Guild Wars 2

I’ve enjoyed the whole update except for the Mursat fortress which can feel excessively punishing ( lore wise I can see why though).

How ever as another thread has asked when will we learn more about the mysterious Glowing Man that keeps appearing?

I’ve commented on what I didn’t like about it, but I think what was good about it deserves highlighting:

X T D.6458:

-Map completion constantly resets because of hearts, remove hearts as a requirement for mapping. Or at least make them a one time mapping requirement.

I don’t believe this is true, you only need to complete all the hearts once and you get full map completion. After the reset the map completion stays.

-Navigation can be annoying , the thermal tubes can be confusing as they never seem to point in the direction they shoot you, maybe face them the right way and put a directional arrow on the map for them.

Are you not playing the same game? Because they have exactly that. Arrows that point in the direction they shoot you.

Late to thread but at least that means I’ve had plenty of time to explore the new map fully.

One of the best updates since launch. Certainly the best new non-expansion map in four years. This is the kind of “real” new map many have been asking for for a very long time. Bloodstone Fen was also good but Ember Bay is much better. If we can get a map like this every Episode then the game will have improved by an order of magnitude.

The story was also very good. LS3 is a big improvement on LS2, which I thought was nowhere near as good as LS1. Yes, we all complained bitterly about LS1 while it was happening but that was before we knew what was coming next! LS3 is a big return to form.

Don’t do Fractals so no comments there other than it’s good to see ANet able to add significant content to multiple game modes simultaneously. Ditto the new sPvP map, which I haven’t tried, although I do occasionally PvP. Nothing significant for WvW, which I play a lot, but that’s understood – it has a separate, ongoing development plan.

Since this is supposed to be High Level commentary I won’t go into great detail but the main reason I like Ember Bay better than Dry Top, Silverwastes etc is the replacement of the zonewide meta-event model with a much freer, looser choose-your-own-adventure style of play. The chains are short and very manageable and they layer excellently across each other so there’s always something happening. Many of the concluding fights resemble the “World Bosses” from launch, something we very definitely need more of. The rewards are good and for almost the first time in four years there are multiple karma vendors selling multiple items I find genuinely desirable. The minis especially are an excellent addition.

The return of Hearts is also very welcome and I very much like the way they need to be re-earned after each reset. I bet you guys wish you’d thought of that for launch – it would have given the entire game vastly more replayability and allowed you to continue adding new rewards to Karma vendors to drive activity on specific maps.

All in all I’d give this Episode and the content that came with it a solid A-. If you can make this the standard and hit 4-5 updates like this per calendar year then you have a game!

tacticalevilnoodlefox.5694:

Brown Fang Thump.9482:

Croke.9124:

tacticalevilnoodlefox.5694:

Underdark.3726:

Last night I finished the Jumping puzzle which is not a jumping puzzle but a gliding puzzle. Had a good time doing it but no because was a fun puzzle but because I was doing it with some guildies. The puzzle is not “fun” cos you don’t know where your next step should be. Gliding blindly around rocks hoping to find a spot to land is not fun. The old puzzles are much better. The one in Mistlock Observatory is much more fun even if it’s (too) easy and small.
I really love jumping puzzles, especially the hard ones but this one is just meh.

Can I also add onto this that there were several parts of the JP that were frustrating, not because they were hard but because it felt like a stroke of luck that you would “catch” on the rock or slab that you had to land on and stick.

They were either slightly too high or slightly to close to the wall and I felt more like I was randomly flailing around and hoping I didn’t fall rather then making a calculated jump to get to a hard place.

The end result was rather then having fun with a challenging puzzle and feeling like I accomplished something I just felt relieved that it was over with and I wouldn’t have to do it again.

I felt the same way about this. Funnily enough, while completing it – someone in the same instance mockingly regarded it as “Glide & Slide”.

These are the reasons why I deplore jumping puzzles in this game: the collision boxes on the geometry used fight against the controls and there’s no intuitive way to know that what you see is what you get. Either the collision geometry needs to be improved to real platformer quality or GW2 needs to stop pretending that it’s good at doing what’s done well in actual platformers.

This exactly. The JP design itself was amazing (I loved wandering around in the center of a volcano it felt fun and dangerous), but once I got to the actual jumping part it was little more then endless frustration and annoyance.

It’s the same problem I had with all the jumping and gliding in the HoT maps. I hated taking a risk that the platform I was trying to hit wouldn’t actually be there and I would fall right through, or the slope that looked like I should be able to land on it had me slide right off to my death. There were parts of the JP that had me landing on rock sides that looked like it should have been too steep to hold me and had I not used a guide I would have never known I should go there.

There’s no real good way to know what areas will hold you and which will slide you right off of them and with a JP that requires checkpoints because it’s so long and difficult that makes it really really frustrating rather then challenging. People can say what they will about the Aetherblade or Clocktower JPs, but at least it was better telegraphed which platforms would hold you.

Also the camera is a huge problem. Again it’s not fun to try and make tiny specific jumps on uncertain platforms while having to look through the back of your head.

^^^^^^ SO TRUE.

Well i can say that mobs hp and difficulty are well tuned compared to HoT.

The JP isn’t only hard and frustrating it is also really bad when u play as a Norn or Charr. Then it is also unfair because of the burn condi. There are classes which have not so much condi cleanse on Class Skills (Thief because sword and shadowstep doesn’t work in this JP so good).
I finished all JP’s also the annoying Aether + Divemaster but this one i will skip.

Overall, great map. Some things need tweaking or scaled better.

jade champ is a huge HP sponge while Molten dominator, and sloth dont seem to scale at all to the point where “Sloth is up” in map chat means its too late for me to waypoint and take the lava tube. Karka scales about right, but just gives a generic champ bag and not petrified wood, same with jade champ. Jade champ progresses the heart ALOT which is great, but other champs dont at all as well as other event mobs.

Overall, good, but consistency of reward, scaling and event participation needs some polishing.

There might be a bug with the third level of the Karmic Retribution booster you buy for 10,000 magic + 15g at the vendor at Promotory. It seems to deliver no karma from killing enemies, whereas the level before did. I’ll keep testing but I thought for the cost there would be a noticeably better effect.

The story : LOVED IT!
The map: Much better than bloodstone fen, more interesting to explore and spend my time in it without getting sniped by hammers from kilometers away.

I wish Anet continues on this line! It’s getting better and better and it seems they are learning from their mistakes.

My only big problem with Rising Flames is that the story is not consistent with the actual world in a few parts. For example the egg in the main chamber of Tarir doesn’t update after the last mission, if you enter the instance in Tarir, the egg is still close. I wish it could be up to date.

Good job overall Anet!! Congrats to the team!

Ah! I forgot to say that the repeatable Hearts are a great idea imo, they kee giving me things to do in the empty time between one event and another.
I wish it was the same in the vanilla maps with those sweet rewards like minis and tonics.

I’m having a ton of fun exploring, checking the npcs, following the stories and the hearts. Lovely!

10/10 will try to dump stranded skritts in the lava to see if I can rezz them

I loved the story with Rising Flames however I’m not that impressed with the Ember Bay map. I find it too convoluted and feels like it was put together to fast. With the repeated pattern of vertical slabs holding up horizontal slabs more like a construct than a volcano. I can understand them near the Mursaat fortress but it doesn’t make sense all over the place. Mount Maelstrom is a way better volcano map.

They totally missed the opportunity to use the aerial combat skills from Bloodstone Fen. What would have made an awesome boss fight is a lieutenant dragon for Primordus showing up inside the caldera to consume an eruption of ley-line energy while players fly around on ley-lines and updrafts attacking using the aerial combat skills. Destroyers attacking from ledges and fire elementals gliding the ley-lines attacking players in the air.

Instead of using portal scrolls for each map I wish they would just do one that brings a list of destinations. One for each map is going to eat up the shared inventory slots eventually.

The petrified wood nodes are annoying in that you don’t always get petrified wood from them. You should at least get three from each like any other node. Petrified wood would have made a great crafting item for ascended jewelry.

I think it would be interesting if the player could visit Taimi every so often to get an update on events and maybe deliver something to her that the player collected.

khani.4786:

• The big gold star for finishing story achievements: Do I really have to spend 1k gold to get the circus patron to get the big shiny gold star for finishing the episode? What gives, am I just missing something else?

In response to myself: I discovered that you DO NOT need to buy the Patron pass to get the big gold star. You do however, need to complete the one hidden achievement from Ember Bay in order to get the Gold Star to appear. That is really good to know.

Two days ago i finished Eureka. I like the mace a lot, i think its strongest attribute is the draw animation, and i like the stow animation as well. I have two things i think could be improved though.

1. I love the initial glow on draw, i think it would look nice if (once drawn) the glow would come back in slow pulses. ATM once you have it out, it looks a bit muted and hard to see, i think this could be a nice balance.

2. Footprints look nice, but like nevermore, HOPE and Astralaria (legendaries i also have) i think the duration could go up .5 to 1 second. Twilight’s and many of the Gen1 legendaries last much longer.

The new legendary journey isn’t quite as fun as the older gen 2’s, but it’s not bad, and certainly much less buggy. Also, a great way to put a bigger economic sink on t5 mats, kudos.

As far as Ember bay – The map is fun, a few fights could be tuned harder though. Sloth needs a few more mechanics or…. something. Maybe pull another mechanic from raid Sloth? Jade could use less HP. Dominator could use a bit more tough/hp. The Hungry Hal achieve…. is just pure boring grind. Maybe less apples, but make it fun and difficult in the method to deliver said apples? As it currently is, it’s boring, so i’m just not going to do it.

As far as the new pvp map – i enjoy it, but it really favors teleporting professions, and i’m still not sure the side buffs are really worth going for over holding points. I think a singular pvp only skin for each new map would be great as well. It could require map cheevs which unlock a much longer pvp reward track to aquire it.

The new fractal Hub is GREAT. i love the design, and having added things to do with relics. I’d love even more things to do with them, as well as the pages. i have 14 sets of asc. armor across 9 toons(one of each prof) for raiding/wvw/fractals. Spending pages and gold on armor boxes is unlikely, especially when it seems designed for people who aren’t at 500 crafting. I also LOVE the new instabilities, way better and more fun. Toxic trails might belong in the 90’s though, it’s currently easier to skip the 80’s for dailies.

More stuff designed like the fractal hub would be awesome! Circular fountains to emptiness! It reminds me of Myst.

The Story was one of the better ones. I’m still not super moved by the story though, the characters are generally flat and either good or bad, there is very little grey.

I am in my mid 30’s (as i imagine many mmo players are) and i enjoy plot from shows like House of Cards, Penny Dreadful, Game of Thrones, Peaky Blinders and Hannibal – all of these are much darker, and you are actually scared of the antagonists. When Lazarus comes out, i’m not scared of him at all, my only thought was, oh, ok, now he’s a good guy – no big deal. That’s not the emotional response you want, you want me to be nervous about his real motives, to care that he might stab us in the back. But i don’t, i’m emotionally removed from the story.

Perhaps i put too much expectation on a video game. Story of an exceptionally high caliber might just be better left to books and/or shows. But deeper, more flawed, and more grey characters would go a long way. Some of the new ideas such as magic as a spectrum, and the dragons absorbing previous dragons’ energies was interesting – more of that, please.

QoL things you should still add(in order of importance):
-Open all loot bags in inventory (right next to deposit all collectibles?)
-Mystic forge “forge all” button. Making amalgamated gemstones? single mystic clover recipe? The four items STAY highlighted and you just click “forge all”
-Clicking on bouncy chests in lower right is no longer double click, and no longer requires a confirmation. If bags are full, the chest isn’t opened. OR you could just have a button in lower right that says “Open all bouncy chests”
-Have an option to sell all green sigils/runes at vendors, or include them as junk.

The biggest deterrent for me in games is loot management. Getting too much feels unrewarding and just a grind to go through. GW2 is definitely in the upper ends of “too much loot”, but features like “deposit all collectibles” and now “salvage all greens or rares” makes this much better. Let’s keep it up.

That’s about it. Thanks for the more frequent content updates. I’m liking the new pace and format since Mike took over.

Personally, I hate the new map. Every time I go on it to try to finish achieves or try to do some events, I get frustrated within a few minutes because of one of the following:

• Obstacles, ledges, little things that look like you can jump on them but then invisible walls block you. Then there are the endless crevices we have to conceivably look into for things and without a guide, it takes forever and gets old fast.
• Ley lines remain finicky and I always find myself thrown from them when going around turns or near an outcropping of some rock. It seems the only real one of any use is the “roller coaster” otherwise we have to figure out the cannons.
• The mobs are annoying. I had no issues with HoT maps; but these are completely counter intuitive. The stupid jade things around the Mursaat towers tend to blob and cc for days. If I want this behaviour, I can go to WvW.
• The “boss” mobs are weak and take nothing to beat. Maybe they take time if you are in random trash or soldiers/nomads but anyone that has geared up any will take them down before anyone else gets there and the boss cannot even do anything (I did not even know the sloth Queen had any attacks; three of us killed it just after two slubblings were eaten).
• I normally love the JPs and did them for all the monthlies myself and same with the new one in LA, Trolls Revenge. But this new one is obscene. I agree with other’s sentiments that it is too reliant on glitching the game physics.

The repeatable hearts are cool but the rewards here are fairly pointless. I have salvaged every single petrified log; unlike the bloodstone rupees which have nice rewards with them.

The story was nice but felt too quick. Actually took an hour less to complete than the first one. I do like the challenge added to the last chapter though; gives me something to practise my skills on. Also, can we incorporate the game simulator into the special forces training area so we can build our own fights? That would be the best ever.

POSITIVES: Amazing map. Beautiful landscape. Fun zone to explore. Ley Line Roller Coaster. Jumping Puzzle.

NEGATIVES: Many missing Enemies/NPC’s from the original: Hydra, Phantoms, Abominations, Giant Flesh Golems, Fire Drakes, Breeze Riders, Dryders, etc. Aether Seals do not resemble GW versions. Like Southsun, events are not very exciting. Yet another currency (and another which doesn’t go into the wallet). Yet another key.

This patch is amazing and fun. I don’t really have any complaints.
I do have a suggestion, though – perhaps an asura gate from Southsun to Ember Bay? Or an option in the Lava Lounge to go back and forth between Southsun and Ember Bay? Those two islands complement each other in a few ways and it would be nice to have them paired up transportation-wise. Perhaps a nuhoch tunnel from the Ember Bay karka shore to the volcanic crater in Southsun, but instead its called a karka tunnel – just using the same mastery as the nuhoch tunnels? Or maybe have a lava tube that transports you back and forth between the karka shore in ember bay and the crater in southsun? Just throwing a few ideas out there to connect the two islands.

found more bugs there is other petrified wood node on the map that does not give the petrified wood.

also the heart npc south left of the map I could not give him the stuff that he collect to complete the heart after 3 try the option came back on. so probably a bug to fix there.

Over all I like the new map… although I like Bloodstone Fen more.

Seems like this was the least populated LS release to date. Not once were my minis hidden due to player population. So, either you guys changed out megaservers work or people just didn’t show up.

I would have liked more story.

I would really like the ability to access the heart vendor without having to the heart quest every freaking time. Yeah, I understand why you guys did it, which was only for the petri wood, but I’d say just put THAT behind the heart quest instead of the entire vendor.

Positive
The first impression the map feels large and very interesting. I wanted to explore more of the map. Trying to find secret places. Interesting there’s a lot of rocks to jump and those little caves makes the maps more interesting not just boring flat map.

I’m glad for new jumping puzzle is added in the game. Specially hard and frustrations one are fun and challenging to try.
The Leylines roller coasters are so much fun!

The castaway little love story was funny. Those little details on the map are fun to laugh with friends.

Mobs Sloth boss… XD very surprising. I like Jade Murzaats when the whole
zerg came and gank you. Reminds me of gw1 at the starting point of Fire Island.

Ps. Will Lord Fahren be on the Fire Island?

One more thing – seeing as this is still open.

While I agree that the legendary journeys for the previous precursors were cumbersome, one of the legendary aspects of a legendary weapons is the fact it has an actual story attached to it.

I can see that Eureka probably has something to do with magma, old dwarf tech, rising magic and an Asura walking into a bar. Having some sort of Ember Bay related story to go with the creation of Eureka would have made it almost a character instead of a mace skin though.

I’m not saying go the full 3 collections length but seeing as you were designing the entire map anyway, I don’t see why the devs couldn’t have built a small set of events into obtaining the precursor from the existing content. Throw in 3 lore books (tablets) scattered across the map, converted 13 of the 40 mursaat tokens into samples required to build the precursor and then have a timed event where you need to switch off all 4 dwarven volcano suppressers and then dunk the unfinished precursor into the active volcano to absorb the abundant magic – and if you don’t make it in time, you character dies in a supposed volcano mini eruption and you cant retry till the next day.

Very little work, precursor gets an epic backstory and one of Tiami’s krewe members gets to claim they designed a mace – without exploding ember bay. Win Win really.

Fantastic new map in visuals and design, best story arc this game has seen IMO. Please disable the random screams text pop-up and voice line when playing the new maps!

Okay it won’t let me edit my post, saying “There was an error!” in a pop-up haha, that’s a first. I just wanted to add this: while I like the idea of Taimi's virtual training room and it did advance the story with the "paradigm shift", I was kinda surprised later since I thought the concept of it was supposed to teach us new mechanics for revamped dragon minions, but it ended up being more like a separate Queen's gauntlet kind of event. My 2 cents: I hope that the training room evolves to compensate for the real-world dragon minion changes, if there is another planned mission. Our character did suggest Taimi load in some Jormag minions, but if they're totally different from the real deal, what's the point right?

Maybe that was already a given hahah, just wanted to share. Keep up the great updates!

The new story has filled me with, a new hope. Hope that there will be an epic tale to be sung by the skaalds and bards of Tyria. A tale they shall recount in, A Song of Ice and Fire.

Fey Zeal.7032:

The new story has filled me with, a new hope. Hope that there will be an epic tale to be sung by the skaalds and bards of Tyria. A tale they shall recount in, A Song of Ice and Fire.

+1 for Star Wars reference!

Grebcol.5984:

I finished all JP’s also the annoying Aether + Divemaster but this one i will skip.

I was nearly at the end today when I fell, couldn’t get up back again and had to WP and wasn’t ported.
Watching Dulfy’s video alone gives me a headache because there’s no strategy and no puzzle behind it but spamming the space key and that get’s exhausting really fast.

Other than that: Not really my favourite map but easier to navigate than most HoT maps. I love the skritt quest though – the emote of the Skritt when you give them a weapon is priceless, I love little things like that, like the crabs in Bloodtide Coast who threaten you and run away when you threaten back (I can do that for hours). So for that I’m grateful for the renewing hearts but I don’t really care about the stuff one can buy there.

PS: I’m doing the JP as a thief and have SA – Shadows Embrace, Shadow Protector And Shadow Rejuvenation as traits. Together with Shadow Refuge, Bliding Powder and Hide in Shadows it’s more than enough condi cleanse – you only need it for the first part anyway. You can also equip Blinding Powder the trait to not die from falling damage but once you’ve reached the checkpoints you rather die anyway.

ETA: You don’t need the elites on HoT maps, no matter what people think. In case that’s the reason why you think some classes don’t have enough condi cleanse – I bet all of them have but not neccessarily in the Elite traits.

1. Didn’t like story at all. Too much humor, too much irony. Feels like narrative team gave up on trying to make a coherent and compelling story and just doing jokes and memes now.
2. Kawaii dragons in RPG about apocalypse, where dragons are primordial god-like forces?
3. Recolored destroyers make me think of korean grindfest mmos.
4. Lava tubes instead of jumping pads? Like really? My character takes a dive in the hot lava?
5. Everything above really breaks my immersion. Can’t be bothered to go back to Ember Bay after going through the story once.

I like the update a lot, but would it be possible to turn the holodeck into a survival mini game?

I remember GW1 used to have survival dungeon instances with leaderboard support, displaying how long Guilds would last in the instance before they were all wiped. Would it be possible to turn this holodeck into something similar, just like one of the many adventures in the HOT maps?

Only disappointment that I can think of is the “no hydra”. Say what now!? This dose not remind me of gw1 at all and it should!

Oh also I love the indians Jones and the temple of Doom feel to this map but I think you forgot the mine carts! Oopsie! O.O

Everything else was great I guess. Oh and ty again for more options at more ascended gear from this map that is also a nice touch!

Dragon.8762:

I like the update a lot, but would it be possible to turn the holodeck into a survival mini game?

I remember GW1 used to have survival dungeon instances with leaderboard support, displaying how long Guilds would last in the instance before they were all wiped. Would it be possible to turn this holodeck into something similar, just like one of the may adventures in the HOT maps?

Great idea but please get rid of it’s roof! it gets in the way of camera angles and is just plain annoying!

Mal.1670:

Fantastic new map in visuals and design, best story arc this game has seen IMO. Please disable the random screams text pop-up and voice line when playing the new maps!

Random screams in Lava fits ! xD Its freak me out. Did it freak you out too?

mbhalo.1547:

2. Kawaii dragons in RPG about apocalypse, where dragons are primordial god-like forces?

Kralkatorrik is the primordial, god-like force. Glint was its lieutenant. And, don’t forget Aurene is literally minutes old at the end of the quest. I think we can give her a pass for being a little cute.

That said, I’m hoping that the huge amount of magic flowing to the egg chamber will cause her to grow up quickly.

I’ll take the patch as a whole instead of just the living story episode. Therefore…

Positive:
+ Mobility around Ember Bay. The new mastery is genuinely fun, it’s not just an instant teleport like Nuhoch wallows, but allows to swap on gliding mid-way through, thus working as really good way around the place.
+ The jumping puzzle. Not the Volcano one, but the new awesome surprise JP we got with the Fractal lobby change. And the related diving achievement, that’s a cherry on the cake.
+ The new Fractal lobby as a whole. Aside from some minor confusion about who sells what now and where to find it, the overhaul is great. It now feels like a hub I’d like to just hang out and roleplay in, instead of a flat rock with a giant portal covering most of it. And the map topography and design are on point.
+ Not entirely related, but I’d like to relay kudos for what other races mostly take for granted: Mursaat armor looks great on charr! Only minor clipping (cheek horns in some females tend to bug out, since they’re pretty much perpendicular to the face), and even the fancy tail armor! Woo!
+ Moto’s messing up with the machine was the only really funny thing about the whole episode, and it played out great.

Negative:
- The story is a mess. Caithe is banging her annoying “I AM A TRAITOR, WOE ME! But we cool right?” glockenspiel, the Mursaat flip flop is literally unbelievable, our own character talks like a spoof of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is so appropriate for a male charr…). And while there is a legitimatelly cool core in the Rytlock having a dangerous new magic the Legions are justifiably iffy about, given the charr history, handling it is just kitten-poor. Last time, we had a butchered out of character version of Almorra Soulkeeper, this time, we have a duo of cringeworthy legion regulars (WHY did a GENERAL of the VIGIL handle the business last time, if we can just sent footmen this time around?) who spout lines that sound like someone was retelling the original script with bad memory and horrible game of impressions.
- Male charr voice is still far from optimal.
- While I did wish in the past (and still do) that some of the cool original renown hearts would be repeatable, this is definitely not what I had in mind. But from what I’ve seen elsewhere, that is mostly getting a fix. Not sure who thought having to unlock the same merchant again every day would be fun, but it’s not.
- New map is way too… separated, for the lack of a better word. Instead of having one map that just melds into a nice complete whole, we have five mini areas that are pretty much secluded from one another. There’s the caldera with the wurm, there’s the skritt half-island, divided by river of lava lies the asura killing field, then there’s the circus grounds, and divided by a giant wall the mursaat fortress thing… after a series of amazing new maps we’ve been getting for over a year (starting with Dry Top, Silverwastes and even counting the Heart of Thorns maps design), it’s a bit of a letdown.
- The new legendary. Design is fine, but if the legendary journies got flak for anything, it was concentrated grinding steps. This is literally nothing else than a concentrated grinding step.
- Destroyers melt very fast, while Jades are obnoxious. Not hard, just obnoxious. Killing them is not worth it and takes ages, I skip them all the time (and I’m usually not the skipping sort). Some middle grounds would be nice.
- New fractal instability rework seems mostly untested or royal case of “didn’t think that far ahead”. Some instabilities are downright incompatible with some fractals due to space and other limitations. Please, give it a second thought.
- Open world story steps are… could we please avoid them as much as possible? It kinda breaks immersion when “Only you can save us by fixing the ancient dwarven device!” with other ten people standing in the line behind you for the very same thing.

I came back from a long break for season 3, and am so pleased. Lots of throwbacks to GW1 and solo content. Hooray!

Thanks so much for the solo friendly maps, entertaining story content, and repeatable hearts. I wouldn’t complain if you added more hearts to other maps

By the way, I find the screaming hilarious, and whoever created Aurene deserves a huge plate of cookies. So cute!

1. I do not like the repeatable hearts.
2. You guys at Anet need to reconsider adding in all these dailies per map. It’s a repeatable recipe for boredom disaster. Been there, done that, hate it. At least with the normal dailies there’s change.
3. Decent story so far, but I still want your old writers back if they were replaced.
4. The maps as of late have been too easy and not fun. Even if the HoT maps were difficult at first they were learned and now are the most fun for me.

Advice: I’d avoid going down the road of Asian repeats and grinders. Because even if it may not be the intent, that’s what it’s starting to feel like.

The jumping puzzle would be fantastic, but the checkpoint system and server closure makes it a pointless psychological torture chamber. 3 times I have been robbed of it via disconnection or server closure. haven’t even been able to complete the mursaat token achievement thanks to this. Please, for the love of god; you have more than one brain cell between you, furiously rub them together and come up with a solution that isn’t slightly less fun than being kitten upon, thanks.

Not sure any dev is looking at this thread anymore but here’s my two cents as someone who’s been playing guild wars 1 since launch and grew up obsessed with it:

1) Most players probably disagree with me and that’s a-ok, but from my perspective I dislike the “cute” baby dragon that looks (as another user aptly put) like a chibi character. It didn’t feel in line with the darker themes of guild wars 1 lore, which Glint is a centerfold character.

2) Thank you for giving us Ember Bay. The scale is good. Scale is one of my primary complaints about the environment in gw2 compared to its predecessor. In gw1 you utilized downscaled models to represent further away objects (for example small trees in the shiver peaks). This created the sense of massive mountains with large swaths of more or less “blank terrain” between the viewer and the object which further made a sense of largeness. Gw2 mapping went away from ’this for obvious reasons but it chilled the sense of scale in the world that gw1 nurtured.

3) I wish there were a few more things that were consistent between the original game and 2. Say what you want about World of Warcraft but by and large the world and the fantasy rules of the world are obeyed. There are things from Warcraft 3 that are just now being shown in the latest expansion pack. I am not a fan of WoW’s gameplay but the environment and subtle nods to the old school Warcraft games keep me coming back to it just for the leveling and exploring experience in each new xpac. If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t even think that gw1 and gw2 were the same universe. For example: in gw1, destroyers were the (pen)ultimate foe. Endgame creatures which were fearsome and powerful. In gw2, you experience combat against them in one of the first zones. And they are indistinguishable from most other foes.

As much as I love the environment of ember bay, and love the nods to gw1 especially in the mursaat fortress area, I gotta ask: where are the hydras? Thanks for reading through my rant. On a mobile phone so apologies for any autocorrected items that make no sense.