Secrets of the Obscure - Discussion Thread

[Edge-]

I wasn't crazy and the new offhand pistol 5 for guardian hasn't been working properly, the secondary skill to assplode it wasn't appearing. It works now, so that's good!

I will say that as much as I miss having a new trait line and passives/heal/ult to go along with it, the new weapons are nice on my guardian. Actually feels worth swapping from torch to use and has some nice utility in it with its surprisingly strong built-in AoE with the pierce. I decided to try working them into my open world support/healing build and ended up realizing that my proper condi build was fucked in the process, which was annoying. Fixed that, fixed my open world support build (Virtues/Honor/Firebrand, PP/Staff with Solace/Potence/Flame/Liberation mantra, Signet of Wrath and Ritualist gear). Figure it makes a bit more sense to use pistols as a permanent ranged option since it's not a DPS focused build, and their damage seems quite good either way.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Also WvWvW is dead

Been dead since PoF.

[vian]

Been dead since PoF.

Which was when I quit, and Brahms character started to devolve.

[Zmagoslav]

So i finally logged in for the 1st time since completing the previous expansion's base story.

First i tied up the EOD story and gotta say i liked where the story seemed to go,... Shiro stuff, absolutely liked him in GW:F and his cameo in GW:N... but got dissaponted.
The entire "detective agency" story-line i didn't really care for...

Then i proceeded into Secrets of the Obscure.
While it starts off in an interesting way it does leave a "meh feeling"...
I got to the 2nd map (after the tower) and played some quests there on saturday, but it's simply not pulling me back in.

It does seem to be a "angels vs demons" story, but executed in a bland/uninteresting way.

[Lotus Victoria]

My God, SOTO has been a big disappointment for me. Really big.

I really enjoyed the launch content - a little less than what we used to get, but hey. It was cheaper. But since then, this expansion started to FEEL cheap - I'd gladly pay back
the extra bucks to have a good story, more maps with better metas, interesting masteries and less filler content. I mean, the objectives of the MAIN QUESTS are doing random tasks in the world to fill a bar, so we can continue. WHY?

Patches are taking too long to develop, they give almost nothing new in terms of content (dividing one map in three parts? Really ANET?) and the story feels absolutely disconnected from everything, like a saturday day-off for the commander.


I'm so tired of shoving my face at every single problem of the world - first it was dragons, then it was gods, then it was dragons again, and now it's a war for a faction of demons that we don't even care. But somehow, the commander will save them as well.
Ugh.

I really love GW2 but somehow SOTO has become a bigger disappointment to me than Icebrood Saga, and IBS was terrible at the end. At least we got a lot of new maps and the metas were fun.

Not optimistic for the future of this game, as we'll be getting yearly expansions now. If they all feel cheap like that, I won't be there.

[Scyth]

The beginning of the xpac was really fun imo as well, I enjoyed the Wizards Tower stuff. The last 2 patches have made me lose some interest though as I just don't enjoy the Nayos part of the story at all. They should have done more with the Wizards tbh.
The new weapon options have been a big miss with me as well unfortunately (although I enjoy maces for Ranger and swords for Necro) but my 2 most played classes, Ele and Guard, got pistols and those have not been fun at all.

Hopefully next xpac's story is a bit more fun, I personally want more stuff in Cantha but understand why people might not want to go back there yet.

[Edge-]

I really love GW2 but somehow SOTO has become a bigger disappointment to me than Icebrood Saga, and IBS was terrible at the end. At least we got a lot of new maps and the metas were fun.

Not optimistic for the future of this game, as we'll be getting yearly expansions now. If they all feel cheap like that, I won't be there.

I dunno if I'll go that far, will wait to see how this wraps up to see if we get another, "Sure we explored Jormag a bit but Primordiwho? Just let them fight and axe off two dragons quickly!" before comparing to IBS. But I agree after a strong start these two updates have been really lackluster and not been it for me at all. Why they feel the need to try to basically force a multi-year story arc into like 6 months makes no sense to me at all. We've abandoned most of the characters we spent time with at the start of the expansion to go hang out with a bunch of annoying demons who really need to learn about brevity.

I'm not going anywhere, but I can unfortunately see GW2 taking more of a backseat than usual if this is the pattern they continue in subsequent expansions. Really, really hoping that their experience with SotO results in a lot of learnings and improvements for the next expansion, but honestly I'm not super optimistic : /

[PACOX]

I guess if you play for the story the xpac hasnt been good. I've already said how I feel about it. But as someone who mostly just does instanced content this xpac has been solid. The changes to runes means we can get people with new accounts geared a little faster. Some rotations have changed for the better with relics. The new weapon system is great. The first strike CM had me a little worried but the 2nd one ended up being a huge success. I know people who only play open world stuff are happy this xpac game them a ton of goals and "challenging" content to consume. It's m than I thought we would get out of a $25 expansion and there's still another fractal coming.

[Lotus Victoria]

We've abandoned most of the characters we spent time with at the start of the expansion to go hang out with a bunch of annoying demons who really need to learn about brevity.

I was really happy that we got Zojja back, as I'm Asura. I got to meet some new characters that were surely more interesting than stupid Braham and his stupid red hair. But we spent no time whatsoever trading them for a bunch of lookalike demons that just spout out the same "we gotta fight the big bad guy or we are damned" nonsense that we've heard for Zhaitan, for Mordremoth and so many others.

They have a "wizardry is cool" expansion where, instead of learning magic and new ways to interact with the world, we kill random mobs and fight a war that will not matter in the end.

I really hope ANET is using this expansion as filler to cook a better one in the future. But if I'm being really honest, I don't think thats the case. I think the playerbase is slowly shrinking (which is normal, not this game's fault, too many entertainment options in the market) and it may not be in their interests to invest a lot of money in an almost 11 year-old game.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

[Edge-]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topi...april-16-2024/

SAB is back, and seemingly expanded, if anyone cares about that kinda thing.

Cosmetic inspection is added after a decade which is great! Won't show actual gear, just cosmetics, and apparently some people are freaking out because Fashion Wars is supposed to be private or something.

Apparently comes with a fair few undocumented QoL improvements I've been seeing on Reddit, too but it's hard to track down a list.

Also, next update delayed by at least one week and they shipped a patch up update the WV UI with that info.

[Ghost of Cow]

Cosmetic inspection is added after a decade which is great! Won't show actual gear, just cosmetics, and apparently some people are freaking out because Fashion Wars is supposed to be private or something.

Wait, they're actually mad about inspecting?

There's a complainer for everything, I suppose.

[PACOX]

Wait, they're actually mad about inspecting?

There's a complainer for everything, I suppose.

It's really just a loud small group of people. Reddit confirmation bias where only outliers bothwr to post or stand amount among what the typical person thinks/experience.

If one person throws a wrench people are just going to notice that person and not all the others who aren't crazy