they've showed us is another fashion wars concept. and as you know guild wars is all about the fashion wars.

There is potential for a whole new community to rise up outta this. even bigger then the beetle racing community niche. much like that didn't existed prior to beetle mounts, i see something like a multitude of housing discord channels - (which "guild" is gunna take the top spot.) Something similar to ESO's "Spicy Economics"  https://spicyeconomics.com/aquatic-aquarium-builds/  (oh and by all means get inspired from this and lets see what you can do in your halls!)

but i might be thinking too big, that's true. We will see what happens and what the capabilties are on release.

Edited July 18 by Kelly.7019

[Goddess Hades.3749]

A (perhaps) stupid question:

If I own Janthir Wilds, so a homestead, and a friend of mine doesn't, can he / she go to my homestead farming? Or just to core instances (rata Sum,  divinity's reach.....)

 

Thank you in advance! ❤️

[Linken.6345]

7 hours ago, Goddess Hades.3749 said:

A (perhaps) stupid question:

If I own Janthir Wilds, so a homestead, and a friend of mine doesn't, can he / she go to my homestead farming? Or just to core instances (rata Sum,  divinity's reach.....)

 

Thank you in advance! ❤️

No idea they havent said anything about it.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

I didn't particularly SotO story either, so what's wrong with just go live on a farm with your mounts and stop caring for the rest of the world?

We just need to replace the cats with dogs and I'm not leaving that homestead ever again.