Guild Wars 2

Demo Feedback:

If Anet thought that solo players would find others to play with ‘just because of bounties’, think again.

Many are in very private guilds who don’t add others to their numbers to go after bounties.

Where does this leave solo players? Where does this leave anyone who plays in the middle of the night when few are around?

Not buying that expansion, that’s for sure.

I played for maybe 30min before i got bored and logged off.

First off, i understand there are some things not turned on for the beta, like in HoT. But I was also in the HoT beta and there a few weeks after release. I very much remember the threads of “I’m bored, there is nothing to do, etc”.

I’m having great deja vu already.

The mounts were what I expected, but throw me off when turning. They seem to jerk so much going left or right i feel i pushed a key too hard somehow. And of course, because of mounts, there is just added padding blank space with nothing but enemies I am just riding by. Its just pointless filler.

did the man-eater bounty while fighting a respawning hydra and a patrol, along with another person, didn’t go down once as a necro reaper.

Finally, the teasing of Rytlock in the mist story is kittening me off. And the trolling by anet with the meta of my character KNOWING the players are getting kittened off just made me not care anymore. Its been drawn out too long.

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.

Ive’ ‘ve heard this map size thing beforerem. ember you are on a mount which travelfast er then on foot. If u ran around everywhere without the mount, i’d bet you’dfeel it was pretty big and too spaced out.

I didn’t like this demo. The map looks pretty and the raptor is interesting, but that’s about all good things I can say about it.

The mount felt sluggish and unresponsive, and didn’t feel as agile as it could be as many people have mentioned, with constant annoyance of summoning it again and again whenever I wanted to do some gathering, talking to NPC, or anything. As a Revenant my facet always gets turned off as a bonus.

Furthermore, I didn’t find bounties interesting, as they are just another boss mobs on timer. You get enough people and you just spam 1. Fighting regular enemies didn’t feel interesting either. I’ve seen nothing like pocket raptors, modrem snipers or smokescales of HoT which all provided interesting challenge and twist to combat.

Also, while the map was pretty, it felt empty with nothing interesting could be going on. There is another set of repeatable hearts for more grinding just like in LW3, and more chests to run around to open a la Silverwastes. Even the first parts of the story had this boring section of filling a heart, and I am already weary of all those daily quests for grinding them.

Anet said this expansion is focused on contents…and the problem here is that this demo simply fails to show any glimpse of interesting contents. We even don’t get to play with new elites. I really hope this isn’t the case when the xpac gets released properly, but so far this simply doesn’t leave a good impression on me.

My experience: I had to endure over an hour of frustration just to log in to my account, the password would not work and then I could not recover it, despite having my character name, serial code and player ID all correct. I had to switch browsers and try over and over again until I could finally reset my password. Must have just been buggy.. Then, I played for 15 minutes, was killed by a boss and was unrevivable and had no option to respawn and was forced to quit…. I didn’t bother loading it back up, I was too frustrated.

More Waypoints please.

Szaku.1495:

id personally suggest perhaps changing the name to “bandit” like any other map in the entire game, or just go ahead and change those special skills to “chicken” “watermelon” and “child support”…

really, anet?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you believe ANet is being rascist because they have a mob that is called a Troublemaker and it has black skin.

Ask yourself this;
1. How many NPCs have black skin in PoF by comparison to the core game?
2. Is it possible that someone with black skin can be a Troublemaker within the game?
3. Would it not be even more rascist to only have white skinned Troublemakers?
4. Why do you not feel like a rascist yourself for even noticing the difference and making a point about it? Do you not also think that making reference to stereotypically racist things associated with african/americans (ie, the watermelon etc) is somewhat rascist too?

Fundamentally, this is the thing, you have seen this NPC and think it is somehow special or should be treated differently because of the color of it’s skin, that is the basis of racism.

NitricRose.1863:

The trout are vicious….

I was typing up a response of how I wasn’t sure how Trout would spawn in a desert either, since they like colder temperatures, then went off on a tangent of how it could be cold spring water coming up from below or melt water from the mountains nearby, and the optimal temperature range for trout growth, spawning and activity is between 10–20?C…

But is that even a body of freshwater?

atheria.2837:

Demo Feedback:

If Anet thought that solo players would find others to play with ‘just because of bounties’, think again.

Many are in very private guilds who don’t add others to their numbers to go after bounties.

Where does this leave solo players? Where does this leave anyone who plays in the middle of the night when few are around?

Not buying that expansion, that’s for sure.

You don’t need to be in a Guild, a Party, or any kind of formal grouping to take part, and receive credit, in killing a Bounty. You don’t even have to take out a contract.

Good luck.

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.

You may have not thought of it, but mounts delay is a deliberate design mechanic as it makes you feel the “weight” of the creature. And I’m 500% sure that the devs wont change a core, intentional, good design (making you feel that you are riding vs just increasing you chars speed and give you a jump skill with a skin of a mount below you) or the location of the expa just because you don’t like them. There is a sad thing in life and its that you cant make everyone happy.

PS: And feedback -opposed to just plain opinion- is only worth if it CAN be used to refine the actual product/service.

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.

Agree, Raptor movement is perfect, has weight like it’s supposed to, if they simplify it’s movement because of qq, I will hardly use it again.
And also the less Waypoints the better, Maps feel mora alive and promotes exploration.
GW2 players got too lazy with all the WP’s.

Donari.5237:

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 …

Then you’ll love the fact walking raptors only leave left foot prints.

I just log in, to say one thing. The best thing about HOT maps was the replayability thx to the metas each map had. This map we got seems to not have any , instead feels like a core map(a queensdale instace) wich you do once and never come back. Anet if you really take this path the maps will be empty in a month or less and i will want my money back for the pre-purchase i made.
All the rest, like mounts, masteries, story, map design, specializiation(even if they are like the greatest thing ever) will be obsolete for me if there is no metas to do. So please, i hope you didn’t listen more to the feedback of those who left during hot(because map is to stresfull,too difficult, too much meta,it’s not core maps with hearts), instead you listen to the ones that kept playing the hot maps.

Verthurnax.2784:

I just log in, to say one thing. The best thing about HOT maps was the replayability thx to the metas each map had. This map we got seems to not have any , instead feels like a core map(a queensdale instace) wich you do once and never come back. Anet if you really take this path the maps will be empty in a month or less and i will want my money back for the pre-purchase i made.
All the rest, like mounts, masteries, story, map design, specializiation(even if they are like the greatest thing ever) will be obsolete for me if there is no metas to do. So please, i hope you didn’t listen more to the feedback of those who left during hot(because map is to stresfull,too difficult, too much meta,it’s not core maps with hearts), instead you listen to the ones that kept playing the hot maps.

Beta map = not the full map, if there is a meta event it is turned off. Did you play HoT beta? I remember verdant brink was only able to test the half map and there where no meta and alot of event chains didn’t exist.

Cylokin.2560:

Agree, Raptor movement is perfect, has weight like it’s supposed to, if they simplify it’s movement because of qq, I will hardly use it again.
And also the less Waypoints the better, Maps feel mora alive and promotes exploration.
GW2 players got too lazy with all the WP’s.

+

You may have not thought of it, but mounts delay is a deliberate design mechanic as it makes you feel the “weight” of the creature. And I’m 500% sure that the devs wont change a core, intentional, good design (making you feel that you are riding vs just increasing you chars speed and give you a jump skill with a skin of a mount below you) or the location of the expa just because you don’t like them. There is a sad thing in life and its that you cant make everyone happy.

PS: And feedback -opposed to just plain opinion- is only worth if it CAN be used to refine the actual product/service.

A Charr, that weights 10-20 times more then an asura, has the same physical response but a mount that probably has just 2 or 3 times more the weight of a Charr must have a super idiotic fuzzy movement, sure.
Arguing/defending about physical correctness and realism in a video game about a point that never been a topic in 5 years, in a world where magic exists, trees are a playable race and asurian objects floating the air – I sometimes have no words when I look down at this community.

Szaku.1495:

id personally suggest perhaps changing the name to “bandit” like any other map in the entire game, or just go ahead and change those special skills to “chicken” “watermelon” and “child support”…

really, anet?

I don’t see the problem here.

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

A Charr, that weights 10-20 times more then an asura, has the same physical response but a mount that probably has just 2 or 3 times more the weight of a Charr must have a super idiotic fuzzy movement, sure.
Arguing/defending about physical correctness and realism in a video game about a point that never been a topic in 5 years, in a world where magic exists, trees are a playable race and asurian objects floating the air – I sometimes have no words when I look down at this community.

The question here is, what do you want the mounts to be? Do you want them to be a speed buff with a nice skin or do you want them to feel like riding a mount?

I guess the answer to this question for most people, is not the speed buff. Otherwise the feedback to the mounts would be not that positive. Some negative response to the mounts ( like yours ) boils down to just wanting a skinned speed buff like in the other mmos.

Szaku.1495:

id personally suggest perhaps changing the name to “bandit” like any other map in the entire game, or just go ahead and change those special skills to “chicken” “watermelon” and “child support”…

really, anet?

Because bandits are associated with the white mantle, and the troublemakers call themselves troublemakers. It’s indicated somewhere in the city that because of Palawa Joko and now the Forged they have gotten alot more compitition to recruit more troublemakers.

Knee jerk reaction without any knowledge is never good.

The intro story sequence is almost impressive in its uninspired mind numbing boringness.

You’re not selling expansion packs this way guys.

Walhalla.5473:

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

A Charr, that weights 10-20 times more then an asura, has the same physical response but a mount that probably has just 2 or 3 times more the weight of a Charr must have a super idiotic fuzzy movement, sure.
Arguing/defending about physical correctness and realism in a video game about a point that never been a topic in 5 years, in a world where magic exists, trees are a playable race and asurian objects floating the air – I sometimes have no words when I look down at this community.

The question here is, what do you want the mounts to be? Do you want them to be a speed buff with a nice skin or do you want them to feel like riding a mount?

I guess the answer to this question for most people, is not the speed buff. Otherwise the feedback to the mounts would be not that positive. Some negative response to the mounts ( like yours ) boils down to just wanting a skinned speed buff like in the other mmos.

Mount skills alone are not enough to be considered as something uniqe, too bad.

I used the PoF demo as a litmus test to see if I really wanted to come back.

To be honest, I got bored when I got to Amnoon and only played the demo for about 30mins. There’s nothing earth shattering there and other players have echoed my sentiments of “more of the same.”

The thing that really bugged me the most is just the quality of the story telling. Granted, PoF is nowhere near as bad as LS3’s final episode was. I really think that LS3 was pretty much the killer for me.

We play mmos to be immersed in a rich alternative world experience. For things like PvP and competitive play, the reality is that there are way way way better things to play that are designed with competition from ground up (like Overwatch, Paragons, Paladins, CS:GO, PUBG, Smite, LoL, DOTA, or even B&S -which despite being an MMO has successful tournaments overseas running for it).

I think at launch Gw2 captured the proper world building. You can usually tell a quality game when every race has its own starting zone and story. Granted Gw2’s initial story was not great but it was at least tolerable.

LS is when things really started to slide. LS 1 was just horrifically bad and no one remember’s Scarlet (probably for the better). HoT was seen as a universal failure as an expansion with zone design that everyone hated and an incredibly cringy story. LS3 was ok at first but the final episode was just so god awful in writing I almost uninstalled (Balthazar switcharoo with Lazarus, the whole Shining Blade thing… R.L. Salvatore can write better stuff and he did with Nightfall -despite being a terrible writer).

The underlying game is great, the artstyle is great, combat is decent (Tera/B&S/DS3/Bloodbourne have better action combat that is less spammy with the last 2 being masterpieces).

However the lore and story is so badly presented in LS1+, it just pulls you out of the enjoyable experience that is the rest of the game.

With the direction PoF is going, its obvious that someone sat down in a board meeting and said “ok players are getting tired of dragons and we are have too much difficulty building encounters for them, we need to swap the BBEG from dragons to human gods now. Alright team you have 3 weeks to create a sham story to make this work.”

That translates DIRECTLY into the game. They don’t even try to hide it.

The point is, if your going to be an MMO ROLE PLAYING GAME, be a proper RPG. Put time into the immersion of the world, the story, flesh out races. Hire better writers because fanfiction is not cutting it.

People have limited time and can go other places that have better offerings for the other theme park aspects that Gw2 offers like PvP (competitive MOBAs, class-based shooters), Action Combat (Darksouls-esque games).

The reality is Gw2 plays like a tabletop session with a really bad Dungeon Master who is never prepared for the game every week and just pulls stuff out of his *.

From playing the demo, I don’t get the feeling that PoF is radically changing this direction. Which is sad because while I criticize this game hard, it really needs it. PoF was the opportunity to make up for all of the terribe DMing that has been done -but ended up not really changing anything.

Gw2 is like Pathfinder or Dungeons and Dragons 5e, where the underlying game system is excellent -but the DM is really bad. There is nothing wrong with the systems supporting the game, the problem is the people holding the reigns and pushing the direction of the content/story.

TL;DR: I was hoping this demo would draw me in because after LS3’s final episode I was on the fence about this game -but all it did was push me away with quality of storytelling and content being the major negative.

Same here as LordHelmos above – PoF preview as a litmus test. Man I loved GW2 for a long time, many great memories. Pre-nerf dungeons and old level 50 fractals, pre-HoT and Raids is where it peaked for me.

Hated HoT hard. Still played it a lot chasing ascended weapons but stopped spending on gems in principal since then. Hate the idea that raids are in the game. Herding 10 cats has never been fun. (Off-topic nevermind. Carrying right on…)

True about the story. Man it’s bad. So bad. The simplistic, childish dialogue. The voice acting. I can picture a bored voice “actor” reading the lines off a page while looking at the clock. But eh that’s GW2 I guess.

I’m very glad to leave “verticality” behind. I wish PoF had come before HoT. Just surprised at the blandness of the opening story. The GW2 vanilla lvl 1 opening sequence was better.

I’m kinda trying to rekindle some energy to get back in, if only for old times sake and the handful of people still left in my old guild. Anet can’t you meet a guy halfway? Sheez.

I liked the PoF demo and I am excited for the release.

It’s very sad that a game originally free in majority became more and more a pay 2 win, make specializations more and more worst to force purchase….. I’m waited a lot from expensions, I purchased HoT expecting a lot but all I earn is vast maps in forests, and I Hate forests apart if they are asuran buildings in it. Extensions maps are lesser attractive than the original tyria and main living stories like scarlet, aetherblade…. For this two expansions the only goal is “To purge corruptions” of dragons, gods…. An Underground Expension with asuras giant cities and labs complexs would be greater than this. So to return to the demo, I check it out and it’s just flat apart Mounts, but mounts make GW2 like others greats MMORPG starting by W or S… GW2 begin to fall into the wrong path… A desert have nothing very interesting, surely some small town and pyramid thingy but I waited a lot more from this area… Everything became made of gems…. Missed living stories? gems!! Appearances for your glider? gems!! Anything interesting? gems!!

My first experience with the new map was a good experience. I’m definitely liking how easy it is to transverse to areas without having to go up/down numerous of layers/levels like it is in HoT.

I love the dying of the mounts but mainly can’t wait for my true mount, The Skimmer.

Overall it’s nice, but I would’ve rather been able to play the elite Specializations first since myself and I’m sure with plenty others wanted to try those out more…

R. L. Salvatore didn’t write anything in Nightfall, or any other part of Guild Wars or Guild Wars 2. Geez.

Agree with lordhelmos above.

There really is nothing “new”. Sure, a polarizing mount system, but that’s almost like copying and pasting gliding. And an ammo system that came out of nowhere.

There was no revamping of old systems that needed it (weapon skills, tokens from dungeons, for example).

The story is in shambles with the hard jerk towards Balthazar. Auriene forgotten, pale tree status unknown (last being stable), hearing about brahm but never experiencing it, rox has disappeared fom the story (I honestly don’t know when she was last mentioned after the funeral), and the now running joke of what happened to rytlock in the mists (that’s even acknowledged in game the frustration people have had for over two years now).

All for “here is a big bad from gw1! Joking! It’s the god Balthazar! But you get to kill the guy anyway in a real hurry!”

And I can already tell there will be some ‘great’ twist to who the herald is.

Seriously anet, even m. Night shyamalan is like ’whoa, too many twists

This isn’t an expansion. This is DLC

Just jumped in last night so can’t heavily comment but I would like to say “thank you!” And that’s because, so far, I’ve found little to no vericality and jumping! Rock on! No doubt its there somewhere though!

I just started exploring the new map. I just have a question for those who have a lot of experience with HoT, core game and the new map, did ANET reduce the amount of waypoints to make mounts relevant?

Here’s my thoughts:

It’s not you, Anet, it’s me. I’ve possibly had my fill for now and although I’m grateful for the chance to try out PoF, I was generally uninspired to make a pre-purchase.

But here’s another reason why it’s me: I’m just not into deserts in any particularly way. I don’t like brown, yellow and orange. The occasional green of palm trees and such is nice, but it’s not enough. I just couldn’t even bring myself to complete any hearts because of the terrain, other than that first one for the raptor. I only found myself doing events because I saw some other players and felt bad for them, as they clearly needed some mesmer fabulousness to bring some colour and pop into the party.

I did enjoy the raptor, for what it’s worth. If it could actually bound upwards the way it can forwards I’d be happier. It’s definitely the equivalent for HoT’s glider. Though it does feel a smidge clunky every now and again (just what is it getting stuck on? I can’t see anything for it to be stuck on), could use another dye channel or two, I still found bounding around a lot of fun. However, the biggest issue is the transition to glider. I do understand why you wouldn’t just jump an animal off a cliff and whilst in the air seamlessly get your glider out, having the creature fall to its death, but still. The raptor disappears after a dismount, so why does the associated pocket dimension Bag of Holding or Pokéball not work in the air? Some slight re-config for a better change over is required, for those who are combining gliding with riding.

Anyway, I’ve been disinterested in future GW2 since Lord Buckethead made it apparent I wouldn’t be going to tickle Jormag in the Shiverpeaks. I was so looking forward to that! Yet again, that’s me, not you. I really was looking forward to a lot more snowy maps. I like the snow. But only in games. In real life, it sucks.

It’s probably fair to say I’ve been cheating on you, too, with another game. I’m sorry. The other game doesn’t cause my eyes to dry out, you see. You have since HoT, although I still played through the pain and discomfort. I’m just not sure I can do it again. You will still remain installed on my pc, and considering I have just a tiny amount of space (only two MMOs, and two single player games at a time), it’s not too bad a place to be in. And considering you’re still installed, I may pick up PoF at some point. I might just wait a while is all.

Thanks again for the privilege of testing it out and I hope you do well out of it.

JustTrogdor.7892:

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.

Really? Hated mini games with a passion. They are fine on their own for fun or rewards but should never be tied to a mastery. So sad to hear this. I may try the demo when I get some time, but this really killed my enthusiasm for the EXP.

Played the beta for 1 hour. Loved it. I love the way mounts were created. It feels different from other MMO’s (WoW in particular) and more realistic. The zone looks gorgeous (can’t say anything about the other maps ofcourse) and it was very easy for me to get lost in the moment…which HoT never really did. The maps were hard to navigate, messy and I didn’t like the fact that some points of interests/vistas were hidden behind meta events. It looks like the new maps will be the perfect mix between HoT and the core game. I expected the zone to be a bit bigger (yes, I realise the map continues in the east, but even then..), but after seeing a comparison with an original map I’m sattisfied. Sure, there were no meta chains on the new map, but those could still be disabled and if not….great too. As long as there are events/champions/bounties, etc I’m happy.

Everyone has the right to give feedback, but honestly…reading some reviews..it looks like players already made up their mind before trying it out. It’s very easy to get lost in that. That way a game will never get a honest chance imo. There will always be things within a game that certain people hate, it’s impossible to please everyone, but sometimes it seems like certain people just need to whine. To feel interesting or something. People who will never be happy.

I realize that it is a demo and that the final product may change. Unfortunately, I was not wowed by it so far.

I liked the non-verticality of the map. To this day Dry Top is one of my least favorite places to go.

I liked the artwork. GW2 has always been a beautiful visual experience and this holds up in the new map.

I didn’t like the story dialog at all. It feels now that my character is just another NPC reading scripted lines that my character wouldn’t say if I had any control over it. The whole handling of Rytlock being in the Mists (i.e. we aren’t going to tell you because reasons) and how we address him was just unsatisfying and off putting.

I didn’t like the mounts. The raptor feels slow and clunky. It gets stuck on terrain in places where I can’t see why it would. You can’t strafe R or L. Map was made larger with few wps, but not much content/activity in the extra map real estate. It really seems to me the maps were designed like this only to justify the addition of mounts and I find this to be uninspiring.

I’ll wait until I get a chance to demo the new elites next weekend before I make the final call on the expansion.

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 seems more realistic to me. It looks and feels as you would expect a mount to look and feel. Compare to WoW where you can turn on a dime and spin your mount around instantly.

I agree that it’s very annoying when your mount gets snagged in tight spaces. Since you can’t turn on a dime, it seems easy to get stuck and be forced to slowly work your way out. However, I feel this is more of a learning issue. Since there is no cast time to mount/dismount, players simply need to get used to dismounting in these situations.

A similar example was something I noticed when first using the mount. If you mount while standing still it feels like there is a clunky delay before you can begin moving. However, if you mount while moving the delay isn’t there. Getting used to things like that will probably make the experience feel more fluid and less annoying.

Of course, YMMV. So far I am liking the feel of the raptor mount. It feels fast and the leap even without mastery improvements is quite nice. My biggest question comes down to the way maps are designed to make use of these mounts. I hope it doesn’t feel contrived, but rather fits in seamlessly the way gliding did with the HoT maps. I never felt like an obstacle was put in place simply to give me an excuse to use the glider. It just felt natural, if that makes any sense.

One thing that i want changed:There is a enemy who needs to be nerfed now called cave screamer.That enemy is stupidly overpowered and spams rockfall and then also cripples you, and as a necro thats ridiculous because he has infinite rocks drop on you and kill you while you keep being knocked down repeatedly.It would be like if i grab a 5 year old kid hold his hands to his face and keep forcing him to slap himself why are you hitting yourself? Just thinking of it makes me angry

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

NitricRose.1863:

The trout are vicious….

I was typing up a response of how I wasn’t sure how Trout would spawn in a desert either, since they like colder temperatures, then went off on a tangent of how it could be cold spring water coming up from below or melt water from the mountains nearby, and the optimal temperature range for trout growth, spawning and activity is between 10–20?C…

But is that even a body of freshwater?

With (rather large) hermit crabs and barracudas and tuna, probably not.
Like the other non-realities, I guess it will have to be blamed on magical mutations.

I liked the demo. I don’t like some of mp like soup and and the memory teleporter . Other wise its good. Is the demo runing until 12pm est tomorrow or until 12am monday?

I tried the demo and I love it!

- mounts are so fun! They feel realistic with great animations and overall feel.
- map is beautiful! A lot of secret places to explore, beautiful vistas, interesting enemies.
- I love new unidentified gear mechanics
- bouties are cool! They feel very casual. You can join in even if you don’t take a bounty yourself.
- map events are great, as any before.

Now I want to ride all the time! So happy that I preordered PoF!

i liked the demo some mastery points werent great. Is the demo running until 12pm tomorrow or 12am Monday?

Now some feedback:

- Really like the raptor, but as I said in other thread, a second dye channel for the core “skin” of the mounts feels needed (as some colors can barely seen as it is depending on the day-light)

- The map is really nice looking and the attention to detail is as good as ever, but I felt a little sad that there were not HOT things to interact (or maybe I just didn’t saw them, but I explored most of the map). I know the focus are things from this expansion, but at least some mushrooms here and there or updrafts should make people that bought the first expansion more rewarded.

- Story-wise, I think that people that’s not really into the lore or are not actual players wont feel really hyped. IMHO the attack on the town is just weak to represent the attack power from a gods army …and without a cinematic explaining things there is no sense of imminent danger at all. Probably the meta event of the map will change that, but this weekend may be the first impressions of many players and I think it didn’t start with a bang.

- Maybe one of the best things was the new mechanics on NPCS like the hydras and bountys. They not only just look good, but are different on how to kill without feeling cheap.

I come from the group of players that vastly enjoyed HoT and it’s verticality. It had issues, sure but these were more content-creation pace and sales related then game itself.

That being said I was bored outta my skull with the demo. Firstly things i do appreciate:

1. giving my character sets of armor and trinkets to cater to my own preferred build (more or less).
2. giving me a shot to experience PoF first map first hand.
3. That sous chef mastery point – most ppl complain but whiners will wine. Put my back to it, tried couple of times and got it, was fun Especially the crying of sous-chef applicants, i could swear that was tongue in cheek to all those players whining about it being too hard

Ok enough buttering up. Now the bad parts:

1. Hardly any verticality.
Sorry but it feels like i went back in time to GW2 launch and core Tyria. I do not appreciate that. GW2 is about innovation, not taking steps back. HoT innovated, and as usual when you change something you will make enemies. But it’s worth it. Now i feel like instead of pushing for innovation you run back to core Tyria with tail between your legs.

2. No outposts.
Outposts in HoT are awesome – you get several ways to do map meta, each telling a story and guiding you through jungle’s density. Here it’s just “hearts v 2.0”.
I’m not feeling it.

3. No glider love.
Gliders are extremely popular among players, we love’em. There’s a huge gap between “you can glide in this map” and “this map has gliding sections”. The latter including gliding puzzles and places to just soar above whole map and be uncontended king of skies! Well, not in PoF sadly:/

4. Who’s Kiel’s she-dog? You are!
Excuse me, am I a freaking Pact Commander, or some lionguard janitor? Why is “Kiel said so” used as explanation why i’m landing here and now without any of my say in it? What’s next, some Vigil recruit telling me to go clear up 3 undead near a pond before i can board my own kitten ship?

Ps. Proud i voted Evon Gnashblade in election, knew i made a right choice, but majority is Kiel’s she dogs!

5. Too castrated
You blocked to much stuff, and it’s biting you in the kitten How do I know any HoT map is vertical and has lots of hidden places? Because there’s stuff in there teasing you constantly to find it! Especially Hero Points! You search up, below, around and inside, eventually discovering a kittenton of stuff!

And in demo? My new elite specs aren’t enabled, so why should i care? “Moving on.” (with who knows how much stuff undiscovered).

6. You didn’t watch your Hitchkitten
When i entered VB i got greeted by scene from jungle nightmare, then a huge vine appears threatening nearby pact camp and things only wind up from there. Plus you begin with grabbing a sniper rifle and scoring some mordrem headshots!

PoF – after your lord and master Kiel tells you what you can and cannot do via “your” subordinates, you face a normal fight with Balthazar’s herald, run around a village putting out fires and ressing ppl. Then you accidently click on Kasmeer and wish she’d shut up 5 seconds later, while Rytlock who’s supposed to actually have interesting stuff to say doesn’t care to talk longer then said 5 seconds.

And then you land in queensdale 2.0…oh the tension!

7. No elite specs!
So i run around “Queensdale 2.0 The desert strikes!” using my….core or HoT build. So feels old on the map mechanic side, feels old on the combat side….yeah, great way to get my adrenaline pumping.

8. The mounts.
So PoF’s “innovation” is basically feature of every kitten mmorpg out there. That’s the “new” that’s supposed to replace the glider. Not seeing it. GW2 = glider. That’s a strong sales point.
Mounts? That’s generally a single tick on a check-list of your standard boring WoW clone features.

9, Where’s the BIG & NEW?
Asides questionable novelty of mounts and bounties (which aren’t that strong a feature) rest of “new” seem to be item system polish (items for easier salvage and inventory stacking)….and that’s it. Rest as said something of a mix-up between core Tyria and LS3. Where’s the distinctive feature that you only get in GW2 Path of Fire?
HoT had mastery system for the first time, along with gliders and amazing vertical maps. That was fresh, that was…hot.
Here – you tell me, i can’t find a kitten thing.

10. Why am I getting less?

No matter how I look at it, demo shows me that in PoF instead of getting more as advertised i get less then in HoT.

Less masteries, less adventures (2/3 of map i saw 1 adventure, in HoT there were more), less event density, no outposts, no glider sections (updrafts, ley lines for gliding etc), less innovation, taking a huge step back to core GW2 map style.
Nothing truly new that doesn’t make you say “been there, done that” unlike vertical maps and gliders at time of HoT’s launch.

Overall i’m very underwhelmed by this demo. I don’t feel sense of purpose, encouragement to explore, feeling of GW2 only innovation waiting to pull me in and show me once again that this game dares to go where no others did!

That is my opinion from playing the demo. Dunno how full xpac will look like so can’t say. But this definitely did not get me hyped.

From my perceptions:

Pros:
-The Hydras seem to be what you must have always wanted them to be but couldn’t do in GW1, I felt the nostalgia + upgrade enjoyably there.
-The mount idle animations are cute.

Cons:
-No strafe on mount. I don’t care if it handles differently in weight and style than the PC’s movement does, go ahead and make it interesting an unique how ever you please, just make sure there IS some sort of response when I hit the basic movement commands: up, forward, backward, side to side, and turn.
-Not enough Waypoints – I should be able to decide which method of travel I desire to take, CORE waypointing, HOT gliding, or POF mount riding. Each is beneficial in uniquely different ways so the maps really should not be altered or “designed” to cater to only one method. That leaves me with the impression you are scrambling to justifying a design choice instead of genuinely making something unique and creative, something you are passionate about, as if you suddenly aren’t confident in any of the travel methods you have designed – why? all three are fine, so keep all three equally viable and available.
-That rage quit inducing Master Chef Laraib. Make him shut up or hold still or make the player character throw not have such a crazy slow cast time – it’s not a magical spell being conjured from some ethereal dimension. There are too many possible ingredients on screen to read at the same time as trying to figure out which of the words he is saying is the ingredient needed. OR just make it like all the other food based skill/hero/mastery point type things where we just sample the soup and give the NPC a “this tastes great” or “this is awful” feedback. As it stands it’s an unnecessarily annoying blend of a mini game and a build currency acquisition point.
-The story is awful. Please consider some courses or workshops in creative writing and literary history. You have creativity, wonderful ideas, but no skill in communicating them in a fulfilling and engaging experience for the recipient.
-Ever more currencies and ingredients.

In the end, I basically got all the fun I could get out of this from a youtube video showing me the Raptor’s idle animation. The experience of playing the demo (I gave it a full fair chance by thoroughly exploring every aspect of it) left me bored and agitated. I’ve been chased off as a customer. It’s as if it’s all just too little, too late. I’m sorry I lack industry or internal company lingo with which to give you extensively useful feedback with as opposed to my experience and impression of it as one of many possible customer perspectives. Tyria has so much potential which I feel would be worth time and resources invested into polishing. I hope you, ArenaNet, find your spark again someday. It might help to 1. consolidate who you are and what you want to do, and, 2. look to your contemporaries and the giants in the MMO/RPG/MMORPG markets and learn both from their successes and their failures.

Good Luck.

Pros:

-Mounts. I honestly didn’t want them before, but I have to say that I love everything about this raptor (apart from getting stuck on some terrain). Just running around the desert is an absolute joy.

-The map is gorgeous, especially at night.

-Fantastic combination of music choices that create some of the best ambiance in the game.

-I like that most of the enemies are mechanically quite interesting. They feel like they’re tuned just right for open world enemies. Hydras are awesome.

-The map itself has a lot of variety for being in a desert.

Cons:

-It’s possible that I’m just missing stuff, but there seems to be less events. Or maybe the same amount, but since the map is larger, it feels like less. Maybe some stuff was disabled for the demo though. I suppose the bounties could be seen as adding several more though, so maybe this isn’t as much of an issue as I think.

-The opening doesn’t really grab me. Having one random minion with a big hammer doesn’t really convey the gravity of the situation.

I’m trying not to judge yet, but to me the demo so far didn’t feel much different in scale or content quality/quantity to the HoT maps in beta, which is worrying. maybe I just felt less engaged because elite specs weren’t available this time, but I’m not sure on that. Nightfall was my absolute favourite GW1 expansion, so not feeling engaged in a zone so heavily tied to the regions I love is a bit of a surprise to me. I’m also not saying I didn’t like the HoT maps or how they played, but overall I’m hoping PoF proves we’ve grown past all the issues HoT very much did have, so “feels the same as HoT” is not what I was hoping for.

and I mean, I’ve already pre-ordered so I’m gonna play it regardless, but I don’t feel like what we were given in the demo is going to sell anyone on the expansion. I have a friend who was incredibly put-off by HoT and the following 6 months, and we’re gonna jump into the demo together tonight, but whats available is such a limited snapshot (I hope) of what PoF, and this first zone in particular, offers that I really, really doubt he’s gonna want to pick it up. I was playing with another friend earlier who did mostly enjoy HoT, and even they were left feeling mostly on the fence about getting PoF after playing the demo today. I think not including the full map, all its active events, the elite specs and a sample of every mount mastery was a missed opportunity, and I hope this approach to the demos/betas changes in the future.

I also feel like running around on mounts (combined with the less frequent waypoints) just reduces the sense of scale for these larger maps back down to be comparable to old ones, which seems kind of counter to what the aim was for with mounts? surely it’d make more sense to make the maps even bigger and have a couple more waypoints, so then they’d actually feel noticeably bigger when mount speed is taken into account? eh, I guess we’ll see how everything feels on release. I do like how realistic mounts feel, and I think they’re fun in general, but I can understand why people might not like the difference in feeling between mounted and on foot.

I’m also a little sad you can’t dismount in mid air and start gliding or something, just as a little fun bonus thing if you have both. horizontal progression is all well and good in concept, and its hard to invalidate gliding’s worth completely, but I worry that mounts (and whatever follows in exp3) and map design will make it feel like every mastery is only ever relevant in its own expansion cycle. and that’s fine to an extent, but it means mastery isn’t going to feel like as much of a fluid, expanding growth system as it could?

and I mean, mounts aren’t going to disappear now, so surely any future maps are going to be designed with them in mind scale-wise? and if PoF isn’t a prerequisite for exp3, that scale is going to feel awful for players without mounts, right? I dunno, I hope a few leylines and updrafts turn up somewhere in PoF, just as alternate methods of travel obviously, not required for accessing certain areas.

Sure, we can definitely glide in PoF areas, but only in a very limited sense of what gliding allowed us to do. we spent so long building up the kind of ways we can use gliding to interact with the world that I really hope the full extent of those abilities are still going to feel useful in the new areas.

Can someone please tell me how to access the Crystal Desert? There’s nothing in-game about it, no email, no notification. I asked on the Facebook page and no one answered me.

The mount’s (at least the raptor) turns left and right are too sensitive. I always overshoot the direction I want to go. Even when I’m standing still. And I’ve adjusted my rotation speed all the way down.

Noa.7490:

Can someone please tell me how to access the Crystal Desert? There’s nothing in-game about it, no email, no notification. I asked on the Facebook page and no one answered me.

In your character select screen look to the lower right and click the Create DEMO button. Then make a character. Once you name the character and click next, you will be tossed into a cinematic of travel to the desert and find yourself at the start of the story instance. Play through that and you’ll be there! (Note — take your time on arrival before you leave the ship and reset your traits and weapons and stats to what you prefer, using the gear from one of the provided boxes. The other two boxes are duplicates to let you rework at need).

I have seen some reports of people jumping off the ship and out of bounds and getting just dumped into the beginning city in the desert without finishing the story, too, but since the story leads you to getting the mount you’ll need for exploring, likely you should do the instance properly.

Cons
o Waaaaay to much color saturation – is this a new art direction?
o Lost Raptor logging out while dismounted with no way to get it back – Turned in bug rpt
o seems a little buggy
o Needs a “copy” option to create demo toon from one of your existing toons

Pros
o nice layout
o seems like a lot of fun stuff to do
o It’s huge
o new monsters are a good challenge
o like the bounty concept but it’d be nice to be able to solo them

Overall I like it so far. Worth the thirty bucks I spent on pre-order

I don’t think Arenanet did themselves any favours with this demo. I really love GW2 and will play POF – but not because of the demo, in fact, I will be doing it DESPITE having played the demo.

I enjoyed the short story instance (which I’m hoping is only the last half of the actual story instance) and the mount is cool and fun (even though it is so ten years ago). The 2/3 of the zone we get to play in looks interesting, but it is bare in all senses of the word. It seems a nice enough backdrop, but that’s all it is really. Without showing us a hint of the meta events running on the real map it’s all a little pointless.

The size of maps have been overstated somewhat. Yes, they are bigger, but they certainly don’t feel bigger when you are mounted. Just emptier. Consider also that the degree of verticality in HOT allowed 2-3 or even more different levels you could play on. Having only one level that is slightly larger isn’t really bigger, it’s actually quite a bit smaller. If the rest of the maps in POF are like this, most players will have map completion on all 5 new maps in the first week or two and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.

All in all, I’m not so sure what Arenanet attempted to achieve with this demo and am worried that nothing good will come of it.

Walhalla.5473:

SuperduperMLGbsns.9345:

A Charr, that weights 10-20 times more then an asura, has the same physical response but a mount that probably has just 2 or 3 times more the weight of a Charr must have a super idiotic fuzzy movement, sure.
Arguing/defending about physical correctness and realism in a video game about a point that never been a topic in 5 years, in a world where magic exists, trees are a playable race and asurian objects floating the air – I sometimes have no words when I look down at this community.

The question here is, what do you want the mounts to be? Do you want them to be a speed buff with a nice skin or do you want them to feel like riding a mount?

I guess the answer to this question for most people, is not the speed buff. Otherwise the feedback to the mounts would be not that positive. Some negative response to the mounts ( like yours ) boils down to just wanting a skinned speed buff like in the other mmos.

The main reason I want mounts are for the special movement skills. And since Anet designed many parts of the map with those special movement skills in mind, I’d venture a guess that those movement skills were Anet’s main focus with the mounts. How they “feel” is a little detail that’ll be forgotten in a day by the people who like it and be a constant annoyance for a very long time to those who don’t.

Personally, I did most of my movement on foot. Turning left or right on the raptor felt too twitchy , especially at low speed, and overly sensitive to me. Plus you have to un-mount and remount to do anything at all. I don’t particularly care if something feels “realistic” As someone else said, realism in a computer game with magic and dinosaur mounts that can leap over canyons is kind of an oxymoron. “Feel” is of little importance to me. I just want it to work in a usable and predictable way.

(and I had my rotation speed in options turned all the way down.)