Guild Wars 2

I have played the Demo and would very much like to share my thoughts on the demo, my personal playthrough of gw2 so far, I will also make a simplified conclusion below

I have been a player since the launch of Gw2 and got into it because the open world exploration, the way that the grind was well hidden, that it did not fell likea chore but each mission was very much thought out. Each of these things, from being able to do what ever you want, as soon as you enter the game, to exploring the vast world without needing to think of “i need to kill 50 minions or else I wont get this gear” is what made me want to play this game. I am somewhat of a “delicate” player, I honestly do not waste my time to much with games that require me to do boring chores for me to have fun. It all changed somewhat with Silverwaste, I understand this transaction, it is not possible to create enough content based on the time required, so creating a map that requires repeating content is somewhat the only answer so far. But I did not enjoy it, I have played it a couple of times, but after the first time, I felt that it was useless time waste. I very much desliked that. When HoT came out I somewhat liked the maps, though the way that the content felt like I first of all needed to follow a train of people I do not share anything with was just so boring, Hero points could not be obtained without a group of people reaching a akward place where some of them who is heading there would die anyways. And the mastery system forced me to repeat content, do boring achievements to actually get a skill that would let me reach places since the place of power got a limit….I truly hated that, and after I have finished my story line, completed the dragons stand run a few times, I rarely ever got there.

But in this expansion it seems like a lot of these things have been dealt with, I do not longer need a group of 20 people to constantly run with me just to be sure I dont get 1 shot by a random minion with a bow, I can run an adventure and help people without it feeling like im in a busy market. PoF have improved that factor, which makes the game so much more enjoyable, it may look like HoT invites people to help eachother, but the true fact is that people dont help eachother, they just need eachother to not get 1 shot, and that is a very important difference. People will help you spawn if you die in PoF, in HoT unless if you openly ask, people wont really care because there are 40 other people pressing 1 at a monster. In HoT things simply feels less personal, and more like a robot.
They have made the world vibrant again, the mastery were there were a ghost, just felt better, also how he suddenly repeats himself, to assure us how a ghost really is.
The way they show us the map by creating a race was brilliant, it was a good way to open a map up, to give us ideas of where to go, and how. The missions now also simply feels more personalized again, it isnt “we need to go out to defend this place with 50 people” it is more chill, and that is truly a good way to create a map that I would enjoy playing, and not fell like some zombie that fells like I have to press whatever button.

All in all, very impressive, the game somewhat left the whole, act like a robot in a market meta map ideology, and returned to the idea of core game + Gw1, which seems like a pretty good combination, and I hope the rest of the maps also evolves on that idea

I agree, and also feel a lot of this new expansion builds on the Living Story Season 3 maps. Excluding Draconis Mons, all other LS3 maps were surprisingly playable, even for players like me who 2 years later still has not finished grinding mastery points for ley line gliding.

I do expect some masteries to appear in PoF but at least in beta area finding and finsihing them has been mostly fun and enjoyable (the soup chef is not, but I truely hope it will be fixed before release).

I never played gw1 or gw2 at lunch. I started gw2 as a f2p player when hot was out after a month or so. I did level to 80 as a ranger and did all core maps and tought what a cool game it was and the expansion would make it better and so i bought it.
Hot maps felt grindy with the meta events but it felt like i was playing an mmo for the first time(better then world bosses wich i stoped doing soon after) and even rewarding. Everything i did in core maps seemed nothing but a level experience since i was alone most of times and hot maps with end fractals and raids where the only thing to keep me playing every day.
Then living world 3 story came out and bringed some maps where they killed meta events instead they add the daily hearts and this annoyed me much, but it was ok since i tought they where some filler and the expansion maps will bring back the metas like in hot. Instead the POF demo map is just a big empty map with nothing to do other then daily hearts and bountys chase. Like wtf, this expansion maps will be dead in months if they are like the living story maps. And this will happen only becuase they listen to people like you who can’t put a bit of effort in nothing and wants to play a mmo alone. So yeah i liked hot becuase of the replayability the metas offered and this expansion looks blank and kitten me that i preorder the expansion before i knew the details and kitten the people like you who made this expansion look like a gw1 copy instead of an improvement. Thx for bringing the unidentified kitten,only the worst companys implement this kind of system and thx for the simplicity and nothingness i will find in the new maps.

That’s why i’m back. This is the real GW2 expansion. HoT was just a zerg oriented gimmick.

Verthurnax.2784:

I never played gw1 or gw2 at lunch. I started gw2 as a f2p player when hot was out after a month or so. I did level to 80 as a ranger and did all core maps and tought what a cool game it was and the expansion would make it better and so i bought it.
Hot maps felt grindy with the meta events but it felt like i was playing an mmo for the first time(better then world bosses wich i stoped doing soon after) and even rewarding. Everything i did in core maps seemed nothing but a level experience since i was alone most of times and hot maps with end fractals and raids where the only thing to keep me playing every day.
Then living world 3 story came out and bringed some maps where they killed meta events instead they add the daily hearts and this annoyed me much, but it was ok since i tought they where some filler and the expansion maps will bring back the metas like in hot. Instead the POF demo map is just a big empty map with nothing to do other then daily hearts and bountys chase. Like wtf, this expansion maps will be dead in months if they are like the living story maps. And this will happen only becuase they listen to people like you who can’t put a bit of effort in nothing and wants to play a mmo alone. So yeah i liked hot becuase of the replayability the metas offered and this expansion looks blank and kitten me that i preorder the expansion before i knew the details and kitten the people like you who made this expansion look like a gw1 copy instead of an improvement. Thx for bringing the unidentified kitten,only the worst companys implement this kind of system and thx for the simplicity and nothingness i will find in the new maps.

Gw2 doesn’t sound like a game for you, or maybe you need to find a guild to play with?
Or try out some of the other game types if you dislike the pve so much.

Personally I hated the time locked metas in HoT maps, no longer letting me play when I had time to, now I had to time it to the game. But each to their own.
I really like the way they are going with the Lws 3 maps and the PoF maps. Feels a lot more like what made me play gw2 to begin with.

Irreverent.3594:

That’s why i’m back. This is the real GW2 expansion. HoT was just a zerg oriented gimmick.

HoT had a lot of good stuff, HoT’s two biggest problems were:

• The content droughts on both sides of it. Anet is launching PoF directly after LW3 and LW4 directly after PoF, so it seems they have learned that lesson
• A lot of the development time for HoT was spent on things the players wouldn’t directly notice, but were engine upgrades that made some of the mechanics in LW3 and PoF possible. The problem was the players didn’t notice it.

The hype of HoT didn’t match what was delivered. If HoT was launched without the content droughts and without the hype, I think it would have been much better received.

It appears that Anet is wise to all of this, and if PoF can match or exceed the hype we’ll be good for years to come.

Hot vs PoF. The fight no-one wants to see.

Hesacon.8735:

Irreverent.3594:

That’s why i’m back. This is the real GW2 expansion. HoT was just a zerg oriented gimmick.

HoT had a lot of good stuff, HoT’s two biggest problems were:

• The content droughts on both sides of it. Anet is launching PoF directly after LW3 and LW4 directly after PoF, so it seems they have learned that lesson
• A lot of the development time for HoT was spent on things the players wouldn’t directly notice, but were engine upgrades that made some of the mechanics in LW3 and PoF possible. The problem was the players didn’t notice it.

The hype of HoT didn’t match what was delivered. If HoT was launched without the content droughts and without the hype, I think it would have been much better received.

It appears that Anet is wise to all of this, and if PoF can match or exceed the hype we’ll be good for years to come.

Without the drought and with a shorter lead time the hype would have been manageable. It was the players that took every single detail and blew it up to something it could not possibly be. Spread across the amount of time it was ridiculous.
The people that did not even want to try to figure out the new maps also contributed since they hang out on forums instead of in game and give a lopsided view of the actual play experience.

Verthurnax.2784:

I never played gw1 or gw2 at lunch. I started gw2 as a f2p player when hot was out after a month or so. I did level to 80 as a ranger and did all core maps and tought what a cool game it was and the expansion would make it better and so i bought it.
Hot maps felt grindy with the meta events but it felt like i was playing an mmo for the first time(better then world bosses wich i stoped doing soon after) and even rewarding. Everything i did in core maps seemed nothing but a level experience since i was alone most of times and hot maps with end fractals and raids where the only thing to keep me playing every day.
Then living world 3 story came out and bringed some maps where they killed meta events instead they add the daily hearts and this annoyed me much, but it was ok since i tought they where some filler and the expansion maps will bring back the metas like in hot. Instead the POF demo map is just a big empty map with nothing to do other then daily hearts and bountys chase. Like wtf, this expansion maps will be dead in months if they are like the living story maps. And this will happen only becuase they listen to people like you who can’t put a bit of effort in nothing and wants to play a mmo alone. So yeah i liked hot becuase of the replayability the metas offered and this expansion looks blank and kitten me that i preorder the expansion before i knew the details and kitten the people like you who made this expansion look like a gw1 copy instead of an improvement. Thx for bringing the unidentified kitten,only the worst companys implement this kind of system and thx for the simplicity and nothingness i will find in the new maps.

I understand your logic behind it, but I do not agree with it.
Your idea is that the game needs to be somewhat grindy for you to fell like there is anything to the game, Gw2 never started with this ideology, from the dungeons to the world. It was an open exploration emant for you to have fun in it, and that is what made this a 10/10 in most reviewers eyes, you had fun leveling up to 80.
Your frustration seems to come from the fact that you are a new player, and therefor did not experience the fun entailed with doing a dungeon with full lvl 25, and not 3 lvl 80 and possibly 2 people below that level, which makes it very easy to complete a dungeon, you also seem to have a different idea of this world, since in the launch people played together. I get that since we had different experience playing the game, there wont be a comparison, and I might possibly have thought the same if I played 3-4 years after launch to. But there is simply something to it, there is a huge difference from a zerg grinding (sorry to say this) but no brain movement where you are almost braindead for 1 hour straight in a timed zone that might or might not be locked. To a vast world that wants you to explore every path with at least 3-4 people around you at every time, truly helping you in every way, and not just 20+ people pressing 1 to move on.

zengara.8301:

Verthurnax.2784:

I never played gw1 or gw2 at lunch. I started gw2 as a f2p player when hot was out after a month or so. I did level to 80 as a ranger and did all core maps and tought what a cool game it was and the expansion would make it better and so i bought it.
Hot maps felt grindy with the meta events but it felt like i was playing an mmo for the first time(better then world bosses wich i stoped doing soon after) and even rewarding. Everything i did in core maps seemed nothing but a level experience since i was alone most of times and hot maps with end fractals and raids where the only thing to keep me playing every day.
Then living world 3 story came out and bringed some maps where they killed meta events instead they add the daily hearts and this annoyed me much, but it was ok since i tought they where some filler and the expansion maps will bring back the metas like in hot. Instead the POF demo map is just a big empty map with nothing to do other then daily hearts and bountys chase. Like wtf, this expansion maps will be dead in months if they are like the living story maps. And this will happen only becuase they listen to people like you who can’t put a bit of effort in nothing and wants to play a mmo alone. So yeah i liked hot becuase of the replayability the metas offered and this expansion looks blank and kitten me that i preorder the expansion before i knew the details and kitten the people like you who made this expansion look like a gw1 copy instead of an improvement. Thx for bringing the unidentified kitten,only the worst companys implement this kind of system and thx for the simplicity and nothingness i will find in the new maps.

I understand your logic behind it, but I do not agree with it.
Your idea is that the game needs to be somewhat grindy for you to fell like there is anything to the game, Gw2 never started with this ideology, from the dungeons to the world. It was an open exploration emant for you to have fun in it, and that is what made this a 10/10 in most reviewers eyes, you had fun leveling up to 80.
Your frustration seems to come from the fact that you are a new player, and therefor did not experience the fun entailed with doing a dungeon with full lvl 25, and not 3 lvl 80 and possibly 2 people below that level, which makes it very easy to complete a dungeon, you also seem to have a different idea of this world, since in the launch people played together. I get that since we had different experience playing the game, there wont be a comparison, and I might possibly have thought the same if I played 3-4 years after launch to. But there is simply something to it, there is a huge difference from a zerg grinding (sorry to say this) but no brain movement where you are almost braindead for 1 hour straight in a timed zone that might or might not be locked. To a vast world that wants you to explore every path with at least 3-4 people around you at every time, truly helping you in every way, and not just 20+ people pressing 1 to move on.

He doesnt seem to be talking about the grindyness factor, (core is in fact more grindy than HoT) He seems to be talking about harder content and more group focused plays, with dynamic events being integral to the map.

Basically he is saying core is really easy and solo focused, and Hot had all the content that was a little more engaging.

Which most people dont disagree with, they just disagree on whether it was a good thing or not. Some people want easier maps, that are fairly soloable, and other prefer the in depth, difficult nature of Hot

i will say i think PoF probably has some difficult group oreinted maps, its probably just not all of them.