Expansion: make or break?

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@WorldofBay.8160 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@WorldofBay.8160 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:To be fair ... the only reason 'grinding' increased was because Anet added more stuff to do. It's funny that the counter complaint would be "need new content".

A lot of the achievements are objectively grindier now than they used to be. More importantly, a lot of these grindier achievements are now mastery point gates or directly tied to story meta completions. The biggest offender of these is Morale Breaker requiring a ridiculous amount of hours spent on the Cold War strike (FIFTY TIMES. It’s ridiculous). Or other things like “do all the light puzzles 3 times.” In previous years it would have been “do all the light puzzles 1 time.”

Obviously they’ve done grindy achievements in the past, but lately the sheer quantity of them is higher than ever and most of the old grindy ones were much more optional than the current ones

this^^ is what really lit up some warnings signs for me this year/this LS. There used to be grindy stuff but not the way they do things with this LS. Morale Breaker is ridiculous. No matter how good the strike mission may be, it gets old if you want to do it 50 times. Same for other things like participating 10 times in a meta event, it used to be participate once for an achievement and then maybe participate 10 times for a second one but both contributed to the meta achievement.

what?the tarir achievement needs 100 times.

is morale breaker necessary in any way? i've been doing quite well without it.

mastery point gates? where? i've got a huge bunch of HoT and PoF mastery points left over and didn't do any of the grinds. are icebrood points that grindy? haven't fully skilled that one yet but so far i've never run out of points without doing anything else than map completion and story. didn't even do metas. or are you talking about central tyrian mastery points? most of them are fractals and not grindy.

Reading comprehension is a lost art....Yes, as I said, we had grindy achievements like the Tarir one and that one got old fast as well. It was just as "not necessary" as morale breaker is. No where did I say it was necessary to complete these achievements to play the game or experience the story. Icebrood points were a bit more scarce at the begining, but I think ANet has adressed the issue and there's now plenty so you don't need all of them to progress your masteries.

still i don't see where morale breaker is necessary.if you're talking about ice brood saga mastery points: that season is still in development, there are more points to come. it is your own choice if you try to complete all masteries in an unfinished state or if you wait for easy achievements.core tyria mastery points got some grindy achievements as well and you can't call that new.

Again, Morale Breaker OR Stormcaller Weapons Collection is required to finish the Story Meta Achievement. One or the other. Both insanely costly in terms of time or raw gold (which is also time or money).

You're caught up on Morale Breaker, but there's a bunch more as well. I'd be happy to list all of the extremely grindy achievements for you from IBS if you want, though Iokh already listed a bunch in one of his previous posts in this thread

@LucianTheAngelic.7054ice brood story meta achievements are in what way necessary to play the game?

And yes, you're right, Story Meta Achievements aren't required to play the game (except when they are), but they've always been a staple of the game that provides clear goals and directions (something that GW2 generally lacks otherwise) and moderate/good rewards that nearly all players can achieve. That is what they represent within the game and what players have come to know them as.

However, the "Is the Icebrood Saga meta achievements necessary to play the game" logic is unfortunately flawed. Literally nothing in the game is required to play with the exception of a computer that will run it and an internet connection that can sustain it. There are people who enjoy the game simply by logging in and greeting new players in Queensdale with their bright pink twirly moustache Norn. I personally wouldn't call that "playing the game," but for those people it absolutely is.

How then do you design rewards and structure for a game that is largely structured by whatever the player makes of it? The answer to that is to create a diverse set of offerings that are both consistent and also offer various levels of difficulty to please different crowds of people. So to understand Story Meta Achievements in the broader context it's IMPERATIVE that you understand and take a look at the history of "Story Meta Achievements," their place in the game, and what they attempt to accomplish.

Story Meta Achievements have ALWAYS been casual/semi-casual and accessible to the vast majority of the playerbase. In the early days of Living World Season 1 they were used to provide players with a sort of "guide" towards completing the short segments of "every 2 week story" with a moderate/good reward at the end of it. Back in those days most of the achievements were doable with enough time played during the two week segment. There was nothing truly egregious about them and they generally had multiple pathways to complete the overarching Meta Achievement. Move on to Living World Season 2 and it became very much the same thing, with nothing incredibly grindy and only some achievements requiring a moderate level of skill. At this point "Story Meta Achievements" solidified themselves as a staple within GW2's reward structure as something that was attainable for nearly all players provided a moderate level of commitment was put in. This was so much the intention and perception of Story Meta Achievements that In Living World Season 3 Anet even removed the Heart of Koda Infusion collection from the Story Journal and put it into the Collections tab simply because the cost and effort required was monstrously disproportionate with what is usually considered a "story type" achievement. LS4 introduced added grind for some of the achievements, BUT all of them had many different pathways that could be taken to finish the Meta.

Flash forward to IBS and you have the same exact situation again as the Heart of Koda, except even worse this time since either Morale Breaker or Stormcaller Weapons are now required for the meta achievement. In No Quarter, there is barely ANY choice as to what to do for the achievements. You're forced to do all of them except 1.

The issue with this is that changing this direction for the Story Meta Achievements to become far more grindy and less achievable by the average GW2 player is the WRONG way to go. Increasing the level of Casual Grind is both boring to casual players AND hardcore players. It literally benefits no one. And yes, these achievements ARE less achievable by the vast majority of players as they require a significant commitment in terms of time and/or money. For example, Morale Breaker by itself requires a bare minimum 8 hours worth of commitment from that achievement alone and that assumes 1) no wipes at all and 2) near instantaneous grouping. If you factor in wipes and grouping you're probably looking at double that or more.

Innovation and change is NOT always good. In this case, making important achievements even grindier in an attempt to create more content while providing less content is harmful to all populations within the game. Certain parts of the game should remain casual and less grindy. Story Meta Achievements is one of them. This is coming from a player that is very much hardcore, btw. I'm not some casual player complaining the game is too hard.

Anyway, I've probably blown way too many words on this, but it's a fairly in-depth conversation to have. I find that whenever someone says "But it's not required to play the game" I'm not going to change their mind anyway (I've had this exact same conversation with another user on here before) so I'm probably just talking into the void, but I hope you'll at least think about the 8 year historical context of the "Story Meta Achievement," what that represents for the game, and how making them grindier isn't the way to go. And yes, they are objectively grindier this season.

[Animism.7530]

@Randulf.7614 said:The original game was about grind too. It's just forgotten. Lets not forget how many times worse getting a legendary used to be before T6 mats were so easy to get and precursors werent left to chance. Or the arguments in dungeons over speed running, stacking or wanting to do story. I'm not sure what the IBS Hp is all about. I play low dps toons and don't find the hp on ibs mobs anything concerning

The game has changed and not always for the better (although often it has significantly improved it), but I don't think EoD is make or break either. People asked the same question before HoT, before PoF, before LS4, before IBS. I think EoD will be just fine as long as players temper their expectations. This is not going to be Factions part 2. Any relation to it will be that Cantha as a continent is the setting and that will be it in the same way PoF had zero relation to Nightfall and IBS has very little connection to EOTN.

So I don't think it'll make or break the game. Just continue on as usual

Not for me they weren't.I was selling Dungeons and Fotm to players looking to get quick exp or tokens.

Then Arenanet broke it first by destroying dungeon rewards; and second by changing all of the CC mechanics to be lesser than they previously were.Suddenly soft CC did practically nothing to the enemies you wanted to use it on the most...

[WorldofBay.8160]

@"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said:well story metas achievements exist in LS2, HoT and PoF but not in LS3, LS4 or IBS. instead, LS3 introduced a new, completely stupid and confusing system of combining story and map in the same category with an abomination of a meta achievement that contains story, exploration and gimmicks for whatever reason. that imo was a very bad design choice. from LS3 to LS4 to IBS those "meta" achievements changed slightly, you can see it in different ways. you see the negative side. what you see is that those achievements lost choices on their way up. what you could also see is that those achievements gained rewards for higher completion.

LS3 rewards were a skin on completion + 23/5/21/21/5/25 achievement points + 1 mastery point on the last episodeLS4 rewards were a skin on completion + 21/21/28/30/21/25 achiement pointsthe mastery point was dropped but ap were significantly raised from 100 in LS3 to 146 in LS4IBS so far has a skin or emote on completion + 30/25/30/26/30/? achievement points + 1 mastery point for the 4th episodemastery point is back, emotes are more than skins imo and in ap we went up again to already 141 which is extrapolated to episode 6 a new high of 169

[Mungo Zen.9364]

I get a real kick out of people complaining about Morale Breaker.....like, did it break your morale trying to do it? Mission accomplished, I think Anet got you this time.

I kid, I kid, for real tho:

I personally look at something like Morale Breaker as a 'lifetime achievement'. The game should reward players for playing the game a lot, and this is a way. I don't like that it is potentially a reason I won't ever finish that AP Category, but, w/e there is lots of content I won't ever complete, lots of AP I won't get (like crafting a Legendary).

@Fueki.4753 said:

@WorldofBay.8160 said:are icebrood points that grindy?

Some of them, indeed are very grindy.

I have full Icebrood Mastery now and I don't have full HoT mastery. Why? HoT requires a lot more per Mastery Level (combined Mastery Points and XP required) than any content since then. As a comparison, Glider Mechanics in HoT requires 31 Mastery Points and 13.4 Million XP to complete, while United Legions Waystation Synchronization for Icebrood requires 16 Mastery Points and 6.6 Million XP to complete.

While I can agree that some of the Mastery points across the game are grindy or challenging to get, there are enough to get you the things you need relatively easily. I don't have Masteries Points earned from Strikes or Crafting yet, still got the Icebrood stuff sorted easier than HoT.

[Fueki.4753]

@"Mungo Zen.9364" said:I have full Icebrood Mastery now and I don't have full HoT mastery. Why? HoT requires a lot more per Mastery Level (combined Mastery Points and XP required) than any content since then. As a comparison, Glider Mechanics in HoT requires 31 Mastery Points and 13.4 Million XP to complete, while United Legions Waystation Synchronization for Icebrood requires 16 Mastery Points and 6.6 Million XP to complete.While I can agree that some of the Mastery points across the game are grindy or challenging to get, there are enough to get you the things you need relatively easily. I don't have Masteries Points earned from Strikes or Crafting yet, still got the Icebrood stuff sorted easier than HoT.

I wasn't writing about the EXP required to unlock the Masteries, or the amount of Mastery Points they need.I was only talking about the grind in the achievements that "reward" Mastery Points.I don't remember those achievements in HoT being as grindy as the Season 5 ones.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@"Mungo Zen.9364" said:I have full Icebrood Mastery now and I don't have full HoT mastery. Why? HoT requires a lot more per Mastery Level (combined Mastery Points and XP required) than any content since then. As a comparison, Glider Mechanics in HoT requires 31 Mastery Points and 13.4 Million XP to complete, while United Legions Waystation Synchronization for Icebrood requires 16 Mastery Points and 6.6 Million XP to complete.While I can agree that

some

of the Mastery points across the game are grindy or challenging to get, there are enough to get you the things you need relatively easily. I don't have Masteries Points earned from Strikes or Crafting yet, still got the Icebrood stuff sorted easier than HoT.

I wasn't writing about the EXP required to unlock the Masteries, or the amount of Mastery Points they need.I was only talking about the grind in the

achievements

that "reward" Mastery Points.I don't remember those

achievements

in HoT being as grindy as the Season 5 ones.

Totally fair, I missed that nuance of your post.

I think it is somewhat subjective as HoT has a bunch of Mastery tied to minigames/adventures (Bugs in the Branches, Shooting Gallery etc) which I suck at. I have yet to attain Gold on 13 Adventures in HoT and Silver on 9. I find these adventures are a challenge I don't enjoy and will have to decide if I want the Mastery bad enough to learn how to play these minigames.

Other players may not have this experience, as they may be better able to complete or enjoy the minigames presented in HoT.

I view these minigames as a grind similar to how others see Morale Breaker as a grind. I have to do a bunch of stuff that I may not want to, in order to attain something I want.

[Linken.6345]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@"Mungo Zen.9364" said:I have full Icebrood Mastery now and I don't have full HoT mastery. Why? HoT requires a lot more per Mastery Level (combined Mastery Points and XP required) than any content since then. As a comparison, Glider Mechanics in HoT requires 31 Mastery Points and 13.4 Million XP to complete, while United Legions Waystation Synchronization for Icebrood requires 16 Mastery Points and 6.6 Million XP to complete.While I can agree that

some

of the Mastery points across the game are grindy or challenging to get, there are enough to get you the things you need relatively easily. I don't have Masteries Points earned from Strikes or Crafting yet, still got the Icebrood stuff sorted easier than HoT.

I wasn't writing about the EXP required to unlock the Masteries, or the amount of Mastery Points they need.I was only talking about the grind in the

achievements

that "reward" Mastery Points.I don't remember those

achievements

in HoT being as grindy as the Season 5 ones.

Well 10 times cold war for moral breaker mp aint that bad tho, do it once a day and get it done in 1½ weeks.

[Fueki.4753]

@Mungo Zen.9364 said:I think it is somewhat subjective as HoT has a bunch of Mastery tied to minigames/adventures (Bugs in the Branches, Shooting Gallery etc) which I suck at. I have yet to attain Gold on 13 Adventures in HoT and Silver on 9. I find these adventures are a challenge I don't enjoy and will have to decide if I want the Mastery bad enough to learn how to play these minigames.I don't like the Adventures either.

I view these minigames as a grind similar to how others see Morale Breaker as a grind. I have to do a bunch of stuff that I may not want to, in order to attain something I want.If I had to choose between grinds and Adventures mini games, I'd always choose the grind.At least the Season 5 grinds eventually get done, even with a lower skill level.Those mini games, however, might never get cleared for those who lack the skill necessary.

[Feilou.7395]

@"WorldofBay.8160" said:Story Meta Achievements have ALWAYS been casual/semi-casual and accessible to the vast majority of the playerbase. In the early days of Living World Season 1 they were used to provide players with a sort of "guide" towards completing the short segments of "every 2 week story" with a moderate/good reward at the end of it. Back in those days most of the achievements were doable with enough time played during the two week segment. There was nothing truly egregious about them and they generally had multiple pathways to complete the overarching Meta Achievement. Move on to Living World Season 2 and it became very much the same thing, with nothing incredibly grindy and only some achievements requiring a moderate level of skill. At this point "Story Meta Achievements" solidified themselves as a staple within GW2's reward structure as something that was attainable for nearly all players provided a moderate level of commitment was put in. This was so much the intention and perception of Story Meta Achievements that In Living World Season 3 Anet even removed the Heart of Koda Infusion collection from the Story Journal and put it into the Collections tab simply because the cost and effort required was monstrously disproportionate with what is usually considered a "story type" achievement. LS4 introduced added grind for some of the achievements, BUT all of them had many different pathways that could be taken to finish the Meta.

Claiming that a lot of casuals complete these or do them is far away from the truth as not even a lot of the more invested people do them. I know a lot of people dislike using GW2 efficiency for comparisons, but it makes a lot of sense in this case as completing them requires a lot of time and GW2 has a lot of the people with high playtime. According to GW2 efficiency almost no one completes them.Just one example:The Completion rate of the Achievement "War Eternal" Mastery" " is 4.2% whereas the completion rate of the raid "Key of Adashim" is 6.4% . Both were released at almost the same time (2 weeks apart with the raid being released later).This shows that less people do these achievements than people clear raids (and raids are not flooded with people). It is obviously vastly easier to develop such achievements which means they should still be released, but claiming that they are casual or anything similar is absolute hyperbole.

I didn't quote the rest of your post as I agree that the achievements that you have to do for the mastery point in this season are indeed more grind heavy.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@"Feilou.7395" said:

Story Meta Achievements have ALWAYS been casual/semi-casual and accessible to the vast majority of the playerbase. In the early days of Living World Season 1 they were used to provide players with a sort of "guide" towards completing the short segments of "every 2 week story" with a moderate/good reward at the end of it. Back in those days most of the achievements were doable with enough time played during the two week segment. There was nothing truly egregious about them and they generally had multiple pathways to complete the overarching Meta Achievement. Move on to Living World Season 2 and it became very much the same thing, with nothing incredibly grindy and only some achievements requiring a moderate level of skill.

At this point "Story Meta Achievements" solidified themselves as a staple within GW2's reward structure as something that was attainable for nearly all players provided a moderate level of commitment was put in.

This was so much the intention and perception of Story Meta Achievements that

In Living World Season 3 Anet even removed the Heart of Koda Infusion collection from the Story Journal and put it into the Collections tab simply because the cost and effort required was monstrously disproportionate with what is usually considered a "story type" achievement.

LS4 introduced added grind for some of the achievements, BUT all of them had many different pathways that could be taken to finish the Meta.

Claiming that a lot of casuals complete these or do them is far away from the truth as not even a lot of the more invested people do them. I know a lot of people dislike using GW2 efficiency for comparisons, but it makes a lot of sense in this case as completing them requires a lot of time and GW2 has a lot of the people with high playtime. According to GW2 efficiency almost no one completes them.Just one example:The Completion rate of the Achievement "War Eternal" Mastery" " is 4.2% whereas the completion rate of the raid "Key of Adashim" is 6.4% . Both were released at almost the same time (2 weeks apart with the raid being released later).This shows that less people do these achievements than people clear raids (and raids are not flooded with people). It is obviously vastly easier to develop such achievements which means they should still be released, but claiming that they are casual or anything similar is absolute hyperbole.

Just because people don’t do them frequently /do them less than raids doesn’t mean they’re not casual. They are far, far more casual achievements than any of the raids that have been released. When I speak of “level of casualness” I speak on the type/difficulty of content, not the frequency at which it gets completed. Also I claimed that it was casual/semi-casual generally.

The fact remains that Story Meta Achievements are definitely structured into the game as an overarching goal/ reward system for story/open world play which is inherently geared towards the average casual player. Whether it succeeds at that is debatable, but grindier achievements certainly won’t increase those completion numbers either

[WorldofBay.8160]

@Feilou.7395 said:can you please edit your post back to the correct quote? i didn't write that

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@"WorldofBay.8160" said:are icebrood points that grindy?

Some of them, indeed are very grindy.If you want to unlock all Season 5 masteries, you will have to touch multiple of those grinds.

There are the six commendation grinds in Drizzlewoods, which all are very grindy and exact the same grind, just with different names.There is one mastery point for doing the north meta 10 times.There are two mastery point related to the Morale Breaker achievement. The first is unlocked after doing the Strike mission 10 (or maybe it even was 20) times, end the other one after 50 times.

Incorrect. One Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission one time, the second Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission ten times.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike_Mission:_Cold_War#Achievements

Also, unless you didn't play in the map much at all, the 'Glory to X Legion' weren't very 'grindy'; the commendations were pretty easy to acquire.I will say 'Special Forces' could be considered 'grindy', if you didn't buy (or had saved) the Intel Documents.

[Fueki.4753]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:One Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission one time, the second Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission ten times.At least I remembered correctly that the Strike Mission gave two points.

Also, unless you didn't play in the map much at all, the 'Glory to X Legion' weren't very 'grindy'; the commendations were pretty easy to acquire.

Grindy doesn't imply that it's hard to do in anyway.Having to repeat something multiple times is grindy. In fact, it's the very definition of grinding in video games.I had to do the full meta about three times for each of those points, amounting to doing the full run 18 times.If you think repeating a tiring and mind-numbing meta almost 20 times is no grind, your personal definition deviates from the factual one.

[lare.5129]

@Mortifera.6138 said:Skyscale grindSkyscale grind? it was done per few days for me, and others players who play

ascended grind5 year ago maked one zoja set is not grind for cazuals playrs too

legendary grindlegendary don't give additional stats. So there is no big reason grind it for gameplay if not see fun in this to achive other content.

elitist raidsyes, people like be elite. Can't? Don't go. I don't go, or go very very rare

a preview of elitist raids through strike missionsdon't need od all strikes, some of them very good and chill

, mobs with a billion HP in IbS..don't try do is solo, find guild.

Will the next expansion revive the game or will it be the last straw?it will be more for elitist I hope. New wind, new jevel, new grind, new toxic dungeon wiht special resistance attribute grind, so we can don't worry and play our game.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:One Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission

one

time, the second Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission

ten

times.At least I remembered correctly that the Strike Mission gave two points.

Also, unless you didn't play in the map much at all, the 'Glory to X Legion' weren't very 'grindy'; the commendations were pretty easy to acquire.

Grindy doesn't imply that it's hard to do in anyway.Having to repeat something multiple times

is

grindy. In fact, it's the very definition of grinding in video games.I had to do the full meta about three times for each of those points, amounting to doing the full run 18 times.If you think repeating a tiring and mind-numbing meta almost 20 times is no grind, your personal definition deviates from the factual one.

Perhaps, we have different playstyles. I think I've only done the meta 3 or 4 times; I finished the 'Glory' achievements long before then.

[Zok.4956]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@WorldofBay.8160 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@WorldofBay.8160 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:To be fair ... the only reason 'grinding' increased was because Anet added more stuff to do. It's funny that the counter complaint would be "need new content".

A lot of the achievements are objectively grindier now than they used to be. More importantly, a lot of these grindier achievements are now mastery point gates or directly tied to story meta completions. The biggest offender of these is Morale Breaker requiring a ridiculous amount of hours spent on the Cold War strike (FIFTY TIMES. It’s ridiculous). Or other things like “do all the light puzzles 3 times.” In previous years it would have been “do all the light puzzles 1 time.”

Obviously they’ve done grindy achievements in the past, but lately the sheer quantity of them is higher than ever and most of the old grindy ones were much more optional than the current ones

this^^ is what really lit up some warnings signs for me this year/this LS. There used to be grindy stuff but not the way they do things with this LS. Morale Breaker is ridiculous. No matter how good the strike mission may be, it gets old if you want to do it 50 times. Same for other things like participating 10 times in a meta event, it used to be participate once for an achievement and then maybe participate 10 times for a second one but both contributed to the meta achievement.

what?the tarir achievement needs 100 times.

is morale breaker necessary in any way? i've been doing quite well without it.

mastery point gates? where? i've got a huge bunch of HoT and PoF mastery points left over and didn't do any of the grinds. are icebrood points that grindy? haven't fully skilled that one yet but so far i've never run out of points without doing anything else than map completion and story. didn't even do metas. or are you talking about central tyrian mastery points? most of them are fractals and not grindy.

Reading comprehension is a lost art....Yes, as I said, we had grindy achievements like the Tarir one and that one got old fast as well. It was just as "not necessary" as morale breaker is. No where did I say it was necessary to complete these achievements to play the game or experience the story. Icebrood points were a bit more scarce at the begining, but I think ANet has adressed the issue and there's now plenty so you don't need all of them to progress your masteries.

still i don't see where morale breaker is necessary.if you're talking about ice brood saga mastery points: that season is still in development, there are more points to come. it is your own choice if you try to complete all masteries in an unfinished state or if you wait for easy achievements.core tyria mastery points got some grindy achievements as well and you can't call that new.

Again, Morale Breaker OR Stormcaller Weapons Collection is required to finish the Story Meta Achievement. One or the other. Both insanely costly in terms of time or raw gold (which is also time or money).

You're caught up on Morale Breaker, but there's a bunch more as well. I'd be happy to list all of the extremely grindy achievements for you from IBS if you want, though Iokh already listed a bunch in one of his previous posts in this thread

@LucianTheAngelic.7054ice brood story meta achievements are in what way necessary to play the game?

And yes, you're right, Story Meta Achievements aren't required to play the game (except when they are), but they've always been a staple of the game that provides clear goals and directions (something that GW2 generally lacks otherwise) and moderate/good rewards that nearly all players can achieve. That is what they represent within the game and what players have come to know them as.

The story meta achievements are not only giving AP, maybe some title and maybe some MP, but also an item/skin/emote/something as reward. In Season 3 and Season 4 these items were requiered for the legendary-collections:In Season 3 the meta-achievement-reward items were required for the Aurora-Collection.In Season 4 the meta-achievement-reward items were required for the Vision-Collection.

I do expect that we need all story-meta-achievement items of Season 5 (The Saga) for something similar after Season 5 / Saga ended.

The story meta achievements in the past seasons all had their fair share of grind. But they all had a lot of options for several play styles to complete them. Players could choose a lot how they wanted to complete the meta achievement. And for PvP/WvW players Anet implemented reward-tracks, so that PvP/WvW players could get the meta-achievement reward-item without completing the story-meta-achievement.

However, in Season 5 / Icebrood Saga, Anet changed their direction and did not add this (much) choices in PvE for the meta-achievements. They also did not add PvP/WvW-reward tracks for getting the meta reward-items of Season 5. So PvP/WvW players who want those story-meta-reward-items are now also "forced" to do strike missions and/or extremely grindy PvE staff.

The issue with this is that changing this direction for the Story Meta Achievements to become far more grindy and less achievable by the average GW2 player is the WRONG way to go. Increasing the level of Casual Grind is both boring to casual players AND hardcore players. It literally benefits no one. And yes, these achievements ARE less achievable by the vast majority of players as they require a significant commitment in terms of time and/or money.

I totally agree.

It is obvious why Anet did this: They wanted to force/push as much players as possible into doing the strike-missions (so they can justify the decision of making the strike missions as a raid stepping stone or as a raid replacement). And they wanted to stretch content with the required grind (if you want the meta story achievement and/or the reward item) for those achievements.

I think Anet has gone to far in the wrong direction with this changes. I still hope they fix this before the end of Season 5.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:One Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission

one

time, the second Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission

ten

times.At least I remembered correctly that the Strike Mission gave two points.

Also, unless you didn't play in the map much at all, the 'Glory to X Legion' weren't very 'grindy'; the commendations were pretty easy to acquire.

Grindy doesn't imply that it's hard to do in anyway.Having to repeat something multiple times

is

grindy. In fact, it's the very definition of grinding in video games.I had to do the full meta about three times for each of those points, amounting to doing the full run 18 times.If you think repeating a tiring and mind-numbing meta almost 20 times is no grind, your personal definition deviates from the factual one.

Perhaps, we have different playstyles. I think I've only done the meta 3 or 4 times; I finished the 'Glory' achievements long before then.

How did you do the glory achievements without doing the meta at all? Every event on that map is part of the meta

Incorrect. One Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission one time, the second Mastery Point for doing the Strike Mission ten times.

This is correct but also incorrect. Morale Breaker (in its 50 time entirety) OR Stormcaller Weapons (which are insanely expensive for a random story meta collection) are required to complete the story meta achievement and get the mastery point from the episode. There are no other choices available to be able to finish the episode

[WorldofBay.8160]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:This is correct but also incorrect. Morale Breaker (in its 50 time entirety) OR Stormcaller Weapons (which are insanely expensive for a random story meta collection) are required to complete the story meta achievement and get the mastery point from the episode. There are no other choices available to be able to finish the episode

yet this has nothing to do with finishing the episode or even a story meta achievement at all. it's a map and story meta achievement. which is by definition more than a story achievement. well actually it's a map, story and side modes meta achievement, containing strikes that are neither part of the map nor part of the story. the achievement design is just inherently bad, a collection of unconnected achievements that stole us a real story meta achievement.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@WorldofBay.8160 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:This is correct but also incorrect. Morale Breaker (in its 50 time entirety) OR Stormcaller Weapons (which are insanely expensive for a random story meta collection)

are required

to complete the story meta achievement and get the mastery point from the episode. There are no other choices available to be able to finish the episode

yet this has nothing to do with finishing the episode or even a story meta achievement at all. it's a map and story meta achievement. which is by definition more than a story achievement. well actually it's a map, story and side modes meta achievement, containing strikes that are neither part of the map nor part of the story. the achievement design is just inherently bad, a collection of unconnected achievements that stole us a real story meta achievement.

All of those things are still technically “Story Meta Achievements” and have been since LS3. Also LS2 and the expansions are the only parts of the game that have separated sections for both maps/story/etc. Perhaps a better terminology would be “Living World Meta Achievements” as a more “catch all” term, but my point still stands that the expectations and grind for “Living World Meta Achievements” is objectively higher in IBS now than it has been since LS1.

[WorldofBay.8160]

@"LucianTheAngelic.7054" said:Also LS2 and the expansions are the only parts of the game that have separated sections for both maps/story/etc.

core has a separate section but no meta achievement - does it count?

without there are 3 stories with separate achievements and real story metas and 3 stories with combined achievements without story meta (but with combined meta)

i don't get why you stress this "the only" so much that you even have to use bold for that when it's actually a draw. also with cantha being the next expansion the odds say that separate story tabs and real story meta will take the lead again even without core. it seems to me you are fully locked in your view and don't even try to look at it differently. with LS3 a new meta achievement category was introduced, it has always had really grindy parts and it has always been messy. IBS has so far the best rewards of any meta achievement by quite a margin and it just makes sense to be harder then.