Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:37 Is SoTO worth the money? 02:38 The Wizards Tale 07:23 The Shadow of Nayos 16:30 Conclusion 16:47 Support Love 17:05 Anet Partner Info Thanks for watching! I have cold, sorry for the rough vocals.

100% agree. Your video does a fantastic job of pointing out "the good" and "the bad" of SotO in a very fair and constructive way.

@Aereton

2 ай бұрын

I cannot understand how so many people liked "base-SotO" story. Yes, the intro mission was not that bad, but once we arrived in Skywatch Archipelago, the story was uninspired Marvel trash, rushed story telling, one-dimensional characters and trash world design. Yes, everyone has their tastes, but I just can't comprehend, truly.

@FornaxTheHerald

2 ай бұрын

Thanks so much. 🤗

Yeah, this is kinda spot on. It was weird that they had a "do events to fill the bar" part, but not a "do the meta" part. Especially since they DID have one of those for the first part in Skywatch, since opening the tower was kinda important.

ANET got too excited to reveal the Kryptis world, its internal logic and systems are very undercooked. They have now established that the Demon race of the Guild Wars universe is a lot less threatening than a mentally unstable salad with two cute pinecones for hair. This is now a canon fact in the lore moving forward, and that's a little rough. Every demon related thing in the game has retroactively been turned into a joke in one fell swoop. How are they gonna recover from this? They better get some really talented writers because it's gonna take a lot of time and effort to recontextualize SOTO's events.

That’s ok Hope you feel better🙏🏻…💗 Your Videos as Always🤗🥰…Can’t wait to see your videos in the future for the next Expansion 👍🏻👍🏻

I was absolutely in love with gw2 for years. When IBS happened, I felt really sad to see my favourite game at a time just... not deliver. But I remained hopeful for five years, always giving them the benefit of the doubt. However, this patch was a wake up call that the game consistently promises things it cannot deliver, and we're in a cycle of hype > good patch > something goes wrong and they have to rush with an explanation that they have to focus on something else. I will not preorder any GW2 expansions anymore and will only buy future ones after hearing feedback after a few patches in. I want the game to be better, but after five years it's hard to trust anything they promise.

@Cross_111

2 ай бұрын

Truth be told - I did not like the concept, but BM was one of the best maps in my opinion! And the story was really good (except Braham and the rushed ending…) But the map plus also drizzlewood were quite well done and i enjoyed those a lot

@marnixpeeters2675

2 ай бұрын

I'm generally in the same boat as you. Maybe Anet can take some pointers from this POV; they might be able to turn some ex-players back from their slumber if they take this as an actionable point of criticism in their new designs

@ballerjabs

2 ай бұрын

Honestly, I haven't bought SotO yet since, as a WvW player, the only one feature had me interested which is the weapon mastery and new weapon spec for each classes. I wasn't really that hype about it though so those weren't enough to convince me to buy it. Other than that, the rest of the features are not so important for me in my opionion as I already have all the legendary armors from WvW, I don't really care about the new relics and I hated drip feed patches (you can't really enjoy the feature you wanted the moment the expansion is released and have to wait for months).

I feel the same way about SOTO. I was very disappointed with it. I found it very difficult to get into the story, largely because I felt no connection with all the new characters we were introduced to. I feel like the commander was there simply because they had nothing better to do. It had so much potential, but fell flat for me also.

@pikolowet

2 ай бұрын

i absolutely agree. I know we shouldn't compare it to the other expansions, but it's really hard since all of them added some real groundbreaking stuff.

The demons didn't feel demonic. And I also think that ANet probably had big ambitions, but for whatever reason could not deliver. The story dropped off pretty damn hard as soon as we entered Nayos. And I would've appreciated if we actually got some new enemies, which are not just reskins of existing enemies. Did everybody related to whatever department does animations and animation rigs get layed off?

@paradachshund

Ай бұрын

I've been so confused about the lack of new rigs and animations too. If you compare even end of dragons to path of fire, it's ridiculously thin in comparison in that department. It really does feel like they have no one doing it anymore.

Nice review, if a bit to kind. The story was disappointing. From the start of trying to force us to feel guilt about not talking to Zojja for years to the minuscule story content and lackluster story. Relative maps, reused mounts, reused assets, reused weapons… it just really feels that anet have downgraded everything on the team. Even the teaser for the next expansion feels that way. Can’t make new weapons, let’s bust out underwater ones… so we can reuse the skins and animations.

@206Zelda

2 ай бұрын

Zojja's reinsertion felt like ANET's pandering and hero-worship of Felicia Day. Even the writing felt like it was talking about the actress leaving the team, not about Zojja being pod-stricken for such a time that we all forgot about her.

@Aereton

2 ай бұрын

In regards to new weapons vs underwater weapons usable on land: Let's be honest they cannot possibly match even a fraction of the amount of skins if they introduced a brand new weapon type, even with a full staff of devs. I think they are avoiding implementing new weapon types for the same reason they avoid implementing new races.

I also didn't do the meta before the final story chapter and felt the same as you. Even after the meta something just feels off about the Soto story. Like they didn't tell us the story they wanted to but the one they could with the year dev cycle.

I never cared, and I don't think the story gave me any reason to care, about any of the "protagonists." The entire story felt like I was a spectator, not a participant. Zoja, who could have been someone they could have used to help give us a reason to trust - or at least not utterly distrust - the Court got mindwiped during a period of severe emotional stress. That's... that's not good. That's *bad.* And then literal soul-eating demons as "allies"? That the writers kept telling us we "trusted"? And who kept talking about us as "snacks" even in the final moments of the expansion? No, thank you. Mechanically there was a lot to like about SotO. I liked the first two maps. I even enjoy the Rifts enough to do them regularly, although they're hardly "groundbreaking" content. The new weapons were fun, and the Wizard's Vault is a net improvement over the old daily system (although I find it discourages playing multiple game modes in a way the old one did not.) But the story? It's a dead loss for me. I've done the personal story many (many) times. I've done the expansion stories on multiple alts. I probably won't ever return to the Nayos maps ever again now that I've completed the story once. To the extent the next expansion leverages these characters and plots? That's the extent to which I may not care about it. Which is a first, and not a happy one.

@paradachshund

Ай бұрын

Galrath and Isgarren were the characters I consistently found myself agreeing with, but my character was for some reason completely on board with the demons no questions asked. Maybe we really did get possessed after all. 🙃

The Meta is locked unless the other two are done. Another wonderful decision.

this finale could be saved by one simple trick, a plot twist not just a death , some unexpected twist

@LocalAnonOnTheInternet

2 ай бұрын

I was hoping Peitha would twist things at the finale but nope, kill the bad guy and that's it. :\

@Aereton

2 ай бұрын

@@LocalAnonOnTheInternet I still believe Peitha is a Margonite. It all just lines up. We are unknowingly and inadvertently preparing Abaddons rise back to power Probably gonna get let down but oh well, head canon it is :-)

Yeah, important plot points being exclusive to the meta is kinda weird. I started playing the expansions really late and as I played through HoT and all I always felt it was a hassle to wait for the meta to get the whole picture IF I can just do the final mission and be done with it. They really should incorporate or make it more obvious to new players going thru content that this is important and should be done before x or y.

I think SOTO will be remembered as a expansion that for most part people liked, but no one loved. Plenty of good ideas and heaps of fantastic cosmetic additions! Maps were fine. Achievements were fine. Metas were somewhat simple but fine. Convergences and Strikes were fine in contrast to the Rifts. Story was fine in theory but didn't quite land it in practise. The collection for Obsidian Armor is fine. The keyword for the expansion overall is "fine, but not great". Maybe not tied to the expansion directly, but I also want to highlight that we good plenty of other good things this release cycle with Wizards Vault and numerous quality of life improvements!

Great review here, as many have said I think a lot of people felt the same. For me, one of the most painful things about SOTO is that it was poised to be a great entry point into the game after 11 years. The skyscale was streamlined to get, the daily/weekly and continuing play rewards through the Wizards Vault were great changes. On top of that, the dragon cycle was ended. We had no new elite specs to learn, just broadening the current horizons, and a brand new story. Plus new armor legendaries for casual pve gamers. Even the eparch bonus meta rewards from the mastery I really like because it gives new players a chance at old rewards without having to grind through all those right away. Sadly the bag was fumbled a bit story wise, and I think it overshadowed a lot of the improvements to the game from a mechanical point. Wishing them the best for the next expansion.

I think the QOL updates were worth the price of admission. I also agree with the decision not to add any more elite specs as balance is already tight to maintain. Adding new weapons was a very good work around. Beyond the well pointed out flaws in the storyline, I think the tiny sized maps beyond the first one were the biggest disappointment. If Anet wants to pursue the current model, I think reusing and revamping current assets would be a way to go. For example, Orr is HUGE and mostly empty. Revamp it, update quests and stories, thrown in some new metas and world bosses. Work smarter, not harder.

I'm loving the new edits of your videos! The character the titles etc are great! When I finished story without doing the meta beforehand I was sooo disappointed that he didn't transform. Thank god the meta is here but why isn't it used in the story? One good point is that now Guild Wars 2's universe is a bit bigger with now Nayos in the GW lore. Expanding the lore now Is really important imo

Coming here immediately after finishing the last episode, without doing the meta because I live in Australia and do not benefit from the time zones so IU always play alone or there are few players around to finish a meta. I was so disappointed and it did feel like a lot was missing. I agree with everything you said.

I agree that there was incredible potential, and it was such a disappointment to see it squandered-- I really hope that the recognition of falling short in some ways here & refocus on Tyria will not result in Nayos & the Kryptis being abandoned in their current state. I want to know more about the Kryptis, and the absence of environmental evidence of the once-great culture we're told through dialogue that Eparch has squandered *in living memory* is wild to me. I also thought we were being set up for a very different final fight than we got-- I genuinely had a "wait, that's it?!" when we got the the climax of that instance, also having filled the "do stuff" bar on new events in general without getting to the meta-- and hope that within the next week or so ANet patches the story to require playing the meta to progress the story, even if the instance stays as it is. If I could have three wishes about SoTO it would be that, your phased map idea- whether it's subtle like the statues of Orr or along the like of Drizzlewood/Gyala Delve- showing the push/pull between parties in control, possibly even showing 3 states of fiercely loyal/open to rebellion/allies, and finally to add Your Order Mentor (+ the other two) to one of the fractals in Skywatch Archipelago so when Zojja makes her choice the Comma-- Wayfinder can empathize with finding some memories too painful to pass up the opportunity to be free from them.

SotO wasn't half the price. It was only $5 less than a normal expansion in the US. It is entirely fair to compare it to the other expansions. If you must split the hair that much, we can at least compare launch SotO with everything else after. This is second half of Icebrood Saga and Gyala Delve all over again.

Love the video. Thumbs up. Agree with each and every one of your points. If I could say one thing, though... ANet is not a "small team". They have well over 300 employees on staff, and if I'm being generous in carving out the portion who are on the development crew, that's still 100 people working on the game. Furthering this point, the dev team got a **lot** done this last year. The time just didn't often feel like it was well invested. The issues you list are entirely rooted in production, aka project management, and direction... The people helping make the creative decisions being carried out by staff. They need to understand their scope, and as you put, spend the time developing the narrative and mechanical concepts they're building. The team is for sure talented. Sadly, SotO didn't do a good job showcasing that talent. We can hope, for sure, that they do a better job with the next one. Amazing video. You've earned a sub. Looking forward to what you put out in the future.

Very much agree with your review. This was also the first time I did not feel like my Commander was an actual part of the world and her own character as she had been all these years past. Just a soundboard for whatever the quest chat boxes had me click on. I really wish they had split those two stories into their own expansions and spent the patches instead to flesh out the wizards more first before leading us into Nayos. I still don't care about most of these new characters, and bringing back Zojja for a few minutes after tauting that she would have a full story and then having her ascend off-screen just left me with poison in my mouth basically. I truly hope they learned from this, and that the next expansion and its patches will be better. They can tell stories so incredibly well if they give themselves the time and space to do so.

God dayum, your voice is alluring. Please whisper to my ear some sweet secrets of obscure and trivia of Guild Wars 2.

You're not alone in thinking that Rifts are mindnumbingly boring. I'm just happy I already have legendary armor sets for all classes. However, that does make SoTO have no replay value for me at all. And tbh, I never really cared much for GW2 story, so this is a hot take but I liked how short the SoTO story was, so I could get it over with more quickly. Having said that, if I were invested into the story, I would feel exactly the same as you do. I did notice the plot holes and lack of depth just the same. I did like the artwork for Nayos though but not the map layout. In the end, I only go to SoTO if I have to (to do dailies essentially).

Good review. I think many of us felt the same way about Soto.

Good review!

They even made a meta event a requirement for the story progression in one of the early story chapters, no idea why they didn't do that again at the end.

Best review I’ve seen or read.

It would've been so much better if SOMETHING had happened in the end. Maybe the shoe finally dropped and Peytha turned on us, or maybe Isgarren was late because he was placing magical bombs all over Nayos to Oppenheimer the place once Eparch was gone. Maybe the whole memory wiping ritual is how Isgarren, actually a Kryptis in disguise and a rival to Eparch, fed himself. Or even if the ending was played straight you'd expect a large contingent of Astral Ward hardlines to not agree with the peace and continue the war on their own, with or without an attempt on the lives of the Wizard's Tower leadership. But no, there's a treaty, everyone's being nice and singing kumbaya, and that's that. It's like how they rushed out IBS but the entire storyline is contained in a single expansion instead of spread out over nearly a decade. Also let's not gloss over the fact that by erasing her memories of emotions linked to what had happened in her previous life Zojja is now essentially dead. And we don't even get to say goodbye, she just kills her old self offscreen and that's that.

With Nayos, it's a little sad (actually, a lot) that they made you do map events (f* event bars), but more importantly they just didn't because yes... XD With the first patch, we were guided to do the meta to progress the story and gain access to the Wizard Tower. And as much as it's a bit annoying to have to do open world things to progress the story (once again, f* event bars), at least we had minimal character building... Lyr and Mabon are my favorites for that reason... Without a doubt, the story is the least interesting thing about this expansion. Lots of potential, but everything got derailed with the second patch onwards.

Some good and on point observations here. For myself, Soto did not engage at all - I'm a heroic fantasy type of fellow and working with the lesser of Bad Guys to make them the Greater bad Guy does not do it for me. Tie that with *having* to do the meta (again, frantic group content NOT my thing) and the whole expansion is in the "I want my money back" bag. The only hope is that it will form the backbone of better content to come.

It wasn't just me. Good.

We think very alike and so I don't wish to rehash what you said, just say that I too missed the meta prior to the finale and during that final fight I was telling myself that ANET have a problem if THAT was the end of the expac. No, they just made it worse by having that final instance absolutely littered with characters to speak to. Some important VA's were missing or needed dialogue went unsaid, some dialogue that should have been a said in their own instance, characters we'd met as foes 2mins earlier and were invited to the Tower none the less...AND VOICED. A complete mess of a second half, I've logged in a handful of times since but to be frank I've not felt this way since IBS. I don't want to be fully negative in my comment, I think the writing was pretty stellar for Isgarren and Zojja and I really enjoyed the Comm/Wayfinder being thrown into this situation and just being asked to help (minus the Heart weirdness of course). I think the fact we didn't have all the facts, had a completely new crew around us and were thrown into a battle against things we previously had no clue existed was great. Nods to old lore, lots of new lore but... Only Fools reference, it's like the episode where Uncle Albert mixes the coffee up with the gravy. A lovely dinner ruined by what came after IMO. With so much seemingly missing from the expac I'm not sure if I'll ever revisit tbh and that's a shame.

The game didn't ask me to do the meta first, so I didn't.

I went into SotO when it launched cautiously optimistic, the devs seemed positive about the content cycle change and I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. I came out the other end of SotO disappointed in pretty much everything unfortunately. There were things about it that obviously blew other parts of GW2 out of the water, I think that original base release's writing quality was some of the best Anet have ever released, but looking at the overall picture I just don't have as many nice things to say as I wish I did. I truly, truly miss the expac -> LW -> expac release schedule, but perfectly understand we're never going back to that because the devs need to have lives. I'd feel like a massive dickhead saying they should go back to the massive scopes of prior years, so instead I'll say that that was one extreme, and SotO was another. Anet need to find that middle ground.

Emotion this, emotion that, literal inner demons deciding whether a wizard lives or dies... one'd think the upper echelons of the aeons-old anti-Kryptis corps would either all by diagnosed psychopaths or enlightened Buddhist monks at this point, as to most effectively combat those who feed on feels. Might've even doubled up as the artists' commentary on mental health issues plaguing the real world! Gotta give it to them, if ANet stories taught me anything over the years, it's that potential alone, no matter how great, means absolutely nothing.

@206Zelda

2 ай бұрын

Honestly it feels like the ANET Twitter team hijacked the script from the GW2 engineers and rolled with it. 😂 How can you tell a compelling story AFTER you've sacked it with a plot entirely based around 'emotion'? Gah, it frustrates me.

Huh. I did the last 2 updates back-to-back and I didn't know that they were split on that point. Playing them one after the other did work narratively, but I can see how bad it was when there was that quarter year pause between those episodes.

I did the same thing without the Meta but asked guildies before continuing. Anet should have absolutely made the meta HIGHLY suggested (I guess so later players in a couple years dont have to depend on people?). Do 100 events in Nayos or complete this meta once would have been enough. Or patch it in a year to make it optional if you see the meta not getting completed daily.

Beautiful review. Just discovered the channel, pressed all the buttons below! I really do hope the next expansion focus on open world. They REALLY need to make us go back to core tyria maps and remember that we're part of this world instead of focusing on just trying to get some story that is on the head of a writer come to fruition. In the end this is a game and they should focus on making a great game. So much lore and content just scattered around on random text and collections everywhere but nothing really to actually play. Some of the worst metas in a loooong time, even the first ones are purely mechanical and boring. GW2 is a game about open world, about immersing yourself into a world. Just walking around Kryta or Ascalon is a unique feeling that NO OTHER MMO can sell you. It just scratches the itch of being in this universe and Nayos (honestly all of SOTO) doesn't feel like it. It's gamey, it's obviously designed to play in. And worse, it's obviously unfinished even in thar regard. Grothmar Valley is one of the maps in this game that has little to no reason to go back to and it still see active play just for how fun it is. How unique and quintessentially GW it is. We need more stories about Tyria and it's nations and not a story about these new characters. While I like a lot of them they just take the focus away from the world. Why are you making your main cast characters from races that are basically extinct in this universe? It's been like... 8 years? Will we never know what happened to the Pale Tree and the Silvary? Their religion/beliefs shattered. Nobody know is the dream still exists or what life as a Silvary is now. Will the Norn move back north now that Jormag is gone? Will Jennah eventually get an heir? I mean, it's been a decade, doesn't royalty need a successor? Anyway, there's an entire world and dozens of plot threads to explore in Tyria, Cantha and Elona and I really really really feel disappointed that devs would rather write about parallel universes and what not.

Hey did you stick with that giant samsung monitor? Pros and cons? Make a video review, would probably get a lot of views!!

They set up so many good things but like so often they didn't stick the landing. Too much was resolved offscreen or just cut off. Peitha was the most interesting part of the following updates, I was hoping for a few twist and turns but she turned out to be "just" a good bad. The maps/events didn't fit the story as you pointed out.

Had the same experience with the story/meta situation...don't know why they didn't lock story behind the meta completion...had same problem in HoT finale...

Either they needed to put a pop-up (please do meta before continuing) or a cut down single player version of the meta. Especially with a difficult meta(not Dragon's End meta level but not as easy as the other metas). That said, you need to do the meta twice. After a mid-boss there is a path split, both paths have story beats.

I was hoping for more savagery and dark fantasy themes, seeing as how we were fighting demons and entering a demon conquered realm. (As someone whos religious, my idea of demons are that they arent nice at all and vile creatures) Im pretty tired of having these factions be split between good and bad (norn & icebrood, sylvari & nightmare etc) Especially with Soto having to side with "good" demons. Like can we just have one faction be completely evil or something. It would've been nice to choose not to help them? Especially for RP purposes. I was also expecting that this would be like an end of world thing where the plot twist was that we failed to stop Eparch and he kind of just consumed everyone (he was portrayed as op) so that way arenanet could use that as an intro to gw3 or something. The story direction was confusing sometimes. Being introduced to characters that i cared little for, or even forgetting where i met some characters. The final show down was confusing too, i was expecting a whole protracted battle and fight my way up to the castle, but no we just got teleported there. Im hoping arena net takes all this criticism to heart, because this was very lack luster. Too much hype for little reward.

Ya I feel like SOTO was rush, and force people to do a meta is also not fun. I like this game as a casual player because you can continue were you left last time and it doesn't affect much the gameplay. But now it's like they are trying to make Guild Wars 2 a new WoW (Word of Warcraft) and this will make people leave the game like they did in WoW. GW2 is suppose to be fun and cool to explore all the new maps everytimes, but I feel that we will never be able to go in all of the maps that the game hold, so the game will never be finish entirely, and they are already talking of Guild Wars 3 with an unfinished game. Thank again for this video. Let hope the studio realize what they are doing before it's too late. See ya next time, cheers ;)

new xpac sounds promising it being based around the lore of the white mantle. But 3 things, 1 they gotta put in more development time instead of rushing to a deadline like SoTo I dont mind waiting longer, 2 bring back hearts and make map completion more rewarding soto map completion didnt have any rewards, 3 enough with the meta based maps. Im tired of every map being locked by a meta progression in order to explore also the game expecting us to do meta events to understand the story before doing the missions I never was a fan of. They did this in HoT, Drizzlewood, Gyala Delve, and Dragons End. From a QOL point SoTo was worth it but from story and map content I was dissapointed. In terms of the story I liked the lore about the astral ward and I liked Cerus as a villain but when it became that good demons vs bad demons war after Cerus was killed and Eparch was brought up by Peitha it was so bland. Ive always liked every previous gw2 story and this was the first time I didnt like one. I really hope Janthir wilds doesnt dissapoint in the story and map quality otherwise I think I am done buying xpacs never was a fan of the yearly model either. Anet clearly is under a lot of pressure and is rushing things to meet deadlines like we saw with SoTo.

SOTO is the beginning of the end.

You got Herberts name wrong. It's name is Chuck, Chuck Nourys.

I didn't do the meta first either. I think a lot of people jump into the story first. I've never done a meta first before story content and tbh, it shouldn't matter that much. The first part of Soto was good but the fact is, they hyped up Eparch, gave us Nourys as a meta boss. It really made the Kryptis feel threatening and other worldly. Only then to arrive in Nayos and its "demons are people too!1!" Instead of sticking with lore of demons. Nayos was predictable, lack luster, disorganized, anti-climatic and narratively disappointing. There is so much they could have tried to do as you said. When Kryptis died, I didn't care. When we walked into that room where the *dead* were, I was confused and also didn't care. Its not as bad as Champions, Soto was not better than the beginning IBS. So the disappointment is not as strong. However, they need to be able to deliver the narrative better. Deliver it in away that we can feel immersed and invested in what is going on. I expected some twist, i expected Peitha to be a deceptive schemer. I expected the Astral Ward to have more problems with *helping* the Kryptis after countless years of conflict and loss. Yet again, Anet jumps into the "all is well and everyone is friends, holding hands and shitting rainbows" because they don't have the guts display realistic conflict. So I besides the predictable and disappointing narrative, the fact they added demons to the roster of "everyone fren and everyone gets a long yay" vibe is annoying.

4/10 - fireball is the best thing

13:00 if they push ppl to do the meta, im very sure players would shxt on anet more im with you, and i like when story ask you to do events on the map because you need to know the escenario before you go ahead i have a solution for this, example this bit of the story the first time you do story, meta is mandatory then, you can skip the meta and events, when you complete the story with one character

Fornax would fit in with Peitha just fine.....😂, that aside I concur with your points

I did story first as well :p

Honestly it felt lazy. It felt like completely reused assets (more than normal) and just made me feel like I was playing someone else's bored spare project. HoT / PoF were peak GW2 and it honestly shows more now than ever. GW3 should make it's entry soon.

@Dark_Wizard_of_Mu

2 ай бұрын

Yeah GW2 quality is going downhill lately. I think game is near its end.

I'm going to be blunt and brutally honest here. The expansion is horse shit. I uninstalled in March and haven't looked back. And this comes from a devoted player of 10 years. I love this game so much but even Icebrood Saga felt more exciting than anything we've been offered by SOTO. It is with a heavy heart that I must depart from this game for the time being. I hope that the next expansion sparks my interest once more, but I shall not hold my breath. Thanks for the video though! Love your content!!

@Dark_Wizard_of_Mu

2 ай бұрын

Honestly quality is not the same like before. Its going downhill from now onwards.

The narrative being disjointed is not a new phenomenon to GW2 and has been a long standing issue with the game. Heart of Thorns is difficult to make sense of how you get from Story Beat A to Story Beat B without doing the meta. Same for LW4. Same for End of Dragons. Same for the core game quests through Orr. It's something they've struggled with forever, I think. They wised up at some point and decided to make some story quests like "Do the meta or do X events" to progress through the narrative so that the player has some base understanding of what's going on, but the effectiveness of that is questionable. My biggest complaint about SotO is this: There is not a whole to do in the expansion if you already have legendary armor from some other place. Every game play loop they present - Rifts, Metas, Convergences, etc. - tried to rope me into something I didn't need and had pretty little interest in. And I know I'm in the minority and that most players don't/didn't have legendary armor, but a little something for those who did would have extended my interest in the content and kept expansion afloat for me, and I'm sure others like me. Throw a dog a bone you know? Didn't need to be anything major, just a reason to go do these rifts and meta events other than "well I've got nothing else to do and can make a tiny bit of money from them." This could have been the legendary relic scavenger hunt/quest line, but then they went and gave it to everyone for free so...yeah. I didn't spend as much time doing SotO content as I thought I would when it was announced because I was not the target audience for it's play-reward patterns. Thanks for the video!

Truth be told work life balance IS important BUT also is my time… I am happy to pay more for an expansion that delivers the quality of its predecessor If they do have not enough people to get the stuff done? Here is my money (in a reasonable fashion ofc…), go and hire more people to get things done in like in HoT or PoF Those were the grand times with lw between them I mean i am no school boy - i am past my mid 30s, so my time is limited If they produce low budget content (not all!!) i am happy to enjoy it a bit but not as i have done in the past It was not „bad“, but it was not the quality we were used to but this is EXACTLY what the game needs again! EoD was good, but the other 2 were better They REALLY need to nail the next expansion or people will really turn their back on the game in the long run Especially after the PR fiasco of gw3… Make the game the pearl we all love again and we are all happy customers for all the years to come ❤

@markup6394

2 ай бұрын

Sorry, I didnt follow the news there: what was the PR desaster? Did they let something slip that wasnt intended?

@Cross_111

2 ай бұрын

@@markup6394 at a stakeholdee meeting they talked about developing gw3 and it leaked out - that upset many players Anet made a statement that its always in a company’s interest to check their future options but they are fully invested into gw2 Still many players did not like it My personal opinion is that it does not matter - even IF they ever make a gw3 it will be many many years, so who cares I will enjoy the game regardless 😊

I don't think it's about "worth your money", it's about "worth your time". And about "worth my time", I would say, meh.

spicey

@FornaxTheHerald

Ай бұрын

That is an alternative spelling. Languages evolve and change over time. I have no* horse in this race, either is awesome.

@agaaga7748

Ай бұрын

@@FornaxTheHerald I love you

It’s sad to see GW2 struggling to live up to expectations for it to be as good as it once was. I still have hope that they can turn things around, but as each new release comes out, it seems more apparent that Arenanet is unable or unwilling to do the work required to save this game from declining at an ever increasing rate. The poor quality of the narrative and the lack of dedication to fixing long known problems, makes it difficult to have faith in the direction that Arenanet is going. Edit: I hope you feel better soon, as it was obvious that you weren’t feeling well when you recorded this video.

your sultry voice is in my head

Unfortunately, the writing quality of Soto as a whole looked a lot like high school fanfiction without the mean-girl cheerleader squad. Anet substituted decent character building and imaginative storytelling with plot filler. Our guild is pretty much playing Helldivers 2 until the next drop. 👀🤣

I really like Mabon and when they killed him off my interest in story just dropped. anyone but Mabon man. I am still bitter to this day.

ohhhhh, got out my noise canceling headphones for this!!

@FornaxTheHerald

2 ай бұрын

my audio was awful on this one - sorry

The spiciest part out of the entirety of SoTO was ANET giving 90 seconds to thank 5 streamers for simping collectively on the content and Peitha. Not Ayun, not Mukluk, not Potato, not Teapot--no thanks given to them. ONLY thanks given for doing the only relevant PvE content that goes to crafting Obsidian, lack of any other content to pad out the extremely small 'expansion', and a brief honorable mention to five or so streamers who had little criticism towards the game, and a noteworthy mention of how many people paid for a f***ing cat chair. ANET is not listening and this will only continue.

@FornaxTheHerald

2 ай бұрын

So.... The team asked all partners to submit clips,. And to my understanding, anyone who did was included in the reel. Im not saying everything in the garden is rosy but this is not the smoking gun you're looking for.

I hope the next expansion has no connection whatsoever to the Kryptis. Honestly couldn't care less about the demons "storyline". I guess we shall see how detached/connected it is based on how arenanet evaluates the feedback from the community.

?? They... placed the Meta BEFORE the story finale?? ... I mean, I didnt play beyond Icebrood Saga: trouble at the studio doesnt take away that the story was (I'm sorry to say this) garbage. So I wasnt particularly interested in Cantha (and I LOVED Cantha in GW1) which says a lot... But putting the Meta before the finale... No, I'm with you there, thats just bad design. Falling flat after promissing so much... Yeah... sounds familiar. I dont want to bash the devs, I know their job is hard but... I dont care for limited ressources if the story is good, if the characters are interesting, if they make me care. You can tell good stories with little effort, and if the stories are like this... than that tells me, their focus is elsewhere. And I'm just someone who likes a cohesive story.

To me, SotO was not worth it because it less a negative taste in my mouth, I can't be bothered to login. The base game had some good but it was also a huge mess, bugs everywhere, the WV requiring content that was bugged for years reported hindreds pf times that they ignored, relics had no descriptions, weapons were hit or miss, a lot of the metas on the frist maps were bugged as well and couldn't be completed without hopping maps, same thing happened in Nayos. And I am harsh because they always talk about feedback and learning but to be blunt, none of these problems are new, these are all things they already had feedback on for years. The scope and rushed, unsatisfying ending happened in EoD and yet here they are, doing another massive, world threat level story with even less time and then they act like they couldn'y have known? Issues like visual clarity in metas for example, it's a massive issue in Nayos, the new meta, you can barely see things you need to like theae fountains that blend into the background because everything is red and gray, this has been feedback for years, you can barely see anything, metas like the ice dragons having attacks that are white mist against a white background, in base SotO the Skyscales causing lag and screen clutter, all the ground effects, everyone was clammering to be able to hide other player effects and then theymake the new meta just a sea of red and gray. I can't even touch on all the issues, but the point for me is, they do not take feedback, I lost faith in them with SotO because none of this is new, the only difference is that it was even smaller but they didn't even try to adjust when this was already a constant story complaint before SotO.

I feel like the first half was so good and promising. Then the second half was so boring

This story is really a slog to go through I feel so disconnected with it first it was peril of demons now its another civil war which was not explained at all. At least if there would be a double cross from Peitha and we would be booted from Nayos or some Large-scale war between her and Astral Ward would be interesting player character would be reminded not to trust her by head of Astral Ward I already forget his name he was so boring and kinda an asshole compared to Mabon. Except Lyhr, that funny skritt with mute charr, Mabon there is no one who I could give a shit about because they all suck. I mean its not much cheaper compared to EoD and if this expansion didnt have QoL changes like Legendary Obsidian Armor, Weaponmaster training, New weapons for core classes and Skyscale unlock streamlined I would not bother it just sucks. I would give it very generous 6/10. Wizards vault, weaponmaster, obsidian armor, skyscale progression holds it up from being completely wasted money.

EoD was the coffin. SOTO is the nails. Gw2 RIP

SOTO sucks too many reused assets and the demon story started to suck after Mabon died

@luisjosp5

2 ай бұрын

SO TRUE!!!

@traveling.down.the.road56

2 ай бұрын

I don’t care if they use existing models that are just reskinned, but when they don’t put in their best effort to fix known problems and keep making the same mistakes over and over again, it makes me lose faith that they will ever improve on future expansions.

@clonerstive

2 ай бұрын

​@@traveling.down.the.road56i have hope. They admitted they were way too ambitious. Something they havent said before.

@slayer4932

Ай бұрын

I liked it up to when Cerus was killed. When it literally became good demons vs bad demons it was so bland. The lore of the next xpac sounds promising. Its based around the white mantle so it being centered to central tyria lore. Soto felt so unrleated to any gw2 lore besides Zojja and Astral Ward. They need to bring back hearts in maps, stop with the meta based maps like drizzlewood. We need maps like base game-eod.

They know the engine by know and some of the areas run like dogsh*t which is disappointing. The story is also a sloppy mess with far too many characters popping up left and right and the cheesy, cringewriddem dialogue. That all said; in terms of pure content arenanet understand the gw2 formula so chomping through the grinds and achievement lists is as *good* as any other living world content.

For me, it's a goodbye to this game after 8 years, i'm pretty much done with the game.

@flik221

2 ай бұрын

Same I quit two weeks after soto part 1. I hate welfare legendary armor and all the homogenized peofession changes. I'm happy I played when gw2 was great and I am happy I have my memories.

@sallee132

2 ай бұрын

@@flik221 I quit it too but i actually went be to play original Guild Wars.