Guild Wars 2

Let’s talk about quest 1.1, aka Heart Quests.

Problem
I think Heart Quests are fairly tedious. There’s too many and too often you are doing very similar tasks as other Heart Quests, which is usually pretty mundane stuff. When I was about 50% completed with the map, I began to sigh when I saw a new zone with Heart Quests in them. Most players run alone and try to do them as fast as possible. This tells me that I’m not alone in my thinking.

Potential Solution
Not every inch of a map zone needs to be covered in Heart Quests. Instead of having 10-15 in an area, only have 1-3ish Heart Quests which are more involved in a given area. With only 1-3ish, they can be a little more grand, a little more thought out, and the completion of events can tie directly into completing Heart Quests. Heck, defeating a world boss could be an entire Heart Quest. You have to arrive at the right time, do the preceding events and it takes a good 10-30 minutes.

I’m also not a fan of getting Heart Quest rewards through the mail system. Have the NPC say things to me if I choose to go through their dialog tree but hand me my reward on the spot.

What does the community think about this?

for one, i would hate a heart that takes about 10-30 minutes, i don’t have time for that.
also, the problem isn’t how the hearts let you do stuff, it’s that ones it’s done the area is quite useless.
it’s also not a quest, you can get multiple quests in one town, a heart takes over the entire town and removes the use when done.

The point of heart is to bring you to areas to discover the Dynamic Events that occur there. Almost every heart in the game can be filled by completing Dynamic Event or two that occurs around it. Hearts were added late in development for this specific reason. Unfortunately people have consistently misunderstood their purpose because they come from the wrong kinds of games where quests are a thing. They aren’t in this game.

being a gw vet, i know how quests can be done, i hate “kill 10 rabbit” quests and for the same reason i can’t stand cheap MMO’s.
also, DE’s are pathetic, all they do is letting players zerg an area and remove the whole reason of having a fun time on playing the game.
i rather have a whole area react like a DE so the pathetic things they call a DE can be removed.

sorudo.9054:

for one, i would hate a heart that takes about 10-30 minutes, i don’t have time for that.
also, the problem isn’t how the hearts let you do stuff, it’s that ones it’s done the area is quite useless.
it’s also not a quest, you can get multiple quests in one town, a heart takes over the entire town and removes the use when done.

You can come back later to complete it, so it should be a non-issue for you. Point made about quests, though.

Kal Spiro.9745:

The point of heart is to bring you to areas to discover the Dynamic Events that occur there. Almost every heart in the game can be filled by completing Dynamic Event or two that occurs around it. Hearts were added late in development for this specific reason. Unfortunately people have consistently misunderstood their purpose because they come from the wrong kinds of games where quests are a thing. They aren’t in this game.

Events are more fun than Heart Quests. Events were toted as being the primary content in the game, but you are required to do Hearts if you want to complete stuff?

If their purpose was to bring you to areas of the map, why not have other events or your story bring you there? Because now your thinking is: “I have to complete all these Hearts. I can skip the events because I know they will repeat. Hearts work towards map completion but events do not.” Then once Hearst are done, you don’t have a compelling reason to go back and do events because you’re done with the area.

A smaller amount of Heart Quests could bring you to some of the events. Other events could require exploration. Weird, but you don’t need to have arrows or golden hearts to tell me to go somewhere. I will go on my own more often than not if I haven’t been there. Anet wouldn’t have much trouble getting players to go through a new map zone with , Points of Interest, Skill Points, Vistas, and Events. This is a compromise to still have Heart Quests, but make them more interesting.

I actually like heart quests mostly the way they are. It’d be nice if there was a central vendor so I didn’t have to look up on the wiki which karma vendor sold X item, but I have no problem with the ammount spread out. I was actually sad when my first character got to Orr and there were no hearts to do. They also provide a decent/fast way to level up my alts.

It could be I’m in the minority. My circle of friends agree that we thought they become a hassle due to the sheer amount of them.

Flopjack.5314:

It could be I’m in the minority. My circle of friends agree that we thought they become a hassle due to the sheer amount of them.

I mean you could be true. I’ve only finished world completion on my main. But I don’t need to do it again until I can scrounge up enough mats for 2 legendaries. I don’t play my alts very often either, so I don’t think I’ve burnt out on them.

I can see getting tired of doing world completion for the 8th time, but I’m just not a fan of your suggestion. Some of the hearts could be tweaked a little to go a little faster or have more events nearby though.

I personally think heart quests are very monotonous. After completing a heart quest once, there were very few I felt compelled to return to with an alt. For me they almost felt necessary in my leveling progression, I couldn’t explore the world the way I wanted at my own pace because I had to complete these tasks to level up(Of course dynamic events helped in the leveling, but depending solely on events would take a while longer). Reaching Orr for me was, personally, more enjoyable, I was no longer held by the hand and I had the freedom to seek out my own destinations. Of course, at this point I was nearly lvl 80 anyhow but the feeling was rather liberating.

Hearts wouldn’t feel so tiresome, if they didn’t feel so necessary. I know crafting is a viable option but that requires a bit of time, gold, and lots of resources. In my opinion I think the problems with hearts stem more from the leveling curve, it takes too long to level. In gw1 I could get to level 20 in 3 days if I power leveled myself or 1-2 weeks if I took my time than the game was mine to explore. The point of the 1-20 was to learn your profession. In gw2, by the time I reach lvl 40 I feel like I’m grinding for levels. I know my class for the most part and I want to start putting my newly learned profession to the test, working on what matters, fun, challenging content and building powerful, attractive gear. Past level 30 I don’t feel like I’m ‘progressing’ as a character, I’ve achieved the ability to wield all my skills, weapons, and can slot some traits.

I know when A-net released the game they said the leveling was more about the ‘journey’ than the ‘destination’, however the journey gets boring the 3rd or 4th time through. I’ve rolled several alts and I get funneled eventually into the same zones through the personal story. Realistically there are 2 leveling paths (map wise) through gw2. Go south through the shiverpeaks/gendarran fields, into the tarnished coast and eventually to Orr, or they go north along the brand into Fireheart Rise and eventually Frostgorge Sound.

I’ve seen some progress in A-net realizing the leveling progress is too long in the introduction of daily/monthlies, and experience scrolls instantly leveling a character to lvl 20. But in reality I don’t mind leveling to 20. This is the interesting part of the story where my personal choices and the different races have separate paths. Additionally unless I am rolling the same profession twice, this is when I am learning my profession and getting a feeling for the skills. They need to work out the time between 40-80 when the paths funnel into the same zones players have already experienced in their first or second play through.

Whether they add new zones to level through, apply a whole new campaign, expand the living story, increase experience gain, they have lots of options to fill this gap. I don’t think leveling is their primary concern at the moment, but some improvements can be made assuredly.

Some of the tedious ones take 10-15mins but most of them takes only a few minutes. Its already simple and easy enough.