Guild Wars 2

The Mount was amazing! Just what we need! The map was gorgeous! The enemies were well designed.
The only negative is the unidentified gear, as other have said, this appears to be a counter intuitive solution to the “clutter” from loot. Let’s give that a hard look before release. Great job overall!

Exploration and lore were top-notch. That will wear off. Still EXACTLY what I wanted.

The lack of a map meta was weird. Bounties seem too random (are they?) or non-“telegraphed” to be a real ‘get me on this map’ kinda group thing, especially since they’re solo-able.

Everything mount related was perfect. The race and adventure were so much fun.

Raptor
Movement feels nice and weighty… clumsy when stationary but gets more agile when running. I hope the other mounts also have appropriate feeling to their movements… e.g. the skimmer should have a smooth “effortlessness” to it’s movement, whereas the bunny has a twitchiness to it.

Unidentified Gear
I think the potential of salvaging/losing exotics and precursors will rub people the wrong way. Why not have exotics and precursors excluded from the system?… i.e. exos/pres are automatically identified when picked up, whereas greens and yellows stay as unidentified items. I doubt anyone will complain about bag managing a Spark drop.

The map design and music is awesome. Love the raptor but the sticking issue should be resolved asap.

The abundance of lower level mats available is a problem. This will not only damage the economy, but also affect population in lower level zones significantly.

The story was ok or slightly better than usual. The Rytlock / mists issues feels very poorly done though. You don’t need to give it all away, but you do need to progress it slightly. At the moment it just feels parked because you don’t know what to do with it, which is bad. Also, does the Free City of Amnoon not have any leadership? Surely you’ll have to deal with them if you just barge into their city with an airship. If there are realistic consequences for actions the world feels a bit more real and the story telling is more compelling. Currently the city just feels like a backdrop.

The zone does not feel like a lvl 80 zone. Max level zones should have high stakes and be dangerous. Amnoon Oasis is anything but. Hence the Queensdale 2.0 comments. I’m hoping it’s the only POF zone that is like this. Hopefully there is also a compelling meta event.

LOVED the mount. if that was all I was getting, I would still be getting great value.

hoping the meta events were just turned off for the demo.

unid gear seems like a good idea, but needs some tweaking. like others have suggested, split low (blue, green) and high (yellow, orange) gear into different unid items. also the cost to id seems high.

would love to see more dye channels on mounts. not needed, but would be so nice.

would love to be able to dismount in the air, to begin gliding. would be great fun.

would also love some way to murder the chief. maybe stuff his body in the fire, or take him out back and bury the body in the sand dunes.

loved the demo, and am missing my mount already

Please check some areas of the map, especially stairs, that mounts can’t seem to pass without having to jump.

Anet, you’ve bought me with the music.

Good:
- Mount movement and animations are smooth.
- Wonderfull scenery, usually don’t like deserts but this one is very nice so far.
- Bounty hunts is a cool way to bring players to same locations and easier way to find bosses on the map.
- Music is still awesome.

Bad:
- Would like the ability for the mount to sidestep, rather very slow than not.
- As some said before, there are some slopes and ramps that makes your raptor stuck.
- I have always been against pocket mounts, I do not like that you just magicly summon a mount from thin air. I rather have it fade in from a small distance and run up to you as you mount it. Maby a little longer mount time but still I rather have that.
- Some enemies have pretty mutch health and isn’t realy that hard… so it is just a bore to fight them… For example Hydras and their decapitated heads. They made it a little tricky when they butted in while fighting the Sand Shark Bounty … (Looked forward to fight Hydras in this game as I hated them in GW1 :P)

Raptor mount feels like a real mount +
Unidentified gear is fine if we get rare and exotic unidentified gear drops.
Map looks amazing.
Hopefully we get a meta event like SW (player progress is faster meta) and not like HoT maps with hardcapped timers.
Personal character doesn’t feel like a commander with ‘guild’ members interaction.

Mount masteries seem to require token amount of XP to unlock – not engaging.
I enjoy the lack of events in the dunes but there should be something more to do at the outposts.
Mounts themselves are fantastic but would like a few mount emotes, such as /sit.
Really enjoy the optional gear identification.
Would like more NPCs with text based dialogue. The voice acting is nice but you have to be there at the right time to hear it.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Good:
- Mount movement and animations are smooth.
- Wonderfull scenery, usually don’t like deserts but this one is very nice so far.
- Bounty hunts is a cool way to bring players to same locations and easier way to find bosses on the map.
- Music is still awesome.

Bad:
- Would like the ability for the mount to sidestep, rather very slow than not.
- As some said before, there are some slopes and ramps that makes your raptor stuck.
- I have always been against pocket mounts, I do not like that you just magicly summon a mount from thin air. I rather have it fade in from a small distance and run up to you as you mount it. Maby a little longer mount time but still I rather have that.
- Some enemies have pretty mutch health and isn’t realy that hard… so it is just a bore to fight them… For example Hydras and their decapitated heads. They made it a little tricky when they butted in while fighting the Sand Shark Bounty … (Looked forward to fight Hydras in this game as I hated them in GW1 :P)

Longer mount time is a nonononono.
If we gonna sacrifice convenience over realism, may as well ignore realism entirely.

LOVED
Hydras (look, mechanics, but agree w/ Edgar re head health)
Mount movement (heavy feel)
Terrain (usual ANet scene art killing it!)

LIKED
Other Mobs (variety, looks, fighting)

NEUTRAL
Bounty (Mechanics OK, too generic, spawned right as I first left town)

DISLIKED
Intro Story (on reflection, too generic/predictable)

HATED
Unidentified Gear (loot management did not need to become more involved)

At first I was skeptic, but the raptor feels and looks amazing! Also, the map is gorgeous. I wanted to play, but spent actually lots of time just looking at the landscape. The mobs are pretty cool, well themed and animated. But my main gripe so far is that it took me forever with a power build to down anything, while not being damaged enough to die. Some of the mobs seem to have too big HP pools. I’d rather get hit a little harder in exchange for feeling as if I do hit harder, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Wonderful job, Anet! Can’t wait for the Xpac!

I didn’t spend get to spend a whole lot of time in the demo, but here’s where I wound up:

Appearance: Loved the area of the map we could explore. The size of the maps is going to be more what I have wanted in games. Still not quite as bit as the Qa River Valley in Vanguard:SoH, but it was definitely a good size. (note: yeah, I know, vanguard was a different structure for zones).
Amnoon is beautiful. Moreover it feels big. To dig up Vanguard again, it reminded me of running around in Ahgram or Khal. Big plus for me in that.

Mobs/NPC’s: The frequency of mobs was perfect. Quite dense considering it’s a desert, but not overwhelming. They Hydra are challenging when solo, and a lot of fun in groups of 2 or 3, especially since they tend to roam the same areas where sand sharks show up and make things a bit of a dance. I don’t recall the group name for the mobs. Balthazars minions. There’s a rock-dog type creature that I personally think could be toned down on how much burning they apply. The Choya are absurd in an amazing way. They remind me of prickly pear fruit off of Cacti in the Southwest USA. There are enough NPC’s to make the place feel alive.

Mapping: POI’s, Vistas, etc. are well done, as well as the mastery points. I like the mini-game method of getting mastery points, but don’t over-use it please.

Bounties: Really nicely done. Learning how they work is interesting, and some of them can really surprise you. The Legendary Choya is a monster.

Loot/rewards: Other than a concern about the unidentified gear, I really didn’t pay much attention to loot as it was of no value in the demo. There were a couple bag items that surprised me with the amount of crafting materials they dropped. Not sure if this was just an enticement to buy though.

Story: only saw the beginning of it, but it moved well.

Mounts: Really well done. Great animation, movement is wonderful. Getting stuck on steps, not so much. The models themselves are stunning. The detail and materials used really work together well (I don’t know who does the original sculpting of the reptiles for Arenanet, but they are insanely talented. I’ve always been impressed with the drake ranger pet family, and the quality there is the same present in the raptors. They could use some more dye channel options, but I have to agree with the idea that players shouldn’t be able to have a completely Electro Purple Raptor. The dyable markings are perfect.

Suggestions: For mounts, extra dye channels would be nice, but would love to see skin patterns for them. Spots instead of stripes, and so on.

Now the odd part: I …actually am not sure I will buy the expansion. It looks great, but overall I got the subtle yet strong feeling of sameness. I love the new models, and the changes in mob tactics are nice. The landscape is stunning, but overall I haven’t really seen anything new that makes me go “I want that”. Sure, mounts in central tyria would be fun, but why do I need them?
These days I spend my time working on legendary weapons, and the occasional collection (out of boredom). The only second gen legendary I’m interested in has not been released yet, and as long as Mike doesn’t go back on what he implied in the AMA on Reddit, we will not need the expansion in order to make those.
The suggestions I have are lengthy, and honestly have already been addressed over and over on the forums (sometimes for years). More home instance versatility, deeper collections that aren’t designed to just be gold sinks yet reward items that are worth having. New skins that are exclusive to a combination of open world PvE + crafting. Titles for crafting first generation legendaries, (retroactive btw) so those of us who crafted them as opposed to just buying them off the TP can prove it.
It’s all been discussed before, and it’s way too late to put it into an expansion that most of it isn’t really related to, but the lack of such things is what has me wondering if I should even bother buying it.

A final note: About the pre-order packages. They are decent, but could be perceived as better value if some of the items were exchangeable for other things. After buying the Mistlock Sanctuary pass (congrats btw, you finally got me to spend money that wasn’t gifted to me for a birthday or other holiday), I have no need for something like the Lily of Elon pass. So that part of the pre-order package is.. pointless to me. A negative. Offer me a ticket for any black lion weapon skin of choice. Or something along those lines. That would be value.

tl;dr: Path of Fire is stunning in it’s beauty, and offers a lot of content, just…not content that piques my desire to buy it.

Pros:
• LOVED the mount, spend hours just riding and taking in the scenery
• Map is not so hostile as in Hot, there is room to breath.
• Choya were fun, liked Hyrdas and sharks
Cons:
• Unidentified loot – money sink just to get maybe some rares is not fine. If they would stack with diferent rarity I would like that. This is the one hings that right now makes me think about not buying the game.
• Mount got stuck behind many small ledges.
• Mastery point behind minigames

All in all: Unidentified loot, keeps me from trusting this expac.

My 3 big disappointments from the weekend.
- The map was single layer, flat and uninspiring. Nothing like the bold, imaginative HoT maps(VB and TD). Back to the boring maps
- Mounts are not needed. The mount itself was good, but the fact that It took me roughly 10ish min to run around, literally the whole map was extremely unsatisfying and disappointing. I myself will run on foot and only use mounts for their special action.
- Exploration was non-existent. You were talking about exploration in the preview, but in the part of this map, there is Nothing! hidden and waiting to be found, apart from some chatter if you slow to listen I guess. Maybe this was the most disappointing of them all…

Everything else was top notch. Great environment as usual, top animations and feel of the place… if only it was interesting as a whole :/

Love that it seems Arenanet have abandoned map wide metas, and returned to are more core like experience. (to me the map wide metas in HoT was my biggest complaint/concern, after the annoying adventures)
Quite surprised about mounts, but will wait with a final judgement on them until I’ve seen them in the core maps.
What I saw of the first map looked great.
The heart “Help Aksim care for and train raptors” was boring and took alot of extra time to get.
Unidentified loot are an acceptable solution to inventory clutter.
Like the new material boxes as drops, not sure if it’s a good idea to be able to buy them of vendors.
Not sure if I like the bounty mechanic.
Loved the chef mastery point, it was more fun for me to play than any of the adventures in HoT.
Always great to see new monters to fight.
No champion hero points, thats a big thumbs up from me.
Disappointed that the elite specs was not included, as I don’t expect the partake in the pvp preview as I don’t pvp.
Are hoping that the new maps will have alot of gw1 references, like the core game had.

Glox.5942:

Love that it seems Arenanet have abandoned map wide metas, and returned to are more core like experience. (to me the map wide metas in HoT was my biggest complaint/concern, after the annoying adventures)
Quite surprised about mounts, but will wait with a final judgement on them until I’ve seen them in the core maps.
What I saw of the first map looked great.
The heart “Help Aksim care for and train raptors” was boring and took alot of extra time to get.
Unidentified loot are an acceptable solution to inventory clutter.
Like the new material boxes as drops, not sure if it’s a good idea to be able to buy them of vendors.
Not sure if I like the bounty mechanic.
Loved the chef mastery point, it was more fun for me to play than any of the adventures in HoT.
Always great to see new monters to fight.
Disappointed that the elite specs was not included, as I don’t expect the partake in the pvp preview as I don’t pvp.
Are hoping that the new maps will have alot of gw1 references, like the core game had.

About the Map metas, you can’t be sure, because in hot preview they were turned off. I also find a whole map centered around single meta such a waste, but we will need to wait for the full release to see if they changed it.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Please add more waypoints. Mounts may be needed to accomplish things, but travelling is a waste of time on them and will be tedious very quickly.

This

I like mounts but why can’t we have mounts AND waypoints?

mazut.4296:

My 3 big disappointments from the weekend.
- The map was single layer, flat and uninspiring. Nothing like the bold, imaginative HoT maps(VB and TD). Back to the boring maps
- Mounts are not needed. The mount itself was good, but the fact that It took me roughly 10ish min to run around, literally the whole map was extremely unsatisfying and disappointing. I myself will run on foot and only use mounts for their special action.
- Exploration was non-existent. You were talking about exploration in the preview, but in the part of this map, there is Nothing! hidden and waiting to be found, apart from some chatter if you slow to listen I guess. Maybe this was the most disappointing of them all…

Everything else was top notch. Great environment as usual, top animations and feel of the place… if only it was interesting as a whole :/

Back in HoT beta there’s no collectable or secrets to be found too.
The map is even smaller in HoT beta.
It’s beta dude… Why do people think beta = full game.

Overal I really enjoyed the beta. Events were fun, mounts incredibly well implemented, map looked good en much easier to navigate than HoT maps (which I didn’t like). Only thing I hated was unidentified gear and mastery points locked again behind minigames.

Well, I certainly enjoyed the mount option – and I notice that a new control binding (user defined) has been added to controls. But I do have one question – and also posed this elsewhere – say that a new player has just purchased the game; would they get both mounts and the ability to fly? Or do they need to purchase or unlock the Heart of Thorns chapter/maps to get flight capability?

That said the maps were exciting, they were easy to navigate (the Maguuma Jungle leaves me cold – its very nice to look at but a nightmare to navigate, so I avoid those maps now) and the characters engaging and interesting.

As a GW1 player from start, the CD was always somewhere we wanted to go back to, new map(s) look promising.

Mounts are great so far, controls are sometimes a little over sensitive but something I could get used to.

Again as a GW1 player un-ID’d loot doesn’t bother me aslong as we see similar loot in the real game as we did in the beta, if you hammer the drop rates into the dirt after launch it will suck, and make people want to leave the maps.

Mount racing, needs looked into, I did it a few times, and if you are not one of the players who hits that jump right at the start you have little chance of closing the gap, esp as players learn the course etc, everytime I did it, even without messing up, there was always someone who hit jump just before me, and you cannot catch them, make we need boosts in there like the Sanctum Sprint.

Also as an AP hunter are we going to see a lot of AP in the PoF, we haven’t had enemy type kill AP since launch, like giants, spiders etc we are seeing several new enemy types, don’t want to run out of things to do 3 months after launch.

I am hoping these new maps won’t succumb to the meta event syndrome the HoT maps did. The meta events become the focus and essentially the only thing to do. It’s the same thing over and over and over. I’d love to get back to doing events and event chains. I’d love to see variety. Maybe have one map with a meta event if they must, for whoever may want to do that. I’m just over it.

I hope this demo excluded content and events that this map had. If it didnt i dont see any meaningful content in there. Other than that the map the skybox the music are all great.

Also if i may be honest i try to compaire the core and hot map sizes to this first 1 and the map just doesnt seem as big as i was led to believe.

zealex.9410:

I hope this demo excluded content and events that this map had. If it didnt i dont see any meaningful content in there. Other than that the map the skybox the music are all great.

Also if i may be honest i try to compaire the core and hot map sizes to this first 1 and the map just doesnt seem as big as i was led to believe.

We didn’t get the full map. During the HoT beta, only 1/5 to 1/4 of VB was accessible and few events happened. I’d imagine this is the case now too.

Like Setting, Map and Lore. Exspecially like raptors. Like events. Exspecially like protect event which fails if the npcs die. But would suggest making this NPC range fighters. That allows for more tactics to complete these events, like using projectile block walls or knockbacks to keep enemies aways from the NPCs.

Miss “epic” meta events, e.g. an attack on amnoon. Dislike that events dont have any (even no temporary) consequences regardless if they fail or suceed.

Really like concept of bounty system. Dislike that they only have 2-3 spawnpoints. Dislike that you know from the beginning where the boss is. Suggest using the “search” function from living Story (where you click the extra skill and get a direction where you have to go, but not a concrete location). Also suggest some Lore and Boss Mechanic notes at the “Black Boards”.

So I played the PoF demo with my favourite class since the launch of GW2, the charr, only to be sadden by the fact that once again the charr animations seem to have been down prioritised. I was looking forward to mount my raptor and rush through the desert but it looks like I am breaking the poor guys back! I know that charrs are naturally big but it looks ridiculous. The mounts are supposed to scale in size along with the character on its back but it did not look good at all. My charr was still too big for it to look okay.

I can deal with the fact that jumping puzzles are a pain with a charr, that we get clipping issues with almost every armour (even OUR OWN cultural armour, the Magus, isn’t designed for the tail!) but please A-net, let us ride through this new expansion without looking too “abnormal”.

Let us be just as gracious as the other classes. For once.

onevstheworld.2419:

zealex.9410:

I hope this demo excluded content and events that this map had. If it didnt i dont see any meaningful content in there. Other than that the map the skybox the music are all great.

Also if i may be honest i try to compaire the core and hot map sizes to this first 1 and the map just doesnt seem as big as i was led to believe.

We didn’t get the full map. During the HoT beta, only 1/5 to 1/4 of VB was accessible and few events happened. I’d imagine this is the case now too.

The PoF beta gave us about 2/3 rds of the map. On the world map it didn’t look all that much bigger than a lot of the the core Tyria maps or the HoT maps and those had multiple levels. Maybe the scale is different but they didn’t seem that much larger to me.

I found it dull and uninspired.
The intro story was pathetic with over bloated healthpools and menial tasks
The map was bland and uneventful with the size only being that way to accommodate the mounts. If this is supposed to get people excited then don’t get your hopes up that you convinced a lot of people that are on the fence.
The expansion already feels more like a $15 DLC and not an expansion if this is what the rest will entail as well.

Loved it

Very little verticality and not much call for jumping which is great in my opinion. There are comments in other threads but I will mention two again here:

- raptors ought to have a strafe option
- mob difficulty was pitched just right in my opinion

Thanks.

Oh, one last thing: the night sky was a joy to look at!

- The Number 1 priority is to change the gliding speed since day 1 of HoT. Gliders should be in a faster and adequate speed just slightly behind Mounts. Leaning forward should’ve increase as same / faster than raptor speed

- Your better off giving players in BETA legendary armors and weapons temporary without opening 2 gear boxes for mix and match with gear set. It’s ascended stats and free to change at anytime incase players made a mistake with the two amors / weapons / trinkets set.

- You forgot to give players mango pie as food

- The Sous Chef challenge Is so bad, the npc constantly moves when I thrown the ingredient across the room.

Please either throw it to some mixing pot or change the pivots so the Head Chef moves in a minimal amount of areas like from the fireplace to the tables with coconuts & flour. Not all the way to the bloody fish and clams area. Also remove the CD when food is thrown already, Head Chef calls the food when it’s litterally next to me wherever I position myself. The decay rate for the time limit needs to be slightly slower for an extra 20seconds.

- There should be a transition option where players are able to dismount in the air and swap to gliding

- The Veteran Hydra needs to scale down abit. 1 Meteorite strike downs players

- That bloody mastery in a cliff somewhere that require memory skills, please make them distinctive as in each of these totems or obelisk changes colours so that players know that they did interact with it.

- Please, Please, Please let Char Cars be a mount. Either make it a achievement process that crafts the pieces together inside Black Citidael or Gem Store

I loved the mount, I really like the way it handles. It shouldn’t be called a “raptor” though: it isn’t one, and there are already actual raptors in game elsewhere. It looks more like ceratosaur or something.

The map looks great, but feels like Vabbi. The Crystal Desert in GW1 felt bleak, barren and dangerous; I’m not getting that atmosphere here.

First instance was too easy, I used a profession I’m not familiar with and had no problems. Hydras feel too weak as well.

Identifying unidentified items: way too expensive. Identification should cost, at most, the same as basic salvage.

The new mobility that the Raptor mount provided was brilliant! I am an explorer in MMORPGs so having another method to aide in my exploration made me very happy!

I enjoyed the new map as well – a few throwbacks to the original game and the new enemy types were very fun to play against!

One criticism I had with the Bounty system – they’re not particularly friendly for small-group combat. The mobs hit incredibly hard and are quite tough for small groups. It felt like the event scaling was not quite there. It almost felt like I was fighting one of the legendary bandits in Queensdale, except it was a champion target.

Overall, I am very much looking forward to what lies ahead in Path of Fire!

Donutdude.9582:

One criticism I had with the Bounty system – they’re not particularly friendly for small-group combat. The mobs hit incredibly hard and are quite tough for small groups. It felt like the event scaling was not quite there. It almost felt like I was fighting one of the legendary bandits in Queensdale, except it was a champion target.

I actually had completely opposite thought about bounties. As the targets are champ-rated, I expected they all require large group to finish. But no. I did some with just 2 players, many with 4-5 players. I was just thinking how well they scale. They felt easier then the bandits in Queensdale.

It could be because of the random skills each bounty target can have. Or somehow they scale based on number of players on the map when the bounty starts.

My experience is overall positive.

• The map is beautiful
• The music is nice and really fit the environment
• Raptor is just perfect
• Bounties are quite funny to do, I really like the concept even if there are some balance issues

What I disliked:

• the hearts take too long to complete (especially in the first mission)
• lack of events and especially big events like meta or chain of events (we need events with more impact on the map, even if they are not as “difficult” as HoT)

What I feel is wrong:

• War Forged are really too easy to kill : they don’t do much damage, they have low health and they are too bad to be considered like an army. Please consider to buff them or they will just be crushed at the release. (and events will lack a lot of challenge even for first timer)

My favorite things:

-Mounts: Raptor mount was fun to ride, and I enjoy the thought that went into it. But maybe add a slow side step for the raptor. They aren’t horses, and their legs look like they could move sideways.
-Map: Reminded me of old vanilla maps. I really enjoy that. However, they did feel a touch plain when compared to old maps. (where were those notorious hidden caves that lead you to meet strange new npcs and find treasure?)
-Elite spec npcs.

Least favorite:
-Probably that the map felt it was lacking almost any verticality; even compared to old maps. I wish when you fell into the quicksand near that mastery point and take damage. It’d would’ve been perfect when you go down you fall through and enter a mysterious cave network. I just want to have as much fun exploring as possible.
-Still only generic messages on hero points… Boring.
-Races allow dismounting.. Please fix this. I don’t want the winners to always be thiefs.

Good:
- raptor mount mostly good (ramp issues, unable to dismount midair into glide)
- new enemies. (poss need slight HP increase).

Bland:
- map overly flat and open, travel blocks and exploration blatantly gated behind other mounts (mastery point in quick sand to the north, high cliffs near teleporter minigame). Little to do, explore and find in most of it as a result. Other maps need to be more complicated – more crannies.
- mastery minigames – potential to be very irritating.
- Resource bags for karma & trade. Unsure as while useful karma sink and targeted farming appreciated, a good chance to utterly destroy material values with potential to completely destabilise entire in game economy.

Bad:
- choosing to separate HoT & PoF means waste of options for map design/making hidden and interesting things.
- Few Waypoints – assumed the LWS3 part 6 map alternative option was a test for a similar thing in PoF. Apparently not?
- heart activities slightly overly grindy/drawn out, problem due to…..

- Unidentified items.
Due to sometimes hiding rares & exotics in a green tier item, it feels obligatory to ID yet tedious & unrewarding to identify due to the higher than usual return cost and needing a heart vendor, Add in being counted under “salvage all masterwork” and just ugh.
Split into 2 tiers of rarity and/or lower cost to ID significantly.

TLDR:
Wary – map hard to judge due to not being full unlock (size & events) and no elite specs. UnIdentified Items system needs work.

Positive

• The map was beautiful.
• The raptor mount was unexpectedly good – the animations and controls felt just right. I hadn’t missed mounts in GW2 so far, but I think I’ll love the new mounts in PoF.

Negative

• Unidentified loot. What were you thinking?! The additional hassle (and cost) of having to do a Renown Heart and paying for each ID in no way offsets the savings in bag space. If anything, loot management should be less effort, not more. Also, this system works at direct cross-purposes to the existing inventory handling convenience feature (Copper-Fed Salvage-O-Matic) in that a salvage-all will unconditionally salvage unidentified loot, thus depriving the player of the potential rare and exotic drops.
• The raptors could use an additional dye channel or two.
• The raptors should not get stuck at stairs and inclines.
• Dismounting from a mount to a glider in mid-air would be good.
• The hearts were a bit grindy.

I didn’t have much time to try the Demo. I’m also assuming, since it was a ‘demo’ and not a ‘beta’, that not only were we experiencing just a very small area but that mobs were probably dialled back and any meta content was disabled. At least, I hope that’s all true – if not, it was disappointing overall.

I did enjoy the raptor.
- the animations were really entertaining, especially the idle ones (I loved the one that nearly pitched my Asura from her saddle – very funny).
- generally, the controls and motion felt pretty good, but it needs traverse like dismounted movement.
- it would also be much better to interact with things (gathering, npcs, etc) without forcing the dismount; that gets frustrating.

Unidentified objects… No. Really didn’t like that. Honestly, if you’re looking for another gold sink, I’d rather have to pay for repairs again than this ID mechanic.

Also, mini-games…

The production design is to a high standard, as usual (I find the music and art in this game consistently very good).

I wish I could say the same for the story design (and especially the script writing), but it is what it is and my expectations in that area are now always pretty low anyway.

I am one of those players who became gradually converted to the HoT maps (though it did take me a while), to the point now where I think that TD is one of my favourite maps of all time because of its challenge. HoT also helped me to become a better player, in all kinds of ways, and to understand the game properly for the first time (gear, mechanics, skills and traits). In the end I came to really appreciate that. In light of this, I feel that what seems to be a shift back to largely flat-map, relatively unchallenging content in PoF might be a bit underwhelming (and note: I consider myself to be a casual player, and still not a particularly skilled one).

Overall I found the demo pretty bland. It didn’t excite me much. I didn’t even really know why I was there. What was the point? If it’s just meant to be another game area to explore, ok, fine. But compared to the HoT maps (where I really felt like I was genuinely exploring), the demo area felt pretty boring; alongside the fact that any sense of ‘epic’ was absent, again compared to HoT.

Once again, I did like the raptor though – I mean, laugh-out-loud liked it

~TG

+
• Beautiful map design and architecture, stunning skybox textures and effects, fantastic setting
• Raptor felt good to use; felt realistic
• Hero Points are soloable
• Events were refreshing and interesting (bounties, races, casino)
• Great enemy design
• Minigame as sous chef was fun and interactive, lacked ranking from HoT activities which I think is a plus since players won’t require doing the activity until they place the highest ranking anymore (which implies ANet won’t be making them too difficult)

-
• Unidentified gear is a good idea in concept, but was executed poorly in the demo. Rarity inclusion would be nice and would clear up some info within the community
• Layout in Amnoon is a little bit confusing to navigate especially when climbing atop the pyramids to south but workable

I can go on and on about the nostalgia pangs I got playing the demo.
I have nothing constructive to say about the things I like.

I did however experience a lot of buggy looking model behavior.
mobs and mounts sliding along the ground, or falling under the map.
I also took issue with the mastery point puzzle at the teleporter.
Pahan’s dialog overlaps the first part of the puzzle and if you are facing him, you miss it.
It was also difficult to see during the day, so much so that I couldn’t always tell which part of the puzzle I was looking at.

One overall opinion about the map feel: It felt like Queensdale.
The hearts and dynamic events felt familiar, which may be the reason why the opinions were that it was grindy. Introducing players to new mechanics and features made for some lackluster event content. I enjoyed exploring far more.

With that being said, I am looking forward to this expansion. Thank you.

-Beautiful Graphics, terrain detailed but open. The new city was also amazingly detailed.
-Mount system exceeded expectations by far. Felt very natural (and those cute animations).
-Combat challenging enough, not too hard.
-Fun activities, minigames etc.

Didnt really focus on the loot, so no comment about that. Cant wait to play the full thing.

PS. The forums could use a Path of Fire section now, just like it has one for HoT.

Maps and environment :

• Nice scenery design : even if it’s desert, it doesn’t look too dull.
• Flatter map makes things easier to reach (HP, masteries…) : it feels relaxing after tangled depths (even if I ended up getting used to it)
• Really nice musics from what I heard
• Raptor feels nice once you get used to it, and quickly feels indispensable
  • Yet, going by foot gives the impression the map is empty. It feels like the maps have been stretched, and things are therefore diluted. On another hand, it’s a desert, so…
• Lots of NPC’s chat makes the places feel more lively.
• New mobs are interesting.

Personal story :

I only played the introduction instance.

• Once again, I don’t truly feel involved in the story. I suppose that instance is the second part of something else that I’m missing.
• Once again, I don’t truly feel like I’m someone important in the world. I’m not asking for exceeding deference, but I’m expecting most of the “armed factions” to know and show some respect, apologize for inconvenience, etc.
• Outnumbered fights : thank you ANet. At least, you acknowledge my character is a powerful being in Tyria ;-)
• Raptor management part : useful at first try, may be tedious afterwards, especially when it’s partly redundant with the reknown heart.

Events and loot :

• I liked the NPC that tells things to do around. Is it only for reknown hearts ? It could be used for other events.
• Bounty hunt : I like the idea, but I’m mixed feelings. I stumbled upon one of these champions, and managed to kill him, yet I didn’t get the full credits, because I somehow didn’t “activate” the bounty (I’m supposing). It’s a hassle, because I saw there were achievements around that.
  • I’d keep the board thing, and make the board give an item like the current scrolls. That way, you could “activate all bounties at once”, and claim your rewards when you’re back in town.
• Lots of loot had a little text attached with it. I like it.
  • I wasn’t sure that text meant we were supposed to do something with the item. E.g. I thought I was supposed to give the necklace to somebody specific. I’d enjoy such a feature.
• I wasn’t sure what to do with some specific things that weren’t labeled as “trophies” nor “material”…
• Unidentified items : I like the feature. It prevents from a lot of clogging.
  • I’m more skeptical about the identification process (reknown hearts vendors, and price) : should be possible in towns too.
• I’m really frowning towards the achievements and collections locked behind the identifying process :
  • Identifying is tedious in itself
  • You can do 2 things from an unID item : either ID it, or salvage it. Yet, if it’s compulsory to identify to get achievements or collectibles, then you must ID it, and it ruins the whole point of having a salvagable unID item that won’t clog your bags.

For a sneak peek into the expansion I like all the content we had access to. I really enjoy mounts and had no motion sickness. Both classes I made for the demo traversed the map easily. Beautiful scenery , loved the Raptor race, and the exploration we had was fun. Great job all around cant wait for the full version!

Pros: aesthetics (especially night sky and the sunken ruins from a distance), mount fun, mount races, new ideas on hero points (cooking, etc), and only one waypoint! Thank god. The plethora of waypoints in core map ruins it for me. Also, it felt like Nightfall. First time I’ve played GW2 that it felt like and reminded me of GW1. Lovely.

Cons: enemies were easy. I was in a generically spec’d ranger and was on god mode it seemed.

I am very hopeful one map is a canyon-y version of verdant brink – layers and layers of intertwining canyons and mesas and hideouts to explore. I like the open map though, too.

I will try to keep it short and on point.
I have played the demo extensively enough ,I think .
There are things that I like,things that I love and some things I can’t say I am a fan ok.
The things that I love are:
-The Mount –
The Raptor is probably the best animated mount I have ever seen and the movement feels so natural,even now if someone mentions the word “mounts” , I get overhyped.The mount doesn’t need strife or any movement tweaks and we do not need gathering while mounted,that’s immersion breaking. Great,great job animation team.
-The City-
So many npcs and it feels organic and lively.The funny dialog between the Awakened merchant and I think is a Priory member,the band singing,the dancing npcs,fighting red vs green Cactus Melons (forgot the actual name of the race).
-The Race-
I hope we will have many races because that’s really fun and actually it works well technically.

The things I like:
-The mobs-
The hydra mob,now that’s a challenging fight even if I am a ranger and everything seems easier for us,the sand sharks,melon cactus ,great models, great animations.
-The Dessert-
The desert feels like a desert but in the same time feels populated enough not to feel empty,the pyramids,i had fun climbing to the big chest and I wanted to climb even the bigger pyramid but I don’t think that is possible at the moment
-The Bounties-
The bounties are nice,makes you feel like you are killing them because of something not only to go around killing bosses just because.
-The Music-
Great music as always
There are a lot more things that I like but if I continue I will never stop.

What I didn’t like:
-The unidentified gear-
It is a great idea for the inventory space but you have to separate exotics and maybe rares from it,let the exotics and rares drop normally.
-The Fire-
The fire at the raptor mount where you have to do the event to get the raptor,now that’s a low quality fire,maybe it was intentionally made like that so the FPS doesn’t drop much,i don’t know.
-Raptor bugs-
I found several bugs with the raptor.One of them I call it “chimera”,the ranger pet and the raptor fuse with one another and you get a raptor with the pet stuck inside the raptor,it can be fixed by mounting the raptor.
Raptor getting blocked by stairs,raptor getting blocked between stairs and some other

Overall this was a good demo and since it is a demo I guess there will be more events on the map when it will be fully released so I can’t say anything about the lack of events.
Even if I like HoT,this has the potential to be 100x better.

Map is AMAZING. Loved the GW1 throwbacks (Lonely Vigil statue!) and esp. the night sky.

M. Points: Liked them all except for the timed minigame.

Mobs: Expected Hydra to be a bit harder. Some mobs too easy, but do not want the same difficulty level for all mobs as in HoT.

Events: Feels like there could be more on the map. Liked bounties.

UnIDs: Like less bag clutter, dislike having to go find someone to ID.

Mounts: Generally OK. Controls easy. Would like there to be a no-mount radius around vendors/story NPCs.

Story: So far so good!

- It would be nice to have a new forge recipe to change the stats on ascended back/trinkets (like we can change armor and weapons). If the new “barrier” mechanic builds on vitality (as WoodenPotatoes suggested) then Marauder might be the new Berserker. I’d rather change what I have than grind for new back/trinkets with different stats (yes I know Bloodstone gear can be changed).

- Mount strafing please (keys q and e) to move sideways.

- It would be cool to have spear as a new land weapon, especially considering the SunSPEARs of Elona.

Because there were some negativ comments about the new mastery “minigames” like the chef one and the teleporter one I just wanted to mention that I actually enjoyed them very much. It felt like actually achieving something in the new culture than just reaching some random spot.

I also like that the new specialisations are connected to the lore. Would suggest to embrace that by making a lot of the hero challenges connected to npcs (either as friendly or as enemy) which have that elite specialisation.