Minimum Viable Product
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 лип 2024
- Guild Wars 2's "What Lie's Beneath" patch was "thin". Well what the fuck does that mean?
Pick up and find more End of Dragons details here guildwars2.go2cloud.org/aff_c?... . This link directly supports me, so please check it out! Many thanks to ArenaNet for their sponsorship.
♥Find me on Twitch on occasion:
/ woodenpotatoes
♠ My subreddit for getting in contact and discussion:
/ woodenpotatoes
♣Also I tweet:
/ woodenpotatoes
♦Discord is full of real-time chat with the WoodenPotatoes fans & my community:
discord.gg/woodenpotatoes
♦And lastly patreon
/ woodenpotatoes
00:00 - Start
02:01 - Masteries
05:08 - Meta Events
13:47 - Exploration
17:28 - Art and Assets
22:13 - Endgame
23:10 - Rewards
28:20 - "More Story"
46:02 - Conclusion - Ігри
I just wanted to add that they really missed out on the new map because they ignored the verticality of it. We are deep below the jade sea. Now imagine, if you will, using the surface of the jade sea to create the greatest, jade-est roller beetle track in the game, covering the entire map. Just... above the meta.
I was really hoping they would do this, before the patch launched.
@hctr That would probably turn off a lot of players. Don't get me wrong. I think multiplayer maps and HM zones like GW1 would be cool but for players who mostly solo content, and there are a lot of them, it would basically be telling them there is nothing for them. Considering we are looking at maybe as little as one new extra map a cycle, that could mean nothing new for solo players for up to 12 months.
The devs had more confidence in releasing Grothmar as a prologue than they did with this as an official major patch. Grothmar was also supposed to be a “small” release map and it’s honestly fantastic with all they had in it: 4 mini metas, ash puzzle, unique events with floating target shooting and the derby, world building with the aurene brand, two races, a Jp with a super punishing timer achievement, new build/economy options with the hatch chili recipes, character interaction with all the major leaders, and a fairly unique storyline.
If anything, the problem with Grothmar is that it made Bjora East/Whisper in the Dark feel really pathetic. But even Whisper in the Dark feels amazing compared to What Lies Beneath... multiple strikes, a bunch of new assets, a unique meta that doesn't take over the whole map. Also the Boneskinner thing.
Honestly my favourite patch in the games history was Dry Top, it did half the map like Gyala however it did the meta right. You can drop in on that map whenever look in the corner and go "oh sandstorm starts soon I can do these events if I like" there's no pressure to do them though you can just wander around and open chests with keys you get from the story instances. It's so cinematic to explore as well, one of the best moments of the game for me was walking through those tight rocks and coming out to see this incredible oasis. The rewards were great, an entire weapon set with new stats, new food recipes etc. You felt like you were exploring but being rewarded for it (the random goggle drops from chests were a nice surprise too). They remembered their roots as an adventure game in that patch. In the new patch I feel pressured and funnelled down an event chain like I'm on a loot production line, except the loot doesn't feel rewarding.
I think you're absolutely right. It's gotten to the point that the wiki is often more compelling than the game. And the wiki literally is just bare writing. Believe me, we will eat up any bit of dialogue we can get.
"Living World" never needed to be the whole world being changing constantly. But it should be that more than one thing is allowed to happen at once. I want to be able to check in on characters when they're no longer in the spotlight.
I mean, ESO characters will talk your ear off. And they're extremely charming. There's never a shortage of dialogue.
I agree! I especially think the need to leave room for players to explore and experience a map beyond a choreographed chain of events is one of the main things I hope to see them give more consideration to. Honestly, I don't mind meta maps, but it's when I feel that I'm getting in the way of something more important just by trying to reach a story marker or even taking time to sightsee that I really think they've pushed the function of the map too far. I want to let myself get lost in the environment, to wander without a set goal other than to enjoy the experience. I remember how excited I felt when I swam down a dark, ominous tunnel in Echovald and stumbled upon the beautiful underground chamber of stained glass that was hiding that one hero point I'd been scratching my head about. There may well be surprises like that hidden in Gyala Delves, but it feels almost as though that kind of exploration is taking away from what I "should be doing." It's such a shame when there is so much rich lore, old and new, that could be scattered about for us to find. I think that combines well with the need you expressed of more plot through unvoiced storytelling. Remember the intrigue of hunting down the journal pages in Bloodstone Fen or E's letters in Lake Doric? They were interesting bits of depth that broadened the scope of each patch's story, gave hints about the activities of characters who weren't present, and even connected to the stories of other instances and the raids. That could be done through dialogue as well and it would be a great way for players who want to engage with the story beyond the required instances to feel rewarded. The writers probably have reams of detailed notes of what's been going on in Cantha and the wider world beyond what a story patch could reasonably share, and I'd love for them to dig into those notes to share some things that they perhaps never thought they'd get the opportunity to. Even give us some riddles or drop hints about secrets that won't unfold for a little while, whether they're actually to do with the main plot or with smaller side stories. Things like that make Tyria feel like an actual world, where people live their lives, have adventures, and experience pain and loss, whether the Commander is involved or not.
Love your thoughts overall. Disagree with the Tea House "not needing to be an instance". The alternative is 17,000 people, and their robots, standing around having tea and eating food. Your choice is to be 17,001 or wait until everyone gets bored with this release of GW2 to have a good experience. But, it shouldn't "count" as one of "the three instances". It's small, nothing needs to be tested to the extent of other instances. I think the one where we go around and interview people could have not been an instance.
On an "adventure map", the second instance could have been in the open world but with how meta heavy and fast paced this map feels, it makes a lot of sense to do it this way.
Tbf Gorrik did mention Marjory wasn't replying to his mails presumably busy with the wedding preparations. I think they could've easily sent us to Dead End bar to get that optional drink for Rama to catch up with that story line.
Wow, this is a phenomenal idea. I like that the optional drink thing exists and that the drink you get depends on your race. I love when they make me remember that my character has a specific race and culture. However, story wise it would have been top tier to have the optional task be to get a drink at the dead end bar, and run into either marjory or kas, or maybe just someone who works there and tells you how busy they are and what's been going on with them briefly.
Man, if there was ever a WoodenPotatoes video I hope a few devs in passing would watch, it would be this one. "Smaller bits of story, does not need to be dialogue, more frequently more often" mentality is exactly what GW2 needs.
Yesss agreed
I feel like the whole haze filter thing should have been added on to the jade bot mastery for sure.
I kind of agree. The big issue is that it could in no way be a mastery with the current design. Locking the filters behind a mastery would be blocking off almost all the map's content
@@DrewColpurs Yeah that’s true. Maybe until you unlocked the mastery for your jade bot you could still use the current vendor. All I know is having to go back to the filter vendors is really annoying.
Haze'rdous Breathing - your aqua breather has been upgraded with jade tech, to allow you to breath through the haze without needing the filter stations.
-1 mastery point
the mastery would probably have been added as the last item in the list of jade bot unlocks. If someone hasn't unlocked all the previous ones they'd have to grind out the entire line before they could participate in this map at all. Maybe masteries need to be more of a branching tree than a straight line so they could add in a single "Jade Bot Filter" item
@@jon-turnbull These maps are end game additions so if they worked through the maps and actually did the events and story when going through the maps then they should be able to unlock the masteries needed.
43:00 i for one loved Crecia's dialogue in the Ebonhawke DRM, so much going on behind the scenes in a short space of dialogue. Despite not being too happy about the whole champions situation
Crecia was a great character. Rarely cared for most if not all npcs, but her as a foil for Rytlock was intriguing.
It would be cool if some of the retroactive content/fixes they added were minor story collections - like one surrounding Rox in S4 that addresses her decision to stay with the Olmakhan.
Bloom brought up a really good point in his video, the requiem and mist shard armor gave collections that offered a LOT of replayability and I remember spending hours getting mistonium (I didn't care too much for the mist shard armor but still a great concept)
Yeah, stuff like the carapace and luminescent armor, ambrite weapons or (blossoming) mist shards armor is where i really get a lot of playtime and enjoyment from, especially as a fashion wars player.
The stellar weapons were a bit of a flop though, as they didn't feel integrated in the maps content and involved a lot of downtime.
The luxon weapons in this patch look good but my PC is in repairs so i don't know yet how the gameplay experience of getting them feels.
@@gewreid5946 You can buy them on the TP
More Bloodstone Fen style Maps. Regular events, a meaningful account improving farm, one mini meta and one medium meta and they're both spaced out, which makes them feel more special.
Someone in Need was an INCREDIBLE collection. Most exciting thing that’s happened in a while imo.
what I'd think would be kinda cool and sort of crazy to see would be the second half of the map be a explorative zone, kinda bit like core zones but improved of course
but the gimmick would be that you can only access that half of the map after doing the meta, so you'd have waves of people coming in and then scatter to do their exploring/story/hearts/whatever
As the train for getting an explorable zone first and then adding the meta to it later has passed, i really hope they do it the way you describe... ^^" #copium
As a "side note", you can go to the top North-West of the meta and see a huge "breakable" circle wall, as mentioned before, it's pretty obvious we are going to the west side of the map, probably deeper north but even more underground.
I would like to add about the achievements part - I was always on your side when you said that a GW2 player that does achievements points experience a whole new game - doing Achiv since day 1, gave me SO MUCH gametime, immersing me with the world, took me to places and hidden areas that just doing the story won't lead me and the completion in me was never happier. I think you touched on a good point - in IBS they did extreme and "boring" achieves (And I talk as 1 who did 100% of them) and now they really made barely good achieves... which is odd because EoD had REALLY good achieves. Not only that, and this is something barely anyone talks about, they made the ACHIV POINTS soooo LOW!!
I get it, there is a percentage of players that are above the 40-45k points, and they want to start limiting it but that's not the majority of the players... I am sitting around 36k and I really wanna get the backpack at 38-39k since they introduce it, now it's gonna take double the time, especially with the amount of content we are getting... I will do them anyway because of the things I mentioned above, but for some, low achieves points might be even more disincentivized.
In my mind, for sPvP, a minimum viable product has atleast 1 new Conquest PvP map per expansion cycle.
And those don't even need special assets. Just use the assets from the expac tied to it.
You can't tell me it would be back breaking for the studio to make a Conquest map with EoD assets. And you don't need to invest a brand new map mechanic everytime.
What if we got an Seitung looking version of Forest of Nifhel for example ? That's not that much to ask.
Hey WP I've got to agree with what you've said in previous videos that if the devs just Talked to the player base and showed a little bit of transparency that this snack of a patch would have gone down far easier. Love your content 👍
Agreed. A video explaining "Hey this IS a light patch. We have more coming." I"d be totally cool with that. More videos in general! More Water bottle memes!
@@swanofnutella4734 ...but they did. Or was it a comment on reddit by Grouch?
I might be very cynical right now, but I'm gonna bet that it's because this is the direction they are going with now. They can't talk to the us about this because every patch moving forward is going to be light, and that there's nothing big in the works until the expansions.
In regards to voice acting, I noticed at least in the end instance, that the Commander asked questions via text, and the npc's answered in voice. Seems like that's a good compromise, where they don't have to use the many PC voice actors, but can use the singular voice of Rama, for example. I'm fine with my PC not asking or commenting in conversations like this.
Alternatively, Lost Ark uses a method that I liked, where the npc would speak the first line of the response, then the rest of their response was just in text, that you could click through if you wanted. It still gave a 'voice' with inflections that you could identify with for the npc, but also allowed you to click through the rest.
uuh no no wait right there, i totally disagree with you, i would hate this to become like Link in legend of Zelda, imo the most refreshing thing in this game and actually hooked me up since the bgining was the fact that your character in the story speaks. And lets not mix things here, the problem is not that they were speaking too much in this patch, the problem is that the dialogues were a cheesy rom-com without any lore development. Compare them to the also cheesy rom-com of kasmeer and marjory when they were developing Balthazar's introduction to gw2.
But yes, whole heartedly agree. We just need MORE quality interactions with all these characters. More of a complete picture of the world. I know they can’t do everything, but bare minimum this patch 100% needed to set up the stakes for Cantha’s power crisis - that would’ve provided even more motivation for why we need to delve into this demon infested mine.
While I agree with the general sentiment, I believe there is a point which both you and WP miss. Given where Anet has taken the story thus far, I do not believe that these writers CARE about any of those other stories, quests, or questions.
At this point, there are dozens of power crises all over mainland Tyria, and Anet addresses none of them. There was no need to even go to Cantha to advance the major stories of the game, and Anet would still have years to content to add, but instead they chose the nostalgia bait and - I am guessing - the necessary cash grab of an expansion like EoD.
We even have a tab dedicated to 'side-stories' like the ones WP mentions, but when was the last time you remember really using it effectively? Most of the interesting aspects of the story which I believe adventure driven players want/require must have the one thing Anet writers seem to abhor - Conflict. These writers seem to prefer psychological conflict and interpersonal melodrama over concepts like geopolitical intrigue.
All of Tyria's 'leaders', orders, and races are treated as an afterthought rather than sources for major plot points - again, at least in my opinion.
@@xenos1383 Yeah, i think you really get at the core of the problem here.
The story that anet wants to tell would be more fit for a tv series, movie, webcomic or even singleplayer rpg or visual novel, while the story experience that a lot of mmo players are looking for in an open world mmo promising and advertising a "living world" is quite different.
We want to be immersed in a deep, complex world; intrigued by its mysteries, cultures and conflicts; seeing how it evolves and progresses, how the different stories and cultures interact.
And for that we don't need to look at one story thread at a time with a magnifying glass, just being reminded that they exist and are evolving is enough to feel like we are part of something bigger.
@@gewreid5946 and @xenos1383 i agree with both of you. And I think the "commander" should retire for good now. One cool thing about gw1 was that you had these different stories in different places and you could do them and see how the world expanded through them, so you kinda start with multiple threads all scattered and as they progress they start tangling with each other to create a complex growing world. In contrast with whats happening in gw2 in which it has become a single person rpg of a guy that is experiencing some bits of a world that stopped evolving, he is kinda living in the photographs, but those photos are left to get dust in an album closed and stored in a shelf. I think Anet has tried to adress this world progress but has failed to do it correctly due to the complexity and cost of updating maps and also due to the "commander". To be fair i think that was the idea with the "living world" initiative, they updated the maps to fit in the growth of the world, they destroyed and rebuilt lions arch, they added the mordremoth vines in several places of the world, but then they gave up because new players were missing on the past events and their developing time and money on the initial maps were lost. Nowadays you see a fort salma that has been destroyed for like 10 years perhaps, you see enemies and bosses roaming the open world when they should be gone, and it just feels like a photography that we live on repeat cause we are farming for rewards.
IMO they should stop adding new maps and story and just develop the aftermath of what they have done so far. What about giving us a revisit to magumma in which we could see the nuhoch and itzel building new cities on the places where mordrem used to be or why not a new sylvary kingdom being built there and a conflict with the asura that would also want to conquer part of the jungle (and you could leave the former maps as instances just the same as old lions arch which i think is a brilliant idea). What about they update Orr take away the risen and give us a story of new Orr a new kingdom of human race made with refugees from elona that escaped balthazar, they could have all sorts of political issues with kryta, and against the awaken, which by the way could be updated to show us what is their life going to be like now that they dont have joko and will no longer awake. They could also give us how the char and the norn are reconquering their lands after kralkatorik and jormag' deaths.
This is enough work material for a couple expansions at least, and it would keep the world relevant and evolving instead of a stuck repeated matrix. And i think the key for that is just letting the commander retire, because it feels like they can not expand on all of this because it would be very forced to have the commander attend all of these aftermath events, well then get the commander out of the equation. The commander is way to overpowered anyway, he killed all the elder dragons that were world ending calamities for milenia, he killed a god, he has the only elder dragon left and yet he is having character development at a tea party... no way man, let him rest he doesnt have to be in all of tyrias events, it doesnt make sense to have him all around and it doesnt make sense that he isnt respected and feared as a god would be.
IMO a great expansion would be one in which they have multiple paralel stories about the aftermath of the dragon cycle as i just explained, and each player is just an adveturer seeing what is happening: similar to an expectator and not the main motion force. So using my previous examples the expansion would have the quest of maguma the quest of orr, the quest of elona, and the quest of ascalon and the shiverpeaks, you choose the quests in the order you like and you start as another adventurer seeing the changes and fighting when those changes are affecting the average population so for example on the magumma aftermath you could be an explorer just exploring the magumma jungles when you come across a new city being built and trhoughout the story you help with building it, defending it, then you get involved in some political conflict, then you get involved in some ancient magic discovery, and at the end of the story the city is built and from that point on you have a new instance of the same map with the new city and npcs+events accordingly. In this concept the world is growing and alive but it isnt because of your eggoccentric choices but due to logical worldwide geopolitical sense.
Yes… please expand on Ayumi… And while you’re at it, please update the dialogue of the Tengu hating on her next to Leivas… 🫠
Gas Mask Jade bot mastery! Less refreshing as you advance.
My favorite moment in gw2 was sitting and watching Dolyak's Rest. No event, no meta - just a sad tale. On that character I always keep Runes of the Dolyak.
I think the community outrage to the wonderful Soo Won boss fight left them really confused and scared to try new things.
I think the main thing there was that the turtle was locked behind it. And the turtle was a selling point of the expac. I don't have 2 hours a day to play so, I would never get it (initially).
@@TheSparkIdea But thats the thing - we always hear "cries" about rewards. If they don't put a good reward behind it, lets say in this instance, a freaking new mount, if the wanna try a cool HARD content, without a good "reward" people are not gonna bother to try it...
@@flyrow3712 People aren't going to want to do Hard content if they don't like it. Doesn't matter if you dangle a big ol' reward behind it, they won't. If it's not fun for them, they'll just quit the game and move on. They'll feel sad about not wanting to play GW2, but they won't go back to it. Some hardcore players like you might enjoy this content, but the vast majority are mainly here for the world, and having fun with the game while they're playing it. And if you're not having fun, the motivation to continue playing drops off. Doesn't matter what rewards they'll miss out on if they're not invested.
Yeah because Mount is an open world content and they put a Strike on it majority of GW2 players are open world casuals. I have the Turtle though and I also play Strikes but I think that decision that they made was not a good move.
Gyala Delves was definitely a hastily put together patch. Given their recent "we're changing how we do things AGAIN" (for the 73rd time!) I bet they definitely had this as a full map and completed episode story, with a lot more planned implementations in the map and elsewhere, but a couple months (heck, even weeks lol!!) earlier they realised they had resource issues and had to scramble to cut it back and rework some things (like remove the air filter as a mastery/jade bot and make it a buff) and come up with a new long-term strategy.
What's the bet in another two years we'll have another "we're changing how we do things"......
I miss the LWS 3 and 4 releases (and the HoT and PoF expansions). The LW maps all felt unique, and the stories felt impactful with either with cliffhangers or closing a thread.
This felt like an on rails tour, like you would get in Disneyland or the likes.
There are cool things sprinkled around the map, but it's best viewed from the (meta)train. Ember bay, with a meta event is something I would want I think.
Isn't that worm thingie kinda like a meta or worldboss?
Been ages since i played it.
@@gewreid5946 It's just an event
Something I'm now thinking of is how they're going to deal with the next patch. They have to expand on this story, make it more relevant, have a climax, explain all of that, and somehow conclude it and wrap it all up as a complete package, because the next thing will be standalone story. If the setup has been so vague and thin with this patch, how are they going to manage ALL that in the next one?
Yeah man it's quite the laundry list
@@WoodenPotatoes They can set up the whole void/demons story with this and continue it in the next mini-expac but then how do they manage to not make it feel like just living world but you have to pay for it now? I really don't know how to feel about the future of this game anymore. I was really worried for the future of the game after the lay offs/during IBS but then EoD announcement, them saying they'll refocus on GW2, EoD apparently selling well and having a lot of new players/people come back, instantly announcing work on a new expansion, etc... really brought back hope... and then a confusing post and their first patch (as in post EoD, new content)after all that is this? I want to be hopeful and think that this isn't representative of future content but they didn't say that... it doesn't really inspire confidence.
Can't help but wonder how this episode is going to feel like to late joiners who get the episode in its entirety without the odd 3 month pause between the first and second halves.
My friend wasn't as bothered by Champions as I was because he played through it long after IBS concluded, and so he could go from one portion to the next without that wait. He acknowledged that it seemed low effort compared to the chapters before it but didn't have to deal with that annoyance of waiting for the next morsel of DRM-based story like I did.
"He acknowledged that it seemed low effort" not a good sign
@@lostsanityreturned welll... that's how Icebrood saga *did* end. Recycling core and LW maps for Drms. He understood why when I explained this was post covid, post layoffs, and when almost everyone was shunted over to work on EoD, at least. :V
I'm sensing a bit of apathy and disinterest in their world lately. It's like the devs are ready to move onto a new game...
I really like that old masteries are used, slightly, in this map I always love using old masteries, like a métroidvania
I'm right there with you on the story stuff.
Imo, the main thing that bothers me about GW2s story is that they treat it a lot like a TV series or movie. It's very cinematic, linear and focused.
Thats fine for movies, books or even visual novels or singleplayer games where the gameplay and ludonarrative can really add to and deepen the experience.
But i don't think i it is the type of story mmos as a medium do best or a lot of mmo players look for. It's about a complex, *living world* to explore and get immersed in. It's about the big stories in the world but also the random soldiers and farmers you meet on your journey. It's about the hearts, dynamic events and ambient dialogue. That's what GW2 promised, that's what GW2 does so well. And i wish they'd lean into it more.
As for minimum viable product i wonder if i'd have found it acceptable if we got no meta or instanced story content at all until the next update if it meant we got an explorable adventure map with ambient dialogue, lorebooks, hearts and collection quests that have us catch up with people and events in cantha and tyria and set up new stories and mysteries. Some collections that make us go back to eod maps and discover phased dialogue and landmarks like mai trins grave orsomething.
Anet's been putting in the least amount of effort into GW2 for years. This isn't anything new, it's just the new low (which I didn't think was even possible). The worst part is people defending this shit. Do we not have standards anymore?
The WiZards tower is where Queen Jennah controls her clones!
Regarding masteries, I 100% agree that post patch masteries should exist and should be used to fill out and expand on masteries from the base expansions. What are the best masteries in any living world? It has to be the mount masteries we got in LW4. This can polish out ideas they didn't have time for in building expansions, or that occur to them after the expansion is out and people can play with the masteries. Just off the top of my head there's already room for:
* Extra jade bot module space
* Griffon being able to use gliding thermals
* Mount elite skill -- presumably an invuln
* Mount engage skill upgrades -- e.g. raptor tail spin cripples enemies so they don't spread back out as quickly
* Jade battery autorecharge that gives you 1 mercy charge if you're empty for more than a minute
* Jade bot explorable mode (summonable by a key anywhere like the skiff or jade waypoint works)
* Jade bot skills to use in explorable mode -- e.g. scanning for stealthed enemies and revealing them
* Skiff summoning module -- if you leave your skiff and are within a certain radius you can use SAK to teleport back on to it
* Skiff emergency shield -- spawns a barrier on the skiff when it would die, with a cooldown to give you a chance to notice it's in trouble and help or escape on it
* Fishing treasure finder -- just like stardew valley, you have a chance for a treasure chest that can pop up, but you have to move the fishing bar over it and let the fish start escaping capture, in return for a little treasure, like maybe jade slivers with a rare chance of a trophy or money bag (you could even use this on particular maps to have certain sunken treasures you can fish up for lore / collections)
* Grandmaster fishing lures, unlocks new pricier lures on merchants that let you pick what time of day it counts as, so the dawn/dusk fish are less awful
I believe they will add strike mission maybe with the second half of the map. There will probably be some cool looking boss to end this part od story so they will recycle it with strike.
I think one of the right things GW2 did with VA in the past is using it to catch your attention just so you go and talk with NPCs that have dialogs that are not VA but you will still be interested in reading those, they really should focus on doing that more and adding more optional lore that way.
Also, the new map also has some interesting dialogues around the bases if you stick around after the meta capture event, I haven't heard all but the ones I did were super interesting. It just sucks that the meta incentives you to keep moving forward so not everyone will notice that.
What has disappointed me time and time again about ArenaNet is that even though they have shown that they can put out quality patches before, most of the time lately they act like an indie dev.
Wooden i love you bro, Im going through your Azurik rise of perathia guide, and i LOVE IT! You’ve been a life saver for many puzzles. Thank you sir, this channel is a gem
Thanks, man!
One of the issues I see with the game is that everything is just handled through the UI
If you interacted with an NPC to select some dailies to do and went back to that NPC to get your reward to, the game would feel more social
Thats open for debate, while i personally agree with you, ive seen multiple "new player reviews" in which people agree that not having to deal with npcs for quests and having them in the UI is actually something they like and see as a great improvement.
lol, about the instances: "this instance could have been an email"
What I miss whit Meta's in the world at the moment is that in the end, we will look, What is the most viable Meta and just forget about the others. What I would really like is what they did for raids that 1 meta reward is boosted when you do it the first time in a day. A daily/weekly meta giving incentive for people to do different meta's and in that way come back to different maps.
Yeah, a rotating content system like that for metas and/or world bosses could be pretty cool, now that we have more stuff in the game.
Honestly, I miss the level of exploration we used to get in like central tyria or living world season 3/4. I love small event chains, I HATE big meta maps, I couldn't be more boring for me.
I feel like this map is probably really hurting from it's missing part two. The map meta is so quick that it feels like you can't do anything in it other than the meta. If it continues in the next quarterly, hopefully that'll stretch it out enough to feel like there is room for gameplay other than just the core event chain that makes up the meta.
If WoodenPotatoes 🥔 never stopped pumping gw2 videos, he’d be at 200k subs right now. Good to see him back at least lol.
The player base feeling this way has somehow become part of the expansion cycle.
Mostly an excellent overview of things I agree are necessay! I do have two points of disagreement here:
1: The need for new art: For me this is really not necessary on a large scale as you seem to suggest. Old assets put together in a novel way (when fitting the "new" setting) is more than enough for me, when combined with just a few new assets. This map reused a lot of general Canthan, Jade and cavern assets but did have new assets for the mining machines, alternative jade and the weird rock formations in the deep. For me, that's enough to make this map unique, and anything more is just extra, not "minimum viable".
2: I agree that they need to add more non-voiced dialogue and information, but disagree with some of your specifics there. Specifically, they need to be consistent in where and how they use voice acting. Having the story first direct you to divinities reach to have some text-only conversation with M & K would feel awful. This runs counter to expectations the rest of the game set up, so it would feel like Drizzlewood pre-voiceacting. I would rather have some voice-lines in that scenario but cut away elsewhere. For example, at the end of the last instance there is a bunch of optional voiced dialogue with Rama, Gorrik and Yao. All of that should have been text-only. Instead, spend all that VA budget on a few voice lines for meeting M&K, Aurene, or anyone else. Then, attach a bunch of optional text-only dialogue to those meetings. Now, you've gotten much more use out of the same number of VA lines, and it feels natural if you keep doing this consistently.
Other natural places (some of which you mentioned): map NPCs, books, mail, side-collections, etc. Add some news articles we can read from a stand! They should just avoid big chunks of playtime without voiceacting where people expect it.
One last note on the double dipping with story and meta: For me the main problem is not the re-use of assets or anything, but the weird splitting up of the story with the same characters. You have a conversation, then enter the deep with your team and discover an Oni. But this happens in both the instance and the meta-event. Between thes two versions the conversations are different, but there's no indication of which happened first. So it ends up as two different sequences of events that contradict each other. Would have been better to just use some generic characters for the meta.
Ohhh Mai Trin grave scene like you describe, but Theo Ashford’s surviving husband and/or kid shows up to spit on her grave! Would be super interesting and poignant, and provide more meaning to Mai’s overall story arc (and give the husband/child revelation in EoD more purpose).
I appreciate your take on the new content . I enjoyed the new story . Waiting to see the where we go. The PTSD that it deals with is very well done . I hope there is wonder & surprise this year with the new story arc. Maybe story Fractals, non combat events to wrap up old story lines? Plenty of great stories to be told in the Mists? Thanks again WP
I think a meta event doesn't have to be epic to be fun. Something as simple as Metal Legion type thing where we just participate for the fun of it, not necessarily to beat a big boss. One of those type of metas again where we are just sitting back and enjoying life and community again.
Most of GW1’s coolest lore moments were delivered through text and without voice acting. GW2 can do this too.
IMO this is better a lot of the time, because it leaves more up to the imagination vs. having some cartoony character like Taimi reveal a story beat, which just feels diminished in severity as a result.
This is an area where GW2 is really hurt by not having a traditional questing system.
Regarding jumping puzzles, bounties, adventures and other "additional" activities ANet could put on a map: IMO none of them are mandatory per se, BUT at least one should be there per map. I don't particularly care which one, but if literally nothing else is in there (like this release), the map feels very bare-bones.
I think the biggest problem with What Lies Beneath is the fact that it's very much quarterly update scale, but it came out a full year after EoD.
I want to believe that this is not representative of what mini xpac launches will be like, but who knows at this point.
I agree so much with what you said about voice acting not being necessary. One of my favorite EoD moments was the Zunraa quest and there was no voice acting at all in it.
They could even add new lore with the legendaries in the future just as dialogue with npcs or hidden books on the maps, it doesn't have to be complicated as with the collections they added with the gen 1 and some gen 2 weapons, just something of lore or story to add more flavor to the world.
I wouldn't even mind if they went as far as adding mini-patches in between quarterly patches where they put together the cm of a strike, or add a new legendary, the release of gem store skins someway related to the story or anything, with small simple instances of written dialog and lore books for us to sink our teeth into.
As you said, if they have confidence in the story they tell, they shouldn't be afraid to take risks and actually tell it to us.
They could make old masteries useful, and rejig them so they're not so linear in their acquisition. Looking at S3's, you have to level up 5 unrelated masteries in sequence (and then the Siren's one, which is probably not worth it today at all). Sure as the content was released everyone probably levelled each mastery each patch. But now, a newer player could get to Draconis Mons and have to grind out 4 other masteries just to learn Oakheart. And then, it's only used in that map, and Dragonfall. They should split out some of these masteries so you can level them separately - maybe even on any map rather than being restricted to S3 - and then they can have a whole new set of traversal mechanics available. Yes, Skyscale probably makes a lot of these traversal masteries obsolete, but imagine Oakheart swinging around Echovald. Or having the Bloodstone Fen glider abilities available globally to give gliders more use. PoF's mount masteries are fantastic because they are useful everywhere. And that makes them worth it. S3's not so much.
I did those puzzles in all the maps a few weeks ago so they did come before the patch. I completed it for a mastery point and was surprised to find they added Gyala Delve "spirits" to it. Really cool though, I find them quite fun to look for in the map.
I continue to think WP is misinterpreting the meaning of "quarterlies" and what each one will entail. The blog post says as follows: "In the following quarterly updates, we’ll add another open-world map, additional story chapters, challenge modes for the Strike Missions, a new fractal dungeon and challenge mode, new rewards, and additions to the new systems introduced in that expansion."
WP seems to be suggesting that each patch will include most or all of those things (e.g. each patch needs to have a strike or endgame equivalent, as he mentions as being a minimum viable product in this video). I really think that's misreading it. The blog post is suggesting that, after the xpac, we get [through all quarterlies in total] one new map [perhaps in parts], additional story stuff, one fractal, etc. Not in each quarterly, but across all quarterlies (maybe one quarterly expands the map, another includes the fractal, etc.)
I really worry that people are setting themselves up for bigger disappointment by reading too much into the blog post. Don't get me wrong, if you think what the blog post is actually promising isn't nearly enough, by all means have at it. But I really hope people are reading that blog post for what it really says and forming their opinions from there.
All that being said I am totally on board for more story in the ways WP has mentioned. I would gladly trade 50% of the VO from a patch like this for more written lines and little stories to catch up on around the world. Not every question needs to be answered at every point but it is nice to have small things to check in on from time to time.
I do agree that this is an MVP but it’s not the first time by any means. Anet has a long history of releasing shallow updates - shallow story that just rushes through objectives without any side stories, extra flavor tidbits, mysteries or whatnot. A shallow map with just one main thing, no adventures or bounties or races or puzzles or any side stories and mysteries and flavors. Masteries (if included) that actually do nothing much besides maybe enabling a vendor or a chest unlock - which you train once and forget forever. They always say “we’re changing things around the next patch will have more” but then the next patch has a new excuse attached and is shipped as an MVP too. Anet had a couple “golden” periods with good cadence of content that had good amount of things to do (s3->pof->s4) but that’s about it.
I wish they made smaller but denser maps that have activities like bounties or adventures or puzzles and some special weapon/armor skin collections. And just a good amount of npc dialogue to expand stories and lore
Drizzlewood is likely the best Meta Map in the game. That's a fun map! The new one was "meh".
Curious what is in the minimum viable product for other mmos patches / updates and if they are drastically different or not.
I think as a minimum we need atleast one jumping puzzle and 10 collections a few hearts and plenty of interesting poi per release. As well as new mobs and npcs with wierd lines
What’s the gemstore hint about the wedding? They had that wedding package, but wasn’t that purely for Valentine’s Day? Was there extra description on that package that I missed that talked about Kas and Marjory?
No that's it!
My perfect Living World MAP is Domain of Istan, you have meteorite hunting, caravans events, places to chill, hearts and also 2 really exciting chains of events. The only thing missing is some big jumping puzzle but it's almost perfect.
Palawadan being this kida escort run through with smaller bosses and Great Hall being the big bad boss stand off.
If I was in charge of the studio, I would love to invite you for a consulting session with the leading team for this franchise in order to challenge - in a healthy way - the underlying logic and preferences this studio has been comfortable with for a long time now. Your criticism is so well-phrased and beautifully reasonable. Great work WP !
It's sad that now we're pleading for the minimum. And not even getting that. What happened to them investing more in GW2. I thought we're going into better times, not the worst of times.
I feel like this patch does a lot of things right, but it needs like 2x more of it. I liked the 3 or so things we could interact with and read for example. 1-2 text dialogue from NPCs about the power crisis, maybe some mail with hints about what rylock and Logan are up to, and an old diary of an ancient Luxon re: Oni, or maybe Rama tells us about the stories he heard as a kid.
I haven't gotten to play the patch yet, just saw wp playing it, so its nice to hear that it does a lot right as well.
And yeah, more stuff about the power crisis would really have fit in and felt satisfying. Just one of those news holograms talking about it with some brotherhood npcs commenting on how it's a huge opportunity and how they benefit from having recycled junkyard batteries rather than relying on the grid.
GW2 needs more sidequests and a quest journal outside the achievement menu. All those sidequests dont need voice acting but most of my favorite stuff in GW2 is stuff like the sword regrown. Events dont make up for sidequest since they deliver so little stories and collections are just a bother with their menu and just very little story associated to em.
I mean honestly, all this mini expac/quarterly release stuff seems like ways to temper expectations on what it will be. And yet there's still disappointment. At what point are we just gonna say that Anet is fucking around, and all this changing around isn't for the benefit of the game at all.
Anet is scraping the bottom of the barrel. They will take out elite specs, take out masteries, and meanwhile introduce a system that has you coming in more frequently with your wallet to buy 'mini expansions'. It's sort of running out of excuses why it's not delivering at least the quantity of updates that a WoW or FFXIV do.
Maybe a crazy idea, but they could also involve the players more to fill out content like adventures on maps. They already have decorating systems -- what if they had competitions to design griffon adventures, beetle races, skiff / skimmer races, skyscale rifts where players got a local empty instance (you have the map content on your PC, so it wouldn't take up more resources on their end) to mess around in. Yes, it would mean you didn't have the content at launch, but it would be more stuff for a particular kind of creative player to indulge in once they've decked their guild hall out, and we could get all sorts of maps filled in with a variety of fun adventures.
Hey WP, I noticed you played the new patch on a Charr, did you hear that they get a special voiceline from Almorra?
I wonder btw if our minds are linked to Aurene and Caithe now, that might mean they will be affected by us going into the haze and going mad.
Aurene could make a "mindscape" instance near the end of End of Dragons like Soo Won could.
YES, THANK YOU! Ive been playing this game for a decade and theres still so little dialogue in this i just DO NOT CARE for any of the characters. Everything i know about them is SO surface level, i just cannot care about them, even if i tried.
About masteries, you need to remember a lot of folks will like them even just for increasing their "score". Not having anything like that in this new map was really noticeable. And the air filter could have been a PERFECT candidate for a very SIMPLE mastery, say with three levels to gain, each one giving a longer duration and more stats.
There's nothing wrong with masteries being tied to one map only too. It makes those maps have their own unique feel.
Do you never go back to Bitterfrost to farm chests and berries? Do you never go back to Draconis and use the vine grapple thing? It's a bit of fun and/or nostalgia, and such maps would be boring as heck without them.
What I really want for these kinds of patches is some form of replayable content that isn't Metas or traditional group content (strikes, fractals, raids, etc.) I'd like for Arenanet to experiment with new replayable content ideas. I play a lot of WoW and as much as people ended up hating on torghast, I really appreciate what they were going for there. I feel as though Anet would nail a feature like that one. Might be wrong though, I just feel as though the devs should focus on what makes GW2 unique ; the combat, movement and exploration. At this point I'm unfortunatly not really interested in story content. There's FF XIV and AAA single player RPG titles for that. I might be in the minority though !
Wish they would made torghast harder,timed and more rewarding would be great imo.
Total downgrade compared ot Visions of Nzoth.
As a non-wow player, what is thorgast?
But i agree on focusing more on what makes gw2 great and unique. I really enjoy the setting, buildcraft, open world and living world stuff (as well as fashion wars).
@@gewreid5946 It basically was a rogue-like type feature where you would get powers by climbing the different levels. It was originally planned to be infinitely scaling. During the Shadowlands BETA, your character would be bonkers powerful after climbing a couple floors, it was really fun.
@@o.b.321 Huh, that does sound pretty interesting and fun indeed.
But its probably very hard to get it to a point where it interacts with the game systems enough to really fit in and is better/offers a unique experience compared to just closing the mmo and playing ons favorite roguelike instead.
I would like to say on your talk about meta events and to do with heart quests, The best map by far that has been released in my opinion that has been captivating was when they did the Ring of Fire segment.
Picked up GW2 about 4 months ago. Coming from other MMOs I too am skeptical of the newer version of story releases, but I have to say the story has been a stand out feature for me and explains the narrative really well to new players getting me immersed in the stakes. I feel that often those who perhaps play the game for longer and with more frequency can experience burn outs that lead to harsher demands. Usually im very anti-dev/marketing studios but GW2 def suprised me! Awesome vid and def will check out more!
"Not Enough. Never Enough. Not Enough." - that's how I feel about your content, WP. Keep doing those live fishing videos, so chill.
I'd have loved to see this on Gyala map:
- a new fishing collection!
- more interactables, journals, npc dialogues - yes pls
- more small event chains with little side stories
Btw I keep doing those Escort the researcher events, trying to get the Touch the Base achievement to ding. The female one, Kim, says at the end of her event something like 'You're going to feed on me?! Now? But I am so close to a breakthrough! Why'd you even hire me' - made me think back to your immortal vampires theory. Then listening to the Behemoth camp researcher, he says some real weird cryptic stuff. I figured, maybe 'feed on me' can also mean whatever demon is down there is feeding on people's energy/soul/not sure? But if her bosses are vampires, that'd be a cool 'WP is right' tidbit right there :D
I'm in complete agreement with the idea that the amount of dialogue is far too low. I don't care about having absolutely everything voice acted. Some is great, sure, but in the Gyala Delve patch there is so little to click on and read. Few NPCs to speak to, few books to read, and I've always considered text-based lore and story to be such an easy addition. Maybe it's not and I'm totally out of touch, but it always felt like it was an easy inclusion. As we reach the little forts under the Jade I'd love to see more books and documents and NPCs become interact-able, and could even be tied to how much they are tiered up.
I also miss collections in this patch. I like a collection to get me to go to parts of the map I maybe otherwise wouldn't. We had the foxy boxes, and I really enjoyed that, but a few others for gathering intel or even harking back to Season 2 with collecting various coins (or other collectables) feels like it would go so far.
It's just not enough content for a year of, essentially, content drought. I know there's been Season 1, and I know there have been legendary variants, and raid training mode, but this isn't real story progression content. The latter two have actually really kept me playing all year. I've been farming for the variants and finally, after 7 years, got into Raiding and have 2.5 sets of armour now.... feels really great and I've been really busy, but it's not the same as getting another chuck of really well delivered story on a really well thought out map.
I agree with the story part. Vast amounts of dialogue in ff14 isnt Voice acted, yet people that are into the story, like i am, enjoy every little opportunity we get to explore the games story and lore. There is a Side-questline in Endwalker which gets updated with each content patch, where the player gets to talk with npcs we havent met for years. We get to know what their view on certain events is, how it impacted their lifes and how they continue to live. The questline even requires players to have finished several sidestorylines from every expansion prior to Endwalker. Something i dont see ArenaNet ever do.
Im currently replaying gw1, it rekindles the love i once had for the franchise, yet makes me so sad knowing that they created a world that is much bigger then what they are willing to maintain.
About the voices discussion you mentioned, imo i would hate to lose the voice acting (would hate if this became like Link in legend of Zelda), imo the most refreshing thing in this game and actually hooked me up since the begining was the fact that your character in the story speaks. Im ok with a button to skip, tho, cause there are people that dont care and only want to speedclear. But hey lets not mix things here, the problem is not that they were speaking too much in this patch, the problem is that the dialogues were a cheesy rom-com without any lore development. Compare them to the also cheesy rom-com of kasmeer and marjory when they were developing Balthazar's introduction to gw2, or what about the rom-com of ritlock and crecia as the champion of jormag was being developed, or braham and crecia as he was working into becoming the chosen and the champion of primordus. The point here is there have been lots of talking and chessiness over the years, but there was always some substance along with it. In this patch instead it was just Rama getting a girlfriend for the sake of Rama getting a girlfriend.
Spectacle is great but you gotta get it RIGHT. Claw of Jormag in drizzlewood is crammed with spectacle but the implementation is weak. I don't think the intention is to crowd up behind it and hope to god you survive. I actually think you are supposed to be out front and the ice blocks are supposed to be integral for running back and avoiding the breath but they spam you with a hundred mobs so u almost die on the way in and out. It's VERY very messy.
I really loved Drizzlewood on a number of levels, but that's coming from someone who played through it for the first time a fair while after it released. I think the meta is very fun, and reminds me of what WvW would be like if it was brought into PvE. But the biggest thing I liked about it (and what prompted me to write this) was the environment. While yes, a lot of assets were reused in buildings and such, it the first map that truly felt like a large forest, the kind I remember climbing around as a child and now drive through in the Pacific Northwest in the USA. It's really hard to make a forest in a game due to collision that would pop up if you fully populated it like a real forest (where there's also collision now that I think about it), but the first half of Drizzlewood really captures that feel for me. The only other spot that has that is the small area of Bitterfrost where everything was frozen and cold (and is another of my favorite areas).
Just wanted to bring it up, cause I think Drizzlewood gets a little bit of undue hate just due to how IBS was handled and released, how it was cut short, etc., but other than Champions and the DRMs, IBS is great, including Drizzlewood, as someone who played through it later.
I'm really surprised that there's no skiff race available, seems like low hanging fruit. There was one added for the Four Winds festival but none added to the open world.
I think gw2 doesn’t have a good system for these side stories. Marjorie’s story after EoD is a good positive example, but it’s a bit too hidden in achievements. We need some type of in between unavoidable main story and hidden in achievements.
Or make the achievement stuff less hidden, at the very least. Because yeah, the EoD stuff was great.
There was always an achievement for playing with all the spirits in each EoD map category - along with the play with 100 spirits as a general. They only added a 'complete all the maps' achievement.
What we need CONSISTENCY.
What we get FLAILING.
I hate how rushed metas feel. Every portion of the meta gets bulldozed before you ever appreciate what you’re actually doing. And if you don’t have every mount, good luck keeping up..
I have not played since EoD launch week after I finished the story. Is the game worth coming back to at this point? I have no clue what's been added since.
they added the first season of living story and now this patch
Man I hope they don't keep doing resetting meta Maps. I'm sad that all of the maps that will be in the Jade sea are all resetting meta Maps... you can't just hang hangout in the Jade sea because there's always a meta going on and it always going to reset...
They need to get some fresh blood, connor and his events were a breath of fresh air, it's a shame he left and it shows.
I'm just going to edit in to sum up that I think this was a really spot-on video. Extra comments below!
I totally agree with you on feeling rushed, WP. I also don't like Drizzlewood, despite it being an amazing map visually. But the constant feeling of stress, and bars telling you "You better not be exploring"... and on this new one they also added the horrendous "timer mechanic" of the filter as well. Especially this last one I will never understand why devs add them for repeatable content (it's fine for one-offs).
Also to add on bounties, I feel like again, the problem with them other than sometimes a low reward structure has always been that a lot of the modifiers that the bounty targets can get is not fun to deal with. There are some that are pretty okay, but a lot of them only makes the fight worse-feeling to me. Maybe this is just me? I actually would be all for having like that thing of "I'll grab this bounty since I'm here!" but that never happens for me, except those few times I needed it for a collection. That's fine, but I really feel like it's an example of a system that's almost there, but somehow it doesn't get that little extra it needs.
It feels bad this is also a negative-sounding feedback for Anet but, can it really be so hard to add at least one strike or encounter per patch? I mean... you don't have to have every one be really advanced fights. I don't know how much making one encounter costs, but can it truly be so high, if you don't make every one be like a key lore encounter or whatever, it could literally be anything that loosely fits the map? I don't even do Strikes all the time but it quite literally baffles me that there wasn't one in this patch.
I'm also not a fan of Drizzlewood, yet I keep playing it because I'm trying to farm the one final mastery point so I can unlock the final mastery and move on to EoD
yess exactly. I like when you go to a zone for the exploration, the adventure, the beauty of the zone, the lore etc. It gives you that core Tyria feeling, like you're actually a living character in this living world. When every new zone comes out focused only on meta events it quickly becomes very predictable, boring and loses that alive feeling. It's like they're just throwing new gold farms at us and not actually giving us a part of the world. I'm not against meta events, they can be great when done well, but they don't have to be on every new zone. It's actually kind of exhausting and predictable. When they force a meta event on every new zone, that zone loses a bit of magic and becomes just a machine.
The Differenz with Masteries in Old living world Episode is that they are barely usable in Expansion or Open world and other Maps but if they added new ones the would be accessable only trough owning EoD could be usefull in every content wich gets releasest after the EoD Expansion.
5:33 so the worst thing about the meta in truth, is the final boss, the rest is fine, just fine not great or even good, but fine, but that final boss doesn't even have the bounty changing buff that the other bosses do in the other parts of the meta, to make it other than heath bar to stare at go to zero 4 times.
Whenever you talk about the story and more so the broader world lore that's been missing form the game I'm always keenly reminded of your HoT story review and the section about "What's missing" - this huge list of lore points that the game could bounce off of, that deserve a mention, because they are connected to what's happening on the Main Storyline. This is also why it so often feels like "ANet doesn't know their own game's lore"... well in some part I think they actually forgot because they don't interact with it on a regular basis, don't keep it fresh for themselves.
I think some of it also comes down to how stripped down the writing team itself is at the moment. I think they're just plain short on (wo)manpower. It's not that the people who are there are bad at their job, not by any stretch - it's that there aren't enough of them. Because from an implementation side you're right: it can be put in game as "just text" - but that text has to be written, contextualized into the world, the lore and to the character delivering it, it has to be typeset into the respective textboxes (because you can't just dump in 50 lines without breaking the UI)... stuff like that dosen't take a lot of effort so much as taking a lot of person-hours... And as far as I can tell ANet is really short on persons.
I think it's also probably because a lot if not most all the main GW1 writers and devs are gone. Those people created the world and truly loved the world they made whereas GW2 always has felt like a spin off in too many places. It's too surface level with the lore. On the other hand, some games like WoW or Elder Scrolls Online even go pretty hardcore about explaining the world around you and building up the stories of how the world exists, why it exists, who exists in it, how they act, how they INTER-act, and how you fit into that story. In GW2, it always felt like a story on rails, like "oh yeah, next story point is point B, just run from point A to get there and maybe we'll give you a sentence of background lore while we talk about things that will only ever be talked about or relevant this ONE quest". It doesn't feel like it builds up the world itself, but rather feels like TONS of very tiny little quest lines that don't really tie into a greater picture of "this is Tyria" etc. I think personally, that the Elder Dragons storyline is somewhat of the culprit here. It drove storytelling in such a way that actually, much of the world building could just be straight up lazy or ignored because well, "OH MY GOD, AN ANCIENT, MAGICAL DRAGON IS ATTACKING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE" which just completely monopolized the lore. That said, as much as I loved GW1 to death, it's not like it had to hit you over the head with lore, but that said, EVERYTHING worked well together and built a cohesive world through every quest, and every side quest as well, it all played a larger role in creating not just interesting questing stories to engage with, but also building interesting worlds that made you feel like you were really in them and that they could exist. GW2 does not feel like a world that could exist, even if magic were real, because the worlds feel like a dreamstate rather than a fantasy.
I think the thing here is for anyone who cleared the Dragons End meta at launch of EOD and believe me it took me 10 tries before I did…this meta is childs play. I cleared it on my double staff mirage without realizing I needed the Jade bot agony like thing. Was I downed a lot sure, but thought they were making shit hardcore again. In retrospect disappointed….like them to go deeper in the zone.
I wish they would take their time with the story. I loved going through the story of FFXIV, but if I were to compare going through shadowbringers with EoD, it’s not even close. It was an amazing journey through shadowbringers with many hours of enjoyment without being rushed. EoD was just a few short hours of get through this map and to the next very fast. It doesn’t give you the time to appreciate what is going on, what could go on, and the fantastic gameplay of guild wars 2
Wp it would be awesome if you could use the function to segment the video into parts visible in the progress bar for ppl to go the part they are only interesting in or want to rewatch.
Yeah I did, I just messed it up. Fixed now!
I find it interesting that in the lore Logan is in southsun, Rox is in the sandswept isles. I may be wrong but I can't find either of them.
Isnt life funny that the V story was written years ago, but yet so was our story as the gentleman and lady who loved all of him.
At the end of the video you bring up a major point that GW2 has always struggled with, which has always held the story back (even before launch), which is referencing past major events. There has been almost no sense of a world full of people who'd react to certain changes or major news from another area.
A recent and very good example of how bad this is, is the end of End of Dragons. We hear that the void eventually broke out everywhere in Tyria. Everywhere! Imagine the chaos it created! Why can't we talk to NPC's about it?
I agree, we need way more text. WAY more! And to add one more argument for the implementation of more text: even if many people won't bother reading it, the enthusiasts will, and you only need a minority with enough interest to keep the lore conversation going, which will lead to people making videos, which will create more interest in the lore even with people who didn't bother reading that text. Every Dark Souls game (and now Elden Ring) proves that you can garner immense interest in lore through simple text (most of these games' lore and world building is in item descriptions).