There are quite a few beta testers eagerly awaiting the release of 5.0 to see which suggestions made it into the live version. The level 35 entry barrier was one of the things brought up.
Also, I think the 500 skull matches thing counts each individual skull.
Yes, and that should take all of like 10min for the lower level 1s, obviously taking a bit longer towards end of campaign.
Yes you are, but exploding the board with 20 skulls on it, counts as matching 20 skulls. You would be shocked at how fast 500 skulls is completed.
Good thing you get them from solo events every week as well, such as Delves on Tuesday. I believe its also, and I would have to check here, in the lower stages of rewards for the guilds. Its as if devs want to push players into less dead guilds which would also help deal with complaints about dead guilds everywhere.
I hate TH, this 1 will take me awhile. in fact on Beta I think it took me 3 or 4 attempts for that 1 lot of 60 turns.
We bought this up on Beta, and I agree fully with you. For those in not a heaps active guild that has members doing PvP constantly, they will struggle with this 1.
This counts any gnome that spawns by the game, as in not player placed 1s, I cant say with 100% certainty, but I think Ravens also count towards these.
Like I said, they arent all that hard. You have picked what, 6, out of a list of 60 tasks. Not all these tasks will appear weekly either, and they may be adjusted to be made easier, who knows.
I stand by my statement though, that the tasks themselves, in general, are not hard to complete for someone at mid to end game and higher. At mid game, some may struggle. At early stages its straight up impossible, and I full encourage anyone running or helping run a newer player guild, to recommend caution on these and not to skip tasks constantly, as they are not cheap and resources are better spent elsewhere.
Campaigns don’t seem to be intended exclusively for “mid to end game and higher” players though. I’m pretty sure the $10 purchase button on the Elite Pass will leave it conveniently unclear how unlikely you are to collect the campaign mythic, or even most of the rewards, if you are below level 500 or not in a reasonably active guild or not guilty of stockpiling resources.
I guess that’s the part that really gets my hackles up. If someone pays you money, make sure they get something in return. Don’t make it an exceptionally horrifying slog to actually receive anything for the money paid, by throwing in surprise obstacles at every opportunity. That only works once, then your reputation is so thoroughly wrecked you’ll need years to recover.
A better approach would be to make the Elite Pass rewards available to all players. Maybe split them into 10 campaign shop tiers, first one free for all players, each subsequent one costing an increasing amount of gems. Elite Pass owners get all shop tiers for free plus one free task completion each day. That’s all the incentive you need to make paying $10 highly popular and still keep F2P players around.
I’m new to the forums so I don’t know if this much negativity is usual or if 5.0 really is being poorly received.
Here’s my take:
What I’m happiest about is the global stat buffs making delving easier. I’ve never gotten past lvl 140 on a delve, and I’d like to get the achievement for lvl 500. The last few weeks of a campaign will have a nice boost for Faction Assault. I like that the new achievements look doable, with level 10 artifact being the hardest. Nothing on the level of Xathenos, Level 500 faction, Pet lvl 20, 30,000 renown, or 100 gold elite troops.
I’ve never spent money on the game, but I’ve also never gotten a mythic. If I complete the 1000 stars, and $10 gets me an instant mythic plus all the back-rewards, I’ll be very tempted
The P2W stuff doesn’t bother me that much, though I do think concerns about the precedent are legitimate. My guild finished #1 in our bracket, but it’s a low bracket and only about a third of the guild participated. If I want a few extra stats, I’ll work on leveling up my kingdoms.
We discussed, among ourselves mind you, but the devs could read it all still, different ways the rewards could work, including 1s like the last 200 stars only be for elite+ players, but be like gold stars, that you only get 20 of a week, leaving the normal campaign the same progression no matter what you buy.
The unfairness to newer players was discussed at length, and something every beta player agreed on. I dont think it was an intentional thing to do, but I think its more aimed at mid to high and end gamers, with others being able to do some of it, and get some rewards, but progression will be limited as to what they spend.
And if a newer player spends the $10 to buy an Elite Pass, but then gets shafted on his 2nd task, I would fully expect outrage with it all as well.
The campaign system itself is fine, IMO, and does what it is supposed to. Glorified daily tasks with more rewards, and slightly harder in some cases, tasks to do, that gets the player to play more parts of the game. I think parts could have been refined more or delayed, like the Arena and TH tasks not be released at all until the updates to the modes are finished, or the delve level 50 selector be allowed for us to set what level we want to do, so that after the 5th week we dont have to just do level 500 delves to finish the task.
I do expect there to be complaints by some though, especially the more casual player base, about the time needed for these tasks, as not everyone will spend the same amount of time in the game, and those that login and play for 20min a day to do their dailies will struggle, even with an end game account, compared to those like myself, who are happy to spend 4+ hours on the game a day while doing other things like watching TV or a movie with the family.
There is actually less negativity as a whole for 5.0 than previous updates recently I think.
@Malicious on what platform do you play? There are a lot of GMs out there who would probably be happy to invite you, if you’re an active player looking to progress more quickly and do well in a Guild Wars bracket that has higher payouts, to a more active guild since your being on the forum makes it easier to communicate.
I’ll wait for actual update before full judgement
But so far I’m disappointed by the rearranging of schedule prior to update, the fact that real $ is required to obtain things bare minimum a month ahead of soulforge releases, and that promises to update/fix things constantly get pushed back
I’m pretty sure this will be more disappointing after release happens
I appreciate this, though I feel quite loyal to my guild. I was invited by a guy I’ve gamed with for ten years. I like the casual guild - I went AFK for a couple months and wasn’t harassed or cut. I’m on Xbox
Welcome to the forums. 
For a better look at forum negativity: Please see Update 4.7. (most of that negative feedback was well deserved, but I ended up muting the thread)
There is a delve mega thread worth checking out with plenty of tips for pure faction runs.
And a pretty awesome guild of Raiders on Xbox that is casual but fierce if you and your friends are ever looking to upgrade.
They won’t help you to get from level 140 to 500. That’s like expecting to be able to run a marathon due to getting handed a bottle of water, when you’ve been struggling with a walk to the next street corner so far. Not trying to be mean here, you really need to work on your delve teams. Try something like Titan/Shield of Urskaya, Rowanne, Green Seer, Leprechaun in those delves where it is possible.
And everyone of those tasks are easy… for you!
It’s very kind or very trolly to make up complaints that don’t even effect you. My money is on kindness since you are obviously such an empathetic person.
But maybe next post you can share a few ‘bad campaign tasks’ that effect you and not something or someone you just imagined.
The beta testers focused on mostly those same tasks for mostly those same reasons. Fourdottwoone (which my phone now offers to Autocorrect into for some reason) isn’t wrong.
Good new everyone, UKresitance was just kind enough to volunteer playing the tasks you can’t complete yourself for you. He’s even paying for your $5 Vault Key flash offer because he is such an empathic person. Use whichever screen sharing tool you find most convenient.
I’ll take you up on Treasure Hunter, Pest Control and possibly the kill 20 specific mythics tasks. Thank you.
How about take a break from trolling and complain about the tasks you’d have a problem with? I’m betting you have at least a few treasure keys stashed so treasure hunter should be no problem for you either.
I never said Treasure Hunter was an issue for me. I just pointed out it is so exceptionally poorly designed it’s going to to be an issue for a lot of other players. Like several other tasks. That’s part of analyzing these updates, don’t just think for yourself, look at the big picture for everyone.
I really don’t understand your repeated personal attacks here. Maybe if you read once more all that I wrote you’d come to the conclusion you might be several reasons short of a rant? No insult intended.
Nobody has to everything that the game propose. You can just ignore campaign if you want.
Campaign adds new rewards that you get for free (there is the debate that you need to use some resource to finish some tasks and so the income balance could be negative but let see how it works).
So from 4.9 to 5.0, devs give us potentially more resources than before.
Now for me the biggest issue (aside “World Event almost every week”) is the lack of “reroll” button so you can reroll one task. Let say one reroll for the copper tasks and another one the silver tasks by day.
The price of completing the task with gems is too high and players will just give up the campaign better than paying X (10? 100?) times the value of what they are going to get by completing the task.
wait so the elite pass is one time only for that specific events? after its over another one to be followed?
You must buy a new one each campaign to keep benefits
Took some time to read this thread between breaks for lunch and a bit more while having dinner. Finally reached the bottom of this dicussion.
To sum things up, my opinion is:
Monetization: Fine, no problem with the devs pursuing new revenues. I just think I should echo @Smash 's concern about the possibility of people spending money and NOT be able to get the Mythic by the end of the whole thing. Just think about it, it’s a damn long event and after some money spent AND time investiment in the tasks if the player don’t get the Mythic I’m damn sure they won’t feel inclined to spend on the next events… So Unless the devs are planning to close their doors with maximum profits possible after this first ten weeks they should reconsider this. Or don’t, and just wait to see how things will unfold…
Tasks: They are just our old daily “Snotstone” tasks again?! Oh no, now we have stars! [sarcasm]Such improvement! A genial move![/sarcasm]
Artifacts: Temporary buffs, with NOTHING new or exciting added to the game.
Weapons: Well, there is some potential for something cool stuff. I just hope the artwork is not more of the regular garbage we have from that “artist”…
All other events: They are now substantially shorter and in a certain fashion harder for newer players, the exception being Bounty Hunting since they can get some of the best troops for it literally for free.
It’s pretty disappointing to be honest. Unless there is any hidden gem in this update or in 5.1/later we are just getting more of the same with some monetization sprinkled over.