If you caught our piece about problematic expansion choices or listened to our End of Dragons-centric podcast this week, you already know about the controversy that had engulfed the Guild Wars 2 community. In a nutshell, the endgame encounter designed for siege turtle acquisition was not going well at all; the high difficulty of the content combined with masses of casual players combined with malicious trolls had made for a terrible experience and people failing dozens of times. It was essentially a casual vs. hardcore nightmare.
Well, as of last night, ArenaNet has laid out a plan for more changes to the Jade Sea meta event to “help improve the accessibility of the fight” and also create an alternate path to get the turtle.
“First, effective immediately, we’ve reduced the frequency at which the Jade Sea Final Boss activates their ‘Tail’ by about ~50%. This will give players longer windows to deal damage to the boss and contend with the various other mechanics of the encounter. To be clear, this change does not require a game build to take effect.
“Second, in the March 15 update, we’ll be providing players with an alternate path for acquiring the Siege Turtle Egg, which unlocks the collection required for the Siege Turtle mount. We’ll be adding a new vendor to the Jade Sea map that will sell the Siege Turtle Egg at the cost of 200 Writs of the Jade Sea. The Siege Turtle Egg will continue to be awarded to players that successfully complete the Battle for Jade Sea meta event, so players will have the choice to unlock the collection via a challenging meta encounter or through time investment.”
Our Guild Wars 2 columnist noted that the change is overall a good one, particularly the tail change: “[The] 200 writs will still take a long time to collect, but if you fail the meta repeatedly at least you’re making progress.”
Of course, some folks are concerned about a potential reduction in the numbers of people participating, while others are merely concerned about protecting their past efforts. Still, we’re just a week and change into the expansion and ArenaNet is already pivoting based on feedback, and it’s promised to continue to do so.
“We’re looking forward to seeing how today’s ‘tail’ adjustment plays out, and we’ll continue to iterate on the fight until it achieves our goal of being a challenging yet doable encounter for most of our players,” the studio wrote. “Achieving that goal will require continued attention from us, and some patience and learning from our players. This situation feels not too dissimilar to the release of Tequatl, Triple Trouble, or Dragon Stand, all of which are popular encounters in Guild Wars 2 to this day.”
We have an update from the #GuildWars2 development team about the Jade Sea meta event (please note that while the post is story spoiler free, it does discuss fight mechanics): https://t.co/dshYBebFJ5
— Guild Wars 2 (@GuildWars2) March 10, 2022
