Guild Wars 2

I want to begin with saying that I enjoyed the new content but I do feel there is room for a few improvements to make it even more enjoyable.

The good:
- Mounts and their animations are very well done.
- The story instance felt already better than LS3 instances even though it was relatively short.
- Very easy to navigate on the map, found everything within minutes.
- Always active events which will make sure the map won’t feel ‘dead.’
- Amazing visuals all around, especially the water seems to be improved a lot.
- No technical issues or bugs, very smooth experience.

Room for improvement:
- The bounty system seems solid although sometimes a bounty is pretty much over by the time you get there. A spawn window/timer where we can gather before the event would help I think.
- The raptor ends up stuck on a lot of slopes and small objects, feels very awkward when running long distances.
- There doesn’t seem to be a meta event which I personally dislike as I believe that the only reason that HoT maps are still this much played is due to their meta events.

I want to address one concern separately. The size of the new map. In 1.5 hours I finished 67% of the map (the full demo I think) without extreme rushing. The first map doesn’t seem to be much bigger than the previous maps. I hope the other maps are larger than the current one.

I think the map meta might be disabled for the demo; I think the HoT demo for verdant brink was the same way.

I also believe that map completion goals aren’t all in the game, so your percentage of completion may not be representative of the final map.

Otherwise, this is an agreeable bit of feedback.

I’d assume it normal when you consider this IS a preview of what is to come. Of course there is very little map or content, can’t spoil the whole thing right away

Surely it is soon to make a judgment.
Globally nothing exciting. I was expecting much better.
New enemies made good, good animation. In general a slight increase in detail is present.
The setting is not my taste, you have already given it on this front, go to something else.
The Raptor has disappointed me, we hope in the others.
History seems interesting.
In the demo is very negative, the lack of experience of new specializations. Serious.

Positive: everything
Negative: fps drops from 45-0 often, tried low and high/ultra same thing.

So far I still prefer the waypoints for getting to where the fun is vs sitting on a mount for several minutes navigating to where I want to be. Definitely a step in the wrong direction. Generic MMO feeling.

The map itself is ok, pretty bland so far, but verdant brink felt that way on HoT beta and it was better on release.

Significant FPS drop doesn’t do much for me. I lost around 15-20 FPS in the PoF maps even when not around anything in particular. First picture is in DR around several other players, their pets, mini’s etc. Second picture is in PoF with two players unmounted in field of view (blocked by the settings window). It gets even worse when you get out in the PoF open world and around slightly more activity and basic mobs.

Ever since HoT, and a little bit in season 2, they’ve been culling the density of Waypoints… which I think is a good thing. More people roaming instead of teleporting around makes for more lively maps, and more events to stumble upon while traveling.

The main benefit of waypoints is being able to get around the entire world quickly. This is a convenience that a lot of other MMOs lack that waypoints cover for.

I wouldn’t be upset if they added a few more waypoints to the map though; something around the density of HoT… because this is even more sparse than those were. Mounts still have value even if they did add more waypoints; their mobility features, like long jump, make sure of that.

I just pre-ordered PoF after spending 10 minutes in it. I quit because of HoT. There was just nothing in it I wanted. This demo is what I wanted back in 2015 out of an expansion. It looks great.

My feedback would be this: Are we going to get guild halls that are less tied to HoT? I just went to my guild hall for the first time since HoT came out and SO much of it “requires HoT”. Would be really nice for players who just aren’t interested in HoT to use their guild halls to full potential.

Great work so far on the new expansion though. It has me genuinely excited for the first time in ages for one of my favorite franchises of all time. Consider the Guild Hall stuff though please. Enjoying a guild hall shouldn’t require specific content in my opinion.

Iason Evan.3806:

I just pre-ordered PoF after spending 10 minutes in it. I quit because of HoT. There was just nothing in it I wanted. This demo is what I wanted back in 2015 out of an expansion. It looks great.

My feedback would be this: Are we going to get guild halls that are less tied to HoT? I just went to my guild hall for the first time since HoT came out and SO much of it “requires HoT”. Would be really nice for players who just aren’t interested in HoT to use their guild halls to full potential.

Great work so far on the new expansion though. It has me genuinely excited for the first time in ages for one of my favorite franchises of all time. Consider the Guild Hall stuff though please. Enjoying a guild hall shouldn’t require specific content in my opinion.

There’s a new guild hall for PoF

The first impression I have is very negative. If mounts will stay in that condition I will create a ticket to refund my purchase because I dont want to play the addon anymore then.
The movement in gw2 always been precise like a razor blade and now you come and release a movement mechanic that is slow and lethargic like driving a truck pulling 40 tons of weight.
I hate it. I simply hate it. Not to mention deserts are the least location I wanted to have for a setting.

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

The first impression I have is very negative. If mounts will stay in that condition I will create a ticket to refund my purchase because I dont want to play the addon anymore then.
The movement in gw2 always been precise like a razor blade and now you come and release a movement mechanic that is slow and lethargic like driving a truck pulling 40 tons of weight.
I hate it. I simply hate it. Not to mention deserts are the least location I wanted to have for a setting.

It’s not slow at all, the only thing different between walking on foot and the mount (other than the speed and movement mechanic) is that you have to turn instead of snapping to face the direction you want instantly. This is barely a problem, since it can turn pretty tightly, and it gives more of a ‘carving’ kind of feel to it, like you’re actually riding a creature that’s faster than you.

You could also just dismount whenever you need to turn sharply and mount up again, since it’s instant to dismount and mount, just a 1 second CD.

Malthurius.6870:

This is barely a problem, since it can turn pretty tightly, and it gives more of a ‘carving’ kind of feel to it, like you’re actually riding a creature that’s faster than you.

You could also just dismount whenever you need to turn sharply and mount up again, since it’s instant to dismount and mount, just a 1 second CD.

This is the worst possible answer I could have expected, especially the 1st line.

It also appears as a minor thing but actually you are going to work with mounts for 100s of hours. And thats just the first impression I have from the addon. If the rest is more related to wow and other generic trash, then good night.

Now it’s too soon to really tell much, and whatever happens I’ve still pre-ordered it and brought it anyway.

But so far I’m quite underwhelmed, I was looking forward to the preview, imagining I would be hooked on it all weekend. But after a few hours I’m done with it, and I’ll just wait till it launches.

For me the best thing, is actually the bounty board. I know we had the bandit bounties, but I’ve been wanting a proper bounty board for a while. Just something fun to send you around places to kill things, I hope they add one for bounties in the core maps. And I hope there are lots of bounties for lots of different champs.

Other than that nothing exciting for me, the race was ok, but doubt I’ll do one more than a couple of times. The mount was a mixed bag, I like the smooth mount/unmounting process, but the actual mount felt awkward and clunky. And the map felt boring, flat and like it’s had big open spaces added just to make it big for mounts.

As I said, too soon to tell anything, but so far my impression is that I’ll play & complete PoF, then never go back to it. Hopefully in the full release the maps are more interesting.

First mastery point I go to in the new map, cool it’s close in the new city and will help me get an easy start on the new mastery. Dang, it’s a darned timed annoying mini game similar to HoT adventures. I’d rather fight champions , solve a small JP, solve a riddle, or eat my own face than doing time based mini games, just my opinion. I don’t like them, but I suppose many do.

its meh.this new mechanic looks like 15y old mmo,run 15min to kill 3mobs in 10sec then return.if mounts cant fly and use autorun to location they are just wasting time compare to wp.
also map looks mostly bad,boring desert,like reskin ascalon maps.tangled depth was too depth,so they made new maps flat as possible.
bunch of new stuff to click,bunch of new icons to convert in to same junk.chasing bosses around city for few silvers….
its doesnt looks like expansion of game,looks like new start…i guess thats why starting quest is so booring and noobish,running with bucket of water,kill snakes 10x,kill this 10×...coudnt finish,quit after 5min…
im sure there is meta,because without this looks pretty bad.

Xuro.5861:

I want to begin with saying that I enjoyed the new content but I do feel there is room for a few improvements to make it even more enjoyable.

The good:
- Mounts and their animations are very well done.
- The story instance felt already better than LS3 instances even though it was relatively short.
- Very easy to navigate on the map, found everything within minutes.
- Always active events which will make sure the map won’t feel ‘dead.’
- Amazing visuals all around, especially the water seems to be improved a lot.
- No technical issues or bugs, very smooth experience.

Room for improvement:
- The bounty system seems solid although sometimes a bounty is pretty much over by the time you get there. A spawn window/timer where we can gather before the event would help I think.
- The raptor ends up stuck on a lot of slopes and small objects, feels very awkward when running long distances.
- There doesn’t seem to be a meta event which I personally dislike as I believe that the only reason that HoT maps are still this much played is due to their meta events.

I want to address one concern separately. The size of the new map. In 1.5 hours I finished 67% of the map (the full demo I think) without extreme rushing. The first map doesn’t seem to be much bigger than the previous maps. I hope the other maps are larger than the current one.

The bounty system is just a side thing,once everything will be released it won’t feel so important and tbh I like it to be little disorganized because it will feel just like any world boss if we get a timer.
Meta event…it’s a demo.
Raptor….hmmm I got stuck once only just because I jumped there…if I would have jumped better….

Loving the raptor, actually feels like a mount that you control, but like not in an annoying way.

A minor annoyance – the wind blows the sand one way, but the flags wave another and smoke on campfires a third.

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

Malthurius.6870:

This is barely a problem, since it can turn pretty tightly, and it gives more of a ‘carving’ kind of feel to it, like you’re actually riding a creature that’s faster than you.

You could also just dismount whenever you need to turn sharply and mount up again, since it’s instant to dismount and mount, just a 1 second CD.

And thats just the first impression I have from the addon. If the rest is more related to wow and other generic trash, then good night.

M’kay?
https://68.media.tumblr.com/1b29512885f9fe58e2e0ba0b90f59447/tumblr_ns20nwn2ro1r1gj7oo1_250.jpg

I like everything i saw, except mount’s movement.
It’s clunky and feels like it’s all over the place. Especially that, if you look behind while riding, and then release mouse 1, mount starts turning to direction you are looking. Why? I tried to turn this off, but i could not find it. Is there any? At least add that.
As someone said already, movement should be sharp and precise. No delays, no swinging.
Everything else, as i said, was nice. Big open maps, beautiful scenes, enemies…
Just fix that clunky movement and i am a happy customer.

Color me unimpressed so far, but I’ll do more testing. Kind of surprised we can’t transfer our current character(s) like with HoT’s demo, unless I’m missing something, but sure.

The whole expansion is around mounts. Traveling is much harder without mounts and is much easier to get killed by some veteran. Meanwhile, waypoints are really scarce. If you die, you must start over from a long distance, forcing you to use the mount and get back on tracks. Also, without mount you can’t jump over canyons or other obstacles.

It seems like this whole expansion is around mounts, and how to force players in using them. I do not blame Anet though, I blame all those players who requested mounts and wanted this game to be like any other game.

You don’t need to argue what’s been said. People are just providing feedback on the experience, it’s not a debate point.

Alin.2468:

The whole expansion is around mounts. Traveling is much harder without mounts and is much easier to get killed by some veteran. Meanwhile, waypoints are really scarce. If you die, you must start over from a long distance, forcing you to use the mount and get back on tracks. Also, without mount you can’t jump over canyons or other obstacles.

It seems like this whole expansion is around mounts, and how to force players in using them. I do not blame Anet though, I blame all those players who requested mounts and wanted this game to be like any other game.

Not had a chance to play yet, have work tonight. But uuughhhhhh!

The whole lesser waypoints especially in a couple of HoT maps is awful, it’s such a horrible time wasting experience compared to the core game.

What I enjoyed from this:

1. We are back in the Crystal Desert. Thank you ANet for taking us back to a map and showing us what 250 years have done to it.

2. The map is beautiful. I like how the NPCs discuss matters and allow us to take in what’s going on in Elona through this.

3. Treasure hunting is so much easier now with the skill button instead of purchasing shovels, popping the echo, hoping it doesn’t break, uncovering the mound, then hoping you remember to have a key.

What needs improvement:

1. The bounty system really doesn’t feel that any different than a dynamic event that cycles. Plus it seems the timer is shorter.

2. Some of the Mastery challenges are nice, like the teleport stones. However some like the sous chef need tweaking. Either slow him down or speed us up in terms of winding up and throwing ingredients. Even just walking near him to “take” it from us would be acceptable.

3. Hydras are just constant knock down machines and aren’t very engaging when I fought them.

What just flies under my radar:

1. Mounts: Honestly I never cared for them, not excited by them, but I don’t hate them either. I get it though as to why we need them. Where HoT you wanted to go “up” in map, Elona is going “long” so there’s more ground to cover and these things are the new mechanic like gliding was. The Dye channel on the Raptor doesn’t seem to be that impressive either.

Overall this is a decent and engaging beta so far, it really does excite me to see what else I’m getting upon release date.

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

Malthurius.6870:

This is barely a problem, since it can turn pretty tightly, and it gives more of a ‘carving’ kind of feel to it, like you’re actually riding a creature that’s faster than you.

You could also just dismount whenever you need to turn sharply and mount up again, since it’s instant to dismount and mount, just a 1 second CD.

This is the worst possible answer I could have expected, especially the 1st line.

It also appears as a minor thing but actually you are going to work with mounts for 100s of hours. And thats just the first impression I have from the addon. If the rest is more related to wow and other generic trash, then good night.

It’s a non-issue, because the mounts feel great, imo. Oddly enough, they’d be a lot more generic if they controlled 1:1 like characters do on foot.

Loving the raptor. It looks really good, the animations are very well-done, being able to dye it is nice (though 2-3 channels would be even better), and its movement feels much more realistic than similar features in other games. I had fun with the race, until the server kicked me off literally on the finish line. Grumble.

Looking around/behind while riding needs some work, though. I had it spin around a few times instead of staying on course.

The mount is the only thing I cared about this weekend since I don’t want to spoil the map itself, so it was a good first impression once the server got its bearings. The story instance — eh. After LS3 my expectations are utterly rock bottom in that regard, but at least nothing actively kittened me off like most NPCs in LS3.

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

The first impression I have is very negative. If mounts will stay in that condition I will create a ticket to refund my purchase because I dont want to play the addon anymore then.
The movement in gw2 always been precise like a razor blade and now you come and release a movement mechanic that is slow and lethargic like driving a truck pulling 40 tons of weight.
I hate it. I simply hate it. Not to mention deserts are the least location I wanted to have for a setting.

Go play WoW if you want razorblade movement. GW doesn’t have razorblade movement, mounts or no mounts. This is what makes movement in this game feel organic and realistic.
Mount movement is perfect and it feels like 700kg raptor moving should feel like.

And I hope you do realise that wanting a refund because of this thing makes you one of those customers people from retail always talk about on the internet and make fun of.

Great Work!

The Best part I saw was the bounties and I hope you build on it further. I am Unsure How many there are but in the end would love to see ALOT of options. I will echo an earlier comment tho that there needs to be a window to get there before a zerg has it wiped.

On the Negative side, The mount is sluggish and a major letdown. It’s like trying to drive an 18 wheeler thru a major city. Now I am going to speculate that your cruel and twisted jumping puzzle creators will eventually (prob already) tie JP’s to this mount making it like trying to navigate a freight train thru a shopping mall, so this really needs improved.

Edit: One addon comment. Mob scaling. It’s hard to be sure on this topic since I’m not on a toon that is “built” as I would like, but, the intial impression is that this map is not “solo” friendly. Imho, events SHOULD be scaled for groups, but the random mobs from just navigating the map should be scaled down to an approximate Cursed Shore level. Many times i need to traverse a map for completion or for a vendor and consistent kittens of over HP’ed mobs is not pleasant.

martin.1653:

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

The first impression I have is very negative. If mounts will stay in that condition I will create a ticket to refund my purchase because I dont want to play the addon anymore then.
The movement in gw2 always been precise like a razor blade and now you come and release a movement mechanic that is slow and lethargic like driving a truck pulling 40 tons of weight.
I hate it. I simply hate it. Not to mention deserts are the least location I wanted to have for a setting.

Go play WoW if you want razorblade movement. GW doesn’t have razorblade movement, mounts or no mounts. This is what makes movement in this game feel organic and realistic.
Mount movement is perfect and it feels like 700kg raptor moving should feel like.

And I hope you do realise that wanting a refund because of this thing makes you one of those customers people from retail always talk about on the internet and make fun of.

LOL at last part. Agreed.
I very much doubt Anet will change the way mounts feel anyways. At most, they will introduce a setting to help with motion sickness.

Malthurius.6870:

It’s a non-issue, because the mounts feel great, imo. Oddly enough, they’d be a lot more generic if they controlled 1:1 like characters do on foot.

The thread is there to post your first impressions and not about to argue about.
I ordered the deluxe edition Im kittening kittened off about what Im about to get here. And I dont give a kitten if you dont like it or not because its my money that I want to have back and not yours. Get it.

UnbentMars.9126:

Iason Evan.3806:

I just pre-ordered PoF after spending 10 minutes in it. I quit because of HoT. There was just nothing in it I wanted. This demo is what I wanted back in 2015 out of an expansion. It looks great.

My feedback would be this: Are we going to get guild halls that are less tied to HoT? I just went to my guild hall for the first time since HoT came out and SO much of it “requires HoT”. Would be really nice for players who just aren’t interested in HoT to use their guild halls to full potential.

Great work so far on the new expansion though. It has me genuinely excited for the first time in ages for one of my favorite franchises of all time. Consider the Guild Hall stuff though please. Enjoying a guild hall shouldn’t require specific content in my opinion.

There’s a new guild hall for PoF

While there is a new Guild Hall in PoF the actual Guild Hall features are an HoT expansion thing. So you cant start a capture mission if you dont own HoT, and if you dont own HoT you cannot use any of the guild services it provides.

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

Malthurius.6870:

It’s a non-issue, because the mounts feel great, imo. Oddly enough, they’d be a lot more generic if they controlled 1:1 like characters do on foot.

The thread is there to post your first impressions and not about to argue about.
I ordered the deluxe edition Im kittening kittened off about what Im about to get here. And I dont give a kitten if you dont like it or not because its my money that I want to have back and not yours. Get it.

There should be a motion blur setting somewhere

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

Malthurius.6870:

It’s a non-issue, because the mounts feel great, imo. Oddly enough, they’d be a lot more generic if they controlled 1:1 like characters do on foot.

The thread is there to post your first impressions and not about to argue about.
I ordered the deluxe edition Im kittening kittened off about what Im about to get here. And I dont give a kitten if you dont like it or not because its my money that I want to have back and not yours. Get it.

Looks like some people have an impression that your first impression sucks.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

A minor annoyance – the wind blows the sand one way, but the flags wave another and smoke on campfires a third.

I didn’t notice but now I will forever see No doubt it will annoy me as much as the stern flags on ships blowing backwards while the sails fill with wind pressing the ship forward …

martin.1653:

Looks like some people have an impression that your first impression sucks.

Try harder

I will try to give some feedback too then.

Been playing for about 2-3 hours.

Good:
- Mount movement and animations are smooth it’s cool to just run around on the raptor as it looks so nice.
- Mounts is not for super speed so you can run past every enemy, it is still not what most of these “I want mount” sayers wanted. It is more what I wanted, a mount that help you traverse different obstacles on the map.
- GW2 keeps being a visual enjoyment and is food for my eyes.
- Bounty hunts is a cool way to bring players to same locations.
- I never realy liked desert landscape and I didnt like it in GW1… But now it is realy nice, I love the pyramids (Caves) and the cliffs to bad the Beta ends just before that part.
- The battle music is realy neat, music has always been good in this game and it still isnt disapointing me.

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)

What I really like about the bounties is that they have changing abilities. Fought the legendary twice, both times different abilities. First fight was with hammers and second one with Chak as a summon.

But I think that some abilities aren’t working right now. Stop and go ability never worked and flash freeze also wasn’t working

Under the character selection screen, your background for each character was specific to kinda where they were in the world. Now, every background is the same. I’m assuming (hoping) that is just for the demo, and it will go back to how it always is for live?

The game looks and feels excellent. I don’t regret prepurchasing. Feels a bit on the easy side. I one shot it on mesmer with the default build/weps before I realized there was a box of goodies. Forgot mesmers used staff Mounts are great can’t wait to use them on the old maps. New enemies was great. I swear I would have lost it if I fought anymore kitten spiders. Granted it is a demo I must say I’m more excited now than ever. Thank you anet for all the work you put into this game.

The trout are vicious….

There’s one absolutely atrocious part of the game, however: The kitten Dust Mite spam.

First off – there is an audio bug or ten. About 1/5 of the NPC speech didn’t play properly. I just knew that they said something because I saw it in my chat dialogue box and my character was responding to silence.

Next, overall impressions: It’s “OK” to start. That’s how the vanilla GW1 and GW2 started as well, “ok”. And they got better the more you got into them. I’m hoping that’s the case with PoF.

For a demo, though, I was hoping for more bells and whistles to perk interest. Like someone said elsewhere, in HoT the first time you go in it’s a warzone and gets you immediately engaged. PoF on the other hand, even the NPC on the ship kinda shrugs and says “you can stay here if you want to” like it doesn’t matter. How about the airship NPCs throw some gear at you and order you to come with them because otherwise you’re just wasting space, or something to that effect. Maybe if you stay in the airship too long, it gets blown up by Balthazar or something…. something like that would get the player more engaged.

Opening mission sequence was “ok”, I like the new level 11 Rats.. I mean Forged Hellhounds or whatever. The sand shark was rather amusing I like the revamped Hydras. The monsters were “ok”. Didn’t see anything that made me think “oh WOW!” but that’s par for the course after playing these games long enough. The unique stuff usually comes at the end of long chains or events anyhow.

Terrain was kinda ‘blah’ to me. Nothing that exciting. I liked all of the HoT maps. Ember Bay was cool. Draconis Mons was cool. That place beside Queensdale… I forget the name of it if that tells you how much of an impression it made on me. But the flat spaced out desert just didn’t hold my interest. Did HoT spoil us?

Granted, like many of us I spent far too many hours in the desert in GW1 and that was fun at the time. This time in the demo it just seemed to be lacking something. Can’t put my finger on it.

Anyhow, I’m mostly interested in the elite specs like a lot of other people. I don’t see much point in playing the demo much more at this point – I do want to keep more of it as a surprise at real launch. Didn’t notice any other bugs aside from the sound.

The dialogue is a bit lacking, to put it mildly, but I’m not playing the game to for its literary genius. The dialogue is mostly fun except for the times when you stop and wonder “why the hell did he just say that?” I do think whoever does the dialogue should perhaps role-play the scenes more (in real life) to hear how they sound. Sometimes creatives get too close to their work and need to step back for a different perspective.

my two cents ~

I’m disappointed by the lack of updrafts and gliding opportunities. I understand that PoF is more focused on mounts but there should be updrafts and aerial content since most players will have HoT also. They could have done a second layer of content focused on gliding if players have HoT. I think there are more gliding opportunities in core Tyria than the PoF demo map.

I absolutely love this demo of the expansion so far. I love the desert settings, the mount, the story, the music.

Only couple of things that bug me is the mastery point stuck behind that sous chef game, am all for games though I admit am not the best at them, but like someone else said slow him down, speed us up, give us more time to give him the items or make it if we’re near him he will take the item. The other thing is the unidentified clothing/whatever stuck behind a Silver cost each time is too high, I won’t be using that much or at all just to get a green mace or something.

But other then that am really looking forward to the expansion, can’t wait for the full product now!

Xuro.5861:

I want to begin with saying that I enjoyed the new content but I do feel there is room for a few improvements to make it even more enjoyable.

The good:
- Mounts and their animations are very well done.
- The story instance felt already better than LS3 instances even though it was relatively short.
- Very easy to navigate on the map, found everything within minutes.
- Always active events which will make sure the map won’t feel ‘dead.’
- Amazing visuals all around, especially the water seems to be improved a lot.
- No technical issues or bugs, very smooth experience.

Room for improvement:
- The bounty system seems solid although sometimes a bounty is pretty much over by the time you get there. A spawn window/timer where we can gather before the event would help I think.
- The raptor ends up stuck on a lot of slopes and small objects, feels very awkward when running long distances.
- There doesn’t seem to be a meta event which I personally dislike as I believe that the only reason that HoT maps are still this much played is due to their meta events.

I want to address one concern separately. The size of the new map. In 1.5 hours I finished 67% of the map (the full demo I think) without extreme rushing. The first map doesn’t seem to be much bigger than the previous maps. I hope the other maps are larger than the current one.

This is only a beta mind you.
The map is likely not the whole map either.

Remember back in HoT beta, the thing you can do is even more lacking because it’s just a beta map.

There’s no Meta event during demo too back in HoT .

My biggest concerns:

• Even if maps are larger, they don’t really look dense content wise.
  VB had a meta event chain for each camp, plus night bosses, plus 5 adventures, plus all the exploration due to multilayered structure. If what we have seen is about 1/3 of the first new map, it will be effectively smaller content wise.

• I guess I could do something with the graphical settings, but AoE circles and sand don’t seem to mix very well.

• There’s probably something wrong with fust mite health.

I have not seen anything in the demo that will convince me to per-purchase PoF. So far all I have seen is shiny mount jump around gizmo and a significant FPS loss which forced me to dial my graphic settings down. I wish I could have tested the new elite specs in PvE. As a mostly PvE player that might have given me a better idea what I am getting in the expansion aside from mounts which I could do without if only they were not required.

The only thing I saw that I cared for was the demo map is not packed dense with annoying mobs that are not necessarily challenging but just obnoxious like HoT maps. I didn’t feel like I had to choose between running for my life or being in a constant state of combat as I explored.

I’m glad the pre-purchase bonuses don’t appeal to me. I can wait until after launch for those that have jumped on the grenade played the expansion awhile and given feedback to decide.