GW2 Content Update - What Lies Beneath Update

[Edge-]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...ruary-28-2023/

Patch notes are live, and fairly short.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/c...-lies-beneath/

More general details on the story update and some of the rewards in their blog post.

I haven't started playing yet, but the new Black Lion event seems kinda nice, just turn in some raw materials for Black Lion currency stuff (idols etc.) once per week. Seems very cheap too, 250 mithril ore (so like, a half an hour of events and shit) and you're done for the week, lasts 4 weeks in total. And apparently the mail about it spams the fuck outta your inbox right now, heh.

Seeing some rumblings about the update not being super duper impressive and seeming fairly small despite being the first proper new content update for EoD in a year. Haven't jumped in to see personally but I hope there's "more just around the corner" if so. S1 was nice and all, but they need to make some splashes with post-EoD content.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Design wise, the new map feels lackluster. There is only one layer. It's not multilayered like Tangled Depths or Draconis Mons was, which had far more playable space packed into the same area. It feels more like a flat map with a ceiling rather than a vast cave network. Once you've been down the three lanes, you've seen most of the map. After the boss battle, 5 other arenas open up where you have a Dragonfall-esque victory lap against minibosses, but that's it. Maybe it's because I'm using the griffon and roller beetle to get around, but it feels small. Also, your ability to explore the map is limited by meta event progression and the map closes 15 minutes after the end boss fight, and thus far I have had no luck opening up LFG and trying to join other squads are in an instance that is further along so I can explore more. After beating my first meta and then getting kicked out 15 minutes later, I had to join a fresh instance and then wait half an hour for it to progress far enough that I could grab screenshots.

The meta event finale is rather lackluster too. It culminates in three boss fights on the three platforms, but the bosses are just slightly tall humanoids. I was expecting a huge monster. The spectacle of giant boss fights is what GW2 shines at. Maybe we will get one in part 2.

Each of the three lanes has two gates that can only be destroyed by Siege Turtles. A nice way to make them relevant, though stomping on a gate for two minutes isn't very fun.

Further into the dungeon, you find more and more GW1 teal colored Jade, so hopefully the second half of the map that is coming in a future patch will be more of that.



Story

The story wasn't exciting. At first I was excited at the prospect that it was going to be something sinister like an evil Void Almorra clone or the Void twisting the souls in the Mists, but nope, the writers played the dead character nostalgia card straight. It feels weird for the writers to play the nostalgia card with dead characters after the conclusion of the main storyline. It also doesn't have as much impact as it could have, since this is the the third or fourth time they've done it, first with the Mordremoth final battle, then in S4E4, and then again during the Dragon's End meta event when Soo-Won knocks you off the tower and you're jumping back up, and now here.

It feels weird for the PC to be feeling guilty over Eir. She died 7 years ago and the PC never had an emotional hangup over her, or anyone really. The convo with Almorra also seems weird looking back.
Almorra: "You will be the end of the Charr!"
PC: "I'm sorry!"
At first glance it sounds like she's talking to me (since I play Charr), but in retrospect it was a reused voiceline of her talking to Bangar in IBS. Why is the PC feeling guilty over something he wasn't responsible for?

You adventure with Gorrik, Rama, and Yao. They're not a well rounded cast of characters. It's weird that the game expects me to care about Yao, since he only had a 30 second cameo in the EoD storyline, giving you a Jade Bot. Otherwise, he only appeared in the New Kaineng meta event. He's boring. He's pleasant. The group needs edge. Swap him with Rytlock, Marjory, or Canach.



On a side note, I am pleased that visuals were added to Unnatural Traversal.

[Edge-]

Just barely started, but so far Gorrick and Rama are 10/10 in how Rama just kinda tolerates Gorricks bullshit.

- - - Updated - - -

So I think I've basically "done" the content.

Just wrapping up the final optional dialogue (really like that it's all short and voiced!) now. Story was definitely short but...otherwise fine. Even with the few open world sections it's maybe a few hours, tops, with maybe an hour of actual instanced content. Usual stuff, introduces the basic map meta to you etc. Story-wise, I'm fine with this. I like Rama and Gorrik as characters and they play well off each other. Glad we're not instantly going into dragon territory specifically even if we're still messing about with ley-lines. but like...HOLY SHIT HOW DID NONE OF THE CHARACTERS COMMENT ON THE VERY OBVIOUS GIANT CREATURE HEADS THE LEY ENERGY WAS COMING OUT OF AND SHIT?!?!?!

Zone seems good so far. I imagine it'll expand over time but it's a fine "first step" and I like that the followed the Drizzlewood format. I very much enjoy that. The whole mask thing...I don't get at all and it feels completely pointless. It's definitely smaller than I expected even with a fair amount of "empty" space, but it's quite nice overall. The whole "turn in resources for keys" thing feels...like a gigantic waste of resources. I get there's apparently some absurdly valuable shit plus the chests are the only way to get the weapon set, but it just kinda feels like bait. You get a fair amount of keys for just doing the meta.

We'll see how I feel about it after about a week or so of farming it.

[Geckoo]

I have mixed feelings about this patch. Being the first actual content patch for the expansion after a year it feels too little too late, the zone and the story are decent, but then again... after so much time i expected more. Rama and Gorrik are great, but the zone seems like half a zone and is another meta dominated map, meaning that everything revolts around the constant meta event going on. The meta itself is alright, not too hard, no huge learning curve or big squad organization required, just follow the markers, do events and it flows naturally, wich i find to be the best way to deal with open world content, but i rather have open world maps that are just zones that happen to have meta events from time to time. It does make sense that this particular map is built how it is, i just wish we could have a jade sea zone where you can just chill, but that might just be my Gw1 Luxon nostalgia.

They changed their business model so i did expect the patch to be smaller than the usual living world chapter. I guess my real issue is the future. It depends on how long it takes for the next content patch to come around.

[Edge-]

My biggest narrative issue/worry about this arc...

the whole "commander is plagued by guilt of past perceived failures and dead allies" storyline. We've done that at least once per expansion or some shit at this point, it's been done to fucking death. I hope this is the only time it comes up since the GIANT WORM DEMON THING THAT NOBODY NOTICED was apparently playing with your mind and all, but good lord please stop beating this same storyline to death -_-

[Scyth]

They changed their business model so i did expect the patch to be smaller than the usual living world chapter. I guess my real issue is the future. It depends on how long it takes for the next content patch to come around.

I saw someone say that Anet themselves said the next part will come before summer. Not sure if true but fingers crossed it is as it would mean we will get the next patch fairly soon. Although that also means it probably won't be much bigger than this one.

[Edge-]

I saw someone say that Anet themselves said the next part will come before summer. Not sure if true but fingers crossed it is as it would mean we will get the next patch fairly soon. Although that also means it probably won't be much bigger than this one.

They did say that, so before mid-June (start of summer). That puts them on the same rough 2-3 month cadence they were on before.

For content this is all they've said -

That storyline will conclude a few months later with an update that introduces additional playable space to the map, adds meta-events and boss encounters, and lays the groundwork for future to-be-announced adventures.

So the bits of the map obviously missing, plus fleshing it out more. Which it desparately needs. Much unlike the first half of Bajora's March or and Drizzlewood which were each released in halves, this absolutely feels like an incomplete half of a map : /

[PACOX]

I saw someone say that Anet themselves said the next part will come before summer. Not sure if true but fingers crossed it is as it would mean we will get the next patch fairly soon. Although that also means it probably won't be much bigger than this one.

IDK what the plan is but I haven't seen Anet state this anywhere. Concerns seem to be that no one knows. We know this 'chapter' is the final story arc of EOD. It could unfold in mini-incremetes like season 1,2,5, and some minor stuff in between or we might not see any content for a few months like it's a season 3 or 4 episode.


They went out of their way to say this isn't season 6 and that the only schedule is gone so we don't know until we get what we get (or they actually put out a blog post).


We know that there's a fractal coming. I haven't touched the story or map myself because people I play with said it's feel like maps that slowly expand over time.


The way some people define content releases on reddit is somewhat dishonest. You have people who say we haven't had content in a year. I really enjoyed the CM strikes and (re)release of season 1 so I feel like I was getting new content every month or other month (whatever the schedule was) last year. Also season 1 was literally new content for the vast majority of GW2 players.

[Ghost of Cow]

Also season 1 was literally new content for the vast majority of GW2 players.

I mean, "It's new to you" doesn't make it actual new content, though. Hard to give a game credit for that sort of thing.

[Edge-]

IDK what the plan is but I haven't seen Anet state this anywhere.

https://www.pcgamer.com/after-10-yea...at-comes-next/

I only got a brief tease of the meta event, so I'm looking forward to jumping into the live game with a full map of players. As long as the rewards are right, it should be a great place to spend time in-game, even as we wait for it to be expanded in the next update—which ArenaNet says is due before this Summer.

The way some people define content releases on reddit is somewhat dishonest. You have people who say we haven't had content in a year. I really enjoyed the CM strikes and (re)release of season 1 so I feel like I was getting new content every month or other month (whatever the schedule was) last year. Also season 1 was literally new content for the vast majority of GW2 players.

I put a lot of this on Anet. Not "THEIR MARKETING BAD" (which yes), but in that they still have a ways to go in terms of improving communication.

Literally the only pre we got for this major change in how they handle post-expansion updates are a few lines from their big blog post. They did a terrible job clearly communicating the scope of the first update and setting expectations, much less the kind of cadence we should expect.

Which is why people keep comparing it to the scope of a LW update or expecting all kinds of shit that wasn't in there. Some of it is absolutely bad-faith bullshit, but a lot seems genuine confusion from folks that didn't read the big blog post to get those like, 2 lines.

Though overall agreed on the people that pretend like last year didn't happen. I get it, S1 wasn't brand-new to everyone but it's clear that's where their focus was last year and not like they twiddled their thumbs. I still count this as the first "real EoD update" though as some CM's and stuff are nice but content for only a tiny fraction of the playerbase that doesn't move the story forward really.

I will say even though I'm not buttmad like a lot of reddit sure seems to be, I am still fairly disappointed in this drop overall. It's not bad just...underwhelming. Short, unlike Drizzlewood/Bjora it feels like half of a deeply incomplete map (IMO those two maps felt "complete" in their first halves), and filled with some really weird narrative/design decisions that don't make sense. But otherwise "fine".

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I mean, "It's new to you" doesn't make it actual new content, though. Hard to give a game credit for that sort of thing.

It was partially new to me, but why don't they deserve credit? I'd bet a lot of folks playing either had never played S1 or had forgotten most of it, and its absence was really a big problem for the game in terms of having an otherwise cohesive linear narrative. And it brought it back with some nice bosses and the like, bringing some of those designs up to more modern standards.

Plus like, IIRC they had to find a bunch of old Lion's Arch data for it. I recall them discussing how they "lost" the data for old Lion's Arch some years back which was why they couldn't do anything with it.

[PACOX]

https://www.pcgamer.com/after-10-yea...at-comes-next/



Plus like, IIRC they had to find a bunch of old Lion's Arch data for it. I recall them discussing how they "lost" the data for old Lion's Arch some years back which was why they couldn't do anything with it.

Anets strategy: If we remain vague then player expections are on them!


They didn't even release a trailer for the content until after the patch went live. Their aversion to marketing is a phobia at this point. The game director did post on a reddit that (paraphrasing) they pretty much don't put much effort into marketing because their past attempts at drumming up hype failed...which is of course their own doing. At least they are self aware.


On another note - they did in fact "lose" a decent chunk of the game when they moved to the megaserver system. S1 took the biggest hit but most of the 'holidays' were lost, parts of the vanilla story softlocked people for some time, all kinds of bugs that had assets stuck in digital limbo.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The way some people define content releases on reddit is somewhat dishonest. You have people who say we haven't had content in a year. I really enjoyed the CM strikes and (re)release of season 1 so I feel like I was getting new content every month or other month (whatever the schedule was) last year. Also season 1 was literally new content for the vast majority of GW2 players.

Raiding has niche appeal, and doing the same boss fights but with higher numbers has even more niche appeal. Return of Season 1 only introduced one brand new strike/boss fight, which isn't the same as raid wings that brought 4 bosses each and also contained more content than just the boss fight. Return of season 1 did not introduce any new maps, which is the big ticket item in an episodic patch. Season 1 only gives you story that is about 1 hour long per episode and is far and away the worst of any patch stories. Even S2 is higher quality. You do the story do once and then never again (maybe for achievements if you want the Old Lion's Arch lounge). The only real repeatable content season 1 had was the Tower of Nightmares, but it is poorly paced as it is 45 minutes of constant fighting as you ascend the tower in the same rooms and environments, and quickly becomes exhausting and repetitive.

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Anets strategy: If we remain vague then player expections are on them!


They didn't even release a trailer for the content until after the patch went live. Their aversion to marketing is a phobia at this point. The game director did post on a reddit that (paraphrasing) they pretty much don't put much effort into marketing because their past attempts at drumming up hype failed...which is of course their own doing. At least they are self aware.

It's a shame. GW2 used to have really exciting trailers.

[Geckoo]

After a couple of days doing all the stuff the patch has to offer i must say, i'm more inclined to say that this is simply a bad patch and a bad sign if this is the model they want to follow in the future.

If this was already the new model at full we would also get strike CM's with this patch, it would probably save the patch for me since i do a lot of instanced content, but i don't think it would make it a much better patch, the zone and the story just falls short on many aspects.

Is not just the fact that the zone is a cut-off of a bigger zone (that can be fine if both halves are good), it's the fact that there is nothing going on apart from the meta. We essentially got a meta event with some short story attached to it taking place in part of a zone that falls short as a GW2 open world zone in terms of exploration tokens like puzzles, new resources or rare materials for new collections. The only sort of thing on that line are the hidden chests, but apart from that... the weapon collection comes directly from the event chests and some of the new cosmetics are directly buyed with researh notes + karma/gold, with a couple of them locked by easy achievements.

With the new model the quarterly updates also expand on the new systems introduced with the expansion. Well, here we have a missed opportunity to expand jade bot and siege turtle masteries to be more efficient at dealing with the haze and the walls. Instead we get to interact from time to time with an object to buy for free a mask filter and some blocked paths that are a pain in the ass to get past unless a few players are on it (with open turtles, wich is something that people don't seem to know).

I guess time will say if the new model is better or worse, but i don't think this is a good start.

[Selah]

Finally got around to checking out the patch content. This is the first time I've played patch content and it was the latest release, just been popping in and out over the years. This clearly wasn't the strongest showing ever from Anet. I'm not particularly interested in the patch except for the story. That said, for the story it was fine. I like the direction their taking it but it was short. I just wish we could ditch Yao, such an irritating character. Poor writing, poor voice acting, not even sure the reason for Yao's involvement in the story beyond ties to the organization (sorry for the vagueness, don't know how to set up the black box spoiler feature on the forums). Rama and Gorrik are a fantastic duo though and do love the time we get with them.

[Edge-]

Finally got around to checking out the patch content. This is the first time I've played patch content and it was the latest release, just been popping in and out over the years. This clearly wasn't the strongest showing ever from Anet. I'm not particularly interested in the patch except for the story. That said, for the story it was fine. I like the direction their taking it but it was short. I just wish we could ditch Yao, such an irritating character. Poor writing, poor voice acting, not even sure the reason for Yao's involvement in the story beyond ties to the organization (sorry for the vagueness, don't know how to set up the black box spoiler feature on the forums). Rama and Gorrik are a fantastic duo though and do love the time we get with them.

I need to replay the story and some events since apparently Chool Moo is fairly prominent (I know he's involved in the Echovald meta but that's it) but I barely remember him. Yao...vague memories of their involvement as well so I'm not really sure where this is all coming from. Especially what with our less-than-friendly relationships with the Jade Brotherhood thus far.

Yao is...uninteresting, I agree. I'm hoping Anet gives them something, but outside of them being a convenient engineer when the story needs one to do some engineering stuff, bleh. I do hope Yao won't be the Braham of his arc, we just finally ditched his dumb, annoying, whiny ass after a few years and I was looking forward to a break. Even if that break doesn't involve Taimi (much).

also you can use [spoiler][spoiler] (with a "/" in front of the second spoiler) and that will block the text between those tags.

[Selah]

I need to replay the story and some events since apparently Chool Moo is fairly prominent (I know he's involved in the Echovald meta but that's it) but I barely remember him. Yao...vague memories of their involvement as well so I'm not really sure where this is all coming from. Especially what with our less-than-friendly relationships with the Jade Brotherhood thus far.

Yao is...uninteresting, I agree. I'm hoping Anet gives them something, but outside of them being a convenient engineer when the story needs one to do some engineering stuff, bleh. I do hope Yao won't be the Braham of his arc, we just finally ditched his dumb, annoying, whiny ass after a few years and I was looking forward to a break. Even if that break doesn't involve Taimi (much).

also you can use [spoiler][spoiler] (with a "/" in front of the second spoiler) and that will block the text between those tags.

Ah, thanks! Makes life a lot simpler lol. Chool Moo is only really there in passing. Basically, the same thing that downed the commander is making him scared and "acting out." Yao goes to bat for him and does the whole "he's not a bad guy, really" song and dance. Then takes a super low blow against Rama when Rama is a bit critical. Obviously, it's a bit more nuanced than that, but that's the gist.

Full disclosure, I just finished an entire playthrough of the story recently as sort of my reintroduction to the game. While I took detailed notes, I definitely was hitting the wall near the end of IBS. So take what I say with a grain of salt.

Braham, I have such a hard time with him. His character is just so annoying and irritating (minus the moments with Taimi, because Taimi just makes everyone's character better). That said, I really enjoyed his arc in the sense of watching him grow up and work through the mourning process. When he finally started to come around at the Olmakhan camp and admitted to being ruled by his anger it was really cool to see. Still can't stand him after all that though. Would be interesting to have some time with him just to see what the healing process was like post Primordus. The way he was talking at Kas and Jory's engagement made it sound like there was a lot of spiritual wounds. Whatever that means to a Norn.

[Edge-]

Braham, I have such a hard time with him. His character is just so annoying and irritating (minus the moments with Taimi, because Taimi just makes everyone's character better). That said, I really enjoyed his arc in the sense of watching him grow up and work through the mourning process. When he finally started to come around at the Olmakhan camp and admitted to being ruled by his anger it was really cool to see. Still can't stand him after all that though. Would be interesting to have some time with him just to see what the healing process was like post Primordus. The way he was talking at Kas and Jory's engagement made it sound like there was a lot of spiritual wounds. Whatever that means to a Norn.

His arc is solid in the longerun but he...is fucking insufferable. He seems to be one of the least popular characters in general, and unlike Taimi who folks are hot or cold on (<3 her so much as well) there's consensus that Braham just kinda sucks.

But the spiritual wounds do make sense. You do a fair amount of "non-dragon magic spiritual shit with other powerful creatures" in IBS with him in the leadup and all. Norn do have a much closer connection with the spirit animals IIRC as well (pretty sure you pick one when you make your Norn character and all). If it sidelines him for a while though...I'll take any excuse.

Still though, at least we got a chance to beat his ass for being an obnoxious shit. Even if that's not why we beat his ass : P

[PACOX]

A lot of this post is based things I often here from new players going through the story.

I've heard people say "children can ruin a story" and I think Braham is one of thsoe examples.


"But Braham isn't is a kid". He is though. He is a teenager when the Commander meets him, an angsty, confused, lost, bitter (justified in some ways), overly confident and insecure teenager. And because Anet dumped all of this into one character he can be very whiny and annoying. It's by design but that's no always enjoyable, especially when it's easy to forget his big ass isn't a grown adult. The character is authentic but an exhausting person to be around. Authentically written teenagers tend not to make for very likable characters. No one wanta to deal with all that awkwardness.


I feel like Braham does actually get better after s3 when he has a coming of age point and matures. Then Anet kinds of fumbles the bag in IBS when Braham could have been a good contrast to Ryland - I mean that's why they what they basically did but the rushed writing ends up being a mess.


Taimi, I always loathed Taimi. Less that she is a poorly poorly written character but it seems like all the adults in the story let her do way too much. All the adults in her life are very irresponsible and she does things that someone who was kind left to raise herself does ie her Scarlet obsession, rash decisions, not knowing when to speak up and when to shut up, a lack of social skills and tact at many times. She said some stuff in IBS that made me just hate her, but that stuff wasn't unexpected when a kid in position surrounded by people like the Commander, Rytlock, Caithe, Canach, etc ends up being a bit of a sociopath without empathy. Gorrik is a good supporting character for her though, I like that dynamic a lot.


I think what Anet tried to do was write 'hero' characters who clearly flawed but flawed but Anet struggles to thread the line between those characters being compelling vs loathsome.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I never got the hate for Braham. He is chill for the vast majority of his screentime. He has an angry outburst in the final instance of S3E3, and then that's the last you see of him until he comes back at the end of S4E1. He ignores the PC for most of S4E2, and then at the end of the episode he starts interacting with the PC again and then all is good again. He decided to seek out Primordus in the final episode of Icebrood Saga, but he wasn't antagonistic to the PC. That rant at the end of S3E3 is the only time I can think of where he might come off as unlikeable, when he insinuates things about the PC that simply weren't true or are unreasonable. He inexplicably survives merging with an Elder Dragon, but that is more of bad plot writing than him being personally unlikeable.

I found Rytlock to be a little more irksome than S3E3 Braham was (but never wholly unlikeable), due to consistently refusing to answer Rox's and the PC's repeated inquiries about what happened to him in the Mists and the nature of his new magic in HoT and S3. I know that what most likely happened is that Anet saw that Rytlock was the most popular character and wanted to use him as the centerpiece of HoT's marketing campaign and to show off the new class, and decided to figure out "what happened to him in the Mists?" later, but him taking 2 in-lore years to finally fess up makes me look at him with a sideways glance.

The only main character I overall disliked throughout the storyline was Taimi, a teenage girl who is better at science than everyone else, fangirls over a mass murderer, is a brat in season 2 and doesn't get told to knock it off, suffers from a fatal disease that never kills her or incapacitates her over the 10 years that the story takes place, cracks jokes that kills the mood of the story, etc. She also comes off as narcissistic at certain points, as if she wants everyone's attention on her. The Californian valley girl accent is also a turn off. For a character who's role is to provide sciency exposition, I would much rather have had Zojja (who was an ass in the vanilla dungeons but otherwise came off as a straightforward, sincere person), or Blish and Gorrick.

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If I could have rewritten the story, I would have either had no Taimi and instead had Blish and Gorrick present from the start, OR had Taimi be the inexperienced apprentice of an older sciency character, who then perishes halfway through the story, allowing Taimi to succeed that character after she has a little bit more experience. Even then, I would still have her call upon the expertise of other scholars and researchers, send them data and wait for their results and analysis, etc, rather than have her figure out everything and do everything by herself. Also, make her less narcissistic, and change the voice.

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I think what Anet tried to do was write 'hero' characters who clearly flawed but flawed but Anet struggles to thread the line between those characters being compelling vs loathsome.

Aside from maybe Taimi, I felt that none of the characters came off of as particularly loathsome until EoD, with the trifecta of Mai-Trin, Joon, and Annka. I guess there was also Scarlet, who was aggravating for being a master of every magical art and technique and having all of these diplomas and succeeded at everything up until the end, but she wasn't supposed to be a hero at all (until EoD... "democratization through chaos" wtf was that?).

[Geckoo]

I think Braham improved in the later patches, it's a pitty that the final part of IBS felt so rushed, it was a good evolution for his character but the damage was already done. Is just a bad character from the start, comes across as a selfish brat with mommy issues and that's the image that has sticked.

Likewise, Taimi has been an arrogant smartass teenager from the start and her presence has been so prominent everywhere that it just got tiresome. Honestly, the best thing that has happened to Taimi's character is Gorrik; A character that fulfills the same role but has a totally different and more likeable personality, this allows them to have less of Taimi and still keep the smart insight of whatever big threat the story is dealing with, while she can still be used to add more information or keep advancing some stuff in the background.

For example... in this last patch we learn that she is working with Joon to fix the power issues in Cantha and by the end we learn that ley lines can charge up Jade, wich can be a game changer, but we didn't need a 5 minute speech from Taimi to learn any of that, Gorrik told us.