My opinion that nobody asked for ^^

[Xevius.6174]

Hello,

now that a few days have passed since the expansion was released, I would like to give my opinion on it and am curious to see whether others share my opinion or not.

Maps:
I find the 2 new maps visually very appealing and the difficulty level pleasant, but others may feel differently as I would count myself among the players who also like to play the more difficult content.
(I think the soundtrack is really good again :D)

Opponents:
The only thing that seems to have been done too well is the Boon Corrupt effects. If you adapt your build and play style accordingly, it is less of a problem, but melee-oriented classes/builds in particular have it a bit harder 😛

Mastery:
The path to Mastery Level 600 was pleasant and didn't involve too much grinding. Only the bugs in the achievements and events were the somewhat nerve-wracking part.

Bugs:
This time it felt like a bigger problem than with EoD or Soto. Many bugs have prevented the story from progressing, made collections difficult or impossible, and the "endgame" feature Homesteds in particular has suffered greatly as it is still not possible to craft many items.

Endgame?:
The lack of other endgame activities such as strikes, fractals, raids, legendary weapons or armor means that the add-on has no replay value once you have completed the story, maps and mastery.

This is where I see JaW's biggest weakness. On the one hand, you shouldn't overload people, but in my opinion repeatable content is an important part of an expansion and this seems to have fallen by the wayside a little here.

Homesteds:
My biggest fear with this feature is that ArenaNet will drop it like a lot of other content. (See JadeBots, fishing and guild halls as an example.)

I hope that new homesteds will be available in future expansions and that the functionality of the system will be further expanded.

I personally want to recreate a Hall of Monuments 😄
(and was disappointed that the armor and weapon stands were delayed y.y)

I hope they expand the functionality of the system in the future. Be it charging offensive and defensive protocols in the homestead, TP access, possibly portals to the capital cities, displaying minis as decoration and so on.

It would also be cool if you could enter/view the homesteads of friends (if both have each other on the list, for example) or guild members WITHOUT them being there or online.

Anet could also make an incredible amount of money with this system via the Black Lion Shop, if they just don't let it go to waste y.y
Or distribute recipes in older content to create replay value and synergies if possible

My conclusion so far:
Somehow both JaW and Soto have left me with the feeling that something is really missing here. (Of course there are still 3 releases to come, you might say) Soto, for example, didn't manage to get me excited again with the 3 releases every few months. Everything just felt completely fragmented.

Personally, I would probably prefer it if the "release" felt complete, even if it was small, and not like half of it had been torn out, but that will probably be an unavoidable problem with this release system.

Was the add-on worth it for me? So far, yes, but that's more based on the spears as a weapon, as they generally bring a breath of fresh air to content that has been running for years and hasn't been touched in ages.

So much for my thoughts, which nobody asked for and nobody wanted 😄
If you have other opinions, let me read them, maybe I've missed something ^^

Edited August 24 by Xevius.6174

[Solomon Darkfury.3729]

I voted Good, would have been very good if the homestead decorating wasn't bugged into oblivion...

[Ashen.2907]

I answered, "Rather Bad," because I haven't progressed very far and my initial experiences were that the expac reset wvw rank ability points on all of my characters, broke my warclaw key binds (which got my character killed before I figured out what was going on), and used exposition dumps in place of more interactive storytelling techniques  during the prologue up to meeting the Kodan council.

That said, the portions of the first map that I've seen are quite beautiful. Hopefully this isn't ruined by requiring the use of the warclaw or mounts in general.

[Xevius.6174]

4 minutes ago, Solomon Darkfury.3729 said:

I voted Good, would have been very good if the homestead decorating wasn't bugged into oblivion...

I also hope that for players who may have little interest in decorating Homested, there will be practical functions in addition to the AoE collect of nodes, the rest bonus and the JadeBot workbench.

The system has a lot of potential for content, rewards and money for ArenaNet to earn via the GemStore
I hope it doesn't refer almost exclusively to the shop like Mountskins, Skiff Skins or JadeBot Skins. These would also be rewards that would be worth pursuing and that many would enjoy

[DavidTheFox.9783]

It would be awesome to let your friends visit your homestead anytime. I played ESO before and there you can see your friend's home instance even if he is offline. We were used to sending gold to our bro, so he could buy all the important upgrades for it (so everyone could use it). We could use something like that in GW2 as well.

 

Also, I wouldn't say I like the fact, that we lose Jade Bot Protocols when we visit the homestead. True, having extra buffs for PvP and WvW is nice, but why would I join Homestead with my characters? I prefer to park my alts in Arborstone because I don't want to refresh Protocols every single time when I leave Homestead. I feel like I am being punished for using it instead.

 

Having portals to Lion's Arch and Wizard's Tower is nice, but we should also have another one to Arborstone.

Edited August 26 by DavidTheFox.9783

[Jianyu.7065]

I voted "very good" because I don't have any special expectations. 

[Dean Calaway.9718]

On 8/24/2024 at 1:05 PM, Xevius.6174 said:

Only the bugs in the achievements and events were the somewhat nerve-wracking part.

Yup, I feel like Janthir Wilds is one of the buggiest releases to date and that really spoiled the experience.

I also feel like the story had too many cooks in the kitchen, I really didn't like how this is basically a continuation of SotO I would much rather these mini expansions going forward to be self contained stories much like GW1 expansions that could be played in any order without detriment to the narrative.

[FoureyesZero.1524]

Its the worst expansion story had way too much filler the warclaw is useless.

The maps are average at best the whole thing feels rushed and undercoocked.

The current model of mini expansions and quarterly updates needs to go it results in rushed underdeveloped content.

It would have rather had a few more updates take place in Cantha and waited 2 years for a real fully featured finished expansion.

This rushed content needs to stop.   

[Ashantara.8731]

On 8/24/2024 at 2:16 PM, Solomon Darkfury.3729 said:

I voted Good, would have been very good if the homestead decorating wasn't bugged into oblivion...

I have not run into a single bug exclusive to Homestead decorating. Everything works 100% the same as Guild Hall decorating.

[neighto.7386]

I voted "Good"  mainly due to the many bugs that have prevented me from completing achievs  (I'm an AP hunter so that's my main draw for new content).    Homesteads and their prices/time gates are exactly what I thought they would be. My expectations were pretty low for it in the first place.  It's  only going to get worse once they throw all the "good stuff" in the gem store exclusively, Cause you know exactly that's whats going to happen.  

That said,  I absolutely loved the warclaw updates, been having a lot of fun with it.    The 2 maps are top tier with a variety of things to do and explore despite  all the bugs.    The spears for the classes I have tried so far, have been pretty fun to use and much improved over the beta.     So overall,  it's a solid release.... I liked this expac WAY better then both EoD and SoTo.

[Solomon Darkfury.3729]

2 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

I have not run into a single bug exclusive to Homestead decorating. Everything works 100% the same as Guild Hall decorating.

Including the 300/400 handiworker bug?

[RagiNagi.1802]

I have just finished the story and can provide my take on the expac that noone asked for.

I voted good. The two main reasons why it didn't reach Very Good:

1. Homesteads - I have 0 interest in decorating and I HOPE HOPE HOPE that this will be just a gimmick where players can sink some gold and hours into. But not integral part for item aquisition (crafting, leggies, skins, QOL items etc.)

2. Story - I have lost faith in GW2 storytelling long time ago. I don't like the dialogue system and the way it is presented. I was trying to be invested in the story of JW, but I still don't understand why  we did half the things we did. To me it was poor delivery. The animation team should make more story in a video format instead of standing/jumping around waiting for the dialogue to finish.

and a small 3. would be awesome if we get a short-bow for a necro 😛

Things I liked in no particular order:

- The maps - i really like that there was ground on maps unlike in SOTO. The setting is cool, I like the enemies, events, and even hearts don't feel like a chore. Excellent work. I like that they seem to be a bit more chill, and turn up the intensity with the events going on. somehow Anet stuck a very nice Ballance here.

- Spear - i really like the weapon. With the two classes I played with - Mes and Guardian I think its really fun

- Music - Music was awesome in this expac. Although it is often very good with GW2.

- Clutter - i think for the first time there aren't sh*tton of inventory management required for key or collection items. Thanks!

- The price - I appreciate the affordability of this game. Trully. There is a lot of content behind the fee.

Some Neutral views:

- Skins - none of the skins of this new expansion are particularly of interest for me.

- Instanced content - i have been away from game for a moment. I wasn't missing out on new instanced content. I haven't followed up on all of it since SOTO

- pre-order skin for shoulders was kind of lame

- the Tyrian mobile phone is ruining immersion. Im just listening to soundtrack while exploring, and all of a sudden some random voice message pops up.

 

In any case - Thanks Arena Net. This was a nice expansion pack, I enjoyed most of it. Please give Short-Bow to Necros 🙂

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

[Ashantara.8731]

29 minutes ago, Solomon Darkfury.3729 said:

Including the 300/400 handiworker bug?

That is not a bug, we will be able to expand the level when the Mastery receives further tiers.

[NaramSin.2693]

I gave it a rather bad rating only because it was obviously released too early, it's full of bugs, inconsistencies everywhere, you can see that it was released in a hurry, too quickly, to stay within the promised time, but it's clearly not taken care of in the design details, and it's full, full, of bugs both in code and design, with things done just for the sake of doing and not made solid and consistent. The story itself is very interesting for now, the maps are beautiful, even the ideas are good but implemented really badly for the most part, which is normal at an early stage of development, but certainly not after the official release, unfortunately to give a better rating we will have to wait a lot longer, too bad, too bad really.

Edited August 26 by NaramSin.2693

[Zuras.5394]

This expansion seems to be much better then the last one so far. The only thing atm that is bugging me is how spear is used. Almost many if not all attacks are by one hand, which looks really really weird and unrealistic. It's clear no one at Area net has handled a spear weapon. I could see one or two attacks being one handed, but in general you need two hands to use a spear.  Maybe the animators where just lazy, I dunno.  It just looks really weird and unrealistic when your character attacks and their other arm does nothing. How about letting us equip a shield at least?  I may just start an Asura to not notice that bad concept Arena net has given us.  I doubt this will ever be looked into but one can hope.

[Cronospere.8143]

The renownd hearts achievement makes me want to redo them more often. And i hate doing renown hearts for world completion. 

But in lowlands shore its just enjoyable for some reason..