Guild Wars 2

Thanks for all the variety and nostalgia. Hydras felt a little weak on my mm necro, as I was able to solo 3 without being wrecked in seconds. The return of moving mobs was nice too.

Generally found map comparable to others in game, despite some obscure oubliettes. Bounties were fun, though replay value is limited in long view, like Silverwaste Legendaries. Was disappointed that dynamic events didn’t interrelate more.

Mac Client kept losing keyboard input capability, requiring restart to fix.

Would like to be able to abort hidden treasure targets without logging out. Identification mechanics were welcome changes.

Sous Chef MP was frustrating due to controls and time constraints (this game doesn’t use those mechanics well).

Demo story’s overall pace was great. Individual battles didn’t feel like it was taking forever, and enemy health wasn’t too overdone.

The “heart” was bad though. Reviving was probably the issue. Watching a (revive) progress bar fill is not fun. Extinguishing fires was at least something. Maybe NPCs can cower in fear instead and say their dialog when nearby fire is extinguished?

Would like a mount strafing option, such as a full body turn while the head points towards camera direction. I can get used to the controls, but a strafe option would make mounts far more enjoyable, even if sluggish.

Editing isn’t working for me for some reason but I’d just like to add that I loved the new enemies, they offered interesting challenges and I felt they were just right except for The Forged. They need to be stronger in my opinion, it felt like they just melted. Maybe they were nerfed for the preview but I do think they need to be buffed up a bit.

Pros
+The map is beautiful and interesting
+The raptor is a joy to just run around with
+Music and ambiance in general
+Bounties are interesting, though I do hope they’ll have more interesting rewards tied to them so that people keep coming back and doing them

Neutral
~Not sure how I feel about unidentified items. I love the bag space, but I don’t like that they could be any rarity. I like the idea of splitting them into rarities. Maybe give blues and greens some chance of becoming rare so that the incentive is still there to identify them when convenient?
~Mobs are kind of on the easy side, but they’re mechanically and aesthetically interesting.
~This could be simply due to the lack of showing the whole map, but some kind of meta would be nice. Obviously you don’t want to do a huge one for every map, but something small that’s maybe the length of Vinewrath (without Breach or any of the build up) in length.

Negative
-There doesn’t appear to be any no mounts zones around vendors. I would really like this to be changed. I’d strongly recommend no mounts in a certain radius around any vendor.
-The story instance wasn’t all that interesting. I did like that you gave the boss some lines of dialog though. That made her more interesting than most enemies. Still, there was almost no sense of urgency. I also really don’t care for Hearts being part of the story.

Overall, a very positive experience.

• Crystal desert: not too much feedback because imo it is amazing
• raptor: steering is a bit extreme but with practice I got it, don’t know if Anet should tweak that a bit
• mastery points: specifically the chef one maybe once you throw an ingredient make the bar fill up again instead of a portion, took me like 10 tries
• hero points: they were soloable, thank you
• enemies: not too hard or too easy, good
• items: like almost everyone I don’t really like unidentified gear
• events: liked them, obviously the stand out is the raptor race, if ppl think steering is hard I recommend try and try and try the race
• bounties: basically activated veterans, I can find it problematic if you activate one and a zerg kills it before you arrive
• adventures: I’m glad they don’t give mastery points or something useful, they are fun little mini-games as they should’ve been in HoT
• Story: I think its amazing that the mastery (mount/raptor) is implemented into the story, still annoyed at the Rytlock story (but i know we will get answers).

Really loved the raptors and riding had no issues there. Hated the chef mini game for Mastery point would have been better to have us put the item in the stationary pot for the chef or create the recipe at his direction (no timer pls & would be fun to get a recipe in addition to the MP). Enjoyed traversing the map – beautifully done. Loved the details around the map (laughing hyenas were great). Mobs – consortium chest in the water too many mobs to deal with that spawn from chest and area to complete with one person. Cave screamers so overpowered you can’t get away once you are hit once.

OveralI I could see the work and attention to detail that has been done so far and look forward to what else is coming.

My only negative is Unidentified Loot. I like it as an inventory management tool, and understand ANET is looking for gold syncs. If it could be handled with a consumable kit, priced like a salvage kit and available at all standard merchants, that seems fair.

I don’t have the time to trek back to a heart vendor, or the gold to bother ID’ing a big stack of loot. If the system goes in unchanged, I will not purchase the expansion, nor will I further support the gem store.

The common response to that complaint seems to be “just salvage it!” At that point, I’m no longer getting loot, which defeats half the point.

Cultural insensitivity is a huge minus for me with what I’ve experienced so far, though not at all surprising from the company that brought us Goren, the anagram Black stereotype and the banana hammer.

I found the Forged Hookhead a very offense attempt at humor, worse even than the Morello. No Forged Whitey or Forged kitten creatures were found, thankfully.

I was also put off a bit by the relation of watermelon and people of color.

The added human male face options that have broad noses all look angry or intellectually deficient and nothing like the abundance of people I see every day who have broad noses.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised that the hair options for kinky hair have been broadened, with some rather nice styles.

I don’t expect any game to match my liberal politics. I do hope that the games I’ve paid for don’t actively foster hate.

The world felt much more like GW1 to me. Loved it. Wife and I enjoyed the glimpse of PoF more than all of HoT.

Map/Artwork was excellent. My wife and I both felt the desert looked better than any areas in core or HoT. Visiting old GW1 locations felt much better now. Not crammed too tight, open space is good, great job!

Most foes seemed decent. Hydras were awesome, Sandsharks were cool, the Iboga attack graphics were nicely done.

Mounts seemed good. Moved well, like they should, since a mount doesn’t turn on a dime, their movement seemed realistic.

Unidentified Items. I like the concept, but think they should be found in types (much like gw1 was), and have an ID kit purchasable just like salvage kits, but keep cost reasonable since there’s a ton to ID.

Overall
Loot system, is fine if the identity kits are made affordable AND a Gem store permanent identify at a FAIR price
Mounts, beautiful, but need better handling. cosmetics and feel are great, BUT, functionality wins out after the new wears off.
Hearts too grindy
conclusion, Great work, just meeds tweaked in small areas

Mount had too much sway and loose motion as if their muscles were made of gelatin. They did not move like real animals and reminded me of a bouncing ooze but even oozes have more precise movement. It also felt like there is too much lag between commands and reactions similar to a synchrony problem.

Please tighten the movement of the mount so it works more like a real animal.

WARIORSCHARGEING.2637:

they put this same thing in the new pack pof which is for me another turn off as I died fast as I hit the mud pit . and was forced yet again to way point back to life and forced to spend 1 sliver and 60 copper to come back to life .

That’s …. not a mud pool. It’s quicksand, as the signs around that pool state.

Pros
-Loved the mounts though I think you need to work on not having them get stuck on slopes. Also it would be nice to glide if you jump off a cliff with the mount
-The map was absolutely gorgeous, especially at night.
-I actually like the identify thing, though I think it should not require heart vendors and I agree that there should be rarities so that you can just decide if you want to salvage. Oh and make it so they are not salvaged using the salvage all.
-Bounties where fun

Cons
- In general I think there need to be more events on the map. You decided to make this map more like the core Tyria maps and I have no problem with that. The issue is core Tyria maps tend to have more events all over, and this map was missing that. Once you got away from the city and the hearts there was just not that much to do. That I think is my biggest suggestion.

-I think the chef mastery needs a little work since I had trouble getting it on a good system that does not have high Ping. For those with high ping I think it would be impossible. That being said I like that the masteries are soloable.

The map looks amazing – very well done. Mounts also have me convinced, and the story was pretty good. However the map did feel a little too sparse specifically in number of hearts/events/maybe hero points. Hopefully some were just disabled for the demo

Love the art design. The music is similarly impressive. Mounts seem interesting. Love the “weight” to their movement that makes them feel different than character movement. The combat encounters were a bit on the easy side, but fun (loved the Hydras).

Without knowing whether or not rares/exotics are going to be fully gated behind unid gear I cant really say I have an opinion on the matter, but I am nervous…

Like other people I wasn’t in favor of mounts but I think they were executed in a Guild Wars 2 style that makes them acceptable. They are going to kill travel toys, no that they were a big thing anyway. I found some places on the map a little to dense with creatures. At one point I Was fighting three different types of creatures at once. Mainly creature zones overlap to much to allow the player to take in the map.

I found it amusing how a non-agroed choya was spastically shooting spikes. I loved the Lion King Easter egg.

My biggest disappointments are the lack of ley-lines and up drafts along with not being able to dismount in the air.

Pros.
Raptor mount just incredible. Amazing handling, i like small inertia when you stop from a full speed, incredible idle animations.
Map look very nice and city remind me Kamadan. I really like that there is some underwater exploration.
Interesting bounty system.
I like new mobs (sand sharks and those quaggan/cactus hybrids) and return of old ones like Hydras
Cons.

Incredibly frustrating and annoying mastery minigame. While it probably can be fun with good twitch skills and excellent ping it turns to horrible torture with 200ms+ lag.

Mobs are way pre nerfed. Hydras was awesome opponents in GW1 and now they are just weak trash mobs. Same with story mission. It takes no effort to steamroll through it even with default build. Its like clearing Quinsdale in a full ascended.

No updrafts at all. Its like all gliding and other skills from HoT was suddenly forgotten and we back into vanilla.

Neutral

Unid gear. I am just not sure with its current state.. While it have some thrills to id stuff for weapon and possibly other collections i don’t like it’s current pricing.

The map is well made and pretty. The events I participated in were fast paced, fun and challanging without being overly hard. Good balance for the majority of players I think.

Personally only two things irritated me in the map. The Chef mastery point challange, I had to give up in frustration, no fun at all. Plus npc enemies out on map have far too wide aggro-radius and too short respawn time. It’s hard to find a spot of calm checking inventory or map. More of everything is not necessarily better.

Raptor mount is very nice. Good control except it tends to get stuck on tiny obstacles. The animations for both mount and rider are simply brilliant.

Overall mobs felt too easy. I hope they were just “undertuned” to help people play the beta with those terrible out of character creation builds. If it stays like this it would definitely be a step back from HoT where mobs at least had a bit of challenge. Feels unepic if you can just facetank monsters several times larger than a max sized Charr or Norn (eg Hydra)

My thoughts on the UnID system- it seemed to me that I was getting more Rares than with normal loot. That in itself might make it worth the cost. I do not like that we must get IDs through heart vendors, which reset daily. That goes beyond mere inconvenience.

Re: mount movement… in addition to addressing their getting stuck on pebbles, I agree with some others that perhaps Raptor movement needs to be a bit tighter. When maneuvering, I was put in mind of the off-kilter way that Asuras maneuver. It’s fun on Asuras, but may wear thin on mounts. Perhaps tighter movement and a bit less swaying would help those who are getting motion sickness from riding them.

Loved the raptor mount. However, while mounted the camera ignored all my settings (Vertical height near / far).

Please fix this, as the constant camera changes when mounting / dismounting was icky. The camera options were added inthe first place for a reason, so please respect them. (I don’t mind if I can;t see my raptor’s tail – I know it’s there)

What I love about Path of Fire:

• Mount is your friend and ally
• Interesting story
• Beautiful models (e.g. houses, bazar, pyramids)
• Challenging bounty hunter missions
• Stable release so far
• Fair price !

Suggested improvements:

• More epic soundtrack in the character selection screen (like HoT theme)
• Meta-Events or bounty hunter missions that require team work and coordination (like Dragon’s Stand)
• PoF starting zone is beautiful but not as impresive as HoT starting zone
• Guild Wars 2 Complete Collection (PoF + HoT + Season 2 + 3) for new players

You’re doing a great job and I love GW2 ! Keep it up!

I wish this map was more like dry top and the silverwastes. Event chains and metas without being too grindy, and verticality that rewards exploration, without being as confusing as TD.

The zone overall had nothing interesting going on. I didn’t see a single event chain. It’s nice to have a zone that feels like a core tyria map but ultimately I didn’t see any reason to do anything more than once. I’m hoping there is a more complex event chain that was just disabled because it was a demo.

I wish HoT masteries weren’t totally forgotten. Having a few bouncing mushrooms would have been nice.

More difficult/annoying areas like the mining cave in the northwest don’t come with any additional reward, so why would anyone go in there?

Absolutely hate the unid loot. The fact that it wasn’t separated from “salvage all” just reverts all the gains Anet made with the salvage all option. The cost was way overpriced to id the gear once I realized it was an option having already salvaged a bunch of the gear due to exploring and not immediately completing hearts. Just don’t understand why this “loot” would be introduced when you’ve made numerous attempts to make it easier to salvage on the fly with Salvage All and the like. I stopped playing the demo once I realized the time/gold sink this had become. I don’t like having to repeat hearts in the first place and then being forced to repeat them just to unid the loot I would get every day is a complete waste of my time let alone the gold cost.

Mounts were ok but didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t glide if you went off a cliff or that you couldn’t strafe with their movement.

I preordered for 2 accounts but after this experience I’m definitely not preodering for the other 2 accounts I have and my skip the expansion overall due to the unid system.

I see a lot of people asking for the raptors to be able to strafe, I for one am glad that they are not able to. If you have ever ridden a horse or other large animal you will know they can strafe, however it is difficult to get them to do it and it’s usually only a few steps. In addition I like that mounts move in a significantly different way to players.

I enjoyed the mounts were not locked behind mastery, looking forward to core Tyria raptor races. Did not like Timed-RNG-Task Mastery point — worse than Shooting Gallery. Did not enjoy the 10000 champ events – makes content difficult when map goes dead when LW starts back up.

Overall I liked the demo, there are good and bad things:
Good:
- The map looks amazing. I really hate sand maps, but I liked the map. Great use of color and graphics. The night looks amazing.
- Mobs have interesting design and looks. They were challenging but not cheap.
- I loved the raptor mount. I liked the feeling, the speed. It also frees up a utility spot that in open world PvE typically reserved for movement speed.
- Much better start than HoT. I loved VB, but it is unplayable without gliding and mushrooms. As a result, the beginning of HoT was extremely annoying, were you are forced to play in a verticality map without the necessary tools. The start here was much more fluid.

Bad:
- I understand this is a demo, so I cannot tell for certain, but there were no meta events. The map felt like GW2 leveling maps. They are fun, but not repeatable. I am hoping that the maps end up somewhere between HoT and LS3 maps. We want interesting massive meta events with small events and hearts.
- There was not much in terms of exploration. I was expecting more.
- The bounties are okay, but should be more frequent. Why are not there multiple active at the same time all the time? I guess that can be kinda of meta event for this map.
Worst:
- Why puzzle to obtain a mastery point?! I love jumping puzzles and navigation based efforts, but memory sequence… No, just no.
- Only 3 way points in the entire map… why..

Other:
- Hero points were too easy. I honestly have not noticed how many points they provide. If they provide 10 points as HoT that will be pretty lame.
- If I jump off a cliff with mount can I use glider. It happened many times were I jumped and was like ohh crap I cannot glide!! Would be nice that you do not have to dismount if you want to glide.

Instead of doing pro’s and con’s I’ll just list a few things and comments about them.

The map – Although I enjoy vertical maps and maps like Tangled Depths, I wasn’t disappointed by this map. I didn’t find it too flat. I did however find that there were very few events and not a ton of replayability. It’s not something I would go back to frequently other than just to roam around or explore once I have full mount masteries. Also, the map really wasn’t THAT Certain parts, sure, but I find Lake Doric a lot more flat than this map. And definitely Silverwastes with the exception of the jumping puzzle and Skritt area or the labrynth. Comparing it to Queensdale doesn’t really do it justice outside of comparing the excitement of the events perhaps. The events really were kind of lackluster.

The music – possibly my favorite so far and matched the scene perfectly.

The mount – was fun and neat animations. My only complaint as others have mentioned is that you can’t dismount while in the air. When mounts were mentioned and the rabbit was shown I was thinking we would be able to jump up on the rabbit, then glide and land somewhere if we wanted to. Could this be changed before launch? Just pressing the hot key again to dismount while in the air? It would give gliding a little something extra too since the new maps are missing things like updrafts and jumping mushrooms.

Masteries and hero points – Interesting beacon game. Didn’t mind it though I did have to get a piece of paper to keep track of the order. Reminds me of the old days playing Zelda and having to keep track of the puzzles in it. THE CHEF – And I put this in all caps because it is infuriating. The radius you have is too small, he moves too fast, and you have to throw far too many objects that you have to find scattered all over the kitchen. Not a great choice for an opening mastery point. It would be fine if it were cut down to like 5 throws. But I lost track of exactly how many ingredients I had to give him. I don’t know what he was cooking, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Unidentified gear – I actually liked this feature. I can understand wanting to sort it by rarity but I don’t find it necessary. The one thing I did dislike was the cost of having to identify it. It’s an extra little cost that is added onto salvaging it. And having to do the heart vendor first isn’t the most fun thing ever but I could live with it. Gives me a reason to go back and do hearts every now and then.

Material increase – I welcome it, personally. I don’t sit around and play on the trading post for my income though so I suppose that’s why I’m indifferent.

The story – Wasn’t the most exciting thing ever, but do you really expect it to be when it’s the very first chapter of the expansion. And not even a full chapter is it? It’s a demo and I’m sure there’s quite a bit missing. It didn’t bother me.

OH – Sorry, way over the limit I’m sure. The one thing I do want to mention is the constant filling up with random materials that seem like they should have a slot in the material storage.

Mount: Looks great, takes a little getting used to but moves very nice, except for one thing, it needs to be able to strafe. I had fun using it to climb a couple of the pyramids lol

Map: It is beautiful. I do wish that more of it had been open though.

There were some things that could have used a better explanation.

The Sous Chef for the Mastery Point, please, pretty please, just no. I tried it twice and wanted to stuff the Chef into the oven, gave up and left

~100 words is rough, so I’ll just write down what I didn’t like and hope it provides something new. (What I did like has already been said.)

- Hearts take a bit too long.

- I didn’t like the lighting on the character select screen. I prefer the one we have now. Maybe you can just make the background + lightning like HoT’s but make the streaks of color purple instead of green? Or a selectable choice.

- In the prologue, after running through the cave with the spiders, if you turn back, it boots you out immediately and makes you redo the whole story again.

- Some of the mastery points should probably be instanced. Ex: The Simon says one. I can imagine this one being annoying on launch day with a blob of people running back and forth between the altars.

I did love the mount, it felt realistic in the way that it moved around. It didn’t feel like an appendage to my character, it felt like as if I was riding around on an actual animal. I really did like the way the mount “felt”. The tail flail took a lot to figure out, maybe its just my high ping, high latency satellite internet connection though. Don’t care for Unidentified loot boxes at all for reasons others have covered extensively in other threads.

I don’t like mini games or adventures, I avoided them for HoT and I feel they might have a large part to play in masteries in PoF which is something that would bother me a lot. I do feel that the Zepherite skills from previous expansions that made Dry Top literally a place I would not go, are now being “reskinned” and classified under Mount skills. Say what you want, but they are very alike it seems. The more I played the demo, the more I realized that is the case.

I wanted to think with the PoF, it would be more like the GW2 I knew when the game started. I realize that my opinion is not the opinion of everyone, just everyone I know that watched me play this demo this weekend.

Many things used in PoF that were used in HoT that made me not want to play. Masteries locked behind mini games, needed for Zepherite type skills such as leaping, jumping, scooting across quick sand, shooting over water. Just a reskin called “mount” now. GW2 wasn’t always a platformer, but it is now. Its not for me. I’m glad you had the demo though, it helped with making the final decision about the expansion for me. I know others will like it, me not buying it is but a drop in the bucket and won’t make a blip on the radar screen if I don’t. Good luck with the expansion and I hope it goes well for you. Its been a great run for me, GW1 from 2005-GW2 2017. I had a great time, I really did, but a lady always knows when its time for her to leave. Thanks for the memories!

Raptor Races were fun, but unrewarding. Didn’t notice any difference in reward for coming in first place or dead last. Of course, the reward system might not be hooked up.

Mount riding felt nice, but ramp terrain needs additional fine-tuning to ensure mounts don’t get hung up at the crest of a ramp or staircase for no reason.

The general mobs could probably use a little (and I do stress LITTLE) bit of a buff in terms of their difficulty.

Bounties were generally fun, although Braek Baredfang is quite annoying. He hits like a truck, constantly shadow-steps and regularly applies retaliation to himself, much to the horror of low health-pool classes with no boon-strip. Zelke the Shameless’s bomb mechanic could use some scaling adjustments, they’re nigh unkillable even with few people at the event.

The mines north of Seeker’s Village are a death trap with the frequent cave-in mechanic in the area which makes fighting the cave beasts, ressing the quarriers, or looting the trade caches in the area a huge pain. Woe betide you if you are downed in there, because those cave-ins will make sure you don’t rally.

The sand tornados guarding the treasure chests atop the pyramids in The Sinking Ruins area were quite annoying in combination with the Devourers. Almost constant CC pressure with no way to dispatch the Tornados, only wait for them to get far away before you attempt to open a chest.

I’m on the fence about the expansion after playing the demo. My comments -

Good:
Beautiful (as always) looking map.
Music was great.
New enemies with interesting attacks and animations.
Mount looks good (but could do with another dye chanel).

Bad:
Mount feel clunky and sluggish, can’t strafe R and L, gets stuck on small elevations of terrain. Can’t transition directly from mounted to gliding.
The story was uninspiring. The whole Rytlock conversation was poorly done.
The map feels empty and upsized only to give mounts a reason to exist.
Lack of WPs and other means of travel (mushrooms, etc,) that I spent time mastering previously, probably again to give mounts a reason to exist.
Repeating hearts. Very much not a fan of this. Even worse that it was part of the personal story.

Really Bad:
Unidentified loot. This really has no place in a game made today and the way it was implemented in the demo has me questioning purchasing the expansion.

I didn’t make it very far (had a wedding and other events this weekend). However, I have to say that the identifying of items is a really REALLY bad idea. It can’t be allowed to survive as is, if at all. It’s too expensive, and not granular enough. Rares, exotics, and ascended should never occur unless it’s clear when you get it that that’s what they are (AND whether there’s a precursor present).

i didnt experience too much but here are things i didnt like:
-The mount was clunky at times, turning was a bit of a pain and overall i wasnt too thrilled to use the mount. at times it felt like a hindrance than anything else.

-The beta area felt like it had too little to do there were no events around that felt fun or engaging. Protecting the farmers felt more like a chore, killing the choya attacking the gate was unsatisfying and i felt like i was wasting time.

Landscape was nice on par with the rest of the game, music was good, thats about it.

Loved the feel and look of mounts. Bounties were a home run (wish there were guild bounties/missions though ).

Only negative was that the raptor race and coin collection event would cancel each other out if they triggered around the same time – happened to our group a few times. Probably need to look at timing and how they trigger.

Loved bounties, hope to see them as a worthy daily thing to grind gold. Even if its a bit worst then 40 fractal or AB.
Hope to see HP as a worthy daily activity too. Loved mounts. Loved unintified gear mechanic.

Raptor was amazing, but two changes I’d like to see.

• The ability to talk to at least some NPCs without dismounting
• Increase the amount of XP required to level the tiers.

I know people thought HoT required too much (and maybe it did), but these tiers were a fraction of HoT (like 180k for the first?) and filled up much too quickly. I can only imagine how trivial they would be with an XP booster.

Loved the demo, Would be nice if the Charr model was shrunk or the mount was made larger when riding the mounts. The ability to talk to at least some NPCs without dismounting would be nice. Unidentified equipment should be broken out by rarity. Or exotic and above should drop separately.

Raptor was fun.
Hearts nice
Bounties If am taking a ticket that can only select one would rather it be solo able. Running back and forth to try to get the same ticket as other people on map seems a bit off Would rather grab ticket and be able to solo it. Maybe a board for solo, group, legendary Mobs?
Map was fun to move around
Am sure there are more events on the map then shown perhaps more meta type events for certain areas. The Water pipes seem to be missing a few sections. Plug holes repair pipes and repeat. Fun but seems like there may be more that could be done there. More to the line of events.

Items. Like the sand piles finding keys for the caches and being able to get keys from event’s and buying them. Unidentified Gear..unless it is better items/gear. chance at rare/exotic/ascended materials/insignia/runes/ect.. maybe ultra rare chance for black lion key. Something worth paying for the chance to get.

The unidentified item system is unacceptable as it currently stands. We shouldn’t have to open a heart vendor every time we want to ID items, the price per item is exhorbitant and lastly there is the whole issue of them being salvaged when you use salvage all. We were promised it as a way to fix inventory management woes but it just comes across as a way to monetise what we currently have for free.

I liked it over all. Probably slightly too easy but I can see why Anet went this way after HoT.

The price for identify is too hard. It’s unecessarily painful. Guy like me, no issue. But I have quite a bit of gold. But for most players, the players who need it the most, it’s very punishing.

No one likes to pay to look at their loot.

Wont talk about the good, as there is too much to resume, so here are the things I think can be improved:

- The dye channel on raptor only applies to the details, making some color changes be null depending on light. I know that you will probably sell awesome mounts with more/better channels, but IMHO that shouldn’t be a reason to limit the core ones.

- You should be able to glide from a falling mount without changing keys or using the attack from the ledge of a cliff. It feels counter-intuitive that you cant do it and limits fluid-fun movement in the map.

- I know this expansion is supposed to be played without HOT, but the total lack of any HOT mechanic (mushrooms, updraft etc…) as alternative paths/utility’s its IMHO a missed opportunity to reward HOT customers and promote the first expansion.

Well, from what i saw of the map thats more like what i wanted. Exploration without having an entire village of angry assassin frogs on your back, the oasis is actually a functional hub rather then part of a meta event like tarir is. Gorgeous, just gorgeous.
Only negative thing on it is for me that i cant buy joko merch at the undead´s store, come on a-net, drop some stupid joko statue trophy in there or a guild hall statue.

Mounts.. or better said the raptor feels good to use, feels actually like it got weight to it and its essentially a 2 legged doggo. 10\10

Overall the only thing i really dont like is the unidentified gear. You hide exotics and rares in there? Seriosly? Come on, split it into rarity like green\blue UG, yellow UG and gold UG and its good with me.

The map and mount control/animation were phenomenal. The mount controls are the best I’ve ever seen in any mmo I’ve played. Bounties are great, though really easy, even the legendary one that was available.

Events were alright, it seemed like they all had a very short cooldown spawn timer. Unidentified gear mechanic is terrible, only way I can think to make it redeemable is to make tiers white/blue/green/yellow/gold and either free to identify or at a VERY low cost. Also at all merchants, not just heart vendors.

Absolutely loved the mounts, their animations, their ‘physics’. Loved that the raptor got more maneuverable/flexible the faster he got! Don’t change him.

Bounty bosses we’re a bit confusing sometimes – especially the stop and go mechanic. Difficulty should be adjusted as well. Tazula Mindclouder is ridiculously easy compared to Forged Maverick.

Heart in Seeker’s village felt a bit grindy; the other one was great though.
Also like the idea of hearts in story – as long as they’re not too grindy.

Liked identifying gear; saves a lot of inventory space.

Minigame MPs were fun – could use some tweaking though.

Loved the map, having freedom to actually explore and admire things, the setting was very rich with npc dialogue, music went great with the setting. Loved the bounties and new mob mechanics. New mobs are all great as well. Details like the asura in the black market cage were great to find while exploring.

I love the raptor! Visual and sound design are amazing. Controls were excellent, had a blast just running around the desert.
Also want to add that I love the heart quest hunting fireflies and the detail of buying treats for your raptor. Little details that feel like the mount is actually part of your story and not just an equippable item. I really hope to see more of that sort of thing!

Didn’t mind mechanic of item identification, though a bit pricy if sigils don’t make up cost. Otherwise thumbs up.

Enjoyed the weekend a lot over all.
Really liked: Map, npc dialogues, music (hoping for a real kicker ala Auric Basin)
Disliked: Mount. Sorry. Felt like I was riding the mechanical bull after 10 beers. And that slide it does after stopping is super annoying. I slid off a couple of cliffs. Looks great but it made me woozy.
Are we done with updrafts? If so, yay!
Can’t wait for the LS and exploration beginning 9/22.

My feedback is about mounts:

1. Often got stuck on invisible “lip” at top of stairs or ramps. Frustrating.
2. The starting “lurch” to the left felt disorienting, clunky and not smooth.
3. Loved the sliding stop!
4. Race was a blast!
5. Suggestion: PLEASE include a hot key for cycling through one’s mount choice while not mounted. I move with LMB+RMB. Clicking to choose another mount after dismounting — say to cross water or quicksand ahead — will greatly reduce the fluidity, speed and enjoyment you have already wonderfully designed into the mount. Swapping mounts needs a seamless interface interaction and a hot key would be awesome in many scenarios. Clicking will be clunky and only doable while auto-running, which is dangerous for one’s health!

Thanks for the great fun!

I am going to compare PoF preview with HoT:

- PoF map was accessible and did not require grinding weird mastery system to unlock extra ways to travel around and get access to more content – good
- PoF enemies in the preview area were normal monsters and not champs disguised as normal difficulty the HoT has – good
- PoF veterans and champ fights felt winnable and did not require map wide effort from 6 different groups at very specific time – good
- unidentified gear to remove all the garbage gear drops – good
- sous chef mastery challenge – bad