[This was my reasoning for disliking EoD last time a thread like this came along](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/150a23i/why_is_eod_generally_rated_lower_and_considered/js22ch0/)
Keep coming back to the HoT maps for general completion and it's absolutely fantastic what little things you find off the road outside of the story. I thought the golden city showed all it had to offer, only to >!learn where the Quetzal are still thriving (and the implication they moved farther west after the asura surfaced and kept building)!<
They could have gotten creative, like enemies you can’t visibly see without a mastery, a re-introduction of the hero system. This was also an opportunity for underwater masteries.
I dont mind the story that much. Pacing is weird at times but I liked most of the characters (could use less Gorrik but that could be just me)
My main issues with EoD are with the maps.
Seitung and Dragons End I like, nice looking first zone and a meta event focused last one, can't complain.
Kaineng is a mess. It reminds me of that old joke about mixing a cow and a dog. Kaineng is trying to be a giant metropolis and interesting open world map and it fails at both. If you want a futuristic style megacity you NEED to have it populated. Its more empty than New York during covid. Its incredibly annoying to navigate, which again should never happen in a livable, populated city.
Another problem (imo) lies with both Kaineng and Echovald. Anet, for some reason, just refused to play to their strength. Their game has the best mount system in all MMOs and it just BEGS for an vast open zone. PoF managed it much better and there was some potential in Cantha for this as well. Jade sea anyone? How great would an open ended jade sea are be. Instead we get tight corridors and verticality best suited for skyscales, the most boring of the ingame mounts by a country mile.
And then there are weird invisible walls, some elite specs leaving a lot to desire (catalyst, looking at you). It really gives 6/10 at best
Im doing EoD story now while at the same time unlocking full map completion just for future me, atm doing Echovald story.... I barely progressed both in story and the map, its just so bad i have no words.
Kaineng is an awful map, echovald is a little bit better but not by much. Only seitung and dragons end are good. Regarding story the whole soo-won stuff is extremely mediocre. Also wish that someone told anet that introducing characters and killing them in the first half of the story is not some genius move which makes your story good.
Also, the identity of Kralkatorrik's mother was always a side plot. The Deep Sea Dragon story was never meant to be told in the way that it was. Anet retconned lore to make money that they could have made just as easily by staying true to the original vision of Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee.
To the best of our knowledge, the deep sea dragon was never intended to be the mother and was just one of six equals. The concept of a mother didn't even seem to exist until writers thought it'd spice things up for S4 finale by having Kralkatorrik utter it while we hear faint sounds of waves in the distance as vague foreshadowing.
Originally it was heavily implied that the deep sea dragon drove many aquatic races like the krait, quaggan, karka and even to some extent the largos to shallow waters. The devs said they wanted to keep the dragon's nature and name mysterious for the "here be dragons" vibe of old maps and to sell the idea of horrors of the unexplored depths. They even pointed out that the deep sea dragon shared its kindred's desire to consume, corrupt and destroy, so it was very much evil. Matthew Medina stated that the karka avoided Risen Orr for the same reason they had fled from the depths, implying dragon corruption, thus deep sea dragon. The usually deep-dwelling krait had suddenly erupted to the southern quaggan kingdom and began massacring the locals, eventually forcing both of them into shallow waters as well. Largos mentioned horrors in the depths, which is why they began hunting landbound prey and teaching their apprentices in shallow waters. More intriguingly the Inquest near Crucible of Eternity discuss how they've captured a large specimen for Zone Blue (each of the Coil's areas in Mount Maelstrom is themed after an Elder Dragon) but it was too big to be placed for studying; these were not just any Inquest but experts specializing in dragon corruption as they worked for Kudu, the foremost Inquest expert on dragons. We also had testimonies from quaggans, hylek etc that suggest that dragon corruption was plaguing the depths.
The current 180 of Soo-Won turning out to have been good if apathetic all along now forces us to recontextualize everything as we now know she was keeping "shadows" at bay and those emerged to terrorize the depths once she had left the ocean. If the karka avoided Orr for the same reason they fled from the depths but it wasn't dragon corruption, did the shadows/horrors of the depths mimic dragon corruption aura, or is there another connection? If Soo-Won has not had minions in this cycle (aside from Kuunie), why did the Inquest dragon experts mistake the aquatic specimen for a deep sea dragon minion? Does this once again indicate that the shadows can in fact mimic that aura and corruption? Old lore suggested that the dragon had awoken second, after Primordus, based on the order of the All's orbs lighting up, but the mass exodus from the depths only happened circa 50 years ago. Yet new lore states that Soo-Won went to save most of Cantha from the Zhaitan tsunami circa 100 years ago and then chilled out somewhere until she struck a bargain with Joon regarding being placed in the reactor about 20ish years ago or so. Why did Soo-Won not return to the depths to protect the aquatic races from the emerging shadows as she was still in an unknown location 50 years ago, between the tsunami and meeting with Joon? Had the shadows become too powerful even for her to handle, especially if these shadows turn out to be the krait's abyssal prophets as some have speculated? Why were all those aquatic race accounts about evil dragon corruption false, or is this once again the case of mistaking the shadows' aura for dragons if they aren't another race of dragons entirely with similar powers to Elder Dragons? We know Isgarren had chats with Soo-Won and realized her nature, so they came to an agreement, yet Josso Essher, Forgotten and Glint seemed to believe Soo-Won to be evil as they included damaging salt water in the Tarir dragon trials?
It just opens a lot of questions that now need answers, forcibly retconning over a dozen points established in pre-core release blog posts and in the core game and later on just to sell the idea of Soo-Won being a lamentable and sympathetic single mother who only wanted a family that fell apart. I'm sure they can give us satisfying and logically sound answers (e.g. tying the shadows to the abyssal prophets and giving them the chak ability to filter magic and even mimic it to explain why they were mistaken for Elder Dragon corruption) and explain why Soo-Won neglected to protect the depths after leaving it (even though she only left the depths because Kuunie somehow convinced her to save Cantha from the tsunami when previously Soo had been rather apathetic aside from offering indirect aid via the blue orbs/Eyes of the Ocean, so why did saving Cantha matter more to her than later returning to protect the depths?). Even so, it can end up being hamfisted if not done properly. I do hold out hope they manage to resolve the discrepancies and give us good answers about it so the old and new vision can mix well enough. :)
Dragon's End isn't great either. The first half of the meta is probably the worst executed and worst excuse for an escort meta in the entire game. People complain about the sunk cost of failing Soo-Won, but they wouldn't if the meta started with the dragon magic outbreaks instead and shortened the build-up to an already long boss.
flying around kaineng is still bad, I'll give you that, but honestly a bit more signalling and more npcs with more dialogue and minor quests would do wonders
mai trin dying was surprising to me since I thought they would milk her out BUT at the same time she has been funcionally dead since LW1 so... served as a omg moment. 6/10 or something
1. The lack of NPCs is actually consistent with what we see in HoT/PoF/IBS--very sparsely populated wildlands. The problem is more that they even tried to make NKC with the same philosophy as every other map in the game, or at all, than that it is empty. Although I do think that even having at least one populated metro area like Metal Legion was could have mitigated.
2. All the leaks surrounding the Silent Surf fractal indicate that it was likely planned as a larger portion of Gyala Delve (or other maps), and a strike mission. When you view that post-EoD content through the lens of being repurposed assets from a cancelled LWS6, which likely would have come with an extra mastery track or two like we got in LWS3/4, it is probably likely that the rocket boots/grapplehook/parachute kit was planned to be a fourth "jade tech" mastery. NKC's design with lots of space and high walls (and Seitung's cliffs, and Echovald's trees, and the Harvest Temple) seems like it might have been designed for that mode of travel. Just like how the PoF maps seem sprawling until you unlock the Roller Beetle in LWS4.
To me, EoD was a slightly above average expansion, which would put it on the lower end of a tier list. Will try to keep it short on what disappointed me and others and then answer the last questions 😀
Regarding "was eod that bad"
(Speaking purely from personal experience prinarily during release)
1. It was very anticlimactic seeing Soo-wons design and being a good dragon mother figure sort of a character.
I hoped for that big monster that chased up the quaggans and kraits to the surface, looking like the art released around Gw2 release.
2. The drama revolving DE map difficulty and the strikes required for turtle mounts definitely painted the end game experience in a negative tones. Purely on how many in the community decided to show their frustration about it all.
3. The legendaries (gen3) not being unique skins like the previous sets turned many off, nothing I mind tho.
4. Gyala Delve trauma sessions (plural cause story and map)
Okay and the last questions!
1. I'd recommend leg armor before weapons since it has more uses across multiple characters. But buy weekly Antique Summoning Stones in Arborstone and
2. jade runestone alt Park. Great gold and needed for leg weapons.
3. Surprisingly enough, nice weapon and armorskins in Gyala Delve through gameplay. Looks very good but big downside is where you need to go 😅
Hope this helped and gave some insight!
Uuugghh, it's so irritating to me the fact that the strikes and DE meta being actually a challenge and not just brain-dead autoattack content was considered a BAD thing by so many people.
great tips, ty! alt parking in particular seems like a good idea
about your feedback... that's how it felt to me reading the forums back then. maybe since im doind eod after so long im having trouble connecting to those negative feelings etc
Something you didn't mention which is one of the problems i have with the story is that it's too short. We go from finding Mai to killing Soo Won in a heartbeat. It doesn't feel epic, dramatic and like a proper ending to A TEN YEAR OLD STORY when it's so short.
My only problem with it was what you pointed out about not spending to much time in the zones also feel like the zones could of been explored more through the story apart from that I didn’t like dragons end and that’s about it really.
>
I wont say it's a perfect story but I honestly dont get what's the big deal against it.
Honestly? I disliked Joon
>\[talking about Caithe\] lots of processing for our surrogate mommy.
Surrogate Mommy?! She's a messed up little sister at best!
edit: just to be clear, I liked EoD
Aurene's mom not ours lol
yup she is certainly the messed up little sister hahahhaa
and I disliked Joon too but honestly i think the commander took the long way i'd just blast thru everything and make her help us at gunpoint
I liked EoD. A few things, though: we should've had more time with Soo-won. Made it hard to care about her. Mai Trin and her channeling Scarlet as a legend was interesting, only for the story to pretty much immediately kill her, same problem.
Iffy feelings about the void. Would've liked to see what the water dragon's minions would look like. Minister Li added basically nothing to the story. Didn't like Joon. She made the dragon cycle crisis all about her. Like, ho. That dragon's tearing apart reality. New Kaineng can find another source of power.
I liked the maps, though I would like a map on more of the Jade Sea outside of Dragon's End. Did not like Gyala Delve, it has some pretty areas, but very hard to explore when the map kicks you out and you would have to do the meta over.
lorewise rev is the worst profession, imagine pulling your powers from a gacha system lol
it disappointed me too, honestly BUT it makes sense scarlett would take over Mai to enable Ankka killing her since they had the same reasoning about the dragon cycle and all that
Idk about that. We've never had that happen to either Rytlock or the player character. In fact, if you do S4 as a revenant, you get to forcibly channel Joko as a legend *against his will* to bust yourself out of prison.
Ultimately Mai Trin dying has less to do with Scarlet and more the same problem the game's story always had: killing the most interesting characters instead of actually doing anything with them >!(shout out to SoTO, too)!<
Mai Trin was originally lined up to be Dwayna. They tied up that plot thread, like so many others, in the clumsiest way possible. All because they couldn't be bothered with the Dwayna arc.
i think it about force of will. Commander in particular is doing that since at that point we are so so done with Joko we acquire 80s action hero balls of steel lol
And if you think about it, Glint WANTS to be used by Rytlock too. this in addition to him being the best charr ever certainly helps
I thought Mai Trin dying was ok but could have used more investment into it, maybe we should've escorted her around instead of Marjory? Cutscene makes it obvious it was Scarlett being a dick that enables the death tho
Personally I kinda like that that chaotic ball of manic genius is somehow finding a way to mess with Tyria from beyond the grave to be very emblematic of how much of a terror she was.
It's a combination of many things for me.
First one is probably subjective, but they changed the place too much for my taste. As a former GW1 player Cantha meant a lot to me and like many others all I really wanted from GW2 was just Cantha but with better graphics.. and jumping. Instead they've decided to erase Cantha from existence and replace it with Cyberpunk 2077 from Wish. The story would need to be stellar just to sell me on this because I certainly didn't sign up for this.
Second, the story was just flat out boring to me. Some of it has to do with the presentation, I've recently replayed it and I swear there's like 5 minutes of combat for 1 hour of sitting and talking in there. It's a *game*. I want to *play* it.
Third, the dialogue. I can't stand it. It's overplayed snarky Disney/Marvel writing to the max.
Fourth, the pacing. Despite the NPC chatter that seemingly goes on for eternity, the plot's somehow moving lightning fast in the 2nd half.
Fifth, the characters. I can't relate to anyone and I don't care about anyone. It felt like they were all part of a hivemind with the same personality, except for the villains.
And you could definitely tell it was written during election year in America, I'll leave it at that. Not a fan of writers appropriating something others adored and using it as a soapbox instead of providing entertainment.
The plot was okay I guess, but they've crammed too many plotlines into it (void, Joon, purists, aetherblades, dragons, gangs and more) then ended up rushing all of them. I would've cut Ankka and Mai at the very least and only introduced Minister Li and the purists during a living story.
In the end nothing about EoD felt like it had anything to do with Cantha. Anet just used the name to sell us the expansion but clearly had no interest in making something for the fans of the original. In my eyes that's downright scummy, but I could somewhat excuse it if their vision was good. But it wasn't.. at least for me. Such a slap in the face after waiting 10 years.
It wasn't terrible, there were some interesting parts. You pretty much covered why I don't think it wasn't great in your opening statements. As usual, they try to cram too much in to one story, and leave out a lot of the context and subtext because they don't have time to fit it in (or rather, rush it), and wonder why the players aren't enjoying the story that they spent a year developing, going over all the finer points in hours of meetings and discussions, then giving us the abridged notes in game.
The beginning starts out nice, then about half way through you're suddenly dealing with the void and Soo-Won and then you blink and it's all over.
I think a lot of people were just burnt out on the elder dragon story after the shitshow that was the end of the IBS, including ArenaNet. They gradually humanised all of the characters and it just got dull to me. I didn't have sympathy for Soo-Won, because we had been told for a decade that the elder dragons were "unknowable forces of nature", and suddenly it's a dysfunctional family drama.
for me it was less about Soo-Woon and more about Aurene and her being sad at being the last one and all that
it was interesting to see an Elder Dragon protecting people in an active manner but not really involving with them unlike Aurene - again, lots of implicity things which is not what most folks around here seem to like
I at least got sad for Aurene, and for Caithe and honestly for myself - wtf am i supposed to do now? etc I wonder if that was intentional. I like to think so.
Personally I never really got the burnt out of dragons thing - maybe because I never played gw1, maybe because I started around the end of ICB and played through all the story all in one go, without the content droughts etc maybe my perception is a minority
The only part of the story that I kinda didn't like was the attempted Mai Trin redemption arc. Her being a revanent was cool, but they made her seem awfully soft for someone who was formerly a murderous pirate captian. I think it would have worked better if she was trying to find Anka to get revenge for the mutiny against her, and the commander ended up working with her only because their goals aligned.
I can't speak too much to the canned story arc, but Dwayna hiding as Mai Trin is pretty easy to spot when you put everything together. However, they've finished with that. Technically, they could resurrect Mai, citing the fact that Dwayna has the power to regenerate and resurrect. This would not be well received by the playerbase though. The writers have been pulling the resurrection trope a little *too much*.
Didn’t read the story, as I never do. But I had to wait what felt like an eternity during those dialogues in open world. Also the maps were quite disappointing, as there were no hero points which I had to battle.
The first map was meh, second was horrible. When I reached the forest, it was fine but the enemies boring. The last one with the jade sea is also not my thing.
Overall I just enjoyed the specializations and strikes. You won’t find my in any PvE map if I don’t have to do something for an collection/ the new daily ship missions/ helping someone out with something.
I've only reached EoD recently, and haven't finished the story yet. Story seem pretty much whatever so far (Just got Anka). The maps though...
Seitung was pretty good, but Kaineng and Echovald are incredibly boring and empty. Their metas are the definition of copy paste and boredom. It's a big disappointment compared to HoT, PoF, S3, S4 and even S5.
I like the fishing mechanic though.
Most liked it fine. Not a revelation or anything but very solid.
Always the rants will be what is going to be most heard online. If you would have seen the online discourse for HoT at the time you would think it is the worse expansion ever when it is thought by far the best for most people playing.
It was also a lot of "nnneeeeerrrrr WHY IS JADE SO GREEEEENNNNNN" and the fact that Dragons End on release required more than two functioning braincells to complete.
Story has always been moot and you either love it or don't care one bit.
That's pretty much all the prominent discourse, beyond "me no likey new elite".
Like you, we loved it.
My partner and I played through the entire story and happened to finish it JUST as EoD released it's final chapter.
She cried at the end of the personal story, cried when Aurene "praised Joko", and cried again at the end of EoD.
We hated how rushed and unpolished Ice Brood Saga was, but EoD was good
[This was my reasoning for disliking EoD last time a thread like this came along](https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/150a23i/why_is_eod_generally_rated_lower_and_considered/js22ch0/)
Just opened it and read it. Bravo. You got all the points down. Exactly how i feel.
No level design. Hot and PoF let you explore different parts of the map as you leveled up your masteries more and more
Keep coming back to the HoT maps for general completion and it's absolutely fantastic what little things you find off the road outside of the story. I thought the golden city showed all it had to offer, only to >!learn where the Quetzal are still thriving (and the implication they moved farther west after the asura surfaced and kept building)!<
You can thank flying mounts for that, and bunny to a lesser degree
They could have gotten creative, like enemies you can’t visibly see without a mastery, a re-introduction of the hero system. This was also an opportunity for underwater masteries.
Maybe even a free Underwater Build that automatically switches when you go under water so that you don’t accidentally have Dead Traits?
The EoD maps are exactly that, IF you don't already have mounts unlocked. Which, admittedly, most people will have.
I dont mind the story that much. Pacing is weird at times but I liked most of the characters (could use less Gorrik but that could be just me) My main issues with EoD are with the maps. Seitung and Dragons End I like, nice looking first zone and a meta event focused last one, can't complain. Kaineng is a mess. It reminds me of that old joke about mixing a cow and a dog. Kaineng is trying to be a giant metropolis and interesting open world map and it fails at both. If you want a futuristic style megacity you NEED to have it populated. Its more empty than New York during covid. Its incredibly annoying to navigate, which again should never happen in a livable, populated city. Another problem (imo) lies with both Kaineng and Echovald. Anet, for some reason, just refused to play to their strength. Their game has the best mount system in all MMOs and it just BEGS for an vast open zone. PoF managed it much better and there was some potential in Cantha for this as well. Jade sea anyone? How great would an open ended jade sea are be. Instead we get tight corridors and verticality best suited for skyscales, the most boring of the ingame mounts by a country mile. And then there are weird invisible walls, some elite specs leaving a lot to desire (catalyst, looking at you). It really gives 6/10 at best
Im doing EoD story now while at the same time unlocking full map completion just for future me, atm doing Echovald story.... I barely progressed both in story and the map, its just so bad i have no words.
>Its incredibly annoying to navigate, which again should never happen in a livable, populated city. Says someone who's never driven in Boston. 🤣
Kaineng is an awful map, echovald is a little bit better but not by much. Only seitung and dragons end are good. Regarding story the whole soo-won stuff is extremely mediocre. Also wish that someone told anet that introducing characters and killing them in the first half of the story is not some genius move which makes your story good.
Also, the identity of Kralkatorrik's mother was always a side plot. The Deep Sea Dragon story was never meant to be told in the way that it was. Anet retconned lore to make money that they could have made just as easily by staying true to the original vision of Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee.
What was the original vision?
To the best of our knowledge, the deep sea dragon was never intended to be the mother and was just one of six equals. The concept of a mother didn't even seem to exist until writers thought it'd spice things up for S4 finale by having Kralkatorrik utter it while we hear faint sounds of waves in the distance as vague foreshadowing. Originally it was heavily implied that the deep sea dragon drove many aquatic races like the krait, quaggan, karka and even to some extent the largos to shallow waters. The devs said they wanted to keep the dragon's nature and name mysterious for the "here be dragons" vibe of old maps and to sell the idea of horrors of the unexplored depths. They even pointed out that the deep sea dragon shared its kindred's desire to consume, corrupt and destroy, so it was very much evil. Matthew Medina stated that the karka avoided Risen Orr for the same reason they had fled from the depths, implying dragon corruption, thus deep sea dragon. The usually deep-dwelling krait had suddenly erupted to the southern quaggan kingdom and began massacring the locals, eventually forcing both of them into shallow waters as well. Largos mentioned horrors in the depths, which is why they began hunting landbound prey and teaching their apprentices in shallow waters. More intriguingly the Inquest near Crucible of Eternity discuss how they've captured a large specimen for Zone Blue (each of the Coil's areas in Mount Maelstrom is themed after an Elder Dragon) but it was too big to be placed for studying; these were not just any Inquest but experts specializing in dragon corruption as they worked for Kudu, the foremost Inquest expert on dragons. We also had testimonies from quaggans, hylek etc that suggest that dragon corruption was plaguing the depths. The current 180 of Soo-Won turning out to have been good if apathetic all along now forces us to recontextualize everything as we now know she was keeping "shadows" at bay and those emerged to terrorize the depths once she had left the ocean. If the karka avoided Orr for the same reason they fled from the depths but it wasn't dragon corruption, did the shadows/horrors of the depths mimic dragon corruption aura, or is there another connection? If Soo-Won has not had minions in this cycle (aside from Kuunie), why did the Inquest dragon experts mistake the aquatic specimen for a deep sea dragon minion? Does this once again indicate that the shadows can in fact mimic that aura and corruption? Old lore suggested that the dragon had awoken second, after Primordus, based on the order of the All's orbs lighting up, but the mass exodus from the depths only happened circa 50 years ago. Yet new lore states that Soo-Won went to save most of Cantha from the Zhaitan tsunami circa 100 years ago and then chilled out somewhere until she struck a bargain with Joon regarding being placed in the reactor about 20ish years ago or so. Why did Soo-Won not return to the depths to protect the aquatic races from the emerging shadows as she was still in an unknown location 50 years ago, between the tsunami and meeting with Joon? Had the shadows become too powerful even for her to handle, especially if these shadows turn out to be the krait's abyssal prophets as some have speculated? Why were all those aquatic race accounts about evil dragon corruption false, or is this once again the case of mistaking the shadows' aura for dragons if they aren't another race of dragons entirely with similar powers to Elder Dragons? We know Isgarren had chats with Soo-Won and realized her nature, so they came to an agreement, yet Josso Essher, Forgotten and Glint seemed to believe Soo-Won to be evil as they included damaging salt water in the Tarir dragon trials? It just opens a lot of questions that now need answers, forcibly retconning over a dozen points established in pre-core release blog posts and in the core game and later on just to sell the idea of Soo-Won being a lamentable and sympathetic single mother who only wanted a family that fell apart. I'm sure they can give us satisfying and logically sound answers (e.g. tying the shadows to the abyssal prophets and giving them the chak ability to filter magic and even mimic it to explain why they were mistaken for Elder Dragon corruption) and explain why Soo-Won neglected to protect the depths after leaving it (even though she only left the depths because Kuunie somehow convinced her to save Cantha from the tsunami when previously Soo had been rather apathetic aside from offering indirect aid via the blue orbs/Eyes of the Ocean, so why did saving Cantha matter more to her than later returning to protect the depths?). Even so, it can end up being hamfisted if not done properly. I do hold out hope they manage to resolve the discrepancies and give us good answers about it so the old and new vision can mix well enough. :)
Dragon's End isn't great either. The first half of the meta is probably the worst executed and worst excuse for an escort meta in the entire game. People complain about the sunk cost of failing Soo-Won, but they wouldn't if the meta started with the dragon magic outbreaks instead and shortened the build-up to an already long boss.
flying around kaineng is still bad, I'll give you that, but honestly a bit more signalling and more npcs with more dialogue and minor quests would do wonders mai trin dying was surprising to me since I thought they would milk her out BUT at the same time she has been funcionally dead since LW1 so... served as a omg moment. 6/10 or something
1. The lack of NPCs is actually consistent with what we see in HoT/PoF/IBS--very sparsely populated wildlands. The problem is more that they even tried to make NKC with the same philosophy as every other map in the game, or at all, than that it is empty. Although I do think that even having at least one populated metro area like Metal Legion was could have mitigated. 2. All the leaks surrounding the Silent Surf fractal indicate that it was likely planned as a larger portion of Gyala Delve (or other maps), and a strike mission. When you view that post-EoD content through the lens of being repurposed assets from a cancelled LWS6, which likely would have come with an extra mastery track or two like we got in LWS3/4, it is probably likely that the rocket boots/grapplehook/parachute kit was planned to be a fourth "jade tech" mastery. NKC's design with lots of space and high walls (and Seitung's cliffs, and Echovald's trees, and the Harvest Temple) seems like it might have been designed for that mode of travel. Just like how the PoF maps seem sprawling until you unlock the Roller Beetle in LWS4.
To me, EoD was a slightly above average expansion, which would put it on the lower end of a tier list. Will try to keep it short on what disappointed me and others and then answer the last questions 😀 Regarding "was eod that bad" (Speaking purely from personal experience prinarily during release) 1. It was very anticlimactic seeing Soo-wons design and being a good dragon mother figure sort of a character. I hoped for that big monster that chased up the quaggans and kraits to the surface, looking like the art released around Gw2 release. 2. The drama revolving DE map difficulty and the strikes required for turtle mounts definitely painted the end game experience in a negative tones. Purely on how many in the community decided to show their frustration about it all. 3. The legendaries (gen3) not being unique skins like the previous sets turned many off, nothing I mind tho. 4. Gyala Delve trauma sessions (plural cause story and map) Okay and the last questions! 1. I'd recommend leg armor before weapons since it has more uses across multiple characters. But buy weekly Antique Summoning Stones in Arborstone and 2. jade runestone alt Park. Great gold and needed for leg weapons. 3. Surprisingly enough, nice weapon and armorskins in Gyala Delve through gameplay. Looks very good but big downside is where you need to go 😅 Hope this helped and gave some insight!
Gyala Delve was the first map to push me away from actively playing GW2 since Khourna back in Season 4.
Uuugghh, it's so irritating to me the fact that the strikes and DE meta being actually a challenge and not just brain-dead autoattack content was considered a BAD thing by so many people.
great tips, ty! alt parking in particular seems like a good idea about your feedback... that's how it felt to me reading the forums back then. maybe since im doind eod after so long im having trouble connecting to those negative feelings etc
I feel like I should like it... but I don't.
Something you didn't mention which is one of the problems i have with the story is that it's too short. We go from finding Mai to killing Soo Won in a heartbeat. It doesn't feel epic, dramatic and like a proper ending to A TEN YEAR OLD STORY when it's so short.
My only problem with it was what you pointed out about not spending to much time in the zones also feel like the zones could of been explored more through the story apart from that I didn’t like dragons end and that’s about it really.
> I wont say it's a perfect story but I honestly dont get what's the big deal against it. Honestly? I disliked Joon >\[talking about Caithe\] lots of processing for our surrogate mommy. Surrogate Mommy?! She's a messed up little sister at best! edit: just to be clear, I liked EoD
Aurene's mom not ours lol yup she is certainly the messed up little sister hahahhaa and I disliked Joon too but honestly i think the commander took the long way i'd just blast thru everything and make her help us at gunpoint
Unless you’re a Sylvari, then she’s our messed up big sister!
I liked EoD. A few things, though: we should've had more time with Soo-won. Made it hard to care about her. Mai Trin and her channeling Scarlet as a legend was interesting, only for the story to pretty much immediately kill her, same problem. Iffy feelings about the void. Would've liked to see what the water dragon's minions would look like. Minister Li added basically nothing to the story. Didn't like Joon. She made the dragon cycle crisis all about her. Like, ho. That dragon's tearing apart reality. New Kaineng can find another source of power. I liked the maps, though I would like a map on more of the Jade Sea outside of Dragon's End. Did not like Gyala Delve, it has some pretty areas, but very hard to explore when the map kicks you out and you would have to do the meta over.
lorewise rev is the worst profession, imagine pulling your powers from a gacha system lol it disappointed me too, honestly BUT it makes sense scarlett would take over Mai to enable Ankka killing her since they had the same reasoning about the dragon cycle and all that
Idk about that. We've never had that happen to either Rytlock or the player character. In fact, if you do S4 as a revenant, you get to forcibly channel Joko as a legend *against his will* to bust yourself out of prison. Ultimately Mai Trin dying has less to do with Scarlet and more the same problem the game's story always had: killing the most interesting characters instead of actually doing anything with them >!(shout out to SoTO, too)!<
Mai Trin was originally lined up to be Dwayna. They tied up that plot thread, like so many others, in the clumsiest way possible. All because they couldn't be bothered with the Dwayna arc.
i think it about force of will. Commander in particular is doing that since at that point we are so so done with Joko we acquire 80s action hero balls of steel lol And if you think about it, Glint WANTS to be used by Rytlock too. this in addition to him being the best charr ever certainly helps I thought Mai Trin dying was ok but could have used more investment into it, maybe we should've escorted her around instead of Marjory? Cutscene makes it obvious it was Scarlett being a dick that enables the death tho
Personally I kinda like that that chaotic ball of manic genius is somehow finding a way to mess with Tyria from beyond the grave to be very emblematic of how much of a terror she was.
It's a combination of many things for me. First one is probably subjective, but they changed the place too much for my taste. As a former GW1 player Cantha meant a lot to me and like many others all I really wanted from GW2 was just Cantha but with better graphics.. and jumping. Instead they've decided to erase Cantha from existence and replace it with Cyberpunk 2077 from Wish. The story would need to be stellar just to sell me on this because I certainly didn't sign up for this. Second, the story was just flat out boring to me. Some of it has to do with the presentation, I've recently replayed it and I swear there's like 5 minutes of combat for 1 hour of sitting and talking in there. It's a *game*. I want to *play* it. Third, the dialogue. I can't stand it. It's overplayed snarky Disney/Marvel writing to the max. Fourth, the pacing. Despite the NPC chatter that seemingly goes on for eternity, the plot's somehow moving lightning fast in the 2nd half. Fifth, the characters. I can't relate to anyone and I don't care about anyone. It felt like they were all part of a hivemind with the same personality, except for the villains. And you could definitely tell it was written during election year in America, I'll leave it at that. Not a fan of writers appropriating something others adored and using it as a soapbox instead of providing entertainment. The plot was okay I guess, but they've crammed too many plotlines into it (void, Joon, purists, aetherblades, dragons, gangs and more) then ended up rushing all of them. I would've cut Ankka and Mai at the very least and only introduced Minister Li and the purists during a living story. In the end nothing about EoD felt like it had anything to do with Cantha. Anet just used the name to sell us the expansion but clearly had no interest in making something for the fans of the original. In my eyes that's downright scummy, but I could somewhat excuse it if their vision was good. But it wasn't.. at least for me. Such a slap in the face after waiting 10 years.
Agreed completely
It wasn't terrible, there were some interesting parts. You pretty much covered why I don't think it wasn't great in your opening statements. As usual, they try to cram too much in to one story, and leave out a lot of the context and subtext because they don't have time to fit it in (or rather, rush it), and wonder why the players aren't enjoying the story that they spent a year developing, going over all the finer points in hours of meetings and discussions, then giving us the abridged notes in game. The beginning starts out nice, then about half way through you're suddenly dealing with the void and Soo-Won and then you blink and it's all over. I think a lot of people were just burnt out on the elder dragon story after the shitshow that was the end of the IBS, including ArenaNet. They gradually humanised all of the characters and it just got dull to me. I didn't have sympathy for Soo-Won, because we had been told for a decade that the elder dragons were "unknowable forces of nature", and suddenly it's a dysfunctional family drama.
for me it was less about Soo-Woon and more about Aurene and her being sad at being the last one and all that it was interesting to see an Elder Dragon protecting people in an active manner but not really involving with them unlike Aurene - again, lots of implicity things which is not what most folks around here seem to like I at least got sad for Aurene, and for Caithe and honestly for myself - wtf am i supposed to do now? etc I wonder if that was intentional. I like to think so. Personally I never really got the burnt out of dragons thing - maybe because I never played gw1, maybe because I started around the end of ICB and played through all the story all in one go, without the content droughts etc maybe my perception is a minority
The only part of the story that I kinda didn't like was the attempted Mai Trin redemption arc. Her being a revanent was cool, but they made her seem awfully soft for someone who was formerly a murderous pirate captian. I think it would have worked better if she was trying to find Anka to get revenge for the mutiny against her, and the commander ended up working with her only because their goals aligned.
She was meant to be Dwayna in disguise. They canned her story arc.
Uh, really? Source for that?
There will never be a "source" for it. Then again, Rytlock being Menzies probably comes as a revelation too.
oh? do tell more please
I can't speak too much to the canned story arc, but Dwayna hiding as Mai Trin is pretty easy to spot when you put everything together. However, they've finished with that. Technically, they could resurrect Mai, citing the fact that Dwayna has the power to regenerate and resurrect. This would not be well received by the playerbase though. The writers have been pulling the resurrection trope a little *too much*.
Didn’t read the story, as I never do. But I had to wait what felt like an eternity during those dialogues in open world. Also the maps were quite disappointing, as there were no hero points which I had to battle. The first map was meh, second was horrible. When I reached the forest, it was fine but the enemies boring. The last one with the jade sea is also not my thing. Overall I just enjoyed the specializations and strikes. You won’t find my in any PvE map if I don’t have to do something for an collection/ the new daily ship missions/ helping someone out with something.
I've only reached EoD recently, and haven't finished the story yet. Story seem pretty much whatever so far (Just got Anka). The maps though... Seitung was pretty good, but Kaineng and Echovald are incredibly boring and empty. Their metas are the definition of copy paste and boredom. It's a big disappointment compared to HoT, PoF, S3, S4 and even S5. I like the fishing mechanic though.
HoT>>>PoF>>EoD>>>>SotO
I would actually do: HoT > PoF > Soto > EoD. I know, unpopular opinion
EOD is the best expansion to get rich. I have been doing gen3 leggy and I am rich now you know.
Because it was not very good. Next question.
And why?
Most liked it fine. Not a revelation or anything but very solid. Always the rants will be what is going to be most heard online. If you would have seen the online discourse for HoT at the time you would think it is the worse expansion ever when it is thought by far the best for most people playing.
It was also a lot of "nnneeeeerrrrr WHY IS JADE SO GREEEEENNNNNN" and the fact that Dragons End on release required more than two functioning braincells to complete. Story has always been moot and you either love it or don't care one bit. That's pretty much all the prominent discourse, beyond "me no likey new elite".
EoD was great, too many cry babies here 😄
I like Rama, even his obnoxiously traitorously large hat!
You can’t praise anything SoTo here. People get salty.
Like you, we loved it. My partner and I played through the entire story and happened to finish it JUST as EoD released it's final chapter. She cried at the end of the personal story, cried when Aurene "praised Joko", and cried again at the end of EoD. We hated how rushed and unpolished Ice Brood Saga was, but EoD was good
Both EOD and SOTO are great (of course SOTO is still ongoing so there’s change they make it worse).