We need to talk about homesteads

[Dartyx.6843]

I've never actually engaged with the forums before, so let's be positive and start by saying this expansion has been an absolute blast to play! Spear has got to be some of the most fun I've had with a new weapon since launch in 2012, the new lowland shore map is amazing, the art direction and music are on point as well and really sell the overall vibe, even the new warclaw masteries have surprisingly been a lot of fun to play with. However, they've really dropped the ball when it comes to making the homestead a place players want to put time and effort into. I'll try to list some things that I think need work:

• Homesteads need to add more replay value to old content

I'm really sad that unlocking most of the decorations just amounted to doing a few hearts and spending a few gold on all the books. Where is the new carrot on the stick? Wouldn't it be nice to encourage us to go play on different maps and do different achievements to unlock new recipes we can craft and display as a way of saying: "Look, I did that!". We have so many maps with different currencies that could be used to obtain these decorations. Let me buy a rocky sofa in ember bay for petrified wood or some jade tech appliances for imperial favor and writs.

I can understand that right now there was not enough development time to add decorations everywhere, but this works just as well within the bounds of this new expansion. Tossing 20 silver at a vendor and calling it a day is frankly very uninteresting and anticlimactic from a rewards perspective.

• Homestead masteries offer no sense of progression

Back when guild halls released one of the fun parts about them was unlocking the different buildings and utility that came with them over time. With individual housing we instead received a plot of land on it that has everything unlocked save a few things on the mastery track. I honestly couldn't even tell you I felt very rewarded for unlocking the different levels as it was over very quickly and just left me wondering if that was it. A good example would be to let us build the stables ourselves using materials (albeit at a much cheaper cost compared to guild halls, of course). Heck, even unlocking things in sun's refuge or eye of the north felt more satisfying.

I don't understand why they are so afraid of introducing some kind of progression system for these things as homesteads don't even offer advantages over other players.

• Homestead materials are time gated?

No need to elaborate on this, plenty of people have already expressed their distaste for this design choice.

• Homesteads make me feel funneled into the gem store

**Disclaimer** gem store purchases are fine but i am worried about the scope of their presence within homesteads.

So right now we've established that the only thing homesteads offer as a new feature is their accessibility compared to guild halls, because even guild halls have profited from the new decorating overhaul.

From here on it's just speculation on my part but I am extremely worried that none of these issues will see improvement and they will simply start selling us things in the gem store just as they are already doing with the stabled mounts, the farmland and several of the nodes which is just really discouraging for something that I was hoping would improve the reward structure and gameplay loop and give Guild Wars 2 more longevity. As it stands, here we are once again getting something for them to monetize. I think we can probably forget about getting trade posts, merchants or bankers in our homesteads too unless they start selling us "banker service contracts" or something. Lastly let's not forget about the fact you can't even return to the place you entered the homestead from, which is something you can do from literally any gem store hub. (I was wrong, you can actually do this)

 

TLDR: Homesteads offer little longevity to the game and getting decorations currently consists of dealing with a time gated uninspired gold sink. I will admit that the creative aspect of designing your own space is executed very well and I'll even applaud the decorating system itself, but I firmly believe that it needs more than that to be a worthwhile and complete feature that builds upon the foundations of guild halls, the home instance and other upgradeable hubs or gem store hubs. We need a better reward structure for decorations through WvW, sPvP, achievement hunting and other forms of content to make homesteads the place we take it all home to and say "look, I did that!".

 

 

 

 

Edited August 24 by Dartyx.6843

[Quench.7091]

I don't feel a great sense of progression from the mastery system, but I think that's okay. The normal crafting system progression abruptly stops for all eternity anyways, so it isn't very interesting for progression. What I was looking for myself was a sense of progression from recipe discovery from doing content or finding them in vendors around the world. It was interesting that they didn't use this opportunity to have players revisit past content! One of the few things I did when the expansion launched was go check out that Joko statue seller in the alley of Amnoon and the decorations vendor in Jahai Bluffs.

[RyasmaRaven.6018]

1. So many decorations require mats from earlier maps, even core maps. I've seen plenty needing stuff from HoT and Pof. I do agree recipes directly from earlier content would be nice tho

2. I agree, three small rooms doesn't really feel like a decent expansion lol

3. This doesn't bug me as much as it seems to bug many others XD I think this was done to prevent a market upset where some people buy out all the elder logs and mithril ore or whatever. The limit does feel quite low. I do see where people are coming from with this.

4. I have not felt funneled into the store at all so far. No doubt this will change in the coming months, but I'm a little surprised where this point came from.

Something I would like to see from homesteads are crafting stations (hopefully not through the gem store lol), and OW achievements/collections to add more life to them, like with the cats. Like, we do something with sailors/pirates and we end up with a ship anchored on the shore.